Hi David, Many thanks for reading this 1938 essay by Eleanor Roosevelt addressing war, it's causes, and the question of whether war is inevitable!
Was this really as far as Eleanor Roosevelt's thinking on the international situation had developed by 1938? I wonder. I agree that she sounds naïve, or maybe it's that she does not want to sound too pessimistic.
Deep down, what does she conclude?
"I wonder as I look around the world whether any of us, even we women, really want peace," she writes. She acknowledges that future wars will not spare civilian populations from the horrors of war:
"Gases and airplanes will not be directed only against armed forces, or military centers...that will mean shelling of unfortified cities town and village... In fact this means the participation of war of entire populations." She say that if international war cannot be stopped
"it is tantamount to acknowledging that we are going to watch our civilization wipe itself of the face of the earth." But her ultimate conclusion is deeply pessimistic--wars will not stop occurring until there
"is a fundamental change in human nature."
Roosevelt dedicated the essay to Carrie Chapman Catt (1859-1947), the founder of the League of Women Voters. A recent biography of Chapman Catt says this about Roosevelt's friend: After the horrors of World War I, she [Chapman Catt] organized the Committee on the Cause and Cure of War (1925). Concerned about Hitler’s growing power, she worked on behalf of German Jewish refugees and was awarded the American Hebrew Medal (1933)."
https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/carrie-chapman-catt
Eleanor Roosevelt makes no mention of Hitler, or conditions in Europe in her essay, which is why it seemed to me to veer off, at times, into platitudes.
Thank you very much for your contribution. It's well worth a listen! And PL OK!
