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

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HYDE PARK, Sunday—I didn't really take in the full force of the taxicab strike in New York City until I set out to keep an appointment uptown Friday morning. Then I realized that I could not get a taxi and get up town and back for a luncheon at 12 o'clock at the New School for Social Research, so I gave up trying to go uptown and walked to the New School.

It was a rewarding luncheon because the psychiatrist who spoke had spent five months in Japan studying the question of how people get along together as it related to our own army and the Japanese. She gave a very illuminating and interesting speech.

After my own speech and a short question period I had to leave rather hurriedly, because I was due at the airport to be flown to Cleveland, Ohio, where I was to speak that evening at the conference of the United States Commission for UNESCO. Dr. Milton Eisenhower, chairman of the commission, presided at this evening meeting, which was open to the public and reportedly drew an audience of 9,000 people. The Cleveland Council on World Affairs was host to the commission during its three-day meeting and their president, Mr. W. Russell Burwell, gave the introduction and started the evening going.

The new Director General of UNESCO, Dr. Jaime Torres Bodet of Mexico, spoke on "UNESCO—A Personal Faith," and made a deep impression. Everyone seemed very happy and the general feeling seemed to be that Dr. Bodet was taking hold of his job and the organization on UNESCO very well.

The theme of this evening meeting was "Freedom and Human Rights," and that was why the State Department wanted me to go and speak. After the speeches, a very fine performance was given of "The Symphony of Freedom," arranged by Dr. Howard Hanson, who conducted the Cleveland Orchestra and the Orpheus Male Chorus, with Leonard Treash as the narrator and Lois Winter and Gretchen Rhoads as the soloists. It was a most fitting end to an evening which, I hope, sent people home really stirred with a determination to achieve an understanding of the work which is expected of us all.

I had to be up on Saturday morning at 6:30 and back on the plane and off by 7:30, since the delegates to the General Assembly were called to an all-day session in Washington, beginning at ten o'clock. I was met at the airport and driven straight to the State Department. Secretary Acheson opened the meeting, but soon turned it over to Ambassador Austin as he had to return to his responsibilities in connection with the foreign ministers who are here for the signing of the North Atlantic Pact on Monday afternoon.

We were fortunate in getting through our work in time to make the 5 p.m. plane for New York City, so that I was home by ten o'clock Saturday night, to be greeted by two delighted little black dogs.

E. R.

(WORLD COPYRIGHT, 1949, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC.; REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART PROHIBITED.)


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  • Hyde Park (Dutchess County, N.Y., United States) [ index ]
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About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, April 4, 1949

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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Digital edition published 2008, 2017 by
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Available under licence from the Estate of Anna Eleanor Roosevelt.

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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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