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

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NEW YORK, Thursday—It is rather sad to find a Senate committee refusing to recommend the reappointment of Leland Olds for a third term on the Federal Power Commission. And since the refusal seems to rest in part at least on the grounds that he is tinged with communism makes the whole thing seem ridiculous. I can only say that this accusation must be a cloak to hide the real reasons.

Can people be fooled by such flimsy accusations?

I was glad to see in the newspapers that Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas may be able to leave the hospital in about two weeks. I know how much he has always loved his native Northwest and the mountains in which he was riding. It seems a shame that on the last day of vacation he should have suffered such an accident. His many friends are glad to hear that he is improving.

During the last few days the papers seem to be full of people who have had accidents or illnesses. I was shocked to see what a serious operation Senator Vandenberg had undergone. I am sure his devotion to duty kept him from giving in to the illness at an earlier date. One can only wish him well and hope that he will gradually regain his strength.

The Republicans in the Senatorial campaign in New York State are not letting the grass grow under their feet. I have seldom seen such a vigorous and well-planned number of campaign trips as seem to be covering "upstate," but I regret that the issue primarily stressed seems to be the fear of communism.

This does not seem to me to be as serious a discussion of the real issues involved as the state is entitled to hear from two such able candidates for the United States Senate. Governor Lehman and Mayor O'Dwyer are planning intensive campaigns and I hope in both cases that they will, first, ask the voters to look at their records, which can bear scrutiny and which do them credit. Secondly, I trust both will formulate clear and unequivocal programs so the voters will know what to count on after Election Day.

As I was walking down the corridor at Lake Success the other day, a very nice young man—a newspaper reporter for one of the big metropolitan newspapers—stopped me and asked what I thought the reaction of the United Nations delegates was toward the World Series baseball games. I am ashamed to say what I promptly said, I told him I thought that very few of us, since we had to spend our days at Lake Success, would have any reaction to the baseball games. He looked rather shocked and depressed and I realized that I was speaking for myself alone and that without any question there were many other people out there who were anxiously waiting for every scrap of news on the series.

A South African guest told me the other day that she had been taken to one of the games and had been most interested. It seemed to her to have some resemblance to the English game of "rounders," only she has been too tactful to tell her host so.

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, October 7, 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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