Eleanor Roosevelt -- My Day (1943)

181

July 23, 1943

Chicago, Illinois – (Thursday)
For nearly 20 hours I have been flying across the United States. We have had some delays, but to me it is always a wonderful trip. Last evening, just at sunset, the sky and land seemed suddenly to merge until I could no longer tell which was which. There was a little lake that the sun turned ruby red and a little beyond a much larger lake, with little wooded islands.

It was truly an earthly paradise. Then gradually, everything faded before my eyes and only a steel grey sky remained, cold and grim, and night was closing in. It seemed to typify what most of us are living through today. We try to hold before us the vision of a world to which we hope our loved ones will return.

A world in which there will be justice and, therefore, we may hope for peace. A world in which people of faiths and races will live as brothers and welcome each other’s presence upon the earth, believing that the Creator made us different, but still equal in His sight. A world in which we will seek together to eliminate want from the lives of human beings, so that in truth there shall no longer be slaves on this earth.

This is the only vision which can make the world’s suffering bearable, and sometimes it seems to fade into the grey of night and leave us cold and desperate. Then only the words of great leaders can restore the vision and give us the heart to work for it again. So, my plea is that those who have the gift of words, use them in these days to give the people hope by which to live and dream, for without the vision we shall perish.

I was reading an article about an industrialist who believes in paying his workers well, for his theory seems to be that wealth for us all lies in greater production at lower cost. He believes his workmen are the ones who can lower costs, so he pays them for doing so. It seems sensible, if his theory is correct. It seems to work for him, anyway, and his workers own 30 percent of the business, which must add considerably to their incentive.

A letter came to me the other day telling of the work which the Boys Club of America has undertaken this summer. There are about 240 of these clubs, most of them located in congested city areas. They have gone in for food production in a big way. They work in cities, but even better, they go out under supervision to nearby farms. Here the benefit has been great to the boys as well as the farmer.

Now that I am back in the East, it is hard to believe that I thought we were not having warm enough weather in Seattle. I am sure that I am going to enjoy swimming here more than I did in Lake Washington. I am afraid I have been too long away from the shores of Maine really to enjoy very cold water. No matter how much I love every other part of my country, I am always glad to get home to the particular spot I call home.

182

July 24, 1943

Washington – (Friday)
There is nothing like going away for a while to get a chance to read the things you carry around with you for weeks and weeks.

On the way home I finished Louise Randall Pierson’s Roughly Speaking. There were moments when I felt weary, so much abounding energy went into her life that when her first husband moved to the Yale Club, I almost echoed his sigh of relief. I am sure that a month later, however, he missed his stimulating wife and the undisciplined children whom life will discipline, whether their parents did it or not. They probably will turn out well and do a good job in the world just because of the qualities which must have made them trying to their neighbors.

One ends the book with a warm feeling for the courage of the author. Her vitality must be extraordinary, but so is her appreciation of the America we love. On the last page she quotes a saying of her mother’s:

The things which are seen are temporal; the things which are not seen are eternal.

She, herself, adds:

Whether my father’s castle stood or not, one truth was self-evident. The spirit that moved him to build it, and defend it against all comers still lived on. There were still millions of Americans who believed, like him, that freedom was a fighting word; who’d rather die than live without it.

There is the essence of America and I think you feel it all through her book.

On my arrival yesterday afternoon, I went to see Mrs. Henry Morgenthau Jr., who is still in the hospital and has been there ten weeks. To my great joy she looked much better and will be able to go home at the end of this week. Of course, after such a serious illness, it will be a long time before she is really strong again. She said when they told her a week ago that she would be able to go home this week, that she hardly believed she would be able to walk. She has improved so much however, in the past few days, she is now willing to believe that her health will someday return to her.

I returned to Washington this morning for a few days and it looks as though I shall be fairly busy trying to see all the people I have agreed to see, when next I have a few days in this busy city.

Wherever you go, I find there are interesting people to see with new points of view and new activities. I have come home from the West full of things which I want to tell the President about, and I shall probably find that he knows more about them than I do. In any case, I have actually seen them, and that, I know, has not been possible for him. If visual education is a help to young people, I think it is a help to many of us older people as well. I know that seeing things brings me a greater realization of what people are really doing than I could acquire from just reading about them.

183

July 26, 1943

Washington – (Sunday)
As usual, I am swamped with mail, but am digging out slowly. Except for this occupation, the White House is a very quiet place for everyone except the President. People wait for him at every turn, and they look anxious or hurried or resigned, as the case may be. But for the rest of us, Washington is calm and peaceful and very quiet in the White House. When I get caught up on the mail, I am going to sit in a chair and read, so you are apt to get the results of anything which I find interesting, somewhere in this column during the next few days.

A great many people are writing me on the subject of juvenile delinquency. Some of them have remedies to suggest – long-time remedies which will take many years to show their effects. Better housing, more social security, more state care for dependent children, changes in our school systems; but all these things hold a promise for the future and not very much hope for the present.

One man, however, writes about a plan which strikes me as something that can be done at once and might help the young people of the country almost immediately. This gentleman says that gradually, throughout the nation, camping is becoming recognized as an essential part of education. Little by little, school systems are including summer camping as part of their regular programs, and even making weekend and one day trips during the winter sessions.

For various reasons, camps conducted in the past in different places are finding it difficult to function this summer. People who gave gifts in the past are giving less. This might be offset, however, by the fact that people are earning more money than they did in the past and may, perhaps, be able to pay for their children themselves, when it would have been out of the question in the days when WPA was one of our biggest employers.

Transportation is a more serious difficulty, but it seems to me, if carefully planned, this difficulty can be overcome. Children can camp in their own neighborhoods, but the greatest obstacle is the unawareness which blinds many parents from recognizing the value of health and character-building value which camping, as a summer recreation, can give to children.

Only 5% of our American children get to camp every summer. Many more could go, and many more could not only go to camp, but could, from camp, do a very useful job in helping neighboring farmers. Their work would be supervised. It would be a far better arrangement than having them live on the farms, because the farmer is interested in getting his work done, while camp supervisors want the work done, but want the children to benefit by doing it.

184

July 27, 1943

Washington – (Monday)
Like everybody else in the United States, we were excited by the news which came through yesterday afternoon announcing the resignation of Mussolini. One cannot help hoping that it means the beginning of the end and shows a weakening of the dictators’ belief in themselves, which is certainly the first step to ultimate victory.

At breakfast this morning two people, who have seen Italian prisoners, one in this country and one in Africa, were talking about them. I was amused to learn how friendly their attitude is. There is something in the Italian people which I think appeals to ours. These two men were saying how much the prisoners sang at their work, how well they worked and how relieved they were to be out of the war.

Other people who have seen them in this country tell me they are most appreciative of the country, of their opportunities and their treatment. In Africa, apparently, one of their chief joys is food. They seem to be getting more food than they have had for a long, long time. The old saying that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, seems to hold good for these prisoners of war, for they do not even try to escape.

Let us hope that we can make real allies of the Italian people in the cause of future peace. I think they are a nation which really wants peace. Perhaps we can help to build something really dynamic among them, which will bring us closer together and keep us working for an ideal in the future, that will preclude the rise of dictators and make impossible the preparation for another war.

The Vice President’s speech in Detroit yesterday afternoon had many statements in it which we are going to think about in the days to come. I particularly like his statement:

We seek a peace that is more than just a breathing space between the death of an old tyranny and the birth of a new one.

Again:

We cannot fight to crush Nazi brutality abroad and condone race riots at home.

More important than anything else for the future is the presentation of three outstanding peacetime responsibilities:

  1. The responsibility for the enlightenment of the people.
  2. The responsibility for mobilizing peacetime production for full employment.
  3. The responsibility for planning for world cooperation.

How many groups will have to work together to accomplish these ends! It means a full-time job for every citizen in the exercise of his citizenship.

185

July 28, 1943

New York – (Tuesday)
I was talking last night to a man of some experience in the business world, a man whose opinions I greatly respect. Much to my pleasure, he said that he felt there was not only going to be work for everybody at the end of the war, but plenty of work. What he meant was, I think, that the future really depends on our ability to imagine possibilities and then to set to work to use our minds and ingenuity in working out our dreams so that they become practical realities.

Congress is now at home, and we, the people, have a chance to talk to our Congress. Why not ask them to come to meetings and put a few questions to them so that we shall know what they are going to work for when they meet again? The fall of Mussolini has brought peace within the realms of possibility. Many people, who before would not discuss postwar activities because, first of all, the war must be won, now realize that the time has come to plan for peace.

In view of this, here are the questions I should like to ask my Congressman:

In our district, what plans are now being made for future employment of all the available labor now at work, plus the returning number of soldiers?

What plans in my district have been made for the re-education of both workers and soldiers, those who need vocational training and those who wish to proceed with any type of academic or professional training?

How do the plans of our district work in with the plans of other districts in the United States?

How do you plan to insure peace in the world in the future?

Have any plans been formulated in Congress, either privately or publicly, that you feel are satisfactory and for which you intend to work?

We, the lay people, who get up in the morning and eat our breakfasts and go about our business, are much the same all over the world, We feel we have little opportunity to make the decisions which affect our lives and the lives of the people in general who make up the mass population of the world. These decisions lie in the hands of statesmen, government representatives, scientists, educators, influential people in business and in the professions.

We are the cogs, but we are the people for whom the others function. Without us they would have no reason for existence, and so we have a right to ask questions and to insist on answers, to give or to withhold our support of the men in important positions, on the ground that their answers do, or do not satisfy us. We, the American people, have long training in the art of self-government. We can think, but sometimes we are apathetic and refuse to take the trouble. This is a moment in history when such negligence cannot be tolerated.

186

July 29, 1943

Hyde Park, New York – (Wednesday)
I have just read the August copy of New Threshold. I must confess to feeling extremely humble, for not until I read my own article did I realize that I had not caught a typographical error in the proof in the very first sentence. The incident which I used in the opening paragraph was, of course, one that appeared in the paper, when a sailor stood up in the gallery of Congress, after listening to a lengthy debate, and demanded to know: “Are we fighting the Civil War all over again?”

I would not be guilty of pinning this remark on any Senator, and I have asked the editor of New Threshold to make this correction in the next issue. The fault was entirely mine. The error was in my copy and I did not notice it in proofreading. I suppose when things are firmly fixed in one’s mind, one’s eyes can see without seeing, but I apologize to those I maligned.

I am quite sure that many people who had read of the other incident in the papers must have realized my mistake, but I cannot let it go without this public apology.

Some people have written me to ask me if I was advocating mixed marriage and I would like to make it clear that I would never advocate this. It seems to me that in the mixing of racial strains, the difficulties which always exist in any marriage are greatly enhanced. Races will mix however, even in this country, we see the evidences of this mixture. Whether it has occurred in wedlock or not, makes little difference from the biologist’s standpoint, because over the centuries a strong racial strain will probably obliterate a weaker one.

In the meantime, many generations and countless individuals are involved in the difficulties and suffering occasioned by mixed marriage. The knowledge of this will keep anyone from advocating such marriages if they love the people and want them to be happy. Some people will face the situation and then decide to take the risks involved.

This is an individual decision none of us will be able to do anything about. Nothing should ever keep us from advocating, however for all races that come together as citizens in our land, or that we meet throughout the world, equal respect and equal opportunity. Only in this way can we live side by side in peace and goodwill. Our desire must be for equal justice and we know, no matter to what sects and religions we belong, that most of us acknowledge that God made us all. Therefore, He must have intended that eventually all of us learn to live according to the ideal life, that of Jesus Christ.

187

July 30, 1943

Hyde Park, New York – (Thursday)
I understand that, under the law which makes the change in the status in the Women’s Army Corps, they will have to reenlist, and they will have the opportunity, of course, of not doing so. I suppose among the girls now in the WAACs, who will shortly become WACs, there will be some who will be glad of this opportunity. Many people start out on something that they want to do for patriotic reasons and enter with great enthusiasm, but when they find it means a daily grind, with, on the whole, little excitement and no glamour, it is hard to keep up that initial enthusiasm.

So, I have wanted to say something to these girls. Nowhere, have I seen any tribute paid them for the desire to serve, which undoubtedly took them into the services, and for the qualities of character which will keep them in throughout the duration of the war.

I am not belittling the work which women are doing in factories, in shipyards and in a thousand and one vital occupations. Many women can do this kind of work who could not, for one reason or another, enter into the military services.

Perhaps they cannot be spared from home, or their earnings are needed. But, if they are free and others will not suffer, I think the women who go into the military services will look back upon this period as having given them an opportunity for a more direct contribution in a way which more nearly approximates the contribution of the men in the armed services, and they deserve our warm praise.

Many a boy must wish that he could have had a few weeks more to fulfill his heart’s desires, and yet he has had to go to war. He has no choice once in the armed forces as to whether he will stay or go, or what he will do.

Every woman who takes a boy’s place serves under the same conditions, but she knows she is directly releasing some man to swell the ranks of the men who are now bringing the war to a close by their actual participation in the fighting. The fighters cannot do without the army of production which gives them equipment and food and mechanical necessities, without which this war cannot be fought.

Nevertheless, when it is over, it will be the men and women who accepted the discipline and the risk of life and limb, and, perhaps gave up their lives on some front, who will have a sense of comradeship which none of the rest of us can share. They will know that their contribution was the greatest to the generations of the future and we shall stand humbly before them.

188

July 31, 1943

Hyde Park, New York – (Friday)
Before leaving Washington Monday, Mr. Frederick M. Davenport brought 55 of his internes from the National Institute of Public Affairs. Of course, the proportion of girls has greatly increased and most of the boys are there only until they are called into military service. One of them who came to Washington in March from the University of Washington, is already leaving this coming week for Florida and Air Force training. However, these boys will know something about the government which may be of value to them during the war period and on their return.

I wish we could greatly widen the scope of opportunity given young people to work in different branches of the government. Many of these internes will go on in government work and probably will be some of our best civil service employees. Even if they do not, the experience will make them more conscious of the need for active participation in public affairs in their own communities. This younger generation will need to be alive to its public responsibilities to a greater extent than any of us have been in the past.

The seventh grade of the Central High School of the town of North Salem, New York, has published a little book on the history of the town. They call it, When Our Town Was Young, and, as a subtitle, Stories of North Salem Yesterday, By Girls and Boys of Today. There are many illustrations and it seems to me one of the best ways of teaching history which I have seen, though I imagine it is done as part of their social studies. History and social studies cannot very well be separated.

It would be interesting if, all over the country, our young people made similar studies and they were published for use in the schools. I am sure they would be popular. The value of history lies almost entirely in the insight which it gives to us as to what things in civilization have really had enduring value.

The object of all so-called improvement is that people in the world should be better off and happier. From history we learn what in government, in the sciences, in social development, has made people happier. Dates or facts of one kind or another do not matter. What is important is the knowledge from the past as to how best to proceed in the future for the greater happiness of mankind.

189

August 2, 1943

Hyde Park, New York – (Sunday)
Friday’s Herald Tribune carried a little item that the destroyer on which our son, Franklin Jr., is executive officer, had been bombed off the coast of Sicily. They were not directly hit and they fought off the bombers, but I know the way it feels when someone calls you up and says in what you know is an intentionally casual tone, “Franklin Jr. is all right.”

That happened to me Thursday evening, and then followed what details were known so far and my heartaches for those whose boys are not “all right.” Finally, I asked whether Franklin Jr.’s wife had been told, and, learning that she still knew nothing, I promised to call her up on the telephone.

I did so and had just started to speak to her when I realized I was talking without any response. In a minute she came back on the wire and said:

Please start all over again, I did not hear what you said, and the first words gave me heart failure.

I realized then that I hadn’t been much better as a news-giver than my husband was.

Such things are bound to happen. You know it. In fact, most of us tell ourselves over and over again that we are prepared for whatever may happen. If peace comes without having to face some real tragedy, there are a good many of us, I imagine, who will not only be relieved but hardly able to believe it. Nevertheless, any news, even when it turns out to be good news, makes one catch one’s breath just for a minute. Of course, I’m not talking about the usual letter which we all wait for with great anxiety and receive with joy.

The news from Italy makes one feel that the people want peace. There has always been an underground movement in Italy and many of its representatives are here in this country. I am sure that they hope from day to day that the people, themselves, will dictate whatever action their government takes. These people, working in the underground movements all over Europe, have had extraordinary courage.

Death stares them in the face every minute of the day and night and yet they go about their daily business unconcerned, knowing that the slightest slip might mean detection, sometimes leaving the country and then voluntarily going back to danger. They will have the satisfaction of knowing when liberation comes that they are the ones who have kept alive the will to freedom among their people. The United Nations will have to lean heavily on them in the postwar period, for they are the ones who are known by their neighbors as having suffered with them, and therefore, will be completely trusted.

190

August 3, 1943

New York – (Monday)
I haven’t talked to you this year about the riot of purple color which always rejoices my soul every summer as it blooms around our pond and is reflected in the water. We call this weed, loosestrife, and it is lovelier in the mass like this than anything one could plant.

My friend, Miss Cook, who has great taste with flowers, has planted masses of red and white phlox, which reflect in the water around her pond, a bit of water which is far clearer than the water we see from our porch.

Every time I walk by the spot it seems to me a breathtaking bit of beauty, but not as beautiful as the riot and abundance of our purple weed. It is not quite as brilliant this year. I thought at first it had not come to full bloom, but I begin to think that for some reason or other it is not going to be quite as solid a mass of color as usual.

Four of us ate our supper on the porch last night and watched the sun go down in a brilliant red ball of fire, and turn the sky into a deep red and pale pink, which reflected itself in the water. For some unknown reason, the beauties of nature always seem to remind me of the Psalms, probably because David also lived close to nature and all his life used similes from nature to express his ideas.

When I was in the West and looked out on the high mountains every morning, the phrase, “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills” would invariably come to my mind. Here, with rolling country and herds of cattle and pastures all about, the Twenty-Third Psalm seems to fit the countryside, only if I were to “lie down in green pastures” I would soon be eaten up by mosquitoes. Why must such pests intrude on one’s most poetic moods?

We sat out in the sun and talked several hours on end. The people with us were young. They could look into the future and dream and hope to see the dream really come true within the span of their own lives. Prosaic things like new industries, expanded peacetime production, better relations and cooperation between management and labor, translated themselves into new and wonderful living for people whose lives have been drab in the past.

It is a curious thing. I wonder if you ever reflect on it. One can buy the kind of knowledge that sufficient education produces. It is not hard to find men who have been trained to do technician’s jobs, or men with the type of minds which make it possible to do precise work of scientific research; but education never gives imagination or the type of freedom of mind which makes one an inventor of any kind. These people are not easy to find. These are the pioneers of the world of the future.

191

August 4, 1943

New York – (Tuesday)
I got off the train yesterday morning at 125th St. to be met by Capt. Amsden and Cdr. Mildred McAfee, who were taking me over to the Naval Training Station in the Bronx. As we came down the steps, a rather excitable lady asked me if I knew that there had been a race riot in Harlem. My heart sank, for I would hate to have our city of New York succumb to this hysteria, which can do so much harm to break up the unity of our people.

Race riots which begin with one group may spread to other groups. They do not always remain purely race riots. They may become expressions of people’s intolerance against different religions, and so it is all-important that those of us who can be calm, objective and sane, try to act in that way wherever we are at the present time. We must not be frightened. We must not be stampeded and we must not be gullible and believe everything that people tell us without proof.

From all I could learn, the incident which occurred on Sunday was not very serious, though anything which causes loss of life and injures a number of people is serious as a sign of ill will among us and should not be minimized, but neither should it be exaggerated. We, the people in New York City, have lived in harmony, in spite of the fact that we have represented a great many races and religions for a great many years. We must not now, at a time when the country needs an example of unity, allow ourselves to be divided.

The girls I saw passing in review had only been in the WAVES 17 days, but they made a very creditable showing. Adm. O’Neil was there to review them and from the field we proceeded to visit the schoolrooms where they try to give the recruits an idea of the various fields in which they can work. We saw the barracks, the mess halls, the hospital. Since I was with the Navy, I left them exactly on time and made my luncheon engagement on the minute.

There is no adequate recreation at this training center for the girls, and no good place for them to drill or to meet in winter. Nearby is a large armory and the state has been most cooperative in offering the armory for their use. During the summer, however, they drill out of doors, but when the winter comes, I should think it almost a necessity to have some indoor facilities.

This is a big school where from 2,000 to 5,000 girls are in training. Since it is near Washington, I wish that some of the members of Congress who are interested in our military organizations might come to visit here. In the first place, I think these girls who enter military services are doing something which seems somewhat unusual to their families. It will give the families more confidence and the girls a lift, if they knew that the legislative branch of the government is taking a special interest in them.

192

August 5, 1943

New York – (Wednesday)
Monday afternoon I met at Greenwich House with a group of thirty to forty young college students, who are working this summer in New York City settlement houses. There is a great scarcity of social workers and these young people are getting some training in social work in connection with courses they are taking in college.

Some of the group had been up in Harlem the night before and knew something of the sudden hysteria which swept this small area. They, of course, wanted to discuss it, but I knew too little about it.

I am quite sure these summer months will be of material value in broadening their views of the problems of a great city and a great nation, where the social sciences have lagged behind the industrial and scientific development.

In the evening I went to a meeting sponsored by the United States Student Assembly, at Hunter College, Park Ave. and 68th Street. The Austrian students’ declaration and their courage in defying the Nazi rulers has made a profound impression on the student world in this country and I hope that it will move them to participate actively in their own citizenship.

Talking and meeting accomplishes little, but real participation in the local groups of their communities will make our young people as potent a force in the building of public opinion here as student groups today are in other countries of the world.

I ended up the evening in Monday by going to the Martin Beck Theatre, where The Army Play By Play is running. Mr. John Golden asked me to come, since it was the opening night at popular prices and he wanted me to wish the boys good luck. I think they must be a little tired of seeing me at their performances, but I was glad to be with them this last time and to tell them that my interest was not only in them as soldiers, but in all young people and in the work which they do.

I hope that The Army Play By Play will have a very successful run since the prices are the ordinary theatre prices. I am quite sure that everyone who sees these plays will come away having had not only an amusing evening, but a feeling that they have learned something about the boys and the life as the boys see it in our Army.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of seeing Miss Helen Ferris, of the Junior Literary Guild, who came to talk over some of their spring choices of books. She is always a joy to talk to, and I am always anxious to hear about my fellow members on the board of judges, since I consider Mr. Angelo Patri and Mrs. Sidonie Gruenberg much better judges than I am. Therefore, they are always of interest to me.

193

August 6, 1943

Hyde Park, New York – (Thursday)
The month of August is a curious month. You think you are in the middle of summer, and then, suddenly, you find a touch of autumn in the air. My sleeping porch last night was really warm at midnight. But at 5:00 this morning I needed all the covers I could get.

I am afraid these sudden reminders that we are on our way to autumn do not give me a great deal of pleasure, because this is the time of the year I enjoy most. Not only because I can be out of doors, but because the things I do are more nearly connected with the everyday life that people live all over our country and I have less sense of restriction than when in Washington in the White House.

Someone, in print, not long ago admonished me to count my blessings for the years which have been spent in the White House. Perhaps “Reflections On Ten Years In the White House” might be both interesting and amusing, but they certainly would not be what the great majority of people probably would expect them to be.

In the Hudson Tube yesterday, a sailor boy stopped in front of me and handed me a bill used to pay our armed forces in Sicily. The ribbon he wore told me he had just come back from an active theatre of war, and I was glad to sign his bill and to have a chance to talk to him for a few minutes.

The boys who participated in this Sicilian landing must have had some anxious moments. You will remember reading Ernie Pyle’s column, in which he described the weather in which they started their journey, and how wonderful it was when everything smoothed out before the time the actual landing took place. Such experiences as that must give men the feeling that Providence does take a hand in whatever they do.

In talking yesterday with a very sane and stable colored woman of my acquaintance, she made a remark which I think many of us should ponder. Here it is:

The Lord means us to live in peace and respect each other regardless of our race, and until we learn this lesson, we will continue to have wars. We may even be wiped out as a civilization if we are too stupid to learn to live together, for that is the Lord’s intention.

Peace in our hearts means goodwill toward all men, but we haven’t even approached it yet.

194

August 7, 1943

Hyde Park, New York – (Friday)
Who says this isn’t everybody’s war? Travelling on the train, particularly in the coach, soon brings you the realization of how many people have sons in the armed services.

The other day I was reading, when someone stopped by my seat and handed me a photograph of two boys, one in uniform and one still in civilian clothes. She was a proud mother and she said:

My two boys, one is already in and one just going. Will you sign the back of their photograph?

Somehow, no rules hold under all circumstances. I, who usually say very firmly to children hunting autographs that in public conveyances I just can’t sign, because it means that the whole train or bus gradually drifts by for a signature, found myself signing without a word and wishing her boys good luck from the bottom of my heart.

A few minutes later, another woman stood beside me, telling me in rather halting English that she had four boys in the services and she hoped they would come home safely and that mine would come home safely, too. As she spoke, I could not help remembering a conversation I overheard not long ago.

Two women were discussing the affairs of the world as they affected our country and one of them, becoming somewhat irritated, remarked:

You have no right to an opinion. You were not born in this country, you are not a real American.

As I looked up and down the train, I decided that anyone who held such an opinion had better revise it quickly and they had better broaden their definition of what it means to be an American. I think they would find that many a good citizen not born in this country has, perhaps, a greater appreciation of what it means to live in a free and self-governing country and, therefore, a greater sense of responsibility for preserving the democratic way of life.

Many people must have seen the picture of the American boy who, having landed in Sicily, found his grandmother and was photographed kissing her. I was amused by the little story about Franklin Jr. who was asked on some dock in Sicily, apparently by a Sicilian woman, whether her boy in the Navy would be badly treated because his mother lived in Sicily. The little touch that particularly appealed to me in the story was the hole in the heel of Franklin Jr.’s sock. Of all our children, I think he is the most oblivious to such little details.

The Democratic Woman’s Club of Hyde Park is holding its annual meeting today at the Vanderbilt Inn. Dutchess County being such a strong Republican county, I am always surprised that in our little village we can muster enough women for a real meeting, but it is usually quite a gala affair and I must go now to be on hand.

195

August 9, 1943

Hyde Park, New York – (Sunday)
Friday’s little Democratic gathering was really a gala occasion. There were a hundred women there. Some of them, I am sure, are not registered Democrats, but all looked happy to be together and they filled the little inn to capacity. I have always liked this little house near the Vanderbilt mansion.

The whole place is owned by the government and preserved as a museum, but I still like the little house better than I like the formal and very beautiful big house. The little inn is surrounded by beautiful trees, which are one of the great beauties of this place. Old Dr. Hoosick and Dr. Bard started bringing trees from all over the world and, I imagine, there is a greater variety growing here than on any other place up and down the Hudson River.

While we were waiting outside for everybody to gather, they asked me to go over and speak to a boy who was home from Africa, and was on leave from Halloran Hospital for the weekend. He was hurt near Algiers and had a cast on his leg and foot, but he is gaining and seemed very happy to be out of the hospital and with his people in Hyde Park.

The house is full of children this weekend, ranging from a baby a year old, to an eight-year-old girl. The sound of young voices does add enormously to the cheerfulness of any house. The older children rode yesterday morning and then came back for a swim. The little four-year-old boy couldn’t wait when he arrived Friday evening to show us that since he had been here last on a visit, he had learned to swim without a safety belt. So, before we had supper, he had to get into his swimming trunks and jump off the diving board into the deep water. I must say I stood in admiration, for at the age of four I was such a timid creature, I feel quite sure that nothing would have made me jump into the deep water.

The days are still warm and one can swim and lie in the sun, but the nights out on my sleeping porch are almost cold. I can snuggle under two blankets, look up at the stars, listen for the birds in the early morning and almost forget that this isn’t the calm and beautiful world it seems to be.

How slowly human beings seem to learn the lesson of love instead of hate. It is important that each one of us in our own hearts should wipe out resentment and bitterness whenever we detect it, for it is the sum total of what we do as individuals that makes the world.

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August 10, 1943

Hyde Park, New York – (Monday)
Sunday was a quiet day and I managed to write a good many letters and we celebrated a birthday. I enjoy all such little celebrations. When any of us have reached the mature age of 21, we continue to have only 21 candles on our cakes. No one is ever the wiser about the real age of those who are celebrating.

Years ago, one of my own children, asked me on his grandmother’s birthday, who was older – Granny or me. I was a little taken aback, but now I think it is rather pleasant that to youngsters, people, who really are wide apart in age, seem so much the same. I suppose it really means that they judge largely by what people do, and not by their looks.

It should be a consolation to us plain people that a child’s conception of beauty, as far as the people they love are concerned, has nothing whatsoever to do with perfect features or beautiful coloring. They seem to be more sensitive to what people are and, if someone gives them love and devotion, they recognize the beauty of feeling and the sense of security it gives them. Looks have little to do with their appreciation of the person.

I am going to New York City today to meet one or two people who have been trying for some time to see me. It is always a question whether it is easier for me to come and stay for a few days in New York City, or whether it is better to have people come to Hyde Park. On the whole, I have decided when enough people have accumulated and feel there is something connected with their work they want to see me about, it is better for me to come to New York City and stay for two or three days and then return to Hyde Park.

I have been reading The Gremlins again to the children who have been with me. There is no doubt about it that the story with Walt Disney’s illustrations is fascinating to youngsters, even a little four-year-old can enjoy it no less than his older brothers and sisters. I also got out my Home Book of Verse yesterday and read some of the old poems to them, on which my generation was raised. Do you remember “The Sluggard” – who liked to lie late in bed? Or “The Little Gentleman”?

I really think we have improved and do not write such utter nonsense and pious precepts for children today. There is a little poem called “Dirty Jim,” which I suppose I should have read to all the little boys I have known through the years who hate to wash behind their ears and keep their hands clean, but I have a feeling that it would have had very little effect on them. So far as I can see, every generation at certain ages, has more or less the same habits, which they gradually outgrow, and poems and good precepts I fear have very little effect.

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August 11, 1943

New York – (Tuesday)
I am going up to a meeting of very young people at a school at Edgecombe Ave. and 164th St., this afternoon. The Youthbuilders, and one or two other organizations working with the school-age children, are trying to get the youngsters to come together during the summer months and devise ways in which they can be constructively busy. They are anxious to find things to do which will make the white and colored children of the neighborhood feel they are working together in something of use to the war effort.

After this meeting, I have three people coming to the apartment at intervals of half an hour.

Mr. Upton Sinclair has just sent me an article he has written called, “Freestate – A Plan For European Reconstruction.” I don’t know in which publication this will appear, but I think some of the things he says about the problems which will confront us in Europe when our armies are victorious, are well worth considering now.

The following is an excellent summary of what will confront the United Nations.

The Nazis have deliberately scrambled the whole of Central Europe. They have done it with German thoroughness for the precise purpose of making it impossible for anybody to unscramble it.

I do not mean merely that populations have been shifted about; that millions of families have been driven from their homes, and their homes and land turned over to Germans and to Quislings. I mean that the industry of Europe has been taken to pieces and put together again on a new principle. Competition among the industries of different nations has been wiped out and the whole thing has been reconstructed into one colossal industrial trust, managed by the Nazis for one purpose and one only, the waging of Nazi war and the gaining and preserving of Nazi victories.

This is a very accurate picture. While much will undoubtedly be destroyed before victory is achieved, Mr. Sinclair’s suggestions as to how to meet the problem are really interesting. I think the people of this country will be interested in this article, but even if they do not read it, the statement of the problem is well worth their consideration.

How would you preserve that which is good in the future chaos and bring the best economic situation as quickly as possible to the greatest number of people? These populations will be able to carry their own weight and be of use to us and the rest of the world as co-workers only as they get settled and return to economic security.

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August 12, 1943

New York – (Wednesday)
I was very much interested yesterday in finding out just what was being carried on in the school at Edgecomb Ave. and 164th St., which is open to the children during the afternoons for one month.

One group told me that they were studying electricity, and how to make minor repairs at home. Others were learning how to make use of scrap material in making rough furniture or small repairs in their own homes. Another is working on a play. They have enlisted the help of some members of the American Theatre Wing and someday will give their play for the community. A group is getting out a community paper, which must be a little difficult to accomplish in New York City, but the small boy who faced me and asked me questions, seemed not at all daunted. I am sure he has his area well covered.

These youngsters are doing a pioneering job – actually getting together in New York City to find out whether they can do something for their community. They define their community in small enough terms to make it an area within its vast surroundings. The idea is evidently interesting other people, for a representative from OCD came up to me and said they would try to find something for some of the youngsters to do. Someone else represented a music group which was interested in helping. So, if you have a good idea, you are apt to find people who will rally around to help you carry it out.

I happened to notice a little item in the paper not long ago, in which one of our most noted educators stated that in Great Britain postwar social and economic programs are actually down in detail, but they are a little uncertain about them, because they have not been able to discover whether the British plans are really more reliable than ours would be. They could only represent the ideas of a few groups, and the plans for this postwar period must represent more than a few groups in Great Britain and in the United States.

They must represent the idea of the Russian people, the Chinese people and many other people, who are going to be a part of the United Nations. Sometimes, I think that the postwar plans for this war will take a long time in formulation. There may have to be a considerable period in which the needs of human beings for daily living will be the first essential. The second may be the provision of materials and methods by which people can regain their economic independence. Everything else may have to wait.

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August 13, 1943

Hyde Park, New York – (Thursday)
I talked a little while yesterday morning with a representative from the group which is trying to formulate plans to save the Jewish people in Europe. Some people think of the Jewish people as a race. Others think of them purely as a religious group. But in Europe the hardships and persecution which they have had to endure for the past few years, have tended to bring them together in a group which identifies itself with every similar group, regardless whether the tie is religious or racial.

The Jews are like all the other people of the world. There are able people among them, there are courageous people among them, there are people of extraordinary intellectual ability along many lines. There are people of extraordinary integrity and people of great beauty and great charm.

On the other hand, largely because of environment and economic condition, there are people among them who cringe, who are dishonest, who try to take advantage of their neighbors, who are aggressive and unattractive. In other words, they are a cross section of the human race, just as is every other nationality and every other religious group.

But good or bad, they have suffered in Europe as has no other group. The percentage killed among them in the past few years far exceeds the losses among any of the United Nations in the battles which have been fought throughout the war.

Many of them, for generations, considered Germany, Poland, Romania and France their country and permanent home. This same thing might happen to any other group, if enough people ganged up against it and decided on persecution. It seems to me that it is the part of common sense for the world as a whole to protest in its own interest against wholesale persecution, because none of us by ourselves would be strong enough to stand against a big enough group which decided to treat us in the same way. We may have our individual likes and dislikes, but this is a question which far transcends prejudices or inclinations.

It means the right of survival of human beings and their right to grow and improve. You and I may be hated by our neighbors, but if we know about it, we try to change the things within us which brought it about. That is the way civilized people develop. Murder and annihilation are never a satisfactory answer, for the few who escape grow up more bitter against their persecutors and a day of reckoning always comes, which is what the story of Moses in the bulrushes teaches us.

I do not know what we can do to save the Jews in Europe and to find them homes, but I know that we will be the sufferers if we let great wrongs occur without exerting ourselves to correct them.

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August 14, 1943

Hyde Park, New York – (Friday)
On August 14, we shall have functioned eight years under the Social Security Act. We have had an opportunity to study its provisions as they actually work out in relation to human beings and their lives. We know what improvements this law has brought about as it now stands, and it is possible to see where changes should be made.

One very important change is the establishment of a unified national unemployment insurance system to replace the present 51 separate systems. The reasons for doing this now are that we would eliminate the tax inequalities between competing employers in different states, would reduce the number of tax returns and wage reports required of employers and would remove existing inequalities as to payments, due to differences now present in 51 separate laws.

This is important for the postwar period of readjustment. The recommendations now made would extend coverage to some ten or fifteen million additional wage and salary earners, including employees of small firms now excluded by state laws and would be very valuable in preventing the downward spiral in buying power which starts any depression. It is also suggested that a provision be made for allowance to dependents of unemployed workers and that benefit payments be extended for longer periods and equalized throughout the entire country.

The cost of the extended changes which are suggested, would mean only a net increase of 3% over the present cost and would be borne entirely by employees. Leaders of organized labor have endorsed these proposed contribution rates which would provide additional social insurance protection.

If these proposed changes are effected, destitution could be eliminated in this country, workers and their families would be assured of cash payments whenever earnings are interrupted or stopped because of circumstances beyond their control, such as unemployment, disability, sickness, old age or death.

It is proposed, of course, to include agricultural workers who certainly need this protection. Between 1937 and 1940 average farm wages in the United States were about $36 a month without board. Farm wages have risen since 1940, but the average in October 1942, was only $59.25. Of course, this does not mean that in some states farm wages are not much higher, but it does mean that in many states they are very much lower than these averages.

Domestic workers should also be included. This group also needs the security which such coverage gives, and it will make a great difference to many women employed in domestic service. Both of these categories were excluded because of the administrative difficulties involved, but solutions to these problems have now been found.