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

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HYDE PARK, Sunday—Here we are again celebrating Labor Day, which I always feel is one of our most important holidays. By chance this year many of our holidays have fallen on Mondays, thus giving people long weekends. Labor Day, of course, always comes on a Monday and for many people it closes a holiday period. Even when we are not actually on vacation in the summer, we are thinking about the time when we will be; many of us manage to get more free time than in winter and we enjoy our Saturdays and Sundays more, perhaps, than we can during the colder months.

However, it is the name of Labor Day which I think makes it a particularly important holiday.

I haven't any idea what its origin was; in fact, for the first time it has occurred to me that I might look it up! I don't know how those long weekends they have in England which are known as "bank holidays" acquired that name, but they all serve the same purpose and I like the fact that we have a Labor Day weekend. It seems to recognize the dignity of labor and to emphasize that those who work are worthy of recognition, that they form an important part of the community.

I was amused by a youngster not long ago who asked me if I thought that war adversely affected the working people more than any other group in the community, and since, therefore, they should be more alive to the necessity of keeping the world at peace, would I agree that they should have more power in government. Of course, in a democracy this is a foolish question. With us there is no such thing as a working-class as a class. We recognize that everyone should work and be productive, and therefore that we have an equal interest in the preservation of peace.

Our interest must be bent on keeping every citizen alive to his responsibilities toward the Government. However, in a country where class distinctions exist in government, it is probably not strange that a group considering itself a working group should desire to hold a balance of power when war is being considered.

I have received a letter telling me that we are to have a National Dog Week on September 18-24, and the slogan is to be: "Every dog needs a good home." I think this is a grand idea, and I only hope it means more education for all of us in the proper treatment of dogs and the kindness that should prevail in our treatment of all animals. There is an obligation on the part of dog lovers not to allow their pets to become a nuisance in any community, and this means a real effort to train dogs properly. The domestic animals are certainly the friends of man and we owe them real consideration.

E.R.

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


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

Geographic
  • Hyde Park (Dutchess County, N.Y., United States) [ index ]


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, September 5, 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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