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

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NEW YORK, Friday—The world we shall face when the war is over will be one in which every citizen must work hard to make his community a good place in which to live. It will mean that every citizen will give part of his time to some kind of work which serves the community.

Much will have to be done for other countries all over the world. If we have the resources in this country, they will be drawn upon to help the people of the rest of the globe. Therefore, we can look forward to an interesting new world—one of opportunity, of service, but not of luxury. Not a world where human greed can run riot for the benefit of any individuals.

If we are going to take our citizenship seriously, every man, woman and child will have an obligation to his community—and the first one which we should face today and begin to plan for, is the obligation towards children. They should be well fed. That does not merely mean they should have enough to eat—it means they should have the right kind of food.

One of the ways to achieve this is to give every child in the community a midday meal which contains the real necessities for proper nourishment. In this way, the children will become educated to eat what is good for them. The family will become educated to serve at home, as well as at the school, food that is of value to it.

Over and over again we find that raw vegetables are not used, that the latest discoveries of science are ignored, and that children whose families are well able to afford the type of food which they should eat, give them the kind of food which produces undernourishment. This gives us, in time of war, a great number of boys who have to be rejected in the draft.

In time of peace there are citizens who not only cannot do their work with the highest efficiency, but cannot be the type required by a democracy. Lack of nourishment and ill health, do not produce citizens with courage, initiative and energy.

No woman can do a greater service today in the war effort than to devote herself to seeing that her home meets, to the limit, the demands made by the government. She will need the cooperation of her husband and her children, but she will have the satisfaction of knowing that her home builds the community, and that as each community does its full job for the present and the future, the war is bound to be shortened.

Proper nourishment of the generation which must bear the brunt of the after-war period is essential war work. Every woman should ask for a school lunch program in her community and offer to help in every way she can to make it successful.

E.R.

(COPYRIGHT, 1942, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC.)


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About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, July 11, 1942

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

  • Brick, Christopher (Editor)
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  • Black, Allida M. (Editor)
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  • Binker, Mary Jo (Associate 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.

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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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