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

      

NEW YORK, Thursday—It was really a sickening thing to read of the espionage trial in Prague. It seemed such a complete travesty of justice.

Sometimes here in our country I have felt it must be difficult for men holding power over other men to stand up under that power. In reading of the Prague trials and of forced confessions, one feels that brutality must rise to a very high peak and methods must be used to bring about these confessions that could hardly be countenanced in any country where even only a semblance of judicial procedure remains.

In one of our newspapers the other night there was a small and inconspicuous mention of the fact that possibly in the House and the Senate an effort might be made to oust Secretary of State Dean Acheson by refusing to put his salary into the State Department appropriation. It added that it was understood that the subcommittee in charge had agreed to do nothing of the kind, but some of the Republican members of Congress felt that they should be allowed to go on record in this way in order to show that they felt no confidence in Secretary Acheson.

This seems to me very funny, because there is very little doubt that the Republicans would have long since got rid of Secretary Acheson if they could. And there is hardly any need of a gesture such as this to show what their feelings are!

I have considerable contempt for the people who try to say that Secretary Acheson and General Marshall are Communists or have at any time built up Communist power.

Only people who really have no regard for the truth could say things of this kind, and one can only believe that when they say them they do so because of ulterior motives. Whether these motives are political or personal, no outsider can tell. That the best interests of our country are not served by such accusations is clear to anyone who understands that one cannot undermine one's leaders without hurting our position in the world and our ability to do a good job for democracy through our leadership.

I wonder if any of my readers with young boys have seen a book called, "Lion Boy's White Brother" by Alden G. Stevens. I mention this one for I am quite sure no boy would lose interest in it or find it dull.

This is the season also when many of us want to find small books that we can take on a camping trip or on a motor trip. For this purpose I discovered small, paper editions published by the New American Library, called Mentor books. The other day I scanned two volumes, one of which is entitled, "How to Know American Antiques," which is certainly going with me when next I think I can afford to look into any of the numerous antique shops that line New York roads as well as New England's routes. The other volume is "A Gallery of Americans"—a delightful collection of thumbnail sketches of certain well-know Americans and extracts from their writings.

E. R.

(WORLD COPYRIGHT, 1951, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC. REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART PROHIBITED.)


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About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, July 6, 1951

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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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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