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

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WASHINGTON, Wednesday—How marvelously arrogant we all are in our use of the name of the Lord. Each one of us, feeling sure that the Lord is with us, proclaims the righteousness of his cause. It is interesting to find this done even by a man who at one time was understood to be substituting German mythology for the Christian religion!

Here is the quotation from Hitler's speech in one of our newspapers: "The Lord God thus far has given His support to our struggle. If we faithfully and bravely fulfill our duty, He will not in the future desert us. "He also states:" Because we are fighting for the happiness of the peoples, we believe we have first earned the blessings of Providence."

"Peoples", of course, means the German people and the race approved by Hitler, because he also states: "It is no empty phrase but in bloody earnestness we give assurance that for every bomb (dropped on Germany) ten or, if necessary, one hundred will be dropped in return."

What "happiness" I wonder, does this warfare bring to all peoples? Hitler must believe in a God of war and vengeance, but let us pray that somewhere we may find a God of love and peace. To the God of love and peace, even in these days, we may pray for grace to see clearly, to act justly, and to do that which we deem necessary to bring us back to a more peaceful and better world. But to a God of war and vengeance, there seems little one could say that would help suffering peoples!

The two little girls who are visiting us have had a pleasant time. Children certainly are happier when they have other children with whom to play. I think Diana is enjoying showing the sights to a new friend. The children's party on Tuesday covered a wide range of ages, but by dint of putting the younger girls together, I think they all had a good time.

We are gradually accumulating girls of every age in the house. Yesterday, my neice, Amy Roosevelt, arrived, but since she is fifteen, she went off on a real sight-seeing tour yesterday morning, which the little girls would hardly have been able to enjoy. The only visiting gentleman in the younger group with us, being two years old, receives a great deal of attention, but I am not always sure that he appreciates it.

We had a most delightful hour last night with the Detroit WPA Spiritual Singers as our entertainers. The President and all of our guests enjoyed them as much as I hoped they would. Their leader, Mr. Lehman Hardison, and the whole chorus, sang with spirit and feeling.

New Year's Day is being spent very quietly. This day all of us look with a good deal of solemnity on the coming of 1941. We can but hope that a better world will rise from the ashes of the present one, and that all the destruction of the beauty built by the past may be followed by a real renaissance of the arts and lift the spirit of mankind.

E.R.

(COPYRIGHT, 1941, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC.)


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My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, January 2, 1941

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

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Digital edition published 2008, 2017 by
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Available under licence from the Estate of Anna Eleanor Roosevelt.

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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 UFS wire copy of a My Day column instance archived at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library.
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