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

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NEW YORK, Wednesday—This Spring in New Bedford, Massachusetts , there will be a celebration in honor of the Girl Scouts. It will feature a preview of the film, "Women of Tomorrow," which tells the history of the Girl Scouts and shows them at work. Although there are no professionals taking part—rolls are played by the Girl Scouts—I hope every theatre in the nation will show this film. Everyone should see it.

I have always had great respect for Girl Scout programs of this country, and I am particularly interested in their international work. On several occasions I have visited international encampments in this country where girls have come from all over the world to camp with our own girls. They sing songs together and take part in all the camp activities, despite the problem different languages create.

Our Girl Scouts have helped their sisters in many countries. I think it has helped to create a greater sense of responsibility for those who live in war-torn lands. This will be of value to our "Women of Tomorrow."

I am glad to see that the House has passed the bill providing statehood for the Territory of Alaska and sent it to the Senate. The bill granting statehood to Hawaii should go through immediately.

It was amusing to read in one of our newspapers Representative Cox's remark that in admitting Hawaii we would admit a state completely dominated by Harry Bridges, president of the left wing CIO Longshoreman's Union. Hawaiians did suffer on account of a strike, but we have suffered from a coal strike which bothered us a great deal and yet we do not feel for that reason we are dominated throughout the nation by John L. Lewis.

Fundamentally I feel that it strengthens us to have the people of Hawaii and Alaska an actual part of the United States, with all the rights of statehood and with direct representatives in our Congress. I think we all welcome them as two new stars on our flag.

I am sure many people were very much interested in the account given by Michael Shipkov, a Bulgarian, who explained how it was possible to make individuals confess treason in a Communist-dominated court, regardless of the truth. I am sorry to say that intimidation has been used in practically every country by some of its officials who felt it legitimate because they were trying to obtain some particular kind of testimony. I have heard with concern of methods used occasionally in some of our police courts. None of them, however, seems to have acquired quite the technique that brings about these mass confessions in the Soviet court-rooms. I was sorry this morning to read that Mr. Shipkov had been taken a prisoner and now has confessed to being a spy for the Americans!

E. R.

(WORLD COPYRIGHT, 1950, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC., REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART PROHIBITED.)


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About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, March 9, 1950

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.

TEI-P5 edition published on April 28, 2017.

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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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