If You Ask Me
by Eleanor Roosevelt

Certainly, but the prayer must be an honest act of faith, and must be devoid of personal selfishness.

As far as I know, there are laws which give a wife control of any real estate owned by her husband. He cannot sell it without her consent. She may keep, without question, her own earnings; but it has always been considered that all a man earns is used to support his family as a whole. I doubt if it has ever been considered necessary to pass any law giving the wife control of any specific percentage of her husband's income. I think it is always wise for a man not only to give his wife a specified amount of his income for household use, but, if he earns enough to do so, to make that allowance generous enough so that she may have something left over which she can consider her own.

Yes, I do occasionally give to beggars on the street. When I lived in my own home I made it a point to take people home to feed them rather than to give them money, and then to help them in any way possible to get a job if that was what they needed. Now that is impossible. However, when I see someone who looks fairly desperate, I would rather give money, on the chance of sometimes giving unwisely, than to withhold it from some one person who might need a helping hand and who deserves it.

I cannot speak for my husband, as we have no time at present for consultation on things of this kind. As far as I am concerned, I have tried consistently to do this ever since the war started.

I gather from your question that you and your husband have not laid anything by to tide you over until the Government payments begin or you can return to work. You will probably have to go to a free ward in a hospital if you live in a city or state where free medical care of that kind is available. I think if you appeal to the Army Emergency Relief in your locality, you will get help. I hope you or your husband has some family to help you through these difficult days, but you will find many others meeting the same problems with courage and resourcefulness.

Not unless it is absolutely necessary; because while the girl might give her parents temporary help as long as the job lasts, she would cut off her chance of earning more money in the future, and of preparing herself not only for a better-paying job but for more enjoyment along cultural lines which would be made possible by more education.

If bonds are worthless after the war, then any money you might hoard would be worthless after the war, and anything you might buy would be worthless because you would not be able to sell it, and you cannot eat the things in the future which you buy at present. By buying bonds you are preserving the future value of your dollars, and therefore it is a very sensible thing for all of us to do.

A good many boys who are under eighteen are already enlisting, but I do not think that being able to vote or not being able to vote has much to do with their going into the service of their country. If it becomes necessary to draft boys of eighteen or nineteen, it will have to be done; but I hope it will be done by boards that take their physical and mental development into consideration.

I hardly think that small children who enjoy toys have much knowledge about what the war means, and therefore to deny them toys seems to me rather foolish. I think we older people should deny ourselves the pleasure of buying expensive toys. Children frequently enjoy inexpensive toys far more than they do the type of toy their elders enjoy buying for them.

The Government probably will requisition ornamental metalwork when the machinery is available, but in the meantime it is probably leaving it to the communities to collect such things and turn them in. The communities seem to be doing a pretty good job.

Requisitioning of tires will probably happen as soon as they are really needed; and there is nothing to prevent anyone from volunteering his spare tires immediately.

Before we were in the war, I should have said that at sixteen, if your family could trust you to drive a car, you were entitled to have the use of it now and then. At present I do not think so, for cars should not be used except when absolutely necessary, and young people, I feel sure, can find as much pleasure in each other's company walking together or sitting together as using a car unnecessarily.