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

      

WASHINGTON, Wednesday—Well, the weather man decided I had not had enough discipline, and so this morning dawned cold and gray! We consulted the heads of the various hospitals and they agreed that they did not think it safe to bring their patients to a garden party this afternoon. So again we put our heads together over date books and have chosen Monday, June 6th, for our next attempt at holding a garden party for the veterans.

Again various institutions in Washington will receive loaves of bread and cakes which would otherwise have been consumed by our guests.

I wonder if any of you heard the broadcast made by our Ambassador to Spain, Claude G. Bowers, from the American Embassy at St. Jean de Luz? I was very much impressed by the tragic things which he related as everyday occurrences in the lives of Spanish children. "Probably a million children, undernourished, inadequately clothed, many dying from the slow torture of starvation, many sick and many wounded and many fatherless and motherless and homeless and with no place to lay their heads." What a tragic picture! He urges us as a nation to live up to our past reputation and reminds us that over a period of a hundred years we have helped care for the children of other nations, no matter what our attitude might be toward the governments involved.

At the very end of his speech, Ambassador Bowers paid a tribute to one group of people who always carry on their humanitarian work throughout the world. It pleased me, for I have a great admiration for those people. These were his words:

"Here let me pause to pay tribute to the American Quakers who have been working inconspicuously and effectively in Spain for more than a year. I have seen the agents of the American Friends Service Committee many times and one called on me today. They were the first in the field and they have planted the banner of American humanity among the ruins and they have rendered notable service that Spaniards never will forget." I hope the rest of us may earn as high a tribute by caring for the unfortunate wherever they are found.

I had a most interesting talk yesterday afternoon with Mr. Wiley Hurie, President of the College of the Ozarks in Arkansas. He showed me pictures of his young people, many of whom are obliged to work their way through college, and they impressed me as an exceptionally fine looking group of youngsters.

His faculty has voluntarily, through these years of depression, accepted tremendous cuts in salary in order that the work may be carried on. I hope that they may be rewarded by finding friends to assist them in bringing education and better standards of living to this part of our country.

Johnny and I had a grand ride this morning and he has now motored down to spend the night in Charlottesville, Virginia, with Franklin, Jr., and Ethel.

E.R.

(Copyright, 1938, by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.)


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

Geographic
  • Washington (D.C., United States) [ index ]


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, May 26, 1938

Roosevelt, Eleanor, 1884-1962
[ ERPP bio | LC | VIAF | WorldCat | DPLA | Wikidata | SNAC ]

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)
    [ VIAF | ORCID ]
  • Regenhardt, Christy (Associate Editor)
    [ ISNI ]
  • Black, Allida M. (Editor)
    [ VIAF | ISNI ]
  • Binker, Mary Jo (Associate Editor)
    [ VIAF | ORCID ]
  • Alhambra, Christopher C. (Electronic Text Editor)
    [ VIAF | ORCID ]

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.

XML master last modified on June 9, 2017.

HTML version generated and published on May 3, 2022.

Transcription created from a photocopy of a UFS wire copy of a My Day column instance archived at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library.
TMs, AERP, FDRL