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

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NEW YORK—In spite the break in the ranks of the steel employers which the Kaiser Steel Corp. and a small company in Detroit have made, the 11 remaining major steel companies still remain adamant—and little by little one reads that the need for steel is becoming more acute.

It is certainly a breakdown of our negotiating machinery when a strike like this seems impossible to settle after so many weeks. Perhaps someday we will be able to work out a pattern by which impartial investigators will look into situations causing such serious dislocations and the results then submitted to some kind of a court whose decision would be final.

That would seem to me to be a fairer way to handle such situations, but, of course, it would be imperative to get an impartial investigation and put the findings before impartial judges and important to see that no pressures would be brought to bear on any of them.

The fight about the proposed bond issue, to be voted on in New York State next Tuesday, to borrow funds for New York City school construction is becoming ludicrous in some ways.

New York City Comptroller Lawrence E. Gerosa tries to make us believe that the money for the school construction could easily be saved by cutting out other items in the budget that he says cannot be used this year. If we go through these items, however, I feel that most of them can be used this year if work is speeded up and not allowed to lag because of lack of interest.

In any case, his argument that the money can be found that is needed for building schools this coming year does not really answer the question of a continuous program, which must be carried on over a period of years. If one followed Mr. Gerosa's pattern one would not know from year to year what one would have to finish the job after the first year has ended.

I think there is no question that continuity is essential, and it cannot be assured unless the proposed bond issue passes. This bond issue is to be for school construction purposes only, and though it has to be voted on by the entire state it will really affect only construction of schools in New York City.

There was what might be called an amusing item in the newspapers the other day, giving the ratings of various television shows shown for the half-hour period last Sunday afternoon from 5:30 to 6:30.

Here is the way the ratings came out: Lone Ranger, a repeat film, 10.8; Leonard Bernstein, 7.9; Chet Huntley, 4.0. These ratings perhaps justify what some of those people who plan programs on TV are constantly saying—that the public does not even want good music more than it wants a little excitement which it can view without any effort in the way of thought.

It appears we are back at the same old stand. We are given in our newspapers and on TV and radio exactly what we, the public, insist on having, and this very frequently is mediocre information and mediocre entertainment.

E.R.

(Copyright, 1959, by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.)


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About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, October 30, 1959

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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