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Mrs. Roosevelt Cites Failures Of U.S. In Role Of World Leader

Mrs. Roosevelt Cites Failures Of U.S. In Role Of World Leader image
Parent Issue
Day
19
Month
November
Year
1958
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Copyright Protected
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Donated by the Ann Arbor News. © The Ann Arbor News.
OCR Text

Mrs. Roosevelt Cites Failures Of U.S. In Role Of World Leader

A near capacity Hill Auditorium audience last night heard Eleanor Roosevelt tell a dismal story of U.S. failures in its post-World War II role as leader of the non-Communist world.

Lack of understanding of other nations’ problems and a lack of desire to study the situation and get the job done were listed as factors of failure.

To Mrs. Roosevelt, who has traveled the world, there is a wave of desire for freedom sweeping the world. But while, to us, freedom may mean the right to worship as we wish and the right to free thought and speech, it may mean something as basic as the right to a meal to many deprived persons in other nations, she said.

This, Mrs. Roosevelt pointed out is where the Soviet Union is most forceful.

Russia Offers Promise

It offers promise of food and of better living conditions. It takes into its country thousands of persons from China, India and other nations to show them only the “best” of Russia, she explained.

The U.S., Mrs. Roosevelt then pointed out, is losing out, not only by a lack of understanding, but also because of its failure to use two prime weapons.

These were cited as work in the spiritual field and food.

Nearly all peoples worship God in one manner or another, Mrs. Roosevelt reminded, as she told of the values of religious aid as a weapon Russia can't touch.

Food Said Basic Weapon

Food is the basic material weapon that could halt Russia’s encroachment on the world, she said.

Mrs. Roosevelt said she was unable to understand why the U. S., the greatest food grower of all nations, should pay farmers to keep land out of production when two-thirds of the world’s occupants go to bed each night hungry.

The money, she said, would be well spent to find transportation means to carry surpluses abroad.

As Mrs. Roosevelt put it, world leadership means concrete aid which is geared to getting people to help themselves. This we can’t do, she reported, unless we know their problems. Backward nations need education — especially technical education — and we need education as well, said.

She Gives Maxim

Her maxim was “What is best for the world is best for us in the long run.”

This calls for a different type of thinking than the regional thoughts that occupied our minds during the pre-World War II years when this nation was devoted to the development of its own self, she emphasized.

To start with, Mrs. Roosevelt warned that we won’t stop Russia’s infiltration of other nations by pretending that the problem does not exist and that other nations, even though they have strong religious habits, won’t be swayed to the Communist dogma.

She questioned the sending of arms to Europe as a means of halting Russia, considering that these nations needed to be rebuilt from the ground up and considering also that such aid still could not stop a Russian attack.

Illustrates Subject

Mrs. Roosevelt illustrated her subject by descriptions of a famine in India, the nature of which few Americans can understand. Congress agreed to send wheat, only to debate for five months on where the money would come from for transportation. Russia, meanwhile, sent "a little wheat.” It was just a little, but starving India citizens could “hold it in their hands, eat it and know where it came from,” she said.

Mrs. Roosevelt said she understood the hardships facing this nation in world leadership, as she said “we didn't ask for it and didn’t want it. It was thrust upon us because we came out of the last war the strongest power in the world, both militarily and economically.”

Mrs. Roosevelt, who received a vigorous ovation closed with a plea for every citizen to share world leadership by learning to live in context with the whole world, rather than on a day-to-day regional basis.