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

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NEW YORK—We arrived at Mrs. Morgenthau's farm last night at 10:30 by our own watches, but it was 11:30 by daylight saving time! So when it was time to get up this morning I was just one hour short on sleep and it seemed the greatest luxury to turn over and go to sleep again, realizing that there really was nothing I had to do.

A little mail awaited me, but very little has followed me around on this trip, and so after half an hour of writing we were out looking at four of the most enchanting colts I have seen in a long while. There is something appealing in all young animals, but a colt with its long legs and its confiding ways, is somehow particularly attractive.

We went into a field to look at the two year old horses and I saw a very large bull lying on the ground and inquired somewhat apprehensively if it was well behaved. "No it is extremely vicious" said Mrs. Morgenthau, "but it had a fight with another bull and one leg is so badly injured that it moves too slowly to be dangerous." I must say, however, that I moved somewhat cautiously around that field!

Afterwards we took a walk over the hills, through freshly plowed fields where raspberry and strawberry bushes were planted and even drove to look at the cherry, peach and apply orchards. A farm is a fascinating business looked at purly as a business because there is so much variety that you need never be bored.

On the way down in the train I read Dorothy Thompson's column, and was particularly struck by the last paragraph. She says, "Who is to blame? You and I are to blame," and then lists the various things which we tolerate, knowing that they are untrue. I wish that her message could get across to thousands of citizens. She is right—we are to blame for much of the bigotry, ignorance and vice in this country because so few of us think it necessary to do more than keep quiet.

E.R.


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About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, May 29, 1936

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
The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project

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 draft version of a My Day column instance archived at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library. My Day column draft dated May 28, 1936, FDR Library, Hyde Park, NY
TMsd, 28 May 1936, AERP, FDRL