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

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NEW YORK.—There is an amusing article by Raymond Hartley in the May 19 issue of Esquire magazine, designed for those who are inclined to take our political difficulties too seriously. Entitled "A Slate of Pundits," it delineates a slate made up of our columnists who are constantly running the country from the sidelines!

Talking of entertaining reading, I should urge you to read a publication sent out by the American Defense Committee of the Daughters of the American Revolution that deals with the World Health Organization of the United Nations.

These dear ladies now say "to wipe out all inequalities of development is to standardize the world at the health level of the most backward government. Only complete world government centralized into one government body could promise and implement equal development in world-wide public programs for the promotion of good health. Equalization is never progress, but it means of necessity centralization of administration."

The dear ladies evidently never studied what actually has been accomplished by this U.N. agency. Some of their statements, however, such as "Disease knows no frontier," are perfectly true. Therefore, it is fortunate for us that WHO has succeeded in wiping out malaria to a great extent throughout the world and has made it possible for a great many people who could not otherwise support themselves to be self-supporting. This has been beneficial to the rest of the world because it eliminates certain economic burdens that would otherwise have to be carried by other nations.

This publication, if it were not so utterly funny, would be really a sign of such ignorance and narrowness on the part of those who put it out and of such callous indifference to the well-being of human beings throughout the world, that all of us should hide our heads in shame.

The DAR ladies deplore the fact that at a UNESCO meeting recently the rest of the world outvoted the United States and raised the contributions of all nations to the organization. I am quite sure the ladies have not suffered from this small rise in contributions, and if they consider that the specialized agencies of the U.N. promote the idea of collectivism they had better go and visit a few more collectivist countries.

There is an interesting art exhibit currently being held at the Stuttman Gallery, here, for the benefit of Spanish Refugee Aid, an organization formed in 1953 and headed by Pablo Casals.

The proceeds from the sale of the paintings on exhibition will go toward helping Spanish refugees, not one of whom is a Communist, who fought for freedom in Spain. The French government has been generous in giving these people asylum for 20 years and in providing them with some old-age and sick benefits. The comparatively recently formed Spanish Refugee Aid, however, is the only outside organization that gives these people who fought for freedom any help.

E.R.

(Copyright, 1960, by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.)


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About this document

My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, May 25, 1960

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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