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

      

NEW YORK, Wednesday—I've received a letter from The International Union Against Discrimination, which has headquarters in Paris. They say they would be very grateful if I would tell the people of this country how happy they are over the decision of the United States Supreme Court banning segregation in our schools.

They say further that this fine decision has enormously added to the confidence, throughout the world, in the spirit of democracy in the U.S. And they feel it strengthens the cause of peace and removes one of the arguments offered by totalitarian states against democratic states. Many of us have felt that this decision was significant in the world situation, and this letter from an international organization corroborates that point of view.

I was sorry to read of the death of former Congressman Maury Maverick of Texas. He was a loyal supporter of my husband and a creative human being. At times he was eccentric, but basically, I think, he wanted to work for the good of all the people. I remember the interest he took in promoting prison industries throughout the nation during the war, so that the prisoners could feel they were contributing to their country's defense.

I've read with a great deal of interest a statement issued by the Executive Board of the American Friends Service Committee. This statement deals with the situation in Indo-China and in Asia as a whole; and it expresses the committee's attitude toward the situation in the U.N.

I agree with them that "we must remember that a real victory for freedom in Indo-China, as elsewhere, depends upon winning the minds and hearts of the Indo-Chinese." That cannot be done by military force.

I do not agree with them, however, that it is a mistake to try to promote within the United Nations a system of collective security. I think the U.N. is and should be a forum for the settlement of disputes and that the freest possible discussion should go on, but that does not remove the need for collective security.

I believe in eventual universal membership in the U.N., but certainly not until Communist states at least express a desire for peaceful discussion and for the wiping out of war as a method of settling disputes. We should strengthen the mediation machinery of the U.N., but I do not consider that it can be strengthened by admitting now Communist states that are actually at war against democratic nations.

E. R.

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


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About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, June 10, 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

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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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