The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers, Digital Edition > My Day
My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt

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EN ROUTE TO LONDON, Wednesday—Before we leave the New Year completely behind us, I want to say a word of thanks again for the great number of Christmas cards that have come to me this year. Many of them express sentiments of affection for my husband which I very deeply appreciate. One cannot help but be warmed by so many expressions of sympathy and remembrance.

Ever since my nomination as a delegate to the United Nations Organization, I have been receiving not only New Year greetings and good wishes, but expressions of hope and faith and good wishes for the results of this conference.

I want to tell you through this column, since I could not possibly answer all of these letters and cards, how grateful I am for the feeling that many people will be hoping and praying that out of this meeting will come at least a start towards a strong future organization of many nations, determined to preserve peace on earth.

It is evident to all of us that this desire among the peoples of the world must express itself to their leaders in no uncertain terms, for difficulties are bound to arise among nations as controversies do among individuals. There will be times when solutions to knotty problems will seem well-nigh impossible. It will be the determination of the people in the various nations, prodding their representatives to find compromises if not ultimate solutions, and to set up methods which can be tried on a temporary basis, which will keep the organization going.

The old fears, the old type of diplomatic and political thinking will have to be changed, but they will not change overnight. The old type of economic thinking which has often led to certain types of political action, will also have to be changed and subordinate itself to the main objective before us—peace and a better life for the peoples of the world as a whole.

This cannot happen, however, without the necessary vigor on the part of the people in every nation to make their desires known, nor can it happen unless the difficulties can be brought out in the open and discussed.

The people may not feel that they understand the details of a situation. They could not, perhaps, work out the solution. But they can insist on the ultimate objectives which they wish to attain.

The little people are the ones who fight the wars, they are the ones who work their hearts out in production, they are the ones who suffer most during the wars and afterward. They are the ones to whom a little more hope for a better life now and in the future will mean a little more joy and a little more ease in an existence which in the past has never been without anxiety. They are the ones who will be willing to adventure in new ways because they have less to lose, and yet they are the ones who create stability for those who have had much in the past and hope for more in the future.

Day by day we must be reminded that our world is one world. Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas, bound together in an indissoluble union, can spell security for all. But with division and war they can bring destruction.

E.R.

(COPYRIGHT 1946, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC.)


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About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, January 3, 1946

Roosevelt, Eleanor, 1884-1962
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Digital edition created by The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project The George Washington University 312 Academic Building 2100 Foxhall Road, NW Washington, DC 20007

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MEP edition publlished on June 30, 2008.

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Transcription created from a photocopy of a UFS wire copy of a My Day column instance archived at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library.
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