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

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NEW YORK, Wednesday—At the Fair yesterday I revisited the General Motors Building, and their Mr. Frank Harting took a most appreciative audience on the ride to see "The World of Tomorrow", and then through the rest of the exhibit. I only had time for a hasty visit to Miss Hickok and Commander Flanagan, and then came back to New York City. The young people joined me for dinner and enjoyed very much meeting Mr. George Carlin and Mr. Webb Miller. The latter will meet them before very long in England, for he is going over on the Clipper and they are taking the steamer "Manhattan" this morning.

Everyone in the audience last night was moved by Jascha Heifitz's wonderful playing in the movie: "They Shall Have Music." It is made an outstandingly artistic performance, not only by the playing of the great artist, but by the other orchestras which played so beautifully with him. I enjoyed it very much and hope that many people will see it and be led to support music schools for poor children of talent, for that is the purpose to which this picture is dedicated.

I was sent a cartoon from the "New Yorker" the other day, showing two ladies rocking on a porch and one asking the other whether the Queen wrote me a "bread and butter" letter. I feel it is only courteous to accede to this desire for information on the part of anyone so sophisticated as a New Yorker cartoonist!

Of course, in the accepted sense, neither the King nor the Queen write "bread and butter" letters, but they are much more careful to observe the amenities than you and I might possibly be. Strictly speaking, they were the guests not of any individuals, but of the people of the United States, so you will remember that before they sailed for home, they broadcasted a "bread and butter" letter to both Canada and the United States and thanked the people of both countries for their welcome. In addition, as a gesture of personal appreciation, they sent the President and me a telegram of personal thanks for our hospitality as hosts, both in our public and private capacity.

Every member of the party who stayed with us, and even some of those who were only our guests for meals, wrote us most appreciatively of the hospitality they had received from us personally, and from all individuals with whom they came in contact in this country.

Only yesterday I was sent a photostatic copy of a letter written by one of the ladies-in-waiting to the Queen, to Mrs. Maul of the Mountaineer Craftsman's Cooperative of West Virginia. Mrs. Maul had sent a small pair of handcarved colts for the little Princesses. In view of the fact that no gifts, unless they came through friends, were accepted, it was possible to keep the number within reason. But even at that, to give personal thanks for every gift must have been an almost impossible task. It seems extraordinary that these ladies-in-waiting should have been able to undertake the writing of so many letters while still on the royal train and shows how meticulous they are about obligations of this kind.

E.R.

(Distributed by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.)


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About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, July 27, 1939

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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MEP edition publlished on June 30, 2008.

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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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