America’s “First Lady”

Manawatu Times, Volume 68, Issue 205, 30 August 1943, Page 4

America’s “First Lady”

; New Zealand has welcomed to its shores for an all too brief visit America’s “First Lady,” to give Mrs. Eleanor lioosevelt the title customarily if unofficially applied to a President’s wife. In the case of our, visitor, however, her distinction derives not alone from the high office of her husband. Mrs. Roosevelt is a great personality in her own right. She is a feminist world figure, forceful, energetic, observant, reflective and outspoken. Her activities in America have at times caused something approaching consternat.on in conservative and official circles where it was thought really not right for a President’s wife to comment so outspokenly in interviews and articles.—sometimes on most controversial matters. However, Mrs. Roosevelt continued to go her own way and is one c.f the most widely read of American columnists.

Very probably New Zealand will be later the subject of comment by Amer.ca’s “First Lady” when she returns to her own land, the effect of which will be to make this little known land much more widely known m the world’s greatest democracy.

Whilst the visit is mainly concerned, and naturally so, with seeing how American servicemen are faring in the Pacific, Mrs. Roosevelt is keenly interested to see how New Zealand women are contributing to the war effort. Our country may not he able to show women at work in shipyards or on tramways maintenance, but in factories and on farms, and also in voluntary good works, theirs is a worthy contribution of which we may well feel proucl.