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

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EN ROUTE TO PHOENIX, Ariz., Sunday—Before I left New York, I had the great pleasure of seeing Shaw's "Pygmalion," with Gertrude Lawrence and Raymond Massey. It was a joy to see a play in which nearly every line was full of stimulating thought as well as amusement. It was beautifully done and I enjoyed above everything else seeing Miss Lawrence and Mr. Massey again.

On my brief visit to Washington the other day, I found that spring had arrived! The magnolias and the forsythia were out, and a Washington paper had a photograph of a girl with a branch of cherry blossoms in bloom. However, as I drove across the Potomac to see Secretary of War Patterson in the Pentagon Building, I looked in both directions but saw no cherry blossoms, so I think that branch must have flourished all by itself.

The White House gleams in its new coat of paint, but I had become so accustomed to its dingier look that I almost missed it. The grounds looked beautiful, as always, but I suddenly realized that the beautiful nearby Treasury Building, perhaps because the White House had been painted, was sadly in need of being scrubbed.

I attended a dinner given in my honor by the Women's Joint Congressional Committee. This group represents 22 organizations and these organizations represent some 10 million women, so I felt it was a great responsibility to try to tell them something of my experience at the UNO conference and the impressions I brought back.

Senator Tom Connally of Texas introduced me and very kindly read the open letter which the women of the United Nations addressed to the Assembly and asked the papers in the various countries to publish. I am glad he did this, for I think we women often need to be reminded that, if our voice is to be heard in the international groups, we must be willing to take our place at home in national affairs so that we will make our mark and be chosen not just as women, but as people known to be capable of performing certain public tasks.

Both Senator Connally and Secretary of Commerce Wallace, by their praise, made me feel very humble. I am very conscious of the fact that if I am able to render any service to our country, or to the people of our country, it is because of the very unique opportunities which I have had throughout my life, and also because of the help other people have given me in the past as well as in London.

There our delegation worked as a team, and we had the advantage of the mature judgment and experience of men who had long been in public life or in the business or professional world. In addition, we had the State Department experts as our advisers and I, for one, will never forget that good service rendered under those circumstances is never an individual achievement, but the collective accomplishment of all those who worked together.

E. R.

(WORLD COPYRIGHT, 1946, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC.; REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR PART PROHIBITED.)


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

Persons
Organizations
Geographic
  • Phoenix (Ariz., United States) [ index ]
Other Terms and Topics
  • Women's rights
         [ LC ]


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, March 18, 1946

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
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Available under licence from the Estate of Anna Eleanor Roosevelt.

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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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