Eleanor Roosevelt: My Day (1947)

121

May 21, 1947

HYDE PARK, Tuesday – I got up very early yesterday morning – at least, very early for me, though I realize that all around me people are astir by 6 a.m. When I do get up early, I wonder why we all don’t do it all of the time. The country is so beautiful and the air is so fresh in the early morning, and you realize that you were intended to get up with the sun and probably to go to bed with it. Only, all of our modern inventions make us able to turn night into day!

I didn’t, however, stay in the country. I travelled to Philadelphia to make a speech for the United Jewish Appeal. Both going and coming, I read many things which I had been carrying around in my briefcase, trying to find a few minutes in which to read them.

The $170,000,000 which the Jewish communities are being asked to give, to aid their unfortunate brethren in different parts of the world, is a tremendous amount for any one group in the nation to gather together for one special cause. If it absolved them from all other contributions, that would be different, but they are called upon, just as all other citizens are, to contribute to many other causes. The burden on this group of our citizens is a heavy one, and I marvel at their generous giving.

I have seen very little in the papers about an item which I found very interesting. I read the other day that Gov. Thomas E. Dewey is setting up scholarships for students in public administration, with the idea of providing better-equipped people as administrators in New York’s state, county and local governments. When I was last in San Francisco, I met a group who, through a private gift, were being enabled to study city administration with the cooperation of the San Francisco government.

I suppose that not all of those who avail themselves of these New York scholarships will actually become public officials. Some of them may be teachers in government courses, but the practical experience which they will absorb will enable them to prepare their pupils far better than before. And I think this is a farseeing and enlightened policy which Gov. Dewey is inaugurating in the state government.

I must have expressed myself badly in the column which I wrote recently on the use of military force by the United Nations, since a very able columnist seems to think that I was not aware that the veto power, as it now stands in the Charter, could prevent the use of military force by the U.N. against any one of the great nations.

I wanted to make two things plain – first, that as we came to understand this clearly, we might want to change some of the Charter provisions on this particular subject. The Constitution of the U.S., for instance, has been amended a number of times. And secondly, I wanted to say that already there are signs that the great nations are learning to use their veto power more intelligently and less frequently – which is an improvement if not an ideal solution.

122

May 22, 1947

HYDE PARK, Wednesday – I went to Newburgh, N.Y., last evening to a Parent-Teachers meeting at which Mr. Olav Paus-Grunt, head of the educational section of the United Nations, spoke on the teachers’ part in increasing the knowledge of our foreign relations and of the work of the U.N.. There were many questions afterwards. The audience ranged from returned soldiers, back in high school, to elderly grandmothers like myself. Men and women, old and young, all seemed to take a deep interest in the subject and to be very anxious to understand the way we function as a nation in relation to the United Nations.

Several times, questions were asked which forced Mr. Paus-Grunt to say that, as a representative of the U.N., he could not answer questions dealing primarily with internal affairs of the United States. I have a feeling that, at such meetings, there should be not only a speaker representing the U.N., but also someone who, as a citizen of the United States, is more conversant with and freer to speak about the things which concern us as a member nation with laws and customs of our own.

A most beautiful book, “Other Places” by Elizabeth O’Neill Verner, came to me yesterday. I had visited her studio in Charleston, S.C., and had associated her mainly with her charming etchings and pencil drawings of her own delightful old city. I had not realized she had so many recollections and sketches of other parts of the world. This is a really delightful book, both from the literary and artistic standpoint. And I am sure that many people glancing through its pages will be reminded of experiences and moments of beauty of their own, which could not be brought back in a pleasanter way.

I also received yesterday a book on Quaker relief work, “An Experiment in Friendship” by David Hinshaw. The Quakers of many lands have worked both in their own communities and in far-flung parts of the world. Ever since I have known about their work, I have admired it because, while they give lavishly, they never give foolishly. And they rarely work on what I call the purely “charity” basis. There is always an effort to make people feel that they are helping themselves and therefore building an independent future.

We had our first picnic yesterday but, because of the showery weather, we ate on the porch instead of in the fields as we had hoped. Afterwards I went over to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library to meet the members of the YSCA Friendship Club of New Britain, Conn. They brought me a present for the Roosevelt Memorial Foundation which I sent to Henry Morgenthau, Jr.

In addition, they gave me for use in my home some handmade work which spoke of skills brought to this country from other lands, as well as hours of time taken out of their own busy lives.

My niece with her three little boys, who have been visiting me, left yesterday evening, and the house seems strangely silent without the sound of young voices.

123

May 23, 1947

HYDE PARK, Thursday – The dogwood just now is at its most beautiful. Looking out from the porch of the cottage which my husband built and which he always tried to visit in dogwood time, it is simply breathtaking to see the brilliant color of the azaleas near the house with the sea of white dogwood all around.

Every year, my husband tried to come up from Washington to see the dogwood from this porch, but he rarely was able to accomplish it. On those occasions when he did get here, it was a cause for rejoicing. The whole side of the hill is dotted with dogwood trees, and your eyes rest on them with pleasure as you walk.

However, walking in the woods presents a real difficulty. I want to look up at the trees all the time, but I should also keep my eyes constantly on the ground, because there are still a considerable number of the little orange lizards which I mentioned in this column last summer. They are tinier this year than I have ever seen them before and, as they scurry away, I cannot help thinking that my foot must look like the most enormous mountain coming down near them. Then, too, if you look on the ground, you see a carpet of wild flowers. I have never seen so many! The only way I can resolve my difficulty is by standing still and taking my fill of looking up into the trees and then walking with my eyes glued to the ground.

Today I went over to the Library to greet representatives of the International Council of Nurses. There were, I believe, some twenty countries represented in the group. The International president, Gerda Hojer, who is also president of the Swedish Nursing Association, spoke for them.

The Council has been meeting in Atlantic City in their first post-war congress. Thirty-nine nations are represented in the congress, and the American Nurses Association, the largest member association, was in charge of all meetings. The presiding officer was Effie J. Taylor of New Haven, Conn., dean emeritus of the Yale University School of Nursing. This meeting should help to increase interest in the nursing profession and attract more young women to it.

I hope my readers have been watching carefully the efforts which have been made to bring before the people of Texas the case of a Negro, Heman Marion Sweatt, who does not have an opportunity for equal training in the law in that state. He has not been admitted to the University of Texas, and there is no other comparable training in the state.

This case has been well covered in the news, and I hope it will continue to be reported. I believe that the fine people of the South, who have always been among our most patriotic citizens, will themselves want to feel that the rights of all citizens, as written into our Constitution and Bill of Rights, are secure everywhere in our nation.

124

May 24, 1947

NEW YORK, Friday – I wonder if our concept of welfare is being changed by certain groups of legislators in Washington and in Albany. The current outcry against the New York City Welfare Department for doing the best it could for large families seems to me extraordinary. There may be inefficiency in the department, but there is such a shortage of housing that it was a question of putting a family in a hotel at minimum rates or letting them sleep in the park, in which case the attacks made on the Welfare Department are completely unjustified.

I also rebel at the thought that large families of some of the city employees have to receive welfare aid because their government salaries are not sufficient to take care of them. I think that, instead of Albany investigating in order to try to remove the welfare subsidy paid by the state, it would be well to investigate how many people there are on the relief rolls and what miserable lives they are doomed to live under present conditions.

I went last evening to the annual meeting of the New York City Citizens’ Committee on Children. It was particularly interesting because, after the very efficient staff made their brief reports, the meeting turned into a discussion group and I learned a number of interesting facts.

It appears that a great many workers in this field, in both private organizations and city departments, feel the need of some form of standardized annual report. This, of course, would involve a standardized vocabulary and, next, the analyzing of these reports on both public and private organizations, so that it would be easy to get information pertaining to allied fields of work.

For instance, if you are interested in the health of children, you should be able to find out from the Department of Schools the approximate number of children who will be in kindergarten next year, so that you can plan the health services with that in mind. If you are planning parks and playgrounds, you should have all the information available about children from both the Health Department and the Department of Education.

As things are at present, planning seems to frighten our officials in the city government as much as it does our Congressmen. Congress refuses to plan on national resources, and our city officials are afraid to plan even on statistics!