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

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NEW YORK, Friday—The other night I saw the opening performance of "Time Out For Ginger," and it turned out to be a delightful and pleasant way to spend an evening. While it is not what I would call a great play, it was very well acted and I will never forget Melvyn Douglas in his description of his daughter's football game, play by play.

Mr. Douglas reminded me of many of the nicest men I have known when they attend their favorite sports performances and tell about them afterwards. They always seem to return to the days of their youth! I decided many years ago that the most likable men are those who at times can be boys again—and very little boys at that!

Polly Rowles is a charming mother in the play, and the teenage girls with all their adolescent problems can be found in almost any American home. Perhaps that is why the audience seemed to be having such a good time. It probably was remembering how it coped with similar situations, either in the past or recently.

Wednesday in Committee 3 of the General Assembly was an amusing day from the point of view of discovering who really assesses best the mind of the committee as a whole.

Jamil M. Baroody, the delegate from Saudi Arabia, made up his mind early in the week that he wished to celebrate Thanksgiving Day with his American friends, so he thought up a lot of good reasons why we should not meet on Thursday. To be sure, he argued, it was not a traditional holiday anywhere except in the United States, but that since the United Nations is a guest of the United States, etiquette dictates that guests observe their host's holidays. Also, he added, the small delegations have such difficulty keeping up with their work that it is essential they have a day off every few days and Thursday was just the right day.

The Secretariat, being an international one, ruled, however, that we would have a meeting on Thanksgiving Day afternoon. Whereupon, the chairman of Committee 3, in an effort to grant Mr. Baroody's wishes, had the meeting changed to the morning, since he thought Mr. Baroody would be eating his Thanksgiving turkey late in the afternoon or early evening. Mr. Baroody was persistent, though, and in the end the committee, like so many sheep, voted with him to forego meeting altogether on Thanksgiving Day.

On Monday we will have reached the first of December and we will have just three weeks in which to finish our work. I cannot help wondering how much we will have finished by that time but after this demonstration on the right of people to self-determination I gather that Mr. Baroody and his particular group will have no very special interests involved.

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 29, 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

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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.

TEI-P5 edition published on April 28, 2017.

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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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