Eleanor Roosevelt – My Day (Nov. 1939)

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November 24, 1939

Thanksgiving Day in Warm Springs, Ga. –
A blue sky overhead, a warm sun, and yet enough chill in the air to make a brisk walk pleasant. In the evening, a great log fire on the hearth gives added cheer. We are alone for lunch, but tonight we will eat our turkey with the patients and guests in Georgia Hall.

Many messages have come to us this day which warm the heart. I feel each day an increasing gratitude that I am a citizen of the United States at peace and free.

I have just received a little bulletin published by the Washington Electric Cooperative of East Montpelier, Vermont. The bulletin is only two months old, but I predict it will appeal to its circulation. There is a poem glorifying electric lights for rural areas and a practical New England item on a nearby page, which says:

Under the Rural Electrification Administration, lines are being built at a new cost of about $810 a mile. Before Rural Electrification Administration days, $1,500 was considered low.

The question and answer department in this little bulletin amused me, particularly the answer to the question:

If I should want to do something to my wire, is it alright if I put a ladder on the pole and turn off the transformer?

The answer ran:

It is a convenient way out. In order to save trouble for your family we suggest that you make the funeral arrangements first and leave a note for the police so that they will not think it was murder.

I think we all enjoy keeping in touch with the human side of the REA movement. Like all other things which the Department of Agriculture has a hand in these days, there is a conservation side to rural electrification which affects the lives of human beings. Men and women can get more joy and ease out of life when they have electricity to work for them on the farms.

One farm wife in Knox County, Ohio, tells the story of her new electric range and its uses in harvest time. She fed as many as 20 and 30 men at times and her meals were not light luncheons, for farm hands like real food. This farmer’s wife writes:

Pies and fried chicken and baked beans were what I served.

Yet her monthly bills with all this cooking never amounted to more than $6.57. Besides the range she had a radio, electric lights, a washing machine and an ironer and her farmer husband uses electricity on his corn shellers, emery wheel and cream separator. If this isn’t a story of a better life on a farm, then I do not know what it is.

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November 25, 1939

Warm Springs, Ga., Friday –
Another lovely day. Shortly, we are going with the President to inspect the new school building and the new infirmary, where the patients needing hospital care are housed. Henry Toombs, the architect for all the new buildings here, must be proud of his latest achievements, for everyone who has seen them is so pleased with them.

The Thanksgiving dinner last night and the entertainment furnished by the patients and the singers from Tuskegee Institute, were both excellent and enjoyed by all.

There is one change here which we, as a family, regret. My husband’s valet who has been with him for the past eleven years, has had to retire because of illness and it seems particularly strange to be here without him. His wife, Mrs. MacDuffie, is still with us however, and tries to keep everything going just as usual. Daisy, the cook, always manages to come back for the President’s visits, so we are sure of having good food.

The other day, in New York City, a most interesting woman, Miss Rachel Davis DuBois, came to see me. She, being a Quaker, decided twelve years ago that there was something wrong when children in her classes, because of their different racial and religious backgrounds, were made unhappy. She determined to find out how to correct adolescent persecution, and to foster understanding and appreciation among:

…the various cultural groups in the United States by showing how all the groups had helped to make our country what it is.

This first recognition of the Service Bureau for Intercultural Education has led to many things. Lately they have been asked by the Board of Education in New York City to introduce practical steps in the Board’s plan for teaching the children tolerance and democracy. This beginning in New York City is pointing the way for other school systems throughout the country to do similar work.

The first step, of course, is to reach the teachers and through them to capture the children’s imagination. To do that, all modern progressive methods are being used. Radio scripts and dramatic episodes are being published by the Bureau and even television will soon be called upon to contribute to this form of education.

The United States Department of Education, with the cooperation of the Service Bureau for Intercultural Education, put on a most interesting radio series last winter called Americans All, Immigrants All, which won the annual award of the Women’s National Radio Committee as the most original program for 1938-1939.

The work of this committee is proceeding on constantly new and interesting lines which ought to help all of us to a greater appreciation of our democracy and fundamental principles which enter into its preservation.

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November 27, 1939

Washington, Sunday –
I had a very good flight up yesterday from Atlanta, Georgia, but we had a headwind which made us a few minutes late in landing. As on practically all my flights recently, the ship was filled. I think a great many more people must be travelling by air. This time there were four or five women, but males still predominate in air travel.

I left all at Warm Springs in grand spirits. The President was just starting off with two of the forestry people to look over the woods. No more congenial occupation than that can ever be found for him.

Miss Thompson awaited me and, in spite of the usual quantity of mail, I was so glad to see her I would have done twice as much mail with joy. After she went home, I worked until I was through with what she left for me to do.

Bright and early this morning, I was down in the dentist’s chair, for I broke off a corner of a tooth while I was away and had to have it replaced.

At 10:30, I went out to ride. Our old bridle path along the river is temporarily out of commission on account of the work on the new airport, so the Agricultural Department’s experimental farm grounds, which I think have now been turned over to the Army, provide some good paths. We tried riding around the edge of Arlington Cemetery, which also proved a good place to ride, and we came back past Fort Myer stables.

I have a note today from Dr. Latham Hatcher, who is interested in the Alliance for Guidance of Rural Youth, and I am going to have the pleasure on December fifth, of talking with some of the youngsters on the radio. The Alliance has been working for rural youth for 25 years and is celebrating its birthday by trying to raise a little more money than usual this year. In New York City, on the first of December, they will open their campaign and they have taken over the opera Tannhauser. I wish I could be there, for it is one of my favorite operas. In any case, I shall take some tickets and send them to someone else to enjoy it.

Dr. Hatcher tells me that the Alliance has provided individual guidance for approximately 21,000 rural youth. They have published many books and bulletins and they are putting on a national demonstration of a county youth guidance program in Breathitt County, Kentucky. To anyone who knows, as I do, the difficulties which face many of our rural youth in different parts of the country, the work of this association seems very important. These young people need help in receiving an education, deciding what they want to do in life, obtaining medical care, adjusting themselves to the changes in our civilization – whether or not they are going to live their adult lives in rural or urban places. Whether we live in the city or the country, we can ill afford not to help them, for they will make the nation of the future.

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November 28, 1939

Washington, Monday –
When I drove past the Lincoln Memorial yesterday, I noticed model boats were being sailed in the reflecting pool. Some enterprising owners had put a deep red sail and a blue one on their boats, which reminded me of the sailboats in the Adriatic. As a nation, we are really getting more of an eye for color. I hope our enjoyment will increase, for on gray days such as we have in November, it is really a great thing to see splotches of color in the landscape.

I had a very young and somewhat distant cousin, Miss Catherine Davis, to lunch yesterday. She is down here working in the Agricultural Department. A graduate of Bennington College, she is with Senator Davenport’s group of young people who enter the government service for a period of practical experience. She brought a friend, Miss Gretchen Ahlswede, who is working in the Department of Commerce personnel office. Both of them seemed interested in their Washington life and I hope to see more of them during the winter.

A daughter of a friend in Poughkeepsie, Miss Catherine Conger, who is attending Catholic University, also came to lunch. We took a sightseeing trip around the second floor of the White House after lunch.

Two of my old League of Women Voters friends, Miss Marguerite Wells, national President, and Mrs. George Gellhorn of St. Louis, Mo., also came to lunch. I think they would have liked to annex, for League of Women Voters work, all the young people at the table. I like this attitude of wanting to draw in the young people, for I have a feeling that many organizations fail in vitalizing their work, because they are not willing to give young people enough responsibility to make the work interesting. That is why we find so many organizations filled predominantly with older men and women, when, in order to continue the work, new blood must come in.

I am leaving here for New York City this afternoon, to fill a number of engagements in the next two days.

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November 29, 1939

New York, Tuesday –
Dr. Reeves of the Youth Commission was on the plane with me flying to New York City yesterday afternoon. As I left the bus, he told me he was to be on the air last night. I am distressed that I have missed so many of these broadcasts on questions concerning youth. From what I hear they have been most interesting.

I reached my apartment a little after five, and after a quiet dinner, Mrs. Henry Morgenthau Jr. and I spent a most interesting evening seeing _The Time of Your Life_a play by William Saroyan. I have have always supposed that it would be impossible to recognize anyone in the audience across the footlights, so I was tremendously pleased last night when I thought I caught Mr. Dowling’s eye and really received a wave of recognition. Of course, it may not have been meant for me!

There is something in this play which is reminiscent of Here Come the Clowns, which I so much enjoyed last year. Every character on the stage is interesting. The staging is excellent and I think every part was well taken. Gene Kelly does some exceptionally good dancing and Julie Haydon gives a sensitive and understanding portrayal of a difficult character. Mr. Dowling has come to be the center of any play in which I have seen him of late, because the appreciation I feel for the way in which he portrays humor, sentiment and deep human emotions. The humor of Time of Your Life is delightful and the audience which filled the theatre last night enjoyed itself, but I think they must have gone away with a good deal to think about.

This morning, I went to the office of Woman’s Day magazine to have a photograph taken with the winner of a recipe contest held by the magazine, Mrs. H. C. Davis, of North Cohocton, NY. She sat down with me and we tasted New England succotash, which is her particular dish and she suggests for church suppers. It has one great advantage in that it can be prepared the day before and improve in flavor by standing. I can vouch for the fact that it tastes extremely good, for I would have liked to finish the whole bowl before me, but in the interest of my figure, I refrained!

Afterwards I went to the little shop called “Trade Winds,” which has been started as an outlet for refugee hand and craft work, and found some attractive things to add to my Christmas gifts. Then I visited the Little Gallery on East 8th Street, where some of the artists of the neighborhood are exhibiting paintings and craft work. By this time, it was time to go to the Hotel Roosevelt for the Symposium on Household Employment luncheon, in which 22 women’s organizations cooperated. I had an opportunity to hear Dr. Watson sum up the morning’s round table discussions, and I hope that this extremely interesting meeting will lead to some real action in this field of domestic employment.

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November 30, 1939

New York, Wednesday –
It seems to me that I am constantly finding little errands to do between real engagements in New York City. All the errands are unimportant, but they add up to a good many little trips from one shop to another. Yesterday I was looking for a particular gift which a member of our household desires for a room she is furnishing. So far, three stores have yielded me nothing that I could bear to live with, and I am beginning to wonder if my taste is peculiar.

I had some guests in for tea and we were so busy talking that I suddenly realized there were just twenty minutes left before I had to be at the Hotel Roosevelt for the dinner given by the Good Neighbor League Committee on the Émigré and the Community. Needless to say, I was a little late, but I did not keep them waiting long.

I had invited as one of my guests, a young Austrian girl, Miss Lotta Kraus, who has a charmingly trained concert voice. When I told Dr. John Elliott about her, he suggested that I ask her if she would sing a couple of songs at the end of the dinner. She did, to the evident enjoyment of even the guests in the gallery, some of whom nearly fell over the railing trying to see her as she stood in the corner of the room.

More and more, I am getting the feeling that in all these various things in which we are interested, the important thing is for each individual to tackle certain definite problems and handle what he can himself. With the experience gained, any large scale undertaking will be more wisely handled. We need to think of the refugee problem from the point of view of gain to us in the long run as well as our present individual expenditure. The figures which impressed me most, were those showing that the volume of refugees entering this country to take up permanent citizenship under the quotas was balanced within about five thousand by the number of foreign people departing from our shores for one reason or another.

It was stressed by the people dealing directly with these emigres that, in the old days, a vast majority of people coming in were in the unskilled labor group, whereas at present it is the educated, highly skilled in both professional and technical work, who are knocking at our gates. Many of these bring us actual contributions in the form of patents and even of enough money to start their business up again in this country which employ some of our own unemployed citizens. It is not, therefore, as one-sided a business as we think. People are not throwing Americans out of work to employ refugees, though isolated cases of this might be found. On the whole, we stand a good chance of having our refugees help us to solve our unemployment problem.

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