NEW YORK, Wednesday—I caught the 8:50 plane with my son, Franklin, Jr., and several of his co-workers and friends yesterday morning for Washington. I tried to get by the photographers and reporters unnoticed, because I think there is nothing worse than to feel that someone is watching you when you are being asked all kinds of questions. They certainly were prepared to ask Franklin every possible question they could think up. We did have some pictures taken together as we got on the plane and then we had a very smooth and pleasant trip to Washington.

We went to Franklin's hotel for a few minutes and then straight to the office of Congressman Walter Lynch of the Bronx, who presented Franklin when he took his oath. We went in also to see the Majority Leader John W. McCormack who, in Speaker Rayburn's absence, administered the oath.

To our surprise and pleasure Mr. and Mrs. Charles Poletti joined us as we were walking over to the Capitol. They are back from Geneva, Switzerland, for a month, and Mr. Poletti came down as a senior member of the law firm to see one of the junior partners sworn in as Congressman.

I have never found it easy to make my way around the Capitol. There was no trouble this time, though, as we were ushered into the executive gallery so that we could see everything. There were very few people on the floor so it was quite easy to see Representative Lynch and Franklin coming in and to hear Mr. McCormack administer the oath. The little ceremony is always impressive and I am sorry that it has to be done afterwards in a perfunctory fashion for the photographers in the Speaker's office. But they cannot, of course, take any photographs in the chamber itself.

It was all over by 12 o'clock exactly. The reason for the lack of members on the floor, I imagine, is that most of the work at present is done in committees, which must be a disappointment to the galleries. There are so many sightseers in Washington the galleries were filled, and they joined in the round of applause that greeted Franklin, Jr., as a full-fledged Congressman.

I was reminded of the numbers of times that I have seen my husband take the oath, but neither Franklin, Jr., nor I could remember anyone in the family who has before this been elected to Congress. I feel sure, though, there must have been some of our large family group in the legislative branch of the government at some time.

Monday night I saw a very good play called "Detective Story." Both Ralph Bellamy and Anne Burr are excellent and in fact the whole cast is good. On the whole, it provides one with an exciting evening.

I got back to the Human Rights Commission at Lake Success by 3:30 Tuesday afternoon and found the argument on Article Four still going on, so no vote was lost by my absence. We finally took the vote, but I was too optimistic when I hoped we would be through with both Part One and Part Three of the Covenant by Tuesday evening. We will be lucky if we are through by tonight. There are several articles that have to be passed in Part Three of the Covenant before we can turn our attention to the new articles that have been presented and which should have some discussion before being passed on to the governments.