Letter from Eleanor Roosevelt to Harry S. Truman

APARTMENT 15-A " WAPIONATON SQUARE werr NEW YORK any " May 27, 1946 Dear Mr. President: I was immensely impressed by your speech before the Congress, and I realize what very great burdens these last few weeks have put upon you. My admiration is great for the way in which you have acted in the public interest and ignored the political considerations. You will forgive me, I hope, if I. say that I hope you realize that there musty be any slip, because of the difficulties of our peace-time situation, into a military way of thinking, which 18 not natural to us as a people. I his have now military and seen then, my advisers husband but the receive people and succumb much as a whole advice to it do every from not like it even in war time, and in peace time military domination goes against the grain. I hope now that your anxiety is somewhat lessened, you will not insist upon a peace time draft into the army of strikers. That seems to me a dangerous precedent. I am also a little bit troubled over the re- organization of the Labor Department which will divide some of the functions of the Chil- drens Bureau. Many of us who worked for the establishment of the Childrens Bureau are deeply concerned that in this re-organization it should at least become more efficient and not less efficient. I know the various arguments because in previous plans for reorganization, Mr. Suith of the Búdget Bureau, = husband and various others, discussed these questions at length. I think it 1s logical to move it under Socid Security and I hope that it will remain with Miss Lenroot who has shown her capacity and ability to run it successfully, intact enough so that the main operations go on and perhaps only such things as deal directly with labor are taken away. I hope you have $alked the whole thing over with Miss Lenroot and with some of the other people in her depart- ment who have worked for a long while on these questions. xPP7200 0/25/46 Pro R