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

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HYDE PARK, Friday—In spite of our extremely uncertain weather which seems to bring us storms very suddenly, we managed to get in a swim yesterday afternoon, but no sun!

In the evening we read aloud, finishing "The Countryman's Year" by David Grayson. I know it is all wrong to turn down the corners of pages in books, but what should you do if you want to find those pages again to reread certain things at intervals?

This book has many a page turned down. One thing expressed so well what I always want to express but always feel inadequate to do well that I am going to give it to you here. But one idea, one great and beautiful curative idea, I think I have seen growing through the years. I heard it expressed long ago by the Negro leader, Booker T. Washington, 'You cannot keep the Negro in the gutter without staying there with him.' I have seen it clear in Henry Ford's admonition that the prosperity of industry rests, not upon the exploitation of labor, but upon making labor itself prosperous—thus enabling the workman to buy the products of industry.

"Science, above all, is shot through with it: for how leave plague spots of tuberculosis, or typhus, or hookworm in any part of the world without endangering our own children? If this idea, that men are inextricably bound together, that the welfare of each is the welfare of all—if only this idea can continue to grow, to become greater and stronger, many human ills will disappear."

Bravo, Mr. Grayson, I wish you could preach that doctrine the world over. Many of us agree with you, but not enough of us do as yet.

This morning the sun shone, and a breeze came in my windows so off I went to ride and returned rather late to find Miss Julia Parker of Hyde Park, waiting for me. It is a dreadful thing to say you will be at home at a certain hour and then arrive fifteen minutes late, but I stopped too long to talk to various people I met on my way. She was kind about it and sat looking quite comfortable in my little living room. If I had found her sitting on the edge of her chair looking poised for flight, I should have felt very guilty so I was grateful for the fact that she had her knitting and did not seem in any hurry.

Miss Parker came to tell me of an island off the coast of Maine where she had spent two weeks last summer and again this summer. The Association of Audubon Societies have established a sanctuary for wildlife and a camp where teachers and Girl Scout Leaders and Camp Fire girl leaders may go and receive instruction in nature study, with nature at its best on land and in the sea. To hear about it all made me feel I would like to start off at once and visit Hog Island in Muscongus Bay on the coast of Maine. Perhaps next summer if I motor that way I may have an opportunity to see the interesting work which is being carried on there.

E.R.


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

Geographic
  • Hyde Park (Dutchess County, N.Y., United States) [ index ]


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, August 14, 1937

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

  • Brick, Christopher (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 June 9, 2017.

HTML version generated and published on May 3, 2022.

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 August 13, 1937, FDR Library, Hyde Park, NY
TMsd, 13 August 1937, AERP, FDRL