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

      

HYDE PARK, Wednesday—There will be general approval of the nomination of General Eisenhower to head the armies of Western Europe. This is a tremendous organization job, but he has proved in the past his ability not only to command troops successfully in the field, but to get along with the other nationalities under his command.

This is, however, a more difficult job even than the one before. There he was organizing for war. Here he is organizing in the hope of preserving the peace. Then France was fighting a traditional enemy, Germany. Now that traditional enemy is loath to be rearmed, feeling perhaps that her only hope of survival lies in a condition of impotence which will not in any way excite the envy or fear of her neighbors either to the east or to the west.

This is an entirely understandable position, but one wonders if among the old military leaders there are not a few who would still welcome a chance to rearm Germany and reconstitute her military strength. This is, of course, at the base of France's fears.

Senator Lodge said the other day the one important thing to Russia was control of the Ruhr because, in industrial potential, that would put the Soviet Union on a par with the United States. If that is Russia's objective, then it is entirely understandable that she is violently opposed to the rearming of Germany even on a police basis. It would certainly be preferable to reach the Ruhr without any military resistance.

The departure of the Communist Chinese delegates to Peiping yesterday was very interesting. They wished the people of the United States a merry Christmas and tried to separate them entirely from their government; they did not wish the United States government a merry Christmas.

There was something sad about this because it shows how little these leaders of Communist China understand that the government of a democratic state cannot be separated from the people. The people are the government, or at least the ultimate authority lies in their hands because by secret ballot they choose their representatives in Congress and they choose their Chief Executive.

That was certainly an extraordinary spectacle described in yesterday morning's newspaper in which three Republican Senators voted with a solid Democratic Senate to support the President and to prevent attack upon his foreign policy. It is regrettable that this action had not come before the Republican Senators had pronounced themselves against Secretary of State Dean Acheson. None of them can have had much imagination or the mere thought of how the U.S. delegation would feel at the Brussels conference might have deterred them. As a matter of fact, the poise and dignity shown at Brussels by the Secretary of State must shame a great many of the Senators who acted in such irresponsible fashion.

E.R.

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


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

Persons
Geographic
  • Hyde Park (Dutchess County, N.Y., United States) [ index ]


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, December 21, 1950

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)
    [ VIAF | ORCID ]
  • Regenhardt, Christy (Associate Editor)
    [ ISNI ]
  • Black, Allida M. (Editor)
    [ VIAF | ISNI ]
  • Binker, Mary Jo (Associate Editor)
    [ VIAF | ORCID ]
  • Alhambra, Christopher C. (Electronic Text Editor)
    [ VIAF | ORCID ]

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.

XML master last modified on May 2, 2022.

HTML version generated and published on May 3, 2022.

Transcription created from a photocopy of a UFS wire copy of a My Day column instance archived at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library.
TMs, AERP, FDRL