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

      

NEW YORK, Wednesday—It is an experience to be on Mary Margaret McBride's radio program. She can put more actual feeling into commercials than anyone I know. Especially does she do a good job when she talks about various kinds of foods! I had had a very light lunch indeed before seeing her and I was much less interested in my book about the United Nations than I was in what she had to say about her various products.

Later, we became much more serious. I enjoyed listening to my co-guest on the program, Mrs. Vickie Ross, who is about to start out for Mexico where she can find a place to be peaceful. She is not looking for a place where she can hide from some future war, but a place where she can feel that the world is not pressing in on her too closely so she can devote herself to the things of the spirit.

After finishing there, I went to speak to a class at the ILGWU which is made up of young people who, when they graduate, will be employed by the Union in various parts of the country. They get a considerable amount of academic training but also they are sent into the field to get practical training among garment workers. Some of them already have seen strikes, some of them have sat in on negotiations for new contracts and are learning what diplomacy and knowledge of conditions are needed to bring about agreement between the employer and the representative of the worker.

Now that we have had major speeches from five of our leading government officials, namely, President Truman, former President Hoover, Governor Thomas E. Dewey, Senator Robert A. Taft, and John Foster Dulles, the people have a basis on which to evaluate the different recommendations. The weight of words seems to lie heavily on the side of the Republican leaders. But before long probably more of the Democratic leaders will find time to express themselves now that President Truman has spoken.

It is interesting to find that Mr. Hoover and Senator Taft speak with comparative indifference about the United Nations.

Mr. Hoover seems to feel that since the U.N. has not been able to preserve peace and the United States has found itself under attack in that body by the Soviet Union, there is very little use in keeping alive the world organization. According to him, its only salvation may lie in its willingness to brand Red China as an aggressor. In that case, it seems to be his argument, we might consider it as having moral courage.

Senator Taft feels that the United States must first consider its foreign policy in relation to the safety and freedom of the United States. Reforming the rest of the world, which he evidently thinks is one of the things the U.N. tries to do, should not be the concern of the United States.

I gather that Senator Taft belongs to that small group in this country that would like to dissolve the U.N. as much and get some kind of a union among what they call the free democracies. I much prefer having a universal organization where all of us undertake the same obligations. Even if we don't live up to them completely, we can at least keep an eye on each other!

E.R.

(WORLD COPYRIGHT, 1951, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC. REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART PROHIBITED.)


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About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, January 11, 1951

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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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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