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

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PORTLAND, Ore. Wednesday —I left New York on Sunday morning by air and was met in Boston by Dr. Miriam Van Waters who took me at once to the Framingham Reformatory. This institution has great significance in the country because it is the most modern in its thinking of any of these institutions. The effort is really made here to rehabilitate people, and even though they are in for long terms they are not treated as hopeless. Life seems to take on a purpose even within the walls of an institution.

Dr. Van Waters feels that whatever success is achieved is because sometimes for the first time in their lives these women feel that someone really cares what happens to them. Many of the younger women come in, of course, and have babies after their imprisonment and this is one of the few institutions where the necessary effort is made so that the young woman may keep her baby until she is ready to leave. Thereby a real relationship and sense of responsibility is established which in itself is both healing and stabilizing.

They held an assembly after lunch at which I spoke and then Professor and Mrs. DeNoo of Smith College drove me over to Brandeis University where I spent the tea hour with the various student leaders. Here I made no speech, just answered questions and enjoyed the contact with the young people very much. Dr. and Mrs. Sachar took me back to their house a little before 6 and I had almost an hour and a half in which to dress and rest before the Ford Hall Forum speech, which was my main reason for going to Boston.

The Ford Hall Forum is one of the oldest and most active forums in the country. They asked me to speak for an hour and answer questions for an hour, and the questions were not slow in coming.

At 10 o'clock I was driven back to the airport and made the 11 o'clock plane to New York. I was in luck as far as weather was concerned all day but was disgusted to have my return plane late just when I wanted to be on time and have a good night's sleep! My little dogs met me at the airport, however, and were so pleased to have me back that it made me feel guilty. When I left them next morning there was no question of my seeing them again for almost two weeks. They went up to the country, however, which I hope will compensate them for my desertion.

I do not like going away for such a long time but on this trip Mr. Eichelberger and I are visiting the West Coast and though this column was written on Monday morning in New York City, I was in Portland, Oregon, on Monday night. This is a trip for the American Association for the United Nations during the first week, and since I have just read an article by David Lawrence which appeared in his United States News and World Report of March 15, 1954, I shall be making a few remarks about this article in connection with my trip in my next column.

E. R.

Suggested box with Roosevelt column

In a recent column, I stated that "according to the newspaper account I read," Mr. Paul Crouch had been convicted of treason.

This now appears not to be a fact, for a national news organization has publicly explained that it "erroneously reported" such a conviction. The truth, according to this dispatch, is that Mr. Crouch had been convicted by an Army court-martial on a charge of violating the 96th Article of War.

I feel that in all fairness this correction should be made.

E. R.

(WORLD COPYRIGHT, 1954, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC. REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART PROHIBITED.)


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

Geographic
  • Portland (Or., United States) [ index ]


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, April 1, 1954

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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