Eleanor Roosevelt: My Day (1946)

301

December 17, 1946

NEW YORK, Monday – At a very late hour last night, or rather very early this morning, I returned from the closing session of the United Nations General Assembly. It was rather impressive to hear Paul-Henri Spaak, president of the Assembly, and Warren R. Austin, head of our delegation, add up the accomplishments. Naturally the one that looms largest is the agreement on the first phases of disarmament. In an organization dedicated to create an atmosphere in which peace can grow, that is probably the most important step that was taken.

However, I think we should never lose sight of the fact that, though the immediate steps in the forefront today must of necessity be military and economic, there is great importance, as we take a long view into the future, in the U.N.’s social, cultural and humanitarian activities, which will extend over the years and build up an atmosphere in which peace can be preserved.

Now I want to turn from the international scene to the domestic front. The most encouraging suggestion that I have seen for a long time in the field of labor relations, which is probably problem No. 1 on the domestic scene, is the program proposed by the eight-man Labor-Management Advisory Committee of the United States Conciliation Service.

They have agreed that, on a voluntary basis, labor-management committees can settle most of the disputes arising in the labor field. They favor some amendments to the Wagner Act, but they do not favor compulsion. As one reads the suggestions, they seem to set up machinery which is somewhat reminiscent of the successful machinery which has functioned in Great Britain for many years.

I have long been a believer in labor-management committees functioning all the time within industries. The value of these committees, of course, lies in the fact that both sides become educated in each other’s problems. Industrialists are too apt to believe that the average labor leader is unable to understand the problems of management. Of course, a union which is not run on democratic lines is apt to make demands on its leaders which have no relation to the problems of the industry as a whole. One of the desirable results of the establishment of labor-management committees is the essential education of the rank and file of the industry in the problems which their labor leaders must face in cooperation with the management.

For rapid recovery in the world, which will affect our own economic situation, it is essential that strikes in this country be curtailed in the major, basic industries. It will come hard to a labor leader such as John L. Lewis to accept the fact that he is not the one and only policy maker in his union, and that he has to have an educated rank and file. But perhaps this new Advisory Committee, which has certainly issued a plan which sounds fairly workable, will be able to make a good start and prove its worth in the next few months. In that case, individual labor leaders, no matter how dictatorial, will have to come along.

302

December 18, 1946

NEW YORK, Tuesday – I read in some newspaper the other day that the United Nations had passed hastily a resolution on holding a conference on freedom of information. The man who wrote the column was not very familiar with the history of this resolution, for it was carefully considered.

The Human Rights Commission debated it at some length last spring. And its importance, which the above writer seems to think escaped the average delegate, was fully brought out in long debates in Committee 3 during the recent session of the General Assembly. The question of whether there should be just a conference on the press, or whether radio and the movies should be included, was a point long considered. There was no delegation that was not fully aware of the implication of this resolution.

The Human Rights Commission has a very special interest in it because there is very little that can be done to enforce human rights except through public opinion which, if brought to bear on the questions involved, can have great influence. This can only be done, however, through freedom of information!

I hope the conference on this matter will not be unduly hurried, because I think a good deal of preparation on the part of the secretariat will be necessary before it can be held. But that it is important and means much to the future, nobody will deny.

Freedom of information, however, has very little to do with the international control and inspection of atomic energy. That has got to be an entirely separate question. I think we can trust our representatives to see to it that what we accept as a final plan really does protect all nations from the military use of one of the most potentially harmful, as well as potentially helpful, discoveries that has ever been made.

The international control of this particular weapon is our greatest insurance for peace. It must be so safeguarded that it can keep in line the use of all other weapons.

Someone pointed out the other day that it was in the interests of the Eastern European group to have mechanical weapons of war rendered more or less useless, because their strength lay largely in manpower. If the type of weapons on which other great nations rely for their power are demobilized, the Soviets might have a great advantage, for a period at least.

The one really essential thing is that power should lie in the hands of the United Nations and not in the hands of individual nations. Then possibly we might begin to think less about how we can build strength to use against each other, and think more about how we can build such things as will bring us more closely together and make us understand the value of intercourse and cooperation.

I have not yet grown quite accustomed to being a lady of leisure again. Yesterday I had a few members of foreign delegations at both lunch and dinner. And I am still winding up a few things at our delegation headquarters. But by tomorrow I should be completely free – and that will be a strange sensation!

303

December 19, 1946

NEW YORK, Wednesday – It was interesting to see in the paper that the usual tactics employed by the Eastern European group to prevent decisive action were used yesterday by Andrei Y. Gromyko, the delegate from the USSR, to prevent acceptance of the United States plan for the control of atomic energy. To be sure, the vote on the question was put off only until Friday. But when one knows how rapidly the Russians concentrate on work when they really mean to do it, one wonders why a plan which they have had in their hands since Dec. 5th needed more study. Either they have not heard from Moscow, or else Moscow has not made up its mind.

It sounds so familiar to read that Mr. Gromyko cautioned against “rushing along.” The point is that there must come a time for decision, and one wonders whether that will be on Friday or whether further reasons for delay will be put forward.

The United States plan is very simple. It treats all nations alike. Big and little nations will be on the same level. The power over atomic energy will be vested in an international authority. As this is the essential first step which must be taken before any other steps can have any meaning, those of us who hope to see the world actually move towards disarmament will watch with great interest what happens on Friday.

We have been hearing for a long time about the shortage of nurses. And much has been said about the use of the practical nurse as opposed to the registered nurse where care not requiring such long and careful training will accomplish good results for the patient. Many explanations have been given as to why young women are no longer going into the nursing field, and suggestions have been made to make it more attractive.

Now there is a great clamor over the fact that both men and women are going out of the teaching profession. In an article which I read yesterday, it was said that teachers are leaving the public schools by the thousands and that low pay is one of the chief reasons for their desertion. In fact, there are fewer teachers this year than during the war years.

I don’t doubt that salaries have a good deal to do with this question, because salaries have been grossly inadequate, but there must be something more. Perhaps, as a people, we haven’t recognized the importance of teachers, and we haven’t made them feel that their job is probably the most important in the country. The future of the country depends on their ability to impart knowledge and to interest their students.

Above everything else, the character of the next generation is being molded by them. Therefore, the character of the country as a whole is being decided in our classrooms by people who are underpaid, who are not universally given a place of honor in the community, and who are often very poorly prepared for the very exacting work which they are doing.

These two professions – teaching and nursing – need recruits. But they need the best recruits we can find. How are we going to get them?

304

December 20, 1946

NEW YORK, Thursday – Harold Stassen’s statement on liberalism, when he announced his candidacy for the Republican Presidential nomination, might have been written by one of the numerous young Democratic liberals. And taken by itself, it would lead one to believe that, as far as liberals in either party are concerned, their philosophy is much the same.

I am sure that, whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, if you are a liberal you will agree with these words which I saw quoted from Mr. Stassen: “I would say that a true liberalism is a philosophy of life which seeks the maximum political, social, economic and religious freedom for the individual man and woman consistent with the enjoyment of the same degree of freedom by his or her fellow men.”

Subscribing to that won’t label you as belonging specifically to either of the major parties. It is like saying you want to do what is right. Certainly we all do. But just what is right and how do we do it?

I like Mr. Stassen’s willingness to come out in the open and say that he is a Presidential candidate, and that he intends to stay in Washington to work with Senate and House Republicans on the legislative program. The question is, how many will work with him?

He is appealing to the people, but you may be fairly popular with the people and still not be able to induce party leaders to nominate you. Or if these leaders are swept off their feet, as they were by Wendell Willkie, they can still give you only half-hearted support – and it requires organization to get out the vote. People are lazy when it comes to voting.

Someone told me not long ago that in Russia the people are obliged to vote. It is not left to anyone’s convenience. There are other countries too where, if you do not use your voting franchise, you pay a fine. We have never done that sort of thing here. On the contrary, in some states we still pay for the privilege of voting.

Probably because the competing political parties think it may be to their advantage to keep some of the voters at home now and then – by one method or another – they have never made voting obligatory. Since our reactions are often negative rather than positive, staying at home is a rather frequent practice, and good people with civic consciences bewail the fact that we so often have such a low percentage of voters. It would seem that we do not value our franchise as highly as we should, and that is why efficient political machines are valuable!

One admires Mr. Stassen’s courage and yet wonders how much it will accomplish. He stated some of his own personal views in clear and forthright fashion, and I am sure that, before long, we are going to hear some liberal young Democrats say certain things that will not be so very different. They may not condemn Robert Nathan’s recent economic report in quite such unqualified style as did Mr. Stassen, but they might go along on many of the other opinions expressed by Mr. Stassen.

Sen. Arthur H. Vandenberg’s conservative statement that the Republican task “is exclusively one of now justifying the November victory” is the statement of the more mature, elder statesman. He can proceed to do anything and say anything that he decides is wise at any given time on any given program. He is committed to nothing except justification of the Republican victory – and that, heaven knows, can be done in many ways!

305

December 21, 1946

NEW YORK, Friday – The other day, I wrote about the shortage of nurses and teachers. Just how are we going to inspire the young people of this generation with a desire to be teachers, nurses or doctors in rural communities, where these are most needed and where, at the present time, they are very scarce?

It is obvious that one thing is necessary. Young people in our communities will have to want to be of service. It will have to mean more than being a success in the field of business or even in certain more lucrative professions. Our young people will really have to have a vision which makes it seem worthwhile to earn the kind of monument which, I remember reading, was accorded years ago to an obscure rural doctor.

When he died, there was no money in the community to pay for the conventional stone to mark his grave, and so, from far and near, each person who came to the funeral brought a stone as big as he could carry. The doctor had served many people in the course of his life, and many stones rose over his grave, until you had to raise your eyes to the heavens to see the top of his monument. All through his life, that was what he had made men do—raise their eyes to something higher than themselves.

If you have that doctor’s philosophy, you are paid in a different coin from that which you can earn in any way except by serving your fellow human beings.

Having such a philosophy may be the most important thing. But at the same time, we as a nation must recognize that, for this kind of service, a certain freedom from care is essential. Therefore, it seems to me that a floor should be placed under the earnings for teachers, doctors and nurses. And where local communities cannot keep their earnings above that floor, the government should perhaps step in and equalize, throughout the nation, the pay for those who are essential public servants and without whose efficient and devoted service no democracy can live and grow.

Essentially, of course, this is what many of those who believe in Federal grants to states for education have been trying to achieve for a long time. Where a State, out of its own revenues, is not able to provide equality of educational opportunity for all of its population, and where the standard of education is measurably lower than in other States, it is essential for the good of the country that the cost of providing this opportunity be spread over the whole nation.

No part of the country should be allowed to fall below the standards which provide a good basic education, since all children must have certain tools in order to develop their maximum abilities, not just for their own good, but for the good of the country as a whole.

306

December 23, 1946

NEW YORK, Sunday – I said something the other day about placing a floor under the salaries paid throughout the country to our teachers. I was thinking in terms of elementary, grade-school and high-school education, particularly in rural areas. I have been shocked, however, to read of the difficulties in which our college teachers find themselves in New York State, which is supposed to have such a very high educational standard. To be sure, as a state, we have lagged far behind in providing free educational opportunities on the college and graduate school level. To discover, however, that the rapid rise in the cost of living, with no compensating rise in salary, has forced many of our college teachers to supplement their salaries by doing manual labor in what should be hours of leisure, is a really shocking commentary on the value which we put on our children’s education.

In the City of New York during the last normal year before the war – October, 1940 to October, 1941 – there were 31 resignations, I am told, from the regular teaching staffs of the four municipal colleges and 27 resignations from the clerical staff. On the other hand, from October, 1945 to October, 1946 there have been 94 resignations from the teaching staffs of the four colleges and 122 resignations from the clerical staffs. If the number of students had remained approximately the same, or had decreased, this would not be so serious; but because of returning veterans and the normal increase in students, there is a great rise in enrollment.

The state sets the salary schedules, but it gives only a nominal amount to higher education; and perhaps here is where increased aid to the Board of Higher Education would make possible the necessary adjustment. Few people realize that more than half of the permanent teachers in our city colleges have only about $300 a month in take-home pay. In Queens College, this is true of 75 percent of its staff. For temporary teachers the pay is often less than $200 a month, and most clerical employees receive less than $2,000 a year.

Usually, in jobs which are connected in some way with the government, the advantages held out are greater stability and security in the job, pensions for old age and more liberal vacation periods. But if you have to do outside tutoring or some other kind of outside work to make ends meet, that cuts out your holidays; and it is also quite evident that many teachers today, particularly those who marry and have children, are obliged to skimp on dental and medical care as well as on housing, clothing, furniture and even food.

Even the most timid who long for security may be forced to resign and try to find some occupation which meets the needs of the moment a little more adequately. When you realize that every college teacher must have many years of preparation for his work, you wonder a little how our state and city officials expect to hold any of their good teachers. What is to happen to the opportunities offered to our children in the field of free, higher education?

307

December 24, 1946

HYDE PARK, Monday – On Friday morning, bright and early, I started calling the railroad about the train coming in from St. Louis only to learn that it would be late. On subsequent calls I was told it would be later than originally expected. At any rate, I went up to Grand Central Station and, gazing up at the board with the listings of the incoming trains, I bumped into another lady. When I looked at her to apologize, I found she was an acquaintance waiting for her mother to arrive on the same train on which my grandchildren were expected. Finally, the train came in, and there they were, all of them looking well and happy. Of course, I was happy to see them.

We went home and then with my niece, Miss Amy Roosevelt, who happened to be spending a night or two at my apartment, the older children went off for a look-see at the shops, and some last-minute Christmas shopping. As soon as the little New York boy got home from school, the younger children started off for Hyde Park by car.

It had already begun to snow and as the rest of us went up on the train, the children kept looking out of the window hoping that there would be deep snow before they reached the country. I was silently hoping just the opposite, thinking of the children driving up and what hour they would arrive. We reached home from the train and had had supper before the car with the younger children arrived! They changed into a car with chains on it before they started to climb to the hilltop cottage which is their home.

Saturday it rained, but the snow was deep enough so that the children could use their sleds and play in the snow. I took a long walk in the woods and watched my Scottie, who resents very much being a city dog, smell the rabbit trails and run off as far as he could. He couldn’t go too far off the beaten track, however, because his short legs got bogged down in the deep snow!

Four gentlemen came up to spend part of Saturday with us. Two of them are young Hollanders who are now studying at Fordham University and who both were with the resistance movement throughout the war. The third, an Australian flyer whom I last saw in Cairns in 1943, is in America on business, and the other, Mr. Weir, has been with both the Red Cross and UNRRA in Europe and came to talk to me about what work might be done by the churches now in the displaced persons camps.

The children joined us at lunch and after lunch went on with their snow enterprises while I took the others over to the big house and the library. At last one can go through on bad days at least with a certain amount of quiet, and, while I regretted the gray and rainy day, I realized that my quests would see far more than if they came in beautiful weather. The Dutch boys kept saying it reminded them of Holland, and I think they enjoyed being out in the country even though none of them was dressed for rugged, country weather and could not enjoy a walk in the rain!

308

December 25, 1946

HYDE PARK, Tuesday – Now we come to the second Christmas since the end of the war. All over the world there are still signs that peace returns slowly after an orgy of hate. Yet this is the season when in all hearts there is rejoicing.

People may celebrate simply the non-religious Christmas, over which jolly old St. Nick presides, or they may believe that the special significance of the season was carried by the Angels to shepherds, as they watched their flocks, and that today we still rejoice at the coming to our earth of the Saviour of men.

It is the season of goodwill and the season of giving. And if the spirit of giving could extend itself so that the hearts and the minds of men were chiefly concerned with what they could give and not with what they could receive, we would soon, I believe, see a change in the atmosphere of the world in which we live.

I am always interested to see how pleased some people apparently are to take things away from other people, whether it is their worldly goods or such intangibles as their characters or their reputations. It seems to be, almost inherent in human nature to glory in destruction rather than in building up, and yet everywhere at this season, we are reminded that once upon a time the Angels spread the gospel which has managed to live through the ages – that there must be peace on earth and goodwill to men.

After an orgy of cruelty and hate such as has gone on in Europe and Asia, it is harder than ever to bring people back to the spirit which animated the whole life of Christ, but that is what I believe we will have to achieve if we are going to build an atmosphere in which peace and goodwill can grow.

I think I can truthfully say that I have no feeling of real animosity against any man, but I believe that a negative feeling is not enough to accomplish that which must be accomplished in the world in the course of the next few years. We must consciously wipe animosities toward our neighbors and eventually into war.

Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself is not a very easy Commandment to obey, because there are times when one loves oneself very little indeed! On the whole however, we are kinder to ourselves than we are to our neighbors most of the time, and it would be well, I think, to develop a sense of tolerance and understanding toward humanity as a whole.

I hope that before the third postwar Christmas comes around, we will see a measurable improvement in the confidence of nations in each other. It will have to come through the medium of individuals who work together and who gain confidence which they can impart to their fellow countrymen.

So let us highly resolve on this Christmas Day, 1946, that each one of us will do our part, trying to build a bridge of understanding toward every individual from another land with whom we come in contact. We may differ but we can understand each other. And if we do, the Kingdom of God will be nearer to realization, and the Christ Child will not have come to earth in vain.

309

December 26, 1946

HYDE PARK, Wednesday – I want to begin my column today with warm and sincere thanks to the many, many people who have sent me Christmas cards with such kind messages and good wishes for me and mine.

We have had a festive Christmas season with four grandchildren to bring us gaiety. Yesterday we carried out the old custom of a party on Christmas Eve for our close neighbors on the place. Today is given over to the children and the family. Last evening we read Dickens’ “Christmas Carol” and hung the stockings by the fireplace. This morning we were all on hand to see what Santa Claus had managed to bring down the chimney, which fortunately is of ample size.

Christmas dinner is at noon so that all of the children may be included, and late this afternoon we will gather a second time around the tree to receive our personal gifts and sing the Christmas carols which all of us love.

Some of us went to the midnight service in the little old Episcopal Chapel in the village last night and heard many of the same carols sung, but one never hears them too often at the Christmas season. This year my sister-in-law, Mrs. J. R. Roosevelt, could not join us, and so we managed to take the children over to see her in order to bring her into the circle of youthful enjoyment for a few minutes.

Tomorrow afternoon our children will be hosts at the party for the youngsters from Wiltwyck School who were not able to go home for Christmas, and that will bring our own personal Christmas festivities to an end.

I am so glad that it is possible for us to spend these days from Christmas through New Year’s Day in the country. There is something about the serenity and beauty of a countryside in winter which even my view of Washington Square in New York City does not quite reproduce. I never cease to marvel at the varying beauty of the seasons. I know that I would not want to live where the changes are not so marked as they are in this part of the country. To progress into the spring and see the stark architectural lines of a tree, beautiful in its nakedness against the blue sky, gradually change as the buds come out, until it is fully clothed in its summer garment, is one of the really exciting experiences of life. The murmur of the brook under the ice in winter, the little animal marks on the new and untouched snowfall – all of these things are joys which only the country can give us; and only our own somewhat rigorous climate can provide us with the changes and varieties which make every season a new and fascinating experience.

For our life in the country, and for children and some part of the family and dear friends in the house at this season, I am deeply thankful.

310

December 27, 1946

HYDE PARK, Thursday – One of the most cheerful things I have read in a long while is the actual, gradual plan of a United States of Indonesia being formed under Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands. It is the carrying out of the plan which I remember hearing her talk over with my husband when he was President, and it should bring gradual independence and the opportunity to develop self-government to all the peoples of the Indonesian area.

The natives of Borneo are probably the most backward of all the peoples in that area, but as the move is made toward education in civilization and future self-government, all peoples will, I hope, respond.

I have had a number of letters bitterly complaining that our soldiers in Germany are making the Christmas season bright for German children, while the children of displaced persons, still in camps, were having very little done for them, particularly by our army.

Few people seem to understand that the average soldier in Germany has no contact with displaced people in the camps. Those camps are run by UNRRA personnel, and usually are not places which soldiers are permitted to visit. Our servicemen see displaced people being taken in trains from one point to another or driving through the city of Berlin, but they are herded together and American soldiers have little opportunity to think of them as individuals or even to talk to them. Also, their languages are a barrier; there aren’t many of our boys who are familiar with the various languages and dialects of central Europe.

When I was in Berlin, I asked a number of boys if they had ever seen the temporary shelter where Germans coming in were boarded before being sent out again to whatever part of Germany they were assigned to join relatives or to start life anew. It was a former air-raid shelter and, from my point of view, quite a horrible place. Practically every soldier I spoke to had never seen it!

It is a natural thing for our boys to make a happy Christmas for children, especially those youngsters who have very little. I would think less of the families from which our soldiers come and of the boys themselves if they did not try to make this one day joyful for the children living near them. I am sure that every one of them, had he been in contact with children in any displaced persons’ camp, would have, irrespective of politics or religion, done something to make their Christmas brighter. Children did not bring on the war, and there should not be any war carried against them now when the world is at peace.

In the broad field of relief I feel that, since there must be priority in what is given people, those who have suffered longest must receive relief first. Naturally, those people are in the occupied countries. If children are not being fed well in the enemy countries, I think there is hardly a person in any country in the world who would not feed them as soon as food is available. And surely at Christmas time we must be glad that our men gave happiness where they saw a child in need of it.

311

December 28, 1946

HYDE PARK, Friday – I read in the newspapers this morning that the three Democratic majority members of the Senate campaign investigating committee are said to be endeavoring to clear Senator Bilbo of any wrongdoing in last summer’s Mississippi primary. It is said that the two Republican members may both sign a strong minority report against the Senator.

I have no personal feeling against Senator Bilbo as an individual, but I have a great feeling that as a public servant he does little to add luster to the dignity and the weight of the Senate as a great nation’s top legislative body. I do not know whether technically he has done anything actually wrong, and I know very often that public men may be accused of wrongdoing in which they have had no hand. Their friends are often their worst enemies.

Therefore, in weighing Senator Bilbo as a public servant (and I am totally uninterested in him as a private citizen), I think one must take into account only what he himself has said.

There is one great question today that great nations like ourselves, made up largely of minority groups, must face. New standards have come to be accepted by great numbers of people throughout the world who believe that democracy cannot really exist unless all people, regardless of race or religion, are accepted as equal citizens and are assured of the rights inherent in their citizenship. Senator Bilbo, himself, has stated his lack of belief that these human and legal rights can be applied to all citizens equally. In doing so he marked himself, I believe, as unfit for service in a great legislative body in a great democratic country.

Of the other things, I am no judge. I would have had to hear the witnesses, and I would have had to talk to the man, not the Senator. So there one must rely, as a citizen, entirely on the reports of the investigating body.

In this other matter, however, as a citizen, each one of us has a right to make up his mind, since to say what we feel is essential to the progress of democracy. It well may be said that a Senator from Mississippi is elected by his own people and in that state it is still a very small portion of his own people who elect him. But even though he is elected by that group of American citizens, he represents before the world an opinion that he expresses in a great legislative body that represents the opinion of the whole United States.

I am extremely jealous of our standing in the world. I have great faith in democracy when the majority rule really operates. I believe in the slow processes of democracy and in the fact that people may make mistakes and work through to proper solutions in the long run, given the time to do it.

Just at present, however, our time is short and we who believe that democracy is the form of government and the way of life that will give the greatest number of people the greatest opportunity to be free from fear and want and to build peace in the world, must try to see that those who represent not one state, as they may think, but the nation as a whole, truly represent what we think is essential to future peace and world fellowship.

312

December 30, 1946

HYDE PARK, Sunday – I like very much a sentence in Walter Lippmann’s column of December 28, in which he says: “Mr. Roper’s figures would, I think, justify the statement that in America the circulation upward in the social order is so free and active that this country is living in a state of slow but permanent revolution.”

Nothing more hopeful was ever written. Since the world as a whole lives in hope and always on the hope for the next generation, this is what gives us stability as a nation. A feeling that if you are poor, you and your family are not doomed to be poor forever; that if you are working in a job you do not enjoy, you are not doomed to hold that job forever but may quite probably find one you will like very much better at almost any time; that if you failed to receive or to take advantage of the education you feel essential for success, you still see visions of your children having the opportunities you missed – all of this makes for a restless world, perhaps, but a more stable one. There is a desire for progress in the hearts of all men, and it is the sense of frustration and inability to move forward that brings violent revolution.

In a society such as ours, where changes come about easily, violent revolution is unnecessary. Fortunately for us, our people recognized the need for reform and did not fight it. For that reason, I think, we have more gradual changes and rarely any threat of violence. Even in the days of our deepest depression, the promise Mr. Hoover kept making that around the corner there were “two chickens in every pot and two automobiles in every garage” did not seem so fantastic as to preclude the possibility of believing that it might conceivably happen; and I think that hope stabilized our nation until real help came to the rescue.

There were places where conditions were so bad that, on visiting them, I thought revolution might not be far away, given active leadership. But we escaped it; and I hope we learned our lesson and will never again allow our economy to go into that kind of tailspin. The people now know that it is not a necessity, and they will not be patient with hardships which they feel are the result of stupidity and not the inevitable laws of the universe. When the hand of God intervenes and floods or forest fires or droughts affect the harvests and there actually is not enough food in the land, that is something inevitable which people will endure because they recognize that the remedy does not lie in human hands. However, many economic ills can be remedied, and that they recognize as well; so those who wield power must accept this responsibility in order to keep slow and peaceful revolution constantly at work.

313

December 31, 1946

HYDE PARK, Monday – I was astonished to read in the paper this morning that “the special House committee on post-war economic policy and planning, in a final report following exhaustive study of the country’s post-war European problems,” has made certain recommendations which seem to me to fall into the old, conservative pattern which we and the British followed after the first World War.

At that time, we went all through the problem of whether Germany should be built up as a buffer state in the middle of Europe to defend the Western world against Communist ideas. We finally built up a feeling among our own people that it was the leaders of Germany who had been at fault, in the war, that the German people were not to blame – and we did exactly what is now proposed in this report of the special committee headed by Rep. William M. Colmer of Mississippi.

In a conference at Quebec during the recent war, a plan for Germany which has often been misquoted and twisted was agreed to by Prime Minister Churchill and my husband. That plan envisaged greater dependence on agriculture for the German people, but it never suggested that there should not be adequate small industry to keep the German economy prosperous and heavy industry to the extent needed to achieve this end. There was a clear understanding, however, that this heavy industry was never again to be allowed to develop to the point where Germany could build a war machine to menace the peace of the world.

Now, here we are, with a responsible Congressional group recommending that we reestablish the strength of a former enemy as a buffer against an Allied power – Russia. Either we believe that the democracies of the world are strong enough to live with the Russian system and prove our strength, or else we are so fearful of the strength of the Soviets that we are here and now declaring economic and political war upon them – which is certainly not the way to get agreement on a one-world theory and on control of atomic energy. I cannot believe that our President and our State Department back this extraordinary report.

It is perfectly true that, if we allow starvation in Germany and take away from the German people all hope of recovery, they will turn Communist, because that will then be the only economic method which can give them any hope. However, it has never been suggested that the German people should be put in that position.

Above everything else, to decide at this point to ease the de-Nazification program and let up on the education for democracy which should be going forward, would be folly beyond description, it seems to me.

I do not believe in a “hard peace.” I certainly do not believe in taking away hope from the people of any nation. But I believe that, when a nation has brought about two world wars in twenty-five years, we certainly should not consider rebuilding its power in a direction which will make it possible for that nation to bring about another war.