The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers, Digital Edition > My Day
APRIL 24, 1951
GENEVA, Monday—When you go to work at nine-thirty in the morning and stay in one place for hours listening to speeches and leave at six-thirty in the evening, as we did the other day, there is not a great deal that you have time to do outside of the usual routine.
But I did go home with Dr. Martha Eliot one night last week, and I was glad of the chance of driving through some of the streets at night. We went up along the far side of the lake and looked back at the reflection of all the lights on the water.
I do not think I like quite so many colored signs as one sees in this city, but it does give one a sense of looking at a perpetual Christmas tree. And, when you get far enough away to look at the reflection in the water, it is quite enchanting.
Dr. Eliot and Dr. Ethel Dunham live together in a little new house perched up on the side of the mountain with a glorious view on the lake and the snow-capped mountains of the Jura range. Their garden climbs the hill, too, and Dr. Dunham said that to garden you must become somewhat like a mountain goat.
They told me one of their real joys is hearing the cows coming down in the morning and the music made by their bells. There are several cowbell factories in Switzerland, and the farmers choose the melodies they want for their particular herd of cows. I am tempted to see if I could take some bells home, but I imagine they might be rather bulky. Perhaps, too, our cows at home would not appreciate the bells as much as the Swiss cows do.
Dr. Eliot has just come back from a trip to the Far East for the World Health Organization. She has traveled many, many miles and she was telling me of the organization's setup in Hong Kong. It is in charge of a Chinese doctor who was trained in the United States. He has associated with him a Philippine doctor, an English doctor, an American nurse and a Norwegian administrative officer. They work together and give a prime example of the value of cooperation in all United Nations work.
Her last stop on the way back here was six days spent in Israel. She was impressed, as everybody else seems to be, by the extraordinary work being carried on in that little country. She said the spirit and the courage of all the people was a great lesson to everybody else. This is one country at least where nobody has the jitters.
Speaking of courage, I think General Omar Bradley deserves some admiration. He was not obliged to come out at this time and say he opposed General MacArthur's ideas. But, as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he evidently felt that he had an obligation to say where he stood and to take his share of the responsibility for the way the war is to be fought in Korea.
We, in the United States, have suffered the anxiety of searching for submarines, and our sympathy goes to the United Kingdom whose submarine, the Affray, with 75 men aboard, disappeared in the English Channel. The search goes on, and one can only hope that some miracle will occur that will relieve the anxiety of all concerned.
E. R.
(WORLD COPYRIGHT, 1951, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC. REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART PROHIBITED.)
About this document
My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, April 24, 1951
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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The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project
Available under licence from the Estate of Anna Eleanor Roosevelt.
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