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

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TEL AVIV, Israel—After visiting the paper mill in Hadera last week, we went to see the Alliance Tire Company plant, which is also in Hadera. This factory is run by a young American from Cleveland, Ohio, and he and his associates are very proud of their achievements. They told me theirs was the first plant to put in an incentive-wage plan. In other establishments in Israel the size of a man's family has a great bearing on the amount of wages he gets.

In the tire-making plant, however, they pay a good basic wage and ask no questions about a man's home conditions. If a man is a good worker, it is possible for him to earn far more than the basic pay. My hosts pointed out to me two brothers from North Africa who earn the highest and next-to-the-highest wages in the whole plant and produce as much in the working day, I was told, as the average American worker.

We reached Haifa early in the afternoon and went at once to lunch at the Israel-America Friendship League headquarters. All the executives of this group were present, and all are men except for two women, and there was an amusing incident between the chairman and one of the ladies. He mentioned that their wives had not been allowed to come to the luncheon since this was still a man's world, and the lady demanded to know from me whether I considered it still entirely a man's world!

After lunch I was accompanied on a tour of the city with the mayor, Mr. A. Houshy. He was especially proud in having planted thousands and thousands of rose bushes along some of the avenues and at the various traffic circles. In the innumerable parks that dot the city there are a great many children's playgrounds, all fully equipped with swings and seesaws and such.

The mayor also told me that there are 11 children's clubs, for which he found houses and in which he provides the management personnel. These club directors see that the children are kept off the streets and busy indoors or on the club property. The mayor said this organization of clubs has made a great difference in holding down juvenile delinquency.

One club is housed directly across the street from the city jail, and they chose this spot deliberately, the mayor said, so that the children would be brought to think out whether they preferred to be in jail or to join a club.

Mayor Houshy outlined for me a long-range plan he has for the city, and when he really gets into carrying out some of these proposals he is going to have a very beautiful place. And through his work with the children of the city he should be able to provide the city with plenty of music—he has already formed eight children's orchestras.

(Distributed by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.)

E.R.


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

Geographic
  • Tel Aviv (Israel) [ index ]


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, March 29, 1955

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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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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