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

      

NEW YORK, Friday—On Wednesday at Hyde Park we were visited by five representatives from the conference of Foreign Ministers of the 21 American republics who had been meeting in Washington. They came to lay a wreath on my husband's grave. I met them at 12:30 at the library and after a brief visit to the house and library they came to my cottage for luncheon.

It was a very kind gesture on their part and I was very happy to welcome the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bolivia and his wife, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ecuador and his wife, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of El Salvador and his wife, the Brazilian Ambassador to the United Nations and his wife, the Cuban Ambassador to the United States, Ambassador-Designate Paul Daniels to Ecuador and Dr. Martinez, the adviser to the Minister of El Salvador.

It was a pleasure to be able to talk to them informally. My husband had a tremendous interest in the development of closer ties among the countries of North and South America and felt it was mutually beneficial to all of us to develop our economic, political and cultural ties.

For many years we were looked upon as a very unpleasant big brother, but now it is a very happy thing to find that actual plans are being made for greater economic cooperation. And there is a constantly increasing cultural understanding and a greater flow of students back and forth between North and South America. The United States is often accused in the United Nations of trying to control her Central and South American neighbors, but I am convinced that has never been our policy. We do, however, very honestly want greater understanding and cooperation, and I think that should gradually come about.

After my guests left I went back to the old place to see one of our old employees who has been working for the government since we turned the property over as a shrine. He would have been 50 years in my mother-in-law's employ had she lived, so I wanted to give him a little remembrance from the children and myself on this occasion.

Later in the afternoon my cousin, Miss Margaret Suckley, came over from the library to see if Miss Thompson and I could identify some photographs. This sometimes is a difficult thing to do, for somehow as the years go by people do not look exactly the same and in your mind places seem to merge with other places and you just cannot seem to identify them.

A gentleman wrote me the other day asking if I could remember a certain introduction a speaker made of me years ago as he wanted an appraisal of the introducer as a speaker and an orator. To my shame I could not even remember the occasion on which I was supposed to have heard the gentleman introduce me. Such is the result of the passage of time!

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, April 14, 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

  • 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
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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.

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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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