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

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WASHINGTON, Sunday—Year by year, the annual dinner given by the Cabinet to the President, seems to grow pleasanter and is more like a big family party. There is only one solemn moment when we all rise and drink a silent toast to those who were with the official family and who have gone on to the Elysian Fields. I often wonder if they meet together there and, with the added wisdom of those who see beyond our earthly sphere, solve all our problems for us and wish that we had reached a point where they could pass along their solutions.

After dinner, Miss Helen Jepson sang. She said her last number, "Coming Home," was one of her own favorites, and it certainly was very beautiful.

Today the papers were given a story on a study made by the Business and Professional Women's Clubs, entitled, "Why Women Work." This ought to end, once and for all, the statement which we have so often heard: "Why do married women hold positions? They keep others, who really need work, out of a job and they only do it to get some extra pin-money." A glance at the charts in this pamphlet shows how many women have dependents both in and outside the home. It is quite evident very few women work just for the joy of working, or because they are anxious to have a few more luxuries.

In Oklahoma last year, I was given a little book called "Civilization," written by Florence Drake and Thomas W. Alford, an Indian. Only lately have I had an opportunity to go through it. It is a truthful book about our little understood, and often maligned, American Indians and the work being done by the Government among what remains of the original inhabitants of this country.

I think anyone really interested in the Indians will enjoy this book. I mention it now, because during the next year so much attention will be focused on our early Indian culture in preparation for the San Francisco Fair.

I wonder if anybody else was as much excited as I was by the testimony given before the Senate Unemployment Committee by Jay C. Hormel, president of a meat packing company in Austin, Minn. Mr. Raymond Clapper, in his column, gives a very interesting account of the hearing. It is the idea of a yearly wage which thrills me. To me, it seems an ideal which would mean salvation to so many workers. One remark I chuckled over was Mr. Hormel's answer to Senator Hatch of New Mexico, who asked him if he would carry his men on the payroll even if business fell off sharply. Mr. Hormel replied: "That is what we do with our vice-presidents." Good logic, but I wonder how many heads of business have given it much thought.

Now for most exciting news—the crocuses are out on the White House lawn. It doesn't feel very much like spring, but spring is surely on the way.

E.R.

(Copyright, 1937, by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.)


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About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, March 7, 1938

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 UFS wire copy of a My Day column instance archived at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library.
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