Articles by Eleanor Roosevelt
Oct 16, 1943
"What do ten million women want in public life? That question could be answered in ten million different ways. For every woman, like every man, has some aspirations or desires exclusively her own. We women are callow fledglings as compared with the wise old birds who manipulate the political machinery, and we still hesitate to believe that a woman can fill certain positions in public life as competently and adequately as a man..."
Oct 16, 1943
"I want you to tell me about the particular problems which puzzle or sadden you, but I also want you to write me about what has brought joy into your life, and how you are adjusting yourself to the new conditions in this amazing changing world..."
Oct 16, 1943
"Women have been voting for ten years. But have they achieved actual political equality with men? No..."
Oct 16, 1943
"I am for Governor Smith, because of his astonishing knowledge of government, his power of clear, straight thinking, his intolerance of trickery and chicanery, his courage and unswerving honesty, but above all because he has a human heart and does not consider that success in the life of individual or nation can be measured by a bank balance or treasury credit..."
Oct 16, 1943
"It is man's ceaseless urge to know more and to do more which makes the world move, and so, when people say woman's place is in the home, I say, with enthusiasm, it certainly is, but if she really cares about her home, that caring will take her far and wide..."
Oct 16, 1943
"I personally have never formulated exactly what I would like to leave behind me. I am afraid I have been too busy living, accepting such opportunities as come my way and using them to the best of my ability, and the thought of what would come after has lain rather lightly in the back of my mind..."
Oct 16, 1943
"A Japanese is always a Japanese" is an easily accepted phrase and it has taken hold quite naturally on the West Coast because of some reasonable or unreasonable fear back of it, but it leads nowhere and solves nothing. Japanese-Americans may be no more Japanese than a German-American is German, or an Italian-American is Italian. All of these people, including the Japanese-Americans, have men who are fighting today for the preservation of the democratic way of life and the ideas around which our nation was built..."
Oct 16, 1943
"What about criticism? I am always being asked if it troubles me, or makes me angry, or hurts me. Should we be affected by criticism regardless of its source?..."
Oct 16, 1943
"When we permit religious prejudice to gain headway in our midst, when we allow one group of people to look down upon another, then we may for a short time bring hardship on some particular group of people, but the real hardship and the real wrong is done to democracy and to our nation as a whole. We are then breeding people who cannot live under a democratic form of government but must be controlled by force..."
Oct 16, 1943
"...as I travel through the country and meet people and see things that have happened to little people, I realize what it means to democracy to preserve our civil liberties. All through the years we have had to fight for civil liberty, and we know that there are times when the light grows rather dim, and every time that happens democracy is in danger..."
Oct 16, 1943
"The real importance of the Human Rights Commission which was created by the Economic and Social Council lies in the fact that throughout the world there are many people who do not enjoy the basic rights which have come to be accepted in many other parts of the world as inherent rights of all individuals, without which no one can live in dignity and freedom..."
Oct 16, 1943
"Over and over again, I have stressed the rights of every citizen: Equality before the law. Equality of education. Equality to hold a job according to his ability. Equality of participation through the ballot in the government. These are inherent rights in a democracy, and I do not see how we can fight this war and deny these rights to any citizen in our own land..."
Oct 16, 1943
"A nation must have leaders, men who have the power to see a little farther, to imagine a little better life than the present. But if this vision is to be fulfilled, it must also have a vast army of men and women capable of understanding and following these leaders intelligently..."
Oct 16, 1943
"I sometimes think that women have used their vote a little as a small child uses his first garden. He plants his seeds with great care, but instead of watering them and giving them constant care and attention, he forgets all about them, or else digs them up to see what they are doing..."
Oct 16, 1943
"There has been some curiosity as to why I am not knocking at the door of the members of my political party, who make up the slates for candidates for office, in order to obtain a nomination for some elective office..."
Oct 16, 1943
"So Henry Wallace is really going to head a third party and run for President in 1948! What strange things the desire to be President makes men do!..."
Oct 16, 1943
"The attainment of life and liberty required most of our energy in the past, so the pursuit of happiness and the consideration of the lives of human beings remained in the background. Now is the time to recognize the possibilities which lie before us in the taking up and developing of this part of our forefathers' vision..."
Oct 16, 1943
"It is generally conceded that in a world where material values seem to be dropping out of sight further and further day by day, there is a growing realization that something else is needed..."
Oct 16, 1943
"The role of the liberal today is a very difficult role, particularly in this country..."
Oct 16, 1943
"It was a bright and sunny day in a mining camp in West Virginia, and a relief worker was walking down between two rows of houses, talking to a stranger as she went..."