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Remarks at the Ceremony Marking the Issuance of the Eleanor Roosevelt Commemorative Stamp

October 11, 1963

Mr. Postmaster, Governor Stevenson, members of Mrs. Roosevelt's family, ladies and gentlemen:

It is a great pleasure to welcome you to this home where Mrs. Roosevelt lived longer than any other First Lady and take part in this ceremony commemorating the issuance of this stamp.

As the Postmaster General said, this is Mrs. Roosevelt's 79th birthday. In the time I have been here, she visited the White House on five or six occasions and on each of those occasions her visit was connected with some phase of her horizon-wide interest in life and in people. Each visit was connected with a different cause and each cause that was important to our country and to the world.

The things for which Mrs. Roosevelt stood are clearly identifiable and they represent the best of our national effort and purpose. So this stamp, as the Postmaster General said, will go into millions of homes, _people who have very intimate recollection of Mrs. Roosevelt during the most difficult flays of this country's experience in this century, and I think will serve as a reminder to all of us.

In addition, Ambassador Stevenson's presence here reminds us of the work which the Eleanor Roosevelt Foundation is doing, the fundraising campaign which is involved, which deserves the support of all of our fellow citizens, because in that way we will be able to make more real and more present the work which she engaged in in her life.

So I welcome all of you today, particularly the Roosevelt family, and her grandson who is here with us. And I would like to have Governor Stevenson say a few words about what we are attempting to do in the field of bringing Mrs. Roosevelt's work back and maintaining it.

Governor Stevenson: Mr. President, Mr. Postmaster, and distinguished guests: This ceremony, marking the issuance of the new commemorative stamp in honor of Eleanor Roosevelt, is, we believe, a fitting tribute to a remarkable woman who has become a symbol of man's humanity to man throughout the world. Her candor, her simplicity, her practicality, her gentleness and her selflessness, and her utter dedication to social justice and to human welfare built a vision of nobility and of integrity to which the whole world responded.

Now she is gone, but her work remains. I am happy to report to you, Mr. President, that the Eleanor Roosevelt Memorial Foundation in whose program and purposes you have been so personally interested and personally active, is fulfilling some of the unfinished tasks bequeathed to us by Eleanor Roosevelt. But the major focus of our program will, of course, be in the field of human rights with which she was so long identified and where the useful and the necessary work to be done will be limited only by the funds that we can raise to do it.

This ceremony this morning marks the beginning of the Eleanor Roosevelt Memorial Month which ends on November 7, the first anniversary of her death. Governors in many States have issued proclamations and many countries throughout the world are also issuing commemorative stamps in honor of this lady who is the most deeply beloved and the most widely respected woman of her time. Her memory will endure and, Mr. President, her work must go on. It is to that that the Eleanor Roosevelt Foundation is dedicated. Thank you, sir.

Note: The President spoke at 10 a.m. in the Flower Garden at the White House. In his opening words he referred to Postmaster General John A. Gronouski, and to Adlai E. Stevenson, U.S. Representative to the United Nations, former Governor of Illinois, and Chairman of the Eleanor Roosevelt Memorial Foundation. The President later referred to Mrs. Roosevelt's grandson, Hall Delano Roosevelt, son of U.S. Representative James Roosevelt of California.

Other members of Mrs. Roosevelt's family attending the ceremony were her daughter, Anna Roosevelt Halstead; her son Elliott and his wife; and her grandson, Franklin D. Roosevelt 3d, and his wife. Also attending were Mrs. Kermit Roosevelt and her son Kermit, Jr., daughter-in-law and grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt.

The text of the remarks of the Postmaster General, who introduced the President and later presented albums and sheets of the new stamps to the members of the Roosevelt family and offer guests, and those of Representative Roosevelt, who spoke briefly after the presentation, was also released.

John F. Kennedy, Remarks at the Ceremony Marking the Issuance of the Eleanor Roosevelt Commemorative Stamp Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/236325

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