…At 12:30 [May 22]we landed in Tokyo, coming in over the Islands and circling the city. From the airport, it is a long drive through drab streets, poor houses, poor shops. The type of approach you find in so many of our own cities in the U.S. Nowhere in the world do we seem to plan an attractive drive in from our airports.

Finally we reached downtown Tokyo and our hotel [the Imperial Hotel, designed by American Frank Lloyd Wright]. A charming sitting room with a little balcony with green trees to shade us made me hope it may be possible to have breakfast on the balcony in the mornings…

…As I walked into the hotel the first person I saw was Miss Marian Anderson [world famous African American contralto] who has been touring Japan and they tell me has had a great success. She sings here tonight and we are going to hear her which, for me, is a great pleasure.

Two hours after my arrival I held a press conference and I should record that I never in the U.S. saw as many photographers as greeted the plane on our arrival here. I am told that Mr. Stevenson [Adlai Stevenson, governor of Illinois and Democratic presidential candidate, 1952] said “This was a photographic dictatorship” and I think it probably is true, judging by their numbers.

Perhaps my readers would be interested in a description of a Japanese house. In the first place, Japanese people slip off their shoes before entering a house. A medium sized simple house would have a little entry way where you would leave your shoes and step up onto the floor usually covered with matting of the main living room. This room is apt to have a little shrine in it. It may be Buddhist and Shinto combined and it frequently has the picture of the head of the family who has most recently died in the shrine since this is part of their ancestor worship. There are usually shelves behind sliding doors. The rooms are divided by sliding screens and the windows slide open and shut with screens over them very often. A living room may of course be used at night for sleeping purposes if it is necessary to do so. Since the habit is to sleep on heavy mats on the floor, these mats are rolled up in the daytime and put on shelves. If you do not use western dress, your clothes, such as kimonos, are placed flat on the shelves.

This house we have entered will have a second room the same size as the first, divided by sliding panels from the first and usually the whole family sleeps together in one room. Each one spreads out a mat on the floor and gets out his own covering, usually quilted cotton. The Japanese are personally very clean people and they have in each house a little Japanese bath. That is a type of tub which can be filled with water and under which a charcoal fire is built to heat it until it is really very hot. You are supposed to soap yourself thoroughly and get thoroughly clean before you get into the tub which is used by all of the family, following each other according to age….there is a little passage way leading to a Japanese toilet. This is usually a sanitary toilet because in too many places they need this for manure. It is just a little sunken toilet level with the floor…

Tokyo, May 26

…One of the things that strikes me in the streets is how many women wear western clothes. Japanese clothes stand out because they are less frequently seen! This is probably so only in Tokyo which is the capital where so many foreigners are constantly present…

Tokyo, May 27

…It was raining but in spite of that the beauty of the mountains could not be obscured. For the most part they are heavily wooded and where trees have been cut down the forestry service, which was established some fifty years ago, is now replanting evergreens as rapidly as possible.

The road up the mountain is barely wide enough for two cars to pass with deep gutters on either side as if your eye is not good you will land in a gutter and I fully expected to find a number of cars obstructing our way which had slid off but nothing of the kind! Somehow the biggest vehicles you have ever seen seem to manage to get by. Deep canyons with rushing streams at the bottom and a number of Japanese [inns] and hotels for foreigners are hidden on the hillsides and all of them have hot springs and people come there to take these hot baths.

All along the road it seemed to me one little village followed another. There is only room enough for one house on each side of the road so the front is a shop and the back and the second story are the living quarters. The vegetable markets fill me with the greatest interest for they grow white radishes a foot long and carrots two feet long. The average farmer cultivates from one and a half to three acres of land and he cultivates intensely whether it is a rice paddy, a wheat field or a vegetable garden…

For one brief time on Sunday morning the clouds lifted on the top of Fuji and a most beautiful sight emerged—a snow capped symmetrical cone with clouds around its base, then we drove to the other side of the mountain to look at the lake that is nestled in the hills. The clouds lifted again and we got a view of the lake with its little excursion steamer just leaving from the dock and as we came down the mountain the clouds cleared and we had some lovely views.

On the way home we stopped at Princess Chichibu’s house. Her husband [Prince Chichibu, next oldest brother to Emperor Hirohito] had died a few months ago and she and her mother have moved to a little house nearer Tokyo…

Princess Chichibu whom we visited yesterday [May 24] went to the Friends School in Washington while her father and mother, Ambassador and Mrs. Matsudaira, were stationed in Washington [mid-1920s]. It has evidently been possible for the Princess to be in closer touch with the people of Japan than is a possibility for the rest of the Royal Family.

Her husband was ill for many years and they had had a farm apparently at the foot of Mt. Fuji. She came to know many of the farmers around, and the people of Japan had a great admiration for the care and devotion she lavished on her husband during his illness. As a result I was told when her husband died she received more than 5000 letters of condolence. She moved to a little house nearer Tokyo with a very small garden. Nevertheless she served us with strawberries which she had grown herself and she showed us her strawberry patch and explained that here one can have strawberries all the year around…

She talked to me about the development of Girl Guides which is the equivalent to the Girl Scouts and also of the Four H Clubs which were established during the Occupation and which she feels will do much for the young people on the farm.

We were served black tea, English fashion first, dainty sandwiches and cakes, then a dish of strawberries with whipped cream. Later everyone was given a bowl of green Japanese tea and it was explained to me that that was always given to every guest even when they were making a business call…

I visited our military hospital this morning [May 25] and had the good luck to see the Commanding General for his area, Maj. General William Shambora. He told me first what their arrangements were for U.S. troops. There are three different hospitals and, according to their needs, the men who have to be sent out of Korea are sent to one of these three. Surgical cases, neurosurgery in particular, eyes, burns, etc., come to the one I visited this morning which has a highly competent staff. I had so little time that they had arranged to let me speak with certain patients whom they had picked…

From noon until three o’clock, Monday, I had a most interesting meeting at the Ministry of Labor, during which some of the women and men who head such bureaus as Women in Industry, Improvement of Rural Life, Child Welfare, Conditions of Labor for Minors, reported on their work. Much of what is set up here bears the stamp of American organization but since it has been more or less imposed betting it actually to work and fit into Japanese conditions must have quite a complicated problem…

There was a long discussion on the subject of children of mixed blood and on prostitutes. These age-old problems come to light wherever there are armies of occupation and are never easy of solution.

On the way from the Ministry a group of Communist women, led by an American who is married to a Japanese [Hannah Fujikura] and who looks high strung almost to the point of fanaticism, were waiting for me, crying “Go home to America. We women who want through the war do not want any more war.” The obvious answer was, of course, that neither did I want war. But it is groups such as this which are keeping the fear of war constantly before the people of the free world.

On Monday morning, May 25, Roosevelt had attended a meeting of the Tokyo Women’s Club, and in the afternoon received visitors at her hotel, including two young women who were running a small school to teach English to foreign children. One of them was Matsukata Haru, future wife of Prof. Edwin O. Reischauer of Harvard University and President Kennedy’s choice in 1961 for Ambassador to Japan. In the evening, she made two recordings for radio broadcast and joined a discussion on “Japanese ideas and beliefs.”

Our discussion centered about the attitude of young people in Japan toward their elders and the attitude of the elders toward the young people. There is more than the usual criticism between the two groups and at the present time it is increased by the fact that the children feel their elders told them Japan could not lose the war. Then Japan was defeated. The Emperor was a man, and not a god, and the young people became cynical and disillusioned.

We touched on other things, the age-old question of prostitution which in the Far East is a serious question with an Army of Occupation and the economic condition which creates such low standards of living for so many people. Just to eat is a major consideration. We touched also on the question which we in the U.S. should be fairly familiar with—“Can you fight Communism without using some authoritarian or totalitarian measures; is it possible to preserve democratic ideals and suppress Communism in any country?”

Someone should ask Senator McCarthy [Joseph McCarthy, a Republican from Wisconsin who is famous for his Communist "witch hunts" in the early 1950s] about these questions. His goings-on are being carefully watched over here and the young people particularly are asking a number of questions about him. So even here one has to think about the gentleman, much though one would like to leave him at home.

On Tuesday morning [May 26] I started bright and early at a quarter before nine to visit a silk factory about three-quarters of an hour’s drive outside of Tokyo. This is one of the big and excellent silk factories. They have growers of the silk worms on farms in various parts of the country and control the process from beginning to end. Two thirds of the factory workers are women and one third men. They live in dormitories at the factory and eat there. They pay for this about one third of their monthly salary which means that they only provide clothes for themselves and are able to send a considerable amount home.

Nylon has made a great difference in the silk industry plus mechanization. The net result is that some fifty thousand workers have been put out of work and even more may go since silk hosiery is no longer desired by the ladies.

It is always curious to find how the habits of one part of the world affect the economic situation of the people in other parts of the world.

Here we are again with our minds turned to Memorial Day. I am sure everyone hoped as I did that when we reached this Memorial Day there would be peace in Korea and the promise of peace in the world as a whole, but tensions have not appreciably lessened. There is still war going on and young lives are still being sacrificed. As we decorate the graves of those who have died for their country in the years gone by, the hearts of many of us will be heavy because of sons in Korea. Wives will be anxious for their husbands, sisters for their brothers, girls for their lovers. No one wants war and yet war goes on. Why is it human beings are so helpless to control their own destinies?

For years now I have been saying that we must keep our military strength up because only by doing so did there seem any prospect of preventing the Soviet Union from carrying through its determination to Communize the world. We have seen the Soviet take over Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, and Albania in Europe because of its superior military strength and its promises of economic aid. It looked as though only force could keep the Soviets from spreading even further than China in the Asiatic area.

We and the UN have prevented their spreading further but at great cost and sometimes one wonders whether it is costing all of us in the free world more than it costs the Communist world. It looks to me as though we were holding the Soviets at bay without our military and economic strength but we had not really found a way to meet and conquer the ideas which they promulgate. I wonder if on this Memorial Day when we think over our past and honor the men who have died for their country, we should not think more seriously about how to promote the ideas in the world which will make it possible for men to live at peace, to work in peaceful fashion within their own lands for the betterment and the well-being of their people according to the ways which these particular people believe in. If governments would stop trying to put over their ideas of how people should live and be governed, the people themselves could be trusted, if free intercourse were allowed them in every way, to decide whether certain things were bad or good in various countries. It would take time, it would take an increasing exchange of students and workers and intellectuals and industrialists but in the long run, if intercourse was free, some ideas might appeal to the majorities in different countries and they might adopt them, but we would not have to go to war about them.

It is to finding some methods by which we could live peacefully without the constant tension and bloodshed which we now have, that I would like to see us pledge ourselves in the next year.

Every country is proud of its heroes and it is well to remember them on Memorial Day but it is well to ponder whether we need a different type of heroism in a new and changing world. Perhaps we should consecrate ourselves to a search for new ways to peace as well as to think of those who have given their lives for their country in war.

…I see many babies carried around on their mother’s back even till the time they are fairly big children, and these little women seem to have strong backs. Today, however, I saw some baby carriages so it is not really obligatory to carry your baby on your back. As more and more women seem to be giving up Japanese costumes, it will be more difficult to carry the babies around in this way.

On Tuesday [May 26] we were taken from General Clark’s [General Mark Clark, Commander in Chief, United Nations Command, and Commanding General, U.S. Army Forces in the Far East] luncheon to the Tokyo Women’s Christian College. Here I made my first translated speech on women’s position in the world today and their responsibility. I think it is most tiring having to remember to stop before you have said too much and have it translated and keeping your mind on what you have said so that you will not lose the thread of your speech while someone, in a language you don’t understand, interprets you to the audience. I apparently got through fairly successfully but I was worried about it…

The questions were pointed: “Why did we use the Atom bomb and what my feeling about it?” “Did the people of the US understand how the young people of Japan dislike rearmament and that they have to change their constitution which was adopted at our request, in order to rearm? In that statue they renounced war for ever;” “Why do we want them to change now, etc,etc.”…

Early Wednesday morning [May 27] I went out to the new International Christian University. The freshman class which I addressed is the first class to enter the university, which was established through the subscriptions of a great number of Japanese people. It is not Christians alone who are backing this but people of every religion.

After the talk there were questions and very good questions, for this university has set very high standards and feels that the cream of the high school graduates from all over Japan can be found here. One question came from a Korean boy, and they hope in the future to have students of many nationalities.

It is some distance out of the center of Tokyo and I enjoyed the drive and getting a glimpse of the countryside. As usual we went for miles through streets which are lined with small shops which seem endless in Tokyo. As one grows accustomed to the city, one realizes more and more how much damage was done by bombing and how much as had to be rebuilt, often very flimsily. It takes courage and industry to clean a bombed city and rebuild and go on with the business.

In preparation for the morning session at the University the other day where I was to talk on human rights, I read the Japanese constitution. There is much in that constitution that requires interpretation and I wonder how the people interpreted it here and how it is interpreted by our government at home. I am told here that the English document is the original document and the Japanese translation is not identical with the original so some of the people are insisting that they accepted the original and not the form of the Japanese translation. What did we accept I wonder?

I might be said that we did not have to accept the Japanese Constitution but we had a good deal to do with the writing of it and with the acceptance by the Japanese people, so we should know something about it, it seems to me, and have some conception of what it meant to persuade the people as a whole to accept it and now persuade them to change! This is one of the burning questions among students and the labor movement as a whole.

At three o’clock on Wednesday [May 27] I spoke on Human Rights before a large packed auditorium where there must have been four or five thousand people. Again this was a speech translated paragraph by paragraph and I marveled at the attention of the audience and their patience. There was little moving about and they listened to the end and I had a warm greeting from those who were lined up outside waiting for me as I left.

I have been astonished at the excitement evidently created in the N.Y. papers by an incident which I hardly noticed here. We must be badly in need of news for them to make so much of so little. My only interest was in the fact that I had discovered another Anna Rosenberg to be sure with a Japanese name tagged on at the end. This communist leader must be the one who caused so much trouble many months ago…

They have an association to support ILO [International Labor Organization] and are doing a great deal to bring their standards in line with world standards and to get their government to sign conventions which raise labor conditions. . . . it is of great advantage to us when labor standards are below ours that they should be brought up, since it reduces the competition we have to face if at any time it seems advisable to lower the tariff barriers We realize if we really want “trade and not aid,” we cannot placidly put up our tariffs against the exchange of the world’s goods. . . They have an active group which has worked here in cooperation with the Children’s Emergency Fund and they are most grateful for the work that has been accomplished by the Fund.

After the war the health of the children was much impaired. In fact we were told in one Tokyo school they were a whole year behind in weight and general development. They have heard over here what happened to UNESCO in the schools of Los Angeles and what is going on in Texas and other parts of the US against the UN and they are bewildered. One of their leading men asked me to please explain these attitudes in the US. He prefaced his question by saying Japan hoped to be a member of the UN and to work with us and loyally support any stand we took, but they were bewildered when they heard of these occurrences in the US. In the light of the world leadership which is now ours it is a trifle difficult to explain some of our local attitudes.

At twelve o’clock Thursday [May 28] I spoke for the College Women’s Club at a delightful luncheon held in a club run at the UN and Far Eastern Command Headquarters. Women were there from many countries and a number of the Japanese women most of whom were graduated from American Colleges.

…At four o’clock we attended a round table conference at the National YWCA [Young Women’s Christian Association]. There will be forum later at the Tokyo YWCA, but this was a small meeting attended by really representative older women. I think I begin to understand some of the concerns of these Japanese women leaders. They gave me the history of the small group that had been interested and had fought for suffrage in this country. They told me of their social service efforts and the problems which were accentuated by the presence of an occupying army and even now are highlighted by the presence of the many American boys stationed at bases in Japan. Unfortunately, we do not train our youngsters carefully enough, before sending them throughout the world, to remember that they are not only soldiers but ambassadors representing all their own country stands for, and all that democracy means to the rest of the world.

These particular concerns, however, of the women have their roots also in age-old Asiatic customs and this problem is a joint problem which only cooperation between Japan and the US can possibly solve even in part.

Thursday evening the Japanese PM Mr. Yoshida [Yoshida Shigeru] kindly entertained us at a delightful dinner in his official residence. He was extremely cordial and asked if on my return from traveling around the country I would not try to come to his country home. I only hope there is time to do some of the many delightful things that we are asked to do. This is a hospitable country…

I have always thought that taxis drivers were most well informed and could find their way everywhere but Tokyo is a strange city. It spreads out like Los Angeles in every direction. Since it is the third largest city in the world and there are not many tall buildings, it covers a great deal of territory. The Imperial Palace surrounded by a broad moat covers a good deal of ground right in the center of the city, but streets are not clearly marked and there seems to be little or no pattern to know which alley ways are apt to lead you to people’s houses.

The Occupation put signs on the streets but you have to include Japanese signs when there were any and the result is that no one goes anywhere except by intuition.

Typescripts of draft columns, with corrections in Roosevelt’s handwriting, and final typescripts; Eleanor Roosevelt Collection, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library and Museum, Hyde Park, New York.