If You Ask Me
by Eleanor Roosevelt

I think this strike need never have occurred. Had the hospital managements been willing to meet with their workers, hear their complaints, and try to remedy these wrongs, no strike would have been necessary. Personally, I believe that, in the case of hospital employees, policemen, firemen, and a few other categories of workers, it is probably wiser not to have unionization. But this means that great care must be taken to safeguard the workers by giving them legal protections and making sure they can always be heard and that the public can be kept informed in case there are real difficulties between employees and employers. In the case of the hospital strike, it seems to me management should have been more concerned about the employees' well-being, both in conditions of work and in wages.

I would go to the welfare organization in my community.

At present, one grandson is in the armed services. All my grandsons who are old enough have been through their service training—some as enlisted men; some, who have had training during their college years, as officers.

We receive, on an average, about a hundred and fifty letters a day from all sources. They are handled in several different ways. I have a secretary in my office at home, and she has a part-time assistant. At the American Association for the UN, where I am a volunteer worker, I have another secretary, who takes care of such things as come up in my work; and I have someone who does a little filing at Hyde Park. I spend on mail at least two hours every night and such odd moments as I can find during the day. Most of the letters are answered directly, though some are answered in my daily column and some in McCall's.

When I say this country is a Christian nation, I mean that the majority of the people happen to be Christians. That doesn't mean that I don't respect the people who belong to other religions. I am simply stating as a fact that there are more Christians than Jews, Moslems, Hindus, or people of any other religion.

He can always get up a petition if he has a really valid reason. However, the petition would not be likely to be effective if there were a division of opinion among the people of the neighborhood as to whether they wanted a missile station or not.

I rarely attend sports events now; but in years past, I have been to every type of event both here and abroad.