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

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NEW YORK, Monday—Sunday a very unique party was given in New York City in honor of Dr. Israel Goldstein. This party was an informal reception for the many "little people" whose troubles and difficulties have been heard by members of the Jewish Conciliation Board of America, Inc., of which Dr. Goldstein is the president. He is also the president of the American Jewish Congress and a distinguished rabbi.

It would take too long to enumerate his various contributions to public life. Here I want to report to you only on this particular party. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas was the principal speaker and the place of meeting was the old Educational Alliance Building on New York's lower East Side. This is one of our oldest and best known settlement houses. Many of the little people gathered there were survivors of Hitler's concentration camps, others were products of New York's tenements. There were also present, however, judges and lawyers and business leaders who sat on the panels to hear the cases and to settle the disputes for these little people to the satisfaction of both the plaintiff and defendant.

The presiding officer for the afternoon was General David Sarnoff, president of the Radio Corporation of America, and the names of those who have sat on the panels are well known in New York's business and professional life. Some 6,000 cases have been amicably settled by this conciliation board, thus bringing a measure of peace and comfort to a segment of the human race many of whom have been through so much in the past that they are now frightened by each new threat to their security.

I could think of no finer tribute to Dr. Goldstein's work than the scroll which was presented to him commemorating his quarter of a century of leadership. The presentation was made by Louis Richman, a lawyer, who has served as volunteer executive secretary since the board was founded 30 years ago.

Friday we spent most of the morning travelling from Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, to Ohio Wesleyan University. We arrived in Delaware, Ohio, in time to be taken for lunch to a delightful little restaurant run by a gentleman known as Mr. Bun because his father was a baker. His son is called "Biscuit" and another member of the family "Crumb," so they are well identified with their occupation! The campus is separated by the village but really the village belongs to the campus and is part of it.

We had a quiet time until we were called for to dine with an interracial fraternity. This is one of the fraternities which takes in people of various races and seems to flourish in this university which emphasizes international interests and has one course even in practical politics. I enjoyed very much having an opportunity to meet with the boys of this fraternity and then we went to the hall for the evening meeting. After the speech there were questions which I think could have gone on for another hour but after three quarters of an hour we adjourned and went to another building for an informal coffee hour where the students had a further opportunity to put their questions.

This area of Ohio is, of course, Senator Bricker's territory and inevitably I was asked what I thought of the Bricker amendment. I begged those present to read the New York City Bar Association's brief on the subject. No one will deny that the distinguished lawyers belonging to the New York City Bar Association have among their members some of the finest Constitutional lawyers in this country and I think their brief deserves a careful reading since they believe that this amendment is harmful and can be dangerous to our foreign relations.

E.R.

(WORLD COPYRIGHT, 1954, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC. REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART PROHIBITED.)


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About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, January 19, 1954

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.

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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