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

[This column has emendations. View original version]

      

HYDE PARK—On Thursday afternoon I flew out to Chicago for a dinner in the interests of the Cancer Research Laboratory which, as you know, is located in Denver, Colo., and on Friday morning I came up here where I look forward to a long, restful weekend.

This has been a very busy week with travels in many directions. On Monday evening I was in Philadelphia, and on Tuesday evening I was in Montreal as the guest of the Ladies Division of the Montreal Chamber of Commerce. That was an experience in Montreal. My host group is made up largely of French-speaking citizens, and they asked me if I would try to make my speech in French. I was very nervous about it but the audience was very kind and seemed to understand what I was trying to say.

On Wednesday evening I spoke for a Democratic group in Scarsdale, N. Y., and then my trip to Chicago on Thursday rounded out one of the busiest weeks on short trips that I have ever put in!

I look forward now to a much more peaceful and quiet time for the rest of the summer.

It is interesting to note that the New York Republican delegation will go unpledged to the national convention in Chicago in July. Also, I am glad that Gov. Nelson Rockefeller announced that he is available for a Presidential draft. Otherwise, the Republican convention figured to be very dull if there were no opposition to Vice-President Nixon at all.

I feel very sure, however, that the professional politicians in the Republican party would prefer to have Mr. Nixon and are probably quite determined to put him over. Professionals in both parties can always be counted on to be on the side of a conservative candidate, or at least one whom they consider conservative and amenable to their ideas. For the rank and file, however, it makes it more interesting to watch a national convention that has at least the possibility of a discussion and a contest to name the eventual candidate.

So far as the constructive part of President Eisenhower's speech on Wednesday night is concerned, I think he has most of the citizens of our country on his side. I am told by some people, however, that it would be better to wait a bit in the United Nations before formally proposing the President's plan for a U.N. patrol until the climate is a little bit improved.

I am glad the President indicated that he had a plan and that he was ready to negotiate and that he said we must deal with the Soviets on the basis of reason. The negotiations in Geneva both on a sane nuclear policy and on disarmament must be continued, he said, which is encouraging.

I have just received an excerpt from Premier Khrushchev's speech in Moscow on May 9, as reported in the Manchester Guardian of Great Britain, and in it there is a bit of typical Khrushchev vulgarity. Evidently, he allows himself to say certain things that may be amusing to his own countrymen, but which must be a surprise in diplomatic circles. I have never seen a similar quotation from him in any of our newspapers.

The President's speech, however, pointed the way for the future attitude of the United States, and I hope this attitude of sanity and reasonableness will prevail. There is everything to be gained and nothing to be lost by such an attitude.

E.R.

(Copyright, 1960, by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.)


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, May 28, 1960

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