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43 South Jersey Children See Mrs. Roosevelt at Airport Here
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 s 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.
| Reunion of Notables at Central Airport |
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Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt (left) is pictured here at Central Airport with an old friend, Mrs. Ruth
Bryan Owen Rohde, and her husband, Capt. Boerge Rohde when they met unexpectedly as
passengers on a Washington-bound plane of the American Airlines. Mrs. Rohde, former minister to
Denmark and Florida congresswoman, and the First Lady chatted for a few minutes and, after posing
for cameramen, were escorted to the plane. Some 40 Mt. Holly school children unexpectedly met
Mrs. Roosevelt at the airport. |
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