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

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NEW YORK, Thursday—As the international scene unfolds before us day by day in San Francisco and in other parts of the world, it becomes increasingly clear that the meetings of statesmen; the articles written in papers and magazines, which frequently reflect not just the thoughts of the authors, but the points of view of those who control the various publications; the speeches of men representing various groups and sections of thought in various countries; all of these, added together, are not going to give us a peaceful world.

The statesmen may succeed in setting up some machinery through which spokesmen for various countries can be called together and even take action in certain situations in the future. But the object for which our men are fighting and dying today is a peaceful world in the future. I think it is as well that the people of the various nations of the world face the fact that this object is going to be achieved only when the peoples of the world insist that it shall be the one objective to which statesmen, businessmen, the press and communications generally throughout the world devote their best energies.

* * *

Only people can bring this home to their leaders. They alone can say: "What will it profit us if we acquire a better oil supply in some part of the world, or to be assured of trade with this country or that? If our standard of living goes up, but our neighbors' standard of living goes down; if we eat, but our neighbors starve, we may have power for a little while, but we will not have assurance of peace and security for all."

It is generally conceded that there cannot be peace in the world unless the three nations which fought together and won the war in Europe continue to work together for such conditions in the world as will keep us at peace. That being the case, we should be making far greater efforts to understand the particular situation which each one of these nations confronts.

* * *

We know they want security as we do—freedom from fear and from want. Security is not a matter of armed forces alone. We can build those up at great cost and still not be able to stand alone, or even form a group to battle the rest of the world. Germany proved this. Security from fear of aggression is really a matter of good faith and trust among nations and their people. Security is also a matter of economic resources and of ability, through trade and production, to give peoples the world over the things which they need in order that they may feel their lot in life is steadily improving.

Definite actions, however, stand out as detrimental to our chance of building future security. Some of these actions, in connection with Communist activities, I want to bring to your attention tomorrow.

E. R.

(COPYRIGHT 1945 BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC.)


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

Organizations
  • United Nations Conference on International Organization (1945 : San Francisco, Calif.) [ index ]
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Geographic
  • New York (N.Y., United States) [ index ]
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About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, June 8, 1945

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)
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  • Black, Allida M. (Editor)
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  • Binker, Mary Jo (Associate Editor)
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  • 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.

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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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