Background
Josephine Aspinwal Roche was the only child of John J. Roche, a conservative coal mine operator, and Ella Aspinwall born on December 2, 1886 in Neligh, Nebraska, United States
director politician secretary humanitarian activist
Josephine Aspinwal Roche was the only child of John J. Roche, a conservative coal mine operator, and Ella Aspinwall born on December 2, 1886 in Neligh, Nebraska, United States
She received her Bachelor of Arts from Vassar College in 1908, returned to her family in Denver, Colorado, and worked as a probation officer of the Denver Juvenile Court for one year.
She then enrolled at Columbia University, from which she graduated with an Master of Arts in sociology in 1910.
For the next two years Roche did settlement work for the New York Probation Society. In 1912 she returned to Denver and became Denver's first policewoman. After leaving the police force, she served as executive secretary of the Colorado Progressive Society and as director of the Girls Department of Denver's Juvenile Court; her work with Denver's poor and delinquent children in this latter post reinforced liberal and radical ideas she had been developing since college. Her national service began in 1915 with her appointment as special agent for the Commission for Relief in Belgium. Shortly after the United States entered World War I, President Woodrow Wilson called her to Washington, D. C. , to appoint her director of the Foreign Language Education Service and make her a member of the Committee on Public Information. In the two posts she worked with editors of foreign-language newspapers to provide information about the government's goals and actions to America's non-English-speaking population. In 1923 she was named director of the editorial division of the United States Children's Bureau, an agency that provided immigrants with information on health, education, immigration laws, and other matters. In 1925, Roche returned to Denver, where she served as referee of the Juvenile Court until her father's death in 1927. Roche inherited his minority holdings in the Rocky Mountain Fuel Company, Colorado's second-largest coal company. She angered fellow shareholders when she defended striking miners to the Colorado Industrial Commission. She angered them even more by proposing that the United Mineworkers of America (UMW) be asked to unionize the company's employees. When irate stockholders sold their shares, Roche bought them, thus acquiring a majority interest in Rocky Mountain Fuel. She quickly appointed friends of the UMW as company managers and she assumed the post of vice-president. After allowing the UMW time to organize the workers, she signed a contract with the union that was described as a Magna Carta of industrial democracy and that gave her workers the highest wages in Colorado's mines. During an ensuing price war, many miners loaned one-half their pay for several months to the company to keep it in business. The company operated until inherited debt forced it into bankruptcy in 1944. During the early days of the National Recovery Administration, Roche helped develop the National Bituminous Coal Code and worked tirelessly as a member of the Bituminous Coal Authority. In 1934 she became the first woman to run for governor in Colorado: she won the city vote, but lost the more conservative rural vote. Although unsuccessful in her bid for elective office, she attracted the attention of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who appointed her assistant secretary to the Treasury that same year, putting her in charge of the United States Health Service. She also became the Treasury's representative on the Committee on Economic Security, which formulated the recommendations on which the Social Security Act was based. In 1935, Roosevelt named Roche chair of the executive committee of the National Youth Administration. In 1937, after the Social Security Act had been passed, Roosevelt established the Interdepartmental Committee to Coordinate Health and Welfare Activities with Roche as its chair. In the same year she resigned her Treasury position to return to Colorado to manage her coal company after the death of its president. Roosevelt was so reluctant to let her go that he announced that the position would be held open indefinitely to await her return. Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr. , called her the "ablest and most sincere advocate of public health. " She returned to Washington in 1939. As chair of the Interdepartmental Committee to Coordinate Health and Welfare Activities, she took on the forces controlling health care, most notably the American Medical Association (AMA). In an effort to provide universal access to basic health care services, Roche used a wealth of evidence amassed by the United States Public Health Service, the Committee on Social Security, and earlier committees.
She supported the Social Security committee's declaration that voluntary insurance held no promise of success. The AMA fought her efforts, labeling them "socialized medicine. " The New York Times supported Roche, claiming that the AMA opposed "any encroachment on the traditional social and economic prerogatives of the private practitioner. " Roche's committee called for an extension of public health services, maternal and child health care, care for recipients of public assistance and low income persons, disability insurance, and a comprehensive health care program to be developed in cooperation with the states. Her recommendations were included in the Wagner Bill presented to Congress in 1939. Roche served as president of the National Consumers' League from 1939 until 1944. After World War II, she worked in Europe for two years, writing about the European coal industry for the New York Herald Tribune. She became the first director of the UMW's welfare and retirement fund in 1947, remaining active with the fund until 1971. She left under a dark cloud, however, after being convicted of mismanagement of funds for depositing large amounts of pension funds in non-interest-bearing accounts in a bank largely owned by the UMW. Roche conceded poor judgment in her court testimony, saying, "There's no excuse, perhaps for it all. I know how terrible it looks to have so much money sitting there. " She and John L. Lewis had feared a shortage of ready cash in an emergency, she explained, a fear bred of the costly labor battles of the depression era. In retrospect she agreed that more money should have been invested. Roche's reputation as a tough but caring public servant resulted in several colorful stories about her. As a child she reportedly asked to go to her father's mine and, upon being told that it was too dangerous, replied, "If it is too dangerous for me, why is it not too dangerous for the men?" Another story concerns a meeting held to work out details of the coal code. When Roche was asked to leave the audience and join the male speakers on the platform to add some beauty to the proceedings, she replied, "What this meeting needs is not beauty but guts. " Whatever the authenticity of those stories, Josephine Roche certainly made her own path as an independent woman in a society not used to one. She championed causes important to the lives of those who had few powerful friends, and accomplished a number of significant "firsts" for women.
member of the Bituminous Coal Authority,
Treasury's representative on the Committee on Economic Security
Roche's reputation as a tough but caring public servant resulted in several colorful stories about her. As a child she reportedly asked to go to her father's mine and, upon being told that it was too dangerous, replied, "If it is too dangerous for me, why is it not too dangerous for the men?" Another story concerns a meeting held to work out details of the coal code. When Roche was asked to leave the audience and join the male speakers on the platform to add some beauty to the proceedings, she replied, "What this meeting needs is not beauty but guts. " Whatever the authenticity of those stories, Josephine Roche certainly made her own path as an independent woman in a society not used to one. She championed causes important to the lives of those who had few powerful friends, and accomplished a number of significant "firsts" for women.
Quotes from others about the person
Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr. , called her the "ablest and most sincere advocate of public health. "
While serving in Washington, Roche attempted to combine marriage with her career but found the two incompatible. She married Edward Hale Bierstadt on July 2, 1920; they had no children and their marriage ended two years later.