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

      

CHICAGO, Wednesday—It is always amusing to be in Chicago and read the Chicago Tribune. I find highlighted on the front page the attacks made by the Democrats on the Administration for "mean, untrue and dastardly" things said against the Democratic party by Republicans in office.

Senator Rayburn, Democratic leader, also told the House that "people high in the Administration hint that anybody who calls himself a Democrat is at least tinged with communism." The care with which all this is reported leads you to believe that it is not unpleasant to the Chicago Tribune to have the Administration so attacked.

Then you come to the editorial page and find an editorial headed, "A Homespun Roosevelt" and who do you suppose that is—President Eisenhower, to be sure.

Everything he has done is criticized and the inference is left with you that there is really not much choice between Franklin Roosevelt of the past and Ike Eisenhower in the present.

Knowing how much the Chicago Tribune disliked President Roosevelt, one is a little surprised to find that a Republican newspaper apparently dislikes almost as much a Republican President. To a Democrat, this is reassuring, however, for a house divided against itself is apt to have trouble and if the two groups in the Republican Party can't come closer together, they may not be as strong as they expect to be. This may be one reason why the gossip around Washington seems to indicate a reluctance on the part of Republican officials to buy houses. I was told most of them were living in apartments or hotels which also would indicate that they are not too sure of the length of their tenure of office.

One thing, however, has been remarkably well handled, I think. Namely, the opposition to the Bricker amendment. That built up slowly but has come about in a way which permitted those who once thought it might be a good thing, to change their minds and to slide out gracefully. This has been a question, however, which affected the future of the nation and was not, strictly speaking, one that could be looked at in a partisan way. Sensible men who understood government, on carefully examining the proposed amendment came to see that it was dangerous. It would tie the hands of future Presidents, both Republicans and Democrats, and would slow important decisions which ought to be possible for the President to make. It would have made much more difficult even taking action on treaties where the Senate's ratification was a normal part of the procedure.

E.R.

(WORLD COPYRIGHT, 1954, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC. REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART PROHIBITED.)


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

Geographic
  • Chicago (Ill., United States) [ index ]


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, February 11, 1954

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

  • Brick, Christopher (Editor)
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  • Regenhardt, Christy (Associate Editor)
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  • Black, Allida M. (Editor)
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  • Binker, Mary Jo (Associate Editor)
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  • Alhambra, Christopher C. (Electronic Text Editor)
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Digital edition published 2008, 2017 by
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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.

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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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