From
Eleanor Roosevelt’s “My Day” column, published in various newspapers on October
28, 1952. She mentions North Carolinian Mrs. Charles Tillett in this column. Eleanor Roosevelt was, of course, the wife of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
NEW YORK, Monday—I
wonder if any of my readers have yet seen or heard any of the groups of
volunteers and students who are campaigning for Gov. Adlai Stevenson in local
"whistle stop" tours in key cities from coast to coast. There is a
two-week drive in motion about which I heard from Mrs. India Edwards, vice
chairman of the Democratic National Committee and director of the Women's
Division. This particular project is being directed by Mrs. Charles W. Tillett
of North Carolina, a former vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
Between Mrs. Tillett and Al Lowenstein, former president of the National
Students Association, this new idea in campaigning will add enormously to the
activities during these last days before the election.
I have been interested
in the mechanics of Governor Stevenson's campaign because, more than any
campaign I can remember, this one has been managed and directed principally by
volunteers and amateurs. The regular political organizations, so far as I can
find out at least, have been less active than previously. And this may be a
good thing, for if the organizations are wise they will look among those who
have come willingly to work in this campaign and will pick out some new and
enthusiastic workers to keep their organizations active the year round.
The United Defense Fund
announced last week that American Relief for Korea, one of its member agencies,
would renew its clothing collections on a large scale and that they would need
large sums of money to process this clothing for shipment.
This is something in
which all Americans will want to help. The story that touched me very deeply,
however, was something that American G.I.s in Korea have done. The men out
there contributed the money to buy the property on which the Maryknoll Sisters
are operating a clinic in Pusan.
Half a world away from
home, fighting for our freedom and that of the world, our boys are still
materially better off than the Korean people. They see the hardships and the
sorrows and the suffering and they have given what little they had to help
alleviate this suffering.
Another angle to this
story was very touching. This was that the Sisters of the clinic told how some
of our soldiers would spend their off-duty hours helping out at the clinic
because they could not bear to see the endless misery and suffering and decided
on their own to pitch in and help.
It was the same way in
Germany, in Japan, in every country where our men have fought and seen the
people suffer. They disregarded the fact that they were enemies at war. And I
am quite sure that if any of our men saw Communists, North Koreans, Chinese,
even Russians suffering, they would not hesitate to relieve what suffering they
could among these human beings.
It is one of the things
that makes us trust the inherent goodness of the people of the United States,
and I hope that nothing ever takes it away from us.
E. R.
(WORLD COPYRIGHT, 1952, BY UNITED FEATURE
SYNDICATE, INC. REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART PROHIBITED.)
Eleanor Roosevelt, "My Day, October 28, 1952," The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Digital
Edition (2017), accessed 10/21/2017,
https://www2.gwu.edu/~erpapers/myday/displaydoc.cfm?_y=1952&_f=md002364.
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