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

[This column has emendations. View original version]

      

PARIS, Sunday—From day to day, hopes for a truce in Korea go up and down. It seems to be the technique of all those under USSR domination to delay and confuse people with whom they are trying to work out solutions to any problem.

It never seems to upset any of the Soviet or satellite leaders that work is going slowly, that speeches are too long, that no decisions are reached. They like to talk for the sake of talking. It really bothers them when you come to a decision on anything; and if it is possible to make a simple thing complicated, they do so. They think the rest of us are unreasonable because we want to discuss the pros and cons of a situation, because we want to decide on something and do it.

We can see how their tactics work out in the Korean armistice discussions and we can see them here in the United Nations. When they think we have reached the point of exasperation, then they concede a minor point just to keep us going; and that is the way we have to work. We can't afford to get discouraged and not persevere, because making gains inch by inch is the only way to progress.

I cannot overlook one piece of news which has been in our US papers of late—namely, the story of the long wrangle as to whether a Negro veteran, Pfc. Thomas Reed, can be buried in a certain cemetery in Phoenix, Arizona. It is understood that his father was willing that the effort should be made to gain for him the right of burial without being in a segregated plot, and we can well understand why his father would be willing to make this effort. Pfc. Reed fought in Korea for all of the free world, for its freedom and protection from aggression. The bullet that killed him might just as well have killed a white boy, and neither the colored nor the white boy would have died only for his own race. Somehow it saddens one greatly, as one works for freedom and human rights throughout the world, to have these rights flouted in our own United States.

I noted with pleasure that my old friend Sumner Welles has just been married to Mrs. Harriet Post. Many will wish them well. Mr. Welles has retired from active participation in government, but his writings and activities in organizations dealing with foreign affairs have kept him in the public eye, and he is sought after for help and advice by many people. From this side of the ocean many of his friends serving in the United Nations have read of his wedding with interest and pleasure and would like to send their best wishes to both Mr. Welles and his wife.

E. R.

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


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

Geographic
  • Paris (France) [ index ]


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, January 14, 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)
    [ VIAF | ORCID ]

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.

XML master last modified on June 9, 2017.

HTML version generated and published on May 3, 2022.

Transcription created from a photocopy of a UFS wire copy of a My Day column instance archived at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library.
TMs, AERP, FDRL