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

[Original version of the column. Text in red are tagged with <sic> (needs correction); text in purple are tagged with <orig> (needs regularization); and text in blue are tagged names of persons or organizations. View emended version]

      

New York, N. Y., Friday—This morning I am going to speak for the United Jewish Appeal Campaign. Like every other charitable and civic group, no matter how well established, they find that a great many people do not associate the carrying on of their usual community activities with the winning of the war. In some cases, I am told, there is not only a tendency to lower the financial contributions, but a tendenecy to cut down on the amount of volunteer service which people usually have given.

Somehow, we have failed as yet quite to realize the fact, that part of winning the war is to strengthen our community services, civic and charitable, in every way possible, because the demands are greater than before. True, they may be different, for in many cases people are obtaining work. But there are still cases of unemployment for a variety of reasons, and many more cases of people whose men are in the services, and who are undergoing physical hardship and mental anguish.

I look at the present situation in the following way. First of all, so far as we are able, we should give a little more to every agency we have supported in the past. What we give in contributions to the war, such as increased Red Cross, USO, Army and Navy Relief, should be above and beyond what we have given in the past. Our investments in Defense Bonds and Stamps, should be regarded as investments, not as gifts, except where we buy them for charitable purposes and do not hold them ourselves.

Secondly, I think we should continue to give what time we have in the past to the organizations in which we have served. Our war contributions should be over and above our normal activities. This should be accomplished by better organization of our time, by planning to give less time to unimportant things and by remembering that leisure moments are a gift which few people can enjoy in times of stress.

I do not mean that we must not have some recreation and relaxation, but it must come after the work we are physically able to do, is done. Many people do not plan and so spend more hours doing things than is necessary. Busy days like the present are a challenge to our ability to organize ourselves, as well as the work we may be able to do in addition to our normal occupations.

E.R.

(COPYRIGHT, 1942, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC.)


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

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


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, February 28, 1942

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