December 16, 1946 Bonnie Just Wants to Write, Applying for a Telephone and More Nylons

Dear Mother & Daddy,

"This is Sunday night.  B is studying the road maps and I just thought I'd like to write to you.  Everything is fine and we hope we'll be over half way home by this time next week.

We spent yesterday in Hartford and finished our Christmas shopping.  It was awfully cold and the stores were just packed.  Then last night we went to Swann's for supper and had a real nice time.  I was certainly glad I didn't have to come home and cook because we were both tired. 

I guess you know that B's Dad had an intestinal operation.  Horace called us Friday night to tell us about it.  The telephone downstairs is 7860-R2.  We use it anytime we want to but hope to have one of our own in April--that is when they said we could get one.  They (the telephone company) sent us an application blank to fill out some time ago.

I hope you will be all moved and straightened up when you get this.  Even if the house is little you know it is only a temporary home and before you know it you'll have found a place of your own.  Don't worry about it and it will come out right one of these days.  It won't matter if you aren't all straightened up when we get there.  After we get our stuff scattered around it wouldn't look straight anyway.  So just rest and we'll have fun.

I'm bringing some nylons but am wondering what you do with all of them.  Ha!"

                Lots of love,

                      B & Bonnie

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NOTE from Ann:  Eleanor Roosevelt's My Day entry for Dec. 16, 1946 sounds familiar.

NEW YORK, Sunday—"I was shocked the other day to read of the attack on Surgeon General Thomas Parran by the American Medical Association. The Surgeon General of the U. S. Public Health Service, it seems to me, has a perfect right to advocate the President's health program if he approves of it. Health is not a thing based on partisan politics, and public health should not be regarded, either by officials in Washington or by doctors, as a political football.

There are differences today within the medical profession as to how more medical care shall be made available to the average individual with a small income. As far as I know, there are a considerable number of cooperative hospital plans and a growing number of medical plans on an insurance or cooperative basis.

The American Medical Association, for reasons best known to its own leaders, but which sometimes seem somewhat selfish to the layman, has decided to oppose most of these plans and it dislikes particularly the Wagner-Murray-Dingle bill. I am only a layman and I don't imagine that this bill is the last word, or the best health program that will ever be developed. But it is a step in the right direction—and we seem to forget that democracy functions by taking one step at a time. As more people become convinced of the value of something, it becomes more universally accepted. Democracies move slowly because they envision the approval of a majority for any new policy, and that means much education of many individuals.

I believe medical men, above any other group in this country, should refrain from attacking as good a public servant as Dr. Parran has proved himself to be just because they happen to differ on methods by which medical care shall be provided for a great number of people. No one denies the existence of the need, and we can argue out the methods without feeling that people advocating any particular methods have no right to their point of view. The majority will decide in the long run."

Also in the news on this day, the UN General Assembly adjourns.  See brief newsreel footage here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7F6hpubam8