If You Ask Me
by Eleanor Roosevelt

Of course I get tired, but I happen to have inherited a very strong constitution. In addition, I think I learned long ago how to relax and how to be disciplined, two things which help conserve one's energy.

Princess Elizabeth is not paid by the British people. Since there is no Prince of Wales at present, her annuity is defrayed from the revenues of the Duchy of Cornwall, which normally would go to the Prince of Wales.

He never has had an opportunity, because when he is in New York City, I never let him out except on a leash. Fala has been accustomed to going wherever his master went, so he is very well trained in the art of adjustment.

No, I have always felt that there was only one advantage in private schools and private colleges. That was if they were so conducted that they carried on the experiments in education which public schools and public colleges could not afford to do. Then private institutions of learning serve a good purpose.

On the whole, I think it more important that all of us send our children to public schools and try to make public schools, because of our interest, what they really ought to be. It is true that teachers' salaries should be higher, but only the acceptance of that fact by the taxpayers will ever bring it about. It is true that more money should go into education, but again it is the taxpayers' realization of this fact that will bring it about. I have always felt this way, but my mother-in-law felt very strongly about private schools and we deferred to her wishes where our children were concerned, but I am not at all sure that it was wise in all cases. I am quite convinced that it is not the right and public-spirited thing to do.

I cannot think that anyone who was employed in the New Deal would write anything to discredit officials or agencies for which he once worked. I think it entirely proper for anyone who worked in any capacity to write a truthful account. It may not be entirely good, because many efforts had to be made to meet new situations, and you could not always be sure beforehand that everything would be successful. If the people who worked in these efforts write truthful accounts and show why certain things were done and what the objects were, I cannot think that there is any harm in writing what must eventually be of value to history. History must take cognizance of what was successful and what was not, and no one would expect that everything would be 100 per cent perfect.

I do not see the picture in any different light. I have always thought that communists were of very minor importance. The important thing is to make democracy work, and then communism will have no hold in any country.

I have, however, worked in enough organizations to discover that if you allow American communists to infiltrate into key positions, in either the staff or the policy-making body, you will find your organization doing things which you did not intend it to do. That is one reason why I was interested in the formation of Americans for Democratic Action. I am neither an official of the organization nor an active worker but that part of their effort I think is entirely correct.

We have always managed to meet whatever was required of us in the past, and I think, as citizens, we will be able to do so in the more complicated present and future. If we need better-trained public officials, we will have to get them; and if we need better-trained citizens we will have to develop ways in which to inform them more fully and to help them to discuss the problems before the nation and before the world, so that public opinion may be really informed and intelligent on the new and complicated questions that come before us.

If I were in your position, I certainly should take aptitude tests, and if I had any interests I had never tried to develop, I should try to develop them to see if I enjoyed working along some particular new line.