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

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NEW YORK, Tuesday—On Monday evening I was very proud to receive the first annual American Award in Human Relations presented by the officers and directors of the Bureau for Intercultural Education. John Foster Dulles made a very excellent speech on the subject of "International Aspects of Good Human Relations." This bureau works to combat prejudices and discrimination for reason of race, religion and national origin and to educate us in this country so that we may eventually do better work in furthering the understanding of different cultures throughout the world. Since human rights and freedoms never will be fully observed until we recognize that differences do not always mean inequalities, I have been happy to see this organization becoming a greater influence in the community. We certainly should learn to respect and understand other peoples and in so doing broaden our own vision and develop our powers of cooperation.

I wonder how many read Walter White's statement regarding his attack in print in one week by Westbrook Pegler, John O'Donnell, the Daily Worker and the Ku Klux Klan. I'm sure you would be amused by it and also pleased to read that Mr. White could take with such good humor such unfair and cynical attacks.

He quotes from John O'Donnell's column: "But the distinguished White gets suddenly and violently angry because he discovers that all this Truman campaign hooey about civil rights was in fact so much eyewash..."

Mr. O'Donnell would seem to imply that President Truman was not honest in his desire to obtain civil rights for all in this country. I not only believe that President Truman was honest, but I believe that he understands very well that in the fight against Communism it is important for us to achieve civil rights for all.

It is not President Truman who is breaking his campaign promises. Certain Republican reactionaries and Southern Democrats have formed "an unholy coalition" that aims to wreck the Truman program. Certain Democrats of the South declared themselves honestly during the campaign, but these particular Republicans are not living up to the Republican party platform promises.

As for the Ku Klux Klan, I fear it is one of the organizations that no democracy can long endure and to find Mr. Pegler, Mr. O'Donnell and the Ku Klux Klan lined up with the Daily Worker shows that those who believe in totalitarianism, even though they try to appear to be on opposite sides, at some point always show their true colors!

I received an editorial the other day, which appeared in the Red Magen David News and which read, in part:

"Eternal vigilance is the price of peace as it is of liberty."

This statement was applied to the new State of Israel, but it seems to me that it might well be applied to all nations, for we are too apt to believe that peace does not require the same service as war. As a matter of fact, it requires a more constant daily service and the more we are reminded of that fact the better for us all.

E. R.

(WORLD COPYRIGHT, 1949, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC. REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART PROHIBITED.)


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About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, April 6, 1949

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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