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

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EN ROUTE TO LOUISVILLE, Ky., Tuesday—There is a new publication called The United Nations Gram which made its bow last week. It is designed primarily to acquaint people with the facts about the United Nations. Every issue has two parts and is so made up that it can be placed on the bulletin board of schools or clubs or factories or wherever people going by can stop and look and read.

One part of the paper is visual—pictures in three colors. The other part is essentially a news column written by John G. Rogers and called "Last Week at the United Nations". In addition, there is a four-page discussion guide, also published weekly, which is sent with the Grams to groups and schools using the newspaper as material for classwork. This will help teachers to guide discussion groups and make suggestions for projects to be carried out.

I was particularly interested to learn that the actual expenditure per capita by the United States for its share of the basic United Nations annual budget is less than a dime. This is the organization which we hope will grow so that eventually we can turn over to itthe curbing of all aggressor nations. Even now much of the U.N. program provides the only activities in the world through which peoples are working together to create an atomsphere in which peace can grow.

I can well understand why Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas feels that the money allocated is much too small to pay for the support of this organization. It is ridiculous when you think that New York City pays more for garbage disposal than the U.N. has for a year's running expenses and that the subway deficit in New York City would run the U.N. for six months.

On the other hand, Senator Estes Kefauver's point of view has merit. He maintains that we must not raise the cost of the organization to a point where we may force out the smaller nations because of their inability to pay their share. Of course, some of the bigger nations complain as much about the heavy cost as do the little nations, and there is the danger of making it an undue burden on governments that still are called upon to carry big budgets for armaments and for the cost of past and possibly future wars.

I cannot imagine that any sane people ever would consider another war, given the destructive weapons we have now discovered, but we had hoped before that people would not inflict pain and suffering on themselves and they have always done so. The only difference now is that the attacker as well as the attacked may be wiped out.

So, our deep-rooted sense of self-preservation may get to work and the people may force their governments to sit down around a table and argue their difficulties out, rather than risk wiping out all the peoples of the world.

E. R.

(WORLD COPYRIGHT, 1950, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC. REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART PROHIBITED.)


Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced

Geographic
  • Louisville (Ky., United States) [ index ]


About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, March 15, 1950

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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  • 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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