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

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WASHINGTON, Sunday—A letter came to me the other day, a part of which I want to give you. It expresses the feeling so many of us have in our hearts better than I could. "It seems to have been necessary for both of my sons to give their lives in this war. I am willing, and able, to take it, if their deaths and those thousands of others who are dying far away from home, can be justified by a better and more equalized world when this war is over. If we get anything like the 'status quo' or 'back to normalcy,' it can be nothing but a hideous waste."

Each one of us carries a responsibility toward the boys who have died and the boys who have lived and gone through these tragic years, because, as this friend of mine says, unless we have "a better and more equalized world," we will just be preparing for another generation to go through the same thing.

As I sit and go over the mail night after night, I notice more and more how many women feel that their heartbreak is only justified if those whom they love need never again go through the horror and waste of war. We can not know whether we will always be able to have a peaceful world in the future, but we can lay the best foundations that our intelligence and unselfish thinking can possibly achieve. Then we may hope that the training which our young people receive, and the environment in which they live, will make it possible for them to keep on building a world of peace.

Yesterday morning and afternoon I spent several hours at a conference called under the auspices of The Young Women's Christian Association, The National Council of Catholic Women, The National Council of Jewish Women, The National Council of Negro Women, The National Council of Women of the United States and The National Women's Trade Union League of America. It was a national planning conference "on building better race relationships." The representatives there were trying to find ways and means which they could take back to their organizations for consideration. And techniques which might be used in different parts of the United States to prepare us to live in a world of neighbors made up of many different races were also to be studied.

I do not know how many of my readers see "The Red Cross Courier." But don't fail to read a short story by Annette Robin, called "We Meet the Missions," in the February issue. It will give you a vivid picture of the life of our fliers in far away New Guinea, and of what the Red Cross girls are accomplishing there. You won't read it with dry eyes, but if you are a woman, you will carry your head a little more proudly because of what other women are doing to help our gallant youngsters.

E. R.

(COPYRIGHT 1944 BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC.)


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About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, February 14, 1944

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