Montana labor news., 1939-06-29
Address Given By Mrs.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Continued from Page AZ

01iiNfS tiAoh SAob AZ ~ IA
that our youth organizations are
doing. l think they are helping
young people to feel that they are
useful and that they can think about
the problems and try to help solve
them.
Youth problems cannot be sep
arated from the problems of older
people. We are all tied up together
and when we have economic prob
lens they affect every age, and you
cannot separate any group and say
this little group can suffer all by
itself. That doesn't work.
But, | do think that we want to
think very seriously what we want
democracy to mean. First of all,
liberty and then the chance for
everybody to work for a decent
living. Those are the two important
things.
Now, l happen to believe that
everyone of our citizens would pre-
fer to work for his living than to
be supported by anybody else. That
isn't the belief of everybody and
you know that it is sometimes said
that because there are people who
either cannot support themselves or
do not wish to support themselves,
that, therefore, some people believe
we are piling up forever a debt
which our grandchildren will have
to carry. Well, l have a curious
theory about that. have a theory
that we pile up debts we many of
us don't realize, ! am not an econo-
mist; | am not a business man; but
what l know is that we are piling
up debts today which our children
will carry.
One of them is under-fed children.
That is a debt you will pay for all
right in tuberculosis hospitals, in
prisons, in insane asylums. There
is an awful lot that we are paying
for today that none of us really
think about and l think we don't
think about it because so many of
us don't know our country as a
whole. We know little groups and
spots. We don't know the whole.
Now, we need today-because we
can know our country as a whole,
we don't have to travel everywhere.
There are plenty of ways, if we
really want to, that we can know
the truth about our country as a
whole. The movies can tell us; the
radio can tell us; the newspapers
and magazines can tell us; and for
that reason there is no excuse why
we don't know.
And, I think we want to take stock
of all our debts. l don't want to
insist on piling up debts, even
financial debts; but, / am far more
concerned about the other things
that we have been piling up for a
long while, and l think we should
face them. l think we should realize
that we have reached a point in his
tory where we have to take stock
of what civilization has brought us
Perhaps we have to do different
things from what we have ever done
before, to meet the developments
of machinery for one thing.
All right, l am perfectly willing
to face that fact and to try and gel
the best brains in the country to
think out new ways by which we
meet new conditions of civilization
But, I think we ought to face, too,
things which we lever have faced
that is that every part of our coun-
try where there are sore spots
where children are growing ur
under-privileged in any way-I hate
the word under-privileged-but I'M
derfed, without a chance for educa-
ton and recreation-where they are
not having a chance to grow up ano
be real citizens of a democracy
because democracy can't work I'm.
less every single citizen is working
to make it succeed. 1t is the only
form of government which is de-
pendent for success on what each
individual does, and for that reason
it is tremendously important thai
our young people and we, ourselves
work for democracy, because we see
in it the opportunity to achieve the
kind of life and the kind of govern.
ment that we are willing to live fol
as well as to die for, to live for {
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