Needless to say, I was furious at this unparalleled intrusion upon free enterprise.
How dared they demand to "snoop" in private financial records, disbursements, confidential contracts and agreements?
"It is as though", I said on the historic three-hour, coast-to-coast radio broadcast which I bought (following Father Coughlin and pre-empting the Eddie Cantor, Manhattan Merry-go-round and Major Bowes shows) "That Man in the White House, like some despot of yore, insisted on reading my diary, raiding my larder and ransacking my lingerie!"
My impassioned plea for civil rights created a landslide of correspondence and one sponsor even asked me to consider replacing the Eddie Cantor comedy hour on a permanent basis.
But what quarter could a poor defenseless woman expect from a dictator who would even make so bold as to close all of the banks in our great nation?
The savage barbarian hordes of red Russian Communism descended on the Athens that was mighty Metronome, sacking and despoiling with their Bolshevistic battle cry of "Soak the rich'!
After an unspeakable siege, lasting the better part of two months, it was announced that the studio "owed" the government a tax debt in excess of eight million dollars while I, who had always remained aloof from such iniquitous practices as paying taxes on the salary I had earned and the little I legally inherited as Morris' helpless relict, was "stung" with a personal bill of such astronomical proportions as to "wipe out" all but a fraction of my poor, hard-come-by savings.
I was also publicly reprimanded, dragged through the mud by the radical press and made a figure of fun by such leftist publications as The New Republic, The New Yorker, Time and The Christian Science Monitor.

It was then that I availed myself of the rights of a citizen and declared the income tax unconstitutional.
The litigation was costly and seemingly endless.
I fought like a tigress but by the time I appealed my case to the Supreme Court (1937), Mr. Roosevelt and his "henchmen" had done their "dirty work" all too well, even going so far as to attempt to "pack" the highest tribunal in the land in order to defeat little me.
Presidential coercion had succeeded not only in poisoning the courtiers, "toadies" and sycophants of the "bench" against me, but it had been so far-reaching as to discourage any lawyer in the nation from representing me!
I was ready, like Portia, to present my own brief.
But the Supreme Court wouldn't even hear my case!
My plea was unanimously voted down and "thrown out".
Again, my name was on all the front pages.
I was, it seemed, persona non grata in every quarter, but not entirely without a staunch following of noted political thinkers and students of jurisprudence.
As Charles Evans Hughes said, "Miss Poitrine's limitations as an actress are exceeded only by her logic as a litigant".
Albert Einstein was quoted as saying: "The workings of the woman's mind amaze me".
Henry Ford spoke of me as "utterly astounding".
Heywood Broun wrote: "Belle Poitrine is the most original thinker since Caligula", and even F.D.R. had to concede that "if the rest of this nation showed the foresight and patriotism of Miss Poitrine, America would rapidly resemble ancient Babylon and Nineveh".

Not only were the court costs prohibitive, but I was subjected to crippling fines, in addition to usurious interest on the unpaid "debts" which the government claimed that Metronome and I owed -- a severe financial blow.
Nor, as Manny said, had the notoriety done my career "any good".
My enemies were only too anxious to level against me such charges as "reactionary", "robber baroness", and even "traitor"!
Traitor indeed!
I point now with pride to the fact that, long ere the Committee on Un-American Activities, the Minute Women, the Economic Council and other such notable "watchdog" organizations were so much as heard of, I was Hollywood's leading bulwark against communism, fighting single-handedly "creeping socialism" against such insuperable odds as the Fascio-Communist troops of the NRA, PWA, WPA, CCC and an army of more than twenty-two million mercenaries whom F.D.R. employed secretly, through the transparent ruse of regular "relief" checks.

Needless to say, my art suffered drastically during this turbulent period.
Could it do otherwise?
Even though I have always had a genius for "throwing myself" into every role and "playing it for all it's worth", no actress can be expected to do her best work when her fortune, her reputation, her livelihood, her home and her nation itself are all imperilled.
Such sweeping distractions are hardly conducive to "Oscar" winning performances.
I tried my hardest, with little help, may I say, from my husband and leading man, but somehow the outside pressures were too severe.

Having (through my unflagging effort and devotion) achieved stardom, a fortune and a world-renowned wife at an age when most young men are casting their first vote, Letch proceeded to neglect them all.
Never a "quick study", he now made no attempt to learn his "lines" and many a mile of film was wasted, many a scene -- sometimes involving as many as a thousand fellow thespians -- was taken thirty, forty, fifty times because Miss Poitrine's co-star and "helpmate" had never learned his part.
Each time Letch "went up" in his "lines", I was the one to be patient, helpful and apologetic while he indulged in outbursts of temperament, profanity and abuse, blaming others, going into "sulks" and, on more occasions than I care to count, storming off the "set" for the rest of the day.
As for his finances, I was never privileged to know exactly how much money Letch had "salted away".
It was I who paid for our little home, the food, the liquor, the servants -- even Letch's bills at his tailor and the Los Angeles Athletic Club.
Never once did he buy me a single gift and for our third anniversary he gave me a dislocated jaw.
(But that is another story.
) As for his private monies, they were rapidly dissipated in drinking, gaming and carousing.
More than once I was confronted by professional gamblers, "bookies", loan "sharks", gangsters, "thugs" and "finger men" -- people of a class I did not even know existed -- to repay my husband's staggering losses, "or else" I shuddered to think that someone so dear to me could even associate with such a sinister milieu.
And at three different times during our turbulent marriage strange girls, with the commonest of accents, telephoned to announce to me that Letch had sired their unborn children!
Having the deepest of maternal instincts, my heart fairly bled when I thought of the darling pink and white "bundles from heaven" I would have proudly given my husband.
"Ah, you're too old", was invariably his ungallant and untrue retort whenever I suggested "starting a family".
Letch had made it abundantly clear that he did not care for the company of my own precious daughter.
I now felt it wiser to keep Baby-dear in school and -- during the summers -- at a camp run by the Society of Friends all year around.
Her presence only made Letch more distant and irritable and, in the hurry of buying Chateau Belletch, I had neglected to consider a room for Baby-dear, so there was no place to put her, anyhow.
(I sometimes feel that God, in His infinite wisdom, wants us to have these inexplicable little lapses of memory.
It almost always works out for the best.
)

Yet I adored this man, Letch Feeley, why, I cannot say.
With faint heart and a brave smile, I endured his long absences from Chateau Belletch, his coldness, his indifference, his slights and his abuse.
The times I can recall when I was publicly humiliated by him -- lovely dinner parties in our Trianon Suite where the collation was postponed and postponed and postponed, only to be served dry and overcooked at a table where the host's chair was vacant;
a "splash party" at the new pool, which I had built in the hope of keeping Letch away from public beaches, when Letch and a certain Aquacutie stayed underwater together for the better part of an hour;
a lovely Epiphany party at Errol Flynn's, on which sacred occasion Letch stole away with an unknown "starlet", leaving me "high and dry" to get home as best I could.
These are but a sampling of the insults I endured.
As Mrs. Letch Feeley, was it any wonder that I, once the social arbiter of Filmdom, was excluded from the smart entertainments given by the Astaires, the Coopers, the Gables, the Colmans, the Rathbones, the Taylors, the Thalbergs and such devout, closely knit families as the Barrymores and the Crosbys?
As Letch's antisocial conduct increased, our invitations decreased and my heart was in my mouth whenever I played hostess at a fashionable "screenland" gathering.

Between 1935 and 1939 Letch and I made ten films together, each less successful, both artistically and commercially, than the one before it.
Our last joint venture, Sainted Lady, a deeply religious film based on the life of Mother Cabrini, and timed so that its release date would coincide with the beatification of America's first saint in November, 1938, was a fiasco from start to finish.
As I was playing Mother Cabrini, the picture was actually "all mine", with nearly every scene built around me.
But in order to keep Letch in the public eye and out of trouble, I wrote in a part especially for him -- that of a dashing ruffian who "sees the light" and is saved by the inspiring example of Mother Cabrini.
And did he appreciate my efforts on his behalf?
Did he trouble to memorize the very small part which I had "tailor-made" to his specifications, a role eventually cut down to three short speeches?
Did he show the rest of the cast -- numbering four thousand -- the consideration of arriving at the studio punctually -- or even at all?
He did not!
The "shooting" went on for eight months!
Most of our working days were spent on the telephone calling "bookies", illegal gambling dens, a certain "residential club for young actresses", more than a hundred different bars or the steam room of the athletic club.
Whenever he deigned to appear at the studio he was "hung over", uncooperative, rude and insulting.
He made many tasteless, irreverent and unfunny remarks, not only about me in the title role, but about religion in general.
By the time the film was released we were three million dollars over-spent, war was imminent and the public apparently had forgotten all about Mother Cabrini.
Thanks to Letch Feeley and the terrible strain he imposed on me, the notices were few and unfavorable.
Only George Santayana seemed to understand and appreciate the film when he wrote: "Miss Poitrine has perpetrated the most eloquent argument for the Protestant faith yet unleashed by Hollywood".
But it was small consolation.

In a rare fit of anger and spite, I "farmed out" my own husband to a small and most undistinguished studio to make one picture as a form of punishment.
(An actor must have discipline.
) The film was called The Diet of Worms, which I felt was just what Letch deserved.
It turned out to be a life of Martin Luther, of all things!
It was a disaster!
In clothes, Letch simply did not project.
He was laughed off the screen.
At the same time, however, I availed myself of the services of that great English actor and master of make-up, Sir Gauntley Pratt, to do a "quickie" called The Mystery of the Mad Marquess, in which I played a young American girl who inherits a haunted castle on the English moors which is filled with secret passages and sliding panels and, unbeknownst to anyone, is still occupied by an eccentric maniac.
It was a "potboiler" made on a "shoestring" and not the sort of film I like, as all I had to do was look blank and scream a great deal.
My heart was not in it, but, oddly enough, it remains the most financially successful picture of my career.
(I watched it on television late one night last week and it "stands up" remarkably well, even twenty years later.
)

Letch had returned from his debacle unrepentant and more badly behaved than before.
I really loved that boy, and, in a feverish attempt to preserve our marriage and to try to revive the wonderful, wonderful person Letch had once been, I took my troubles to Momma, hoping that her earthy advice would help me.

"If I could only think of something at the studio, near me, to absorb his boundless energy", I said.
"What is Letch interested in"?

"Bookies, booze and babes", Momma said bluntly.

Her reply stung me, but this was too important to let my hurt make any difference.
"I can't turn the studio into a gambling hell or a saloon", I said.