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

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NEW YORK, Tuesday—I cannot help smiling a little when the United States is accused of imperialist designs on Europe and the rest of the world. United States history in the course of recent years would seem to show that it has very little interest in expansion. Cuba is free; the Philippines are free. We took no land anywhere as a result of World War I, and I have a feeling that the overwhelming opinion of the people of this country would demand the freedom for any peoples outside our borders who demonstrated clearly that they desired freedom and were willing to stand on their own feet.

It is true that we fought a war to keep some of our states within the Union, but that was a long while ago and settled once and for all our internal solidarity as a nation.

We have been an enterprising nation industrially, and no one will deny we have helped to develop other countries and have profited by business enterprises in many parts of the world. But if it ever should come to attempting military control over large groups of people who desire their independence, I am convinced that the public opinion of this country would never tolerate it.

On the other hand, we deeply resent interference within our borders, or what we consider more or less underhand interference within the borders of other nations.

* * *

I was not very much surprised by the announcement that the Comintern had been reinstated. I never really believed that in fact it had disappeared by proclamation. There were too many signs throughout the world of activity that was well directed and unified. So the announcement that again the Communist parties in different nations will act under the direction of a central group does not seem to me to change matters very much.

When we are accused of warmongering and saying things which incite to war, I wonder what can be said about the following, taken from the text of a manifesto issued in connection with the establishment of the new Comintern Information Bureau: "In the same way as the appeasement policy of Munich led to Hitler's aggression, today concessions to the United States of America and the imperialist camp may cause its instigators to grow more shameless and aggressive.

“In consequence the Communist parties should place themselves in the vanguard of the Opposition against the imperialistic plans of expansion and aggression in all its manifestation whether in the sphere of state administration, politics, economics or ideology, and they should at the same time unite and coordinate their efforts on the basis of a common anti-imperialistic and democratic platform as well as gather around themselves all democratic and patriotic forces in their respective nations.”

It would seem that in the nations of the world where there are Communist parties they are now going to take over the label of democracy and national patriotism. The two theories of democracy and national patriotism do not merge with Communism and Comintern control.

Most Americans will agree this whole thing is phony!

E. R.

(WORLD COPYRIGHT, 1947, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC.; REPRODUCTION IN PART OR IN WHOLE PROHIBITED.)


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About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, October 8, 1947

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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