Eleanor Roosevelt – My Day (1944)

161

July 5, 1944

Hyde Park, New York – (Tuesday)
I am beginning to understand the problems of the farmer and the home gardener better than ever before. My eldest grandson is helping on our farm. He is 14 years old, and I am sorry to say it takes a little while to really break in anyone to be much help. But he is doing his best.

We have a little family vegetable garden near the cottage which the children and our guests work in, and I am always conscious that it is the best possible exercise, though I never have time to do enough. So, I don’t feel that I have made much contribution to the destruction of weeds. However, the children brought in a large number of radishes for lunch yesterday. Bringing radishes in for lunch was one of my most constant achievements when I was a child and had a garden of my own.

We all had a picnic lunch on the lawn at the cottage yesterday, and then last evening we had some guests at dinner.

I am beginning to realize that an old house can take up a great deal of time if one just goes through the accumulation of the years. First, there are books; next, things which have been kept for sentimental reasons, and which are not wanted by the present generation, and yet no one knows what to do with them; lastly, innumerable photographs of people hard to remember or identify. I don’t know what people do when they don’t have a “library” to absorb anything of a historical nature. I imagine they do what I do with the things that the library will not take off our hands. I give them to the waste paper campaign or burn them up when I can find no use for them in any scrap drive.

At a meeting not long ago, I met Mrs. Robert Weeks Kelley who at the request of the Navy League of the United States, organized its national women’s council about two and a half years ago. She began with five women, and now there are over 84 state and local councils throughout the country, and many more councils are in the process of formation. Ever since 1902 when Navy League was formed at the request of the Naval Order of the United States, and with the endorsement of President Theodore Roosevelt, it has been known as the civilian branch of the United States Navy. The purpose of this national women’s council, however, is to do things which contribute to the comfort of the officers and enlisted men of the Navy. They carry on in various places, canteens, consultant bureaus, education departments, midshipmen’s recreation centers and training schools, recruitment centers for WAVES, SPARS and Marines. (By the way, did you see that the lady Marines have filled their quota?)

The list of activities is really too long to enumerate all of them, but this civilian branch of the Navy works in cooperation with the Navy Relief Society and the Red Cross. This arm of the Navy League pretty well covers whatever can be done to make the Navy men feel that they are a much-cherished branch of our Armed Forces.

162

July 6, 1944

Hyde Park, New York – (Wednesday)
Not long ago, I was told the story of someone who was reading over letters of recommendation for a prospective employee. These letters of recommendation were from people in pretty important positions. One was from Vice President Wallace and one was from Mr. Maury Maverick, and there were several others from gentlemen of similar importance. The reader looked up and shook his head, saying:

These letters prove what I have always thought, this man must read PM, and the Nation and the New Republic. He must be affiliated with some subversive organization.

It is curious the way some people seem to think that if you read anything liberal or talk to any people whose ideas are not exactly similar to those of highly conservative groups, you must of necessity be a radical. We live in a country in which our proud boast for many years has been that we could hold to any ideas that we choose to believe in. Our boast has been that we could speak our minds on any subject and in any way we chose, and we would be protected in our right to hold to our beliefs or to express ourselves as we pleased.

The war has changed this somewhat, but never enough to intimidate great numbers of people. A few people in Washington who hold minor positions have been troubled by investigation into their private lives or into their political views and activities. That perhaps is almost inevitable in wartime, though I have wondered sometimes why one group seemed to be so much more the object of investigation than certain other groups. Nevertheless, I think we can pride ourselves on having kept our own sense of security fairly intact even during the period of war. This security is the basis for all free beliefs and expression.

Before long we will emerge from this period of war, and then we will face our real test. Have we been permanently influenced by a war psychology or will we return to the complete confidence we had in ourselves in the past? Will we be sure that the majority of our people are sane men and women of goodwill, with convictions and intentions which will make it quite possible for this country to govern itself by the will of the majority? Will we be sure that we can remain unharmed by the influence and expressions of those who may either be too radical or too conservative for our taste, or who may have some particular “phobias” which we do not share as a people?

There are ways, of course, in which we are not very mature as a nation. Many peoples have shown through their art and literature that they have gone beyond the particular point in civilization which we have attained, but there is a virility and a spontaneous youth about this country which ought to contribute much to the rebuilding of the destruction in every field in the wake of this war. To do it, however, we must again have confidence in the character and good sense of the majority of our people.

163

July 7, 1944

Hyde Park, New York – (Thursday)
I think we have all been remarkably fortunate in this part of the country because the whole holiday weekend was clear, and bright and sunny, except for one thunderstorm which came upon us Tuesday afternoon. The short downpour made us have a shorter visit with some friends who were coming to tea, because they could not start out until the storm was almost over.

We had two nice young people spending the Fourth with us, a young actor and his sister. The boy is now playing the most important part of his life, at least to us at home, because he is in the Navy. The two days he spent here were just between sea trips. We put him through all the rural occupations we could think of, from riding a horse, which decided to give him a rough and playful time, to pitching hay in the barn one morning for two hours. He left assuring me that he felt in grand shape, and he and his sister both said they would come again with the greatest of pleasure. My grandson Buzz was pleased, I think, to have someone else around who was new at this business of farming, for it is hard work at the start.

Yesterday I spent most of the afternoon on the mail, but we did have a swim in the morning and a picnic lunch on the lawn. I often wonder if my own fondness for eating out of doors on paper plates isn’t a little hard on the other members of the household and my guests, who would hardly dare to loudly proclaim that they preferred their food in a more formal fashion. One gentleman who knows me rather well, did muster up courage to mention to me that certain kinds of food melted wax paper and that he had eaten a considerable amount of the paper. I’ll have to find a new kind of unbreakable picnic plate, I think, but plates have to be washed if they are not paper plates and that is a serious consideration.

Almost a year ago, when I went to the Southwest Pacific, I visited the Red Cross headquarters in Honolulu, and I was much impressed by the efficient set up and the interest of all the workers. One of them, Miss Elsa J. Pennington of Lakewood, Ohio, is now home again waiting reassignment. She was the secretarial head of the communications department, so she handled proxy marriages, transpacific nuptials, and messages of birth, death and serious illness. When she left the area, the month’s total of communications had numbered 11,000, so you can see that their office is a busy one. On one occasion, there were 97 men in line outside of her office waiting on the chance that she could contact friends and relatives who might be in the same territory at the same time for them. Miss Pennington is typical of many others of our Red Cross, devoted to the men they serve throughout the world.

164

July 8, 1944

Hyde Park, New York – (Friday)
Yesterday we took Mr. and Mrs. Albert Lasker, Mr. Paul Robeson and Judge Hubert Delaney, over to the Wiltwyck School. I do not think I shall soon forget the expressions on the faces of those little boys who left their painting under the trees and gathered around Mr. Robeson. He told them a story, and sang bits from the “Ballad for America” and other favorite records of his, which they have in the school, so they were able to join in. Not a child there will forget this day, which to them certainly was a red letter occasion.

The holidays have set in, so half of the boys at a time sleep out in tents on the camping ground. You cross a swiftly running brook, and you are hidden by trees from the world. When I was a child, I always wanted to follow a brook to its source. Perhaps those boys dream about that too.

There was a young artist from Woodstock teaching the boys painting, and some of the councilors were instructing in other crafts, woodworking, modelling in clay, and carving. Every boy wanted to show me his work, and some of the carving, as well as the painting, seemed to me to show extraordinary talent. The little boy whom the artist-instructor said had marked talent in painting, seems to have it also in carving. Mrs. Henry Morgenthau Jr., who was with us, picked out his piece of carving after looking at his painting, which shows that the same kind of ability and spirit was shown in both pieces of work.

Dr. Cooper, who is in charge of the school, said: “I hope he finds an interest and a way to express himself through the medium of art because otherwise he might grow up to be a real menace to society.” These little boys present interesting problems, and each time I see them, I seem to see a change for the better.

One little boy, whose life at home had been very difficult, and would have every reason, I imagine, not to feel very kindly towards his family, showed me a very good piece of carpentry work and told me that he had made something else to send home.

Children are forgiving, but in work of this kind, with delinquent children, between the ages of seven and fourteen, it is almost as important to cure the ills of the parents as it is to cure the children. Wiltwyck School has an office in New York City, and while the children are cared for in the school at Esopus, the welfare workers in New York City try to explain to the parents what brought about their difficulties, and help them to overcome these difficulties in the future.

165

July 10, 1944

Hyde Park, New York – (Sunday)
It is curious, when the news is so full of the loss of human life and when we are so accustomed to the harm that can be done to the civilian population by robot bombs and bombings of all kinds, that we should react with such horror when we read of an accident such as the one which occurred in Hartford, Connecticut. just the other day. Perhaps it is because so many of us remember the joy of our childhood in seeing a circus under a tent. The realization that it can turn into such scenes as those which the papers describe makes one recoil in horror.

One can only hope that in the future every precaution will be taken to prevent such disasters from happening. The loss of life which occurs unnecessarily, and which one feels might have been prevented, just seems to add to the world’s burden of sorrow – it is the last proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back.

Again two bases in Japan have been bombed. Little by little, in its homeland, that country is going to know the same kind of horror which has visited the Axis countries of Europe, and which Japan itself has meted out to so many peaceful and unsuspecting island people.

If it were not for the papers and the radio, I would be almost inclined, sometimes, to forget the war up here. The woods are so quiet, the brooks murmur just as cheerfully and the flowers bloom as bravely, as if all the world were as peaceful as this little spot on the Hudson River.

Yesterday we had a picnic for 25 very active small boys. They spent an hour in the library, and we hope that they derived some educational benefits from there. Then, the real interest of the day centered on food. One small boy came to me and said: “I have eaten seven helpings of ice cream and three glasses of lemonade, I think I have a tummy ache.” But he told me afterwards that he would always prefer to eat good food, even if he became uncomfortable after eating too much of it.

After lunch we told them they all had to rest, and so we gathered them under a tree and I read them Kipling’s story of how the elephant got his trunk, which they seemed to enjoy. Then we had games and races, and they left me at three o’clock, saying that as soon as they got back to camp, they were going to have a swim. Their crowning joy was that each carried a prize for some feat which he accomplished during the games.

The tug-of-war seemed to be the most successful of all. I discovered that the lawn sloped a little in one direction, so I made the teams change places each time, and thereby managed to see that everybody got one prize at least, for those on the downward slope always seemed the stronger team.

166

July 11, 1944

Hyde Park, New York – (Monday)
I have had the pleasure of having Mr. and Mrs. Charles Taussig, and Mr. and Mrs. William Brown Meloney Jr. for a short visit over the weekend. Mrs. Meloney (Rose Franken) brought me the book of her play, Outrageous Fortune, which she and her husband produced last winter and which I was not able to see. I read it with great pleasure the night before last.

Many of the characters stand out as completely real people. I almost seem to know them. The old mother is typical of hundreds of older women whom I have known, who were tired of living. In addition to the physical weariness, the need for the work of their hands and minds has slipped from them to the younger generation.

The basic point of the play is that we should look upon people as people, and not as belonging to any one race, and therefore having a number of typical racial attributes. In every race, the members of one family differ as widely as it is possible for human beings to differ, and our whole approach to human beings must be on the basis of what each individual has to offer and what particular problems within himself each person has to fight. Circumstances may have forced certain attitudes on different races, but those are not inherent attributes of the races.

The play is well written, and even the things which are disagreeable are handled with sensitiveness and a delicate touch. Everything Rose Franken writes has a quality of humor, and that is not lacking in this very serious piece of writing.

I want to go back to the question of the older woman in a family, the widow whose children feel that she will be less lonely if she lives in a home where grandchildren are growing up and where she has young life around her. They assure her that she will be welcome and they insist that her happiness will be far greater with them than if she lives alone. Of course, when this happens because of economic necessity, an older woman who is still fairly well, can be a real help. She can mind the children, she can help with the housework. But the minute her work is not really needed, I think an older woman is happier if she lives alone, no matter how simply she has to live. If she has visitors, she can extend her own hospitality. She does not feel that she is on anybody’s mind, and she can govern her life within whatever modest budget she may have in the way that suits her best. It is hard, I think, at the end of a long life not to control your own surroundings, no matter how much you may have to change your way of living.

167

July 12, 1944

Dayton, Ohio – (Tuesday)
I left Poughkeepsie yesterday afternoon and reached Dayton, Ohio, this morning. I am spending part of the day visiting Wright and Patterson Fields, and the late afternoon and evening at Antioch College, where I am to speak at a conference on international affairs held under the auspices of the American Friends Service Committee.

I will travel back tonight to New York City so as not to be away from my grandchildren any longer than I have to. I have never enjoyed anything as much as having so many children with us this summer.

It is a little late perhaps for me to pay a tribute to China, but in spite of the fact that July 7, which marked the seventh day of the seventh month of the seventh year of China’s warfare against Japanese aggression, is now past and though other people have already noted this date, I want to say a few words about the significance of the fight which China is now making.

It has been a very hard fight of late, with Japan putting in all the strength she can, and trying to establish on the mainland of China a situation which would neutralize whatever victories were accomplished by us in the Pacific Islands. Japanese success would not mean, in the long run, the conquest of China, but success might give new resources to Japan which would make the Allies’ struggle for eventual victory all the harder.

For that reason, China, which has fought all this time, is being called upon for even greater effort than before. We here in this country find it hard to visualize what we really are asking of China.

We are a great industrial nation with none of our industries impaired. Our difficulty has only been in obtaining certain basic materials, and the attack upon us was largely upon the shipping which brought us these supplies. But China has been driven out of her great cities along the coast. Her industries are now largely hand industries. She never had an industrial development like ours. She has had to do without, to substitute and to suffer and fight without the things she needed. In short, manpower has done over and over again what machine power would do for us.

This means, however, that it is the people of China who suffer – mothers who weep for their lost children, wives who no longer have husbands, children who no longer have fathers. The hospitals in China are short of medical supplies and instruments, the people of China are short of food, inflation makes what they can produce almost impossible for the poorer people to buy, and yet these people have fought for seven years and are still fighting.

Their resistance means less loss of life for us and a shorter war, so we owe a debt of gratitude and a tribute of honor to the people of China and their courageous leaders.

168

July 13, 1944

New York – (Wednesday)
Yesterday was a rather warm day in Dayton, Ohio, and I felt very guilty as the officers took me around Wright and Patterson Fields. It must have been such an old story to them, but to me it was very exciting and even the heat couldn’t dampen the interest I felt in the work which is done at both fields.

Wright Field has changed so much since I saw it a number of years ago, before we were in the war, that it was hard to recognize it as the same place. At that time, they showed me, with considerable pride, one new plane. This time they showed me so many new planes and so many experimental ones, that I could not even begin to tell you about them. In addition, I would find it hard to remember which were secret and which were not, so it is far better to tell you only that I came away with a feeling of growing military power which surely must make the high command in Germany and in Japan apprehensive.

Gen. Meyers, at Wright Field, and Gen. Duncan, at Patterson Field, certainly planned a most interesting tour for me. You might be interested to know that 46% of the civilian employees at Patterson Field are women and that they hope to reach 50% this year.

I lunched with the WACs, 300 strong, in their mess-hall and it was a very good lunch. Everybody told me how much they wanted to have more WACs and how deeply they regretted that they were not being recruited more rapidly. Certainly, the women who are in the military services ought to be proud of the estimate that high-ranking officers have made as to their usefulness.

Germany’s spy system has always been good, and they must know that their chance for victory is gone. They may feel that the morale of their people at home requires the use of the robot bomb, but it seems to me to be a wanton cruelty and an unnecessary building up of bitterness in a people who, on the whole, are inclined to be generous to their foes. Germany should remember that those who are slow to wrath, when finally stirred, are apt to be very implacable enemies. This robot bomb, which cannot be aimed at military objectives and which hits indiscriminately at civilians, strikes me as more of a boomerang than anything which Germany has done in a long time.

By four o’clock yesterday, I was at Antioch College at Yellow Springs, Ohio, and went with Dr. and Mrs. Arthur Morgan to the assembly hall, where I gave a brief summary of my evening talk to students and faculty who could not be admitted in the evening. After supper at the tea house with the college president and his wife, Dr. and Mrs. Algo Henderson, we went over again to the assembly hall for the evening talk.

I reached New York City this morning and have a few errands to do before returning to Hyde Park.

169

July 14, 1944

Hyde Park, New York – (Thursday)
When we arrived at the Poughkeepsie station yesterday evening, we waited and looked around hopefully, not knowing whether the artists the War Entertainment Board had promised to send up were really on the train. In a few minutes they appeared and we were off, stopping for a few minutes at the cottage to collect the most important mail, and leaving Miss Thompson to spend the rest of the evening toiling over the accumulation of mail which had gathered in the few days we were gone.

While I was indoors, one of our youngest summer guests made friends with Mr. Williston, the magician of the evening, who did a trick for him, making his thumb disappear. The child was so excited that his mother had to put him under the shower to calm him down before he went to bed. Later, my small grandson was fascinated by the sleight of hand tricks which he could not understand either.

We then proceeded over to the big house, and the artists had time for only a very short rehearsal before and after dinner. By eight forty-five we started for the servicemen’s canteen. This canteen is really an achievement, since a committee of enlisted men themselves run it with the aid of about 80 women from the village of Hyde Park who serve on different committees. They had transformed the old boat house on the Vanderbilt place, and it looked very attractive. They found a few chairs and tables to put around outside, and a little paint and bunting did the rest. Of course, we had to have a bad thunderstorm, and even though you know it is good for the crops, you can’t help being annoyed if it breaks up your party.

However, there were strong and willing hands to bring the piano in, and the orchestra moved indoors very rapidly. The dancing began, and then the show went on. The soldiers and the girls brought by the Red Cross Motor Corps from Poughkeepsie, as well as the committee of the evening from Hyde Park, and the wives of the men, sat on the floor and enjoyed the show. Mr. Williston did wonderful tricks. Mr. Burns, the ventriloquist, used his dummy very effectively, and finally Mr. Zero Mostel kept them all in roars of laughter. In spite of the shortness of the rehearsal, Miss Helen Madison managed to accompany everything on the piano in the right way, and the show was a great success.

As I looked at the artists and realized the heat of the night, and how difficult it was to perform in such a small space, I was even more grateful than usual to the generosity which keeps these people going to entertain big and small groups of servicemen all over the country and in faraway places. The refreshments served by the Hyde Park women were very good and much appreciated by all.

170

July 15, 1944

Hyde Park, New York – (Friday)
We were all saddened this morning to hear of the death of Brig. Gen. Theodore Roosevelt. When he was young and went into the last war, his father told me that of all his sons, Ted was the one to whom soldiering seemed to be the real fulfillment of an inner desire. As a civilian, I think Gen. Theodore Roosevelt has always felt that his greatest interest lay in military affairs.

It is a loss to our fighting forces for him to be taken at this time, and to his mother, his wife, and his children, it is a sad blow. And yet even they, I am sure, feel grateful that he was able to render this service to his country. I think he would prefer to leave this world in just such sudden fashion, having done a hard day’s work, and knowing that the tide of victory was turning for the Allies.

It is interesting to note that in this family, three members of the older generation who fought in the last war, have taken full part in this war. Kermit Roosevelt died, also on duty, in Alaska, and Archie, when I was in Australia, had already been in heavy fighting in New Guinea, and his men had named a ridge after him.

The kind of fighting which is done today takes young men, but some older ones seem to take a pretty active part in it, and the Roosevelt family as a whole, has never been backward when adventure called, or when patriotism led them to danger zones.

There is a broadcast reported in this morning’s paper as having been heard in London from Germany. It is a broadcast which breathes terror in every line, but there occurs in it a threat to destroy Europe before the Nazis give in. Many scientists will doubtless say that science has reached a point where either side might find some way to completely destroy the whole world. But the trouble with that kind of destruction is that it not only destroys the enemy, it destroys the world, and there are few who want to face the annihilating of their entire race. Even the satisfaction of annihilating all their enemies is not a sufficient satisfaction.

Therefore, it seems to me that in making this threat the Germans are simply whistling in the dark to keep up their courage, knowing full well that when they appeal for every man to fight, there may be people within Germany itself who no longer want to fight.

Last time, the break came among the people, not in the Army. Perhaps that is the way breaks have to come when armies are highly organized and trained. This broadcast may be the last desperate appeal to the German people, who may be reaching the point when even the revenge of nations which they once conquered seems more desirable than the demands made upon them by the continuation of the war.

171

July 17, 1944

Hyde Park, New York – (Sunday)
Some years ago, when our boys were young, they used to go out west occasionally and work on a ranch in summer, and one time three boys who had worked together, motored home in a rickety car with a puppy which one of them had acquired on the way. They arrived with a very sad puppy dog, and were in a state of complete exhaustion themselves, but they made the trip in such a short time that I am quite sure they didn’t see anything of the countryside as they passed through it.

So for real sightseeing in the future when life becomes normal again, I would not recommend motoring at top speed. But I look forward with pleasure to leisurely driving because it allows one to stop and look at a view, or to take a detour if one hears of something interesting which a few extra hours will allow one to see. Above all, it gives one a sense of being part of the countryside more than any other method of travel I know, except a bicycle or a horse or your own two feet.

In Europe, these last three ways of travelling have always been more popular than they are here, because the distances to be covered are not as great. I imagine, however, that in this country, motoring will continue to be the way to get a most intimate knowledge of the country.

Train and plane travel will always cause differences of opinion among people who want different things. Trains do not take one so quickly through the countryside, and some people find them more comfortable. From a plane, one gets more comprehensive views, and after the war we will have planes as manageable as any car, and which can land in a field by your cottage in the country or on the roof of your city apartment. They won’t fly as quickly as the transcontinental planes do, but they will make your trip anywhere within a radius of a hundred or two hundred miles a pleasant day’s excursion.

I write this column because I find so many people are thinking now of future days. Dream journeys sometimes become real journeys, and it is possible to plan for them in a way that we would never do if we knew that we could leave at any time the spirit moved us! When one is young, one travels largely through one’s imagination, and when one is old, one travels largely through the eyes of younger people. So even if the dreams which we make today for future journeys never materialize, we may be able to start other people off and have them come back and tell us of their experiences and impressions. You will probably find, as I do, that other people’s tales of travels are usually more interesting than my own, especially when I have none of the discomforts of travel and can have all of the enjoyment!

172

July 18, 1944

Hyde Park, New York –
When I was at Antioch College, the other day, Dr. Arthur Morgan told me that, along with the conference on international relations which was being held under the auspices of the American Friends Service Committee, he was holding a conference on living in a small community. These two conferences met in assemblies very often, but Dr. Morgan felt that his conference was perhaps the more realistic of the two because people were talking about actual experiences, whereas in the other conference they were talking about hopes and plans for the future.

Dr. Morgan’s thesis runs somewhat like this. The place where real friendliness and understanding of other people develop, is in the small community. The big city becomes too impersonal. Even the family deteriorates in the city environment and fewer children are born, so that our population will tend more and more to come from the smaller places. The difficulty is that too many smaller places are being deserted by the young people, who think their only opportunity for advancement, and what they think of as the good life, is in the larger centers. This, Dr. Morgan feels, is because in small communities we have ceased to develop all-around living.

We work on a farm or in a small industry, but we do not think of the intellectual and cultural as well as of the economic life of the community. Dr. Morgan took as an example the life which has developed in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Of course, it is not really quite a fair example, because Yellow Springs is a university town where, of necessity, many talents are available. Nevertheless, it is true, as he pointed out, that where fewer people live together, they know each other well and there is released a spirit of cooperation and goodwill if the community is organized for a full, all-around existence.

I know many small places in our country which have no life outside the daily grind of earning a living. People have no interest in doing anything together which develops education or entertainment and draws people from the outside into their community. In Yellow Springs they have been so successful in their dramatic productions, that people come from Dayton to see their plays.

Unless the small community is busy and interested and growing, it will tend to break up into little groups and there will be more gossip and more snobbishness and less community life than you find even in a big city. So it is perfectly obvious that a technique must be developed if the small community is to retain a percentage at least of its young people and continue to be a valuable part of our American life.

Dr. Arthur Morgan is always a stimulating person and I wish I could have stayed to attend the sessions of his particular conference.

173

July 19, 1944

Hyde Park, New York –
Almost a year ago I visited the Schomburg Library in Harlem, New York City, and at that time I noticed a book which had recently come out. It was called The Negro Caravan, edited by Sterling A. Brown, Arthur P. Davis and Ulysses Lee. I meant to speak of it at the time in my column, but it slipped my mind and now I have just received word that a new edition is being brought out and I have read a little item from the Louisville Courier-Journal which will show you that my own interest in this book is shared by others:

The best of its kind, this collection should be an eyeopener. Both as sociology and as interesting reading The Negro Caravan is richly worthwhile. No previous anthology of Negro literature, and not too many anthologies of American literature are as full of aesthetic satisfaction and human understanding. The pleasure of reading The Negro Caravan is scarcely undermined by the fact that one emerges a more enlightened human being.

There are over a thousand pages here of short stories, blues, folk songs, biographies, speeches, pamphlets, essays, letters, besides little bits taken out of novels and plays by some of the best Negro writers. William Rose Benet says that “It is a remarkable contribution to American literature,” and I think for that reason it should be in everyone’s library.

I was reading the other day a very interesting little pamphlet entitled: “Public Attitude Towards Ex-Servicemen After World War One,” which is taken from the Monthly Labor Review (December 1943), of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, United States Department of Labor.

This little pamphlet should be “must” reading for every one of us because it indicates so clearly how important it is to think and plan ahead when today the problems of our returning servicemen are and will be so much greater than in 1919. The economic situation cannot be left entirely in the hands of the industrialists themselves. It must have at least some supervision from government, since everything that industry can do, government will gladly accept, but if at any point the problems become more than industry can handle, there is only government to fill the gap.

To say that government is usurping something which should remain in the hands of industry is foolish, because quite obviously government will be enchanted if industry can handle the problems alone. But since government’s primary interest is to see that we do not return to a period of unemployed people, it must have at least the power of cooperation and regulation in its hands.

174

July 20, 1944

Hyde Park, New York –
A clipping was sent me the other day from a paper which rather consistently has opposed the administration, and finds it amusing at times to criticize something which I have said or done. The closing paragraph reads as follows:

Eleanor Roosevelt’s comment on youth having written the document of all documents, was any one of several things. It was a concession for these times, it was a shadow casting coming events, or it was plainly a slip of the pen.

This refers to a column which I wrote for the Fourth of July in which I mentioned the Declaration of Independence as having been written by young men. The point which I would like to bring out is that they have labored so hard to find a reason for stating an obvious truth. The Declaration of Independence was written by young men. These men did not live in an age when many men lived to grow old, but a few of those who had a hand in framing this document continued to be looked up to, respected and consulted in their maturer years and I am sure that, as we read of their lives, we are proud of all they did both as young and old men.

Sometimes it seems to me that people overlook the simple explanations and the obvious ones in their efforts to discover some hidden meaning which never was there and probably would not have been very important even if it had been there!

The thing which gives me the greatest entertainment is to find how easy it is to create an impression of being omniscient and knowing a great deal or of having the ability to do a great many things when really you know nothing and can do nothing! I remember a very wise man telling me years ago that sometimes it is the part of wisdom to be willing to be considered uninfluential and “out of the know,” because you got yourself into more trouble when people attributed to you abilities which you did not have!

I chuckle when I hear people who, I know quite well, have no inside knowledge and could not wield one scrap of influence, murmuring in hushed tones: “I heard a secret from the best authority, and, of course, I would never repeat it to anyone but you.” This is a desire to feel important, but it is so much more comfortable to be unimportant.

I am sorry to see by the papers that Madame Chiang and her sister, Madame Kung, have again had to leave China and seek rest and better health on this side of the ocean. I hope sincerely that they will soon both feel the benefit of the delightful climate which they are now enjoying in Brazil.

175

July 21, 1944

En route – (Thursday)
An official trip has taken me over various parts of the United States during the past few days. The country that we passed through first was, on the whole, very green and well cultivated. The farms were good farms, if not quite as large as some farther west.

One change which we noticed from the train, was the personnel in the railroad yards. There were many women in slacks, and they were not, as a rule, very young women. Middle-aged women, in ever increasing numbers, seem to be working in railroad yards and stations. I was surprised so few women were in the fields, but then I realized that, for the most part, I had also seen rather few men in the fields. Some of the grain was harvested and the corn was only half grown. I looked at the fields and wondered at how little manual labor had to be done at certain times during the year!

In towns and villages, as far as one can tell, the people look well dressed and well fed. There are few cars on country roads, but more than last year on the village and town streets. I think this nation is seriously at work, and that out of every family, all those who can work are doing something which brings in some cash at the present time.

I kept thinking what I would want to do the very first thing after the war is over. As I look at the American scene, I think it would be to further new housing. Naturally, houses near the railroad yards and railroad tracks are poor houses, but even as you look down the streets you feel that there are many houses in which people live that you would like to see replaced by better ones. Out of these poor homes, of course, have gone many men who are distinguishing themselves on the fields of battle all over the world. From one to four stars often hang in the windows. These men deserve to come back to better homes.

Taken by and large, this countryside one goes through still belongs essentially to a young country. It looks unfinished. There are many things that you can think of which you would like to do if you lived in this house, or on that road. Yet as you look out of the train window and think of the many other countrysides that our men will know before they come home, you cannot help feeling sure that they will be glad to see these towns and villages and these farms exactly as they left them.

I remember a boy I talked to in either Natal or Recife, in Brazil. He was flying a new plane back to the front, and had had a little leave at home. He had been in India and had seen the lines of starving people there. He said that, as he flew from New York City to Detroit, he looked down on all the farm homes and found himself saying: “I wonder if you people know how lucky you are to live in the good old USA.”

176

July 22, 1944

Hyde Park, New York – (Friday)
I reached home today, having had two unofficial days at the end of our trip in which I saw our youngest son’s wife and their two children. I was also lucky enough to catch our eldest son in port, and see him and his wife. Then in another city on the way home I saw a number of friends before taking the plane which brought us to New York City.

Our youngest son, far away in the Pacific, has been writing me that he is afraid his little girl will be quite changed when he gets home again, which is the way hundreds and thousands of young men write to their mothers and wives about their children who are growing up while they are away. However, this baby granddaughter is such a distinct little personality, I think even if she changes physically, she will always retain a certain something which will be a reminder of the little person that she is today – dainty, like a Dresden china figure, but nevertheless strong enough not to be dominated by a brother more than two years older.

I keep thinking, as I see all these young men in uniform, of one of the great problems which is going to face this nation after the war. Although some of these men have never gone to work, many of them had worked. They look forward to more or less similar jobs again, but I doubt if they realize what the routine of life in thousands of small communities, or even in big cities, is going to be like.

These men were clerks in stores, they were truck drivers, they were day laborers, skilled workmen, factory workers, miners and young professionals starting in a small way. Now for several years they have faced death many times over, living in constant proximity to danger. They have been heroes. Life at home, after the first happy reunion, will lack some flavor which was present when they were comrades in arms in a great adventure.

What can we give these boys? A vision of personal service in the great adventure of daily living, which will give them again the feeling of being comrades in arms in something quite as important as winning the war? It is easy to talk about the responsibilities of citizenship in a democracy, and about the extraordinary adventure of the world of the future, in which they may take part. Few people can see the vision, obscured as it will be by their daily humdrum lives, and yet it is a great adventure.

If all of this potential strength which will have won the war, can be harnessed to win the peace, what great things each community can accomplish! The riches of a nation are its people, but they must have a vision of what they can accomplish, or they will fall short of their desired achievement.

177

July 24, 1944

Hyde Park, New York – (Sunday)
I know that many people must have felt, as I did, a great interest and pride in Vice President Wallace’s achievements during his journeys to the Far East and in his reports on his return. There are not many men whom we could send from this country who would be welcomed in both Russia and China by the people as he was. It is known everywhere that he has consistently proved himself a friend of the average man and woman in his own country.

To those who know Mr. Henry Wallace’s background and ancestry, it is no surprise that he has inherited both idealism and the ability to fight for the things in which he believes. His grandfather had that same ability. There is no question in my mind but that Henry Wallace would rather be defeated in a fight which he had undertaken than trim his sails or disavow a belief which he held. There is integrity and pride in all the Wallaces back of him, and history will record no lack of these qualities in the present-day Wallace because of the years which he has spent in Washington.

Men of weaker fiber might be changed by contacts with so many people who are ever ready to point out the things that are expedient and the reasons why it is so much easier to make friends with certain types of people than it is to fight them. The fundamental qualities which were in Henry Wallace when he came to Washington as Secretary of Agriculture, are as strong as ever. He believes in the rights of people – all the people, not just a few. He is an economist and he has a practical mind. At times, to meet existing circumstances, he has had to accept certain modifications of his own objectives, but never has he changed his goal.

Mr. Wallace has made far more of the office of Vice President than most men have been able to make in the past. When he has thought things were worth doing, he has done them, no matter how much it cost him personally. I don’t remember hearing that our former Vice President, while in office, learned two new languages, and yet Henry Wallace learned Spanish just to talk to the people of Central and South America in their own language. He made a greater contribution to our Good Neighbor policy by doing this. When he reached Siberia, he was able to speak in Russian. Anyone who travels in foreign countries knows what it means to the people of a country to hear a stranger speak their language, and they know also how much more quickly one can learn about a new country if one can speak to people in their own tongue.

For this latest trip and the friendship which he developed for us among the people of Russia and China, we, the people of the United States, owe him our deepest gratitude. As he has told us, some of our greatest opportunities in the future lie in these countries, and Henry Wallace has made it easier for us to build enduring friendships.

178

July 25, 1944

Hyde Park, New York – (Monday)
It was wonderful to get up to the country again, and to find all the children at home and feel that sense which comes to one nowhere else in the world but on returning to one’s own countryside.

On the plane, a young officer returning from the West Coast imparted to me his feeling about the East, and ended with: “It’s just home, I guess – better than any place in the world.” Most of us will say the same on returning to the spot where we have our roots.

I had a swim in the morning on Saturday and lay in the sun. Peace settled down on me, and I wondered if I could have been so far away last week. This life here seems the only natural and unchangeable one.

Mme. Geneviève Tabouis came up from New York City to lunch with us. In the afternoon I attended the Roosevelt Home Club meeting. The past presidents of the club all spoke; the crowd was a mixed crowd, older people and a few young people and a great many children. To my surprise the young ones, on the whole, behaved very well and seemed to like to listen to people talk. Perhaps they knew that sooner or later they would have a chance to get at some of the soft drinks that stood in cases by the side of the lawn.

In the evening I went to a dance in our Town Hall at Hyde Park, and was glad to find that they are really reviving the old square dances. The man who did the calling was excellent, and the band, which I think consisted largely of local talent, did well. The influx of new people in the neighborhood has probably brought us some who might not have been present a year or two ago.

No one knew the Virginia reel, but they tell me that the younger children are now learning it in school. Of course, all these old country dances are more fun for the young and old to dance together. I think a good mixture of old and new dances draws a whole community together very well.

On Sunday we all had a picnic which the young people managed themselves, broiling hot dogs and eating ice cream and gingerbread. Afterwards they rested rather reluctantly under the trees while I read aloud to them. I think it was a good deal to ask of them, because the flies and insects discovered us – or rather, the crumbs of food we had scattered about – and before long we were their victims. To be really interested in fine poetry while you are attacked by the flying and crawling world, is a test of your stoicism rather than of the poetry you are reading.

179

July 26, 1944

Lake Junaluska, North Carolina – (Tuesday)
It was so easy to fall into the routine at home again that I hated the thought of leaving for New York City on Monday, but I promised long ago to go down to North Carolina for two days with the Missionary Conference of the Methodist Church.

Lake Junaluska, where the meeting is being held, is a really lovely place and has a cooler summer climate than the Hudson River. I have been quite busy while here, and if I had had more time I could have visited many more nearby places. One thing I regretted very much not being able to do. I was asked to visit Black Mountain College. I have long been interested in this college and would have liked very much to see it, but I wanted to get home, for it is only during the summer months that I can really have any consecutive time at Hyde Park.

I think I forgot to mention to you a book which I read not long ago by Markoosha Fischer, called My Lives in Russia. I like this book very much. It is an honest book, and depicts the changes which came about in Russia as they affected different parts of the population, in a way which to me was most interesting. Mrs. Fischer was, of course, not much affected by things which were done to groups of people with whom she had little personal contact before. But when the changes touched her own group she began to see them, as we all do, through her own personal feelings. I doubt if any of us can get away from this kind of reaction. Being objective is a matter of long training, and I am not sure that even scientists always attain it.

On the train, I read a little book written rather like a series of letters, called Dear Shut-In. It is addressed to the people who have to bear long illnesses and perhaps even long periods of physical handicap. The author, Roscoe Gilmore Stott, quite evidently has an understanding of the problem that faces invalids. His own semi-invalid childhood and his fight against partial blindness give him keen sympathy, but I am not sure whether he has found the best way to teach his own philosophy, which has evidently been a courageous and successful one. I think perhaps the story of his own experiences, without any explanations, might prove easier for the average person to use in the way which fits each case best.

Mr. George Biddle’s account of his experience in the war, as given in his new book, Artist At War, is made very alive by his numerous drawings. His diary is interesting and entertaining, and I put it down with a sense of regret that the project for sending artists to the war fronts had come to an end, for I am sure they would have recorded some things far better than the photographers.

180

July 27, 1944

Lake Junaluska, North Carolina – (Wednesday)
I think I will go back a little and tell you about my visit to the Naval Hospital in San Diego, California. First I visited Gen. Evans Carlson, who was wounded on Saipan, because our son, Jimmy, wanted to call there with me and he had to go back to work. The general looks thin and shows the strain of his wounds and the experience which he went through, but he is coming along very well.

I wish I could have talked to him longer, for Saipan is going down in history as one of the decisive battles of this war. It cost us dear, but our boys proved themselves better fighting men than the Japanese, and, many times over, avenged those of their buddies who will not return. Saipan is strategically important for the future; its capture undoubtedly is an important step in the campaign against Japan, and will shorten the struggle. For us, however, as individuals, it will always be a tragic spot, not only because of the boys who died there, but because of the many boys who were wounded. They are beginning to reach this country, and some of them were in the San Diego hospital.

It is a beautiful hospital, with wonderful grounds. Beds can be wheeled out on to the porches and the patients can lie in the sun. Because of the fact that there were so many patients, I could not cover all the wards. A great many of those able to do so gathered in the patio so that I could say a few words to them. On such occasions I am always a little worried about their being in the sun more than is wise. But perhaps in the routine of hospital life, any little change is good for them, and they might like the sun. I can remember, in the few times that I have been in hospitals, that any little incident which took up my attention, after I had ceased to be critically ill, was rather a help to my general outlook on life!

I had not seen this hospital for over two years. It has not only grown tremendously, in this period, but I felt that it had also improved greatly.

Among the boys, I found one whom I had seen in New Zealand, and many others from various parts of the United States.

As I crossed the country by train myself, I could not help thinking of the wounded boys who travel across it to different points where they can be in hospitals nearer home. It must be a long and exhausting trip for many of them, in spite of all the care we can give them. But when you see their eyes light up at the thought of seeing home faces – relatives and friends whom they have not seen for months – you know that any trip is worth it.