The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers, Digital Edition > My Day
My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt

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Late yesterday afternoon Mrs. Isabella Greenway brought her small grandson in to call, and when they left I went down to see them off in their car. I found the entire staff of the White House press waiting under the portico. On inquiring what it was all about, I was told they were waiting for the committee, which was discussing relief with the President, to come out.

I had seen my husband's message the night before, but I realized it might be quite a bit changed after the meeting. For that reason I was not surprised when we bade our guests good night last evening, to have my husband say that he had read over his final draft of his message to Congress.

To me it is an encouraging message because it voices a faith in the ability of business organizations to really get together and work for re-employment. This could not be done unless they were genuinely willing to consider the human values.

If they succeed in absorbing a quarter of this burden during the next year, it will mean recognition of the fact that real prosperity can only come when everybody prospers. That even if it costs a little more to employ more people for a time, in the end we will all be more prosperous as the buying power of the nation is restored.

It is a challenge to the common sense and goodwill of American business people and I feel confident they will succeed. The figures show what a financial burden states and municipalities have carried in the past year for their unemployables, aside from Federal Relief.

I feel we should be able as time goes on, to find a way of employing more of these so-called unemployables, who, in the hurry of the emergency period, we find difficult to adjust. I believe that this should not continue indefinitely, and I hope that as general stress eases up, we will go back and re-study such cases as are now termed unemployables.

This has been a gray, rainy day and I happened to chose the rainiest part of it to go for a ride. My dogs and I looked like drowned rats on our return.

This afternoon the People's Chorus of New York City, led by Mr. Lorenzo Camilieri, gave a concert at the White House. My husband's mother and an old friend of ours, Mrs. John Henry Hammond, have been interested in this group for a long while, and it was through their interest that they came to us today.

E.R.


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

Persons
  • Hammond, John, 1910-1987 [ index ]
         American record producer and civil rights activist
         [ LC | ISNI | VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC | FAST | ANB ]
  • King, Isabella Greenway, 1886-1953 [ index ]
         American politician; U.S. Representative (AZ) from 1932 to 1936; chaired the American Women's Voluntary Services Organization
         [ LC | VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC ]
  • Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano), 1882-1945 [ index ]
         American politician; 32nd President of the United States
         [ ERPP bio | LC | ISNI | VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC | FAST | US Nat. Archives | ANB ]


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, March 19, 1936

Roosevelt, Eleanor, 1884-1962
[ ERPP bio | LC | VIAF | WorldCat | DPLA | Wikidata | SNAC ]

Digital edition created by The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project The George Washington University 312 Academic Building 2100 Foxhall Road, NW Washington, DC 20007

  • Brick, Christopher (Editor)
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  • Regenhardt, Christy (Associate Editor)
    [ ISNI ]
  • Black, Allida M. (Editor)
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  • Binker, Mary Jo (Associate Editor)
    [ VIAF | ORCID ]
  • Alhambra, Christopher C. (Electronic Text Editor)
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Digital edition published 2008, 2017 by
The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project

Available under licence from the Estate of Anna Eleanor Roosevelt.

Published with permission from the Estate of Anna Eleanor Roosevelt.

MEP edition publlished on June 30, 2008.

TEI-P5 edition published on April 28, 2017.

XML master last modified on May 2, 2022.

HTML version generated and published on May 3, 2022.

Transcription created from a photocopy of a UFS wire copy of a My Day column instance archived at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library.
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