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

[This column has emendations. View original version]

      

NEW YORK—This past week has been a rather active one.

On Wednesday I went out to Long Island to speak for the South Shore Women's Division of the Jewish Congress, and in the evening I went to a meeting of the ILGWU from 5:30 to 7:00, and from 8:30 to 9:30 I attended another meeting at Yeshiva University.

On Thursday I flew up to Potsdam, N.Y., to speak at the University and returned in time for an evening meeting for the benefit of the Citizens Encampment, which is an activity of the Ethical Culture Society. This organization has proved over the years to be a valuable lesson to many young people as a manifestation of the democratic way of life.

On Friday I spent a half hour in the middle of the day with the high-school students from the William Penn School in Philadelphia.

On Saturday I have a speaking engagement before a luncheon group of ILGWU and on Sunday afternoon I go to Boston for a dinner meeting, returning on the 11 p.m. plane.

This does not seem like much of a calendar on the face of it, but in between I have attended meetings and spent hours at the office of the American Association for the United Nations. I also have done a good deal of work at home and have held many interviews with individuals, so somehow the week has been full!

On Tuesday, Friday and Saturday nights I enjoyed myself seeing friends. One of these nights I went to a play, but I will tell you about that another day.

I want to mention a book that was published on April 24th, "Communism, Conformity and Civil Liberties" by Samuel A. Stouffer, Harvard sociologist.

This book interprets the findings of the most comprehensive American survey ever taken on these attitudes. The survey was sponsored by the Fund for the Republic. Its findings represent the result of careful checking of independent field canvasses by the Gallup Poll and the National Opinion Research Center at Chicago University.

It is quite natural that people should differ with the findings as they are interpreted, but I think it is well to read this book rather than to accept as gospel the opinions that many editorial writers may express.

I can recall more than one editorial in national magazines that seemed somewhat superficial and which represent the kind of reading that many people do. If you see the book you will be able to pick out things here and there which you do not like and you will be able to make them appear to say things they don't really say.

This is not a book that should be used by editorial writers to prove their point of view by picking out of context certain statements or even certain figures and proving things which are not proved in the book itself. Therefore, I hope that the book itself will be widely read. Then readers could write their own editorials more intelligently perhaps than an editorial writer who has a special point of view to prove.

(Distributed by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.)

E.R.


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

Geographic
  • New York (N.Y., United States) [ index ]


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, May 7, 1955

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 June 9, 2017.

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