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, Friday—I have received several letters lately stating how pleased the writers are to hear that I am going to "run for the Senate," and offering me help and support. So far those who would be against me have not written to me in great number. But to all alike I have to reply that I am not going to run for any office! What I have often repeated in the past makes no dent, but one of our prophetic commentators, who never bothers to find out from me whether his statements and prophecies concerning me are correct, is believed without question!

Here I am, therefore, forced again to state—as I did when rumors flew about in 1945 and in 1946—that I not only have no political aspirations, but under no circumstances whatsoever would I run for any political office.

I can hear people say "Why, then, do you accept work with the United Nations?" I accept for the simple reason that it seems to me that there I may make a contribution, both as an individual and as my husband's widow.

Service in the UN should never be of a partisan character. Questions coming up there should be considered from the point of view of our nation and the other nations, not from the view of the advantage certain actions might bring, within our domestic scene, to either political party.

* * *

I feel that I have learned a great deal since I went to the first Assembly of the UN, and if my government feels that I can be of service in this work, I am more than glad to try to serve. This is largely due to the fact that I feel that efforts along all other lines may be completely fruitless if we do not succeed in finding some way to keep our present generation at peace with the rest of the world. This means a rule of law, with force to back up the joint decisions made under that law. And it means also an understanding that future generations must be trained in new ways, so that they will find it increasingly easy to work with the other peoples of the world and thereby keep the peace.

I think the arguments within our nation as to how we shall achieve this or that should be settled by younger people. In a short time I shall be 63 years old; and if, in the course of the years, I have gained any wisdom whatsoever, it is the wisdom to know that the Kingdom of God must come on earth through the efforts of human beings and that war in the atomic age will simply mean annihilation, certainly not evolution. With age has come also a capacity for patience; rooted beliefs in certain fundamental things, but an ability to try to understand the motivations of other people; and a kind of interest in human beings which allows for no bitterness toward any person.

E. R.

(WORLD COPYRIGHT, 1947, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC.; REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR PART PROHIBITED.)


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About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, September 13, 1947

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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  • Binker, Mary Jo (Associate Editor)
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  • Alhambra, Christopher C. (Electronic Text 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 UFS wire copy of a My Day column instance archived at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library.
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