Eleanor Roosevelt -- My Day (1943)

21

January 25, 1943

Washington – (Sunday)
Friday afternoon, I spoke for the infantile paralysis campaign over the radio, and I have just received a letter telling me of one of the things that infantile paralysis victims can do to earn a living, which I think will interest my readers.

Nearly everyone these days is a radio fan, but not everyone sits and listens hour after hour because there is nothing else he can do. People who have had infantile paralysis must sit still, and many of them must also earn a living. It is interesting to find that a radio checking service of St. Louis employs shut-ins. Some are infantile paralysis victims, some suffer from arthritis, some are victims of spinal ailments; or bad fractures, or people who have lost hands or feet, or who are blind.

All of them can check radio programs and they do an accurate and thorough job. Their service reports are exceptional and cost a very small sum from the commercial standpoint. The ages of those employed run from sixteen to sixty. Two hundred infantile paralysis cases are already doing this work, and some of them are patients at Georgia Warm Springs Foundation. Many more, of course, are waiting for employment, but it is certainly interesting to come upon a new thing which handicapped people can do, and one cannot help feeling happy for them whenever they feel of use.

I wonder how many people have really thought seriously about the suggestion which Senator Bankhead made in the Senate the other day, which was promptly supported by Senator Wheeler. At first blush it looked like an attractive suggestion. None of us like to have our boys endanger their lives for us. It is not until you begin to think about the future implications that you realize the full import.

Other men can fight, but ours can produce in factories and fields and their families can live comfortably while they do so. Somehow, I think anyone making this suggestion forgets that young people have a right to live their own lives, and I hardly think there are many young men in this country who want to have someone else do their fighting for them.

No, even if it means dying, I think they would not accept the proposition. Should they accept, I wonder how long it would be before those who had fought in our places would decide that a nation so well developed in industry and so undeveloped in military achievement is more useful enslaved than free.

On the whole, I think I would rather accept the Army’s estimates and have more soldiers than we need, even if we go short on food, we won’t starve. If we women have to work, well, some of us thrive on pretty long hours. I think I’ll feel safer and prouder in my country, if we all carry our full share of the burdens of the present years in every field of endeavor on every front.

22

January 26, 1943

Washington – (Monday)
The news reached me yesterday of the death of Mr. Alexander Woollcott. He has known, and all of his friends have for many months, that this threat hung over him; but he wanted to work and he did. These last few months, I think, he did as good work as at any time in his life, and was happy doing it.

I spent an hour with him not long ago in his Gotham Hotel workroom. He sat and talked over the last war and this one, our mistakes in between, what we must do to obviate their repetition and what he, himself, was trying to do. He talked of his friends, of the Anthology of American Literature, which he had done with an eye to providing the boys in the service with something they would like to have with them wherever they were. This book will be out, I believe, in February, and I know the choices will be such that they will meet a variety of literary tastes. It will be a book one can live with for many days.

Life with Alexander Woollcott gone will lose some of its flavor. He had agreed to come back and spend a little time with us within the next few weeks. In spite of his foibles and eccentricities, or perhaps because of them, he was an enchanting guest. He told stories so well, he had known so many people and had an unending fund of material for conversation.

He loved to be the center of the group, and yet many of his younger friends, of whom he had a host, will attest to the fact that on occasion he could listen. He gave their problems real thought and, when asked, gave advice to the best of his ability. If they failed to take it, he never held it against them. I am glad to have the memory of his friendship, though I only came to know him well a few years ago. I shall miss him. His own country has lost a patriot and the world a good citizen.

Yesterday we enjoyed having the whole cast of Maxwell Anderson’s Eve of St. Mark give the play here at tea. Mr. and Mrs. Anderson, and Mr. and Mrs. Elmer Rice were with them. We had them come in the afternoon instead of the evening, as we usually do, because we felt that having to walk here after the play would make it very difficult for them.

I had seen the play in New York City, so only attended last night for a short time. Quite frankly, they act too well. The whole play is still too real to me. It wrongs the heart and makes one suffer, and I only hope it makes us also firmer in our determination that the things which we see on that stage will never again be realities.

23

January 27, 1943

Washington – (Tuesday)
This has been a curiously varied day. It began at 10:30 this morning with a group of young paratroopers up from Fort Bragg, North Carolina. They have completed their period of preparation and will soon be off to parts unknown, so I was especially glad to greet them and have them here. I wish them Godspeed wherever they go.

After my talk with them, I met with a committee of three, which is already organizing a sunrise service for Easter Sunday – a service which they tell me will take place at 6:17 a.m. The Knights of Pythias have a service also on that morning in the Arlington Memorial Amphitheatre, which I always try to attend, so this would simply mean starting quite a bit earlier.

After their visit, I had one other appointment and then walked over to the Willard Hotel to meet a group of some eighty boys who have taken the rangers training. They were demonstrating it for the benefit of the Women’s National Press Club.

Since I could not stay for the demonstration, I asked the boys what they would like me to do for them, and before I knew it, I found myself signing all their programs. One young man wanted to be sure that I understood that this particular group was composed of the best fighting men in the world and that no Marines or paratroopers could do any better than they could. This spirit of pride in an organization is good, but I feel we can all be proud of the achievements of all branches of the services.

I hurried back to the White House to greet 32 ladies, who were lunching to hear Mrs. James Landis’ report on what can be done in the line of recreation for government workers. They have been brought to Washington in such numbers that some of them have to live under rather uncomfortable and crowded conditions.

One club house is already a going concern – a garage lent for the duration by Mrs. Evelyn Walsh McLean, at 2118 Massachusetts Avenue. It has been remodeled and decorated and much of the furniture given by Mrs. McLean has been reconditioned by a committee. Gradually members are joining up and it is becoming known as a place where government workers can meet each other and have a good time.

The radio and newspapers are preparing us all for some announcement of importance tonight, and so I shall be anxiously listening to my radio at 10:00 p.m. Some of the news I may know a little about, but the greater part will be as much news to me as to every other citizen, and news has come to mean so much these days. I suppose, because one lives with one thought in mind, one prays for the day when news again can be a matter of casual interest.

24

January 28, 1943

Washington – (Wednesday)
Yesterday afternoon I had the great pleasure of seeing our son Jimmy’s executive officer, who is here for a few days getting certain things straightened out for their raider group. He told me how they recruited for the group. This time it is composed of boys from both coasts, which I think is a very good thing, since the more boys from different parts of the country become intimately acquainted, the better. This young officer has been in the Marine Corps for several years and I am sure that he is very thorough in his work.

Four of us sat around the radio in my sitting room last night and listened for an hour to the various stories of the past ten days. The fact that my husband was in Casablanca was, of course, no surprise to me, but it was amusing this morning to have the various people in the house exclaim with surprise over the destination of his trip. The household, of course, had to know that the President was away, but they were evidently completely surprised to find that he had been in Africa.

My husband has never enjoyed the mere sense of flight the way I do, and I am quite sure that having to start out at 4:00 a.m. was not a great pleasure to him. At the first opportunity we have for frivolous conversation, I am going to find out whether he has already been made a “short snorter.” If he has, I shall use all my ingenuity to catch him someday separated from his bill.

For those who may not know what this means, I should explain that you are a “short snorter” when you fly across an ocean, and the fraternity has grown quite large of late. One of the rules is that a new member must pay a dollar to every member present at his initiation. If he is ever separated from his bill, which all members are supposed to carry on their persons, and he cannot produce it within a given number of minutes, he must again pay a dollar to all members present for his infraction of the rule.

I feel a great sense of gratitude to both the press and the radio chains for the wonderful way in which the story of this conference was guarded until the release date. With so many people knowing this story for such a long time, I think it speaks well for our common sense that there was so little conversation about it, and that the responsible people whose job it is to give out news, were so careful and lived up so meticulously to their pledge of secrecy.

25

January 29, 1943

Washington – (Thursday)
I spent yesterday evening at the Jewish Community Center USO Club. They are inaugurating a series of Wednesday evening programs dedicated to the Allied Nations. Last evening was the opening night. Lord Halifax, the British Ambassador, spoke, and then some British movies, descriptive of the life of the people in Great Britain and their total war effort, were shown. I was glad to tell them a little of my own experiences.

Even from pictures, it is hard to realize what it means for a whole nation to unite as completely as they have done in Great Britain in fighting this war. It is so far away from us that we still have very little notion of what a completely mobilized nation can accomplish.

China, of course, knows, and Russia knows. Someone who has just returned from Russia, was telling me the other day what extraordinary work the women there are doing, often the type of hard labor which we associate with strong men. Again it is a question of necessity driving them.

I remember that my eldest son told me long ago how much impressed he was in China that, because of the lack of machinery, people had to do the work which we think only machines can accomplish. Fortunately, these countries, where they have had less opportunity for industrial development, have populations capable of meeting this kind of emergency.

A first hand story of what someone has seen is always so much more real than something that one reads. I hope that as people come back from Russia and China, they will tour the country and tell us in person what they have observed.

When I was in Red Bank, New Jersey, the other day, they were using their USO program to serve the girls and women, most of them civilians who have come to work in the Signal Corps laboratory from all parts of the country. Again, last night, I found that girl government workers here formed the corps of hostesses for the USO group I was with, and the club house was also open to men government workers.

I am very glad to see this done because it brings together the servicemen and the other workers in the war effort and gives them all a feeling that they are functioning together to achieve one aim.

We are also attracting men and women to many of these USO centers, who are over here from Allied countries, and that, I think, is a help. It gives us a feeling of unity in our common struggle, which I hope will encourage friendships which will be the foundation on which to build the future peace.

26

January 30, 1943

Washington – (Friday)
Yesterday afternoon I had a very interesting visit from Mr. William H. Dennis of the State Department, and Dr. Arndt of the United States Office of Education, who is working with the State Department on cultural relations between the United States and the Far East. They brought three young Chinese students, who, after obtaining their college degrees in this country, are gaining practical experience along teaching lines, so that they may be able to decide what will be useful to their people in our scheme of public education.

I have an idea that rural education is going to loom very large in China for a time. A combination of the basic tools necessary to obtain any kind of education and technical knowledge about the agricultural problems which confront the people of China, may be the most valuable kind of education.

I doubt very much whether we have ever developed the type of medical service which will eventually be useful in China. We are still groping to discover the best ways of reaching our people, all of our people, that is to say, with good medical care.

I received a letter the other day enclosing an article which describes the Group Health Cooperatives, Incorporated. This is a non-profit medical service corporation in New York City. It is a health insurance plan under which 2500 physicians in all fields of medicine and surgery offer their services to subscribers at an average cost of two-and-one-quarter cents a day.

The basic annual cost to an individual is $9.60 and $24 paid by a family offers surgical care in any hospital, in the doctor’s office, or the subscriber’s home. It also covers obstetrical care at home or at any hospital, and medical service while the subscriber is a bed patient in any hospital, or for any illness not requiring surgical or obstetrical care. This plan, of course, is designed for people with incomes from $1,800 to $3,000. Under certain circumstances, people pay additional amounts for services outside those specified.

Germany was the originator of the insurance principle many years ago. Then Great Britain followed, accepting this as the best method of incorporating government interest on low income groups as to health and employment. We seem to be following this lead, but there is also the possibility that the need might be met through taxation. It seems to me that a direct health tax bill for all might be a more democratic way of achieving the same results. In any case, I hope we shall examine various ways before making any one of them universal.

27

February 1, 1943

Washington – (Sunday)
On Friday night, or rather on Saturday morning, because it was 12:30 a.m.; I started out with an escort of kind gentlemen to visit three movie theatres, where midnight shows were being given and where the group of visiting movie stars were appearing. In spite of two war charity drives which have preceded the infantile paralysis drive, the city is responding even more generously than it has before.

I was interested to hear that Washington, DC, has contributed more yearly per capita than any other city of its size in the United States. Every theatre we went to had capacity audiences and all seemed to be enjoying themselves. I said a few words of thanks on behalf of the President and was back at the White House by 1:15, which, in view of the fact that our streets are not exactly smooth travelling these days, was pretty good time.

On Saturday I had several appointments in the morning, beginning with a visit from a lady in whose area the White House stands. She is trying to sign up all the women on an agreement to buy all the war bonds and stamps they possibly can. I joined up gladly, but I cannot help thinking that we are quite a detriment to her, for she must have many more signatures for the ordinary block.

One of my difficulties always is to know where I should join these movements. Should I contribute in Hyde Park, New York City or Washington? In each place, my neighbors think I should feel an obligation to that particular neighborhood. It is not always easy to make the decision, so it ends by my doing a little bit everywhere, which doesn’t satisfy anyone.

The movie stars, who came to Washington, and who always make a success of these two days of entertainment, lunched with us on Saturday. This year they went to Walter Reed Hospital to give the hospitalized boys there a thrill.

A few appointments in the afternoon and then, since the President was not here for his birthday celebration, I went the round of the Birthday Balls as usual and joined in the radio roundup. Quite a contingent of the family will be here tonight, for my daughter and son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. John Boettiger, have had to stay East to finish the work they came to do.

Two daughters-in-law are here also, but, unfortunately for me, many months ago I agreed to give the opening lecture in a course at Cooper Union, in New York City, and, therefore, I have to keep my engagement. After speaking at the Junior League luncheon tomorrow, however, I shall return so we may all have a birthday celebration for my daughter-in-law, Ethel. The dinner will be just a family party.

28

February 2, 1943

Washington – (Monday)
I had a letter the other day enclosing some clippings from a paper in a city, which has become tremendously overcrowded because of war activities. The clippings urged that women whose husbands are in training in that neighborhood should remain at home as a patriotic duty and not attempt to be with them while they are still in this country.

The letter accompanying these clippings stated that when a man was in training, the probability was that he would soon be ordered out of the country and that, if it was possible, it seemed only right that his wife and children, if he had any, should be near him. What did I think was the right procedure to follow?

It is a difficult question, because I do know that in many places, the Travellers Aid Society and all the local groups are attempting to find places for strangers to live and to tide them over until they have found a place. Every such agency is overburdened.

When a city becomes overcrowded, it is not just the lack of housing which is felt by all the residents. It is harder to get laundry work done and to buy food, transportation facilities are overtaxed, schools are overcrowded, places of entertainment are constantly filled to the limit. For the people who regularly live in that city, it is a difficult and often a disagreeable situation.

This is enhanced if the relatives and friends of the men in training require much assistance and, in addition, complain of the hardships which they have to endure. Yet, when all is said and done, if the man is going to leave this country on foreign service, and if his wife and children are willing to try to be with him until the last minute, I think everything should be done to make it possible.

It will require self-restraint on the part of the visitors, but all of us are citizens of a great country which is at war and these hardships are part of the war. Therefore, I think we must try to approach the situation with goodwill on both sides.

Some of my saddest letters come from the young newly marrieds, who have no children and who know when the man goes off, they must go back to a job so that they will not find the hours dragging. Every minute that they can have with the man of their choice is like the pearl of very great price hidden in the oyster, because it is surrounded by so much that is ugly and hard to face.

29

February 3, 1943

Washington – (Tuesday)
I had a number of appointments yesterday so my morning in New York City was very crowded. I enjoyed being at the Junior League for luncheon, and was extremely glad not to be removed from the plane by some military necessity, for in that case I would have had to arrive rather late in Washington for our family reunion.

I certainly was most anxious to see my husband and hear all the things which one cannot put on paper and which one never hears, if one does not hear them very soon after they happen!

In writing my column the other day describing the USO club I visited, I abbreviated so much that I apparently gave no recognition to the people who are running USO clubs. I realize, of course, quite well, that these clubs are now run by a committee of management, serviced by volunteers, except for a paid director and, occasionally, an assistant director, a director of programs and a superintendent of the building itself.

Volunteer workers have innumerable committees and carry very important and exacting work. In writing about the management of one of their USO buildings, I casually said a committee of men in the armed services showed me around. That grew out of the fact that in Great Britain, in every Red Cross Club, there is a committee of servicemen. Naturally, it changes as men are ordered to different places and only functions in conjunction with the permanent committee. This small committee of men, however, is the liaison whereby the likes and dislikes and the desires of the men are made clear to the civilian committees.

In addition to this, at this same USO, in speaking before the Monmouth County, New Jersey, Social Welfare Meeting, I tried to explain the system by which clothes are distributed in Great Britain, and evidently did it very badly. I want to take this opportunity to tell the people of this country that every individual in Great Britain receives a certain number of coupons and every article of clothing, when bought, reduces these coupons by whatever the government says each article is worth in coupons.

You may pay more for your garment, but you turn in the same number of coupons. When new things are sent over from here, or from any other source, nobody pays for them, they are given to the people. If they are new, the people are required to turn in their coupons. Our second-hand clothing has been of great assistance, because it can be obtained without payment or without coupons.

For people who are bombed out, this is a tremendous advantage, because even though the government recognizes their need for extra coupons, there are never enough for a complete wardrobe. That is one reason why the British people are so grateful to the people of the United States for the good quality second-hand garments which have come over. They have filled a real need.

30

February 4, 1943

Washington – (Wednesday)
I filled three speaking engagements in New York City yesterday. At 1:00 I spoke at the Cosmopolitan Club, and at 4:00 at the English Speaking Union. They have a busy workroom in their rooms at Rockefeller Center and they make very nice clothes for children and adults. I saw the results of their work in the storerooms in London ready for distribution. They read off a list of hours which people had worked and I must say some of the women must be very proud, for they have rolled up as many as two or three thousand hours. Of course, they wanted to hear about my visit to their London headquarters.

At the British headquarters they have a room where American officers are received and assigned to British officers. They take them around, show them the sights, shop with them, or try to meet any of the desires which an officer on leave, or an officer newly arrived and searching how best to settle himself in a strange place, might have. In New York City the English Speaking Union has officers’ club rooms, where they try to gather in officers of all the United Nations.

I left there a little after 5:00 and had two appointments at my apartment, a very pleasant dinner with a friend and then a meeting at Essex House, where I spoke. I was surprised to find a crowd of women outside, and when I did get in, I discovered that this meeting, called as a joint meeting of the auxiliaries of the AFL, the CIO and the Railroad Brotherhoods, had reached unexpected proportions.

Miss Mary Anderson, of the Women’s Bureau of the Department of Labor spoke, and then Mrs. Aldrich, of the OCD, and Miss Rose Schneiderman, of the New York Women’s Trade Union League, read greetings from the AFL and the CIO New York leaders. A program which the women were going to adopt as a working basis, was read and adopted, and then I talked for a time.

I was deeply impressed by the interest and evident desire of the women to find ways of doing war work. This great gathering is an answer to a question which had been asked of me earlier in the day by a woman, who said:

Do you think the British women have some particular quality which is lacking in us?

I have the greatest admiration for the work of the British women, but I am quite sure that, given the same need, the women I met yesterday in all three places where I spoke, regardless of background, would respond just as well as any other women in the world.

I took the midnight train back to Washington and arrived three hours late, to find Mr. and Mrs. Thomas F. Sullivan, Admiral Woodward and several others awaiting me. I was glad to have the opportunity to thank Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan, the father and mother who have given five sons to our country and who are still anxious to do more.

31

February 5, 1943

Washington – (Thursday)
Yesterday was filled with the usual variety of appointments and, in the late afternoon, I went rather sadly to see my daughter and her husband off for Seattle, Washington. These are such uncertain times one cannot help but dislike all goodbyes.

I devoted the evening to my mail and, at midnight, went in to find the President still deep in the accumulation which had greeted him. I protested that no secretaries should be at work at midnight, and she picked up almost as big a bundle of finished mail as that which remained unfinished in the basket and went home. The President has another evening of work before him without counting any of the additions which are pouring in every day.

Today, two sessions of a conference called by Miss Katharine Lenroot, of the Children’s Bureau, are meeting in the White House. The members of the conference are discussing children in wartime and I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the morning session, and hope to be at most of the afternoon session.

I saw an amusing little scene in the train the other day. A white haired, charming woman, came in with a slightly hurried, flustered look. All her tickets were bunched up in her hand. She was followed by a gentle looking white-haired man, who saw her seated and then left. I surmised he thought her hurry might upset her, but once outside, he stood looking up at her window.

She settled herself and I had time to notice her charming gray hat with magenta and gray feathers, which gave just the right touch of color to her softly waved hair. Then she caught the man’s eye, leaned forward eagerly and waved her hand. A smile of understanding and affection spread over the woman’s face and I thought to myself:

One of the blessings of age is to learn not to part on a note of sharpness, to treasure the moments spent with those we love, and to make them whenever possible good to remember, for time is short.

Time is never long enough for happiness anyway. I wonder if this is one of the things youth might learn from age.

I was struck by the fifth in a series of war time conversation pieces by Bonaro W. Overstreet, which appeared in a paper last Sunday. The following lines seem to be good advice for all of us:

Don’t stop wanting, but make your wants so big
They cover everybody – Not so little
They cover just yourself.

This is the advice of his mother to a little colored boy who was finding it hard to face some of the frustrations which come to minority groups. But these aren’t the words which should be said just to one group or to one age. They should be said to all of us. We must want for others, not ourselves alone.

32

February 6, 1943

Washington – (Friday)
This morning I attended an 11:00 breakfast at the Congressional Women’s Club. They were very wise in building the addition to their clubhouse before the war, so now they have a beautiful kitchen, out of which came a delightful breakfast.

The lady next to me had never seen hominy grits before. She explained that she came from the Middle West where that was not one of the accepted morning cereals, nor was it used in many ways that most of us brought up on Southern cooking are familiar. She liked it so much that I asked her if she knew the even coarser hominy known as samp, which is one of my husband’s favorite dishes. I hope that her family will be richer for this discovery.

Gradually, I shall learn to look at the signs on buses and now know where they are apt to take me. On the way back from the breakfast, I suddenly found my bus turning off at 16th Street and knew that I was going further away from the White House than nearer, so I got off at the next stop, realizing that my luncheon guests were all waiting for me.

Miss Thompson had, however, started them in to lunch, and I did not face the hungry and impatient guests I had pictured to myself. I had to explain to them, having just had a very sumptuous breakfast, I could not eat lunch, but it gave me more time for conversation.

Every time I pass the Stage Door Canteen here, I am reminded of the contribution which the various artists in the country and the management in the entertainment field make to the general spirit of our people. I understand they are not classified as an essential industry, and that probaby is as it should be.

Yet, the need for entertainment must be great, or one would not see such packed audiences when one attends a theatre, a concert or an exhibition of any kind. More people are looking at pictures, more people are craving music, the drama, the movies. I imagine this is due to the fact that we must have some lessening of the strain, and the only way to get it is by losing ourselves in somebody else’s expression of thought or feeling.

Many artists, of course, are now in the armed forces and some of them are making a very practical contribution through the development of camouflage. The record of all we are going through must be someday told by these artists through the medium of their particular art. That is the way they will contribute, not only to the spirit of the people living in this period, who must actually win the war, but to history and the education of those who must profit from the record of the war.

33

February 8, 1943

Old Saybrook, Connecticut – (Sunday)
Friday afternoon, Mr. John Pollock brought Miss Phyllis Thaxter to tea with me. She has been a leading lady in the company playing Claudia in Chicago and New York City, and she is joining the company which is playing in Washington. Friday night was her first performance, for the former leading lady has entered the movies.

There is some distant relationship to us through the Schuyler and Merritt families and I was very glad to have this opportunity of seeing Miss Thaxter. She seemed nervous, but I am sure she is a very charming Claudia. We had an interesting evening of discussion on European problems, and then Miss Thompson and I came to New York City on the night train.

Yesterday morning, I dropped in at a New York City department store to see a camouflage exhibit, and I also managed to do one or two errands before attending a lunch with some of my old political women friends.

An afternoon train took us to Saybrook, Conn., where we spent the night with our friends, Miss Esther Lape and Miss Elizabeth Read. This morning we went to Boston to visit the Naval Hospital here before continuing to Portland, Maine, where we must spend the night in order to be ready to leave at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow for the ship launching in Camden, Maine.

There is one thing which seems to be prevalent among us, and which I wish might be eliminated. Too many people who have members of their family in the armed services feel that any boy who is not in uniform is a shirker. Often they do not stop to investigate the true situation before expressing their opinion. The result is that many boys in necessary occupations, or in training, are made to suffer in a very unfair way.

Sometimes boys in uniform also look down on boys who are still in civilian clothes. Without finding out what the reason may be, they gang up on them, and actually roughhouse them, or belabor them with words. I know, for instance, of boys who have been obliged to stick to farm work, who are made to feel very unhappy.

I also know of boys who are studying medicine or engineering, who are made equally uncomfortable. Our sense of fair play should, I think, make us feel that investigation should precede any expression of feeling. We are now functioning entirely under a selective service system and if people think anything is wrong, it is the draft boards we should examine and criticize, and not the boys themselves.

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February 9, 1943

Portland, Maine – (Monday)
To continue a little longer along the lines of yesterday’s column. I have a letter from a boy enrolled in the Army Civilian Aeronautics Authority War Training Program, in which he tells me that life has been made very difficult for him and for many others who are taking a similar course.

This is a program which the War Department requested be made available to individuals who are unable to meet the qualifications of the Army for combat pilots, but who would qualify for co-pilots, liaison pilots, ferrying pilots and instructors.

These boys are given only board and lodging and no recompense for their services during the training period. Lately, they have been issued surplus uniforms left over from the Civilian Conservation Corps, and at last they have CAA wing and sleeve emblems. They are training because of their anxiety to serve and many of them already called to service have lost their lives.

The families of these boys frequently make a sacrifice while they are training, because some of the boys leave positions in which they are earning good salaries. It is highly unfair that they, or the boys in necessary civilian occupations, should be made to feel unhappy.

We are ready to start out bright and early this morning and shall have a busy day, but I cannot tell you more about it until tomorrow.

I have a letter from a man who is interested in the education of our young people for the future. His plan has been placed before educational authorities in Great Britain and her Dominions. He sends it to me because he feels that we, like Great Britain, must have a spur to release our greatest efforts in the future. This spur must be the love of creative work.

He feels that in all the countries of the world, as we remove economic pressure by giving people a minimum of security, we must, through education, see that they acquire an even more ardent desire to serve their community through creative work, or we shall lose something valuable in our civilization.

He reminds us that Aristotle said:

That slaves cannot be done away with, or who would do the tiresome work of the world.

We have replaced, my informant says, the whip of the slave driver by the whip of economic pressure. Today, in some measure, we propose to remove this pressure, and he asks:

If there is still to be great endeavor and keen purpose in the world, we must replace economic pressure by eagerness for knowledge, insatiable scientific curiosity, the spirit of adventure, passionate delight in creating, whether in crafts or the highest form of literature, music and art. How can we awaken this spirit in the common man?

Obviously, only through education.

35

February 10, 1943

New York – (Tuesday)
Yesterday, in Camden, Maine, was a beautiful day. There was a blue sky and sparkling water and snow lying under the New England pine trees, with here and there a white birch trunk glistening amid the dark green.

The building of wooden ships was almost a lost art. A few were built in the last war, but the men who built them had disappeared into other trades and the present need had to ferret them out. You find your master builders 60 years of age and more, and how they love their work! One does not expect barges to be very beautiful, but this one in Camden, Maine’s, shipyard had such good lines she was really graceful.

We went through a double ceremony. First, a small ship was launched, which Mrs. Helen S. Price, of Bath, Me., sponsored. She smashed her bottle easily and gracefully and then we proceeded across to the other platform, where I was to sponsor the barge.

I looked with interest at the workmen and women clustered around. Here were people learning a new-old trade. Not all of them were from Maine, for one man said to me:

Do you remember, Mrs. Roosevelt, when I drove you in a cab from the Algonquin Hotel in New York City?

All of them are fired with the desire to build well. There is a creative satisfaction in seeing a ship grow.

Finally, the word came that the moment had arrived and I smashed my bottle successfully, but not very gracefully, for I was simply bathed in its contents. Governor and Mrs. Sewall were present. The Governor was kind enough to hand me his large sized handkerchief, with which I finally mopped my face dry and found I was not really as drenched as I had at first supposed.

There are three young partners in this shipbuilding venture; Mr. Cary Bok of Philadelphia, and two men from Boston, Mr. Richard Lyman and Mr. Clinton Lunt. They are working long hours and the enthusiasm they put into their work communicates itself to the men and women working with them.

These Maine towns are, of course, completely changed by the war. They may have had summer tourists in the past, but now they have boarders the year round. There are no vacant rooms in the hotels or clubs which are near the shipyards. Some of the workers drive 50 to 60 miles to work, and the same distance home in the evening. Each car is crowded to the limit to save gas and rubber, but the work has to go on.

The Penobscot Indians, who build the lifeboats for these wooden ships, were on hand to take me into their tribe and to sing a song for my safety on far trails. They presented me with a wonderful sweet grass basket and a beaded headband. The Chamber of Commerce chose some children in the town to give me some blankets, which are made in a textile mill in Camden, and an old sailor made a model of the barge. I know my husband will claim it for the library at Hyde Park.

We came through to New York City last night and shall proceed to Washington today.

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February 11, 1943

Washington – (Wednesday)
I did not have space to tell you yesterday that, last Sunday, in Portland, Maine, when my train arrived a little after 9 p.m., Mrs. Eleanore Herrick met me and took me out to the shipyards to see the women working on the night shift. They have a great many women at work and it was really very dramatic to see the plant at night.

The women all seemed extremely interested. One of them told me that she drove 50 miles with her husband and four other workers every day. Another told me she had an 18-mile bus ride each way. I understand that these women would like to work without a day off, since Maine has no law requiring one day of rest in seven. The women know that this is a chance that may not last, to make money and to put it aside.

Maine people are thrifty, but I think they are a little too hopeful that making a supreme effort will bring the war to a rapid close. They must count on a fairly long pull. I doubt if anyone could stand constant work without a day’s rest, the women particularly should consider this.

In talking to the women, I found that many had older children who were being looked after by other members of the their families temporarily. Even in that case, it seems to me wise for a mother to spend at least one day a week catching up on what her children are doing.

On this trip I read the manuscript of a book by Miss Frances Blackwood, called Mrs. England Goes On Living. It will not be out for several weeks, and it is the result of six weeks which she spent in Great Britain in the spring of 1942. She wrote a number of articles for a Philadelphia paper which I read, but I think the book will give the most complete picture which I have seen anywhere of conditions as they touch home life in Great Britain for rich and poor alike.

Miss Blackwood is a trained observer and has a sure instinct for the human side of the picture and this book will have a wide appeal. Many people in this country have no great admiration for Great Britain’s policies as an Empire, but today we have an interest in the people of every country throughout the world. Any book which gives us a fresh and interesting picture, I am sure will be of value.

Learning about other people does not mean that, of necessity, one must emulate them. It does mean one will have a better understanding of their motives and reactions and, therefore, will be a better neighbor.

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February 12, 1943

Washington – (Thursday)
Yesterday afternoon, Mrs. Henry Morgenthau Jr. and I walked over to the Department of Agriculture, where the “Clothes Clinic” was giving an exhibition in the beautiful patio. This was sponsored jointly by the Treasury Bond Sales and the Department of Agriculture. The combination is easy to understand because, if you learn to use old materials and make over old clothes, you have more money to put into War Savings Bonds and Stamps.

Mrs. M. L. Wilson, wife of the Director of the Extension Service, is the moving spirit in the “clothes clinic.” We enjoyed the dress parade, which lasted for nearly an hour. None of the models were very old, but they were fat and thin, and some were very young. A little four-year-old boy proudly showed off a suit made out of his father’s suit, and, to my amazement, very smartly dressed ladies appeared in suits made from their husband’s trousers and coats.

I must say I thought the very thin and young were the most encouraging models, but that is true even when you buy brand new clothes. There were two young girls who bought new material and who made themselves two of the loveliest coats I have ever seen. Mrs. Wilson insists that any woman can become a good dressmaker or tailor if she will just come and learn. Think how much money we might all save if we did!

Last evening I met with a group of members of the Newspaper Guild and had a very pleasant time in getting to my destination on a street car. I almost lost my way again and thought I was going to be very late. However, I found that I was not the only person a little uncertain about Washington geography.

Some people have written me in surprise, that I should advocate young people leaving school before they finish their high school courses. Of course, I do not advocate anything of the kind. I know that in many places young people have left high school because they are bored by what they are doing. I doubt very much if there is any use in any young person staying in high school, unless the education offered excites their curiosity and spurs them on to do really hard work.

My criticism is that too often in our educational system we do not give young people enough individual attention and, therefore, do not adapt their studies to their needs. Instead of developing young people, this has a stultifying effect. Any criticism is of some of our teaching methods, but I believe in the value of high school education and would like to see us extend free higher education to all those showing ability and willingness to work.

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February 13, 1943

Washington – (Friday)
This is Lincoln’s Birthday and, following the custom of the past ten years, the President drove down to the Lincoln Memorial for the very simple ceremonies which are always held there at noon. I went with him and we watched the wreath being carried up the long flight of steps and heard the National Anthem played. I often wonder if the spirits of Lincoln and Washington have hovered over all the war Presidents since their day.

In the White House, itself, one is very conscious of the way that Lincoln must have suffered in the War Between the States. One can easily imagine him gazing out of the windows towards the river and listening to the sound of the firing in the distance.

Woodrow Wilson, an historian, must have been very conscious of the burdens that Lincoln and Washington carried. Perhaps Jefferson’s trials and tribulations touched him even more deeply, for it was the philosophy of Jefferson which inspired the thinking of the Democratic Party from that day to this.

The President also has the historical approach, I think, towards the events of the day. Perhaps to deal with the present, one should not only have knowledge, but a real feeling for the men and circumstances of the past. It must add to one’s perspective and make it possible to be more objective in all of one’s decisions.

Sunday, the fourteenth of February, is not just St. Valentine’s Day, though to many people that will undoubtedly loom as most important. It is the climax of Negro History Week, and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History holds its annual breakfast on that day.

It is important for all of us to know the story of the people of the United States as a whole, and every minority group has contributed toward the making of our nation. The Negroes have done much for our country. There are no wars in which they have not participated. Their poets, writers, artists, musicians, educators and scientists have contributed to the culture and development of the people.

At the beginning of the week, on February 7, Dr. Lawrence Reddick of the New York Public Library, announced the names of twelve Negroes and six white people, who are on the honor roll of race relations for 1942. These people are outstanding for the work they have done for the improvement of race relations in terms of real democracy. On the list are Dr. Franz Boas, distinguished anthropologist, who died on December 21; Mr. Wendell Willkie, Lillian Smith, Warner Brothers, the National Maritime Union and the Survey Graphic.

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February 15, 1943

Washington – (Sunday)
Washington is a most astounding place. Early in the morning I think that there is no one in town, and then I discover that the editorial writers are having a dinner in the evening and gradually I accumulate six or eight people at lunch. I want to see them all, but sometimes I wonder if they will get enough to eat.

I received a letter a few days ago from a British woman, two paragraphs of which I think will interest my readers:

It is wonderful to see the young men from your wonderful country, coming over here as they are doing to help in the salvation of the world. There are large numbers of them around here and I feel somehow that most of them must be the sons of fathers I knew during the last war. How they remind me of the same khaki figures of 1918! And it is funny, too, how music can bring back memories. Whenever I hear one of them whistle “Over There,” I am automatically brought back to the days when I was 17, listening to the same old tune.

Now, it is my own daughter who voices my thoughts when she comes home and tells me “how nice the American boys look” – just as I used to say some twenty years ago. Well, when all our troubles are over and when all the nations are at peace once more, let us hope they will remain so, so that when my daughter is older and married, and a mother herself, she will not have to see her children talking about war as she does to me, and as I did to my mother.

The League of Women Voters is helping to educate us by sending out a very simple leaflet. On it is a game you can play all by yourself. It is entitled, Am I An Isolationist? Under that heading you answer twelve questions and on the back of the leaflet they tell you how you should score your answers. At the very end they tell you why the answers are thus graded, and I think this is really a significant statement.

The explanation is:

If you made less than one hundred you haven’t passed, according to the rules of the game. If you made one hundred, you recognize the tragic, mistaken thinking that paved the way for the present war and will produce another unless it is corrected… You realize that the freedom and security of the United States are vitally affected by the fate of the other peoples of the world… You are aware that freer exchange of goods between nations is indispensable in a reconstructed world, because trade is the life blood of production and employment.

Ask your League office for this game and play it often.

I am leaving today at 5:30 a.m. for Des Moines, Iowa, to inspect the WAACs, and shall tell you about it tomorrow.

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February 16, 1943

Des Moines, Iowa – (Monday)
We reached Des Moines yesterday a little before noon and, as I had breakfasted at 5:30 a.m., I was very glad that our first stop was the mess hall. There, a young WAAC officer showed me through the kitchen, the storeroom and the iceboxes, and told me that they fed around two thousand people in a little over an hour.

Our table was charmingly decorated and no one could have asked for better food. The thing that strikes one immediately in looking at a large group of these girls and women who have come into this auxiliary army service, is their look of health and alertness. I saw no one who looked lackadaisical or uninterested. Life is so busy one must be interested, if not, I think one would fail and drop out.

I saw several barracks, including those for the colored group. Substantially, they have the same conveniences in the way of baths, showers and laundries. Some of them have double-decker bunks, as so many of the men’s barracks have, but everything was clean and neat.

This is the army behind the fighting forces. One gets a sense of ordered discipline. I still think that the lack of privacy must seem hard to the older women, particularly when they first come in and yet, all of them seem to adjust to it easily. There must be many backgrounds in this group of 9000 women and there are a great variety of skills and educational achievements. In fact, I was told that in looking through the classification cards almost anything that was needed could be found, but so often, people who had done a certain thing in civilian life would much rather do something entirely different in the Army.

We watched a parade and drove around the entire post, but there was much that we did not have time to see. In the city itself, several hotels have been taken over and the motor transport school and administrative specialist training is carried on there. This group marched into the coliseum and then went over and had supper at one of the hotels, where, again, the food was excellent.

At 7:30, we attended a reception in the Officers’ Service Club at Fort Des Moines and enjoyed very much the singing by the chorus and the playing of the band. I finished the day by speaking at Drake University at 9:00 p.m.

This trip is giving me a glimpse of what the women are doing in the war effort. I am sure that if all people in the country could see it, they would be as enthusiastic and as full of admiration as I am about the training and the women who take it.