Fala (dog)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Fala with Franklin D. Roosevelt in his private country house in Warm Springs, Georgia

Fala ( April 7, 1940 - April 5, 1952 ) was the most famous dog of the 32nd President of the United States , Franklin D. Roosevelt . The black Scottish Terrier is still one of the most famous dogs of a US President, alongside Richard Nixon's Checkers . Fala accompanied Roosevelt to press meetings, several international conferences, receiving official guests in the White House and on his campaign trip in 1944. Fala was mentioned repeatedly by the President in public speeches and was often depicted in newspaper photos. In the election campaign for the 1944 presidential election , Roosevelt responded to the accusation of the Republican opposition that he had forgotten Fala on a trip and had a destroyer of the US Navy to pick him up. On September 23, 1944, Roosevelt responded with the historic " Fala speech " .

origin

Fala, a black male Scottish Terrier, was given to Roosevelt by a citizen of Connecticut at the suggestion of Margaret “Daisy” Suckley, a distant relative and long-time confidante. The dog was initially named Big Boy and was named by Roosevelt " Murray, the Outlaw of Fala Hill " (German: " Murray, the outlaw of Fala Hill"), in the joking public portrayal after Murray of Fala Hill , a distant Scottish Ancestors of the president. His nickname since then has been Fala.

education

Fala first lived with Margaret Suckley from July 1940, who trained the puppy and prepared him for a life in the White House by November of that year . This also included a three-week stay in New York City, during which Fala learned to move around on a leash within crowds of people, to be friendly to everyone and to be touched by strangers. Such preparation was important because two Roosevelt dogs had already left the White House following attacks on people. Fala mastered a number of tricks, he not only gave a paw or lay down on command, but also showed rolls and jumps, imitated a speech - but silently so as not to disturb the White House - and could use his lips to "smile." “Pardoned. With such performances, he delighted not only the President and Eleanor Roosevelt , but also White House employees and visitors and spectators.

From November 10, 1940, a few days after Franklin D. Roosevelt's third election as President, Fala lived with him in the White House, and they mostly spent the next four and a half years together. Only when it was necessary for Fala to be separated from the President for an extended period, such as during a series of troop visits in 1942 and 1943 and during various trips overseas, was he taken care of by Margaret Suckley.

Public appearance

Fala with Franklin D. Roosevelt in Washington, DC, ca.1943

Companion of the President

Fala was on board the first Air Force One , at that time still under the internal name “ Sacred Cow ” (German: “Heilige Kuh”) and traveled with the president in his presidential train Ferdinand Magellan through the country. In August 1941 he accompanied him to the Atlantic Charter Conference in Newfoundland, in April 1943 to a state visit to Monterrey , Mexico, and in August of the same year to the First Conference in Québec . They also completed Roosevelt's long campaign trip in 1944 together.

As a frequent companion of the president, Fala quickly gained notoriety in the US and the world. At a time when the whole nation was concerned about the outcome of World War II and the lives of its soldiers in theaters of war around the world, Fala played a not insignificant role in the president's public image.

Occasionally anecdotes were spread, such as the one that the President was proclaimed ("Ladies and Gentlemen, the President of the United States!") At an important meeting in the White House , and that Fala had come into the room in his place. A reception for 200 teachers at the White House had turned into a mess when attendees pressed for Eleanor Roosevelt and Fala to perform a feat.

After the short film " Fala: The President's Dog " was released in April 1943, Fala's fan mail reached such a level that the White House had to employ a secretary to answer the letters. Many of these letters were from dog owners asking that Fala mate their bitches. Such documents, collected over the years, fill several archive shelves in the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library . Margaret Suckley provided the press with information about Fala on appropriate occasions and gratefully accepted such advice. Fala never seemed to get tired of playing with strangers, being petted or even being lifted. Suckley later portrayed Fala's effect in meetings with the citizens in such a way that to have touched Fala for the people meant a little bit to have touched the president. When Roosevelt took a warship to Hawaii and Alaska in July 1944, Fala's presence on the ship was a welcome change for the sailors. Many cut Fala's hair to send home to loved ones as souvenirs.

Fala, the caretaker's president and granddaughter, in front of Top Cottage at the Hyde Park , New York Manor, in 1941, one of the first buildings in the US to be designed and built for wheelchair access.

Children as a target group

“ The true story of Fala ” (German: “Fala's true story”) was the title of a book for young people published in 1942 by Margaret Suckley and Alice Dalgliesh . Suckley had been working alone for a year on the project, which Roosevelt knew about from the start. With this book, the authors tried to present facts rather than the usual stories made up for children. The book was one of the first biographies of an animal to reach a broad public. Earlier animal biographies, as scientific and pseudoscientific works, had only a limited readership, such as the contemporary literature on Smart Hans , or they were not factual non-fiction, such as the books about dogs like Rin Tin Tin and Lassie . The New York Times referred to Suckley in this context as Fala's "official biographer".

Occasionally, Fala was given public correspondence in order to specifically address children as a target group. In one such correspondence from 1944, Fala was contacted by the fictional character Kinkajou Gates , who was used in the annual campaigns against polio . Fala "replied":

“That is a mighty nice letter you sent me. I am delighted to know the fine work you are doing for the cause of cripples all over the United States. I have no need to tell you of my great interest in this work. "

“This is a really nice letter that you wrote me. I am excited to hear of your great work for the disabled across the United States. I can't tell you how much this work interests me. "

Roosevelt had been unable to walk since he was 39, which was considered a result of polio during his lifetime. The Roosevelts supported the fight against polio in a number of ways, and Fala was a convenient means of transport for embassies here and on other occasions.

Fala in film and music

The 10-minute short film Fala: The President's Dog , released on April 10, 1943, is still shown in the Franklin D. Roosevelt Museum today . The film depicts a typical day in Fala's life, i.e. in the White House. The black and white photos were taken in the White House and in the studios of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in California. It was directed by Gunther von Fritsch , the script was based on Margaret Suckley, and the commentary was provided by Pete Smith , who also produced the film. In this film, Roosevelt himself appears.

In the love comedy The Pilot and the Princess , published in 1943, the usual entanglements lead to a happy ending, the wedding of the title characters in the White House. President Roosevelt makes a brief appearance here, but the dog who appeared in the film as Fala was Whiskers , who also appeared in other films of the time.

Nursery rhyme writer and composer Frida Sarsen-Bucky wrote a collection of songs about Fala in 1944, which Roosevelt himself read and accepted in Warm Springs, Georgia in 1944. The manuscript with Roosevelt's annotations is in the holdings of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library. The record was released in 1946 by Monarch Records.

On January 19, 1946, followed, again by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, an 11-minute-long color film entitled Fala at Hyde Park , in which Fala leads the audience through the Roosevelt family home. Direction, template and narrator were the same as in the first film. For many years, from 1936 to 1962, Eleanor Roosevelt wrote a newspaper column entitled My Day , which was printed by many newspapers in the United States and in which she often mentioned Fala. The movie poster for Fala at Hyde Park shows a drawing of Fala, alluding to My Day , as the "real" author in front of a typewriter.

Political cartoons

Fala's high profile meant that Fala occasionally stood in for Roosevelt and the Democrats in political caricatures. A series of political cartoons by Alan Foster that appeared in Collier's Weekly from 1943 was titled Mr. Fala of the White House. After the “Fala speech” a caricature appeared showing an elephant fleeing from Fala, the symbol of the Republican Party.

US Marine Corps soldiers with their service dogs, 1943. Fala was promoted to provide such military dogs.

Fala and the war

Fala accompanied President Roosevelt on numerous trips, including in the summer of 1944 on a series of troop visits lasting over five weeks. Even before the United States entered World War II, increased security requirements had to be met to protect the president. Roosevelt and his companions were asked by the Secret Service not to leave the presidential train so that the current whereabouts of the president would not be known. Fala, however, had to be run every time the train stopped, and the passengers and railway staff at the stations could tell immediately that the President was there. Because of this, Fala was sometimes called "the traitor" by Secret Service staff.

The Barkers for Britain campaign , which began in 1941, was intended to offer dog owners an opportunity to support the humanitarian work of Bundles for Britain through a grant . As one of the most popular dogs in the United States of the time, Fala was selected to play a leading role in advertising. For 50 cents at Bundles for Britain , dog owners could purchase a dog tag to attach to the collar. Fala carried the brand with the number 1 and the inscription "I, Fala, helped Bundles for Britain" (German: "I, Fala, helped Bundles for Britain "). Fala was portrayed as "President" of the Barkers for Britain , an allusion to the National Foundation of Infantile Paralysis , of which Franklin D. Roosevelt was the founder and president. In a publicly circulated letter to Fala, the First Dog of the United States, the organization's founder, Natalie Wales Latham, thanked:

"A great leader of all loyal American canines [...] raising his voice in loud barks for the courageous people of Great Britain"

"A great handler of all loyal American dogs who raises his voice in loud barks for the brave people of Great Britain"

On behalf of Falas, the War Dog Fund subscribed to one dollar of war bonds for each day of the year, the public announcement being an attempt to encourage the population to subscribe to the bonds. That is why Fala, like many other dogs and cats, became an honorary service dog for the Dogs for Defense organization . Dogs for Defense's public relations work included extensive radio campaigns in which Fala and other dogs from prominent owners such as J. Edgar Hoover's G-Man played an important role. The War Dog Fund was a way to support the campaign for owners whose dogs were either unsuitable for military service or who did not want to part with them.

Despite the war, Fala's popularity led to strange situations. At an informal meeting with Roosevelt on the afternoon of September 14, 1944, during the Second Québec Conference , Winston Churchill is said to have gained the impression that Roosevelt was trying to divert attention from the subject. The memorandum to be discussed on the Lend Lease Act , on the continuation of American economic aid after the war, was of great importance for Great Britain. At one point he asked Roosevelt in exasperation, “ What do you want me to do? Get on my hind legs and beg like Fala? ”(German:“ What do you ask of me? Should I make males and beg like Fala? ”).

During the Battle of the Bulge , unknown American soldiers asked each other during encounters for the name of the president's dog in order to have additional security against the feared infiltration of their troops by the Germans.

The "Fala Speech"

General Douglas MacArthur , Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Admiral Chester Nimitz in Hawaii, July 26, 1944

In the run-up to the presidential elections scheduled for November 7, 1944, Roosevelt sought a fourth term. At that time he had been in office longer than any of his predecessors and was still very popular with the population. In July Roosevelt had made a series of troop visits with Fala. The route first took the presidential train to the Pacific coast and then by ship to Hawaii and Alaska. A stopover was on August 3, 1944, the naval aviation base on Adak Island ( Aleutian Islands ).

From August 31, has been in the House of Representatives Republican Harold Knutson the accusation repeatedly Minnesota levied Roosevelt had Fala forgotten in the Aleutians and him with a destroyer of the United States Navy to be picked up. The US Navy and the White House immediately denied the allegations, but Knutson raised the issue repeatedly in the weeks that followed. The Republican press took the opportunity and discussed Knutson's claims at length. The New York Times commented on the incident that the "brawls" between Republican and Democratic MPs included "personalities" like Roosevelt, his wife and Fala.

On September 23, 1944, Roosevelt responded publicly with the "Fala speech" to the allegations against him. That evening he was invited to an event organized by the powerful transport workers' union, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America . The passage in which Roosevelt mentioned Fala took little more than a minute:

“These Republican leaders did not stop at attacking me, my wife and my sons. No, that's not all, now it's against my little dog, Fala. Of course, I don't resent attacks, any more than my family, but Fala resents them. You know Fala is a Scot. When Fala learned that the Republican novelists in Congress and elsewhere had concocted a story that I forgot about him in the Aleutian Islands and set a destroyer in search of him at the taxpayer's expense of two or three, or eight or twenty million dollars his Scottish soul was badly affected. He hasn't been the same dog since then. I'm used to hearing vicious lies about me that I'm old, worm-eaten, or portraying myself as indispensable. But I think I have the right to be angry with and contradicting defamatory claims about my dog. [...] "

Roosevelt's speechwriter, Samuel I. Rosenman , later said that no one could have recited the short passage on Fala better than Roosevelt. His colleague Robert E. Sherwood regretted that he could not accept the recognition that is often and inappropriately given to him for the great allusion to Fala. In relation to Roosevelt's Republican challenger Thomas E. Dewey as the owner of a Great Dane , the speech was described as an argument "between a big man with a little dog and a little man with a big dog." It was seen by political commentators as the turning point of the election campaign.

But there was also criticism, among other things, it was criticized as inappropriate that a commander in chief of the armed forces came out in public with foolishness like the humanized portrayal of a dog during the war . For the remainder of the campaign, Fala was featured in public no less frequently. After the Fala speech and the corresponding reactions, however, he was only the well-behaved family dog ​​of the Roosevelts and the companion of the President. Injured patriotic feelings were only attributed to him by Eleanor Roosevelt at smaller events. Neither before nor after the Fala speech did the Roosevelts and their associates seriously interpret Fala's behavior as if his "patriotic feelings" had been violated or he was suffering from public attacks on dog and master. If Fala got up when the national anthem was played, it was nothing but a coincidence for the Roosevelts.

For decades, the claim that Roosevelt had Fala picked up by warship was occasionally repeated by representatives of the far right. In 1974 a magazine that it claims to be "conservative" asked readers a series of questions about American presidents, including "Who was the first president to send a destroyer hundreds of miles just to pick up his dog?" “Franklin D. Roosevelt sent a destroyer to pick up his dog Fala in Alaska.” Roosevelt's “Fala speech” and Richard Nixon's “ Checkers speech ”, given exactly eight years later, are occasionally mentioned in political reporting to this day.

After Roosevelt's death

Fala and Eleanor Roosevelt in Val-Kill near Hyde Park, New York, 1951
Fala (right), Eleanor Roosevelt and Tamas McFala, around 1950

Roosevelt's death and burial

Franklin D. Roosevelt died of a cerebral haemorrhage in his home in Warm Springs, Georgia, on Thursday afternoon April 12, 1945. The following day, his body was transferred in a coffin covered with the US flag on the President's train to Washington, DC , where he arrived on the afternoon of April 14th. After a funeral service in the White House on the same day, again with the presidential procession, the further transfer to the family home of the Roosevelts in Hyde Park, New York took place . Fala was present at both transfers and at the funeral on April 15th.

Life with Eleanor Roosevelt

Fala first came to Margaret Suckley after Roosevelt's death, in accordance with Roosevelt's request to his colleagues. After the Roosevelt family claimed Fala, he lived with Eleanor Roosevelt in their Val-Kill home, near the family home in Hyde Park, New York. Fala did not completely disappear from the public eye, Eleanor Roosevelt often mentioned him in her column My Day .

A lot changed for Fala when he moved out of the White House. Eleanor Roosevelt traveled frequently, but unlike traveling with the President in spacious vehicles or in the passenger compartment of the aircraft, he was now carried in a dog bag, often in the luggage compartments of the trains. When Eleanor Roosevelt wanted to stay with Fala in a hotel in Portland, Maine on July 29, 1946, the hotel manager refused to take Fala into the hotel. They then spent the night in a motel, and that incident was well worth reporting to newspapers all over the English-speaking world.

In November 1945, Fala was attacked and seriously injured on the property in Hyde Park by the bullmastiff of a son of the Roosevelts. Fala fought for his life for days while the uninjured Bullmastiff was euthanized the next day.

Little is known about Fala's descendants. In January 1948, Tamas McFala, an eight-month-old Scottish Terrier and "grandson" of Fala, joined Eleanor Roosevelt's household as the second dog. However, aside from Eleanor Roosevelt's mentions in her My Day column , it did not get any public attention.

Fala's death

Fala's collar engraved with Fala, The White House

Fala fell asleep peacefully on April 5, 1952. He was buried near Franklin D. Roosevelt's grave in Hyde Park the following day. Eleanor Roosevelt thought this was appropriate because Fala had mostly been at his feet during Roosevelt's lifetime. In her newspaper column My Day , which appeared almost daily from 1936 to 1962 , she wrote on April 8, 1952:

“Saturday was a sad day for all of us, and I know that all of Fala's friends will be sad when they learn that he has fallen asleep forever and that the little dog's story is over.

Many dog ​​lovers are familiar with Sara Addington's lovely short story The Hound of Heaven . I like to imagine that, like so many of the dogs of famous gentlemen whose stories are told in this little book, Fala will very much enjoy his five o'clock walk.

Fala was buried near the sundial in the rose garden, where many years ago our daughter buried her first and dearest dog, Chief, who was loved by everyone in the family, even though it was first and foremost her dog.

Fala was always my husband's dog. He accepted me, but he was never really my dog. He knew he was important and belonged to someone important, and he kept knowing it all his life. He lived with dignity and reserve, carried by his attitude towards the rest of us who, in his view, were just mere mortals. [...] "

Eleanor Roosevelt received numerous expressions of condolences from the population and her circle of friends, who suspected how attached she was to Fala. Many of these communications are in the Papers of Eleanor Roosevelt in the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library.

Public reminder

Falas statue with the President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial

Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial

Like several other presidents of the United States, Roosevelt was honored with a memorial after his death, which was inaugurated on May 2, 1997 in Washington, DC by President Bill Clinton . The Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial shows some special features that were first implemented when such a memorial was built. A bronze statue of Eleanor Roosevelt in front of the United Nations emblem is the first independent representation of a first lady in a memorial for a US president. This is how Eleanor Roosevelt's commitment to the United Nations should be recognized. Two statues by President Roosevelt show him in his wheelchair. Roosevelt had avoided being portrayed in this way during his tenure, but in this way the designers of the memorial wanted to send a positive message to disabled people in the United States.

One of Roosevelt's statues, made by the sculptor Neil Estern, is a group of bronze figures. Next to Roosevelt, whose wheelchair is largely hidden by a cloak, is Fala. This made Fala the first and so far only dog ​​of a US president to have a memorial erected in this way. A picture taken on February 9, 1945 during the Yalta Conference , which shows Roosevelt between Churchill and Stalin, served as a template for depicting Roosevelt .

Book publications

The American crime writer Stuart Kaminsky wrote a novel from his Toby Peters series entitled The Fala Factor . The story takes place in 1942: Eleanor Roosevelt is convinced that Fala has been exchanged for a doppelganger; she turns to the seedy private detective Toby Peters, who sets out on a breathtaking pursuit of the kidnapper through Los Angeles and the surrounding area. The novel was published in 1984 and has been translated into several languages, including German.

In 2008, children's author Elizabeth Van Steenwyk published a book called First Dog, Fala ; the illustrations - which give the impression of drawings from that period - are by Michael G. Montgomery. The book provides a child-friendly short account of Fala's life in the White House.

See also

literature

  • Doris Kearns Goodwin: No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II. Simon & Schuster, New York, NY 1994, (Depiction of the Roosevelt family, with numerous mentions of Falas)
  • Stuart M. Kaminsky: The Fala Factor. St. Martin's Press, New York, NY 1984, ISBN 0-312-27967-1 , (German: The Fala Factor , translated by Helmut Anders, Heyne, Munich 1987, ISBN 3-453-00199-0 ), Roman
  • Kelli Peduzzi: Shaping a President: Sculpting for the Roosevelt Memorial. Millbrook Press, Brookfield, Connecticut 1997, ISBN 0-7613-0207-7 , (photo book, the sculptor is accompanied during the making of the sculptures)
  • Elizabeth Van Steenwyk, Michael G. Montgomery (Illustrations): First Dog, Fala. Peachtree Publications, Atlanta, GA 2008, ISBN 978-1-56145-411-2 , (children's book)
  • Margaret L. Suckley, Alice Dalgliesh: The true story of Fala. Charles Scribner, New York, NY 1942, (children's book)

Web links

Commons : Fala (dog)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d without author: Fala of the White House becomes a personage . In: Sydney Morning Herald , November 27, 1944, p. 2 Online , accessed January 3, 2014.
  2. ↑ Helena Pycior: The public and private lives of "first dogs" . In: Dorothee Brantz (Ed.): Beastly Natures: Animals, Humans, and the Study of History , University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville, VA, 2010, ISBN 978-0-8139-2995-8 , pp. 176–203, here pp. 181–182.
  3. ↑ a b Maurine Hoffman Beasley, Holly Cowan Shulman, Henry R. Beasley (Eds.): The Eleanor Roosevelt Encyclopedia , Greenwood 2000, 656 pages.
  4. ↑ a b c Helena Pycior: The public and private lives of "first dogs" , pp 194-196.
  5. ↑ a b c without author: Fala, Famed Presidential Dog, Is Dead . In: Ogdensburg Advance News , April 6, 1952, p. 10 Online PDF ( Memento from January 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) 730 kB, accessed on January 5, 2014
  6. ↑ Helena Pycior: The public and private lives of "first dogs" , p. 193.
  7. ↑ Barbara Stuhler: A Minnesota footnote to the 1944 presidential election . In: Minnesota History , Volume 52, No. 1, Spring 1990, pp. 27–34, here p. 28 Online PDF 2.6 MB, accessed on January 5, 2014
  8. ↑ Helena Pycior: The public and private lives of "first dogs" , pp. 178-179.
  9. ↑ Zlata Fuss Phillips: German Children's and Youth Literature in Exile 1933–1950: Biographies and Bibliographies , Walter de Gruyter, 2001, ISBN 978-3-598-11569-1 , pp. 191–192
  10. ^ Monthly Film Bulletin , January 1, 1946, Volume 13, No. 145, p. 175 (no review, only short entry).
  11. ↑ a b without author: Fala and the Barkers for Britain . In: Prologue , Volume 38, No. 4, 2006, ISSN  0033-1031 Online , accessed January 4, 2014.
  12. ^ Michael Beschloss: The conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman and the destruction of Hitler's Germany , Simon & Schuster, New York, NY 2002, ISBN 0-7432-6085-6 , p. 16
  13. ↑ without author ("Philokuon"): Barkers for Britain. Appeal by American Dogs . In: The Teesdale Mercury , July 23, 1941, p. 6 Online PDF , 830 kB, accessed on January 4, 2014.
  14. ↑ Helena Pycior: The public and private lives of "first dogs" , p. 184.
  15. ↑ Without author: Dogs and cats enlisted by capital stations for War Dog Fund . In: Broadcasting , February 21, 1944, ISSN  1068-6827 , p. 31
  16. ^ Sarah Jane Brian: Canine war heroes , Macmillan / McGraw-Hill, New York, New York n.d. , ISBN 0-02-193444-4 , pp. 8-15
  17. ↑ without author: Plea for pooch. Capital stations campaign for War Dog Fund . In: Broadcasting , February 21, 1944, ISSN  1068-6827 , p. 32
  18. ^ Alfred Steinberg: Mrs. R, the life of Eleanor Roosevelt , Putnam, New York, New York 1958, pp. 287-288.
  19. ^ Charles B. MacDonald: A Time for Trumpets: the Untold Story of the Battle of the Bulge , William Morrow, 1997, ISBN 0-688-15157-4 , p. 226
  20. ↑ Michael A. Davis: Politics as usual: Franklin Roosevelt, Thomas Dewey and the wartime presidential campaign of 1944 , Ph. D. dissertation, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville 2005, pp. 175-178 Online , accessed January 5, 2014.
  21. ↑ Barbara Stuhler: A Minnesota footnote to the 1944 presidential election , pp. 29-30
  22. ^ A b Franklin D. Roosevelt: "I Think I Have a Right to Resent, to Object to Libelous Statements About My Dog" - Address at Dinner of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America. Washington, DC September 23, 1944 . In: Samuel I. Rosenman: The public papers and addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt. 1944-1945 volume , Harper & Brothers Publishers, New York, NY 1950, pp. 284-293 Online , accessed January 4, 2014; The American Presidency Project , accessed January 4, 2014.
  23. ↑ Barbara Stuhler: A Minnesota footnote to the 1944 presidential election , p. 31
  24. ↑ without author: Democrats in '44 feared for FDR . In: The Knickerbocker News , Albany, New York, August 27, 1948 Online PDF 970 kB, accessed January 4, 2014.
  25. ↑ Michael A. Davis: Politics as usual: Franklin Roosevelt, Thomas Dewey and the wartime presidential campaign of 1944 , pp. 208-211.
  26. ↑ Helena Pycior: The public and private lives of "first dogs" , p. 198.
  27. ↑ Kevin P. Phillips: A New Board Game (Article heading Who was the first ...? ). In: Human Events , Volume 34, No. 9, March 2, 1974, ISSN  0018-7194 , p. 14.
  28. ↑ Helena Pycior: The public and private lives of "first dogs" , p. 187.
  29. ↑ David Berry: Fala a sad dog. In: The Mail (Adelaide, Australia), August 25, 1945.
  30. ↑ without author: Rebuff for Fala . In: The West Australian (Perth), July 31, 1946, p. 7
  31. ^ A b Alfred Steinberg: Mrs. R, the life of Eleanor Roosevelt , p. 360.
  32. ↑ without author: The Story of Elliott Roosevelt . In: Human Events , Volume 18, No. 5, February 3, 1961, ISSN  0018-7194 , p. 75.
  33. ^ Eleanor Roosevelt: My Day , Column January 22, 1948 Online , accessed April 13, 2014.
  34. ^ A b Norma L. Wark: A Guide to the Microfilm Edition of The Papers of Eleanor Roosevelt from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library: General Correspondence, 1945–1952, Part 4: 1951–1952 , LexisNexis, Bethesda, Maryland 2008, ISBN 0-88692-794-3 , p. VI
  35. ↑ Eleanor Roosevelt: My Day , Column April 8, 1952 Online , accessed April 13, 2014.

Translated texts in English

  1. ↑ Original quote: These Republican leaders have not been content with attacks on me, or my wife, or on my sons. No, not content with that, they now include my little dog, Fala. Well, of course, I don't resent attacks, and my family doesn't resent attacks, but Fala does resent them. You know, Fala is Scotch, and being a Scottie, as soon as he learned that the Republican fiction writers in Congress and out had concocted a story that I had left him behind on the Aleutian Islands and had sent a destroyer back to find him - at a cost to the taxpayers of two or three, or eight or twenty million dollars - his Scotch soul was furious. He has not been the same dog since. I am accustomed to hearing malicious falsehoods about myself - such as that old, worm-eaten chestnut that I have represented myself as indispensable. But I think I have a right to resent, to object to libelous statements about my dog. In: Franklin D. Roosevelt: "I Think I Have a Right to Resent, to Object to Libelous Statements About My Dog" - Address at Dinner of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of America. Washington, DC September 23, 1944 .
  2. ↑ Original text of the My Day column from April 8, 1952: Saturday was a sad day for all of us and I know that all of Fala's friends will also be sad to know that he slept away, and the little dog's story has come to an end . Many dog ​​lovers know the very lovely story called "The Hound of Heaven" by Sara Addington. I like to think that Fala, like so many dogs of famous masters whose story is told in that little book, may find his five o'clock walk very pleasant. Fala is buried near the sun dial in the rose garden which is where, many years ago, our daughter buried her first and favorite dog, Chief, who had been adored by all the family though he was always primarily her dog. Fala was always my husband's dog. He accepted me, but he was never really my dog. He knew he was important and belonged to someone who was important and kept that knowledge all his life. He lived with dignity and some reticence, conveyed by his attitude toward the rest of us who were, from his viewpoint, mere ordinary mortals.
This article was added to the list of excellent articles on April 17, 2014 in this version .