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

[This column has emendations. View original version]

      

NEW YORK, Wednesday—As this is written, the group of delegates that came from overseas for the Cultural and Scientific Conference on World Peace is still planning to hold meetings in many cities throughout the country—without the benefit of 18 of the 19 Soviet and other Slav delegates. Also, they hope to have a monster petition signed to present to President Truman on Memorial Day, stating the fact, which he already knows, that the people are anxious to have peace. The State Department has barred the Eastern Europeans on the ground that their visas limited them to their New York visit.

I think it almost insolent for the representatives of the country that is keeping us from coming to an understanding and having the assurance of peace in the world even to think of travelling around our country. They would attempt to say that they want peace, but would not add that if they would agree with the majority of the nations of the world on the methods by which peace can be made secure for us all we would have that security at the present time. Then there would be no need for any further discussion on the subject.

It is an appealing thing when you say that what you are doing is crusading for peace. And many things can be said with which everyone will agree, but those things do not touch on the points of disagreement and explain that the majority is in opposition to the Soviet point of view.

I know so well how much the people of the United States want peace and I am not surprised that they will go to almost any meeting that is advertised as a peace meeting. I only hope someone in the audience would ask a few questions, such as: "When will the Russians accept universal inspection so that all countries may have knowledge of war material that is being produced in any country?"

If the Soviet Union would begin to give some thought as to what points they could agree on with the rest of the nations outside of their own group of six, we might begin to find a way to compromise some of our differences of opinion.

The United States is accustomed to compromising. Russia has not as yet shown any understanding of the fact that compromise demands some concessions from both sides holding different points of view. It will be a joyful day when this point is reached and we begin to feel that there is a real basis established for cooperation between us.

John L. Lewis was not taken very seriously when he proclaimed his two weeks' holiday for coal miners, since most people knew that there was a good deal of coal on hand and that the miners liked to go fishing in the spring.

In one of the business newsletters, however, I read that this was only the first step in a campaign which Mr. Lewis was about to carry on and that we would see him calling a number of strikes in the near future.

The first of these apparently is the taxi tie-up here in New York City. I know nothing about the rights and wrongs of the taxi drivers' demands. Ordinarily, I would have sympathy with anything that would make life somewhat easier and more secure for them. I count a good many of them as friendly acquaintances and wish them well, but I dislike seeing them function under John L. Lewis' orders.

E. R.

(WORLD COPYRIGHT, 1949, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC., REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART PROHIBITED.)


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

Geographic
  • New York (N.Y., United States) [ index ]


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, March 31, 1949

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)
    [ VIAF | ORCID ]

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 June 9, 2017.

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