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

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PARIS, Friday—An interesting figure passed from our New York life with the death of Miss Anne Morgan. She had been ill for some time, so for her it probably was a blessed relief.

Miss Morgan will long be remembered here in France too, because of the welfare work which she supervised during and after both World Wars. Around the places where she worked in this country everyone knew her and everyone liked her.

It must be particularly difficult for the daughter of a very rich and prominent man. She is run after because she has money and she never knows whether it is her own ability and her own personality that is sought after or whether it is just her money. I have always felt that for women to have a great deal of money or to be in a position where she could control the spending of a great deal of money might be very satisfactory in some ways, but there also might be moments where, from a personal point of view, it could be anything but an advantage.

Anne Morgan knew how to make good friends, however, and there will be many both in France and the United States who will deeply mourn her passing.

Last evening in the debate on freedom of information, which was an item in the Economic and Social Council report and which Dr. Channing Tobias handled in Committee Three, it was conceded by all who listened that Dr. Tobias' speech was outstanding and was delivered extremely well. His references to William N. Oatis, who is still in prison in Czechoslovakia as a spy when he was merely doing his job as Associated Press representative in that country, were very good illustrations to use to point up the fact that there is no such thing as freedom of the press in a police state.

In all probability, the difficult question of whether an effort should be made to write a freedom of information convention will be put over to the next General Assembly meeting. So far every effort that has been made has resulted in greater restrictions instead of granting greater freedoms. Many of us feel that the convention already written on newsgathering and the right of correction should be opened for signatures and that we should wait awhile until some of the difficulties and suspicions that sweep the world today are straightened out before writing another convention.

The Soviet delegate on our committee is trying a new line in his references to the United States. On the one hand he tells us that we are "becoming more and more discredited, that no one follows our leadership, that we are completely lonely," and then in the next intervention he says that "all those nations who slavishly vote as the United States dictates" have done this or that terrible thing and that there is discrimination being shown against him because of the dictates of the United States.

He does not say that he feels lonely—as he recently accused me of being—and I don't believe he is because he is quite sure of his five votes, which never change. They are, of course, the votes of the satellites. And he also is sure of being surrounded by the four delegates who cast these votes and, of course, they are never disagreeable with him or contradict him.

If they did, he might say, like the queen in "Alice in Wonderland" "Off with their heads!"

E. R.

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


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

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  • Soviet Union--delegation to the United Nations


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, February 2, 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

  • Brick, Christopher (Editor)
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  • Binker, Mary Jo (Associate Editor)
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Digital edition published 2008, 2017 by
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Available under licence from the Estate of Anna Eleanor Roosevelt.

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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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