43 South Jersey Children See Mrs. Roosevelt at Airport Here


Camden Courier-Post – Feburary 12, 1938

First Lady Boards Plane After Philadelphia Speech As Mt. Holly Pupils on Inspection Tour Greet Her; Chats with Teachers

Forty-three Mt. Holly school children got an unexpected thrill yesterday when they arrived for an inspection tour of Central Airport just before the First Lady of the nation enplaned for Washington, after a speaking engagement in Philadelphia Thursday night.

During the few minutes that elapsed before her plane took off at 10.55 a. m., Mrs. Roosevelt greeted the children-pupils in the kindergarten and first grade of Samuel Miller School-and chatted with their teachers, Miss Ruth Kaelin and Mrs. Mildred Haler.

Mrs. Roosevelt was a bit surprised herself to learn that one of her oldest friends was to be another passenger on the American Air Lines plane, Mrs. Ruth Bryan Owen Rohde, former minister to Denmark and onetime Florida congresswoman.

With her husband, Captain Boerge Rohde, she was enroute to Washington for a visit.

Officials of the airline rearranged the seating schedule so that Mrs. Roosevelt could sit with the couple.

The President’s wife reached the airport about 10.40 a. m. and was driven there by Mrs. Curtin Winsor, formerly Mrs. Elliott Roosevelt, of Rosemont, Pa.

The nation has “come a long way” since Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation 75 years ago but economic inequalities make virtual slaves of many today, Mrs. Roosevelt told the National Negro Congress in Philadelphia.

“We are getting to a point where we are going to insist that all human beings have certain basic rights in modern civilization-that all should be equal before the law, that there should be no discrimination in citizenship rights, and that all should have the same opportunities for economic and educational activities,” she said.

Five thousand Negroes jammed Tindley Temple Methodist Church to hear Mrs. Roosevelt speak at the assembly in honor of the seventy-fifth anniversary of Lincoln’s proclamation that declared the slaves free, and another 3000 crowded around the doors outside.

“This thing of getting for all human beings a fair and just hearing in the world and a fair and just treatment, is not easy,” the First Lady said. “We have gone on for years in a world where special privilege, selfishness and greed predominated, when it was all right to do things if you could get away with it.

“But now, the conscience of the people is being aroused.”

Mrs. Roosevelt told the congress that economic inequalities touch “your race very closely,” and that all communities must realize that poverty in one group affects all others.

“It is not only people of one race who are slaves,” she said. “Slavery is of many different kinds. Today we are facing another era, in which we have to make certain things become facts, rather than theories.

“There must be no discrimination in opportunities to have equal rights under the social economic standards throughout the nation.”

Mrs. Roosevelt scoffed at efforts of certain organizations to prevent teaching the nation’s youth about communism, Fascism and other “isms.”

“We’ve got to let our young people know what’s going on elsewhere,” she said. “They must be able to meet these adversities with knowledge.”

The First Lady was a dinner guest at the Rosemont home of Mrs. Winsor, divorced wife of Elliott Roosevelt who married again recently. Winsor and Mrs. Roosevelt’s 5-year-old grandson, William Donner Roosevelt, met her at the train when she arrived in Philadelphia Thursday.