Gladys Avery Tillett, Former Vice Chair of Democratic National Committee, Campaigning for Gov. Adlai Stevenson, 1952

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.