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

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NEW YORK—It is of constant interest to me to see how personalities develop, even in young children. I paid my little grandson Bill and his mother a short visit while in Philadelphia on Wednesday. He was sitting up in bed enjoying the "land of counterpane" for he has had a cold. I had had no time to buy him anything before leaving Washington, but some kind friends had sent me a charming little rhyme and a basket containing little wooden buildings, trees and even people, which could be set up to make a village. I kept the rhyme, packed up the toy village and took it to Bill. In no time he had thought out a game which we could play together, and when his mother suggested that I go into the other room with her for a few minutes he grabbed my hand and said "I won't let you go"! He is just as different from all his other little cousins as grownups are from each other, and he is so interested in everything he does and has such zest in living that it is easy to see that for a time at least it will be hard for him to take new things in his environment as a matter of course, and not be worn out by them. The most marvelous painting hung on the wall, which he assured me was a chicken, perhaps it was! There was some dim resemblance in outline to a very much excited rooster crowing in the early dawn, but it required imagination and plenty of it, to really see the resemblance, however, he was quite convinced that we could not fail to recognize it!

A nice drive up yesterday and what a joy it is to be at home in the country. My husband seems to ahed the innumerable cares with greater ease here than anywhere except on a boat on the ocean.

As I was reading the paper the other day I was amused to notice that a government agency that has been much in print of late was attacked by two factions with which it has to deal. Both factions claim that this government agency is partial to the other one. This seems to me a pretty good argument for the agencies impartiality! If either side had been satisfied we might have felt a doubt, but when both sides feel that they have been discriminated against then it is fairly sure that a pretty even balance has been maintained in dealing with both! Years ago in New York State, when I was working with the League of Women Voters, we were constantly receiving complaints that individual leagues were allied entirely with one or the other political party. Of course, in certain cases it was true that partiality was shown to one side or other, but when we found that both political parties in any locality were complaining bitterly at the attitude of the League, then we felt quite sure that in that locality the League was maintaining a strictly non-partisan attitude!

Back to New York this afternoon, driving down again through the Parkway which never wearies me.

This evening I broadcast for the Campfire Girls. Being Honorary President of both the Girl Scouts and the Campfire Group, I have an opportunity to hear a great deal about the activities of these two organizations throughout the country. One group has more members in one part of the country and the other is stronger somewhere else, but both are carrying on a similar program and both are doing a splendid piece of work for the country's girlhood.

E.R.


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About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, October 16, 1937

Roosevelt, Eleanor, 1884-1962
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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)
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  • Regenhardt, Christy (Associate Editor)
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  • Black, Allida M. (Editor)
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  • Binker, Mary Jo (Associate Editor)
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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.

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Transcription created from a photocopy of a draft version of a My Day column instance archived at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library. My Day column draft dated October 15, 1937, FDR Library, Hyde Park, NY
TMsd, 15 October 1937, AERP, FDRL