Eleanor Roosevelt – My Day (Nov. 1940)

21

November 25, 1940

Hyde Park, Sunday –
I must tell you of a letter which has come to me. It seems that a committee has been formed in Washington, DC, to suggest to people that, instead of giving Christmas presents this year, they should send Christmas cards and give their money to war relief organizations. It is a fine idea and I am sure that many people will join happily in such a movement.

However, there is another side to this Christmas buying which should be considered. Christmas shopping provides jobs for many people and turns the wheels in many a factory. Those of us who are in the habit of spending a definite sum at Christmas time, might perhaps exert a little extra self-sacrifice and find some money for the relief organizations.

I do not think that presents should be withheld from children, or from people who need and can enjoy the things which are given. I am quite conscious of the fact that many of us receive Christmas gifts which are neither desirable nor useful, and which are not given nor received in the spirit which really should go with any Christmas gift. Through personal thought and effort, we should show we really care about the person to whom we give our gift.

If we can think of nothing which they need or want, I think a Christmas card is entirely justified. In such a case, any money one can spend or any effort one can make, can be joyously put into giving something to a relief organization, either here or abroad, for the benefit of those who really need some material sign of the real Christmas spirit.

While we are thinking of giving things away, I have a communication from a bookshop in New York City, which has a rather unique plan for adding to the libraries of CCC Camps and Army and Navy training groups. They suggest that every bookshop should:

…become a depot for voluntary contributions of all books by their patrons.

These books are to be collected weekly by a government truck, deposited in a warehouse where experienced booksellers and librarians could volunteer to sort them, after which they would be sent to camps, where persons appointed in charge of recreation would sent a monthly report concerning the type of fiction and non-fiction found most in demand. The next selection would be guided by these reports and the books would rotate from camp to camp, finally to be sold at public auction and the money obtained used for the purchase of more books.

This seems to me an ambitious plan which requires much volunteer work, but I wish them well, for good reading material is certainly needed in every camp.

22

November 26, 1940

New York, Monday –
I was reluctant to come to New York City yesterday and yet I was delighted to take part in the Chicago University Broadcast. It will, I hope, arouse interest in what I think is going to be one of the most valuable things which have been done to make people feel that art is something which belongs in their homes, and not only on the walls of museums and art galleries.

It also seems important to me that we should realize that, if peace is ever to come in the world, our cultural values must mean something more to us than they have in the past. All artists have something to contribute to the peaceful world of the future.

In the past, art has been for the few who could appreciate and afford it. In a democracy it must become part of the life of every individual and be supported by every individual. These exhibition weeks should bring us measurably nearer to our ideal of what civilization in the future should bring to us all.

Just lately I have had a little time for reading more than the mail, so I must tell you about it. There is a little book which has been written by Edith M. Barber, called Speaking of Servants, which every young housewife should have in her library. It is useful to both employer and employee.

It puts the running of a household on the right basis and makes it a business where the employee has the same consideration as in any other business. It is a practical little book with schedules for work and hours, and much information which even older housewives may be glad to acquire.

I have read one book in the past few weeks which I have hesitated to write about because I feel that it some ways it is almost presumptuous of me even to try to evaluate it. Ernest Hemingway’s style is so simple, so lucid and clear-cut, that in its apparent ease one forgets what it must have cost anyone to learn to write like this.

He loves nature and some of his descriptions are almost like seeing a painting. There were times when reading For Whom The Bell Tolls, when I could hardly bear to go on. It is coarse, it is cruel, it is horrible in spots, and yet I could not stop. It is compelling because the people, the everlasting mixture of good and bad, of coarseness and sensitiveness, of cruelty and gentleness, are real.

A keen interpreter of human nature is Ernest Hemingway and his Spanish experience has taught him that people will fight for their liberties. Perhaps the most interesting part of the book is the evidence of the appeal which a fight for human rights calls forth from the fine people the world over.

Had Robert Jordan lived, those last few days might not have remained perfection, but he attained in them glimpses of true happiness of various kinds and perhaps none of us could ask much more of a long life than that. If we have had perfection, even for three days, and the bell tolls, what matter? Life is over and we are ready for the next experience.

23

November 27, 1940

New York, Tuesday –
Yesterday was a busy day. First, we said goodbye to a friend who is off on a Naval Reserve Cruise and then I went up to spend an hour with Mrs. William Brown Meloney, an ever courageous and ever inspiring friend.

Next, I went to Mr. Douglas Chandor’s studio on East 57th Street to see the portrait which he has painted of my daughter-in-law, Ruth, Elliott’s wife. It is a charming portrait of a very charming young woman. He has caught her beauty and her sweetest expression, and there it is on canvas for her children to enjoy. We change with age, but beautiful portraits can remain to remind us of the days when youth radiated its own special charm all about us.

There is a portrait at Hyde Park of my mother-in-law as a young woman, done by Pierre Troubetzkoy, which is, I think, one of the most distinguished and beautiful paintings I have ever seen. It does full justice to a beauty which was then at its height. Today, next to the portrait of Ruth, Mr. Chandor has a portrait of my mother-in-law. The beauty of the young woman is still apparent so many years later. The face today is gentler, less rigid, but the lines of the aristocrat are still in evidence in spite of the passage of years.

Next to the two family portraits, there stood a portrait of Mr. Herbert Hoover, which is as good as any I have seen. On the easel nearby, the portrait of a small boy with his shirt open at the neck was arresting and made one want to know the child.

After the studio visit came a little Christmas shopping and then lunch with my cousin, Mrs. Henry Parish. Here an hour melted away and left me surprised to discover that I should have been at our house in 65th Street to meet the truck that was to take some cases of the President’s papers up to Hyde Park.

At 4:15, I managed to come rather breathlessly into the Commodore Hotel to meet with some of the women who are taking part in forum discussion today at the Woman’s Centennial Congress. I am supposed to preside and keep them all talking. I only hope I shall do it as well as Dr. Wirth did in the Chicago University Forum on the air last Sunday.

We had a rather hurried dinner last night and then we went to the Columbia Broadcasting Company where, in an empty studio, a group of young people met to discuss a new organization – The Committee of Thirty Million Young People. I think we could have spent many hours together and carried on an increasingly animated discussion about the function of youth organizations, but the studio in which we were, was needed at 10:00, so we broke up and went about our various occupations. I came back to the apartment to devote a little time to my neglected mail.

24

November 28, 1940

New York, Wednesday –
Days in New York City are always busy, but the chronicle of them is rather uninteresting. One little thing happened yesterday afternoon which pleased me very much. As I was walking down Madison Avenue, a gentleman caught up with me and said:

Forgive me, Mrs. Roosevelt, I’ve always wanted to tell you how much all of us enjoy reading “My Day.”

It was nice of him, wasn’t it?

Yesterday, I spent the morning at the Woman’s Centennial Congress, leading the discussion on the momentous question “The present status of women and where we go from here.” Out of it came the decision that we should stop studying and do something, particularly in our own communities.

Miss Lucy Mason and Mr. James Dombrowski lunched with me and I heard something of the plans for community work around the Highlander School in the Tennessee mountains. If I possibly can, I must go there next spring.

I did a good bit of shopping and managed to reach Miss Helen Harris’ NYA office on West 14th Street, at a little after 4:00. The New York City Advisory Committee was meeting there for the first time this autumn. I was very happy to hear Miss Harris’ report to them of the work being carried on by NYA in cooperation with the defense program, as well as to know something of the continuation of the work which has been going on in schools and other projects.

By February, some 20,000 young people will be on the various projects, but they calculated last March that some 400,000 were employed in greater New York. We hope that this is now changing and the number of unemployed will be considerably lessened from month to month.

On leaving there, I went to tea uptown with a friend, and Miss Thompson joined me. We left a little after 6:00, we came home to prepare rather hurriedly I must admit, for the guests who were dining with us at the apartment.

When I stepped out on my porch last night, I realized that the Texas storm we have been reading about had come to visit us up here. The snow was on the ground and the wind was blowing. The little book of Eugene Field’s poems, which I picked up to read for a few minutes, has in it a poem I always think of when I lie and listen to the wind blow. It begins:

Have you ever heard the wind go `Yoooo’?
'Tis a pitiful sound to hear!
It seems to chill you through and through
With a strange and speechless fear.

And I always want to get down under the bedclothes and cover up my head!

I must now go to a meeting of the United States Committee for the Care of European Children.

25

November 29, 1940

New York, Thursday –
Yesterday was almost entirely given over to personal affairs. Two people joined me at 9:30 and went as far as the entrance to the building where the U.S. Committee for the Care of European Children was meeting, in order to tell me some of their difficulties in attempted aid to liberal publishers and editors in Europe today.

I tried on some clothes, practically finished my Christmas shopping (except for the inevitable last things which keep popping up) and was home at my apartment for lunch. Three of my young cousins, whom I see rather rarely, were with me for a delightful visit.

After a little more shopping in the afternoon, I went to see Mrs. Samuel Barlow, who is very anxious that we should do a little more effective relief work along certain lines. I hope very much that it may be possible to work it out, for when you look at the newspapers, you realize how ruthless present conditions seem to have made people in the war-torn countries.

There is hardly a ripple when one group wipes out an opposition group, so you cannot help feeling that it is necessary to keep alive the desire of people to be merciful and to help to alleviate suffering.

I dined rather late with some very delightful people at a French restaurant where the food is certainly superlatively good. The conversation was good too, and I enjoyed the evening.

Today, I am gathering up the threads of all the unfinished shopping and attending to such unpleasant details as a dentist appointment.

I wonder if you feel as I do when I turn on the radio every morning to listen to the news from Berlin and London. It seems to me that those boys sent out from Germany to destroy innocent people in England, and the other boys of the RAF rising from the ground in their planes, trying to drive back the invaders, must occasionally want to rebel at the destruction which it is their patriotic duty to create.

Of course, for both of them, military objectives are marked on their maps. But they know that it isn’t possible to be absolutely accurate and there must be moments when facing the actual results of their work must be difficult.

At least, the boys in the RAF can feel that they are fighting against great odds. Just as the Spanish aviators in the Loyalist cause performed extraordinary feats, these English boys, because of the odds against them, prove their extraordinary gallantry over and over again. We, who watch them and know what their victory means to civilization, must pay them the tribute of gratitude and admiration.

Whenever one dies, something good is lost to the future. We women, who are conservers of the race, must weep that so much gallantry and high-hearted purpose could not be of greater benefit to man.

26

November 30, 1940

Washington, Friday –
During this past week, a most interesting biracial conference has been going on at Hampton Institute. Dr. Malcolm B. MacLean is evidently starting in with the determination of improving interracial understanding wherever it is possible to do so. In this conference, where 200 prominent authorities in 11 different fields discussed the Negro and his relation to total defense, a real contribution, I am sure, has been made. It should lead to a better understanding of the racial problems in the United States, and in particular to a readjustment of these problems as they relate to our present situation.

I am becoming more and more aware of the contributions to our culture by so many Negro artists. Last night a group of us went to see and hear Ethel Waters in Cabin In The Sky. We spent a delightful evening. The play is light and amusing, the music is charming and there are one or two songs Miss Waters sings which haunt you afterwards. It is true that this play does not give her the opportunity for tragic, dramatic expression, such as Mamba’s Daughters gave her, but perhaps we need not be stirred to the depths of our souls all the time in these days when reading a newspaper is enough to do that.

My only regret was that I did not feel that there was any song which Todd Duncan sang that could touch the ones in Porgy and Bess. I like Mr. Duncan and I think he has such a very fine voice, that I was disappointed not to carry away something with me I could not forget.

I was very glad to have a talk yesterday afternoon with Mr. Edwin R. Embree and to hear a little more about the work of the Rosenwald Foundation. I think I am going to learn a great deal more than I have known in the past about a number of things in the South which interest me very much.

I was fortunate enough to corral Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Hemingway for lunch with me yesterday. I only wish that hours when you are with people you enjoy seeing, did not pass so quickly!

Midnight saw us getting on the train for Washington, and we arrived this morning under gray skies. But once in the house, everything seemed happy and full of warmth. Even the President’s little Scottie dashed into the room while we were at breakfast and his whole body practically wriggled in his effort to express his welcome.