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

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Seattle, Washington—It is interesting to come clear across the country and find that on the editorial page of the morning paper in Seattle there are two things which might just as well have appeared on the editorial page of a New York metropolitan paper. One is a very plain statement urging our government to prevent sanctions against Israel, pointing out that unless we apply the same rule to big and little states we are being very unjust. We have done nothing to the Soviet Union which has ignored quite a number of U.N. resolutions in relation to Hungary. We have taken no action against India in its attitude on Kashmir, we have taken none against Egypt which has also ignored a number of U.N. resolutions, so it would seem that sanctions against Israel would not be exactly fair particularly as she has agreed to comply with the U.N. resolutions only saying that there must be first a guarantee that when her troops leave the U.N. troops go in. This would seen only common sense.

The other editorial is on National Crime Prevention Week and calls attention to the fact that each of us has a responsibility to help law enforcement in our community.

The cartoon on the editorial page is also on a subject which has interest for the whole country. It shows the GOP elephant and the Democratic donkey, the latter warming his hands at a little wood fire and looking very ragged, having only spent 10 million dollars on the campaign, the GOP elephant having spent 20 million on the campaign looks resplendent in good clothes and a diamond pin and he says "Money well spent, I say."

I wonder if others throughout the country, feel strongly enough this situation to do something about campaign expenses. I have long felt that the same amount should be spent by both parties that an equal amount of newspaper advertising and rail travel should be allowed in different categories and paid for by the public.

There is another amusing little account here of the Republican Congressman H.R. Gross of Iowa who visited the U.N. to try to see where money could be saved and decided that American tax dollars were paying one-third of the costs at too many bars and too many clubs. He assumed by simply reading the telephone directory that all the clubs which have an address and a telephone are paid for by the US. I surmise that they are paid for by private subscription of the members! He forgets there are a large number of people employed in the U.N. and that they do have lives like other human beings and when their day's work is over they have a variety of interests. As I look over these clubs they represent these interests and without them many of the people who work in the secretariat would lead very lonely lives for they come to this country as strangers and if the U.N. did not allow them to join together for recreational purposes and for cultural purposes it would take them a long time to make friends in a city like NY and find people with similar interests. I am quite sure American dollars are not being used in supporting these clubs but if they were I am not sure it would not be a good investment for we do try to be hospitable to those who come to us from other countries. In addition, Mr. Gross criticizes the fact that there are two bars in the lounge. There are 80 countries represented in the U.N. and there are constant meetings, even when the General Assembly which brings some 10 to 20 people to the U.N. from each member country is not in session. Many of the member states have representatives that who drink no alcoholic liquor so I think Mr. Gross would have been surprised to find he could get a variety of soft drinks at those bars, but two bars to serve so many people does not seem to me excessive.

E.R.


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About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, February 13, 1957

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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Digital edition published 2008, 2017 by
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Available under licence from the Estate of Anna Eleanor Roosevelt.

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MEP edition publlished on June 30, 2008.

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Transcription created from a photocopy of a draft version of a My Day column instance archived at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library. My Day column draft dated February 13, 1957, FDR Library, Hyde Park, NY
TMsd, 13 February 1957, AERP, FDRL