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

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CASPER, Wyo., Friday—My husband has been stressing the point on this trip that it is the duty of any chief executive to get about the country to try to learn a little at first hand of the problems affecting the forty-eight states, for these are going to come to him throughout the year via the representatives from the states. Each representative is naturally going to feel that the problems of his state require special consideration, and it is the duty of the President to keep the balance and try to work out a program which will be beneficial to all and unfair to none. This can't be done unless you see conditions with your own eyes and talk to people in touch with them.

When my husband made this remark I wondered how much from the windows of a train, one could see. Then I began to analyze what I myself was seeing! We woke this morning to the bluest of skies and the plains of Wyoming. We have seen the mountains in the distance and the curious formations of the country made up of grazing land and high plateaus, and steep rocky gulleys. The grass is better this year than it was last year, there has been a little more rain. In consequence the cattle and the sheep look better and the people themselves look more cheerful. This part of the country has been hard hit, but the people's confidence is coming back, I think. We stopped in Cheyenne on schedule and I remembered the pleasant time spent here on our last trip through this section of the country.

At several places where we had no scheduled stops, we have been out on the back platform and my husband has asked the crowd about the crops and how things were going generally and they answered and asked him questions in return. At the last stop where the Wheatland reservoir is of great importance, for it will impound water for use in dry seasons, he talked to them a little about that project. I thought it was rather significant that way out here far away from our coasts, a man's voice should ask what the chances were of our remaining at peace. When the President answered that we will do our best to stay out of war, the applause was spontaneous and loud.

Governor Cochran of Nebraska dined with us last night and left us in Omaha. Today Governor Miller of Wyoming is with us and the Governor of Colorado also joined us for a short time. Later this afternoon we will get out of the train and drive around Casper, Wyoming. The temperature is distinctly lower than it was when we left home and since morning the sky has become cloudy, so I think we may find our fur coats very useful, though they seemed superfluous pieces of baggage.

Tomorrow morning we will be at the entrance to Yellowstone Park where our daughter Anna and her husband and our two grandchildren will join us. The children have not seen their grandfather for a long time and Anna wrote that their excitement was great when they were told they were coming out to join us!

E.R.


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

Geographic
  • Casper (Natrona County, Wyo., United States) [ index ]


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, September 25, 1937

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

  • Brick, Christopher (Editor)
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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 September 24, 1937, FDR Library, Hyde Park, NY
TMsd, 24 September 1937, AERP, FDRL