Eleanor's Hints For A Public Anguished By Irresponsible Leadership and Illegitimate Wars

Here are some more choice passages ranging on a number of salient topics for today's political debate that Eleanor Roosevelt brings up in her memoir, "This I Remember."

A) From page 200:

I knew well that the accusations might be false, since all liberals are likely to be labeled with the current catch word, whatever it may be. When I was young it was anarchist, later on it was Bolshevik, and now it is communist."

B) From page 202:

If there is one thing I dislike, it is intimidating people instead of trying to get at facts.

C) From Page 203:

On one occasion, my husband and I were given a confidential list of organizations which were considered communist or subversive or un-American, a list compiled by the FBI for the use of the Dies Committee. People who belonged to any group on that list or who had even contributed to any of them were ipso facto under suspicion. We found among those listed as contributors to two or three of these "questionable" organizations were Secretary Stimson, Secretary Knox and my husband's mother, Mrs. James Roosevelt. Franklin and I got particular amusement out of the inclusion of her name; we could picture her horror if she were told that the five or ten dollars she had given to a seemingly innocent relief organization put her among those whom the Deis Committee could easily call before it as belonging to subversive organizations.

D) From page 274:

One of the workers with whom I talked told me that the hardest thing was to keep on at your job when you knew the bombs were falling in the area of your home and you did not know whether you would find your home and family still there at the end of your day's or night's work.

...When I visited a center where bombed-out people were getting clothes and furniture and other supplies, one young woman with a child in here arms and another dragging at her skirt said to me very cheerfully: "Oh, yes, this is the third time we have been bombed out, but the government gives us a bit of help and you people in America send us clothes. We get along and none of us was hurt and that's the main thing.

E) From Page 279:

Admittedly a flight like this in time of war entailed some personal danger, but that was something Franklin never gave a thought to. For a president, there is always that possibility, no matter what he does, and long ago, when Mayor Cermak was killed, Franklin and I had talked it over and decided that that kind of danger was something you could do nothing about. You cannot be protected from a person who does not care whether he is caught or not. But since neither can you live in constant fear and apprehension, the only possible course is to put the thought of danger, of whatever kind, out of your mind and go ahead with your job as you feel you must, regardless of what might be called its occupational risks.

F) From page 311:

Having told the story of my two trips to parts of the world where actual war was going on and where, of necessity, one saw the results of the war in the hospitals, I think I should say something of the impressions these trips left with me.

At first I could hardly bear the hospitals. There was, of course, a certain amount of pure physical fatigue from walking miles of hospital wards day after day; but that was nothing in comparison with the horrible consciousness of waste and feeling of resentment that burned within me as I wondered why men could not sit down around a table and settle their differences before an infinite number of youth of many nations had to suffer.

G) From page 316:

I have often thought that these three men, Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt, in their very different ways, were extraordinarily good people to have been thrown together to achieve success in this war. All of them, without any question, led their people and gave so unstintingly of their own strength that they inspired confidence and respect.