Eleanor Roosevelt: My Day (1947)

161

July 7, 1947

HYDE PARK, Sunday – Many things have been written that are designed to give us who are living on this earth a different attitude toward what we call death. One of the most famous books of this kind is, I suppose, Maeterlinck’s “The Bluebird.” Since the last war there must be thousands of men and women, young and old, who have fought with themselves over this very question of the nature of death.

For oneself, it is a fairly simple problem to resolve to make up your mind as to what you believe and go ahead on the assumption that it is true – or, if it isn’t true, that it won’t matter a great deal. It is quite a different thing, however, when death takes hundreds of thousands of the young people we had counted on to carry on in some way the work which we ourselves might be laying down.

The problem was brought home to me recently when I had the opportunity to read a short play called “Assembly Call,” by Jack Preston, a West Coast newspaper man. The play is dedicated to the author’s son, Charles, a lieutenant pilot in the USA Air Forces who was lost on August 26, 1942, and bears the familiar quotation from Shelley:

“From contagion of the world’s slow stain
He is secure and now can never mourn;
He lives! He wakes! – ‘Tis death is dead, not he!
Weep not for Adonais, thou young dawn!”

I think anyone whose boy went out never to return will find some comfort in the way this young pilot’s father and mother met the loss of their only son. After his passing, they realized that their role must be to help him while they are here on earth by finding something worthy of their own mettle to accomplish. They took off their mourning and started to work with the youth of this generation. They understood young people and knew that they could give them something which had meaning, just as they had been able to build a real relationship with their son. They suffered at the start, but they pulled themselves together to go forward in their work.

I don’t know that the thinking of modern young people conforms to any one particular denomination of preaching, but there is a religious battle cryin this short play which ought to have a special appeal to the young. Many of the scenes and the lines will help us to live better lives.

162

July 8, 1947

HYDE PARK, Monday – I had the first of the picnics for the Wiltwyck School for Boys the other day, and I never realized so keenly before how perfectly free from self-consciousness children can be if nobody reminds them that there are any differences in color or race. The boys show signs of early hardship, and lack of proper feeding and environment has left many of them with poor coordination and nervousness. Here and there among those who have recently arrived at the institution, there is a kind of sullenness which you feel is a protective reaction. They expect to be badly treated and so they protect themselves ahead of time by showing no interest in anyone else.

The other day, they all ate as boys should eat at a picnic, and then they sat and listened while I read aloud. Finally, they played games before going with me to the Library and the big house.

The school has recently been given a very beautiful new building by the Hofheimer Foundation and Mrs. David Levy. The building contains a kitchen fully equipped with the most modern gadgets, a dining hall with a little stage at one end, upstairs rooms for the staff, and a real projection room.

As I looked at the tables set with new china and silverware, I thought how different the effect of eating in a place like that must be in comparison with the old dining room. The latter was in a basement, and the food came out of a kitchen so small that you wondered how the cook could turn around. It must set new standards for both the staff and the children to live in these new surroundings, and I am tremendously grateful that these youngsters can have this opportunity.

Some of the boys, before being sent to Wiltwyck, were in several other institutions and were found so difficult that they could not be kept. But at Wiltwyck, the boys themselves seem to help with the discipline. One little boy announced on arrival that they would not be able to keep him, that he “always managed to run away from every institution.” There are no walls around Wiltwyck, and he did run away several times. But he always came back and the other boys finally convinced him that “we don’t run away from Wiltwyck.”

The ten-year experiment now under way is, of course, partly psychiatric. But if they succeed in finding a way to treat delinquent children which makes them more normal, a way to interest them in education which makes them want to learn, and a way to start them on arts and crafts so that they have some outlet for the pent-up tensions that have made them turn to gangsterism, then a pattern may be set which may be helpful to similar institutions all over the country.

163

July 9, 1947

HYDE PARK, Tuesday – Last night I read an article which stressed the fact that the real difficulty in having one world today is the tension between the U.S. and the USSR. That tension is quite understandable, since we are the two most vigorous and active large nations. I can quite believe that the USSR watches our actions with more interest than she does those of any other large nation because she knows that we are more independent of her.

But I must say that I do not in the least understand some of the actions taken by the Russian Government. Sometimes I think that I can see underlying reasons for these actions, but since the USSR explains nothing, I can never be sure.

For instance, why does not Russia take part in all the activities of the United Nations? I imagine that one reason is that she finds it hard to find qualified personnel to do so. Because of the need of using her best people at home in rebuilding the country and advancing the latest Five-Year Plan, she is more concerned in picking people for these activities than in choosing people to serve in the various agencies of the U.N.

And why does she suddenly come out with statements and plans with apparently no idea of cooperation, or rather with the idea that cooperation means acceptance of her plans without any give-and-take or modification on both sides? It seems to me that this might be explained by the fact that, for a number of years, Russia was cut off from other nations, so that now, in taking up these contacts, she does so with suspicion, always wondering what lies behind an offer made by any other nation. This is understandable but regrettable, since the basis of negotiation is the building up of confidence.

In refusing to join with the rest of Europe in making a survey and report on resources, she lays herself open to the accusation that she does not really care so much about European recovery as she does about her power to make the Europeans feel that they have to turn to her for help. In the old days that would have been an understandable attitude but today she is playing with dynamite, because sometimes when disagreements start growing, you cannot stop them even if you wish to do so.

The big nations of the world should come to agreements through negotiations. No one of them will get exactly what it wants, but they should come to some kind of agreement. Dividing Europe by making peace separately, rather than on a uniform basis, is dangerous. The separate handling of different problems tears us apart instead of welding us together into one world.

I am sure that the Government and the people of Russia want peace as much as we do, but I am not sure that they realize that the path they are following is not the path that leads to peace and better understanding.

164

July 10, 1947

HYDE PARK, Wednesday – The weather seems to be treating us somewhat unkindly in this part of the world. Yesterday my picnic grounds were to have served 150 young people from 28 States, who are the second group which has come to the summer encampment of the Ethical Culture Schools. When the hour arrived, there was a downpour of rain. Fortunately, some friends secured the Fall-Kill Grange Hall a few miles farther north, so the group could at least eat their picnic lunch in a dry spot!

I met with them and discussed the work of the United Nations Human Rights Commission. I answered questions for about an hour, and then took them over to the library.

These young people approach life with great seriousness and a sense of real obligation. They had worked for a week in preparation for the discussion with me on the subject of the Commission on Human Rights. They produced a draft of an international bill of rights which had many of the same concepts that are in the great majority of bills which have been presented to the commission for consideration. Naturally, they based their bill very largely on our American Bill of Rights and Constitution, but it was valuable to have 150 young people make so careful a study of those documents.

I am looking forward with interest to the Freedom Train’s tour of the country next fall and winter. I have always felt it was a pity that some of our priceless historical treasures, housed in Washington and in other cities, could not be viewed by people in different parts of the country. It never occurred to me that they might be put on a train for a tour.

I think the idea is valuable, for in this way we can bring many things to a much wider audience than they have ever had before. By exhibiting documents of historical interest, we can give people a sense of their own background which previously could only be attained by those who visited Washington or who happened to live near some of the historical points of the country.

Last winter a friend gave me a book called “Barabbas” by Emery Bekessy. It is an extraordinarily interesting tale, with applications which can be made to recent history. Here you see the two opposing philosophies, hate and violence versus love and humility, made vivid by the lives of two great figures in the history of their day. Only when the latter philosophy is accepted in the world, can we really live in peace. Otherwise, we will destroy one another and perhaps, in the process, destroy our world.

165

July 11, 1947

HYDE PARK, Thursday – In the course of the last few days, I have been called on the telephone all the way from Washington, D.C., to be asked about two seemingly unimportant things!

One – did I know that my name was left out of the summer Social Register? This is, of course, one of those things which I should think very few people would be interested in, or would even notice.

It so happens that I have only one permanent address. My home is in Hyde Park, and that address was listed in the winter edition of the Social Register. It is carefully stated by the Social Register Association that, when only one address is given and there is no change for the summer, it will not be listed again in the summer edition.

I do have an apartment in New York City, and when I have to be in the city, that is where I stay. But it is not my permanent home and I do not think it necessary to list that address in the Social Register. But, of course, such a simple explanation would never cross the minds of those who make much out of nothing.

The second thing about which I was phoned is equally unimportant. Apparently some people, casting around for something to write about, became excited over the fact that a horse called Here’s How, which was for a short time in the stables at Fort Myer allotted to the use of the President, is now being sold by the Army. I am not actually sure that we ever owned Here’s How. I think we merely tried him out among other horses for a time.

The horse that I rode for years was called Dot. She belonged to me for a number of years before I went to Washington and was turned out to pasture long before she died. The horse that I sometimes rode belonged to my son. He was a hunter and his name was Badger. He, too, is buried up here.

But I can lay no claim to Here’s How. Though I may have been on his back once or twice, I hardly think so. Long before I left Washington, I had practically given up riding because I could not get accustomed to any horse except the one I had ridden for years and for whom I had a real affection.

Rumors, rumors – how they fly! I also see it stated that the doctors have told me to slow up or something dire will happen. I have only one doctor and I think he would be very much surprised to be told that he had given any such advice!

I like being in the country and it seems to agree with me very well. I feel extremely healthy, not in need of any doctor’s advice at the moment. I sometimes wonder whether some people would be pleased if a number of my activities had to be curtailed. For their comfort I will say that, even though no doctor has given me any advice, I find it very pleasant to spend a few free, quiet moments whenever I have the opportunity.

166

July 12, 1947

HYDE PARK, Friday – I had another picnic yesterday, for a second group of little boys from Wiltwyck School with their counsellors and Dr. Cooper, who always brings them and is so wise in directing them.

As I watched them, I kept thinking of a book which I have been looking through, “Unto the Least of These” by Emma Octavia Lundberg. It is a story of the beginning of social services for children, and follows the development down to the present day. Every step of the way are personalities who have made those steps possible. The three to whom the book is dedicated, Julia C. Lathrop, Grace Abbott and Katharine F. Lenroot, have all been chiefs of the United States Children’s Bureau.

The establishment of this bureau was a triumph for women. As one looks back over the comparatively short period since its creation, one realizes that great advances have been made, even though there is still much to be done.

The goal, of course, is to give every child the same care and understanding he would have if a wise and loving parent were always by his side. That is hard to accomplish, but I wish we could hang in every home throughout the world a summary of the rights of children:

Every child has a right to care which will insure (1) physical and mental health; (2) normal home life; (3) the largest possible development of his powers through education; (4) moral and religious training; (5) opportunity for wholesome play and companionship; (6) protection from work that interferes with health and schooling.

Rights and needs are interchangeable words in the foregoing summary. One of the pathetic things I notice about the little boys who come here from Wiltwyck is how susceptible they are to the merest gesture of kindliness. One little boy looked up at me yesterday and said, “I have been here three times. I remember when you read to us about Tiny Tim. Are you going to finish about him today?” He had an almost possessive attitude – offered to run errands and carry around plates of food. And all the time I knew it was just because he wanted to say to the other boys, “I have a little more right here than anyone else because I have been here three times and the family here knows me.”

Before the boys left, I had agreed that next Christmas I would take my copy of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” with the abbreviations marked in it, and go over to Wiltwyck to read it to the boys at the beginning of their festivities. The reading of this tale has so long been a ritual in our family that Christmas would not seem the same unless it began with the story of old Scrooge and how he learned about the spirit of Christmas!

167

July 14, 1947

HYDE PARK, Sunday – We had a nice picnic yesterday with Mr. and Mrs. Laurence Rutman and their son; Mr. and Mrs. George T. Bye; Dr. and Mrs. Charles Hyser and their daughter, and Mr. and Mrs. D. W. Sandifer and their daughter and her young friend, who are staying with me for the weekend. With all of our own children and a young boy who is visiting them, we added up to quite a number. We found a nice place down by the water where the breeze was blowing, and after much food and talk the younger members of the family took to badminton. Finally we all joined at the pool, where a whole collection of children was congregated. I think if one did not enjoy children, dogs and noise, several hours of each day would seem like pandemonium. Fortunately I like it and apparently my household stands up well under it, so the summer is a pleasant time for all of us.

Before I could picnic, however, I visited with two groups which had come to see my library. First came a group of members of the Methodist Federation for Social Action, from Hartford, Connecticut, under the leadership of the Rev. Edward L. Peet. Because the crowd was very great at the library, the group gathered in one of the offices and asked me to say a few words about the Human Rights Commission. I then drove up to the Vanderbilt Inn, where I found a group of social study teachers under the leadership of Merrill F. Hartshorn, executive secretary of the National Council for Social Studies, a department of the National Education Association. He brought me messages from Miss Charl Ormond Williams, and I interrupted their lunch to talk again on the Human Rights Commission and to answer questions.

One of the questions rather frequently asked now is whether Russia’s attitude on the Marshall plan means that she wishes to withdraw from the United Nations. There is no way, of course, of knowing anything more about Russia’s intentions than she wishes to tell us, but I should doubt her entertaining any real idea of pulling out of the United Nations. Her people do not want war any more than do our own people. They believe that the United Nations is an instrument through which we work for peace. That is what all the people of the world have been led to believe.

Yesterday I was asked when the Marshall plan, if it had been suggested by the U.N., would have inspired less fear on the part of Russia. I hardly think so, since it is quite evident to any nation that if the people of Europe are to get together and take stock of what their resources and their needs for rehabilitation are, they must look to the United States and Latin America for help. Realistically, therefore, we must face the fact that, from an economic standpoint, any real plan must be one in which the United States has the most important role to play. It is vital, however, that the U.N. be acquainted with every step that is taken, and that our actions must always be in accord with U.N. interests.

168

July 15, 1947

HYDE PARK, Monday – It is rather horrible to think that a Senator of the United States could have an enemy who reached a point where he actually tried to shoot the senator – as happened the other day when an assailant shot at Sen. John W. Bricker of Ohio.

This is all part and parcel of the way human beings feel about the use of force. They turn to force naturally.

Especially after a war, people seem to be conditioned to the use of force, and it takes a long while to get back to normal. If that is so for individuals, we need not be surprised that it should be so for nations.

I am very glad, therefore, that the sixteen nations now meeting in Paris, to survey the European economic situation and to decide what shall be done, have not closed the door definitely on Russia. Her bid to Czechoslovakia through a trade pact is, of course, perfectly reasonable and one that Czechoslovakia could hardly refuse. But if the USSR stays out of the general program planned in Paris and does not work for the economic recovery of the whole of Europe, then she has indeed given notice that she is not concerned with what happens to those nations that she cannot dominate politically.

She has shown, in the way she has forced the nations closest to her to line up with her, that she gives the orders where she gives economic assistance and where she holds political control. That is not freedom for any man or any nation. It may be good business to accept this kind of control for a time, but I think history will show that control built on force is always somewhat precarious.

In the old days, it used to be said, “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.” Partly because there were many problems facing kings and partly because very few of them felt they were beloved by the people over whom they ruled, the saying represented a true condition. It might well be said today that rulers who control people through force, and who cannot be removed by the simple process of the ballot, must occasionally feel some of the same uneasiness.

169

July 16, 1947

HYDE PARK, Tuesday – Sometime ago I was notified that, on the 14th of July, France’s Bastille Day, French Ambassador Henri Bonnet would like to present to me the Medaille Militaire awarded posthumously to my husband for his part in the liberation of France. So yesterday I went to Washington for the occasion.

My son Elliott and his children, Ruth Chandler and Elliott, Jr., as well as Mr. and Mrs. Henry Morgenthau, Jr., and Robert Sherwood, traveled with me. I was anxious to reach Washington early enough to pay a visit to William D. Hassett, who is in Walter Reed Hospital. I was glad to find that he was not seriously ill, and I therefore went more cheerfully to the ceremonies at the French Embassy.

The award of the Medaille Militaire is a very great honor which I know my husband would have deeply appreciated. Many of his friends came to the ceremony so it was a heart-warming occasion. I shall now place this decoration in the Library at Hyde Park, which already has so many treasures which he would have been glad that people in different parts of the world wished to give him.

We took a plane back to New York City and then motored straight to Hyde Park. I must say there is a kind of emotion about a day like this which takes it out of one. So I was quite glad to get back to my cottage and to a little dog who looked at me severely, indicating that it was long past his usual bedtime – and what did I mean by coming home so late?

This morning we are off to Maine – eight adults, four children, three dogs, one a puppy only a few months old, two cars, and a truck loaded with bicycles, bags, typewriters and books. This evening we are going to descend, we hope, on Ogunquit, Maine, to see my daughter-in-law, Faye Emerson Roosevelt, act in “State of the Union.” Then we will proceed to Campobello Island, New Brunswick, to spend a month there in strict retirement – devoting half of each day to work on a book, and the other half to all the things that our youngsters love to do in a place where life is lived largely upon the water.

One thing which draws me back to this remote island is the sunsets as I look from my porch across the water to the mainland, where two rivers flow in on either side of Eastport, Maine. The sun sets behind the little town.

Eastport and Lubec are the two nearest mainland towns. They are not so very picturesque when you are in the streets, but from across the water they have great charm. I have sometimes thought that Lubec might almost be Mont St. Michel on the coast of France. That is just a little stretch of the imagination, however, and I like both these little towns for what they are. I get a lift of the spirit as soon as I begin to breathe the sea air of the Maine coast.

170

July 17, 1947

EN ROUTE TO CAMPOBELLO ISLAND, N.B., Wednesday – In a brief story entitled “The Three Bricklayers” in This Week magazine, different attitudes of mind towards daily work are very clearly shown. One bricklayer felt he was just laying bricks, the second said that he was making money, but the third said he was building a cathedral. He saw the ultimate objective for which he was working, and so he enjoyed his work and it meant more to him than if it had been just a method of keeping occupied or of earning a living.

Many of us think of our daily occupation from a narrow viewpoint. It may seem small and unimportant. We earn a living or we play a part as citizens. If we are on a school board, for instance, we think we only affect the way the school is run this year or next, while we are on the board. We forget that the objective of a good school is to train children for life.

We cast a ballot in an election and we think that we are choosing people to decide the local questions in our community. We elect men to our state government or to our national Congress, but we think so little of our action of voting that we fail to see its true proportions and the importance of what we are doing.

Once elected to Congress, most Americans want to return for at least one more term. Therefore they are very conscious of what the people at home are thinking. If the people are giving no thought to the questions that confront their Congressmen or their state legislators, those representatives are going to have a tough time.

Special interests are going to bring all kinds of arguments to bear on them. They will be buffeted this way and that. The party leaders may give some guidance, but very often they, too, are left without much idea of what the party members throughout the country are thinking. In the final analysis, it is not the people as a whole who obtain representation; it is the few people who have sufficient special interests to feel it worthwhile to try to exert influence on legislation.

As citizens, I think it would be well if we could think along the lines of the third bricklayer, who saw that he was building a cathedral. It stood before him in all its beauty as he laid each brick, so he enjoyed his work and did it more carefully than the other workmen. If enough of us will look into the future and see in our mind’s eye the kind of world we want, then democracy will really function and a free people will give freely the peacetime service their nation needs.

171

July 18, 1947

CAMPOBELLO ISLAND, N.B., Thursday – I want to tell a little more about the simple but very beautiful ceremony at the French Embassy on Bastille Day when I received the Medaille Militaire awarded posthumously to my husband. When I walked in, I noticed at once how beautiful the flowers were. Red, white and blue predominated, for those are France’s colors as well as ours and Bastille Day is the French “Fourth of July.”

As the guests gathered, I was told that the Justices of the Supreme Court, the Cabinet members who served with my husband, and the present Cabinet members, as well as several heads of agencies and the secretaries who had served with my husband in the White House, were all invited. I waited in a room with Ambassador Henri Bonnet until President Truman arrived.

Then we went into the presentation room, where a colored print of the Salisbury portrait of my husband stood on a table. In front of it was a cushion on which was pinned the Medaille Militaire and the flags of France and the United States. The French officers stood behind this table, facing the guests. I was placed in front of them. The Ambassador faced me, read the citation, and then presented the medal to me.

This is the medal which is given only to soldiers on the field of battle. I know my husband would have prized it highly, and feel sure he would have been grateful to the Government of France and the people of France for wanting to give him this most precious decoration.

When the ceremony was over, we posed for the cameramen, who are, on the whole, as severe taskmasters as they were when I saw them more often. I think if someone is ever at a loss to choose a dictator for the USA, they should turn at once to camera and newsreel men! They ordered the President and the French Ambassador around just as they would Mr. Smith or Mr. Jones.

I felt it was very kind of the President to attend the ceremony. It was very pleasant to see so many familiar faces and to know that so many people who worked with my husband had come to Washington for this occasion.

When we stopped off in Ogunquit, Maine, on our way to Campobello Island, we found that my daughter-in-law Faye, having lived through the first night of her performance in “State of the Union,” was still quite excited at having so many of her family, including her husband, watching her the second night. Quite evidently the audience, as well as her family, enjoyed her interpretation of the wife of a semi-reluctant Republican candidate for President. I had seen the play on Broadway, but I think Faye’s interpretation of the role is even better than the one I saw before, perhaps because the lines are lines which Faye herself would find sympathetic. I have always liked the play, and it is easy to keep it up-to-date and stimulating to all audiences.

172

July 19, 1947

CAMPOBELLO ISLAND, N.B., Friday – Now that I am established in Campobello, I will own that I did not look forward to the trip with unmixed pleasure. I thought that our caravan of people, dogs and belongings loaded into three cars – a truck, station wagon and my own convertible – might find two days on the road and a night at Ogunquit, Maine, fairly trying. But in Ogunguit, Mrs. Waak, who has a charming old house where she takes in guests during the summer season, was more than kind in looking after us, as were some of her neighbors.

The only tragedy was that on our arrival there, I forgot all about our little two-months-old puppy and left her tied to the back of the truck for hours, until I heard her sad wail when we came back from the theatre. She finally got fed and put to bed.

As soon as we got to Ogunquit, we had to get ready for dinner. To my joy, we went to a place I had passed many times and had always thought I would like to visit, because its name is so intriguing. It is called The Whispering Oyster, and I always wondered where they had picked the name. Others must have felt as I did, because they have a booklet which tells about the origin of the name. It goes back to years ago in London when an oyster whispered in somebody’s kitchen. The weeping oysters on the sign, announcing that they are closed on Sundays, reminded me of “Alice in Wonderland.”

Getting to Campobello is always a joy, but they have had a season of fog blowing in at night, though it clears up fairly early in the morning. The first day it blows well out to sea, we are planning a trip to the other side of the island so that the children can see the coast of Grand Manan, which we hope to visit later if the weather holds good at some time while we are here.

Willa Cather, who was one of my favorite authors, used to have a house on Grand Manan and I always wanted to go and see her. I still wonder which books she wrote there. My favorite has always been “Death Comes for the Archbishop.” She might even have written that there in the cool summer breezes, though the scene is laid in the warm sunshine of the Southwest.

173

July 21, 1947

CAMPOBELLO ISLAND, N.B., Sunday – It is encouraging to find that such constructive activities as the International Congress of Pediatrics, which met in New York City last week, can function again. When you realize that we are living in an age when one great war is hardly over before we begin to discuss how we can most quickly destroy our civilization by the use of the atomic bomb, it is good to know that child specialists are meeting and considering it worthwhile to try to preserve and improve the health of the children of the world.

Eighteen hundred leading child specialists, coming from 50 countries, met at this congress. One thousand delegates attended from Canada and the United States; 300 from Latin America, 350 from Europe and 150 from other continents. One of the most interesting features of the congress was the account of studies made on malnutrition among German, Dutch, Norwegian and Danish children during the war. Knowledge gained by overseas doctors in the war-torn countries was exchanged with the different knowledge gained by doctors here who have been able to continue on various peacetime research projects which could not go forward elsewhere.

This meeting should give heart to many sorely-tried doctors in countries where it must be heartbreaking to care for children during these years when things they need are so hard to obtain and where the children have been through such trying times. One hopes that the results will be widely publicized, so that people in this country will have a clearer understanding of what is needed to preserve the next generation in the war-torn countries. It should help us also to raise the money more easily for the Children’s Emergency Fund. That is something which many of us feel should help the “one world” situation that frequently seems so discouraging. There can at least be one world where the care of children is concerned.

Several people have sent me Justice Robert H. Jackson’s recent address in full, feeling that I was not fair in taking him to task for apparently believing that “one world” was an impossible ideal. I must say that in the last few weeks our Soviet brothers are making “one world” constantly more difficult by their suspicions of the rest of the world. No matter how much they may blame us for the fact that they have these suspicions, I still feel it is unfortunate that they have taken some of the actions they have taken during the last few weeks. I do not want to criticize Justice Jackson unfairly, and I quite understand that he was expressing his honest opinion. That, I never doubted.

No matter how much we are tried, however, we cannot give up our hope that we will have “one world.” If we cannot preserve that ideal, we might just as well give up the hope of preserving future civilization.

174

July 22, 1947

CAMPOBELLO ISLAND, N.B., Monday – A book that everyone should read is “Out of Sight, Out of Mind,” by Frank L. Wright, Jr. It is published by the National Mental Health Foundation, Inc. In every one of our states, there are institutions for patients who are mentally ill. Some of these patients are going to be cared for indefinitely within the institutions. But some of them, particularly the younger ones, with proper care and proper surroundings, may return to being useful members of society.

In some states more money is spent on mental health than in others, but in almost every state more could be done for the patients who have a chance to get well. This problem is particularly important at the present time, because one of the aftermaths of war is the great number of young men mentally affected as a result of the experiences they have been through. If they had not been taken out of the surroundings to which they were accustomed and had not suffered undue mental or emotional strain, many of them would be well today. With proper care, many may still return to their normal condition.

The mentally ill are a burden on the taxpayers of every state. Inadequate appropriations really add to this burden because they prevent proper care and make it impossible for research to be carried on. We are woefully short of psychiatrists in this nation – a fact which was made very clear during the war. The increase in the number of mentally ill is out of all proportion to what it should be, and indicates the need for the training of research people in this field.

Inadequate appropriations for public institutions in any state mean low pay for employees, poor food, bad physical surroundings. And when pay is inadequate for professional people, it means poor care for the inmates of institutions.

In many cases, even on the higher levels, the pay is not adequate for well-trained people unless they are looking for the particular experience which they can obtain in a public institution. Even in that case, they will not stay long, and this breaks up the continuity of both medical care and business administration.

One of the stories in Mr. Wright’s little book struck me because it is so typical of many institutions I have known. It is the story of inspection day, when suddenly everything which should always be available is available – but only for the few hours of inspection, after which it is removed.

Then, there is the story of the doctor who, when an early cold snap came, called the head of the institution to ask if more blankets could be supplied, as he had seen them on hand, or if the heat could be turned on. He was told “No” because the regulations said that neither blankets nor heat could be made available before Sept. 15 – and this was Sept. 10.

175

July 23, 1947

CAMPOBELLO ISLAND, N.B., Tuesday – Apparently Congress, in spite of the President’s appeal, has decided to do nothing about the Stratton Bill to admit displaced persons to this country. But Sen. Revercomb of West Virginia, has managed to get through a resolution to appoint a committee to investigate the whole question of immigration – this at a cost not to exceed $50,000. We hardly need any more investigation, since all the facts are already well known. This is simply the kind of delaying tactics which we blame the Russians for using. The committee does not have to make any recommendations until March 1948.

Instead of making a gesture which would set an example, by accepting this year 100,000 immigrants from displaced persons’ camps on a quota basis, we will do nothing. This means one of two things – either the rest of the world also will do nothing, or the leadership in this matter will shift to some other nation which has the courage to face situations as they are.

To do nothing about solving the displaced persons’ problem this year means that we leave desperate people with no hope. I have heard rumors of a death march on the part of the Jews in European camps. Our inaction is the type of thing that would drive refugees to that kind of desperate action. Should it come about, the members of our Congress can have it on their consciences if thousands more of the Jewish people die. If Congress eventually decides that they have investigated sufficiently and that it will not hurt us to take in a few unfortunate people who have been carefully screened, then we will be surprised to find that the people we admit have deteriorated. They will have become so accustomed to having someone look after them, that they will find it hard to return to independence. Here, again, our members of Congress may carry on their consciences the deterioration of these human beings.

I know well that there are people in this country who, for a number of very obvious reasons are afraid to bring anyone in from the displaced persons’ camp. I think this fear is far more dangerous than the people whom we might bring in. We are growing so pusillanimous that, in a short time, we will be afraid of our own shadows – and this is no world in which the fearful survive. Good new blood will do us no harm. We are suffering from fear of the unknown. But these people have seen so much that was unknown that they have learned how to accept it and stand up to it.

Here I am, blaming Congress when, after all, the blame really lies with ourselves. It is we who have not been articulate enough and have not educated people as a whole to understand that the displaced persons are just like ourselves. Only, for the moment, they have no country. We have not made people realize to the full what the ruin of Europe will mean in lowering our own standards of living. Again we the people have failed – failed ourselves and failed our brethren overseas.

176

July 24, 1947

CAMPOBELLO ISLAND, N.B., Wednesday – I begin this column by saying that I do not believe there should be any third party in 1948, no matter who headed it. I had planned to say nothing on this subject but an article which I saw in one of the Maine papers this morning moves me to make certain remarks.

It stated that the Un-American Activities Committee was going to examine Henry Wallace and anyone suggesting his nomination as leader of a third party because, forsooth, they heard that the people backing a third party were all Communists. This is really too idiotic. Naturally the Communists in this country are going to back a third party – they are a disruptive force and a third party would be something which they would back. But to label all liberals as Communists just because you or I think them foolish to consider a third party is just plain arrogance. When will our sense of humor reassert itself and dominate our foolish fears?

There are in both our major political parties a certain number of liberals. On the whole in the past, I feel that the Democratic Party has had more liberals than the Republican Party. And in general, I think it might be said that the great monied interests keep in closer touch with the Republican leaders and their policies than they do with the Democratic leaders and their policies. On the whole I think that it is harder for special interests to ride the Democratic Party and that this party has been the rallying ground for more people who had the general interest at heart. However, it has its conservative group, which we can identify in many votes which have been taken in Congress.

If the liberals of this country want to accomplish anything in the next ten years, they had better work to make one or the other major political party, or both parties, responsive to their ideas. They can do this by making it plain where they stand on certain policies, they can vote for men who stand four-square on these policies, and they can go into the primary campaigns and work wherever they see that good men have a chance of nomination.

The independents, if they have a program and are well enough organized, can elect almost any candidate in any election. The organization of a third party would only mean that the liberals would gain nothing and the conservatives would have every opportunity of carrying their candidates into office.

177

July 25, 1947

CAMPOBELLO ISLAND, N.B., Thursday – I have been sent an article answering the criticism which was made by the Northern Baptist Convention in regard to a recent decision of the Supreme Court. By a decision of 5 to 4, the court validated the use of tax funds by the state of New Jersey to reimburse parents for bus transportation paid by them for conveying their children to a religious school, notwithstanding the fact that New Jersey provides free public schools for the use of all of its children and free transportation thereto.

The point of the article, as I understand it, is that neither this group nor any other group should question a decision handed down by the Supreme Court. It is perfectly obvious, of course, that such a decision is the law of the land as long as it stands. But the Supreme Court has been known to reverse itself. Reversals have been brought about by new cases and new arguments, or sometimes, by a change in justices.

After all, though the Supreme Court is made up of learned lawyers and patriotic citizens, its members are still subject to human failings, like all human beings. And when a decision is as close as 5 to 4, it seems to me that the citizens of the United States have a right to think it over carefully and decide whether they agree with it or not. If they do not agree with it, then they should certainly bring the weight of public opinion to bear upon future legislation which might cause a change of mind in the Supreme Court.

I believe in freedom of conscience and freedom of religious belief, but I do not advocate a change in our old-time theory of division between church and state. We have a right to send our children to private schools or to religious schools of any denomination. But such schools should be on an entirely different basis from the public schools, which are free to all children.

Making any religious school the same as our public schools seems to me to change our fundamental idea of the right to worship as we choose, and the right of our children to receive free education without interference with their religious beliefs. I have been somewhat troubled lately as to whether this old safeguard is slipping away and might lead to a point where there would be bad feeling between religious groups in our country. That is something which we wish to avoid, if possible.

178

July 26, 1947

CAMPOBELLO ISLAND, N.B., Friday – Fog which lifts every day for only a short time, but always hangs just over the edge of the island, becomes pretty monotonous – and, until yesterday, that is the kind of weather we have had ever since we arrived here. Someone told me that the people out on Grand Manan Island have been enveloped in fog for 47 days, and I doubt if it has even lifted in the daytime. But a good many of that island’s summer visitors are artists and some of the fog effects in this region can be very beautiful. Nevertheless, every one of us greeted with joy the sunshine and the clearing West wind yesterday.

We packed our lunch baskets and in my son’s little powerboat, we started up the St. Croix River for St. Andrews. Some of our guests had an orgy of shopping at the craft shop there, since wool is again available and the handwoven materials, blankets, and so on, are very well made and very attractive.

Finally, we went to the little island just across the harbor from the town of St. Andrews. We built a fire between two rocks, scrambled our eggs, cooked out bacon, and fed a hungry crowd.

It seemed the right spot to read Longfellow’s “Evangeline” to the children, and so I told them the story of Nova Scotia and the Acadian peasants, and then read from a book that had belonged to their grandfather.

“This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, bearded with moss and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight, stand like druids of old …”

Few people read Longfellow any more and yet I think he is part of our heritage, both literary and historical. And any child who is not familiar with his poems misses something.

I have read a good deal more to the older children up here than to the younger ones. But the other night we found a copy of “Uncle Remus” which belonged to their father, and the little ones were enthralled. However, I found it difficult to read aloud. It really, I imagine, requires a true Southerner to do it justice.

With the older children I have read “The Jungle Book,” and we are now deep in a book which belonged to their Uncle James – called “Connie Morgan in Alaska.” It is curious how some books can go on from generation to generation and still holds one’s interest. So much that is written deals with contemporary thoughts and situations, but apparently a good story remains enjoyable. We have come across some copies of David Gray’s “Gallops” and “Ensign Russells,” and all of us, young and old, have enjoyed them.

179

July 28, 1947

CAMPOBELLO ISLAND, N.B., Sunday – I want to say a word today about Secretary Patterson, who, under the new unification of the armed forces, is going to leave the War Department. He is our neighbor on the Hudson River, and for this added reason I have watched his career with interest.

That Secretary Patterson has served for patriotic reasons only must be clear to anyone. His children are young, he has a great interest in his farm in the country, and he certainly made financial sacrifices when he went to Washington. Like many others, he felt he was doing a war service, and he stayed until he felt his part of the job was done. We, the people, owe him – as we do all other good public servants – our thanks and appreciation for his willingness to give of his ability, strength and time to the service of the country when the country needed it.

It is difficult to get good public servants. The reason is that, instead of thanks, most of them get not only very limited financial returns, but incessant criticism. This is understandable from the political party in opposition and from the newspapers that are controlled by people who oppose the political theories of an administration. But the people of the country in general should be able to recognize good service when rendered by members of either political party, particularly when the job has been an administrative and not a political one.

Running the War Department, of course, has at times a close connection with politics. But the actual administrative work is completely non-political, and during the years of the war and the postwar period it had to be done with as little politics as was humanly possible.

Sometimes, reading the papers these days makes one rather sick at heart. One wonders if it would not be possible at times for someone to accept the spirit of what is being done rather than to adhere so closely to the letter. It is true that, in suggesting an eleven-power Japanese peace treaty conference, the United States has made a new suggestion. But the USSR, which never seems to change anything that has once been done, immediately jumps to the conclusion that this is unilateral action by the United States, bypassing the Council of Foreign Ministers of the five great powers – the U.S., Great Britain, France, the USSR and China – which, it was agreed in Moscow in 1945, had a special interest in the postwar situation in Japan.

According to the USSR, their ambassadors should have ascertained when a meeting of these five could conveniently be held. Logically, all this may be true. But also, logically, it might occur to the USSR that the accomplishments of the meetings of the Foreign Ministers in the European situation have not been so great that similar meetings in the Far East give much promise of success. A change might actually be a help in accomplishing something, and that is much to be desired.

180

July 29, 1947

CAMPOBELLO ISLAND, N.B., Monday – The other day, I noticed an interesting news item on a report made by Miss Molly Silva-Jones, supervision officer of the German Welfare Commission in the British zone. At the Paris congress of the International Federation of Business and Professional Women, she said that she had founded in Westphalia three women’s clubs along the lines of those existing in other countries. She said that the educated German woman is conscious of her isolation, conscious that the Nazi regime narrowed her opportunities to take part in the public life of her community, and desires now to be a force for good in her country.

Many German women, Miss Silva-Jones said, had been in prison for anti-Nazi activities and were eager now to find out what was happening in other parts of the world, particularly as it touches women, and would welcome speakers from other nations.

Almost on the same day that I read this item, I received a letter from a German woman in Dusseldorf, which is in the British zone. I am going to quote from it because I think it will be interesting to women in this country in view of what Miss Silva-Jones reported.

“I am associated with a woman’s union shortly founded here at Dusseldorf, which has adopted the name Deutscher Frauenring, and I am a member of the managing board. This is a woman’s guild of non-political character. That means it… only intends to deal with general questions and problems of life and of public interest. Of course, we must and we will avoid to be a kind of suffragettes, though I am of the opinion that just now, after the Hitler regime is broken down, we have to show and prove that women are well able to deal also with other problems than those which only were reserved to them under the Nazi system.

“German women must learn again to realize what they can and what they must do here in Germany. Therefore, I feel it is necessary to make contacts and correspondence with women of other nations all over the world, in order to learn what progress they have made during the past years, and particularly what they are doing in view of the world peace, of an understanding among the people and towards world common welfare.

“We Germans, of course, are not authorized at present to do anything of decisive character in view of the great politics of the world. But we are looking at the great powers, what they will decide. It is quite evident that there are two alternatives for the world at present, one to avoid a third world war, and another to start a third world war. That is the question which is generally discussed here. What is your personal point of view about it?

“Of course, I am afraid of a new war, because I have still the terrible impressions from the first one and even more from the last one. On the other hand, I realize that there are too great political controversies existing, which cannot be easily settled by conferences, meetings and speeches.”