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

      

HYDE PARK, Friday—I wonder how many people know about an unusual program carried out under the United Nations Korean Relief Agency. This project is known as "Heifers for Relief" and was inaugurated as part of the agricultural rehabilitation for South Korea, with Mr. Thurl Metzger as executive secretary. The committee in the past few years has sent 2,200 milk goats to Japan and 2,750 to Okinawa. After Mr. Metzger had made a month's survey the agency immediately sent by plane 200,000 hatching eggs, 300 breeding hogs and 100 milk goats to South Korea.

It has already heard from people in Korea about the success of the first shipment of hatching eggs. There hasn't been time yet to hear how the pigs and goats fared. This project, however, goes on as the political and military situation makes it possible and they are planning to ship shortly the remainder of 2,000 goats, which were promised, and up to 2,000 breeding hogs which, the survey showed, could be profitably used.

This is something the farmers of our country must feel happy about. In spite of all the destruction, the blood and tears, and sacrifices of human life, back of the lines there is some hopeful rehabilitation going on. Human beings are much the same the world over, when they have the wherewithal to start their lives anew. The will to try and try again is always there, and one feels proud that we can help in this U.N. effort to bring some hope to the poor people of South Korea and who have been refugees in their own country for such a long time.

I received a message today, which was written by a businessman in North Carolina and which he is sending to the members of our Congress. He tells them how important they are in the world and what they could do to better the world situation and to conquer Communism by simply giving the people of the world so much satisfaction in their daily lives that they should not want to change to fall for Communistic promises. Some of you will remember that the late Senator Brien McMahon suggested a very bold plan to the Senate for spending not millions but billions to help people help themselves the world over. I think he set the sum at fifty billion dollars. My correspondent, Mr. H.W. Rollman, of Waynesville, N.C., suggests that we keep up our military potential but that we cut it down to the essentials of parity with the Soviet Union, including, of course, the strength of all the nations that stand with us, and that we devote the thirty or forty billion dollars, which he sees saved yearly, to putting people to work all over the world for the benefit of the underdeveloped nations—helping them to help themselves.

There are many objections that can be made to his suggestion and many specific points that can be picked out and criticized, but he has an underlying idea that Americans everywhere had better think seriously about. I hope the Congess will take this message seriously.

E. R.

(WORLD COPYRIGHT, 1952, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC. REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART PROHIBITED.)


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

Persons
  • McMahon, Brien, 1903-1952 [ index ]
         American politician
         [ LC | VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC | FAST | US Nat. Archives | ANB ]
  • Metzger, Thurl, 1916-2006 [ index ]
         American farmer; executive director of Heifer International
         [ LC | ISNI | VIAF | NYT ]
  • Rollman, Heinz Walter, 1911-1983 [ index ]
         American businessman
         [ SNAC ]
Organizations
Geographic
  • Hyde Park (Dutchess County, N.Y., United States) [ index ]


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, August 2, 1952

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)
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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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