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

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WASHINGTON—I feel as though a great many things had been packed into the last forty-eight hours but I must go back to Friday evening and tell you of a play called "Two Hundred Were Chosen", which I saw that evening. The casting and acting is very remarkable. Many of the group that acted in "Let Freedom Ring" and "Bury the Dead", are in this play and the virility and freshness of their performance, even though it isn't quite as finished as it might be, makes it extremely interesting.

The play is remarkable in some ways though I feel the last part was not up to the standard of the first and second, but the author knew the types that one meets throughout this country, both the good and the bad and it will do no one any harm who has anything to do with government service to see the play and ponder on it!

Yesterday I went to the Army-Navy football game with my son, John, and some of his friends as well as two or three of my own. I haven't seen a football game in many years and I can not say that I exactly saw this one, for we exemplified a train yesterday afternoon many of us have when we get herded together! We think less clearly and are less considerate when we are acting as a crowd than when we act as individuals. Everyone would have seen a great deal more had they remained seated, in spite of the fact that a big group of youngsters stayed on their feet all the time. Standing up first and then clamboring on the seats, was the order of the day and those who could not see were just "out of luck!" Everyone was good natured and no one can be held really responsible for their actions at a football game! The excitement grows, most people are young or revert to their youth and as a nation we should rejoice in our ability to be lost for a time in our enthusiams!

I got back to Washington in time to go and see Katharine Cornell in her new play "The Wingless Victory". Her voice alone to me is a beautiful and moving thing and this is a very beautiful play. Maxwell Anderson has written fine blank verse, and of course, there is no one on the stage who could bring out its beauty as does Katharine Cornell. I am sure that no one needs any urging to go and see her no matter in what she appears, but if possible, do not miss this play. It isn't a cheerful play but it is one we should be thinking about and it will give you an evening of great emotion.

News from Franklin, Junior, is good so I rather hope I will not be wending my way back to Boston at once.

I am to have a glimpse of Ruth Bryan Owen today who is really able to walk fairly well after her accident this autumn.

E.R.


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About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, November 30, 1936

Roosevelt, Eleanor, 1884-1962
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Digital edition created by The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project The George Washington University 312 Academic Building 2100 Foxhall Road, NW Washington, DC 20007

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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.

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Transcription created from a photocopy of a draft version of a My Day column instance archived at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library. My Day column draft dated November 29, 1936, FDR Library, Hyde Park, NY
TMsd, 29 November 1936, AERP, FDRL