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

      

NEW YORK, Thursday—I was visited on Tuesday by an FBI agent who tried to be very solemn as he asked me about the loyalty and competence of John Foster Dulles, our future Secretary of State. This agent's behavior was a wonderful feat—keeping a straight face while making such an inquiry. I'm afraid I smiled openly. Then yesterday I was visited again with questions about another impeccable character. So, I want to reassure any of my friends who think that the FBI is not on the job and is not able to protect us.

Representative E.E. Cox, Democrat of Georgia, who is chairman of a special House investigating committee looking into the expenditure of funds by tax-exempt foundations, made an astounding statement at a hearing recently when he said "a great number of grants" have been made to persons disloyal to the United States.

Among others, he referred to the Rockefeller Foundation, which brought forth from the foundation's president, Dean Rusk, the following statement: "The Rockefeller Foundation has reported the facts on these grants to the Cox committee in our reply to the questionnaire sent us by the committee. We are prepared to discuss any cases fully when we go before the committee."

It is confusing or amusing, or both, to have great foundations in this country under attack for helping subversive persons and at the same time to have them attacked by Moscow.

In the Czechoslovakian trials the Ford Foundation was accused of "sending spies, murderers, sabateurs and wreckers" into East Europe. I should say that this, if true, indicated that the foundations had been very careful to keep a balance between being too conservative or too radical. When you please neither extreme, you are probably doing a pretty good job in keeping to the middle of the road.

Tuesday night I went to Teaneck, New Jersey, to a very interesting meeting—the first one sponsored by the HI-Y and TRI HI-Y clubs and the County Committee of the Y.M.C.A.s of Bergen County. There were many young men and young women present from many "Y" groups, and they conducted their meeting in a very fine way.

The theme was a Thanksgiving service to draw the attention of all present to the things for which we, in this country, may be thankful, but to emphasize as well our close ties with the rest of the world and the growth of human brotherhood throughout the world. These young people are anxious to know the world as a whole and they believe in human dignity and its recognition for all peoples.

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, November 28, 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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  • Black, Allida M. (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.

Published with permission from the Estate of Anna Eleanor Roosevelt.

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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