The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers, Digital Edition > My Day
FEBRUARY 14, 1958
[This column has emendations. View original version]
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif.—An award will be given tomorrow (February 15) to Brigadier General David S. Sarnoff, chairman of the board of the Radio Corporation of America for his "outstanding contributions in promoting interfaith and interracial unity." This is the 12th annual award of the Men's Club of Congregation B'nai Jeshurun of New York City.
Brotherhood Week begins Sunday, so this ceremony is planned to draw attention to the purposes of that observance. A number of people will participate in the service, including Dr. Everett R. Clinchy, president of the National Conference of Christians and Jews.
It is good to have someone in the great community of New York honored for having worked to bring about a better understanding between the people of different races and religions.
In honoring Brigadier General Sarnoff, we also call to mind a tradition upon which we particularly pride ourselves in America. For here is a man who still proves that the American dream can come true, that you can start at the bottom and reach the top if you have the necessary qualities of mind and heart. And so we are grateful to him for his achievement and for the example he has set in American life today.
On a broader scale, Brotherhood Week will give us the opportunity to accent world brotherhood by international recognition.
World Brotherhood, a private, international, nongovernmental organization, has as its purpose the fostering of educational programs to overcome prejudices based on race, nationality, religion or culture. Each year it conducts an essay contest, with men and women whose names are recognized throughout the world as judges.
Judges of this year's contest, which required 200-word essays in English on "What World Brotherhood Means to Me," were General Romulo, Paul Henri Spaak, secretary general of NATO; Madame Pandit, Konrad Adenauer, and our own great physicist, Dr. Arthur H. Compton.
The prizes were won by four interesting persons—a Burmese housewife, a police instructor from Ghana, a Danish Army officer, and a student from Monterey, Mexico. Their essays were chosen from those sent in from 108 nations and protectorates, including Russia and her satellites.
These contest winners are meeting in New York for the first time this month. None of them have been in this country before and I think it is safe to say that they will carry back vivid memories of their two-week stay, which will include Brotherhood Week.
General Romulo, in commenting on the essays that he read as a judge, quoted from one sent in by an essayist behind the Iron Curtain:
"Science, in its great pace forward, first leads us to universal destruction. World brotherhood is a mission of love to all humanity. Love is the light, leading mankind through the ages."
That is a statement a number of us might do well to remember.
Does love of our fellow man predominate in the hearts of each and every one of us and do we teach it to our children? When we do, there will be no more Little Rock incidents, no more racial and religious prejudice, no more wars. Instead, there will be peace on the earth and cooperation in the effort to make life better for all humanity.
E.R.
(Copyright, 1958, by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.)
Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced
Persons
- Adenauer, Konrad, 1876-1967 [ index ]
German statesman; first Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany
[ LC | ISNI | VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC | FAST | US Nat. Archives ] - Clinchy, Everett R. (Everett Ross), 1896-1986 [ index ]
American theologian; founder of the American National Conference of Christians and Jews
[ LC | ISNI | VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC | FAST ] - Compton, Arthur Holly, 1892-1962 [ index ]
American physicist
[ LC | ISNI | VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC | FAST | US Nat. Archives | ANB ] - Pandit, Vijaya Lakshmi, 1900-1990 [ index ]
indian diplomat
[ LC | ISNI | VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC | FAST | US Nat. Archives | ODNB ] - Romulo, Carlos P. (Carlos Peña), 1899-1985 [ index ]
Filipino statesman and diplomat; Resident Commissioner from the Commonwealth of the Philippines; UN Delegate
[ LC | ISNI | VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC | FAST | US Nat. Archives | USCongress ] - Sarnoff, David, 1891-1971 [ index ]
American businessman
[ LC | ISNI | VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC | FAST | ANB ] - Spaak, Paul-Henri, 1899-1972 [ index ]
Belgian socialist politician, diplomat, and statesman; Prime Minister of Beligum from 1938 to 1939, 1949, and 1947 to 1949
[ LC | ISNI | VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC | FAST | US Nat. Archives | Other source ]
Organizations
- National Conference of Christians and Jews [ index ]
[ LC | ISNI | VIAF | SNAC | FAST ] - World Brotherhood [ index ]
[ LC | ISNI | VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC | FAST ]
Geographic
- [ index ] Beverly Hills (Calif., United States)
About this document
My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, February 14, 1958
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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