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

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SEATTLE, Thursday—I never cease marveling at the airplane and its speed. I boarded the plane in Newark, N. J., at 8:00 a.m. yesterday morning and, as we taxied along for the take-off, I kept thinking of Anne Lindbergh's book and her description of their efforts at taking off in Bathurst, on the coast of Africa—"slap, slap, slap on the waves." Nothing like that occurs in one of our great commercial transports; just a speeding up of the engine, one or two little bumps, and imperceptibly you are off the ground and going up into the air.

We had marvellously quiet, smooth flying to Chicago. Much to my surprise, our friend, the Baron de la Grange, was on board as far as Buffalo. He was a flyer during the World War, and like all the others I know, is constantly impressed by our modern improvements. The ship was completely filled all the way to Chicago, where I filed my column and sent a wire to my daughter. I think my excitement at being actually started made me forget the necessity of imparting to her on what airline I was traveling, so that I left it to her to find out which one would bring me to Seattle. Mr. C. R. Smith, with his usual thoughtfulness, met me, and saw me off in Chicago for the longest lap of my trip. It began to grow hazy and I had a few moments of anxiety when the weather report said that ships had not been getting through to Seattle.

A nice man across the aisle from me was so elated over the results of a convention, which he had been attending in Detroit, that from there to Minneapolis he talked to me at intervals and I felt that I really knew him quite well when we reached Fargo, N. D., where he lived. In the course of conversation be told me some of the methods which were used in his business to increase efficiency and to promote goodwill with the public. I could not help being impressed by the fact that what he thought of as "good business" was really the modern technique for success in a changing world. He was teaching his employees that if they helped the people with whom they came in contact, if they cooperated with others to make life on the whole a bit pleasanter, business would prosper.

Of course it will, but society will prosper if we learn to help each other instead of fighting each other and cooperate instead of concentrating only on our own interests.

In Fargo, a woman at the airport remembered my enforced stopover there last winter, and the little girl who let me use her restaurant table on which to type my column, smiled very kindly at me when I went in to speak to her. From there on, instead of a tailwind, we had a headwind for a time. It grow constantly colder, so that I began to think I should have brought a fur coat and been prepared for winter weather. We went through banks of clouds, a few bumps, and saw some stormy looking skies. But, I'll tell you more of the trip tomorrow.

E.R.

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


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

Persons
  • La Grange, Amaury de 1888-1953 [ index ]
         French flyer during WWII; spouse of Emily de La Grange
         [ LC | VIAF | Wikidata | FAST ]
  • Lindbergh, Anne Morrow, 1906-2001 [ index ]
         American writer
         [ LC | ISNI | VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC | FAST | US Nat. Archives | ANB ]
  • Smith, C. R. (Cyrus Rowlett), 1899-1990 [ index ]
         American businessman and civil servant; CEO of American Airlines from 1934 to 1968 and 1973 to 1974; Secretary of Commerce from 1968 to 1969
         [ LC | ISNI | VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC | FAST ]
Geographic
  • Seattle (Wash., United States) [ index ]


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, November 4, 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)
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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.

XML master last modified on May 2, 2022.

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