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

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NEW YORK, Wednesday—Last night's newspaper item quoting Patsy D'Agostino, president of the National Association of Retail Grocers made sorry reading. He said that people, being human, would come into a store and remark: "Tomorrow is meatless Tuesday. I had better buy my meat today."

The gentleman apparently does not think highly of human nature. I really hope enough people will care enough about human beings all over the world and about the future of our own country to police their own homes and make it unpopular to have meat when you are asked not to, or to eat bread when you have been asked to go without it.

It will not be difficult to comply with President Truman's suggestion—no meat in our homes on Tuesdays, no chicken or eggs on Thursdays, cut down on bread by one slice a day and no bread served in restaurants with meals unless we make a request for it. A simple set of rules to follow!

If all of us observe these rules we will save a good deal, not only to ship abroad but to begin and balance production and demand in this country. In addition to what has been asked of us for Europe, we must not forget that there is in India today a famine that may bring death to a great many people. The people of India are having a hard time settling their own affairs, the country is divided, many changes are being brought about and the general atmosphere is undoubtedly somewhat bewildered.

* * *

Women are playing a new role and they are taking on an ever-increasing importance in the United Nations councils. For the first time in Committee 3 there are women representing a number of countries. I wish I could say the same of the other committees, but I think that Mrs. Pandit, who heads the Indian delegation, is the only woman on Committee 1.

Mrs. Pandit and all the Indian women I have met have a keen sense of responsibility and want to work on meeting the needs of their own people and on trying to bring peace to their country as quickly as possible. They look at you sadly but hopefully when they suggest that perhaps this country might be induced to save one more slice of bread and send the proceeds to India. Both India and China need our help, and I would gladly save that one more slice of bread a day if we could get enough women to do the same so we would have a really large amount salvaged for distribution overseas.

We must not turn so much of our land into the production of any one cereal, however, or we will flood the market when this present need is over. We must strive to build up the production potentialitie, in these needy countries, and tell them firmly that our future as well as theirs depends upon their regaining the ability as soon as possible to feed themselves. They must make enough to become a market for our goods, and establish peaceful relations throughout the world.

E. R.

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


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About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, October 9, 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

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MEP edition publlished on June 30, 2008.

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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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