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

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NEW YORK, Thursday—In October 1946, I wrote about one of my Republican friends, Mrs. Lewis Thompson of New Jersey. Mrs. Thompson first became president of the Monmouth County Association of Social Service of Red Bank, New Jersey, in 1912, and it has been her unfailing devotion to this welfare work that keeps Mrs. Thompson in office today and constantly in Monmouth County.

The building which I saw under construction last year where all these services are going to be integrated, is at last complete. On the first floor the Cerebral Palsy Clinic, the New Jersey Parole Board and the Monmouth County Welfare Board. On the second floor the conference room, County Adjusters Office, the State Board of Child Welfare and the Monmouth County organization for Social Service Finance. On the third floor the State Mental Hygiene Clinic, a State nurse and the Monmouth County Organization of Social Service. Everything brought under one roof, and for a citizen of the county seeking help no more running from one building to another trying to find what floor certain offices are located. Here, if one department decides it needs the help of another one, it is only a step from one office to the other, at most, a couple of flights of stairs will cover the distance.

This building is named the Geraldine Livingston Thompson Building and in a way it epitomizes many of the things for which she has stood. It is not a pretentious building but it is well built and, because of its simplicity it has beauty, and one can imagine that soon there will be surrounding lawns, shrubs and trees, flower beds and it will look as though it had stood a long time and has earned its place in this community.

Mrs. Thompson is full of energy and when she has made up her mind that something must be done, it usually is done whether it requires hours of her own time or the mobilization of interest in other people until they are willing to give of their time and money.

I am interested that the Republican Party is asking Mrs. Wendell Wilkie to run against Congressman Marcantonio. She will probably make an excellent Congressman and would certainly be a contrast, so far as campaigning goes, to the doughty Mr. Marcantonio.

On Wednesday, after a long day at Lake Success we finished the Covenant. We still have to re-read all the articles in case of possible changes. There are several resolutions which have to be dealt with, but it looks to me as though the finished Covenant is ready to send to the Economic and Social Council.

There is an elder statesman, not of the Republican Party, who has advocated for some time a somewhat similar plan to that suggested by Mr. John Foster Dulles. Mr. Dulles proposes a Cabinet Council to coordinate activities of the State Department, Economic Cooperation Administration, the Voice of America and other public and private agencies. The idea being that an overall planning group will do a little thinking, particularly about the cold war and the plans that are being laid down, and then, having done the planning, it will actually suggest ways of accomplishing those results.

E. R.

(WORLD COPYRIGHT, 1950, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC. REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART PROHIBITED.)


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About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, May 19, 1950

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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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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