Eleanor Roosevelt – My Day (1945)

261

October 27, 1945

NEW YORK, Friday – I have come back from Washington with a sense of relief that I am not quite so close to the nation’s problems as are the people who live there all of the time. There was a sense of vague disquiet and depression in so many people with whom I talked. In trying to analyze why it was, I think the remark of a very wise and experienced newspaper woman of my acquaintance probably explained it better than I could have, even after a great deal of investigation. She said the war was like a serious illness. The illness is over, but we have not yet completely recovered. People are uncertain, and their first attempts at walking are not very successful.

In one of the forums for wounded soldiers which I attended, a man asked a question which I think perhaps we should all take to heart. He said: “I am not well yet from the wounds received from this war, and yet I hear people around me talking about the next war, even suggesting that one of our Allies may be our next enemy. I see my fellow citizens unable to agree as to how the average man in the United States is to have peace abroad and a better life at home, which is what we fought for during the war. I can’t see that we have won anything if we have to keep preparing for another war and if the average man is not going to have a better break in everyday living!”

How about the Full Employment bill? And the Unemployment Compensation bill, Mr. Senator and Mr. Representative? The President sent up a legislative program which was supposed to meet, on the home front, the questions of this wounded soldier; but I don’t see that anything is happening to it. We are no further along than we were the day after it went up. In fact, the Unemployment Compensation bill has been defeated.

In traditional fashion, when we went into the war, we procured the cooperation of capital by carefully protecting them against loss during the reconversion period. During the war, for the most part, the gains of business were considerable, particularly among the larger industrial firms. Apparently we didn’t have to guarantee the people working in factories as much safety for the future as we did the employers whose investment was concerned. That investment, of course, was held by many of the people of the United States, but not to a very great degree by the workers themselves.

So now we are in the curious position of having forgotten to safeguard the people who worked loyally through the war and who kept their promise to see us through the crises. It isn’t just the soldiers who are bewildered and who wonder whether the war was worth fighting. There must be great groups of other people in this country who begin to wonder whether we don’t sometimes have sit-down strikes on the part of capital and on the part of government.

262

October 29, 1945

HYDE PARK, Sunday – Yesterday was Navy Day and certainly the people of New York City showed that they were happy to have the President in our city and to have his ship, the Missouri, along with all the other ships, in New York Harbor.

At 9:30 in the morning I went to the Brooklyn Navy Yard to watch the ceremony which finally placed the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt in commission. When she was launched we were still at war, and I thought of her then as a very mighty force soon to be used to hasten our ultimate victory. I shared the pride of the workmen as we walked about the ship and I saw what a wonderful creation had come from their hands. She was beautiful; but she was also awesome, because you felt her great striking power. When you thought of the men who were going to serve on her, however – to man the ship and the planes – a catch came in your throat, for you knew that somewhere in far distant seas death might await many of them. All you could do was to wish the ship and the men good luck, and pray she would do her work well and swiftly and that as many as possible of the young men that she carried would come home safely.

I had none of that sense of fear as I looked at her vast expanse of deck yesterday morning and saw row upon row of men, who were to make her “their” ship, awaiting her commissioning. Now one could hope, with President Truman, that she would take her part in keeping the peace of the world, and that the men on her would take seriously their duties as ambassadors of goodwill wherever they sailed.

We are at peace again, and the unity which war forces upon people when they fight side by side as allies has come to an end. Our citizens – whether they go to distant parts of the world as part of our armed forces, or as representatives of business interests, or of cultural development – have almost as great a responsibility as they had when they were part of our fighting forces, since on them depends the way the world looks at our nation. They can make us friends in the world or they can create for us new enemies.

I was glad I had seen the ship rather thoroughly at her launching, for the crowd was so great yesterday it would have been hard even to realize her size. The Secretary of the Navy said to me: “The best way to think of the ship is in terms of three football fields laid end to end.” Someone else spoke up and said: “Well, she may seem enormous to you here, but when she is out on the sea she will still look like a dot in the vast expanse of the ocean, and her fliers will still not find her deck space too great for landing.”

What skill those fliers have! I watched with great interest as they wrote the initials “F.D.R.” in smoke and the letters floated in the sky. Then, when they flew in formation and the letters passed right over our heads, I thought it was an extraordinary feat of dexterity and skill. It would have been a great day for my husband, and I know that he would have ended it with the prayer: “God bless the ship, its officers and men, and make her service great in a peaceful world.”

263

October 30, 1945

NEW YORK, Monday – We motored up the parkway on Saturday afternoon, and I was dropped off to spend the night with Mr. and Mrs. Henry Morgenthau, Jr., while the rest of the family, including Fala, came home.

As I sat at breakfast yesterday morning, looking out of the window at Fishkill Farms, the line of the hills was clear-cut against the blue sky and the great oak in the foreground looked majestic, reminding me of the many times my husband and I had sat beneath it with former Secretary and Mrs. Morgenthau and all their guests. The newspaper men and women, the friends and neighbors will never forget those happy parties any more than I can ever cease to be grateful for our years of happy friendship.

At 10 o’clock I was on my way home. When we reached the Post Road, I found a soldier trudging along, quite evidently hoping for a neighbor to take him to Poughkeepsie. This we did, and he went off with his friends to a happy day in New York City. A month from now he will be out of the service, he told me, but his future plans were somewhat vague. Like so many other boys who went straight from school to war – and now, at 21 or 22 are really starting life as civilians for the first time – he is not sure of what he wants to do.

At 12:15 I went to the barracks in Hyde Park to say goodbye to the soldiers who on November 1 will turn the guarding of the place at Hyde Park over to the park service of the Department of the Interior.

After that I joined former Secretary Morgenthau and the members of the local and regional War Finance Committee at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library. Lieut. Col. James P. Devereux, leader of the Marines at Wake Island, was their guest for the opening of the local bond drive, and I was very happy to see him. One wonders how these men can survive such great hardships and continue to give of their strength to help in this Victory Loan Drive, but good soldiers evidently work hard at whatever their jobs may be. Just now, for a great many of them, this work is helping to sell bonds! A very charming movie star, Miss Merle Oberon, was also there to draw the people’s dollars from their pockets. Of course, here in Hyde Park we are making a special drive to sell Roosevelt $200 bonds.

I brought Mr. Morgenthau and four others to my cottage for a rather hurried lunch. By 2:30 we were back at the Library making our way down to the last terrace of the sunken rose garden, where the National Order of Ahepa were presenting to the people of the United States a bust of my husband done by the sculptor, Walter Russell. I thought the opening prayer was most impressive and very beautiful; and speeches were made by the supreme president of Ahepa and the Attorney General of the United States, representing President Truman. The bust is a fine one, I think, and I like the simple inscription, “The War President.” The crowd at this ceremony was great, but nevertheless the group gathered there seemed intent upon a great undertaking – the marking of a great period in history, represented here by the Commander-in-Chief under whom a world war had been won.

264

October 31, 1945

NEW YORK, Tuesday – Yesterday afternoon I went with some members of the Citizens’ Housing Committee to visit an old-law tenement: a house with no hot water and no heat, a house which many families call home – here in the biggest city of the USA! In one place, an old man and woman occupy two rooms, with one stove on the left of a narrow hall as you go in. They pile up little bits of wood to keep themselves warm, quite evidently garnered from stray boxes or cases found in the neighborhood. The old lady was a pathetic sight – sick, and unable to speak our language very well. I felt guilty as I looked at her, for though she could have been more unhappy in the land from which she came, I realized that our land of promise must be a disappointment to her and many others like her who have come here hoping never again to see the sub-standards which they left behind – but which, alas, we have in some of these old, condemned tenement houses.

On Election Day the people of the State of New York are going to find Proposition Number One on their ballots. I hope they will vote yes on this proposition, for unless that money is voted to subsidize slum clearance the work will not go on. If it is passed, at least 20,000 families will live decently in this city of ours. Most of this money will be spent in New York City, but it must be voted by the state. The money is on hand and we should not let it lie idle.

As we were coming home, I could not help wondering whether some of the conditions even in war-torn countries were much worse than those we have here, in a country which has been so miraculously saved from all material destruction.

I wish I knew, however, just how to bring home to the members of Congress the need for being generous with these same war-torn countries. I think it makes an extremely bad impression for us to be behind Great Britain, which has suffered far more than we have, in voting not only our complete contribution to the UNRRA fund for this year, but in giving our assurance that these funds will be available again for next year.

Mr. Lehman’s statement that in Europe, alone, 180,000,000 people “were on the borderline of starvation” and that “it is a race against time to save hundreds of thousands of people from starvation and plague” should make us tremble. Such conditions do not stay restricted in one area. If they exist in Europe, you will find them spreading back into our own country. Former Governor Lehman is not a sensationalist person, nor even a dramatic one, and I am quite sure he was extremely careful not to overstate the situation.

As I stood in that wretched tenement, I thought of what a place like that meant not just to the people who lived in it, but to the people of our whole city. And as I see us holding back and not entering with wholehearted generosity into the work for which UNRRA stands for, I am appalled at the harm this indifference may do us as a nation.

265

November 1, 1945

BOSTON, Wednesday – On Monday when I drove to New York City, I went directly to the Statue of Liberty in Times Square, where the motion picture industry was staging a gala demonstration for the opening of the Victory Loan Drive. Mr. Harry Brandt has promised Secretary Vinson that in this drive the motion picture industry will go over the top more gloriously than ever before, and they certainly gathered a big crowd for their opening on Monday.

A galaxy of entertainers from stage and screen trouped up to the platform and sang their songs or said their say to encourage the sale of bonds. I was a little appalled when Mr. Brandt handed me from one of his companies a check for $100,000, representing the bonds which they wanted to buy, and I returned it as quickly as possible so it would be transformed into bonds.

One of the young cowboys present stopped for a minute to tell me that the last time we had met was on Efate. That was an island in the Pacific where we had some very large hospitals; and at that time none of us dared mention that we had been there, because it had never been bombed and our high command hoped that the Japanese would continue to be oblivious of our occupation of the island. Our engineers had done a remarkable job of controlling the mosquitoes, and malaria had been reduced to almost nothing. But entertainers who went there were welcomed with great enthusiasm, for one can get desperately tired of lying in bed, looking out at the luxurious jungle growth and perhaps a little patch of blue sea or sky.

Next to me sat a major from the Medical Corps who had been taken prisoner at Bataan, and I wondered again how these men who have been through so much can be so generous with their assistance in the bond selling campaign. One would think they would feel that we were the ones to do this work, and that they had earned the right to take a rest.

Yesterday I took the one o’clock train to Providence to speak at a Girl Scout banquet in Fall River, Mass., in the evening. It was really very tantalizing, because my daughter and her husband wired me just the latter part of last week that they would arrive here by air on Tuesday afternoon, and I missed them by a few hours! I would have loved to greet them at the airport and take them home; but the Fall River engagement and today’s engagements in Boston were made long ago and I have no right to break them, since I hope my daughter and her husband will remain East for several days. I shall be glad to get home tonight and find them in my apartment.

266

November 2, 1945

NEW YORK, Thursday – The Girl Scout dinner in Fall River the other evening gave me a great deal of pleasure, because the girls themselves seemed to enjoy it so much. They sang their songs with gusto, and the Hallowe’en decorations gave a most festive appearance. It was citizenship night in this Girl Scout Week, which each day commemorates one of the activities that scouting stresses. I think it is interesting to note how all the other activities gather together ultimately to serve the role of citizenship, which is, after all, the basic role each one of us plays when we come to the age of responsibility.

On the personal side, I was very glad of the opportunity to see Mrs. Louis McHenry Howe, who told me with pride and pleasure of her trip to the Kaiser shipyards in Oregon, where she christened one of the ships in memory of her husband. She enjoyed every moment of this trip, and I don’t think I have ever known a better traveler. Since she was in the Northwest for the first time, she decided to find out all she could about one of the Northwest’s great products – the salmon. So, having a little time to spare, she visited Bonneville Dam, and saw the salmon climbing their ladder. She saw the Indians spearing them. She saw the cannery and then she ate the salmon – canned and fresh, so that all there is to know about salmon, she now knows! In all of my trips to that part of our country, I have never been so thorough.

Her daughter, Mrs. Robert Baker, her grandson, Robert Baker and her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Hartley Howe, drove me to Boston that night, which I spent comfortably at the Statler Hotel. My old friend, Mrs. T. Jefferson Newbold, came to see me early in the morning, and then I drove with Dr. Miriam Van Waters’ daughter to the woman’s prison at Framingham. I think this institution shows in the most conclusive way what the soul and spirit of an individual can mean in an institution. They need new buildings and, under the new commissioner, they hope to get some of them. But, at best, the shell of a prison is still a gloomy building: human freedom is a precious thing, and you cannot take it away from people and not feel the result.

Yet, somehow, Dr. Van Waters has put into the people there something which is hard to describe. Perhaps it is faith and hope, which are rooted in her own soul. I doubt if Dr. Van Waters believes there is any human being without some divine spark, and that belief in itself is the beginning of salvation.

In the afternoon I attended the Massachusetts Independent Voters Association’s tea, where I shook hands with some 500 people, and then went straight to the National Citizens Political Action dinner. If these dinners bring about as much political action as they seem to create enthusiasm at the dinners themselves, I think we are awakening a sense of participation in government which should be extremely valuable. Senator Toby made a fine speech. Governor Tobin brought a thoughtful and serious greeting to the gathering; and he was most kind to me, which I deeply appreciated.

267

November 3, 1945

NEW YORK, Friday – A campaign sponsored by the New York Adult Education Committee will be held in New York City from November 11 to 17. The object of the campaign is to get people to visit the evening school program, and it is succeeding wonderfully in bringing older people into schools. There is a great hunger for certain mental skills among older people who, because of foreign origin or because of lack of opportunity when they were children, have missed out on acquiring the tools for academic education.

I think a program of this kind, when really successful, would make a difference in the home life of many families in our big cities. If it proves successful here, it ought to be equally successful in other cities throughout our nation.

There is a growing interest in how we are to get on with the rest of the world and with people of different races and religions here at home, as evidenced by a meeting at Town Hall which I attended yesterday afternoon. It was sponsored by the Bureau for Intercultural Education. Their program, however, is one which would be benefited greatly by adult education, since they cannot possibly hope to get certain ideas over to people unless they are literate and have the habit of reading and expressing their thoughts.

In a democracy such as ours, the education of all the people is a vital necessity. They cannot become articulate and express their beliefs unless they can both write and speak.

A lack of these abilities in our people often leads our leaders astray. On one particular issue, for instance, I think the people of this country are probably ahead of their Representatives. Almost every day some group or organization sends me a plan which they have undertaken for stimulating our Congress into supporting UNRRA, or for adding to the food supply which is being sent to allied countries. There is far more interest than most of us realize in seeing that people throughout the world do not starve this coming winter.

The interest is greater, I believe, than the people responsible for transmitting news evidently understood during the Quebec Food Conference. From what I hear, the general reporting of that conference seems to have been done with little understanding of the real achievements that were going on day by day. There were differences; but there was also great determination to come to an agreement and to make this essential part of the United Nations Organization work for the good of the world in the future. Peoples all over the world want to have faith that the overall organization will work, since they know their security depends upon goodwill among nations. They realize that success must come, however, through the meetings of different groups, and the food problems stand out as the most important in many people’s thoughts.

268

November 5, 1945

HYDE PARK, Sunday – On Friday evening I went to see “Deep Are the Roots,” the first play that I have seen for many months. It is a sad play and, in some parts, a very grim play. The setting is well done and you get a sense of the charm and ease of Southern life – its flowers, its leisure, its Lady Bountiful attitude, so graciously done that one is hardly conscious of being patronized. The very fact that this atmosphere is created so well makes the grimness of the play twice as vivid.

It is a thought-provoking play, very well acted; and, of course, it cannot help but be deeply interesting since, in touching upon the racial question, it deals with one of the most important and difficult problems which we are meeting both at home and abroad today.

One effort to meet our home problems which is evidently meeting with a certain amount of success was started by the Mayor’s Committee on Race Relations in the city of Chicago. They organized the Chicago Conference on Home Front Unity in May, 1945, in response to requests received from representative community organizations. Because of the meeting of the United Nations then being held in San Francisco, the conference decided to develop its meeting along the same lines and to try to write a Dumbarton Oaks charter for Chicago. Based on this pattern, they formed themselves into six commissions on housing, employment, law and order, health and welfare, recreation, and education. These commissions formulated a long-range program to cover what could be done by the Mayor’s Committee, other city bodies and community groups. The conference is now having a second meeting which will come to an end on November 6.

For the first time, citizens and responsible city officials are working together and meeting together, and the facts which are being discovered will be laid before these responsible officials. The organized community groups and the entire citizenry of Chicago will have had representatives on hand and will know just what is going on. This plan seems to me to carry great hope for success. It means more information on every level and more opportunity for real action.

I am quite sure that unless in every part of our country we not only talk about these problems but do something, we will never succeed in making any of our minority groups feel that we really mean to advance toward better understanding among people and nations.

Another interesting effort is being made to help outside our country. A small committee went to Italy to see whether the old handcraft workers could be assisted by this country. It was found that many were already at work, but they needed machinery or tools, or material and advice on designing. Given this help, we can shortly begin an interchange of goods between our countries. This will help us both, and I think the committee, which consist of Dr. Max Ascoli, Dr. Frank Tamagna and Miss Freda Diamond, are to be congratulated.

269

November 6, 1945

HYDE PARK, Monday – This column is being written too late to affect the way anybody will vote in New York City or anywhere else in the country. Most of the elections this year are local ones; and as this will appear on election day, I want to make a few observations which apply, I think, to our candidates for Mayor in New York City and our own election here at Hyde Park – but which may also have an application to many people and many elections now and in the future.

In New York City we have three candidates for Mayor. In the last few days, the Governor of our state has made some serious charges against the Democratic candidate, General O’Dwyer. One of the New York papers, too, switched its backing from the Democratic candidate to the No Deal candidate. I have read both the Governor’s speech and the newspaper’s editorial explaining its switch. I have great respect for the editorial writer as a historian. I doubt if he is quite as good a practical politician.

My own reaction to the accusations which have been made during the past few days is that they have been largely political accusations. They are perhaps not entirely untrue; but put in their proper context and with all of the circumstances out in the open, they would present a very different picture to the public eye.

The obvious expectation would be that a candidate would promptly refute any accusations which he could categorically deny, or at least that he would try to explain his side of the question.

For those who did not change their vote, I should like to say a few comforting words. The strong man does not rush to deny accusations. He relies upon what is known about him and upon the future, very often, to prove his integrity. People who make explanations are less apt to be sure in their own hearts that they are invulnerable. The public is entitled to the truth, but it is sometimes entitled to proof of what is truth through action. I think General O’Dwyer knows his enemies and the enemies of good government well, and I think the future will prove that he knows how to fight them.

Tammany Hall was organized by some of the finest of New York City’s citizens. In fact, it promoted art and music in its early days. But then the finest citizens got a little discouraged with dealing with human nature as it appears in the problems of city government. Perhaps it requires more tough-mindedness and more familiarity with both good and bad human beings to cope with the varieties of people that one must meet and work with in a city like New York.

I am going to trust General O’Dwyer and look for good government. I am going to hope, also, that Tammany Hall, through intelligent leadership, may return someday to the good standing which it lost because, as so often happens, the good people are too good to descend to the area where some of the mud may be made to cling to them.

270

November 7, 1945

HYDE PARK, Tuesday – This is election day, the day on which we exercise our free right in the choice of our representatives as citizens of the United States. My husband always said that no people could be enslaved who kept their secret ballot. I have always had a mental reservation, however, since we have to use it as independent, thinking citizens, responsible for our own actions, if we wish to remain free.

There is in Europe at the present time a group of 100,000 displaced persons – the miserable, tortured, terrorized Jews who have seen members of their families murdered and their homes ruined, and who are stateless people, since they hate the Germans and no longer wish to live in the countries where they have been despoiled of all that makes life worth living. Naturally they want to go to Palestine, the one place where they will have a status, where they will feel again that sense of belonging to a community which gives most of us security.

President Truman has asked Great Britain for consideration of their condition and permission for their admittance to Palestine. Prime Minister Attlee is said to be coming over the end of this month to discuss this and other matters with the President.

It seems to me urgent that these people be given permission to go to the home of their choice. They are the greatest victims of this war. We might as well face the fact that we may be asked to assume some responsibility; and, if so, we should be prepared to do it. Our consciences can hardly be clear when we read about and see the pictures of these emaciated, miserable people who suffer while we sit comfortably and let them die at the rate of 50 per day – which is what is happening now, I am told.

It seems to me imperative, also, that the Senate pass the UNRRA appropriation as rapidly as possible. The House passed it but attached some restrictions, which seems to me an untenable position for us to take in view of the fact that this is a contribution to a fund in which we are only one of many contributors, and the rules for which are laid down by the group as a whole. We authorized our appropriation some time ago. The need is great. Other nations have paid their full share for the first year and even made their appropriations for the second year. We have not yet made available the whole of our first year’s appropriation, and we want to tie strings to it!

The Senate, it seems to me, has a grave responsibility to the American people to see that their good name is protected in the family of nations. This is not the way to create goodwill and respect towards us who are the strongest people, from the material standpoint, in the world today.

271

November 8, 1945

NEW YORK, Wednesday – It seems to me that there are two interesting things to think about on this day after election. General O’Dwyer was elected Mayor of New York City by an overwhelming vote. People were evidently not at all affected by the attacks made on him. Does that mean skepticism on the part of the people as to the sources of those attacks, or does it mean indifference? If it means indifference, then the people of New York City – or of any other city that voted in a similar way – can thank themselves alone if their party machines, whether Democratic or Republican, proceed to give the city bad government. The price of good government is constant vigilance and the participation of a strong and influential people who want good government on an active basis.

Pittsburgh has a Democratic mayor, Philadelphia a Republican. Whether they are good or bad will depend very largely on what the people do. Indifference, apathy, unwillingness on the part of good people to go down into the arena and fight, will give any city or any country poor government.

I think the vote for Mayor in New York City has weakened the Republican position in the State of New York, but the vote throughout the country everywhere was very light. It showed that people were not excited by this election. Those who voted did so because they felt it a serious business, but there was no excitement or enthusiasm even in New York City.

As one looks over the country, I think one can tell very little about the trend a year from now. People are waiting and watching. I should think that the members of the House of Representatives and those in the Senate coming up shortly for reelection would feel this sense of watchfulness on the part of the people. The great mass of the people has not yet decided what they want as a national and international program, but they are making up their minds; and when they know, I think those who are found wanting will be rapidly retired from public life.

Mr. Molotov’s speech to the Russian people yesterday seemed to me a very encouraging speech. It was sane and calm, and he reiterated his feeling that the three great Powers must work together. Of course, Russia will have atomic energy; so must all the other countries of the world, for that energy can be used for the good of mankind. The Russian people, who have given up so much in order to fight the war, must be encouraged by Mr. Molotov’s assurance that their comfort and domestic progress would now go forward with added vigor.

We should want to know more about the countries with which we are going to have to live so closely. In answer to this need, the Harvard University Press is publishing the first volume in the New American Foreign Policy Library. This first book by Crane Brinton is called “The United States and Britain.” The whole series is edited by Sumner Welles, assisted by Donald C. McKay, associate professor of history at Harvard, and the maps are prepared under the direction of Arthur H. Robinson. It should be a significant contribution to our understanding of the relationships between our country and the other countries of the world.

272

November 9, 1945

NEW YORK, Thursday – Yesterday morning I was visited in my office by a group of youthful journalists from Public School 34. They are members of The Youthbuilders and they solemnly asked questions – some of which I was not able to answer – on all of the important events of the day. The one question which left me completely nonplused was: What could they, at the age of 12, do to promote the welfare of the nation? Of course, children have taken a very active part in many of the salvaging campaigns and in the buying of stamps and bonds during the war. This has aroused in them the feeling that there must be things they could do in the peace. I entirely agree, but I rather think we will have to find them as we go along, because to sit down and plan a program would be a little difficult!

In the afternoon, a group presented me with the second sheet of seals being sold for the Carver Memorial Fund. Dr. George Washington Carver, the outstanding scientist of Tuskegee Institute, will always remain to me one of the most impressive people I have ever known. He had a beautiful face, and a serenity and dignity which I have rarely seen equalled in any human being. His memorial should be a tribute by the whole of the American people to one of their great men.

Later, Miss Thompson and I had an amusing interview with two ladies who are writing a book on secretarial work in general, and who wished to find out all there was to know about Miss Thompson. Some of their questions were: What makes a good secretary? Did you decide to be one when you were knee-high to a grasshopper, or did it just happen? Why are you valuable to an employer? Do you think your life has been influenced by your employer? I think we discovered, in the course of the conversation, that any work in which you are in close contact with another human being is probably so individual that you cannot describe it as a general occupation; nor can you give from your own experience any general rules that would help other people if they are going to do a special job for one individual, and not a routine one.

In the evening I went to the Women’s Trade Union League clubhouse for my class, which I had deserted the last two weeks. The group is a stimulating one and I hope they are getting as much out of our brief hour together as I am getting out of their questions.

By 8:30 I reached the Community Center of the Congregation of B’Nai Jeshurun, where I had been invited to speak in honor of the returning veterans of World War II. A play was given by the Victory Players. These actors and actresses donate their time and, without any scenery, put on skits which have to do with questions close to our problems of today. The Theatre Wing, through its many activities, has earned the gratitude of all of us during the war period, and I hope it is going to continue much of its work in these difficult days of reconversion. This group of actors did a scene with a returned veteran which had both humor and pathos. The only thing the actors left out in their returning hero skit was the housing problem, which at present is stirring up every veteran in the city of New York.

273

November 10, 1945

NEW YORK, Friday – Yesterday morning I was interviewed by a group of students in journalism from Columbia University. They seemed somewhat surprised when I said that one of the most important requirements for the career of a journalist was good health. When I explained that they might be sent on assignments where health, comfort, food and shelter were a matter of indifference to anyone except themselves, and where they must keep their curiosity and their ability to observe always alert, I think they began to realize that I was not talking utter nonsense. It was a long interview and I only hope it was of some value to the students.

Afterward I lunched with the members of The Woman Pays Club, a most distinguished and delightful group of women. I was particularly delighted to find that Mrs. Sigmund Spaeth was the president. I had not seen her since she and her husband stayed in the White House, when Mr. Spaeth gave my husband such a pleasant evening that he often spoke of it later on. At the end of luncheon Josh White came in and sang a few songs, and it seemed a perfect ending for a very pleasant midday interlude.

The rest of my afternoon was somewhat busy. At 5:30 I went to Newark to speak for a meeting of the National Citizens Political Action Committee. I had stupidly made two engagements for the same evening; and so I had to go and speak before anyone was allowed to eat, and then return to New York for the rest of the evening. All went well, however, and I had plenty of time for everything – which shows that an old adage which my mother-in-law used to repeat to my children: “Remember, my children, you have all the time there is,” is a good thing to bear in mind when you think you are somewhat hurried. Sometimes you can fit in all that you want to do if you just feel time is never-ending!

I went out to Newark and returned by the tube and, as usual, discovered how kind people are! On the way out, I got off my train at Journal Square, having some quaint idea in my head that that was where I had to change. It took two kind gentlemen to buy me a ticket and put me on the train to go on to Newark. Coming back, another kindly gentleman talked to me and chaperoned me all the way. This time I changed quite correctly at Journal Square, and then my gentleman saw that I got off at Ninth Street. He told me that he lived not far from Oliver Street, where Governor Alfred Smith had lived, and he, like another gentleman who sat with me on the way out, told me how much my husband was missed in the family. “He was like a friend who came and talked to us every now and then.” Both of them sighed: “A great President. We are glad that General O’Dwyer was elected, but he isn’t Mr. Roosevelt.”

These spontaneous outbursts of affection for my husband, from casual people whom I have never seen before, are spoken so sincerely that I often wish my husband could hear them himself.

274

November 12, 1945

HYDE PARK, Sunday – I have been asked to emphasize two phases of the present bond drive. One is expressed in the slogan: “Victory Bonds Are Thanksgiving Bonds.” Parents and relatives who buy these bonds may do so and feel they are expressing their gratitude that their menfolk are now safe from the actual dangers of fighting. Between now and Thanksgiving Day, therefore, we can all feel that this is one way in which we can actually help to make possible, through buying these bonds, the things which we owe to the men who have won the war for us.

Another point, which was emphasized to me when we held our rally at the opening of this campaign at the Library at Hyde Park, is the fact that anyone can order by mail, from our postoffice there, the $200 Bond known as the “Roosevelt Bond.” This is the one which carries a photograph of my husband on the face of the bond.

I received a note the other day telling me of the death of Mrs. Henry Howard of Newport, Rhode Island. For 24 years she was the president of an organization which collected and sent books to the ships of our Merchant Marine, because these men had no way of obtaining libraries except at their own expense. Since they went on long voyages and spent most of their life at sea, they had no opportunity to visit public libraries. During her life, Mrs. Howard received many letters from men in ports all over the world expressing their gratitude, and I am sure this amply repaid her for the devoted work which she carried on.

I speak of her work now because the Merchant Marine has played such a great part in winning the war, and I feel that we, the people, owe them a great deal. The men are now worried that the same thing may happen which occurred after the last war, and that many of the ships which have been built will be laid up and allowed to become useless. They are asking for the passage of a bill, already introduced, which will give them some of the benefits and security that men of the regular Navy enjoy.

Much has been said during the war about the high wages and special bonuses paid to men in the Merchant Marine. But very little is said about the fact that these men have no pension, are not included in the social security legislation, and do not have for their families the same security that a man in the Navy has a right to ask for and receive. The seamen have had to fight their way up from unbelievably low standards of work and wages to better conditions, but these are none too good. Above everything else, these men want to be sure of fairly constant employment. Without that assurance, they can never enjoy their short rests at home when they are with their families.

If the legislation pending in Washington is not passed, I hope there will be a demand for its enactment on the part of grateful citizens who recognize the courage and ability which went into meeting the requirements of the war. It is essential that we have some legislation which gives consideration to our Merchant Marine as a whole.

275

November 13, 1945

NEW YORK, Monday – The skies wept on Armistice Day and, as I stood in the quiet garden by my husband’s grave with three friends, I kept thinking of the great futility of war. The war is over, but fighting goes on. China is still waging a civil war. The Javanese are fighting for freedom because no satisfactory agreement has yet been reached between them and the Dutch government. India still seethes, and the whole of Europe is a changed world. Great Britain is different, too, though the British character shows change less quickly than some of the other European peoples.

It does not really seem a very satisfactory Armistice. Nominally, we are no longer at war. Our men therefore clamor to come home, and new men feel aggrieved when they have to go out to far distant places. We, at home, quarrel among ourselves and each and all of us are bent on achieving our own special interests.

In this curious atmosphere, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, the Prime Minister of Canada, our President and our Secretary of State meet to discuss what shall be done with the atomic bomb. They pay homage to the dead of this war and previous wars; and perhaps because of this solemn reminder of the results of war, a ray of hope comes with Prime Minister Attlee’s proposal that atomic knowledge be shared with the world and that we strive to get assurance for greater cooperation with Russia.

Russia has a very important place in the world of today. It is to her that the Indonesian people have appealed. It is to her that, I imagine, both factions in China are appealing. Her influence for good can be very great, but it will depend largely upon the ability of Russia, Great Britain and the United States to work together and to keep the rest of the world working together.

The tasks before us are so gigantic that unity at home and unity with our allies are essential to facing them and solving them.

Although on this Armistice Day millions of people throughout the world grieve for those who will never return to share their lives, it is essential that the people translate this grief into the kind of action which will serve the ways of peace.

Two things seem to me essential to be done in this country if we are going to achieve the democracy which we hope will become the strongest force in the world today. First, we must really see that everyone of our citizens has a right to participate in his government and that no longer, anywhere in this nation, will anything be allowed to interfere with that participation, except the inability of the individual to read or write and therefore qualify as an intelligent voter. The poll-tax must go. Next, the nation must insure equal economic opportunity regardless of race, creed or color. If the passage of the FEPC bill is the way to insure this to all of our citizens, then I think it is essential that it be passed as soon as possible.

On Armistice Day, when men of every religion and every race are being mourned, we cannot forbear to speak out against any discrimination which curtails unity and democracy in our nation.

276

November 14, 1945

NEW YORK, Tuesday – Most of my day yesterday was consumed in a very pleasant drive to Suffern, N.Y., a lunch and a talk there and the return drive in the afternoon. A few people came in to tea, and in the evening I went over to speak at the Downtown Community School, which is putting on a series of lectures for adults. This seems a very wise thing to do. Feeling that children are under the influence of their homes as much as they are under the influence of the school, the Downtown school is trying to take up community problems with the parents as well as with the children, so that there will be no real divergence in the efforts of the school and the home in influencing the children.

The evening papers yesterday carried much cheerful news. There seems to be hope of an accord in China, and Mr. Cordell Hull has been awarded the 1945 Nobel Peace Prize. That is a fitting tribute for his long years of public service.

One article in the N.Y. World-Telegram interested me very much. Part of a survey of our national resources, it was done in response to a very sensible suggestion advanced by Bernard M. Baruch. Mr. Baruch said that, before we make loans to other nations, we should know exactly what our own resources for the future are going to be.

A survey of this kind seems to me important, but it is difficult to estimate what you can do in the future, since the work of our engineers and scientists is one of the unpredictable elements in the picture. None of us knows what substitutes may be found for resources which were considered vital in the pre-atomic age, and none of us knows what might be worked out by cooperation with other nations.

The suggestion in this article is that a world conference be held, at which world resources would be considered and future plans made. These would rest very largely on a basis of better production in many lands and better trade facilities, those facilities to be so planned as to increase the prosperity of many nations. That is almost like world pioneering, and ought to appeal to the adventurous spirit in our own country.

277

November 15, 1945

NEW YORK, Wednesday – I had a most interesting letter the other day, drawing my attention to the success of a government housing project for war workers. This is known as Greenmount Village in Dayton, Ohio, and was initiated in 1941. It is one of eight mutual ownership projects built in a locality where the workers are likely to retain their employment after the expiration of the war emergency.

The plan was that the residents of these projects would form mutual ownership corporations which would eventually purchase these properties from the government, at a fair market value; and the government would hold a 45-year mortgage at the interest rate of three percent. Individuals who might lose their jobs, and have to move, were safeguarded by a plan which permitted them to sell their equity in the corporation at any time, either to another individual acceptable to the corporation or direct to the corporation itself.

One of the residents of Greenmount wrote me with pride that they were proving there a point which he felt my husband had wanted to prove – namely, that “the average American only needed the opportunity to help himself.” Given that opportunity he would work out his own salvation, which the success of this project seems to prove.

So many interesting things come to my notice every day that it is sometimes hard to remember to tell you about them. One of them sounds to me like a most unusual and valuable idea.

It is an exhibition which will be put on at the Cleveland, Ohio, Health Museum, and it is sponsored by the Welfare Federation of Cleveland and four other organizations. Since it is an exhibition to show the needs, resources and capacities of the aged, they chose as a slogan “Live Long and Like It.” The exhibition shows the increasing proportion of older people to the total population, and portrays dramatically the economic status of many of the old people, as well as their opportunities for recreation. They have a hobby show and an amateur photograph contest and, believe it or not, they found that several hundred hobbies were engaged in by people over 65 years of age.

The exhibition runs from November 15 to December 10. Dr. R. Clyde White, professor of public welfare at Western Reserve University, who is chairman of the Welfare Federation’s committee on the aged, summed up the objective of the exhibition in the following words: “We believe it is high time to set in operation educative forces which will help individuals and their families, as well as community agencies, better to adjust their sights to old age. The reasons and opportunities for increased length of life are of definite interest to all persons, and will be dramatically portrayed in the forthcoming exhibition.”

It would seem to me that such an exhibition might well be toured throughout the cities of various states, since we need to think more about our old people as well as more about our children.

278

November 16, 1945

NEW YORK, Thursday – The other evening I went to Public School 41, which is in my neighborhood, at Greenwich Avenue and 10th Street. They have been conducting a series of forums on human relations in the community, and this was the fifth. They had talked of the influence of the school and the church and of the scientific aspects of our similarities and differences, and they were trying to decide what were the first steps that could be taken to improve this neighborhood.

As so often happens, the chief concern was over the children of the community. One gentleman got up and remarked with some bitterness that the difficulty was that children were second-class citizens. They couldn’t ask for the use of empty lots as playgrounds, because the neighbors objected. In addition, too many landlords will have none of you if you have children in the family, and these are difficult times for tenants.

One of the first things on which agreement seemed to be unanimous was that recreation was needed for the children of this area. Even the outdoor playgrounds that are available are not doing as good a job as they could do, because there is no one there to guide and inspire constructive activity. It was pointed out that school children do not want to be too closely supervised in their free time. A tactful councellor, however, could do a great deal to increase the usefulness of playgrounds.

This service was available in the days when the WPA could be counted on to contribute the salaries to the city. But one of the first cuts made after elimination of the WPA was in these recreation employees. Where parents raised too much of a fuss over this, some employees were restored, and in a few areas in the city they still function. But this is not true in our area, where, of course, there is also not nearly enough available space for play out of doors. In addition, recreation for older children is practically non-existent.

There have been a number of incidents in the parks where groups of boys from other neighborhoods have treated the local children pretty roughly. It is not just a racial and religious question, but a rivalry between privileged and under-privileged. I am sure that the solution is not in more policemen, but in more recreational advisers, more boys clubs offering planned activities, and more outdoor play space.

Yesterday morning I took part in a radio program during which we heard Paul Manning, a war correspondent who was present at the surrender in both Rennes and Tokyo Bay. He told a most moving story of the way our men went into battle on one occasion, when he was standing by to observe and broadcast. Afterward I paid a brief visit to Paul Manship’s studio and was delighted to see a memorial of my husband which he has done.

279

November 17, 1945

CHICAGO, Friday – In a recent issue of a national publication there appear these words: “As we Americans have been told so often, millions of people face what may become the worst winter in the history of human suffering. The instrument we think will save them is UNRRA, but it won’t. In fact, it is so far from adequate that we had best junk it and start anew.

“The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration was, in its origin, the most ambitious humanitarian undertaking ever conceived. Its course has been paved with good intentions; also with dollars.”

The net argument of this whole editorial is that because there are certain European nations which desire to pay for their own relief as long as they have the money, we are therefore not helping the Europeans we are chiefly concerned about. UNRRA has helped primarily such nations as fall under the sphere of Russian influence, since they wanted help. Therefore, the editorial implies, we should look upon UNRRA with suspicion and consider its continuance of little value.

UNRRA was not set up as a permanent organization, nor was it set up to help any nation that was able to help itself. The fact that we and Great Britain provide the major amount of cash means only that we have more and are able to do something toward relieving the world’s misery at the present time.

An article, however, which shows plainly that its great objection to this organization is a fear of strengthening countries which may be primarily under Russian influence, seems to me to be an article that does harm to our thinking in this country at the present time. Russia is our ally, not our enemy. The complaint against red tape and failure of administration in UNRRA may be entirely legitimate. I have never known a government agency – or, for that matter, a business agency – which did not suffer from some of the ills that have bedeviled the organizing period of UNRRA. But I think the main difficulties have been the troubles of a civilian organization functioning where, primarily, a war organization is in power. As the armies retire, the civilian organization will improve.

The main body of the editorial points out that there are other things which must be done in Europe besides giving relief and temporary rehabilitation. These are long-term rehabilitation measures – basic things like the reestablishment of the coal industry and its improvement. There is no question but what these are matters which should come up at once for discussion by the UNO, because this type of rehabilitation is of interest to us in our efforts to keep our own economy at a high level of production. Yet this will require a long-time planning program, and Mr. Will Clayton and many other of our top-flight economic leaders should have a hand in that program.

UNRRA, however, has a job to do and is doing it better all the time. We have been grudging in our appropriation for this year. We should not only fulfill it, but vote for it next year. Then, in every way possible, we should facilitate the much-needed work which Mr. Lehman and his organization have done as well as it was possible to do under the handicap of war and military occupation.

280

November 19, 1945

DETROIT, Sunday – Flying out to Chicago on Thursday was rather slow and we arrived nearly hour late. Forty minutes after I reached the hotel, I was in the bid dining room where the South Central Association was holding its bond rally dinner. This Association, they told me with great care, is a purely business association. The businessmen of the area, both white and Negro have joined together to improve their business. Shortly I discovered, however, that the association meant more than just better business practices. They had found out that improving the way of life in the area improved business. Their interests now take in housing, better education, better recreation facilities, sanitation and, as they put it, general outdoor housekeeping.

Their first joint project had been in connection with our first bond drive, and from then on they have encouraged thrift. They have made people understand that bonds are a good investment, and at this bond rally dinner they told how many had already been sold in the area. Then they proceeded to sell bonds so rapidly that the man who was keeping count couldn’t keep up with them. The amounts ranged from $25 to $100,000, and the number of one and five-thousand dollar checks that were handed in left me dizzy. I came away feeling that here was a pattern of interracial cooperation which might point the way to better understanding.

By 9:30 the next morning I was on my way to the Rosenwald Fund meeting. This proved to be a particularly spirited session, and I always feel it a privilege to meet with such an interesting board.

At 3:30 Friday afternoon I had to leave the meeting, however, when Dr. Edward J. Sparling of Roosevelt College came with his wife to take me to see the college. Here is an experiment in education for democracy where 1,400 students representing a number of foreign countries as well as many racial and religious backgrounds, are enthusiastically at work. The college runs at night as well as in the day, and older people attend as well as young. One pre-medical student is a grandmother. I met the faculty, which is as varied as the student body. But teachers and students alike are dedicated to a search for knowledge and truth through knowledge.

From the college I went to, the broadcasting station, where I tried to tell a little of my impressions of this really inspiring educational institution. Then I went down to the dedication dinner. The cornerstone of the college building which will someday be erected was placed in the middle of the big dining room. After the speeches, Dr. Sparling and I placed the little copper box – containing a copy of the charter and of the first check received and a microfilm with the names of all the donors – inside the cornerstone and screwed the plate down over it.