My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt

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NEW YORK, Sunday—I went back to the country on Friday afternoon in time to greet some friends who were coming to spend the weekend. Dining on the porch was a pleasant relief after the heat of New York. Everything in my New York apartment is more or less upside down, for the packers are coming on Monday to move my belongings to my new little apartment on East 62nd Street.

I have been in the Park Sheraton Hotel so long that I hated to tear myself away, but I think it will be better to have a little place where I can keep house and have my dogs in New York with me. I have a little garden, which should make a pleasant difference, and being over on the East Side will make it easier to get to my AAUN office in the Carnegie Endowment Building on East 46th Street, opposite the U.N.

Traffic becomes a consideration nowadays in New York, with crosstown traffic especially bad. I think one wastes more time being stuck in taxicabs than in doing what one has to do. Yet even the subways will not always get you where you want to go, and in warm weather I don't always pine to walk as I might do in the colder seasons.

On Thursday night I took my niece and a young friend to see "Porgy and Bess." I have seen it a number of times and always enjoyed it very much. The program lists several alternate singers for the roles of Porgy and of Bess, so I don't know who was actually on the stage Thursday night. In any case, the whole cast is a highly satisfactory one and gave a very good performance.

A correspondent called my attention the other day to an article by Senator Paul H. Douglas of Illinois in the Atlantic Monthly for August, called "What It Costs To Run." The Senator proves that it would save the taxpayers money if the government paid the campaign expenses of the candidates of the two major parties. He shows that when these expenses are contributed by individuals or corporations, some "quid pro quo" is usually forthcoming. That costs the taxpayers more, because it takes the form of paying contributors by granting them contracts, privileges and subsidies, and sometimes even legislation is passed to satisfy their wishes.

I think there is another reason besides the cost which should be considered. It would be much fairer if both parties consumed the same amount of time on the air and the same amount for travel or any other type of campaign activity. Then the challenge would be to use this to the best advantage, while both sides would actually have a much fairer chance to get out information to the public.