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

      

NEW YORK, Wednesday—On Monday night I attended an invigorating United Nations Day celebration at the White Plains County Center in Westchester County. The B'nai B'rith was joined by the mayor's committees of many neighboring towns to make this a really big rally, but the B'nai B'rith took this opportunity to give me an award for my work in the U.N. and they asked Dr. Ralph Bunche to present it. I can think of few people from whom I would rather receive an award than Ralph Bunche, winner of the Nobel Prize and a faithful servant of humanity through his work on the Trustee Council of the U.N.

I am beginning to feel somewhat embarrassed about two things. One is that I am frequently introduced with such exaggerated kindness that often I feel like sinking through the floor. Nobody could possibly deserve the praise that comes my way. I am very conscious of the fact that it must be because of my husband that I have been given opportunities that otherwise I never would have had.

I am deeply grateful for these opportunities and have done the best I could to serve my country and through my country the cause of human beings everywhere in the world. But hundreds of other women have done much more than I have done, and I want to register my gratitude to all of them for their success in the work they are doing every day.

Secondly, I feel it is because the people have such an interest in the U.N. and in the hope that it can be made to serve as an instrument of peace, that everyone of us who works there starts with a ready-made interest among every group we find ourselves addressing.

The people who worked on the rally in Westchester County must have done hard work but I am sure they were gratified when they saw how many had come to this celebration.

On Tuesday I was able to get away from my U.N. duties to a great extent except for an hour and a half at teatime when some of the delegates on Committee 3 came to my apartment.

The rest of the day I gave to partisan politics. The women's division of the Volunteers for Stevenson sponsored a luncheon at which all political groups working for Governor Stevenson were included. There were representatives of the Liberal party and the regular Democratic organization, so that a mammoth gathering overflowed the ballroom at the Hotel Commodore and filled both the east and west ballrooms as well as the large central ballroom. It was an extraordinary turnout of enthusiastic people, and Governor Stevenson received a warm welcome.

Mrs. David M. Levy and Mrs. Goodhue Livingston Jr. and all their able aides must have been proud of their organization.

It did not seem to be the appropriate time to say something to these women who have worked so hard for the election of Governor Stevenson, which I have had on my mind for a long time, but I cannot help putting it into this column.

It is no longer merely enough to work for a man's election. When he is elected he needs the organizations that have done work for him to continue to support him. I do not mean that every woman who worked in the campaign and gave long and exhausting hours of their time should continue to do that the year round, but I do mean the organization should be kept going. Lists of workers should be at headquarters who could be called on when special work was needed. Also, party information and suggestions for activities should go out regularly from headquarters to the women workers, so that the elected President will constantly sense that backing for his policies and know that there is an organization he can call upon when he needs it.

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, October 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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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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