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

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WASHINGTON, Thursday—I spent the entire day at the office of Civilian Defense. I drank a glass of milk and ate sandwiches at my desk at lunchtime. As a result, there is not one single unanswered thing in my briefcase, and I have managed to see a number of people for very brief interviews during the day.

Curiously enough, a day with less talk and more time to think and to clear up the things which come in the mail, gives one a sense of greater accomplishment than a day which is filled with conferences and interviews. Occasionally, it is absolutely necessary to have a day of this kind, otherwise one's desk is never cleared.

I came back to the White House at 5:00 o'clock to see Madame Tabouis at tea time, and was very happy to hear from her that she is to publish a French newspaper in this country. This new weekly will, I am sure, be representative of all that is best in French culture and spirit. I am delighted she has an opportunity to work at her profession again.

There is an announcement in the evening paper which seems to me of great importance. Secretary Stimson has announced that the War Department, while planning to expand the Army to whatever strength is needed, will depend entirely upon the selective service system and not on voluntary enlistments.

This seems to me the only sensible procedure. Through the Selective Service, if our draft boards function properly, men will be used where they are most needed and will not be wasted in positions for which they are not fitted.

I know of a boy who left his college in the last year of a chemistry course and enlisted as a private. This is a sign of patriotism, but it is also a great waste of human material, for we need chemists. We need doctors and nurses and other trained people, and the Selective Service is supposed to provide them.

This system is designed to use men in the best possible way. It keeps men not in uniform from being made uncomfortable, because the nation knows that every man is doing the thing he is called upon to do in the way the proper authorities decide is most useful.

E.R.

(COPYRIGHT, 1941, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC.)


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About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, December 19, 1941

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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