If You Ask Me
by Eleanor Roosevelt

No. However, I cannot imagine being arrogant enough to believe that God must enter into the little personal things of life for individuals. There are people I know, for instance, who have the feeling that they can ask for specific favors. I have always thought this required either a very childlike faith or an amount of arrogance hardly excusable in a mature person. I believe one prays for guidance, for strength and for the inspiration to do right. Even in praying for our loved ones, I think we ask not for specific things, but that they be given the vision and strength to do right.

There are vast areas of the world where unless there is birth control there can be no progress. I am for birth control, particularly in places having severe problems of overpopulation and insufficient food. I can quite understand, however, that there are reasons why certain people do not believe in birth control, and I feel that people should be allowed their own decisions in this matter.

The Democrats' strongest talking point could be the need for a more affirmative foreign policy and a more imaginative policy in economics and in farm plans. The Republicans' strongest talking point has always been that they will have better people carrying out the established doctrines—but I don't think they can quite get away with this old cliché in the future.

They receive pensions.

The question most often asked in this country is "Do you really think we can live at peace with the Soviet Union?" In private conversations abroad I have been asked most often whether we really want peace with the Soviet Union.

Yes, I think the American husband is more "dominated" today by his wife and family, because both the wife and children receive more education and take a broader interest in things which at one time were considered entirely the province of the man of the family.

Many of my children were tutored at different times at home. I nearly always had someone to teach them in the summer the things I felt they had not learned enough about in the winter. My husband also was tutored at home in his early years because his father was delicate and the family spent a great deal of time at health resorts in Europe. But if you mean do I prefer tutoring at home to going to school, then I must say I feel quite strongly that a child should go to school. The companionship a child gets in school is an important part of his education.