NEW YORK, Thursday—I had a very pleasant luncheon yesterday with the wives of the members of the 73rd Congress, who came to Washington in 1933 when we did. Then I received some two hundred members of the Daughters of Patriots and Founders at the White House. After that I took the plane to New York City.

Last evening I spoke at the dinner given by the New York City Board of Education to hear the conclusions of months of hard work and innumerable reports, made by groups of doctors and educators on the care and education of handicapped children. It is a study made in New York City, but of value to the whole country.

Changes have come about in medical care, more knowledge is now at hand and certain new techniques must be developed in order to give handicapped children the best possible opportunity for education and future usefulness in life. I hope many people will read this report, since we have, I believe, some six million handicapped children in the country.

And now for more of Dame Rachel Crowdy's letter:

"I cannot pretend for a moment that we are all of us feeling very brave, but people are carrying on believing that anything is better than the Hitler regime, and determined not to give in. I, personally, feel very much like the old lady who wrote here the other day: 'I am ninety. I cannot say that I and my elderly invalid sister are not nervous when the siren goes. We are, but we both agree that it is most important that Hitler should not be told this.'

"My old aunt, who had her nintieth birthday during a very bad raid the other night, said she felt Hitler must have known it was her birthday to give her such a clapping (I, for one, hate raids, in spite of France and the last war.)

"I wonder if you saw our last George Medal List for Bravery. It began with a small boy of fourteen, who had worked all through the Coventry raid helping to get people out of burning buildings, and ended with an old lady of 94, who had quietly put out the incendiary bombs and had then gone back into the house, saying nothing to anyone 'and so to bed!'

"Some kinds of food are hard to get now, but no one seems to go hungry. It is mainly the extras that we have to do without. As you know, I cannot very well compare this war with the last, since I was in France all the time, living on army rations. I am told that the shortage is nothing like it was in the winter of 1917.

“Last week I was at the English-Speaking Union when the Queen came to see the clothing sent from America for the evacuee and shelter children. We all felt that these met a real need.”