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

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NEW YORK, Thursday—I received a report the other day on the National Issues Committee. It is one of my interests in which some of the best people I know cooperate. The National Issues Committee only came into being about a year and a half ago and so I am happy to be able to say that I think we have made very satisfactory progress.

The NIC news bulletin, "The Issue," which gives a resume of national and international questions of the moment, in a nonpartisan objective way, can now be sent out regularly. The committee is asking for names, since it hopes to mail this bulletin to at least a million people during the coming year. The members of the committee believe that, only when this type of information is widely disseminated, we can have an informed electorate.

We are proud that "The Issue" has already had remarkable success. And the executive director tells me, as chairman of the committee, that if, all over the country, the people who have indicated their interest in our publications give us their subscriptions in increasing numbers, it will become one of the few organizations of this type to be self-supporting. At present, the subscriptions to "The Issue" do not cover the cost of publication, and that is why we have to beg not only for subscriptions but for gifts, for some time to come.

Before long, in fact this month, we will begin sending out a publication that will deal in detail with one subject, and we will try to keep this publication down to one page. The September one will probably deal with the power issue.

If you keep these sheets for reference, before long you will have condensed information on a number of subjects that are important to the life of almost everyone in the United States. No opinions are expressed by the staff in the National Issues Committee publications, and an effort is made to put the facts before you as objectively as possible.

We have already had letters from many parts of the country where people wish to organize into groups who will develop interest in these publications, and I hope they are successful. We have also been offered some plans for radio and television work but not enough money is available to the committee, at present, to work out a series of programs. We still hope this will come. I believe that this committee can make a real contribution to the education of the citizens of this country.

I have just been sent an amusing and quite charming little booklet, entitled, "How to Be a Grandmother." The traps that await any prospective grandmother, or even one who has been a grandmother many times, are well described. We are told that we must welcome our grandchildren; that we must not, however, swallow them up, but leave them to their own parents.

I think one might sum it up by saying that a grandmother should have a great deal of common sense, not be given to interfering, know when to give and when not to give financial help. A special contribution to the life of children is to have time to be leisurely with them. The closing paragraph sums up the booklet. "Being a modern first-class grandmother is a challenge. Take it, live up to it—and you will have three generations rising up to call you blessed."

E. R.

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


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

Organizations
  • National Issues Committee [ index ]
         [ SNAC ]
Geographic
  • New York (N.Y., United States) [ index ]


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, September 3, 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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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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