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

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NEW YORK, Monday—I stayed in town on Sunday, which found me doing an early morning recording.

Mr. Jonathan Daniels came to lunch with me and I was very glad to see him. He talked a little about his father and my husband and how during the years as they worked together both of them changed and grew and developed. That, to me, is the interesting thing about big men. They never stand still; they always move forward.

After lunch I spent three-quarters of an hour doing some recordings for the volunteers for Stevenson, and at a quarter before four I started forth with Mr. Lloyd Garrison and visited the twentieth branch opened by the Volunteers for Stevenson in New York City. This one is on Madison Avenue and 102nd Street, in the heart of the Puerto Rican district. We were in competition with the World Series—and a very exciting game. But in spite of that, after our arrival people filled the room, even leaving the TV in the poolroom across the street. This, I thought, augured well for the work we might expect during the rest of the campaign.

I was glad to find that I could understand the speeches, which were in Spanish, even though I did not dare try to speak a few words in Spanish myself. These people know what the campaign is all about. They are very busy earning a living, and Puerto Ricans do not find doing that any too easy in New York City. They were anxious to listen, and I am sure they are going to work for Adlai Stevenson.

From there we went to the meeting in the Golden Gate ballroom at Lenox Avenue and 140th Street. As I went in I was handed a document on a green sheet of paper issued by the American Labor Party. As a campaign document this is one of the lowest sheets I have ever read. It incites to racial hatred in a way that I do not think any party should do. If this piece of literature is a measure of the candidates of the American Labor Party, I am glad they have no chance of winning.

Senator Herbert Lehman and Dr. Channing Tobias both spoke at the Golden Gate rally and there was some good entertainment.

We have all been repeating as often as we can the theme; register and vote. For if we let the days of registration slip by, then no matter how much we want to vote it will be impossible to do so. The registration days for this city are October 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, from 5 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. and Saturday, October 11, the last day on which you can register, from 7:00 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Of course, if you live in an area where personal registration is not required, all you have to do is write in and make sure you are registered. Most of the big cities, like New York, require personal registration, but that is not usually the requirement in the rural areas.

The President himself will be in New York City on October 11 and there will be a great rally in his honor in Harlem. At times it has seemed as though almost single-handed President Truman has fought for civil rights, and even though Congress has not been willing to accept his recommendations he has kept the issue very much alive and before the country and made it possible to get into the platforms of both parties good civil rights pronouncements.

So, I hope the colored people of our nation will remember the Democratic party and its leaders on November 4, for they are responsible for many of the gains made in the past 16 to 20 years.

E.R.

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


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About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, October 7, 1952

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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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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