Eleanor Roosevelt: My Day (1946)

41

February 16, 1946

BERLIN, Friday – My visit to Frankfurt was packed so full of emotions, it is hard to give you an adequate idea of what I saw and how I felt. Yesterday morning, we visited the Zeilsheim Jewish displaced-persons camp. It is one of the best, since the people are living in houses previously occupied by Germans.

In these houses, each little family has a room to itself. Often a family must cross a room occupied by another in order to enter or leave the house, but there are doors and walls to separate them. If they like, they may bring food from the camp kitchen to their rooms and eat in what they call “home.”

They made me a speech at a monument they have erected to the six million dead Jewish people. I answered from an aching heart. When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?

Someone asked a man, who looked old but couldn’t have been really old, about his family. This was his answer: “They were made into soap.” They had been burned to death in a concentration camp.

Outside the school, the children greeted me. They told me a little boy of ten was the camp singer. He looked six. He had wandered into camp one day with his brother, all alone, so he was the head of his family. He sang for me – a song of his people – a song of freedom. Your heart cried out that there was no freedom – and where was hope, without which human beings cannot live?

There is a feeling of desperation and sorrow in this camp which seems beyond expression. An old woman knelt on the ground, grasping my knees. I lifted her up, but could not speak. What could one say at the end of a life which had brought her such complete despair?

From there we went to Wiesbaden and visited a displaced persons camp for Poles and Balts. These are refugees who, because of political differences with their present Governments, cannot see their way to return to their own countries, and yet they fought against the Nazis and many of them spent long years in concentration or forced-labor camps.

Here they live in barracks, and the camp is run by a wonderful French UNRRA team. My admiration for these French people is unbounded. They have given the refugees work to do, and have repaired and made buildings habitable. To be sure, the buildings are only barracks and three families – seven people in all – were living in one bedroom, their quarters separated only by curtains. Privacy is hardly a thing you could achieve in these quarters, yet many of the families eat in these makeshift rooms because it is “home.”

The food in this camp is supervised by a very capable woman, and they have a variety of diet for different ages, but soup and bread was the main meal. The soup for older people had beans in it; the soup for children had vegetables in it, with a little piece of meat.

The spirit here was far better than in the other camp – there were far more children and young people and more families who had stayed together. I noticed one little boy on crutches who had lost a leg. I was told he was one of eight children. The eldest girl, 18, takes care of all her brothers and sisters.

I went away from this camp more hopeful, but still with a sense of depression weighing upon me. What’s the ultimate answer? We in UNO asked the Economic and Social Council to create a commission to study this refugee problem, but I cannot say I envy them their work. It will tear at their hearts. And the problem is so complicated, it will take people with great wisdom to write the recommendations that have to be presented to UNO at its next meeting in September.

Late in the afternoon, back in Frankfurt, I met a group of German newspaper correspondents. When they asked me whether I thought the whole German nation was responsible for the war, I answered what to me seems obvious. All the people of Germany have to accept responsibility for having tolerated a leadership which first brought such misery to groups of people within their own nation and later created world chaos.

42

February 18, 1946

LONDON, Sunday – I was driven around Berlin during my stay there, and I think I may say that I am saturated with ruins. The city seems completely destroyed, except in certain outlying sections. I doubt if anyone would recognize the Tiergarten or Unter Den Linden, and the Grunewald has been almost entirely cut down for firewood. About 3,000,000 people still live in Berlin, but civilian Germans have no coal. They have to cut their own wood, which is rationed, and each person has enough coupons for one fire to cook meals and to boil a little water for washing during the day. In addition, one fairly big hall in town is heated so that the people can come there to get warmed up on very cold days.

Again looking at the people as carefully as possible, I found that the children appeared fairly healthy. There is hunger, but no starvation. There are people hauling little carts with wood who probably never hauled carts before in their lives. There are women working in groups to clear away the debris – far more women than men. Only civilians doing essential work can use a car. Automobiles are appearing which were hidden away before, and the little Hitler three-wheel cars with truck bodies are much in evidence. There are many bicycles, but walking is still the main means of getting about. The Germans are being treated justly, but they should learn that they have lost a war – though only rarely do they seem willing as yet to accept the blame.

We stopped in the Russian zone to see the building where Hitler lived and the shelter where he took refuge through the bombings. The great hall through which you walk to his office, and the office in which he worked, are all in varying degrees of destruction. I haven’t quite thought of what it all meant to me, but I believe my most vivid impression was one of the utter smallness of a human being who needed so much outward grandeur to build up his sense of importance. The man himself is gone and the pomp and ceremony are no more. For some strange reason, verses from the Bible kept running through my mind. Humility and the strength which the humble man draws from outside himself when he is called upon to do tasks that are apparently beyond his human power – these are the qualities which make great men. That spirit is absent here. This nation has not known that spirit, but it will have to acquire something akin to it before it can face the colossal task of reconstruction.

I visited the “Bunker,” an old air raid shelter used as an overnight station for German refugees ousted from other countries and now in search of new homes within their own borders. The room was crowded when I went in – largely women and children, with a few men. Disease has been kept down, although that seems a miracle. What is perhaps most revealing is the statement that the public health doctor of the district murmured in my ear: “The mothers are often indifferent” – that is, they let their children wander, they’ve lost so many. As we went out two children, a little boy of ten and his younger sister, sat on a bench stolidly waiting for someone to come and get them and give them shelter. Their mother had gone away and left them behind. But they didn’t cry as children ordinarily would – they just sat motionless, and your heart went out to these innocent victims of a system which that great room of Hitler’s represented.

We stayed with General Clay in Berlin, and Ambassador Murphy came to dinner. Between them I think I learned of a few of the questions that can’t be answered yet. You can measure the extent of physical damage done to cities, you can restore water supplies, gas and electricity, and you can rebuild the buildings needed to establish a military government. But how to gauge what has happened to human beings – that is incalculable. How soon will an economy which is being completely changed be reestablished, and what effect will the new situation have on the rest of the world? These are questions that cannot be answered now and may not be answered for a long time to come. The real answer will depend on the wisdom of the leaders of various nations and their ability to make their people understand the world conditions that we face today.

The men and girls in the various services have a feeling of the problem and the misery which exists all around them. At a soldiers club in Berlin, they smiled when I said I wondered how we were going to like eating dark bread at home. The boy next to me at table said: “I’d like to tell them what the people have over here.” And, later, another soldier said to me: “I can’t think why they had to fight each other. The language is a bar; but while our customs are different, all over we seem to have a lot of things that are just the same.” That’s really a great discovery – “all over we have a lot of things that are just the same.” Those are the things we have to find and build on, and those, I imagine, are the only things that can give us hope.

43

February 19, 1946

DUBLIN, Ireland en route to New York – While I was in London, I happened to hear someone say, “Given a certain situation, the United Nations Organization might possibly succeed.” Curiously, from the very beginning, I felt that, unless we approached our work in a spirit of defeatism, we would succeed, so I never for a minute thought of the possibility of failure.

In analyzing my feeling, I find it arises from the fact that, in all the years of my husband’s public life, particularly the last twelve, in which he seemed to meet one crisis after another, I never once heard him make a remark which indicated that any crisis could not be solved. He might frankly admit he did not know the answer to a difficult situation, but he always had complete confidence that some one would find the answer. No one can expect always to deal correctly with every question, but a confident approach gives one a better chance of success.

My own approach to any difficulties that emerge among the United Nations is that there is one paramount thing to remember – namely, that we have discovered super weapons of destruction. If we wish, we can destroy ourselves and our entire civilization. If we do not wish to do this, then we must learn to get on together without war. That entails the success of UNO.

It does not seem to me to be a question of “if” we succeed, since the only alternative is complete destruction. Therefore, I’ve never allowed myself to be pessimistic and I hope that the primitive urge of self-preservation will drive all leaders of all peoples to the same effort for attaining peace which they put into destroying their enemies in war.

That’s one reason why I feel that the participation of women in this effort is more important throughout the world than ever before. Men and women have found, in many other undertakings, that success was achieved when they worked closely together. It seems to me essential that women should now take their place in public affairs.

True, there are many women who cannot possibly run for office or attend conferences. They have houses to look after, husbands to take care of, children to bring up. However, nothing precludes them from finding time to take an interest in community affairs. Women free to do so should work along with men and accept responsibility within their communities, and that should carry on up into positions of state and national importance.

There are still, of course, many countries in which women are not recognized as equal citizens and have many restrictions imposed on them. In those countries, changes must come about more slowly.

In the matter, however, of keeping before our people the importance of the work of UNO, I hope women have the capacity to think up new ways of presenting the urgency of establishing peaceful international relations on a firm footing. When all is said and done, the greatest thing in life for any woman is love of her family, and it is her family that is at stake in the failure or success of this organization.

Though my responsibilities as a delegate to the UNO conference have come to an end, I do not feel they have ended at home. All of us who took part in the conference have an obligation to find ways – in newspapers, in magazines, over the radio, and by word of mouth – to awaken the people of various countries to a greater interest in and clearer perception of what UNO may become and how, in time, it may affect our daily lives.

I remember an international meeting of country women in Washington many years ago. Farmers’ wives came from all over our nation and Europe, some came from Latin America, and some from Pacific areas. They interchanged information, discovered where their products found a market, and how they depended on each other. For years afterward, women in various parts of our country came up to me and told me that they had established a letter-writing acquaintance with women in far corners of the world and that never before had they realized how a drought or change in production might affect the people of other countries.

That’s what I want to see multiplied over and over, until a housewife in Belgium, Norway, Italy, China or the Philippines knows what her sisters in other parts of the world are doing and how something which she does touches their lives. Women in factories or offices should have some idea how the results of their labor affect the lives of workers like themselves in many other places. When we women attain that amount of consciousness about each other, there will be no question of our cooperation to keep peace in the world.

44

February 20, 1946

NEW YORK, Tuesday – By asking innumerable questions while I was in Germany, I think I gained some insight into the problems confronting our Army in their administration of the American zone. In the future, I shall be slower to criticize because I understand the difficulties. By and large, I think we are doing a job we need not be ashamed of.

However, we need really able people to take over the key positions as the main military establishment shifts responsibility to a civilian administration. I’m told that these key people are hard to find and I’m not surprised, because it means a real sacrifice for the period of time one gives to this job. Yet the job has to be done for our own as well as the interests of the people of Europe.

It is not only the welfare job. It is the economic job, which is a challenge to the best ability of the highest type of men in business. The whole economy of Europe has to be changed and rebuilt.

The picture is still so confused that it is difficult to find the answers to any of the thousand and one questions we all of us would like to have answered. I heard of a journalist who, in talking to a group of service men, told them he thought the screening of Germans was going too slowly. Why didn’t our military government get rid of Nazis faster and put in a different type of German? One of the boys said, “I wish you would come and see what it means to screen 100,000 people. It takes a good deal longer than you would think.” I can well imagine it does!

I kept thinking that, if I had more time, I would go out and try to get more information by talking to the German people. But I wonder if I would get any answers that had validity. They tell me that, at first, the Germans were completely submissive – that they never looked at you and never smiled. They are still submissive, but they look at you now and occasionally even smile.

I saw fairly big groups of people where the black market was being conducted. Some of them carried suitcases, but some openly carried the things they wished to exchange or sell. People of many nationalities were milling around, for there is still money which appears from hidden hoards, but no goods.

The house occupied by General Lucius Clay, the deputy military governor, had been owned by big industrialists who backed the Nazis and evidently prospered greatly during the war. They must have been the kind of people whom one cannot help despising. The people of Berlin were really hungry and suffered during the last few years of the war, but here in this rich man’s house, were found stores of clothes and barrels of food. Life here went on comfortably while people all around starved.

I received a letter from a 60-year-old German woman which I think might interest my readers. Her family was once well off, but after the last war, reverses came to them. She has suffered a great deal, but I want you to notice certain parts of her letter, because I think they illustrate what the attitude of many German people is.

“Please listen to me! The whole world longs for peace, but peace can only reign when love conquers hatred and, as long as hatred rules mankind, no real peace nor its blessings are possible. … Man-kind has become involved in a great misunderstanding and confusion of thought and does not know how to get out of it. But ‘God will have all men to be saved and to come unto the knowledge of truth.’ What is truth and where is truth? ‘I am the way and the truth and the life.’ He who spoke these words gave us clear directives how we can obtain life, which means peace. … It all would be so simple if we would follow these directives…

“First of all, we must not judge each other. This would clear away the question of war guilt, which has been so much discussed since the first World War. ‘Judge not that ye be not judged’. … We all of us behold the mote that is in our brother’s eye but we do not consider the beam in our own eye. … We have done wrong, all of us. Now let us be intelligent. Let us feel ‘good will toward men.’ Let us sit around a table and find out together what will be the right thing to do…”

I want you to notice that, though this is a plea for us to work together, there is no feeling here that Germany has any special responsibility for the war or that its people are any different from the rest of the world.

45

February 21, 1946

NEW YORK, Wednesday – During my brief visit in Ireland with my aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. David Gray, I noticed that the countryside around Dublin looked green and prosperous. The people of the Irish Free State have not suffered as the British and the other people of Europe have suffered.

They publish with pride their food exports to Great Britain. On the other hand, hard-pressed Britain has not denied them the things which they could not have had unless Britain got along with less. For instance, we and the British have seen to it that they had sufficient coal to keep their utilities going. And the Irish Free State has not been short of butter and eggs, yet in Great Britain the ration of butter is infinitesimal and you are lucky if you can buy an egg every other week.

We in the United States are also in a fortunate position. In the whole of our North and South American continents, we have been spared the ravages of war on our own soil. For this reason, I think we have a great responsibility. We should give moral and spiritual leadership as well as material aid to those nations which have such great difficulties to overcome. Our courage for the future should inspire their hope and confidence.

Material aid to these nations is also important, but we must not take away their self-respect by putting them in our debt to such an extent that they might never feel free again. This most certainly would lead to hatred of us and the old cry of “Uncle Shylock.” In addition, we might soon find that even the resources of North and South America could be drained by unwise use and leave the whole world less well off. The material situation of the world requires that great judgment be exercised, and it is here that some of our elder statesmen and financial and industrial genius might well be used.

After my visit to the Continent, I think I realized for the first time what made our ancestors say grace before meals. That habit must have come from a situation in which the things which most of us take for granted today were really matters for thanksgiving. In pioneer days, you were conscious of your dependence on the Lord in a way which modern life has made a little more difficult for us to grasp. The whole of Europe must pioneer again or die.

I hope I will never take for granted a roof over my head, warmth in my home, and food enough for satisfaction. I wish we could revive an old custom which I remember from childhood days in my grandmother’s home – the custom of the youngest child in the family always saying grace.

Certainly, in this country, we should say grace in our hearts every day of our lives. And everything we do should be considered not only from the narrow point of view of how it will affect us, but also how it will affect the people of the world. Unless we take this point of view, what happens to us today or tomorrow will be of little real importance, because someday we will feel the impact of what is happening to the rest of the world. We cannot be an island of prosperity in the midst of a world of misery.

46

February 22, 1946

NEW YORK, Thursday – One of the things which seems to me very important for the future is that every nation belonging to the United Nations Organization, in building up its personnel, should remember not only the obvious people who must be in every council or committee discussing world situations, but also some of the groups that are often forgotten.

Everyone realizes that the legislative and executive bodies of all nations must be represented. In all the different agencies, there also must be representatives who have expert understanding of the questions under discussion. And some representatives must be on hand who have the point of view of the general public.

There are several special groups, however, which I think have a right to representation somewhere in the setup. One is the group of younger representatives of the arts, sciences and cultural fields, because they will be the people thinking primarily of future developments, and that is what we need to have in mind in everything we undertake.

Probably no question that comes before the UNO in the next few years is going to have an answer that you can discover by a knowledge of the past alone. Most of the things that come up in international relations are going to be adventures in new types of contact and of procedure. All of which will require young, elastic and well-trained minds to work out successfully. The expert on history and economics is always of value because a knowledge of the past is essential, but his knowledge alone will not be sufficient to meet the questions of the future.

The second group that I think needs representation in every delegation to the UNO are the men who fought the war. They know, as no civilian can possibly know and as no man who fought in any previous war can possibly know, the meaning of war today. They have the greatest incentive of any group in the world to work for peace.

They have paid with their bodies and with years of their lives. Many of their friends and relatives have paid by making the ultimate sacrifice and are now lying in some faraway land, or at the bottom of some ocean. They speak with the voice, not only of the living but of the dead, and above every other group, they have a right to be heard.

I take it for granted that women will be represented eventually in every delegation, for in many nations women fought the war side by side with their men, and in all nations they participated fully in whatever was done at home to win the war. Above everything else, women have brought into the world the children who will be vitally affected by the actions of those who are our representatives in the United Nations Organization. Women as mothers are constantly projecting themselves into the future and are therefore deeply concerned with every phase of the preservation and development of life on this globe.

47

February 23, 1946

NEW YORK, Friday – I waited until I came home to say something which has been on my mind for a long time. When you are on the continent of Europe, facing the needs of human beings, the dispute over rights and wrongs between American management and labor suddenly falls into perspective. You know just one thing – that, between them, they are adding to the sum total of the greatest misery the world has ever seen, for the world sorely needs the products which only we today are able to make.

I believe the Lord spared this country so that we might give spiritual, moral and physical leadership to the world, and I cannot help feeling that failing to give leadership when it is so badly needed will boomerang on our own heads. This is no time for men and women of narrow vision. This is a time when I believe the Lord meant our whole nation to be great and, in its greatness, to give the world hope for the future.

Our industrialists have shown that they are capable of great vision. As a people we have a genius for management and the know-how in mechanical and engineering processes. That is what has made us such a great industrial nation.

We must not forget, however, that our population is made up of people from every country in the world. Their hearts reach back, by a thousand memories and the ties of love, to the countries of their origin and to the people who today are suffering in ways that we scarcely understand. Someday, unless we act wisely, they are going to say to their leaders: “How did it happen that you didn’t tell us what our actions here meant to the people throughout the world with whom we still have a deep concern?”

In addition, we must remember that other nations are watching us today, because the trend in the world is towards socialism and we are the greatest democratic capitalist nation. If we show lack of unity and allow our differences to grow to such magnitude that we are unable to work together to meet the increasing needs, not only of our own people but of the world, what is their verdict going to be? How can we maintain that ours is the system which most nearly meets the wishes of our people if we haven’t what we want ourselves and can’t help those in the rest of the world?

It is not so much our government which has failed to understand our world situation, it is our industrialists who have failed to give leadership in the economic field. Labor, too, should have had the world point of view. But both have served what they imagined were their immediate profits rather than the greater profit of learning to work cooperatively and giving leadership in a broad point of view to our whole citizenry. In the long run, the world point of view is the only one which will benefit the United States of America as a whole.

48

February 25, 1946

HYDE PARK, Sunday – Judging from some of the fantastic misconceptions that I am getting in my mail, it seems to me that some of our people are not approaching the aftermath of war with great common sense. For one thing, I should like to make it entirely clear that I never said the children of Germany were “chubby.” No one in Asia or war-torn Europe is chubby. I did say that while there was hunger in Germany, as yet there was no starvation.

The thing one dreads in war-torn countries is epidemics. These are more apt to occur where the people have been on low and undesirable diets for a long time and, therefore, have had their resistance undermined. That is the case in Europe wherever Germany was the conqueror in the early days of the war and was able to syphon off the available food into Germany, leaving the conquered nations a far lower minimum of calories than Germany herself is being allowed today.

Fifteen hundred calories is not enough, but 1,500 calories a day for a year or two is better than less than 1,000 calories for four or five years! The record will show that the German occupation, in many cases, meant less than 1,000 calories a day and that babies did die of starvation in the Allied countries. It is true that people all over Europe, young and old, are dying perhaps more rapidly than they would have had there been no war, and I hope that a visit to Germany or any other country will make anyone conscious of the absolute necessity of working for the UNO and making it the people’s instrument for peace.

Throughout most of Europe, from all I was able to learn, people living in the country are better off than those living in cities. That is true of people living in other nations during the war as it is true today in Germany. Because of the early bombing of Berlin, poor people in that city probably were hungry for two years before the final defeat of the Germans. The people in other German cities fared better. Nevertheless – and I want to repeat what I said – as far as one can see, the children even of Berlin look no worse off than the children of Great Britain, who have been on a reasonably good, but extremely restricted diet ever since Germany began the war.

Wherever the Japanese have passed, starvation is staring people in the face, as it is in India. That is partly because of the narrow margin on which the people lived anyway. Whether we can keep a great number of people from dying of starvation, I do not think is yet known. It can only be done by coordination of all available food supplies in the world, and by careful direction of shipping and distribution. I think we should be willing to do all we possibly can to prevent famine anywhere. But when people talk about feeding Germany better at the present time, yet do not seem to be concerned about giving our Allies in Europe a better diet first, I think they have lost their sense of justice and have become hysterical and therefore unable to act in a common sense fashion.

49

February 26, 1946

NEW YORK, Monday – When I looked at the newspapers yesterday and saw that Michael J. Quill, president of the Transport Workers Union, had set a deadline for the threatened transportation strike in this city, I wondered whether he remembered what happened in England after the last war when a similar strike took place. I happened to be in London at the time. The trains were run by amateurs but they were run after the first day. Nevertheless, a great many people were delayed, kept from work and from their daily occupations. Many were inconvenienced and the rights and wrongs of the question at stake were completely forgotten after the first day.

There has never been a strike of that kind in England since their general strike, because the inconvenience of the general public led to the setting up of such a complicated system of conciliation that the labor leaders today rarely reach the point of actually calling a strike. I wonder if we might not reach that desirable situation through the use of intelligent leadership on both sides, thus avoiding all the bad feeling which is bound to be created if everyone is made uncomfortable by a transportation strike.

It was wonderful to get up to the country Saturday evening and find my cottage looking all spic and span and bright and cheerful. My young cousin, Mrs. Forbes Morgan, and her children were there to greet us.

White snow lay deep upon the fields and even on the roads. When I let my little dog Fala out of the car, he ran all around, a little black ball rolling over and over in the snow. He seemed to feel as much excitement over the freedom of the country as I did.

We all walked up the hill to dine with my son and daughter-in-law. When we walked back, the stars were shining brightly overhead. In my heart was a great thankfulness for this country and all it holds of security and peace.

When we woke on Sunday morning, the snow was falling gently. Again, Fala and I both enjoyed ourselves. With all of our walking around, I had a grand appetite for lunch, and it was an added pleasure to find that the chickens and vegetables, put away in our deep freezer last summer, tasted just as good as I hoped they would.

I had an opportunity to talk to the superintendent of the place and give some orders about a few things which must be done before spring. Miss Thompson said we should spend a week up at Hyde Park, getting things straightened out, but instead, we left right after lunch to drive back to New York City. Fala got into the car with such reluctance, I thought he was expressing the way we all felt.

50

February 27, 1946

NEW YORK, Tuesday – While at Hyde Park last weekend, I walked over to talk to a Norwegian-American who lives in one of the houses on our land and does fine cabinet work. He was full of the letters which have just begun to come in from Norway about various members of his wife’s family as well as his own.

Stories of heroism poured out as I listened. They were tales of the feats of young men and women in the resistance movement, and even of children who, when questioned by the Germans, kept their own counsel and never gave their families away. I think my tenant was glad to have a chance to talk to me. He said some people wouldn’t believe him and thought he was just giving out propaganda. Naturally, to find that I could match his stories, not only in Norway but in many other countries, was a satisfaction to him.

I want to tell you a little today about one branch of the work our Army is doing in Germany which I think we know little about over here. In the American zone, Brigadier General Robert A. McClure, a Regular Army officer, is in charge of the policies and operations of the information-control division of our Military Government. He seems to be fully aware of the issues at stake and very well qualified for his job. I talked to a number of the men working under him and gained an insight into some of their problems. Hitler and Goebbels did a wonderful job, from their own point of view, on the thinking processes of the German people!

We began, of course, in the period of psychological warfare, to study the warped German mentality and the propaganda techniques used by the Nazis to bring it about. We are now carrying on a re-education and a re-orientation program. This must not be relaxed for a minute or the consequences will be very serious, for the Nazi poison has gone deep into the hearts and minds of young and old in Germany.

Their Fuehrer gave them some material things which they could appreciate – full employment (even if it was in preparation for war), better houses, radios, the little three-wheeled cars. They closed their eyes to the concentration camp which lay over the hill and which, as human beings, they had to forget in order to be able to enjoy life. The job before us is a long-term job.

One of the things going on now is an effort to reestablish a free press. None has existed in Germany for many years. It is not wholly free today, for it is not allowed to criticize the Military Government or Allied policy. However, the papers are staffed by German editors and German reporters, and are subject only to post-publication scrutiny. They are being encouraged to develop high modern standards based on the high ideals of American journalism, but they may not propagate ideas of racism, Nazism or militarism. The same general policy applies to radio news.

This is one of the most important undertakings by our Military Government, and everyone should be watching it with interest and should insist that it be carried on until the roots of Nazism are wiped out.

51

February 28, 1946

NEW YORK, Wednesday – Everyone living in this city awoke this morning with a sense of relief. They might so easily have awakened to a city tied up by a transit strike with every chance that, with the subways being run by inexperienced people, there might have been some serious accidents. That threat has been removed, and I hope that, as citizens, we will all take a real interest in the special transit committee which the mayor promised to appoint.

This committee will be charged with a very great responsibility. The public has an obligation to the workers in an essential industry – to see to it that their legitimate grievances are given a fair hearing and that a just decision is reached as soon as possible.

Long delays over decisions, while the worker goes on working under conditions that he feels are unjust, take away his sense of obligation towards the public. This sense of obligation is required of public-utility workers, for they provide things that are really essential to the life of the citizens as a whole, but in return the public has a real obligation to see that the worker does not suffer injustice and is not expected to give more than he receives.

I think full credit should be given to CIO president Philip Murray and to Michael J. Quill, president of the Transport Workers Union, for their willingness to compromise in the present situation. They have shown a regard for the public and a statesmanlike understanding of what a transit strike would mean to the people of this great city and to the work which they do. One may hope that this augurs a better future in the whole field of labor relations and that the same amount of understanding can be shown by union leaders and management as a whole.

I am happy to see that the United Nations Organization has found, at Hunter College’s Bronx branch, a meeting place for the Security Council when it meets in New York in March. The difficulties that we create over housing UNO’s groups are really quite funny!

There are a certain number of people, of course, who would rather not have the international organization’s headquarters in this country. They still have not accepted the fact that we have a share in international affairs which we cannot escape. Or else they fear that, since we are going to house this organization, we may be expected to take more financial responsibility than would be our share if UNO had its permanent home somewhere else.

I think it would be wise for us to make clear that our resources are available to UNO for rehabilitation purposes as far as they will go and that we are willing to make them go as far as possible – but only if we see results which mean peace in the future and increased well-being for the peoples of the world. It is essential, however, that we face the fact that our resources can be made to stretch, without deprivation to ourselves, if we will learn to waste far less than we have in the past and to forego some of the luxuries which we have grown to consider necessities.

As to the question of a permanent home for UNO, there are some things to be considered which I would like to bring to your attention tomorrow.

52

March 1, 1946

NEW YORK, Thursday – When the UNO committee which had been appointed to study permanent headquarters sites in this country first submitted their report to the Assembly, I was appalled by the amount of acreage which was suggested as necessary. A number of the other members of the U.S. delegation were equally troubled, because they realized that great expense for the establishment of proper facilities would make the participation of the smaller nations extremely difficult.

I was very happy when it was decided that detailed studies of the suggested site should be made before any decision was reached and that a report should be rendered to the next Assembly meeting in September as to what could be done with much less acreage. If the organization is to be established in the expensive area chosen, certain things will not be necessary, since the headquarters will be so near New York City. All this should be taken into consideration.

However, when all of this is considered, I am somewhat shocked at the protests that arose here over the site. These protests were not concerned over the harm that might be done to the organization if it started on a scale that might make it difficult for all nations to participate. They were made because a sacrifice was required on the part of individuals in the area.

If the choice had fallen on an area in which our own land was concerned, I know that, though we have a deep sentimental attachment as well as a considerable financial investment in the land, I should have felt that no personal consideration could weigh against the possibility of helping to establish the United Nations Organization. In the interests of the peoples of the world, this organization may save our country and others from the kind of human misery which another war must inevitably bring to all those engaged in it, and for that end no sacrifice is too great.

Somehow I do not think that this nation as a whole has really taken in what the UNO is attempting to do. The war in Europe brought destruction so great that it will take years to rebuild the material things which have been destroyed. How long it will take to restore spiritual and mental balance in human beings who have undergone so much misery, is a question which only time can answer.

We have been spared, I am sure, because our people have something to contribute to civilization. But it hardly makes one feel that we realize our responsibility when we protest against the UNO site on the grounds of pure self-interest, rather than on the more valid grounds that what is being proposed may be unwise and may result in defeating the real purpose of UNO.

I feel convinced that, on reflection, there are very few people who would not make the sacrifice of their homes, even where these are homesteads in which several generations have lived, if they could feel that they had really advanced the cause of peace. Somehow, our leadership failed in this case to give us that vision. The selfishness which is in all of us was appealed to first, so that we were made to appear before the world as having little interest except in our material possessions. That is a false picture of the people of these United States when they really understand what is at stake.

53

March 2, 1946

NEW YORK, Friday – Finally, this morning, I got a signed letter on a subject which has brought me several almost identical anonymous letters! This signed letter I am quoting below:

“The present city administration makes us so furious that we wonder how we could ever have voted for O’Dwyer. Hardly two months old yet, and one faux pas has followed another. A military government should not be established except under the most compelling of circumstances and then they found that the situation was not even serious. Our right of peaceful assembly was denied! Truly our rights are endangered by those in authority. We are writing you because we remember that he was your candidate.”

Let’s just analyze what this lady says. What does she mean by military government? She evidently doesn’t know much about it.

I have just come back from Germany, where there is a military government. You can’t buy any food there unless the grocery store has received it from the Army, and you can have only the amount the Army allows you. You can’t go on the trains, which are run by the Army, unless you have a permit. You can’t get any gasoline for running your car unless you can prove you are engaged in some work which the Army considers essential. In that case, the Army allots you the gasoline and, ordinarily, you can’t get more than two gallons at a time.

If you want any heat, you will have to be in a building heated by the Army, because the Army has all the coal available. Civilians in Germany were told last autumn that there would be no coal for them. They could cut their own wood, but they would be rationed on their daily supply of that. You see people dragging little carts of wood all through the streets of Berlin, and the allotment is just enough for a fire to cook your soup for your midday meal. After that, you have no heat.

That is military government. I think that, even on the one day when Mayor O’Dwyer closed public places to conserve coal on account of the tugboat strike, the lives of New Yorkers were not controlled and regulated to this extent! It seems to me utter and complete nonsense to talk about “our rights” being “endangered” and the “right of peaceful assembly” denied.

Anyone who is old enough to remember the last war will remember that there was a period afterwards when we went through certain difficulties. This war lasted much longer. It put everyone, including our soldiers, under far greater strain and will therefore have much more serious results. Any public officials during this period are bound to have a more difficult time in carrying out their duties, whatever they may be.

The mayor of New York has a great cosmopolitan city to govern, with an infinite number of problems. To condemn him before he has had the time even to familiarize himself with the workings of the city administration and to find out whether his official family is functioning to his satisfaction or not, seems to me very poor sportsmanship. As a rule, the American people are fair and generous and withhold their judgment until there is a real opportunity for getting an all-around picture of a situation.

54

March 4, 1946

NEW YORK, Sunday – On Friday night I went to the theatre again and saw Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne in “O Mistress Mine.” I was glad to be with such an appreciative group, since I had been away from any pleasure of this kind during my whole time in London and since my return. They were very kind in London and offered the UNO delegates all sorts of special performances, but I had so much work to do that I made it a hard and fast rule not to attend either the theatre or the movies. Even with that rule I found myself working night after night until one or two o’clock in the morning. But a little stern self-discipline brings its own reward, for my pleasure in Friday night’s performance was heightened by the sense of excitement that comes with doing again what has always given one pleasure. The theatre and the dramatic arts have been one of the joys of my life!

Guthrie McClintic, the producer and director, sat next to me at the performance. He was told by Miss Fontanne after the play that she had forgotten his presence until just before one of the most difficult scenes, and then it swept over her that this most respected of critics was in the audience. I could have told her that he was no critic Friday night, but just a very amused and happy part of the audience.

The play is light and rather charming, but without the performance which the Lunts bring to it might have little appeal. The whole cast is good, and I thought Dick Van Patten, who played the obnoxious young son, was delightful, too.

Mr. Lunt told me that they had played “O Mistress Mine” in England. At first they had put on “Let There Be Light,” a drama at which their audiences often wept. Then the Lunts got to feeling that the British people had wept enough, and so they turned to something which would make them laugh. For that they deserve our gratitude, since the few hours of laughter spent in places of entertainment are probably a very important factor in giving the people of Great Britain the courage to persist with their wartime restrictions and difficulties in order that they may continue to help in Europe with both food and materials.

The Russians, too, have discovered the value of taking people out of their everyday world through dramatic and musical presentations of great beauty. Their people, too, have been able to accept the restrictions, imposed in preparation for war, which have kept their standard of living so low and their consumer goods non-existent. For this reason, perhaps, they have had a sharpened appreciation of everything the arts could bring them and been strengthened through them for their daily sacrifices.

I was interested to find that these two sensitive artists, Mr. Lunt and Miss Fontanne, felt as I did about the continent of Europe and the depth of human sorrow and misery that one cannot escape over there. So they will understand, I hope, my gratitude for what they did abroad and what they are now doing here at home.

55

March 5, 1946

NEW YORK, Monday – Suddenly I seem to be having an orgy of theaters! The other evening, Miss Thompson and I went to see “Born Yesterday” with my youngest son, John, who is here from California. We did not regret having given up an evening of work for an evening of entertainment, because “Born Yesterday,” a new comedy by Garson Kanin, is certainly one of the most amusing plays I have seen for a long time. It is well acted too. It teaches a lesson, but the lesson is a sugarcoated one which you swallow with loud chuckles.

One of the things that I think we should help to promote throughout our country is better education in farm living, so I was interested to receive a notice of the efforts being made to raise a fund to improve the National Farm School, which is a junior college located in Bucks County, near Doylestown, Pennsylvania.

This school was fifty years old in 1944. Leo Tolstoy inspired the young Jewish Rabbi Krauskopf who founded it in this country. But it was always “for Jewish lads and other lads”. Thus, it not only gives practical and scientific education in agriculture, but it has taught a great lesson in tolerance and the ability to get along with others regardless of creed, nationality or racial origin.

The graduates of this school are probably the ones today who will respond to the appeal of the Government for increased efforts to help the people of the world and save them from starvation. These graduates probably all know what being hungry means. At some time in their lives, they have probably seen children who were hungry. This will help them to picture what our help can mean throughout the world.

Judging by some of the letters which come to me, I think many of us have forgotten that our ancestors came here and made this a land of refuge, and that some of our best citizens have been the sons and daughters of refugees! I am told there is a bill in Congress which proposes to cut our immigration quotas in half. I understand that it is supported by many people on the ground that it would help to prevent unemployment in this country.

Our immigration quotas are small now but, to many people, being included in the quota means the difference between life and death, between hope and despair. If we would give more thought to getting into full production and producing the goods which the world needs, so that other nations could be our customers five years from now, I think we could use the new labor. And as a result of the new purchasing power which that labor would create, I think we would find ourselves better off.

I found myself, the other evening, sitting down to reread in a book my own answers to questions which have appeared in a national magazine. To my surprise, the answers seemed quite new and almost as though someone else had written them! Even though the book is largely only a reprinting of what has already appeared in a magazine, still there is an excitement I never quite get over in seeing my name on the jacket of a new publication.

56

March 6, 1946

NEW YORK, Tuesday – I see in the papers that the emergency housing program designed for veterans has had a setback in the House. Apparently, the majority do not believe in subsidizing housing.

Also, a group of our legislators believe the time has come for strict economy and retrenchment. This is an interesting theory that requires great judgment in practice because, if we economize too far and on the wrong things, we are apt to find that we have cut down the people’s earning power to such an extent that we have injured our whole economy rather than benefitted it.

Many of our legislators are not economists. They, like the rest of us, learn some very wise basic principles when they are young which should govern our private lives but, when these same principles are applied to the Government, we are apt to get into trouble. In the sphere of economics, we need the most expert advice possible!

It seems obvious to me that cutting down on housing is not our best way of economizing at the present time. Shelter is a basic need. Health and happiness depend very largely on the ability of people to find decent places in which to live. And I know from my own experience that, if things are not running well at home, one’s ability to work is hampered. I am sure that a veteran who has his family in one room, and probably pays more than he can afford for that one room, is not going to do good work.

We are faced with a national telephone strike on Thursday. But I hope it is becoming apparent to both management and labor that, if the machinery set up to prevent strikes is not adequate, then they must set up machinery that will do the job.

At the present time, to hold back production by any strikes is to injure the whole community – labor and management alike. The use of the telephone has come to be an essential part of our business procedure. If we cut off something which facilitates the conduct of business, we are hampering production.

Fifty years ago, everybody did their business by letter, or journeyed slowly from one place to another to discuss their business in person. Today everything moves faster and the telephone is one of the ways in which we facilitate the doing of business. For that reason, a strike will bring serious resentment and the same lack of consideration of the rights and wrongs at issue which always results when the public is seriously inconvenienced.

I was trying to get a taxi this morning when a man actually offered to get out of his and give it to me! This courtesy seemed too much to accept, so I asked him if I might take him to his destination. On the way, he told me he had just come to New York from Arizona, bringing 100 carloads of cattle, 40 head to a car. He had been in the Navy and had seen many places during the war, but I admired his devotion to his own state and his joy at being back on his father’s ranch. These are the men that make our nation strong, and I was glad that I could tell him that I too had an affection for his state and was looking forward to being there later this month. His sturdiness and his integrity gave my spirit a lift.

57

March 7, 1946

NEW YORK, Wednesday – I think the time has come for us as a nation, perhaps for various nations, throughout the world to decide what really offers us the best chance for peace in the future. Mr. Churchill’s speech in Missouri indicates his belief as a private individual that the future peace of the world can best be guaranteed by a military alliance between Great Britain and the United States. He believes that the people of both our countries want peace, but for some reason he is not equally sure apparently that this is the case where the peoples of other nations are concerned. I think he pays the English-speaking people of the world a very high compliment. I hope that we could be trusted to have no selfish desires, not to think of our own interests first and therefore never to take advantage of our strength at the expense of other peoples. We must, however, it seems to me face the fact that were such an alliance formed other nations in the world would certainly feel that they must form independent alliances too. What is sauce for the goose must also be sauce for the gander.

The situation does not seem to me to differ very greatly from the old balance of power politics that have been going on in Europe for hundreds of years. The only difference would be that now we would be a part of the political world picture. We have not always seen eye to eye with the foreign policy of our English-speaking cousins. We certainly have done a good deal of critical talking about the balance of power game as it has gone on in Europe. Almost invariably it led sooner or later to wars and more wars. The alternative to this old political game was what Woodrow Wilson dreamed of in the League of Nations. Then my husband and many other great statesmen planned the United Nations Organization as a result of this last war. Instead of running an armament race against each other and building up trade cartels and political alliances, we the nations of the world should join together each contributing a certain amount of military strength to be used only against an aggressor. We would use the forum of the United Nations to discuss our difficulties and our grievances using our diplomatic machinery to adjust such things as we could among ourselves, but bringing questions that individual governments disagreed on before the bar of the United Nations as a whole. Difficult machinery to work out, but it aims at the nations of the world living under law, using an international court of justice and only resorting to force to curb an aggressor. I do not wonder that the elderly statesmen think this a new and revolutionary move in the international situation. I will grant that there are two possibilities here, the old way and the new way. We have seen the results of the old way, however, in war and destruction and we may still see starvation and pestilence stalk the earth as a result of the old way. Might it be wise to try the new way?

58

March 8, 1946

NEW YORK – I had a sad letter the other day and one which points out one of the big problems that the people of the United States are facing today.

I am quoting it for that reason. “In 1944 I married a young Chinese woman who had come to the United States in 1938 with her B.A. from Yenching University seeking higher education. She received her M.A. from Mills College in 1940, and it was in the fall of that year that I met her when she came to the University of California to work for a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology. She is a most beautiful young woman, beloved by all who know her. After a great deal of soul-searching we were finally married – while I was a junior medical student.

“…When we were married we were entirely conscious of the shape of general social reaction in the United States, most particularly in the west, against mixed marriage. Indeed California has a statue against miscegenation which made it necessary for us to be married in Washington. Nevertheless, until recently we have not encountered any direct evidence of this traditional hospitality. Our recent encounter has been, as you might surmise, in the field of housing accommodations. Recently I have taken a position in the Donner Laboratory of Medical Physics at this university where research is being conducted in the medical use of the products of nuclear reactions, particularly of the uranium pile. I can only hope as one among millions that it is in this peaceful type of use that the incredible force loosened by man’s genius will find its future application. In order to function effectively in this new job it was necessary for us to move to Berkeley. I arranged for an exchange of apartments from San Francisco to Berkeley, and we moved in. I did not tell the manager that my wife was Chinese. I did not and do not feel that I had any moral obligation to give such information. By present rental and housing rules of the O.P.A. we are quite secure in our new home. The unpleasant experience that precipitates my writing was a conversation the manager and wife, just held after a month’s tenancy, in which I was reproached for not informing them of the fact of my wife’s nationality. Tempers were not lost, but the significance of their adverse criticism was insulting. In due respect to their position they were expressing the owner’s attitude, although one cannot doubt that their own feelings were also involved. Had they known, we should not have been accepted as tenants.

“…I am writing for my many Oriental friends, whom I know through my marriage and through residence at the Berkeley International House where I met my wife, for my Negro friends, for my Filipino and Mexican friends, and for the host of all these races whom I can only know as they are symbolized in my friends.”

If this exists in our own land it seems to me that we deny the spirit of the religions to which we all belong, for all religions recognize the equality of the human being before God. We deny the spirit of our own Constitution and Government which our forefathers fought to establish in this land, we make future goodwill and peace an impossibility for no United Nations organization can succeed when peoples of one race approach those of other races in a spirit of contempt.

59

March 9, 1946

NEW YORK, Friday – The night before last was an unforgettable evening. I went to see “Antigone” with a friend who fortunately appreciated it as much as I did. It would be presumptuous of me to try to praise the work done by Miss Cornell and Sir Cedric Hardwicke. Everything that they did was beautifully done, so I can only speak with deep gratitude that it was made possible for me to see something as moving and as beautiful as this play. Naturally this is not the play that Sophocles wrote yet the essence of what he wanted to convey is all there. I wish that I could have seen it given in French before the German censors. M. Jean Anouilh must have done a very interesting piece of writing to get the story past the censors, and have it give the French, who were subtle enough to understand the lift of seeing their masters condemned for their crimes against France and yet be oblivious to what was being conveyed through the drama! The translation here by Lewis Galantiere is very beautiful and I thought that Mr. Braham as the chorus was remarkable. I am tremendously proud that something as fine as this is on our New York stage and that it has a good audience. When the curtain went down it took me a minute to realize that the play was over and that I was not in Thebes, but back in the modern city of New York where the same old fight is going on between the things of the flesh and the things of the spirit! We certainly need a modern Antigone, but I don’t know just where we are going to find her!

The following request has come to me and I am glad to comply with it. In a letter from West Brayton, Middlesex County, England is the following paragraph:

“Would you through your daily columns give a mother’s thanks for all those nice letters, which have been sent to this country by returned G.I.’s. They are most gratifying.”

I am very glad that our young soldiers were so appreciative of the hospitality shown to them by individuals in Great Britain and that they took the trouble to write those who had been kind. It will mean a great deal to people who have to continue their war time restrictions and do not find it any more pleasant than we would, if fate had so willed it that our people had been the ones to suffer similar restrictions.

Over the radio yesterday morning I heard an appeal on the “Farm Hour” between six and seven a.m. asking that all of us eat one less slice of bread a day and making the very good suggestion, I thought, that instead of having bread for breakfast, we have a small amount of oatmeal. We can use up any stale bread left from the day before to make plain toast or french toast, since stale bread is better than fresh bread, if you are going to toast it. The Department of Agriculture also urged the use of potatoes instead of bread and some ladies may be glad to know that potatoes are less fattening than bread! In Europe for the greater part of the people the main meal today consists of soup with a potato base and a few slices of carrots placed in it. They do have a hunk of dark bread with it, but we have plenty of things to take the place of bread and can have a well-balanced diet. Fruit and cheese are now available and I find a slice of apple with a thin slice of cheese a very good substitute for a sandwich!

60

March 11, 1946

NEW YORK, Sunday – The food situation in Europe presents a somewhat varied picture. Denmark is one country which is well off today, as far as food is concerned, and which can export food to other countries. Sweden is also probably fairly well off. Belgium did not suffer as much destruction and is coming back fast, as is Czechoslovakia for the same reason. In the other countries of Europe, including Russia, the people’s diet is very low.

I have just received a very comprehensive statement on the situation in Great Britain. I think it will be enlightening to all of us, since Great Britain, in spite of war restrictions, has been able to help others. For instance, she takes several hundred Dutch children every month and keeps them for a three-month period, sending them back in much better health and with a complete new outfit of clothing!

One story about these children will illustrate the kind of thing which it is so hard for us here to realize. The woman in charge of outfitting the children was surprised to find that they took shoes two sizes bigger than would be normal for the size of their clothes. Their shoes also wore out twice as fast as shoes worn by British children. She brought an orthopaedic surgeon and an X-ray machine to the camp and found what two previous health examinations had not disclosed – namely, that the children’s feet were without bones, containing just gristle. Their feet therefore spread and dragged as they walked. This in turn made them shuffle along and wear their shoes out. Given extra calcium and better food, the bone deficiency was largely remedied before the children’s return to Holland.

Now, what do British food restrictions mean? Here is what in February one adult person received for one week on her ration card: Bacon – 3 oz.; butter – 2 oz. one week and 4 oz. the next, alternating with similar amounts of margarine; cheese – 3 oz. per week; cooking fats – 2 oz.; eggs (fresh) – 1 per month; eggs (dried) – none since the ending of lend-lease; meat – 23¢ worth per week; milk (fresh) – 2 pts. per week; milk (dried) – 8 oz. per week; preserves – 1 lb. per month; tea – 2½ oz. (over 70 years old, 3 oz.); candy – 3/4 lb. per month; fresh fish – very inadequate supply.

One person alone might buy the following with the month’s supply of 24 points: ½ lb. sultanas (4 points); 1-lb. tin of syrup (8 points); ½ lb. sweet biscuits (2 points); 1 packet cereal (2 points); 1 tin meat & vegetables (6 points). Extra food for children: From 6 months to two years old – 3 eggs per week. From two to five years old – luck if they get eggs, especially in a town. Under five years old – 1 pint of milk per day and 1 egg per week, when available. From five to 17 years – ½ pint of milk per day. Welfare foods – cod liver oil and orange juice are available for children under five for supplementary diet purposes. Adolescents in factories get cocoa.

Any housewife will realize that while this list gives a fairly well-balanced diet, it does not provide much variety. Since potatoes are the only thing which everyone is urged to eat in large quantities, you often get them served in different ways twice during the same meal. The diet tends to be fattening because of so much starchy food. I cannot say that I was ever really hungry in England, but I did not find it a very interesting diet. One becomes very food conscious, too, and one talks and thinks more about food though one enjoys it less.