If You Ask Me
by Eleanor Roosevelt

No matter how devoted one is to one's friends—and I happen to be very devoted and feel close ties to some of my young friends and many of my own age or near it—still there is a special relationship or a peculiar and indestructible tie that exists between parents and their children, and I think there is a special bond with the mother. I doubt if it would be possible to learn not to let the problems of your children affect you, nor would you want to.

I think, however, as one grows mature in life one learns to carry burdens, particularly emotional burdens, better. You know about them, you listen, and when asked you give what advice you can and try to be helpful. You cannot help grieving for them when they are unhappy or have difficult situations to face, but you know that they alone can and must deal with those situations. It would not be right for you to interfere, if you could. And somehow I think you acquire a philosophy of life which leads you to go on with your own occupations—and your chief preoccupation is that you shall be available if needed and not fail those you love.

I would hope that if one of our ships were torpedoed we would first of all try to get satisfaction through the United Nations. Certainly we should not consider going to war until every other possibility had been exhausted.

On this question, which is a purely legal question, I do not think it would be proper for me to give an answer. The way to get an authentic answer is to write to the Secretary of Defense or to the Veterans Administration in Washington and get from them a statement on which you can rely.

I do not think that I said exactly what you quote. I said that I had heard from certain sources that there were certain reasons why the cardinal had not been favorable to agrarian reforms and that was one of the contributing factors in the problems surrounding his situation.

I never made the remark attributed to me by Mr. Farley in his book. I may have said something which he interpreted as meaning what he has put down, but whatever I may have said had a different meaning to me from the one which he has placed upon it. My husband got on with all kinds of people, and among the friends he enjoyed the most were people who certainly did not have the same education or social background.

I think it would be logical to punish the parents of juvenile delinquents for the sins of their children, but perhaps it would be a little difficult. Perhaps the troubles their children go through are punishment enough. The object in dealing with juvenile delinquents themselves is to try to put them on the right track. Very often the parents of juvenile delinquents with whom I have come in contact are too far gone to be changed in any way. But sometimes they can be changed, and I hope we will always stress constructive remedial work with both parents and children rather than punishment.

I think if I were in your situation I would do just about what you are doing, though if I had some pronounced outside interest I would give a little time to developing that interest. That depends, however, on whether you have some hobby or interest to which you want to devote some of your spare time. None of us has too much leisure.

I know of no way to get an appointment with President Truman except by writing to his secretary stating the reasons why you wish to see him and, realizing how very busy a President is, asking that the appointment be arranged at the President's convenience.

I hardly think a trial by jury for mentally disturbed patients would have much value, because the jury would probably not be made up of people with much medical knowledge. I do think, however, that before people are permanently committed to a mental hospital there should be a consultation with doctors, some of them not connected with the family or the hospital, to insure that the individual gets proper consideration of his particular case.