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

      

LOS ANGELES, Tuesday—I must come back again to the question of conservation, which evidently is being ignored by the present Administration.

I have a letter from someone who is really worried about the preservation of Olympic National Park in Northwest Washington. I remember well when my husband visited this area and how keenly he felt that it must remain a national park. My correspondent says:

“You probably are aware that commercial interests are now seeking to destroy over half of the Olympic National Park.....The present park boundaries could not be changed except by an Act of Congress, but unless we are vigilant the lumber industries could succeed in their endeavors.”

This is a virgin section of timber and we have none too many left in our whole nation.

Another interested citizen wrote a letter to the Seattle Times and he mentioned the fact that in the past year 431,000 visitors used this park area, which is 10 times more than went there in 1939. This is so in spite of the fact that not much has been done to develop the park facilities for the use of the public. Outside the park there are a half-million acres suitable for growing trees. This land has been stripped almost bare and has not been replanted. Yet, there has been a great deal made of the fact that in the park there are some wind-thrown and insect-killed trees that have not been cleared up even though the park service has been diligently salvaging most of the accessible logs.

As a tourist attraction Olympic National Park brings in far more money than would be possible if the park were made smaller and a certain part of the land turned over to the lumber companies. It is almost certain that in a few years the lumber companies again would cut down those trees without much reforestation.

The letter published in the Seattle Times gives much useful information and convincing arguments why the park should be preserved, so I hope that nothing will sway our Administration toward destroying a beautiful area that should remain for the enjoyment of all people.

I was reading the other day a book that was written by Abraham Feller a short time before he died. It is called "United Nations and World Community" and was published by Little, Brown and Company. Since I have told you so much about organizations that publish material about the U.N. that is not factual and valuable, I would like to say here that this book published by Little, Brown is an exception and seems to me a very excellent one. All those who are interested in the U.N. will find it well worth reading.

My granddaughter in Paris wrote me the other day and asked me if I had read a little book called "The Little World of Don Camillo." I can say that I have read it but cannot recall mentioning it in my column. If you want a half hour of association with a delightful character, I advise you to read it.

E. R.

(WORLD COPYRIGHT, 1953, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC. REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART PROHIBITED.)


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

Geographic
  • Los Angeles (Calif., United States) [ index ]


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, April 22, 1953

Roosevelt, Eleanor, 1884-1962
[ ERPP bio | LC | VIAF | WorldCat | DPLA | Wikidata | SNAC ]

Digital edition created by The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project The George Washington University 312 Academic Building 2100 Foxhall Road, NW Washington, DC 20007

  • Brick, Christopher (Editor)
    [ VIAF | ORCID ]
  • Regenhardt, Christy (Associate Editor)
    [ ISNI ]
  • Black, Allida M. (Editor)
    [ VIAF | ISNI ]
  • Binker, Mary Jo (Associate Editor)
    [ VIAF | ORCID ]
  • Alhambra, Christopher C. (Electronic Text Editor)
    [ VIAF | ORCID ]

Digital edition published 2008, 2017 by
The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project

Available under licence from the Estate of Anna Eleanor Roosevelt.

Published with permission from the Estate of Anna Eleanor Roosevelt.

MEP edition publlished on June 30, 2008.

TEI-P5 edition published on April 28, 2017.

XML master last modified on June 9, 2017.

HTML version generated and published on May 3, 2022.

Transcription created from a photocopy of a UFS wire copy of a My Day column instance archived at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library.
TMs, AERP, FDRL