Eleanor Roosevelt – My Day (1945)

161

July 3, 1945

HYDE PARK, Monday – Last week I went to the office of the American Federation for the Blind to receive the resolution which their board had passed and which Miss Helen Keller wanted to present to me personally. It was a resolution commemorating my husband’s services as honorary chairman. As I stood and listened to Miss Keller speak, I thought how wonderfully both Miss Keller and my husband typified the triumph over physical handicap.

Many of you may not know that Miss Keller, with her faithful friend and interpreter, has visited a number of our service hospitals. Some people felt that she might discourage our wounded men. Instead of that, the men recognized the greatness of her personality and the serene and courageous spirit which has made of her life a rich and full existence. She carried comfort to the men who were facing their own handicaps and trying to find the courage to build normal lives in spite of them.

I always found in hospitals that the knowledge among the men that my husband, who was their Commander in Chief and the President of the United States, nevertheless could not walk gave to every handicapped man a sense of greater determination in his own fight back to useful activity.

The presentation was a moving little ceremony and I was grateful to the board and to Miss Keller, for, in spite of the fact that my husband had little time to give to many of his interests, it still gave him a great satisfaction to be associated with their work. He managed to read their reports and to know what was going on, no matter how heavy were the cares of state.

I also had a talk last week with Mrs. Lafell Dickinson, president of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, and Judge Anna M. Kross, chairman of the federation’s newly-formed Youth Conservation Committee for the study and mobilization of the forces dealing with children in the various communities of our country. In the autumn they will hold institutes, in various sections of the country, where people active both in government and in private organizations for the development of opportunities for children will come together and discuss how these can be improved.

I have such great faith in what can be done, once people really know what are the actual conditions and the resources which are available in their communities, that I think we could create in this country a far healthier environment for the children of this generation. I look with great hope on the interest of the Federation of Women’s Clubs, which represents such a vast number of women throughout the country. For, in the long run, women are the ones who really know what the children need, and they enlist the help of the men.

162

July 4, 1945

HYDE PARK, Tuesday – All over the world our men will observe the Fourth of July. Even some of the nationals of foreign countries are going to celebrate this national holiday of the United States of America. I have a communication from our Ambassador in Brazil asking if I would accept, through our Ambassador, an honor which they wish to extend in memory of my husband on this important day.

This means that people throughout the world are going to ask what happened on July Fourth which made the American people choose it as their national holiday. They will be told that on that day a document was written in which a very small group of men set forth their convictions as to what was right or wrong. These men then led a successful war to uphold these convictions and freed themselves from a strong power across the sea that, at that time, was not concerned with the rights of people far away. Then they wrote a Constitution, to which they appended a Bill of Rights which delegated certain powers to their representatives in government, but retained the vast majority of fundamental powers in the hands of the people themselves.

What we remember most on the Fourth of July and what, I think, will impress itself most on the peoples of other nations as they read our Declaration of Independence, is that our concern was with human rights. In the last few years all over the world this question of human rights has been increasingly of importance to the people.

I think when the history of this past twelve years is written, we will find a very great development in the awareness of the people that their government belongs to them and is designed to furnish them with “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

We have had periods here when property rights transcended human rights. But because our continent was such a vast one to develop, there was room for the development of property and its protection and we did not greatly harm the rights of human beings.

We have reached a point today, however – obviously we have been working toward it steadily during the last twelve years – when all questions will be considered first from the standpoint of human rights. That is going to hold good, I believe, throughout the world.

Perhaps, therefore, it is fitting that more and more this national holiday of ours should become known and respected by the peoples of the world. For the truths set down in the Declaration of Independence are the fundamentals of a lasting peace. If we are to move forward under the new charter toward a peaceful world, we must accept in all the United Nations these truths and it is well that we should remind ourselves individually in the USA that the Fourth of July is a day on which we glorify human rights.

163

July 5, 1945

HYDE PARK, Wednesday – This is the Fourth of July, and in the column which I wrote for this day I said what I deeply believe: that to the majority of the people in this country, human rights stood above everything else. I am beginning to wonder, however, whether certain small and powerful groups consider that human rights apply to all human beings.

I have some material printed by an organization in Chicago, and in the letter which accompanied it the gentleman complains bitterly that the FEPC is unfair to the white people because there are more people of other races employed in its offices. I do not happen to know whether this statement is true or not. But since the FEPC was set up to give an equal opportunity to minority groups in this country, it would seem to me eminently fitting that, in its offices, those minority groups should be more heavily represented among the employees than the majority group.

Men who organize into the kind of group such as the one writing me represents seem to me both short-sighted and very stupid. Incidentally, the gentlemen who talk for hours in the halls of government also seem to forget that their little part of the glove is very small and their peculiar problem is very minor. They are important only because they show the world that a great nation is so poorly represented that a little group of stubborn, greedy and fearful men can hold up equal economic opportunity for human beings who are citizens of their country. These men seem to be afraid of what might happen if people belonging to minority groups had equal opportunity in the economic world.

What do they think the people – the millions of people in India, in China, in South Africa, in Latin America – will think of some of the things which they have uttered? The best that can be said is that men who are ruled by fear are always stupid. This fear is not just a racial fear; it is an economic fear and a political fear. Loss of power is an ever-present fear to these men.

You cannot have a statesman’s vision of the future if you are afraid of the present. We are going to live in a world where people of many races are going to be close to us and are going to have equal economic opportunity whether a small group, temporarily powerful here, wishes them to have it in this country or not.

These men are making enemies for us at the present time – not just of minority groups in this country, but of large majority groups throughout the world. For our action on FEPC is not merely a domestic question; it is a question which will have repercussions in international conferences in the immediate future. We fight to stamp out Hitler ideologies, and then people hold similar ideologies at home.

164

July 6, 1945

HYDE PARK, Thursday – In today’s column, I want to write about the joys of leisure. Leisure, of course, does not mean that one has nothing to do. It means, rather, that one’s occupations are changed. For two days this week, mine changed quite completely. I did nothing but play, sharing my pleasure with friends who were able to spend a little time with me.

One friend of mine I marvel at whenever we meet. She must be nearly my age, and yet she manages to do all of her own housework in a big, old-fashioned house. She keeps a tremendous garden going, because it is wartime and we must grow food. Sometimes she has one rather elderly man to help her, but much of the time she is all alone. She has picked quarts and quarts of strawberries and taken them to the people who could preserve them for winter use. She is interested in everything that is going on in her neighborhood – church, school and politics. She writes for the papers occasionally on things of general interest, and innumerable letters go to her friends, her children in this country and her son overseas. I often think that all of this must tire her, but she welcomes guests to her home and makes them feel that they are a joy and not a burden. When she spends a day with me, she swims and talks and seems completely able to enjoy her leisure.

That is the mark of a really well-controlled person. Many people become obsessed with the things they must do. When an opportunity comes for leisure they cannot enjoy it, for they cannot free their minds from the thought of their many obligations.

One of our two leisure evenings here at the cottage was spent in listening to some beautiful new recordings of Earl Robinson’s “Lonesome Train”? Although he himself had played it for me on the piano, I had never heard it as a complete record. I missed his personality, but it is a marvelous recording and I shall enjoy having it whenever I have other leisure moments. Other recordings which we enjoyed were Burl Ives’ folk songs, which always give me special pleasure.

Last evening we took to reading poetry aloud. Some poems I think are particularly good to read in this way, because they are more enjoyable when you hear the rhythm of the lines. Alfred Noyes’ “Barrel Organ,” as well as his “Highwayman” and other shorter poems brought us finally to Countee Cullen’s “The Black Christ.”

Of course, there are people to whom poetry means little more than prose. But to those who care for sound and thought combined, I think poetry read aloud is one of the great pleasures which companionable people may enjoy together. This poem of Countee Cullen’s has great literary beauty. Its theme is also so compelling that I often think it should be required reading in every school throughout the country where youngsters are mature enough to understand and feel the tragedy of a race as expressed by a great poet.

165

July 7, 1945

HYDE PARK, Friday – I have a letter from Dr. Williams, the superintendent of the New York Training School for Boys at Warwick, in response to certain points I raised in a recent column. He tells me that the carpenter shop was kept working there during the school year by dint of collecting lumber from army camps and anywhere else in the vicinity where it could be found. At present, Dr. Williams went on, the boys have volunteered to increase the food supply by planting and harvesting vegetables, and already 1,100 gallons of spinach and Swiss chard have been canned for use next winter.

Dr. Williams also suggests that the art class is used for its therapeutic value more than I was given to understand, and that there may be more boys included; but on this point he sounds somewhat vague to me. Concerning music and group singing, he says they have been unable to get anyone to act as instructor, since their former music instructor has had to take the position of director of recreation for the institution. I wonder if, by chance, any of the salaries could be too low to attract the type of person who could handle boys of these ages, with their various and difficult backgrounds.

Dr. Williams also says, I am glad to report, that two baths a week are required, winter and summer, and the boys must put on clean clothes. When they are doing work during the day which soils their clothing and body, they are expected to bathe; and during the summer each boy is scheduled for three swim periods in the lake every week. “We have really rather prided ourselves,” Dr. Williams writes, “on teaching the boys the importance of cleanliness.”

I knew about the swimming schedules because I saw them marked up on a bulletin board, and the boys themselves told me that the activity they enjoyed most was the opportunity to swim. I had also heard that Dr. Williams had contrived a good place for them to swim, but it might be wise for the people in charge of the cottages to know a little more accurately what the regulations really are.

Dr. Williams is a man of experience and fine ideals. I am not quite sure, however, that what he thinks is done is really done, since a good deal of the actual disciplining and running of the school must, of necessity, be left to other people.

Here at home, our family of children grows. We have five around the place today, ranging from two to eleven in age. Our most independent character is a three-year old who thinks nothing of deciding to walk by himself from one cottage to the other, three quarters of a mile through the woods, up a steep hill. He seems quite amazed when anyone goes to look for him, and acts a little bit the way Fala does when that little dog runs away to hunt in the swamps. With Fala, I call futilely for a long time, and after I go home in disgust he comes serenely trotting down the road, looking to right and left as much as to say: “Look at me, I have been on an adventure all alone!”

166

July 9, 1945

HYDE PARK, Sunday – I was deeply grieved when I heard the other day of the Honorable John Curtin’s death. As Prime Minister of Australia, he carried heavy responsibilities during these war years; and like so many older men, he drove himself beyond his strength.

When I was in Australia there was a strike on among the dock workers, and since I had the opportunity of talking with the Prime Minister, this was one of the subjects we discussed. He was a labor man, but he was also head of the government and he felt that his obligation was to see that Australia gave its maximum effort in the war. Above even his duty to labor was his duty as the head of the government to protect the land and its people. He knew that ships were playing a major part in this effort, and he made up his mind that there should be no slowing up because of strikes, if he could possibly prevent it. As a labor man, of course, he carried more weight with other labor men than an individual without that background could possibly have done, and I think his attitude was well understood and accepted by the people as a whole.

Lord Gowrie, who was the King’s representative at Canberra and Governor-General of the whole of Australia, and many of the other Governor-Generals of individual provinces, spoke to me in the highest terms of Mr. Curtin, which meant that he had risen above the point of view of the average citizen and become a statesman.

Most of us are primarily interested in the things that affect our particular interests and opportunities. A statesman, however, must see how each particular interest will affect the interest of the whole, and he cannot allow even his own inclinations to sway him one way or another, since it is the whole people that he must represent. Prime Minister John Curtin achieved that point of view, and I think his people, and we in the United States, owe him a deep debt of gratitude. His leadership meant much in the smoothing out of difficulties which might well have arisen when such large numbers of American soldiers descended upon the Australian homeland. He was held in high esteem not only by General MacArthur, but by many of our other officers who had the good fortune to meet him. The good feeling which existed between our men and the people of Australia was due in great part to his leadership.

When he and Mrs. Curtin came to Washington, my husband and I were rejoiced to see them. I know what a great sorrow Mrs. Curtin and the children now bear. Mr. Curtin managed to be a public man who fulfilled his duty to the people as a whole without stint, but who still loved his private life and was the central figure in the family.

167

July 10, 1945

HYDE PARK, Monday – There are two labor situations to which I want to draw attention at the present time. One is embodied in a bill introduced in the Senate by Senator Claude Pepper and referred to the Committee on Education and Labor. As far as I know it has not yet been introduced in the House, though I imagine Congresswoman Mary Norton will eventually introduce it.

It is Senate bill #1178, and it provides “equal pay for equal work for women and for other purposes.” The first section presents the situation very well:

The Congress hereby finds that the existence in industry of differentials based on sex is an inequity in compensation standards which constitutes an unfair wage practice and (1) leads to labor disputes; (2) depresses wages and living standards of employees, male and female; (3) interferes with and prevents an adequate standard of living of such workers and the families depending on them for support; (4) in particular, has serious detrimental effects on the standard of living of families of deceased or disabled veterans; (5) prevents the maximum utilization of our labor resources and plant capacity essential for full production, in war and in peace; (6) endangers the national security and general welfare and thereby burdens and obstructs commerce.

That puts the whole thing in a nutshell. But basically there is no excuse for not paying an equal wage for equal work, and there never has been. This principle holds good, I think, in the professional field as well as in the field of industry, and it certainly should hold good in all the service fields.

The other situation which I think we want to understand better than we do is the difficult problem which the unions face in the question of seniority. The basic thing we are all working for is full employment. If there is full employment, no difficulty arises. Seniority becomes important when jobs are scarce and men are being laid off. The unions are more interested than any other group in seeing that returned veterans get every possible benefit and protection. They know that if they do not show their interest in tangible form, it is entirely possible that some men may be fooled into believing that they would be better off if they worked outside of unions than if they joined unions. That would be a catastrophe for the unions and the workers.

But this fight for seniority for all war workers is not a fight against veterans. It is a fight eventually to protect all workers, whether they are veterans or not, and it should be understood in this way by the public. In the main, the people of this country are workers, and their protection lies in good organization and good leadership.

168

July 11, 1945

HYDE PARK, Tuesday – Last night I went down to the Hudson River State Hospital to speak to a group of conscientious objectors who, like so many others, are working in the state hospitals for the insane during the summer. This group belongs to the Mennonite church.

The superintendent of the hospital told me that they had undoubtedly raised the standards for the care of the patients, and that they had been of tremendous help in disclosing certain practices which existed there and about which he never before could get any real evidence. He said if they could stay longer they would probably improve the standards even more.

Though it is beginning to be a little less difficult to find people for the work which has to be done, it is true we have never given enough thought to finding the right type of people for positions in these institutions. The salaries are very low and it is hard to compete with outside opportunities. Probably every employee in an institution for the insane should have some special training, either after he is employed or before; but we often employ people with no training and no background, simply because no one else is available at the salary offered.

This kind of work for the conscientious objectors is, of course, much better than many of the occupations which they have been given to do in the public service camps. Many of them are preparing to travel for their churches after the war and undertake relief work in different parts of the world, and what training they get in hospitals here will be of value in the future.

Have you heard about the Toledo, Ohio plan for rebuilding their city? During the past two and a half years, they have spent $250,000 on an exact scale model for “Toledo Tomorrow.” The plan is to have an airport virtually in the heart of the city, with underground train approaches and “congestion proof” highways; a single terminal for all bus, plane and train traffic, and a new port and harbors. They hope to separate their business and residential districts so that the city will have the park-like appearance of certain parts of Paris and other cities which have been planned for beautiful effects. Residential sections would be developed with their own stores, churches and recreational facilities. They would do away with the old frame buildings and the congested areas which now exist, and the money scheduled for post-war purposes would be spent on a real plan, carefully thought through.

The scale model, which every citizen can look at when he wants to know what the future city of Toledo is going to resemble, will help to make all the people understand the plan. This kind of fore may prove valuable to other cities in the country whose leaders realize that they must make some changes if their people are going to live well in the future.

169

July 12, 1945

NEW YORK, Wednesday – Yesterday morning, with my grandchildren and Miss Thompson, I went over to the big house to meet General Eisenhower. He had sent us word that he was flying up from Washington to lay a wreath on my husband’s grave, but the weather was stormy last night and for a time we wondered whether he would really get here. He arrived just before noon, however, with Mrs. Eisenhower and their son, Lieutenant Eisenhower, who recently graduated from West Point. It was Mrs. Eisenhower’s first flight and I thought her very courageous, since I have often found the flying weather bad between here and Washington.

I am always afraid that the military, who have a dreadful habit of being exactly on time, will arrive before I do on any ceremonial occasion, and I went at least half an hour early to the big house. With several active youngsters whom I was trying to keep moderately clean, a half hour seemed a very long period of time; but finally we heard the sirens and saw the state and Poughkeepsie city police sweeping down the drive at the head of three or four cars. That was a sight which the children really enjoyed!

A great number of photographers and some newspaper men had arrived earlier through arrangements made with West Point, and so the general and I went into the garden and stood where he placed his wreath.

I think Fala was less disturbed by the photographers than the children. He thought he had just turned back a few months and was going through some of his past experiences. Before we left the photographers, my youngest grandson was telling me loudly and in no uncertain terms that he was tired and wanted his lunch. We went back to the cottage and the desire for food was soon satisfied.

Since the grave is not yet open to the public, it always takes considerable arranging for any of these special visits. In the case of General Eisenhower, of course, the small guard left to watch over the grave was all on duty, and everyone was checked both as we came in and went out.

Yesterday afternoon the Chilean Minister of Foreign Affairs, and chairman of the delegation at the San Francisco conference, also came up to pay his respects and to lay a wreath on the grave. This meant that the guard, which ordinarily has only the unpleasant duty of saying “no” to people who hopefully inquire whether the grounds are open to the public, had two ceremonial visitors.

I like to meet all of these kind friends who come to pay their respects to my husband’s memory, although sometimes it is not possible. I was particularly happy, however, to be there yesterday.

Late in the afternoon I had to come to New York for some business engagements, but I will be home again tonight.

170

July 13, 1945

HYDE PARK, Thursday – The students of the Central High School in North Salem, N.Y., undertook a project two years ago which brought to light many interesting historical facts about their own town. Their published booklet was of such interest that ensuing classes have gathered more material and the older people in the community became interested enough to bring out a bound book this year. In the introduction the story is told of how the book came about, and I am mentioning it here because I think it may be of interest to other schools in various parts of the country to undertake similar studies.

There are a great many by-products of this book for the youngsters, but perhaps the most important thing about it is that history suddenly lives for a great many young people. If you can make history come alive in one place, it is apt to affect the viewpoint of students in the whole general study of history.

One of the difficulties about our high school education, I find, is that certain boys and girls are not always interested in the way their subjects are presented. Many of our teachers have not had the experience or perhaps the background which makes it possible for them to approach a given subject in a variety of ways. One of the easiest ways to awaken interest is to give young people a conception of their responsibility to find ways themselves of making a subject interesting.

For instance, not long ago in visiting a high school I found that during the lunch period, when the librarian obviously had to go to lunch herself, the library was locked. It occurred to me at the time that it would have added stimulus to some youngsters’ courses if, two by two, they had been assigned to duty in the library during that hour. Their obligation might have been to arouse the interest of certain groups among their fellow students in some of the books that would be of value in adding color and background to their required courses. I believe that fellow students can often do that better than any librarian. The librarian is usually supposed to be prejudiced, whereas advice is easily accepted when one youngster tells another that he or she has read a certain book and enjoyed it.

I remember what stimulus was given to our own local history in this section of the country when a group of college students one year dramatized some of Carl Carmer’s historical studies of the Hudson River Valley, and gave them for different groups in our county. They played on our lawn one evening for a most varied audience, and everyone seemed to enjoy them. I was impressed by the fact that some of the questions affecting the farmers today had changed little over the years. I personally got a new and none too flattering picture of my original Livingston ancestor, who was one of the great land owners of those days. When I was a child we still lived on land that once belonged to him.

171

July 14, 1945

HYDE PARK, Friday – One day last week I went down to Orange, New Jersey, to see my cousin, Mrs. Henry Parish, who has not been very well. A charming looking woman spoke to me on the tube and, when I got into the train, came and sat beside me. It was a heartwarming experience, because she said she had long wanted to have an opportunity to talk with me. Once before she had spoken to me in a New York shop, but that was not exactly an opportunity for conversation. She told me how much my husband’s leadership had meant in the past few years, and we talked of the things that must be done by each one of us as individuals if we hope for peace in the world of the future.

She felt, as I do, that unless we come to look upon our neighbors in this country, of every race and creed, as brothers – different from ourselves, to be sure, but fundamentally the same kind of human beings – we can never hope to live together in the world peacefully. We have to learn that we are brothers of one great human family, who make up the people of the world which we know. This is perhaps the great moral change that faces this generation.

As you read your Bible I think it becomes increasingly clear that there were always good and bad people in every group, and that the lessons taught were not the segregation of groups of people, but the segregation of evil. That, it seems to me, is the lesson we had better learn all over again. The fight in the world is against evil, and not against people because of their difference in race or creed.

On my way back I saw a young merchant marine boy, standing on the platform, who looked somewhat familiar. I smiled at him as I always do when I see young men in uniform. He came up to me and said: “You may not remember me, Mrs. Roosevelt; but I last met you eight years ago at the President’s birthday ball in Alexandria, Virginia.” I remembered the night very well, for it was one of the nights when we had bad weather. It was snowy and icy, and visiting all the birthday balls in and around the District of Columbia was no easy job. I was not only worried about our getting around, but I wondered what was happening to all of the movie stars who were being taken from place to place. However, apparently the whole evening went off with the usual success which the Washington committee has prided itself on every year.

From the very many people I have met in the course of my life, acquaintances are always turning up, and sometimes my memory serves me well. I remember in detail just where we met before. Then again, I have the most horrible moments trying to think what did happen the last time that fate threw us together.

172

July 16, 1945

HYDE PARK, Sunday – I give you today a letter written from Great Britain on V-E Day, which seems to me significant.

Out across the land from where I type, where, in years gone by, the ships of death approached our countryside, between the hedges with May bloom and under the shadow of the 600-year-old church tower, there is history in the making – locally and nationally too, as this great date is being inscribed on future records.

Here in the fields of England’s green and pleasant land, children are playing, shouts and hoots of delight fill the peace of this very old village. I see fifteen children at least, dressed in that oddment of apparel which clothing ration only makes permissible, jumping, running, tiring themselves out with very great content.

Why? If you should say that it is because peace is coming and there is a bonfire to be lit, you will be quite wrong.

The answer is that our husky American soldier friend, perhaps on his last three hours’ trip to our home, is making history right here. Corporal Wilsie, from far-off Caro, in the state of Michigan, tonight is the greatest chap on earth in the village of Spofforth.

With jacket off and sleeves rolled above the elbow, and surrounded by this welter of howling, delighted kids between the ages of seven and fifteen – not all boys, a preponderance of girls – Corporal Wilsie is teaching the “best game ever.” With two articles necessary for the craft given to my boys as a parting gift, could you guess what the noise is all about? For the first time in the history of a village which housed a DePercy – the first baron to sign the Magna Carta as a witness – this grand American lad from Michigan is teaching British children the rudiments of baseball.

I am wondering if this may not be one of the ways in which we can heal the sickness of the world when peace comes. After a comradeship of war, can there be a greater and further-reaching comradeship of victory? Surely if in the green fields which saw the passage of the Romans, the invading Scots, the battling hordes of Oliver Cromwell, one American corporal is controlling the hands and hearts of fifteen noisy children and in so doing is teaching them to play a game, in this very fact there seems to me there is some hope.

The last whack of leather on wood is heard this night and our motley baseball teams return to the street, but long after Bill Wilsie has left England and returned to his own native state will this night be remembered.

Not because today is V-E Day, but because one humble-minded American soldier made of himself a child with children and brought to this blessed spot a touch of the new world in an old-world friendly fashion.

173

July 17, 1945

NEW YORK, Monday – On my way up to Hyde Park on the train the other evening, two sailors sat nearby, talking to a young girl. A third one sat with me and told me they were on their way to Yonkers to call for some girls and take them back to a dance in New York. When the sailors got off, the young girl came over to talk to me and made a remark which I think many people will appreciate.

“They’re inventing a new language,” she said. “They explain it to you as they talk. They told me they were going to get some ‘chicks’ to go to the dance, and then said, ‘of course, we mean girls’.”

Anyone who talks much to men in the services knows that, just as in the last war, they have invented names and expressions. As this war has lasted longer than the other one, these new words and expressions may become part of our permanent language!

I wonder as I watch young people such as these – both soldiers and civilians – whether they ever think of the great responsibility that is going to rest upon them, not only to know each other in this country from east to west and north to south, but to know each other throughout the world.

There is one organization which is preparing the children of the future to carry this responsibility. “Youth Builders” was started by Sabra Holbrook some years ago and it has gradually grown in importance. Not long ago they held a conference of thirty-four schools in New York City at which children reported on “actual jobs which they had done to increase civic cooperation among all groups in order to meet common needs in the neighborhood.”

It is common knowledge among people who work with children that no racial prejudices are born in us. They are acquired as children live with adults who have prejudices, racial and religious. Hence it is interesting to have children actually growing up with mature problems and learning to meet them as children.

Two recent books have come to me which both adults and children will enjoy. One is the photographic record of The Springfield Plan, in which many of us have become deeply interested. This book, with photographs by Alexander Alland and text by James Waterman Wise, is a contribution to the spreading of knowledge about an experiment which seems to be achieving very beneficial results. One quotation from the text is worth repeating to ourselves over and over: “Democracy is People – living together as equals.”

The other book is in the New World Neighbors series. This particular volume is called “Pioneers of Puerto Rico.” Both the pictures and the text can be easily understood by a child of 8, but will be interesting to older children as well.

174

July 18, 1945

NEW YORK, Tuesday – I have just received a pamphlet called “An Editor’s Notebook,” which is published by the Los Angeles Daily News. It includes some comments by the editor, Mr. Manchester Boddy, on the San Francisco Conference.

Stressing the fact that man’s knowledge of science has outrun his moral and spiritual development, he expresses very well one of the things that all of us need to consider. I am interested in his contention that war actually is destroyed as an institution because of the development of science, but that all the forces which bring about war and which must be controlled in human beings are still rampant throughout the world, because they are moral and spiritual forces. Mr. Boddy suggests that we get together all the forces that we know are good and start developing them – which is good advice, but hard to make people do.

The pamphlet’s second little article, called “The Sunnyvale Plan,” which was written by a member of the staff of the newspaper, presents an idea which perhaps might be developed not only for increased knowledge of the San Francisco Charter, but for the development of moral and spiritual responsibility in the individual. Sunnyvale is only a little community of 5,000 people, 40 miles from San Francisco, but they organized to learn about the Charter and, through organization, they hope they will have some effect upon their representative in Congress.

Why shouldn’t we organize in our communities in just the same way to educate people to what are the good and bad things developing in our community? Some people never stop to think about it. Some people, if they did think about it, might think that they had no responsibility to do anything about it. But they have.

Through organization and leadership, many people might learn about situations, and their responsibilities in connection with them, which have been a closed book to them in the past. This would lead to better local citizenship, which would spread to interest in state and national citizenship. It would also mean a development in individual character and a sense of mutual interdependence among the people of the community – which would be very helpful.

I have just been asked to join the Dutchess Country (N.Y.) Social Planning Council, and I’ve joined without a moment’s hesitation. This may be the agency for us in this country which will develop the kind of personal responsibility which it seems to me we must have in our communities if we expect to build peace in the world.

175

July 19, 1945

HYDE PARK, Wednesday – Yesterday one of our very finest public servants retired from public life, temporarily at least. It is a little difficult for me to write objectively about Henry Morgenthau Jr. because for many years he not only was associated with my husband in Albany and Washington, but has also been our friend and neighbor in our home county.

I have known many men in public life, none of more integrity. Originally his interests were largely centered on farming and country life, but he also had business experience, having made a success of a farm paper. When he came from Albany to Washington with my husband, it was to head first the Federal Farm Board and then the Farm Credit Administration, which was a good background for the work which came to him later as Secretary of the Treasury.

He was head of that department during a time when the decisions that needed to be made and the work that had to be done required statesmanship. The people who worked with him worked as hard as he did, and they were loyal not only to him but to the Administration. If they weren’t, a parting of the ways came quickly, for loyalty is one of Mr. Morgenthau’s outstanding attributes.

The Treasury Department has grown under his leadership. In that department the lend-lease agreements were put through. The financing, first of recovery in this country and then of the greatest war we have ever seen, was accomplished under Mr. Morgenthau’s direction.

He can look back on his years of public service with great satisfaction, for he has served his country and his countrymen extremely well over a long period of time. Now it would be reasonable to wish him the opportunity for personal enjoyment, for relaxation, for the rest which all the men who have carried the burdens of the war need so sorely. I know, however, that as long as his own sons and the other young men of the nation are in the armed services, he is going to want to be of service to his country, either as a private citizen or in some public capacity.

I know of no one with a greater devotion to duty and to his country’s interests above any personal consideration. I wish him well, and I hope that Mr. Morgenthau, who has contributed so much in the past, will continue to be as active and as useful in whatever he does in the future.

And I know that he will be wishing, as I do, the best of luck to his successor in the Treasury, Mr. Fred Vinson.

176

July 20, 1945

HYDE PARK, Thursday – I was thinking the other day, when the big bomber plant at Willow Run closed, how wonderful it would have been if something could have been worked out between the Government and the Ford organization, so that this could have been the first example of how the Government and industry, working together, might utilize such plants in some new way.

The Ford organization undoubtedly has a research staff with the ability to work out something new which can be done with an already existing setup. However, the problem to be worked out between the Government and industry, where the Government is part or whole investor in a plant, is complicated.

There has been much agitation for fear that plants built with Government money would be turned over to large organizations for token payments and then closed instead of being utilized. This might create mass unemployment, for we know that these plants are needed in operation to keep us prosperous. But surely this problem of how to work with the Government cannot be insurmountable.

I know little or nothing about business, but I know what happens to people when they are without work. I have been reading for months about what industry wants to do, and how it hopes to do it with as little interference from the Government as possible. We want to hold to our free enterprise system in this country, but it seems to me that the first thing to do is to work out some method by which the Government and industry can collaborate in keeping everyone of these plants running and employing people.

This was why I felt a little sad when I read about the closing ceremony at Willow Run. Quite rightly, both the workers and the management of the plant were congratulated on what they had achieved which was of value in the war, but there is an equally important job to be done in peacetime.

During these past months, the Ford research organization must have been at work on their part in industry’s future development for peace. I wish that, on this occasion, they could have said to the country as a whole:

Our war work has been well done, but it is over now. Therefore, we hope to take the lead along the path to full peacetime employment. We have worked out a plan with the Government whereby we can continue to use this plant. We know what can be made in it, and no man or woman who wishes to keep his or her job need be without employment, once we have had time to reconvert for our new operations.

Something of this kind would have given me a tremendous sense of confidence in the leadership of industry in this country. Perhaps it could not be. I do not know enough about it to be sure, but I am sure that many others, like myself, would have had renewed confidence if such a dream could have come true.

177

July 21, 1945

HYDE PARK, Friday – One of the very interesting things to come out of the war has been the discovery of new artistic talent in various forms among soldiers and sailors, regardless of where they may be.

It is not very surprising to find that men who have had the ability to express themselves before in writing or as artists continue to do so even under the pressure of war conditions, for all art expression is a release from strain. Also, the artistic temperament usually is an emotional one which responds to every incident of life. Therefore, one can well understand that a man who was a writer or artist before he entered the service scribbles or paints or sculpts no matter where he is or what he is obliged to do.

The remarkable thing that has happened is that many new artists have emerged and have shown a degree of competence which one would hardly have expected.

Early this month, in Washington, D.C., a soldiers’ art exhibition was sponsored jointly by the National Gallery and the Special Services Division of the Army Service Forces. Eight soldiers were awarded prizes of $100 war bonds. These winners were the best of 9,000 final entries chosen at other exhibitions held under Army sponsorship. The work was done in off-duty time, under the Army’s program of promoting arts and crafts as a leisure-time activity.

This special exhibition will be open through September 4. It contains paintings in different mediums, mural designs, sculpture, drawings, prints and photographs.

Though I have been unable to visit the exhibition, I have greatly enjoyed looking through the little book in which many of the winning productions are reproduced. It is called “Soldier Art” and is published in the Fighting Forces Series. I think it is a record of which we will be proud in the future, for it will show that, even in the midst of war, we fostered a great civilizing activity.

It is interesting that I have been sent some clippings of some rather severe editorials in several Southern newspapers on the subject of a speech made by an important gentleman in Congress criticizing our Negro troops. There does not seem to be complete agreement with this gentleman’s point of view. I have also seen some letters from officers in charge of Negro troops overseas who are greatly affronted. So perhaps, if this gentleman in Congress takes the trouble to read the papers, he may realize that he was intemperate in his remarks.

178

July 23, 1945

HYDE PARK, Sunday – There is in the Department of Justice a man who has been doing some really important work for the future. He is Wendell Berge, whose work in the anti-trust division of the Department of Justice is familiar to many people. In uncovering many of the cartel agreements, Mr. Berge has undoubtedly had the help of other men in other departments. He is the person, however, whom many of us today consider the protector of the consumer and of small business in the future.

Naturally, in doing this work, he has had to incur some enemies, since some of our larger corporations have been involved in cartels all over the world. That he has been careful and efficient in his investigations, however, is proved by the fact that the Supreme Court has upheld his decisions on the merits of every anti-trust case which has reached that tribunal in the last two years.

For a long time, many of us have heard vaguely about opposition to trusts in our own country. We have known that the fight against trusts went on through many administrations. Mr. Berge’s fight on cartels, however, is important during the war, and it is going to be even more important after the war. Many a soldier’s chance of a future job is going to depend upon the work which Mr. Berge is now doing.

Those of you who have taken the trouble to read much about the hearings before Senator Kilgore’s Military Affairs subcommittee, which has been looking into the conditions of general industry and the arrangements made by German industrialists with industrialists of foreign countries, must be familiar by now with the rather terrifying aspects of some of these arrangements. It is quite plain that German industrialists counted on their relationship with businessmen in other parts of the world, and even in our own United States, for the recovery and rehabilitation which would make it possible for them to prepare for the next war. In the hearings before the committee, Assistant Secretary of State Clayton stressed the necessity of preventing German industry from renewing the cartel ties which existed before the war.

To my mind, perhaps the most telling witness was Bernard Baruch, who spoke with all the knowledge gained from close association here and abroad with the economic scene throughout the last war, the intermediate period and the present war. His close friendships with well-known men in other countries give him an insight into the thinking of other nations. This adds enormously to the value of his personal experience, and makes him perhaps the wisest of those who can speak with authority on international economic questions today.

My husband once wrote in a letter to Secretary Hull that the cartel story of German industry read like “a detective story,” but we should fear all cartels everywhere.

179

July 24, 1945

HYDE PARK, Monday – If anyone told us in this country that freedom of religion was not an actual fact, our oldest and most respected citizens would cry out in horror. Yet I think it is time that we stopped to consider certain things, which we have held as theories ever since we accepted our Constitution, in relation to the facts as they exist in our country today.

If it makes no difference to what religion you subscribe, why do you have to put it down in your service papers? The answer usually is – for the Navy, at least – that men should have the privilege of being buried with the rites of their own church. But, as a matter of fact, the same prayers are usually used for every man, regardless of religion, who dies at sea. Having to put down what religion you belong to sometimes subjects a man to discrimination if his superiors are so inclined.

It isn’t only in the armed services, however, that this question is asked. Frequently, when you apply for a job, that is one of the questions you must answer. If you run for public office in this country, too, it is one of the questions which you must expect to have the public ask.

So much for freedom of religion, to which in theory, of course, we all subscribe. Now, how about our freedom as American citizens in the economic and political fields?

One of the freedoms clearly stated in the Atlantic Charter was that people must have freedom from want. In other words, we must have economic freedom. Every human being must have an equal chance to earn a living according to the opportunities open in his area of the world.

It is true that in this country many strong men have surmounted all difficulties to gain high places in our national life and in the economic world of our country. But that doesn’t mean that for every man there is equal opportunity. Many a man meets a barrier because of his racial background or because of his religion.

Lastly, how about our vaunted political freedom? Can we, as long as any state in our nation exacts a poll tax from a citizen before he can participate as a citizen, feel that we are politically free?

I wonder if seven million white American citizens and three million Negro American citizens in the South, who can’t vote because they cannot pay their poll tax, really agree with some of the things that were said about our Negro soldiers in that recent Congressional filibuster? Two Senators out of 96 kept all their brother law-makers from voting, and during the greatest war in our history spent a lot of time, which can never be recovered, just talking against a portion of the American people who in their particular states have no way of acting to remove them from office.

180

July 25, 1945

HYDE PARK, Tuesday – Earl Brown’s article in the July Harper’s, called “Detroit’s Armed Camps,” has furnished me with some rather interesting reading, though it was also disquieting. I hope everyone not only reads the article, but thinks about it as it applies to his own community.

It isn’t only Detroit that has such conditions as Mr. Brown describes. They exist in many other places, but I am quite sure that in the final paragraph Mr. Brown puts his finger on the really important thing which must happen throughout this country. “Some employers,” he writes, “are convinced that management must cooperate with labor if either one is to survive and profit – the sooner each side mends its ways the better off everybody will be. For with industrial relations in their present battered state, and with racial friction more tense than it has ever been before, an explosion in Detroit might set the whole country on fire.”

The same could be said of any other large industrial center. We need to discipline ourselves to see things from other people’s point of view as well as from our own, and that is what management and labor boards in every factory would help us to do. There is some pretty plain speaking in this article about the faults of management as well as of labor. That is as it should be, for while many of us see faults on either one side or the other, it is really important that we see the faults on both sides.

I read a long letter in one of the papers the other day by Russell C. Leffingwell, which was on the whole very wise and fair. But the last paragraph left you with the thought that labor, alone, needed reform. I find this thought frequently repeated in things which I read, and yet the reforms must come on both sides. One thing we must always remember: There is seldom any great difficulty in getting management’s side of any story printed, but when it comes to getting labor’s side into print, that is a very different question. I could almost tell you beforehand the very few papers which will usually print both sides.

I have just finished Dan Wickenden’s “The Wayfarers,” one of the few novels I have read recently. It is very well written, the characters are well drawn and the story is real and vivid. But I could not help feeling, perhaps because I get so much of the reality of life flung at me in the mail day after day, that I did not care to spend quite so much time reading about people’s failures. So few of these people come out triumphant. I think it is the people who come out triumphant no matter how many mistakes they may make on the way, and are finally at peace with themselves and know what they really want of life, who help us to live our own lives more successfully and hopefully.