Eleanor Roosevelt: My Day (1946)

141

June 13, 1946

NEW YORK, Wednesday – I am going again today to a Drafting Committee meeting of the United Nations’ Economic and Social Council. The Council is trying very hard to finish its work before the end of June and those of us who have served on the commissions are extremely grateful for the consideration which was given our reports and the efficient way in which the work is being accomplished.

Yesterday my son and daughter-in-law, Elliott and Faye, and I went down to look at one of the most remarkable farming operations which I have ever had the pleasure of seeing. Of course, southern Delaware with its mixture of sandy soil and rich bottomland and its areas of woodland, is an ideal farming country. The fields are broad and flat and without stones. To a New Yorker, it seemed an incredibly rich and easy land on which to farm. Over the whole area, chickens were being raised in great quantities and every farm looked like a satisfactory and prosperous undertaking.

The extent and variety of enterprises on this particular project which we saw, are probably among the reasons for the farm’s great success. Perhaps if you had grown up with this operation it would not stagger you as it did me! The dairy farms were beautiful. The fields of peas and beans and other produce seemed endless. The peach orchards, we were told, produced very little this year, because of a hot spell in February which brought out the blossoms too soon! The apple trees were not up to maximum either. I kept wishing that I could have seen these acres of fruit trees in bloom. Near us on the Hudson River, I know of no more beautiful sight than Mr. Henry Morgenthau, Jr’s orchards in bloom in the spring. His land is hilly country, however, and you climb up and down to reach the various orchards. In Delaware all is level and where the new orchards are planted, rye grows almost to the tops of the little trees.

This particular undertaking is not just a one-man kingdom, but a family proposition. Sons and daughters, with their families, have an interest in land which is far flung in the state of Delaware. Family holdings also include two chicken farms in Maine.

The world is small, and as we sat on the porch of a delightful house in a beach resort in the late afternoon, after having toured all day, a very pretty young woman commented that she remembered playing with my two younger sons at the Corning place in Albany and coming to the Executive Mansion for parties when they were all in their teens. Another charming girl told me that she had been at Connecticut State College when I had spoken there some years ago. Since then, she had served with the Red Cross in the Pacific and had seen the results of war in the Philippines.

Altogether it was an interesting day. My son and daughter-in-law and I spent the time in our return train trip trying to determine what we could apply, from our new learning, to a very small farming project in New York State!

142

June 14, 1946

NEW YORK, Thursday – I noticed in the papers yesterday morning that the Senate was weakening the OPA bill as much as it possibly could. They seem completely to ignore the fact – which would seem to have some weight in a democracy – that public opinion polls favor the continuation of price controls. For instance, 82 percent of the people in one of the weekly polls favored controls in general; 85 percent favored rent control.

It is roughly estimated that the cost to the country of the removal of controls on the everyday things which go into our ordinary living will be roughly around $16,000,000,000. You have a good example of what removing them does in the case of butter. We no longer subsidize, so OPA allowed a rise in price. Just that one rise will cost you and your family a goodly sum each week – if you are able to buy butter! And any of you who have been fortunate enough to obtain new automobiles, on which price controls are practically removed, know that the cost has gone up several hundred dollars.

One of the funniest statements I ever heard was made by one of our most respected senators, who remarked that the staff of people in charge of OPA were the greatest Fascists in our country. That, I gather, is because they do not want us to have inflation and are willing to see us submit to a certain amount of control for a limited period of time in order that we may not suffer a depression in the near future.

I do not like controls any more than anybody else does, but I have lived a long time and I remember what happened to us after the last war. If we are not in full production before we remove controls, prices will soar because a lot of people have money to spend and, when there is more money than there are things to buy, prices go up unreasonably.

The things you eat, the clothes you wear; the houses in which you live are all necessities. If you can possibly manage to have them, you will have them. The people who live on fixed incomes, however, the people who earn moderate salaries – they are the first ones who are going to find that they cannot have the things they have had in the past. Then we will have demands for higher wages, and prices will go up still further as those wages are passed on to the consuming public, which includes the wage-earners as well as the rest of us.

That is what weakening the OPA bill is going to mean for us. I cannot say that I blame Chester Bowles, Stabilization Director, when he says that, if the bill has no force, he will resign rather than try to do the impossible without any tools.

143

June 15, 1946

HYDE PARK, Friday – I have just finished a little book, “Sgt. Mickey and General Ike,” which will take you only a short time to read, but I think it will leave you with a very pleasant memory. You almost feel as though you knew Sgt. Michael J. McKeogh. And his story as told by Mr. Richard Lockridge certainly sheds a pleasant light on the character of General “Ike,” or “The Boss” as his headquarters staff evidently called him.

It is an unpretentious little book, but it gives the human side of a man who lived under great strain and who managed not to forget the little things that make life pleasant for others in the midst of world shaking events. Some of these events lay so heavily on his own heart and mind, and meant so much to him and to millions of men under him, that it must have been hard to bear up under the strain. I think one of the most revealing things in the book is the way in which the sergeant tells how much this particular general disliked special privilege. He couldn’t quite get away from it. No one in high position can. But he never really liked it and, as far as possible, he wanted to share the hardships with his junior officers and men. That is an awfully good example to have in the head man of your army.

I like, too, the way the sergeant told of the occasional times when the general threw caution to the winds and did things which were an unnecessary risk to him. It must have taken tremendous restraint for him to observe the rules so much of the time. It is interesting to learn that the sergeant recognized this restraint, and gave his general credit for not doing many of the spectacular and tempting things that any man in his position must have wanted to do. This book is probably not going to be as well known as Mr. Ralph Ingersoll’s “Top Secret,” but you will feel happier about human nature after you have read it. And in the days of the future, when history is being written in an objective mood, “Sgt. Mickey and General Ike” may be as valuable to the historian as “Top Secret.”

I see that Mr. La Guardia is urging us to relax our immigration laws and take in some of the displaced persons from Europe. If Palestine is not going to be opened even to 100,000 Jews, I think we should take the lead in opening our borders to this particular group of persons who have suffered more than any other. There are many more, however, who in spite of all the efforts made to have them return to their own countries of origin, will have to go to other nations. And here again I think we have a duty to lead in taking our share. It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself. Mr. Bevin’s speech gave a great many of us pause. We should not so conduct ourselves that such things can be said about us by responsible statesmen.

144

June 17, 1946

HYDE PARK, Sunday – Bernard M. Baruch’s speech on atomic control seems to me a very moving appeal to the governments of the world to listen to the most ardent desire of the peoples of the world. There is no question in my mind that the peoples of the world everywhere want peace, and I think Mr. Baruch made it clear that, as far as he is concerned, the preservation of the peace stood above every other consideration.

It boils down to this: We have temporarily the know-how and the plants where atomic bombs can be made. Temporarily, also, man has not yet found and may never find a preventive which will neutralize the destructive power of the atomic bomb as a war weapon. Eventually, however, more and more great nations will know what we know. Mr. Baruch faces this fact and acknowledges frankly that there is only one thing to do, and that is to wipe out the use of this weapon in war.

To do this, however, we will have to give up some part of our national sovereignty, for we will have to submit to inspection and licensing by an atomic energy authority set up under the United Nations. They will be given all of our secrets. They will license the use of material for industrial and therapeutic purposes throughout the world. On the subject of atomic energy everyone of us, even the big nations, are asked to give up our veto power to insure the safety of every nation. It seems to me that, without question, we can better afford to give up this amount of national sovereignty than we can afford to live in fear of what our neighbor may be doing.

In reading the Baruch report yesterday, I felt it was a document which took into consideration primarily the feelings and hopes of the masses of the people. When one sees the victory of the old type of isolationism in a state like Nebraska, one wonders how much the people of our country really understand what has happened in the world of science in the past few years. I believe, however, that people are isolationists because they think that is the way to obtain peace; and it is only through education and the presentation of the facts that we can hope they will understand the real situation which confronts the world today. I think this report will help to clarify the thinking of the mass of people if they read it carefully, and I hope they will.

The reaction of the USSR to our recent offer of military collaboration with the Central and South American republics was a perfectly natural one, and they, in turn, will increase their efforts for the same type of collaboration wherever their interests lie. Yet increase in power is valueless if it brings war – for all that we do, all that Great Britain does, and all that the USSR does has at its roots the desire for security and peace.

I happen to believe that only the strength of the United Nations can bring us this freedom from fear. I hope all of us will see clearly enough the value of this first move to give the knowledge about this most important weapon only to a United Nations body, and to give them also the power to control for the benefit of mankind the knowledge which the scientists have given us.

145

June 18, 1946

HYDE PARK, Monday – I am constantly being asked by people how they can help to make this world “one world,” and I am constantly answering that, as far as I know, there is only one way that we, as individuals, can help. That is by doing all we can in our own communities, first to create good feeling amongst all our neighbors, and secondly to work with all of them to make our communities strong, well-governed entities, since a state or a nation can only be as united and as strong as each individual community can make it.

Two organized activities which seem to help in this direction have come to my attention lately.

One of them is the work of the United Urban League Service Fund. An appeal for this fund is made yearly on behalf of the National Urban League and the Urban League of Greater New York. The National League has 54 affiliate offices situated in strategic communities throughout the nation and, during the last 35 years, it has worked to maintain the machinery for removing race prejudice as it affects the Negroes.

I think the two most effective organizations in this field, working in slightly different ways, are the Urban League and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Both groups are doing a valuable service in a field which affects only one of our minorities. But every time we strike a blow for one minority, we strike it for them all, since there is one great thing which we must learn – that humanity is all one.

John Donne, the 17th century English poet, expressed it better than anyone I know when he said: “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

The second practical thing which has come to my attention in this connection is the police-training bulletin from the California Department of Justice. The general direction of the police courses to improve race relations has been under Robert Kenny, the state Attorney General. Psychologically, the interesting thing that was done was to remind the police that they also suffer from majority prejudice on the part of millions of people who think that “all cops have flat feet and steal bananas off pushcarts.”

California has several minority groups with which her police have to deal wisely to avoid trouble. I suppose that is what has led to this practical effort at training and understanding. Here is one little quotation to show how well that is done: “Police officers will see an analogy between the immigrant Negro (from the South) testing his new freedom and a new policeman vested with authority for the first time in his life.”

146

June 19, 1946

HYDE PARK, Tuesday – Two graduates of the class of ‘46 at Mount Holyoke wrote a little article in the Mount Holyoke News, addressed to the class of 1960. They are young people just starting out in life, but they are thinking about the future and they said something to the little 6-year-olds of today which I think perhaps needs to be said to people of all ages in this country, now and always.

“Never forget that these (the war years now and in the past, Dunkirk, Pearl Harbor, etc.) are testimonies of man’s failure to grasp his responsibilities for his fellow man.”

Bishop Bernard J. Sheil of Chicago, in his fine speech to the American Veterans Committee at their convention in Des Moines, Iowa, which has just come to a close, stressed somewhat the same idea when he said that the slogan this young veterans’ group had adopted was very heartening – namely, “Citizens First, Veterans Second.” He reminded them what it means to be a citizen today, and I think his speech must have sent many a young man soberly out to work in the coming years.

Bishop Sheil stressed the need of treating labor as human beings and giving them the cooperation with management which they are now asking. Then he took up another thorny problem, the treatment of minorities. He wondered whether the Jew and the Negro did not sometimes smile wryly when they pledged allegiance to our flag “with liberty and justice for all.”

I saw somewhere that some of the people of Des Moines were a little depressed because this veterans’ group had done so little night clubbing and general entertainment. These veterans stuck to their business and argued their problems out. Perhaps this younger generation is a more serious generation. The veterans, at least, have a closer acquaintance with death than many of us older people have experienced.

I sometimes wonder if it would not be a valuable thing for some of us who are older to face the fact that, even though we did not fight the war, our acquaintance with death may be much nearer than we think. Even in the Halls of Congress, we might take a little more objective view of some of the problems before us.

It is often apparent that most people are thinking primarily of how this or that particular measure or action in Congress is going to affect them and their interests. As a matter of fact, it may affect a great many people but it may never touch the individual who starts the ball rolling one way or another.

Two things come to my mind. One is the action on price control. The other is the possible action on our sugar supply. Both deserve a little thought on the part of all of us, so I’ll discuss them further tomorrow.

147

June 20, 1946

HYDE PARK, Wednesday – People say to me, “Well, prices have gone up already, so why do we need controls?” They do not stop to think that there is still a vast difference between the prices we now have and completely uncontrolled prices.

A bulletin from the Office of Price Administration gives the following information. From September, 1939, when the war began in Europe, to April 15, 1946, the average of all consumer prices and rents rose about 33 percent. Much of the increase, however, was before price controls became effective. From May, 1942, when the general maximum price regulation was issued, to April 15, 1946, the average of consumer prices and rents rose only about 13 percent. During World War I, retail prices and rents more than doubled, and half of the increases occurred after the Armistice."

Even with the necessary rise in prices to reflect wage adjustments and facilitate prompt reconversion since V-J Day, and with the increase in grain and bread prices to meet the requirements of the famine program, as well as the increase in dairy prices which came as a result of feed costs and farm-labor costs which threatened to reduce our milk supply – even with all these increases, prices by July 1, 1946, will have risen less than 3½ percent since V-J Day.

Since V-J Day, we can see in some of the uncontrolled areas how quickly inflation occurs. The price of raw cotton, for instance, not under control, has risen 23 percent. In the last few years, the average stock market prices have gone up 33 percent. During the war, real estate prices rose 57 to 76 percent, and commercial rents, as many a small businessman knows to his cost, have advanced greatly.

This shows what inflation can do.

If the people of the country understood this, they would make their voices heard in Washington.

On the question of sugar, there is apparently a bill introduced again to aid the sugar beet industry in this country. During the war, it made sense to help that industry, because shipping was being torpedoed and we could not get sugar from outlying regions. Now that the war is over, we might well examine the sugar beet industry and decide whether it is worth subsidizing.

It is not an industry which pays the workers well or gives them employment the year around. It is costlier to produce beet sugar here than it is to import sugar from outside sources of supply. So it boils down to whether the people of this country feel it important enough to support this industry and pay more for their sugar.

There are things which it does pay to subsidize, such as a merchant marine run with decent labor standards, and perhaps the aviation industry, and any industry which is in an experimental period. But I doubt if the sugar beet industry can be looked upon in this light.

These questions are not too complicated for the average citizen to study, and they make a difference in our daily lives.

148

June 21, 1946

HYDE PARK, Thursday – Yesterday morning I went down to New York City and then out to Orange, N. J., to spend a few hours with my cousin, Mrs. Henry Parish, on her birthday. She was very happy because members of her household, even some who have had to retire, had sent her flowers and birthday greetings. And one by one, the household had come in to wish her many happy returns of the day.

I can’t help thinking that, when one reaches the 80s, it must be a very great satisfaction to find oneself surrounded by people who have a kindly feeling for one. It means that one has cast one’s bread upon the waters and it returns to one in kind!

On the return trip to New York, when I got off the ferry at 23rd Street, everybody was dashing for taxicabs, and I was in a hurry to keep an appointment. Two very young men, one of them with the serviceman’s familiar discharge button on his lapel, reached a taxi simultaneously with me, so I suggested that we three get in together and ride across town. It turned out that the ex-serviceman had been in Berlin when I was there and that we had met—I suppose, at one of the various clubs. His face looked very familiar and so did that of the Englishman who was with him. It turned out that the latter had been in Austria.

We were soon talking about European conditions and the heartbreak and discouraging atmosphere that greeted one on every side. When I think that things seem rather confused and difficult over here, I only have to reflect for a few minutes on the problems which greet every European, as he wakes every morning, to realize that we should meet our own difficulties with great ease.

The Soviet atomic plan, which was presented yesterday to the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission, seems in many ways similar to our own in its ultimate aims, so I should think negotiations might bring about agreement. The Russians cling, however, even on this subject, to the great powers’ veto right. This seems a little foolish since, if one is going to destroy the atomic bombs, outlaw their use and turn over to the United Nations whatever enforcement regulations are agreed upon, the veto power would seem to be rather useless in this particular matter.

One wishes sometimes that the Russians would give a little more thought to saying a few, perhaps not necessary, pleasant things. They remind me of some one I once knew who always felt that it was the part of stern duty to tell her friends disagreeable “truths.” They weren’t always true, but they were always disagreeable, and they were never softened by the way in which they were said. They were supposed to be said in sorrow and only for the victim’s good, but one could not help suspecting that their unpalatableness was fully recognized and sometimes enjoyed.

149

June 22, 1946

HYDE PARK, Friday – There is an article in The Nation by Freda Kirchwey, editor and publisher, which was written in Cairo about the Palestine question and the attitude of British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin. This article appears at a very opportune time. Any one who has been noting what desperate things the Palestinian Jews are doing, in order to hold onto their arms and build up a defense group somewhat akin to underground groups everywhere, must realize the seriousness of the tragedy of the whole situation in Palestine.

I think we should think back over the steps by which we as a nation became involved in this matter. There was a time when we took no responsibility for Palestine. Then Great Britain invited us to take part in a joint commission to study the question.

We knew the conditions in Europe, and so did they. We knew that innumerable Jews in Europe were braving every kind of danger in order to get to Palestine, because it was the only place where they felt they would be at home. We knew the attitude of King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia, and we knew the general Arab position.

There was really no need for a commission of inquiry, but we went along with Great Britain. The obvious reason we went along was that we believed Great Britain would accept the report of such a group and try to implement it. It was only fair to suppose that we both had a clear understanding of what our joint obligations to implement any such report would be.

Now President Truman has appointed a committee to look into this question of implementing the report, but the British Foreign Secretary, Mr. Bevin, has stated that the real reason we are anxious to see 100,000 Jews admitted to Palestine is that we do not want them in New York. He may be right in what he has said, and I am only sorry that we have not made our position so clear that such things could not be said about us.

It might be unwise to bring into New York, which already is larger than any city should be, a great number of any particular group. But certainly throughout this country we could scatter our share of displaced persons without upsetting our economy. We are not yet at the point where an increase in population is a menace. In fact, it would be quite possible to absorb far more than our share of the displaced people in Europe who are seeking homes.

The particular point at issue, however, is that there are 100,000 Jews in Europe who must find homes immediately and they want to go to Palestine. The Arabs threaten dire things. The British talk about the impossibility of increasing the military force. But surely, our allied Chiefs of Staff could work out some form of military defense for Palestine which would not mean an increase in manpower.

The Arabs are intelligent people and so are we. I cannot believe that they are without mercy any more than we are.

150

June 24, 1946

HYDE PARK, Sunday – Friday was an unusually busy day with outside things! So much of my time up here is spent going through old papers and letters, trying to equitably divide and distribute the numerous things that I stored over here when I cleared the big house of my mother-in-law’s and my husband’s personal belongings, that it is rather rare to spend a whole day jaunting.

I began by going over at eleven o’clock in the morning to meet a Mr. Booth who is writing a book on the farm interests and the farm backgrounds of various presidents of the United States. We had a little chat in the room in the library where all new gifts and acquisitions are being sorted and listed and distributed. The library is rather swamped at present because they have so many papers and various kinds of mementoes which I have sent them, as well as what they have received from Washington. When a request came in for a particular speech made at the time of my husband’s death, they had to acknowledge that they had not yet been able to get things sorted so that they could put their hands on the thing they wanted at the moment it was wanted. All librarians will be sympathetic, because I think from the Library of Congress down, this is one of the troubles in every library where the flow of incoming material is constant.

Then I visited three invalids. There seems to have been a real epidemic of accidents and illness among the wives of some of our older employees and it was lunch time before I knew it!

At three-fifteen I went to Mrs. Saulpaugh’s home on the Albany Post Road, some miles beyond Red Hook. She had a joint meeting of a number of the garden clubs and I told them what I could of the United Nations setup and the Human Rights Commission. My young niece, Amy Roosevelt, was with me and we got back just in time for an early dinner after which she took the train for Detroit, Michigan, and I went to speak at the graduation exercises in Poughkeepsie at the Benjamin Franklin School. This is one of the older grade schools and it is plain that the war has kept them from doing much in the way of repairs, but I heard promises that things would be done in the course of the next few months. Parents and teachers all seemed very proud of the sixteen young graduates – eight girls and eight boys. Three of the boys were apparently too shy to come to these formal exercises and receive their diplomas, but I thought it was a very pleasant occasion and that the others all seemed happy, and well started towards their high school years.

This is the chronicle of a busy day for me in the country!

151

June 25, 1946

HYDE PARK, Monday – On Saturday of last week, I drove to Stamford, Conn., taking Miss Thompson and Dr. Mabel Newcomer of Vassar, who was going over with me to speak at the Community Forum in the afternoon. The drive was beautiful, but just as we were in one of the loneliest spots, a strange clang-clang under the car made itself heard. Dr. Newcomer and Miss Thompson got out to see what was happening, and cheerfully told me that it looked as though the gas tank were about to fall off.

I had a hazy idea that, in a modern car, the gas tank was located so it could not fall off. Nevertheless, I drove the car at a crawl for three miles and finally reached a garage in Carmel. In ten minutes, my muffler was firmly back in place.

Though this delayed us a little, we were not late for the meeting. The chairman, Rabbi David W. Pearlman, announced that our general subject was “Humanity and Urgency.” Then we two ladies and Dr. Broadus Mitchell, director of research for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, made our short speeches. After which we answered some of the questions which the moderator, Stanley High, put to us. Then the questions came from the floor, showing great interest in the international problems of the moment.

We started home about 4:30 and had an entirely uneventful trip, so we all enjoyed it. And I really appreciated the scenery on the part of the trip where in the morning I had no eyes, since my whole attention had been focused on the ominous clanging every time we hit a slight rise in the road. I had also stalled my car right at a crowded corner and had inconvenienced everybody trying to move in two different directions. Altogether I had not been a happy chauffeur, but the return trip, I hope, restored the confidence of my two passengers.

Yesterday being Sunday, Dr. and Mrs. P. J. Schmidt, from the United Nations secretariat, came up for the day. With some other friends who were staying with me and my children, we all went on a picnic in Norrie Park. I was pleased to find that so many people are using the facilities provided there. It is so well planned that the groups who want privacy, by walking a little farther, can really find themselves almost completely isolated. It was cool and lovely looking out over the river.

After a rather late lunch, I took my guests for a brief visit to the big house. The crowds were rather large, and so, very soon, we all came back to the cottage to rest in the sun or to swim, until those who had to take a late afternoon train back to New York City were obliged to leave.

152

June 26, 1946

HYDE PARK, Tuesday – So far, we have had such cool weather that yesterday suddenly seemed the first really warm June day. It almost made one listless and I envied my children, who sat in the sun and cooled off in the pool at frequent intervals all morning.

Even the baby who is with us was attracted to the pool and splashed his toes up and down in pure delight. It is wonderful how a modern infant grows accustomed to the water and seems to have no fear. On Sunday, this baby’s father started just letting him splash his toes and, before we knew it, he was being jumped up and down in the water and was looking upon it as a most wonderful game. I can remember being terrified of the water, so there are certainly some advantages to modern bringing-up.

Mrs. Vera Brittain, the English novelist, and Mrs. Putnam, who is a sculptress, arrived from New York to lunch with me. Mrs. Brittain has been lecturing on England for the American Friends Service Committee throughout the country. She has gone practically everywhere except to the deep South.

She said she had found much more interest in international affairs and European conditions than she remembered finding on previous visits. But she did add that she had been talking chiefly to people who, because of their affiliation with the Friends Service Committee, were conscious of their obligations and of conditions in other nations.

One of the questions which she said came up rather frequently was why did Greece, which is so short of food, export some dried fruits, and why did Holland, which is also short of food, export certain foodstuffs. It seems incredible that everyone should not realize that the reason foreign countries continue their strict war rations, in many cases, is because they must have tools and materials with which to start producing again, and to obtain these they must have currency in other nations where the things that they need are for sale. Therefore, they must export something!

It is almost as essential for us, looking beyond the immediate situation, to help them to obtain these things and start rehabilitation. I am always surprised when I hear people say that it may be harmful to us if these nations produce similar things to what we produce, as though they were afraid that our market would be ruined by rehabilitation in other nations. We have succeeded in a competitive world by somehow producing things which people wanted more than they wanted similar products from other countries, and we will continue to succeed in a competitive world! However, if people have no money with which to buy from us, they cannot acquire our goods, no matter how much they want them.

As a matter of fact, the things produced in other countries are usually different from those produced here. In the past, we have often sent raw materials to other countries and had them returned to us as manufactured goods. Even if we now send manufactured goods, we still can face competition.

153

June 27, 1946

HYDE PARK, Wednesday – Yesterday I paid my first summer visit to Wiltwyck School for Boys. Mr. Stillman, the assistant director, told my four guests a little about the school and showed them around.

One of my guests had never been to a school where boys are sent from the courts, and he was astounded to hear that institutions for the rehabilitation of young offenders are not run in the same way as private boarding schools. When we explained to him what some of the differences are, he said quite firmly that he thought he would like to turn his back upon the human race, since he did not consider that any child should be treated as a criminal.

That parents could be cruel, that people who run institutions could become callous, that taxpayers could be indifferent – all these things seemed to him an indictment of the human race. I suppose they are, but you have to take things as you find them in this world and do what you can to remedy them.

Finally, somebody asked Mr. Stillman how many boys he had at Wiltwyck, and he said 80. Then he was asked how many delinquent children there were in the country, and he said he did not know the statistics but thought they might run up to the million mark. A profound gloom seemed to settle upon my guest, and he said, “But you are only scratching the surface.”

I could not help laughing because that is the reaction which so many of us have, but if we let it influence us, nothing experimental would ever be tried. There would never be any new developments if no one dared to tackle the things at hand because they could not tackle the problems of the world.

We were stopped on the way over and on the way back because every car going over the Mid-Hudson Bridge was being examined. A very bold bank robbery had taken place in Poughkeepsie in broad daylight, and the robbers had got away in a stolen car. We moved so slowly and it was so hot that I thought my car was going to boil over. When we finally reached the state police, they suddenly recognized me and politely waved me on.

In the late afternoon, we went up to the camp at Tivoli, N.Y., which the Farmers Cooperative is running. We had a picnic supper with us which we ate on a grassy spot in the shade, back of the camp.

At 7 o’clock, we joined the girl campers, who had been hard at work picking strawberries. One girl told me it had been 107 degrees in the field in which she worked. The group is mixed – a few college girls, a few from private schools, but the majority are working girls spending their vacation in this way. The farmers are well satisfied with the work they do, and say it is an excellent group.

We had strawberry shortcake with the campers, and then I talked for half an hour. After that, they asked me questions for another hour. I think the experience of camp life and an 8-hour day in the fields is probably very valuable for all of them.

154

June 28, 1946

HYDE PARK, Thursday – I wonder how many of my readers know about the very practical cooperation which the National Farmers Union and the National Cooperatives members have undertaken as a gesture of real help to the farmers of Europe. Less than a week ago, there arrived in this country a first contingent of 40 French farm boys who are going to spend several months learning how to farm in the American way on farms in Montana, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York.

Farming in France is very different from that in this country. Nevertheless, there may be many things we have here which, while they might change the methods and sometimes even the products in a European country, might be of great benefit to the people.

This is the first time in the history of American agriculture that a private farm organization has undertaken an educational experiment in collaboration with a European country. This experiment grew out of discussions between the officers of the French Farmer Cooperatives and our own two groups mentioned above, at the Food and Agriculture Association meeting in Quebec last fall. It was doubted whether such an experiment could be carried on without government sponsorship and direction. Nevertheless, it was done.

The French farm organizations played an important role in the resistance movement against the Nazis, and they are a democratic force in their country, just as the National Farmers Union and the National Cooperative members are in our country.

The French organization bears the expenses of transportation over and back for their young students, who are between the ages of 18 and 25 and who will remain about six months. Over here, the organizations collaborating will provide the boys with farm homes, farm food and modern farming experience. In addition, the members accepting the boys will pay the $25-a-month spending money which conforms with a provision in the statute governing the admission of trainees to the United States. One of the important things they will learn is the use of our modern agricultural machinery, since it is hoped that, when our farm-equipment plants get into full swing, France will be one of our big markets.

Modern machinery and cooperation among farmers are, of course, the one hope for the small family farm. There is no other way of competing with the factories-in-the-field type of food production of which our big Western farms are the best example. These large farms will, of course, be duplicated in many Latin American countries in the future.

There are many facets to this plan. From my point of view, one of the most important results will be the raising of living standards on farms in other countries as well as in our own, and also the friendships which will grow up among the young men who come here and those whom we may eventually send abroad.

155

June 29, 1946

HYDE PARK, Friday – I was very much interested the other day to receive an article sent to me from Pageant Magazine on a New Jersey community which has changed its name from Jersey Homesteads to Roosevelt. This is one of the homesteads started in the days of the depression, and it has had a hard and discouraging career.

A small group of New York City garment workers originally moved out there from the slum areas of the city. Each contributed a small amount of money, and their plan was to run their own factory, live on small garden or farm plots, and have the stores municipally owned. It didn’t work, partly because the experience was not there to run this type of community.

Today things are privately owned and run, but I judge from this article that a spirit of cooperation still exists and the community is politically active. They have a high rate of actual voters in elections. The borough council meetings are open to the public, and public issues are discussed there and at specially called town meetings in which the citizens take part.

I was very glad to see this article because so often we are told that these experiments of the depression years have produced nothing but loss to the taxpayers. The other day, for instance, I received a long letter from the minister at Arthurdale, West Virginia, who runs the community church. It is an encouraging report on the success of the people in the community. Yet I had just read, rather sadly, a diatribe in some paper quoting the cost of the original experiment and stating that the people had not liked the paternalism of government control, that the government had now sold the community and only recovered about 5 percent of the original expenditure.

All this may be true, even the part about the people not liking to be helped, and yet I can hardly believe that this was universal when I remember the conditions from which those people came. If at that time some kind of government help had not come, they and their children today might be costing the taxpayers far more than the loss on that investment in the Arthurdale community.

Children brought up in utter misery, with scant food, children whose parents are too worried to really do anything constructive for them, are the ones we find today in reformatories and later in prisons, or in state hospitals. All of these institutions are supported by the taxpayers, and the greater the number of inmates, the greater the cost.

I am glad that the Arthurdale experiment, like the Jersey Homesteads, is now owned by the people; that a private company has taken over the factory buildings; that the school buildings are run by the school system of West Virginia. I cannot help believing that the people who now own those houses and live in those communities have healthier, happier children, and that these children have grown in the past fourteen years to better citizenship than they could have achieved if there had been no Jersey Homesteads and no Arthurdale, or the equivalent in various parts of our nation.