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

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NEW YORK—The other day I attended a reception given at the Waldorf for President Sukarno of Indonesia. It was a great pleasure to see this charming gentleman and to tell him how sorry I had been to miss seeing him last summer when I spent a few days in his capital.

How he keeps his buoyancy when he is greeting a long line of people, such as went past him last Thursday afternoon, I do not know. He greeted me just as though he had seen me yesterday, and remembered me perfectly even though I had dined with him in Djakarta over three years ago!

One has a warm feeling in talking with President Sukarno even for a few moments. While he has been very forthright in the speeches he has made, I find that he has created no resentment, for people feel he is saying what he really thinks. He expressed a deep admiration for our revolutionary past and for the idea on which our democracy was founded, and in that he is completely sincere. He may criticize things that have developed of late and he may not agree with some of our foreign policies, but he does it judiciously and sincerely. I think all of us agree that this is the kind of constructive criticism which is needed to improve our international relations.

On Thursday night a dinner in honor of Senator Wayne Morse was given by Mr. and Mrs. Harry Brandt, at which Mrs. David Levy and I were co-hostesses. Senator Hubert Humphrey came up to give a delightful speech, and I think a great many people went away with increased admiration for Senator Morse, who seems to me to grow in stature the more I know him.

Friday I had the great pleasure of welcoming Lady Stella Reading to the U.S. She is here, as usual, on a very hurried visit, but I hope will get some little rest. After an early lunch with her I motored up to Hyde Park with my old friend, Mr. C. R. Smith, and had the joy of greeting Mr. and Mrs. Durward Sandifer, our counselor of the embassy in Argentina, who is home on leave. It was a great pleasure to see them and to have a weekend in which to talk about their many experiences through the troubled times which they have had the opportunity of watching in Argentina. Their daughter, Muriel, who will soon be married and whose future husband lives in Alaska, was with them. She will be rather far away from her family, I fear, for the next few years.

On Saturday at the Memorial Library grounds I greeted the members of the Ladies ILGWU, and from 12 to one o'clock I welcomed a group of U.N. interns who came to picnic on our grounds near the cottages before going over to visit the library.

E. R.

(COPYRIGHT, 1956, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC.)


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

Persons
  • Brandt, Harry N., 1897-1972 [ index ]
         American businessman; active in Democratic Party; owner of New York City area theaters
         [ NYT ]
  • Brandt, Helen Satenstein, 1904-1973 [ index ]
         Spouse of New York businessman and Democrative Party activist Harry Brandt
  • Humphrey, Hubert H. (Hubert Horatio), 1911-1978 [ index ]
         American politician
         [ LC | ISNI | VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC | FAST | US Nat. Archives | ANB ]
  • Isaacs, Stella, Marchioness of Reading, Baroness Swanborough, 1894-1971 [ index ]
         British philanthropist; founder of Women's Royal Voluntary Service
         [ Wikidata | SNAC | UK Nat. Archives | ODNB ]
  • Levy, Adele Rosenwald, 1892-1960 [ index ]
         American philanthropist; spouse of David M. Levy
         [ LC | VIAF | SNAC | FAST | Other source ]
  • Morse, Wayne L. (Wayne Lyman), 1900-1974 [ index ]
         American politician; U.S. Senator (OR) from 1945 to 1969 and 1960 Presidenial nominee
         [ LC | ISNI | VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC | FAST | US Nat. Archives | ANB ]
  • Munroe, Muriel Sandifer [ index ]
         daughter of State Dept. official Durward Sandifer
  • Sandifer, Durward V. (Durward Valdamir), 1900-1981 [ index ]
         American lawyer and public servant; Legal counsel at the US Department of State
         [ LC | ISNI | VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC | FAST | US Nat. Archives ]
  • Sandifer, Irene Reiterman, 1902-1977 [ index ]
         American author,; personal friend of ER; spouse of American lawyer Durward Sandifer; member of the Montgomery County Board of Education and President of the Maryland League of Women Voters
         [ SNAC | Other source ]
  • Smith, C. R. (Cyrus Rowlett), 1899-1990 [ index ]
         American businessman and civil servant; CEO of American Airlines from 1934 to 1968 and 1973 to 1974; Secretary of Commerce from 1968 to 1969
         [ LC | ISNI | VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC | FAST ]
  • Soekarno, 1901-1970 [ index ]
         Indonesian politician
         [ LC | ISNI | VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC | FAST | US Nat. Archives | Brittanica ]
Organizations
Geographic
  • New York (N.Y., United States) [ index ]


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, May 28, 1956

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)
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  • Binker, Mary Jo (Associate Editor)
    [ VIAF | ORCID ]
  • 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.

TEI-P5 edition published on April 28, 2017.

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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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