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

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PARIS, Tuesday —After another day in which Committee Three indulged in endless argument, a good deal of it on procedure, I came out of the committee room to be greeted by the most beautiful sight—looking down at the Eiffel Tower with snow falling quite heavily. The branches of all the trees already were outlined by the snow and the whole scene looked like a fairyland.

I went first to the Indian Embassy, where that country's liberatior was being celebrated—their Fourth of July. I was surprised to find how many Indians there must be in Paris, for the rooms filled with them and moving among them, of course, were members of the various embassies and UN delegations that are here.

The Indian ambassador was a very impressive figure with his white turban and his beard and his fine soldierly bearing. But the Indian gentleman who has the most beautiful face of all those I have met here is Sir Girja Shankar Bajpai. He has spiritual quality that one associates with Prime Minister Nehru and in a few people from other lands.

I dined last night with the Indian ambassador and had a very interesting conversation after dinner with the wife of one of the younger Indian attaches. She warned me that the trip I am about to take will be so full of new impressions and experiences that it will be very difficult to absorb them all.

Then we had an interesting exchange of views on whether there should be two Convenants of Human Rights or one. Her feeling was that economic and social rights should be acknowledged and if they were not in the same covenant they would not have equal attention or recongition. I suggested that that was what had been accomplished in the Declaration but that the treaty, which must be immediately implemented could not state or enumerate aspirations.

She was a charming young woman of great intelligence and I enjoyed my talk with her. I feel somehow that the younger women of India are taking very seriously the responsibilities that are new to them. They say they cannot wait as long as we in the U.S. have waited to achieve social justice; for them, changes must come fast, which, on the other hand, means they will also be more upsetting.

I heard a perfectly delightful French quartette, "The Frere Jacques," sing a French song and then a very old American song with a few French twists to it. This treat occurred at a cocktail party given by Porter McKeever, head of our public relations division. I could not help thinking that this group, which currently is singing here in a well-known night club, would be a great success in the U.S. but perhaps they already had been there.

Many people must be delighted to learn that the first Canadian–born Governor General in Canada is Vincent Massey. He was the first Canadian Minister to the U.S. and made great many friends in Washington and throughout the country.

I suppose this will seem a great change to the British and possibly a loosening of the tie between Canada and the mother country. But Vincent Massey served as Canada's High Commissioner in Britain from 1935 to 1946 and he must have a great understanding of the common interests of the two countries.

E. R.

(WORLD COPYRIGHT, 1952, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC. REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART PROHIBITED.)


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About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, January 30, 1952

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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