Eleanor Roosevelt -- My Day (1943)

161

June 30, 1943

Washington – (Tuesday)
In my travels the other day I found myself seated next to a man who was on his way to the induction camp. He was no youngster and so I inquired how he came to be going into the Army. He told me he was a bricklayer by trade, had done some building in Washington and in various other parts of the country. Someone representing the Army Engineers had come to his union and asked for volunteers, so he had presented himself for voluntary induction and expected to go to camp in Louisiana to become one of our Army builders, who have made such a record for themselves all through Africa and in the southwest Pacific.

The Navy has a similar group, the Seabees, who build shore establishments all over the world.

My neighbor on the train is 36 years old, and has two children, thirteen and fifteen. His wife has a good job, and although she was very angry with him for volunteering, he said he felt it was his duty. This man, who had been his own master for many years, said:

I guess I’ll have to learn to do as I am told, but they say if you do that, you do not get into much trouble.

I have often praised the spirit of youth as it goes out to meet adventure. But today I would like to say a word for those who are a little older, who are already started in work which they enjoy, and which perhaps is useful in the civilian life of the country, but who still feel that it is their job to be where danger is a little closer to them. I know a good many of these men. It may not fall to their lot to do the heroic things which bring medals, but they are the stuff which America develops, and they are the men who will come back to be the responsible citizens of the future.

I was talking to a young officer the other day who feels very strongly that a democratic army must have something which is above and beyond that which makes just a good army. You can be a good soldier and yet not be a good citizen of a democracy, and a democratic army must be made up of men who are good soldiers but who also are conscious of the fact that their future depends on their being good citizens of a democracy. Therefore, even as they fight, they must think about what they want to do with their victory, what they want to accomplish when they come home again, and what they want their families to do while they are gone.

I have been seeing several members of my family in New York City during the last twenty-four hours, and paying visits to the Doctors’ Hospital each day. Now I am back in Washington.

162

July 1, 1943

Washington – (Wednesday)
Is one allowed these days to breathe a sigh of gratitude when the temperature becomes a little cooler? You may not mind warm weather, but when I find my dress sticking to my back, and I drip on to the letters I am writing, I find it somewhat inconvenient. Therefore, I really am very grateful to find the temperature today quite bearable and even invigorating in the early morning hours.

Last night I went to the inauguration of the new president of the Women’s National Press Club, Mrs. Elisabeth May Craig. Our dinner was very good, but care had been taken to have as few items of food which are on the ration list, as possible. Every hotel is having problems with regard to adequate service, and so for the great majority of the guests, the dinner was served buffet style. No one seemed to mind, and on the whole, I thought we got through more rapidly than usual.

Mr. Elmer Davis was the speaker of the evening. Both he and I seemed not to be tempted to talk over long. I finished in exactly the ten minutes which were allotted to me. I do not think any special time was allotted Mr. Davis, but he acted as though he had a time schedule too. His remarks were vigorous and to the point. He admonished us not to think that because we had won a few victories, that we had paid the full price of victory as yet. I think he was suggesting that there is no reason why any of us should pat ourselves on the back and feel that we can let up on any of our war activities or restrictions. Above everything else, I think it is our spirits we must watch, for a cheerful spirit makes our acceptance of the new conditions under which we live easy and helpful to others.

This morning a young man came to see me to talk about a high school organization, “The Student Federalist,” which has been circulating petitions in favor of a world government after the close of the war. It is a very good thing, I think, that these youngsters are educating themselves in terms of world affairs. That does not mean, however, that I expect them at present to have much effect upon the thinking of those who are actually working out possibilities for the future. The day will come, however, when they will have worked up to positions where they will carry responsibility. Then this background of early study and discussion will be of value to them.

163

July 2, 1943

New York – (Thursday)
My day yesterday was pretty well filled with appointments and a number of people came to lunch and to dinner. After dinner we saw a film, World of Plenty, sent over by the British Information Service and in addition, a short film of a trip from Alaska to the States made some time ago by “Slim” Williams and his dog team.

You may have seen “Slim” Williams at the Chicago Fair after he made this trip. He still feels that the route he followed is a better winter and summer road than the one picked out by the Army Engineers, but he is very proud of the fact that a road has been built. He has a firm belief that someday Alaska will mean a great deal to the United States.

This morning I came back to New York City to see Mrs. Henry Morgenthau Jr. and to go on to Hyde Park where I am expecting several guests for the weekend at my cottage.

Last Sunday in an Ohio village, a “Little Peace Conference” was held. Yellow Springs, Ohio, decided that if peace was to come in the future, it would have to begin in small communities now. People would have to know what kind of a town they wanted, what kind of improvements they thought were necessary and how to bring these improvements about in the interest of social betterment. Only by doing this could they be brought to understand what world conditions we were working for. So, they are making their experiment and I hope that the idea will spread to other communities.

I was very much distressed to read in the paper the other day that Greenwich House Settlement, where Mrs. Mary Simkhovitch has carried on for such a long while her remarkable neighborhood activities, is in really serious financial difficulties. Mrs. Simkhovitch writes me now that a local citizens committee is being formed which will tackle the financial problem. She thinks this is a good thing. The community should learn that the existence of Greenwich House depends on its worth to the community in dollars and cents as well as in human interest. These neighbors will have to appeal for outside help, and many of the people who have been interested in Greenwich House in the past will want to continue their contributions, I hope. There is much artistic talent in that neighborhood and I have heard of many a young musician who got his first start on the Greenwich House platform. Their pottery school has been outstanding and I am sure that the whole neighborhood would suffer if Greenwich House had to go out of existence. Mrs. Simkhovitch herself and her very brilliant husband are no mean assets to any neighborhood.

164

July 3, 1943

Hyde Park, New York – (Friday)
Everyone I saw yesterday in New York City spoke of the change in temperature, so apparently more of us object to being very hot than appears on the surface. Most people seem to have learned to take whatever they get, day by day, and bear it cheerfully, and so you don’t hear much complaint either of heat or of cold. Perhaps we have learned another thing which I overheard a woman on the train say a few days ago:

When I am working it doesn’t seem to matter what the temperature is, but when I am doing nothing, then I have plenty of time to think about it and I suffer every minute.

The lesson from that would seem to be that if we keep right on doing our jobs, the jobs will become so absorbing we will forget about ourselves.

Being able to forget about oneself is one of the great blessings which good health brings to people. If you feel well your body is not a matter of concern to you – in fact you are not even conscious of it. If in addition to feeling well, you can wear clothes which are comfortable and which you feel are appropriate, and I suppose if you are a woman, becoming, you can pretty nearly succeed in forgetting about yourself.

It is much harder, however, to succeed from the point of view of eliminating introspection. We spend sometimes too much of our time wondering how we feel about this or that; what reactions we have to this or that occurrence, and when carried to an extreme, this can be one of the most hampering occupations, which gives one little time to think of anything but oneself.

Back in the country and though I am busy, it is not the kind of occupation which takes up every minute as in Washington.

We are getting good vegetables from our garden now and enjoying them greatly. This subsistence farming, so to speak, which everyone is being encouraged to engage in, has spread a long distance away. I heard the other day from the Department of Agriculture that the armed forces were starting a garden of many acres on Guadalcanal. It will be a big garden and ought to feed a great many of our boys, and give them many of the things they would be getting at home, for to my surprise, that climate will apparently allow a great many of our vegetables to be grown very profitably. I have a feeling that probably melons will also grow there, though that was not on the list which the Department of Agriculture sent me. I can’t help thinking what pleasure the boys who were farmers back home, will have in working in that garden so far away from home, and I hope they are allowed to have some flowers too, since man does not live by bread alone.

165

July 5, 1943

Washington – (Sunday)
It is interesting that the Fourth of July this year should fall on a Sunday. Perhaps it is a sign that this is a solemn occasion in our United States and we should approach it, not in the usual spirit of national pride for past achievements, but in a prayerful spirit, asking for whatever help may be granted us to meet our present-day problems wisely.

On the war front we have had some successes and a lull in activity of late, but during that time the home front has been particularly active. We realize that war is being waged not only by the soldiers at the front, but in every country by the peoples at home as well. We are struggling to make a pattern at home which will carry us into the postwar period and help us to meet the problems of reconstruction.

As in other trying times in our history, it is easy to pick out men and women in our midst who are thinking solely in terms of their own self-interest and not in terms of their country. Sometimes I think that this war front between personal interests was in the past and is today, almost as bitterly contested as any other battle front throughout the world. Human beings are apt to be shortsighted. What is going to happen to them or to their belongings tomorrow or next week, is so much more real than any vision of what is going to happen to the world two or three years from now!

It may well be that this home front battle of ours in the United States may have a considerable effect, however, upon the military battle. If the world decides that in the United States we deal justly and fairly with all of our citizens, that democracy really means that the will of the people as a whole is translated into action, our strength may seem so invincible that resistance may become weakened. Enemy peoples may even turn more hopefully to the solutions which they see us working out on our domestic front. These solutions may prove to be adaptable to their own ways of life in the future and so they affect their desire to resist in the struggle now going on.

Each one of us as a citizen today looks back with pride on the service and sacrifice of former citizens. We celebrate the Declaration of Independence in which a people formulated their ideas of Liberty, and spoke with words which have become immortal. We may well remember, however, that each new day demands new service and new sacrifice, a different solution to new problems. Perhaps even the forging of a new document which may express the aspirations of a world for freedom as we once expressed the aspirations of a nation on Independence Day.

166

July 6, 1943

Hyde Park, New York – (Monday)
We have had a very pleasant weekend with a number of children to keep us busy. Our son Jimmy and his wife were with me at the cottage and, with the exception of yesterday, we had sun in which to bask after we swam. Yet it was cool enough weather so that I did an unprecedented thing – I had a fire in the fireplace in my sitting room and we sat close to it and enjoyed it.

On Saturday we had a picnic lunch and even at noon the sun did not seem too hot to make it pleasant. My old friend, Mr. Earl Robinson, who is on his way to Los Angeles, spent one night with us and gave a concert in the library in which the soldiers who were able to get away from their duties joined. I think they had a very happy hour listening to him and singing with him.

We have actually been reading some poetry aloud at odd moments, and that is always a joy. Jan Struther has written a new poem called “Wartime Journey.” It may not as yet have been published. It was to me a most moving and sensitive piece of writing and I was interested to find Earl Robinson at once putting it to music in his mind, for he asked me if someone had written the music to it. It expresses the kind of emotion that one can think of in terms of sound or painting.

I was saddened yesterday to find that the National Youth Administration is going to be closed down. I am not, of course, particularly troubled about the effect this will have on youth at present. I have felt all along that youth not called into the service could, of course, go into industry and get its training there. It seemed to me, however, that much training could be given by NYA which would make young people more useful when hired and therefore less costly in industry. The training given by NYA was basic, not specialized, as often must be in industry and, therefore, it is more valuable for future use if you have to change your job.

The main reason, however, that I am sorry to see NYA go is that I have learned how difficult it is to train people to do certain kinds of work and set up organizations to accomplish definite objectives. It seems to me highly improbable that in the transition period between war and peace we will not need an organization such as this to help our young people to prepare for new jobs. We did not have it in the past, but we have learned a great deal and I thought perhaps we could profit by our past.

The cost to the country has seemed very small. Perhaps we could even put it on the credit side, if it has been possible to compute how much this training really helped in using workers more quickly.

The decision is made and I only hope that in the future it will not be youth which suffers, but their elders who make these decisions for them and sometimes are slower to make the decisions to do the things which meet their needs when those needs arise.

167

July 7, 1943

New York – (Tuesday)
Tomorrow, July 7, is the day which marks China’s sixth anniversary of resistance to Japanese aggression. The Citizens Committee has written to me of their desire to honor China on this day, and of their belief that the greatest honor we could pay the Chinese people is to repeal the Exclusion Act and place immigration on the same quota basis that we have for any other nation.

I imagine that the country as a whole has given very little thought to this question, but there is no doubt that the Japanese have been using it as a great propaganda weapon. They hope to undermine Chinese morale by telling them that we show quite plainly that we never intend to deal with them on an equal basis. They report that China, in the future, has a better chance in a solid Asiatic block than in trying to make the world a peaceful world in which all nations can deal with each other on a friendly basis and consider each other’s citizens as individuals and as having equal rights wherever they go.

We have no real policy as far as I know on this question. This law was passed primarily with sectional backing and because of special interests, but the people as a whole have never, as far as I know, thought this question through as a question of future world policy and made their wishes clear to their government. Perhaps the time has come when the people of this nation have got to think of questions such as this for the very reason that we are counting today on our Chinese allies to give their life blood in the struggle against Japan. If they should decide to give up the struggle, it would not be of sectional interest to us, or a purely academic question. It would mean that boys from all over this country would face in the Southwest Pacific, a far longer war, a far more dangerous war. Even when the war was won, the whole nation would still be faced with an Asia arrayed against the rest of the world. It would mean that we must be prepared to meet that idea with a smaller population, necessitating better equipment, and equipment costs money.

I do not know and have no way of finding out what the people in this country as a whole really want to do, but I do think it is a question that they must think about and think about seriously. China has fought for seven years. Madame Chiang Kai-shek made it plain how she views the future and perhaps she and her people await our answer. It is an answer which no government officials can give – the people themselves must speak.

168

July 8, 1943

New York – (Wednesday)
I forgot to tell you yesterday that I came to New York City in the morning and had the pleasure of seeing Mrs. Henry Morgenthau Jr., who really seems better. She must still stay sometime in the hospital, but I think she is on the way to recovery, which is a great relief to all of us.

The last few days in the country were very delightful. Judge and Mrs. Samuel Rosenman have taken a house not very far away from us this summer, and we enjoyed going up a very steep hill to pay them a call one afternoon, and I think they have one of the most beautiful views from their terrace in all Dutchess County.

Someday I am going to live a life of leisure, but so far, I never find that I do half the things I want to do in a day. I am here in the country and I have to acknowledge that if someone were to ask me what I was doing, I should have to say, practically nothing! Nevertheless, the fact remains that the mail can take considerable time every day, and reading the papers and enjoying what youthful guests turn up and occasionally talking to a few adults who appear, as well, with just a little reading thrown in, seems to fill a day.

Of course, I have not mentioned that we swim and lie in the sun every day and that we do take a little exercise and see something of our neighbors, either on foot or on a bicycle. But I always wonder where the time goes and why it is so late at night when I finally go to bed!

Tomorrow, on the 8th of July, the Women’s Bureau of the Department of Labor will celebrate its 25th anniversary. It is interesting to realize that this Bureau was established in 1918, when the Department of Labor was only five years old. It was then a temporary “Women in Industry Service,” which was created to meet the need for obtaining women to fill the jobs vacated by men who had been drafted. Miss Mary Anderson succeeded Miss Mary van Kleeck as the first director in August 1919 and the service became a permanent agency by Act of Congress in June 1920. Labor bodies and women’s organizations and agencies concerned with social progress worked hard to obtain this Bureau which was:

…to investigate and report on all matters concerning the employment of women, to formulate policies and standards to promote women’s welfare, to improve their working conditions, to increase their efficiency, and so develop opportunities for their possible employment.

Everyone who wants to know anything about women in industry today, turns to Mary Anderson and this Bureau. It has become an important and active agency and all we can do is to wish it equal success for the many years which lie ahead.

169

July 9, 1943

Tumbling DW Ranch, Nevada – (Thursday)
I was reading the other night an old short story called “The Return of the Private” by Hamlin Garland. These were the men coming home from the Civil War and the particular men in the story were coming home to Wisconsin. It didn’t sound very different from what might be written of the situations which exist all over the country today. It told of a man who volunteered and left his farm with a mortgage on it, leased to a neighbor who didn’t work it very well. His wife and three little children, one of them just a baby when he left, had a pretty tough time during the years he was away, and even after they heard the war was ended and he was alive, he had to spend some months in hospitals. He came back, tired and worn, still limping a little, to a rundown farm with the mortgage still on it. It is the last paragraph of the story which I want to quote:

The common soldier of the American Volunteer Army had returned. His war with the South was over, and his fight, his daily running fight with nature and against the injustice of his fellow men, was begun again.

That is going to happen not only to privates but to many men who may have attained higher rank and who may have had small jobs, or fairly good jobs before this war began. What I want to point out is the fact that these men will not return to an undeveloped country. They will return to a country which still needs many things which can provide work for every man. If that is to happen, then thoughtful men must plan ahead what that work shall be in order to make it of value to the country and to distribute it so that it will employ men and at the same time fill the community needs without too much dislocation of population. Men who have settled themselves in certain parts of this country do not want to pull up their roots and give up the things for which they have slaved and move somewhere else to work. They want to work where they are established and, in all probability, with proper foresight and planning, that is a possible thing to arrange, but it just doesn’t happen.

That is why we had a Planning Board which took our national resources into consideration, both physical ones and human ones, and tried to see what would give us full employment and keep up our standard of living in the future. They made some plans and embodied them in the National Resources Planning Board report. That was available to all of us and will eventually, I think, be put into easier reading form for many of us. The group that did the planning has gone out of existence and nothing further will be coming from them. Therefore, we, the people must make our demands that something along these lines is planned, or it will be harder for our returning men than it was for the private after the Civil War.

170

July 10, 1943

Tumbling DW Ranch, Nevada – (Friday)
Some days ago, I found out from the War Production Board what the situation was as regards wool production in this country, and to my surprise I learned that whereas two years ago our problem was one of acquiring enough raw wool to meet our needs, today our bottleneck is machinery.

In the intervening time we built up a government-owned stockpile to meet emergency needs. Two years ago, we conserved raw wool by limiting the use of it and by blending it with other fibers. Today the trouble is that we have more demands from the military and for essential and foreign deliveries than our machinery can produce. Therefore, we are trying to increase production through extra hours and extra shifts, but this, of course, is difficult to do. We are now producing all the yardage possible and the effort is being made to preserve that yardage by making all economies possible in the manufacture of essential clothing.

I think some of the criticisms which have come to me about the details of the way this conservation is to be accomplished, should have consideration. Sometimes the people actually in the industry may want some things which are not really as good for the average consumer as they are for the trade, or at least the consumer does not think so. Such consumers’ organizations as exist and such individuals as have ideas on what is the best way to conserve yardage and still give people the maximum number of garments, should make it a point to be heard.

I think the officials in the War Production Board are doing a magnificent job and making every effort to meet essential needs, but I do not think the best-intentioned people in the world really can know what the people as a whole think unless those people take the trouble to make themselves heard through their own organizations, or as individuals.

I wonder if the privates in various camps throughout this country have been writing to each other saying:

Let’s see if we write to Mrs. Roosevelt if she will send us some cookies.

First, three boys in the far northwest wrote me, saying they would like a box of cookies from the White House. I sent them. The other day another letter came in from the middle west in which two boys said that various other boys in camp had wives to send them cookies, but they were single and got none. I suppose their mothers or sisters must have been too busy with other members of the family, so they too thought it would be good to get cookies from the White House! I am very glad to send the cookies, but sad to say, my dear boys, if this is a campaign there comes a limit to what the White House can do, and I think my last box of cookies to soldiers, sailors, or Marines whom I do not know, has now gone out.

171

July 12, 1943

Tumbling DW Ranch, Nevada – (Sunday)
A very pathetic case has come to my attention. The architect of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington was Mr. Henry Bacon. Every visitor to Washington and everyone who lives there, knows what that Memorial means to the people of the country. It is one of the things that expresses something we keep hidden within us, but we like to have someone say it for us and this Memorial does it better than almost anything else in the District of Columbia.

Artists are not always good businessmen, however. Sometimes they do not get paid all they think they are going to be paid. In this particular case, Mrs. Bacon, who is now an old lady, finds herself totally without funds, except those contributed by friends of her husband or by people who love the Lincoln Memorial. A committee has been formed to receive contributions, large or small, which may help to make Mrs. Bacon’s life more comfortable for her remaining years. Mr. Fletcher Collins, one of the members of this committee, and a member of the Architectural League of New York, 115 E 40th St., New York City, is the person to whom you may write if you are at all interested in this situation.

I have had a letter from Mr. Frederick Newlin Price about an exhibition which was held last month in New York City. It was a most interesting exhibition of paintings by famous American artists and the suggestion is made that it should be sent to various labor centers. It could be shown in a cafeteria or an assembly room and it could travel from one place to another and anyone who cares about music and art will see at once, I think, that something of this kind might be of infinite value at the present time. A picture may tell a story, just as a song or a musical composition, and you can suddenly understand things which never meant a great deal to you before. This might be a way of awakening people to the danger of race riots; to the need for working at top speed in order to save the lives of our boys at the front. If the exhibition does nothing more than rest those who are weary and give them a few minutes of relaxation and pleasure, it will have fulfilled a great purpose and I hope that someone in the government will be able to help Mr. Price to get this exhibition routed throughout the country. We are not using either art or athletics enough in the home front fight!

172

July 13, 1943

Tumbling DW Ranch, Nevada – (Monday)
Not long ago I had the privilege of reading the commencement address delivered this year at the University of Nebraska by the Director of the Budget. When he delivered it, I am sure he was speaking far more as a Quaker, than as the man of public affairs.

This address must have made a deep impression on the young graduates who listened to him. He told them things about the present world and the world of the future, which it is well for young people, who may be running that world, to remember. I like the following quotation:

It is depressing to think that mankind may stop fighting through fear. Fear alone is not enough… It is more honest to admit that the world is always at war in different ways. When we are not fighting with bullets, we fight with economics… Running through the centuries it seems clear that men have done their best when they were free, but what does free mean? Certainly not the right to do as one pleases. We think that America is the freest country in the world, but we have more laws per square foot than all the rest of the world put together, and every law tells us what we may not do or what we must do. We are free only because we steadily assert that our neighbor has equal rights and is or can be as good as we are.

Then he points out that in the end peace can only come when there is absolute gentleness in the heart of every man and it spreads from the individual to people in general and finally to nations as a whole.

Don’t forget that I have not told you to retire from the world. Please stay in it and work in it and also become gentle. You have had one of America’s finest examples of that in your own state. By his own character Senator Norris has stood for honesty in government… Mr. Norris is an example of a person with an attitude of courtesy towards the Universe. You need not be Senators in order to be effective. It will do if you can fit your conception of the Infinite into your work whatever it may be, only be sure you have a conception of the Infinite, so that what you do will not only be a job but a way of life as well. Let it be your own and walk by your own light. I never saw a really integrated person who was not also gentle. If we can achieve this, each of us, all that is poignant and sensitive in man can live in peace.

I particularly like the need for a conception of the Infinite and for walking by your own light. It has always seemed to me that too many people were willing to walk by other people’s light and in that way the light of the whole world was retarded.

173

July 14, 1943

Franktown, Nevada – (Tuesday)
Some days ago, as the newspapers have recorded, I came to spend a few days in this beautiful valley. I have a room that looks across a little lake to the mountains. There are farms around us settled long ago by some hardy Swiss pioneers. Gurgling streams run down even now from the mountains. Wild flowers bloom in the meadows, the pine trees and the cottonwoods give you shade.

I have walked in the early mornings with the sun coming up, and again in the evening under the moon and watched the stars come out, and renewed my understanding of our pioneers who gave us this vast land of ours. They had no fear of new adventure, there was no pattern to follow in their lives, they accepted men as they proved themselves in the daily business of meeting emergencies.

Have we lost this spirit, do we fear to face the fact that we have new frontiers to conquer? I was sick at heart when I came here, over race riots which put us on a par with Nazism which we fight, and make one tremble for what human beings may do when they no longer think but let themselves be dominated by their worst emotions. We are a mixed nation of many peoples and many religions, but most of us would accept the life of Christ as a pattern for our democratic way of life, and Christ taught love and never hate.

We cannot settle strikes by refusing to understand their causes, we cannot prepare for a peaceful world unless we give proof of self-restraint, of open mindedness, of courage to do right at home, even if it means changing our traditional thinking and, for some of us, a sacrifice of our material interests.

We visited an Indian school near here yesterday. It was a great satisfaction to see the nice dormitories, simple living rooms, and workshops. The girls who learn to garden, care for the chickens and cows and horses, who live in the little two room practice cottages and care for the baby, will take much back to their reservations to raise the standard of living.

The baby came to them a poor little undernourished waif, five months old and weighing nine pounds. It is a healthy little two-year-old today and the girls go out and earn money for their baby’s support. The older boys are nearly all off to the war, but the younger boys are there. I was particularly interested in the man who teaches them carving and does some beautiful work himself. He told me that he had never had a lesson, and yet his work has real quality and feeling.

We passed through extraordinary and ghostly Virginia City. What fortunes were made and lost there. There are still the remains of houses which give an inkling of the money spent. All materials came from far away and the difficulties of transportation must be hard for us even to imagine. The old opera house still stands with the list of famous people who appeared on its stage. Jenny Lind and the great Patti were among the number.

One of the things which warms one in this part of the country is the friendliness of the people. If your cattle get out, help is there as soon as your neighbors know you need it. I doubt if they have more time than the rest of us, but they are not afraid to be kind.

174

July 15, 1943

San Francisco, California – (Wednesday)
I flew into San Francisco yesterday just before dinner time. I was happy to see our youngest son and his wife again and we had a pleasant dinner and evening together. In just a few minutes I am starting off to visit the Oakland and Mare Island Hospitals. When I was here before, and saw the other hospitals in this area, I was told that really to visit the Mare Island Hospital would take an entire day. I could not do so then, but I can today, so we shall try to cover the whole hospital. I hope also to see my grandchildren for a few minutes before I take the plane to Seattle late this afternoon.

Our daughter and her children have been alone now a little over a month since her husband joined the fighting forces overseas. Fortunately, our eldest granddaughter is 16 and so is able to be a great help. The older boy of 13 has also become a very responsible and helpful member of the household. With a little boy of 4 at home, however, and a job which requires a good deal of time every day, our daughter really has been quite a busy person.

In the whole wretched coal strike situation, I am concerned that we should not forget the fact that many of the miners have real grievances, which should be carefully considered. I am going to quote for you a letter which came to me the other day, which I think may have some facts in it which are not generally recognized.

I am enclosing some of my husband’s Illinois statements. These are some of the lowest, but none were very high. His earnings for 1941 were a little over $800, for 1942 they were a little over $1100. As far as the 30 percent increase, which time-and-a-half for the sixth day’s work were to produce, in all these months the mine where my husband works has worked the sixth consecutive day once, and only once. As a general rule, they do no not even work five days a week. These are not bi-weekly statements.

This is a strip mine and portal to portal pay and equipment upkeep mean no increase there. The policy seems to be to work only enough to keep the men out of the “rocking chair.” The government might notice and take the unemployment compensation. They seemingly figure that under the tax setup they make about as much profit with a little work as they would working full time. I wish the government would take over all natural resources and operate them for the good of the nation instead of for the privileged few.

The above is quoted exactly.

175

July 16, 1943

Seattle, Washington – (Thursday)
Last night I flew into Seattle, having been busy all day in San Francisco. Adm. Reed called for me at 9:30 a.m. and we went at once to the Oak Knoll Naval Hospital. They now have a complete dental room and are doing very excellent work for the men who need it as part of their general hospitalization. Then we went through a number of wards and I saw many new boys and some of the patients that I had seen on my last visit.

It is encouraging to see these boys improve and change from mere skeletons racked by fever and pain into human beings well on the road to recovery. Youth is a great asset, but certainly modern implements of war can play havoc with the most wonderful constitution. As we stopped at one bed the doctor said to me, “This Marine tells us he is 19 years old, but we have our doubts about it.” My own surmise is that the boy is only seventeen, and he has seen a good bit of fighting in the Southwest Pacific.

This hospital has developed a small family wing since I was last there, which makes a great difference to the enlisted men who know that there is a place where their wives and family can be taken care of. After lunch, I spoke to the men who could be assembled outside on the grassy lawn, and then with Adm. Reed I proceeded to the Mare Island Hospital.

Oak Knoll, of course, is entirely new and it grows by leaps and bounds. Some 3,000 men are now being taken care of there. Mare Island is old and established and the construction is permanent. While it has increased in size, they are now trying to cut down on their number of patients. They have some orthopedic cases there and a shop in which braces, legs and arms are being made.

An experimental procedure is in process of development in which I was most interested. If it should prove as successful as they think it is going to be, the cost of artificial legs will be cut by almost two-thirds. Instead of taking several weeks if a part is broken, it will take only a few hours to repair it. These two things are very important to handicapped people.

If a man is earning his living and can’t go to work without his artificial leg or arm, the difference between a few hours and several weeks counts in his earning power. The difference between a $30 and $40 original investment and $150, which an artificial leg has cost in the past, is a very considerable item, not only in a personal budget, but in what it will cost in the care of rehabilitation of our men in Army and Navy hospitals.

There are at Mare Island also a number of psychiatric cases and the atmosphere in these wards seems to me extraordinarily cheerful. I was interested to find in both hospitals that WAVES are now being used in increasing numbers, both as hospital corpsmen and as technicians of various kinds. There is a school for the WAVES who are training as hospital corpsmen at Oak Knoll. One WAVE at Mare Island is a psychiatrist.

By the end of the day my feet were somewhat weary as well as my spirit. I take my hat off, however, to the way the work is being done in these hospitals. It is one of the things we can be very proud of. There is no question in my mind but that our boys are getting the best of medical care and excellent nursing. I went to my son’s for a cup of tea and glimpse of the children and took the plane for Seattle.

My daughter and I attended a meeting this morning, but I shall have to tell you about that tomorrow.

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July 17, 1943

Seattle, Washington – (Friday)
Friday afternoon I left with my daughter to go to Port Angeles by boat. She was going to the Olympic Shipbuilding Yard to christen a coal barge. I christened a small one of the same type on the Maine coast last winter and was interested to see this much larger variety. The yard, itself, is interesting because it is a community project.

Congressman Henry M. Jackson proposed to the citizens of Port Angeles, including particularly the officials of labor, that they unite in encouraging the construction of this yard. Ninety-five percent of the men and women working in the yard have never done this type of work before. This yard is privately financed, privately built and is on a fixed contract, which means the contractor furnishes the shipyard and takes all the risk. It is an interesting community experiment and shows that when people understand a need, they can work together to accomplish results.

A few days ago, in San Francisco, I was struck by the reading of an article in a newspaper, with a heading as follows:

Union Rules Slash War Output 15 Per Cent. Engineer declares silent strike injures men at front, undermines home morale.

I looked at once for the name of the man making these statements and found that he was writing under a “nom de plume.”

Sometimes, I wonder whether we have a right to indict a whole group of people without using our own names so that they may answer directly. Yesterday I saw another statement, this time by Mr. Donald Nelson. He was saying that production had fallen off and gave as the possible reason that we in this country were becoming too confident of victory. We thought it was “just around the corner” and so we slackened our efforts on the home front.

I’m wondering if the first article and many similar ones, in addition to other actions that have been taken in the past few months, may not have more to do with this slump in production, than overconfidence in victory. I would like to ask the mothers of the country if they ever remember a day when their youngsters told them that:

…the food wasn’t good, they didn’t like what their mother was doing, that other youngsters’ mothers did things better than they did.

Wasn’t the reaction a desire to go upstairs and sit in a comfortable chair and say:

Children, arrange your home, get your own supper, do your own disciplining. I am going to take a rest.

Human nature is much the same, whether you are a mother at home or whether you are one of the great army of organized or unorganized labor in the United States. Psychology may be a science, but a knowledge of human nature is its basis. I think the time has come when we, the people, most of us workers in one way or another, had better practice a little of the same psychology and say to the few who only criticize and never praise the effort of the workers, that more production will come when a real effort is made to understand the problems that workers face and to give some recognition to the magnificent achievement in production which a great number of human beings have worked together to bring about.

If there are bad union rules, go to the leaders and work with them to have them corrected, but don’t tell the workers as a whole that they are on a “silent” strike which injures their men at the front. It won’t get you more production, it will only get you less.

177

July 19, 1943

Seattle, Washington – (Sunday)
Yesterday morning my daughter took me to a meeting of the Pacific Northwest Trade Association in the Chamber of Commerce Auditorium. This meeting was held in the interest of further developing the military communication and trade routes between this part of our country and Alaska. The obvious first step is another road, the present one having been built for military reasons to tie up the existing airports.

This proposed new road would be a more direct way from the West Coast states through British Columbia to Alaska. The meeting was attended by representatives from British Columbia, who are naturally deeply interested in the development of better transportation in this part of the country. The plan was discussed first from the military point of view and it seemed to me to have obvious interest for the Army. But I think it also has distinct interest in the postwar period from a commercial point of view. Quite obviously much of the trade between Alaska and the States must be with the West Coast.

In all probability, many of the people taking part in this discussion yesterday have not been enthusiastically backing the National Resources Planning Board, and yet I noticed that the information contained in the Board’s latest report on the future possibilities of development along various lines in Alaska, was essential to prove the value of the road which this group wishes to have built.

The discussion proved the value of research and planning and the need for knowledge. It is essential for the future that we know about the undeveloped resources in different parts of our country. This illustrates our shortsightedness in doing away with a board which has already gained a great deal of knowledge and which might be increasingly valuable as we enter the postwar period.

Quite obviously, this proposed road to Alaska can be urged now on purely military grounds. Just as the first one was built to increase the protection of this coast, the second road can be built for that reason, and that alone. But I think the gentlemen I saw yesterday are thinking beyond the war period. They know that the development of Alaska is valuable to the whole West Coast. In addition, they know that it is possible in the future that this will be one of the quickest routes to reach parts of Russia and China.

Anyone with imagination today, who has watched the Russian experiment and realizes what they have done in industrial development in the past few years for purposes of war, must also realize that they will do much in the years to come for purposes of peace.

Siberia has been an undeveloped land, but much more is being done there today than ever before. Much will undoubtedly be done for the industrial and agricultural development of China after the war. There are vast possibilities there to market our goods, to use our knowledge and our brains to help make this tremendous population a better market for us.

Millions of people in China have had very few of what we consider the comforts of life. Once given an opportunity to increase their own earning power, we shall have an opportunity to find out whether the things we have found desirable can be made desirable to them. All this is implicit in the plans which the Pacific Northwest Trade Association are considering.

It will have to go to Washington and the representatives of the country as a whole will have to see the vision which the people of this coast see so easily. I think it is such a magnificent vision for the future that the people of the United States, who have always been pioneers and loved adventure, will want to embark on this new adventure.

178

July 20, 1943

Seattle, Washington – (Monday)
I must tell you a little about our day yesterday. It was one of those rare and wonderful days when the atmosphere was so clear that both Mt. Baker and Mt. Rainier could be seen in their full grandeur, snow covered and gleaming in the sun. The water was smooth and somewhere around 300 boats, members of the Coast Guard Auxiliary, passed in review on Lake Washington.

To me, the most impressive thing was the fact that all the men who worked on these boats gave hours of their time every week, in good weather and bad alike, after they had done their regular jobs, in this public service. They are volunteers and through their work they have freed the regular Coast Guard ships for work near the combat zones. These boats carry a great responsibility, for they patrol the many entrances to harbors where enemy ships could easily come in and lie in safety and operate against this coast and our people.

They tell me that groups like this are functioning on every coast, but I have not seen such a parade before. It certainly gave me a great sense of pride in the initiative and self-sacrifice shown by the people of these neighboring harbor cities. It is good for us who live so much of our time in Washington, DC, to see firsthand what the nation is doing in the war effort.

When you are in the Capitol City you tend to think that everything centers there, that all the work is done there and you forget that Washington is only a center from which ideas and suggestions radiate. It is the people all over the country who have to do the work and the results of their work are reflected in Washington in news of good or bad morale.

Seeing the Olympic Shipyards in Port Angeles and the people of that community was a tremendous inspiration also. Here are three young men, brothers, all putting their best work into an effort to make a real contribution to our shipping facilities. Being older myself, I was interested in meeting the father and mother of this trio. The father, Mr. Miller Freeman, is still an adviser to his sons and I judge a very active one. Mrs. Freeman also seemed to me keenly interested and very helpful in important family arrangements.

Mr. Kemper Freeman has transplanted his whole family from Seattle to Port Angeles, quite an undertaking for his charming, pretty wife with her four small children. Most of the people of Port Angeles attended the launching. The population is some 9,000 and many work in the yards and, therefore, it is not strange that the first launching created great excitement. I hope that all the others will be as successful and that the community spirit will remain as purposeful and as vigorous as it is today.

Mrs. Nan Wood Honeyman, from Portland, Oregon, and a young friend of mine, who is in the Army stationed in Portland, are both coming to lunch with us today.

Reading the papers this morning I gathered that we are undertaking an appeal to the Italian people from the people in our country of Italian descent. I hope that our armies may be considered as armies of liberation, but I fear the German military establishment in Italy may still be too strong for this to be possible. At least this appeal may weaken resistance and it may not be so determined nor so bloody, and that may save many young lives.

179

July 21, 1943

Seattle, Washington – (Tuesday)
This morning my daughter and her daughter came with me to the U.S. Naval Hospital, where Capt. Joel T. Boone is now in command. I had seen this hospital only last spring, but the expansion has been tremendous in these last few months. I saw some of the boys that I had seen before. Three of them were Marines from Guadalcanal. Two of them told me they were ready to go back to duty and they would like to get back with my son, James.

I am glad to say that he will also be back in active duty within a week, so perhaps these boys will find themselves together again, but I hope that it will not be in the Southwest Pacific, for the climate seems to have been too much for them all down there. Perhaps, the northwest may be kinder.

It is quite remarkable to me how comfortable these temporary buildings, which are being erected to take care of the increased number of patients, can be made. They are painted white inside and have plenty of windows so they are both light and airy. The equipment in this hospital in every department is very excellent. Their x-ray machines, operating rooms, dental clinics, physiotherapy work – in fact, every technical branch which may be needed for the care of any disease, is well developed and equipped. More WAVES are going to work as hospital corpsmen and as laboratory technicians, and those they have are doing a very good job. Most of their nurses are reserve nurses, with only about a dozen of the old-time service nurses.

A group of officers’ wives were working for the Red Cross in the nurses’ quarters, making dressings and bandages. I am sure that if so many willing hands work one full day every week, as they are now doing, they will turn out all that is needed for their own hospital.

We went through the tuberculosis wards, where there were men from the Northwest and Alaska and the Southwest Pacific. The two extremes of heat and cold seem to be equally bad for anybody with any tendency to bronchial or lung trouble. Fortunately, however, most of these patients, who usually have a rather tedious recovery, seem to be on the mend. I am sure that the fact that the Navy discovers cases early, is one of the reasons for the quick improvement which so many of them seem to show.

The sulfa drugs, too, have taken away the terror which used to accompany a case of meningitis. They told me they had not lost one case. We are, of course, still studying some of the more obscure tropical diseases. I think our whole medical service will gain greatly by the variety of climates and conditions under which our armies and navies are fighting in this war.

We have just returned to Anna’s office and, after a glass of milk and a sandwich, we are leaving to go to the Pacific Car and Foundry Company, where I have been asked to present the guidon to the auxiliary military police for outstanding efficiency, appearance and training. This service, guarding our war plants, is very much needed and I am glad to find it is receiving recognition.

I need not tell you that our days are busy ones, but doing things with my daughter is pleasant. Tomorrow I shall leave to return to the East.

180

July 22, 1943

Seattle, Washington – (Wednesday)
My attention has been drawn to the fact that several days ago I wrote a column on a commencement address delivered at the University of Nebraska, and attributed it to the Director of the Budget, instead of to Judge Curtis Bok, who was the real author. How I happened to make this mistake is difficult for me to understand, for I was quite well aware of the fact that I had two commencement addresses, both of them equally interesting, one by Judge Bok, and one given by Mr. Harold D. Smith, Director of the Federal Bureau of the Budget.

But Mr. Smith’s address was given at Grinnell College, Grinnell, Iowa, and I have not yet had an opportunity to tell you some of the things he said. They were important things and I mean to tell you about them today, because they are things which deal with the preparation of young people through education for participation in the community life of the future.

Mr. Smith reminds young people that in these present years we are proving our ability to destroy “quickly, effectively, overwhelmingly,” and then he tells youth that our real test and our real development lies ahead in proving our power for “constructive effort.” He insists that “education must be forged into an effective creative instrument for the job of building a better society.” He fears that our tendency to promote primarily technical education, which is needed at the moment, may create great difficulties when we shall need all the liberal arts and cultural education we are temporarily neglecting, in order to meet the problems of reconstructing society. He insists educators must not allow themselves to be isolated in their classrooms or on their campuses, but must be a vital part in the current movement of the day. Specifically, he says that we have failed to train men in administrative leadership.

We do not develop through education the managerial qualities which must be based on a knowledge of the new trends of civilization and an ability to understand the ways of social progress. He also makes an urgent plea against specialization in education, which does not allow the training of young people with a sufficiently broad background to see how many things must be fitted together before they can get a pattern of really satisfactory living in the modern world. Labor, the farm, the city dweller, the press and the government must all work together, instead of frequently pulling in different directions with only their individual points of interest in mind.

For instance, there is a popular theory that a government administrator and a business administrator are two people requiring different training and probably developing antagonistic attitudes toward each other. As a matter of fact, they are very akin to each other in the problems they face and in the ways in which they should be trained to face them.

The solution of the problems in our democracy will always require citizens that can see beyond the limits of their own profession, their own class, their own community. This applies to those who choose the leaders as well as to the leaders themselves. It applies equally in the fields of politics, of religion, of industry, agriculture and labor; it applies in every community of the land.