WASHINGTON, Tuesday—My hope that spring was with us is rudely shattered today. I should have known that it would be! I hardly remember a year when we have started for Cornell without having a storm either with us all the way or at least at the start or at the finish of the trip! The snow is falling steadily and it looks like a nice young blizzard and I imagine as we get further north it will look more and more so. We are only planning to get as far as Harrisburg, Pennsylvania tonight which is probably fortunate.

Yesterday afternoon our national Democratic Committee woman from New York State, Mrs. William H. Good, brought her daughter and son-in-law in to tea, and was a little surprised when she was asked if she would introduce the other nine boys! She protested that she only had one with her—her son-in-law. The usher then came up to inquire of me who was responsible for the nine boys who arrived for tea. I cleared up the mystery by explaining that the nine boys were acting in "Dead End," and because of my interest in the play they had come to call and have tea with me. I arranged to see them all in the old Cabinet room in which the Treaty of Peace with Spain was signed, thinking that every scrap of historical interest should be packed into their visit. I took them around and told them the various Lincoln traditions and then sent them downstairs to be shown the first floor.

In the evening we all attended the dinner given in honor of Jim Farley. Of course every national chairman of a political party must be prepared to have a great many disagreeable things said about him not only by the opposition but by disgruntled members of his own party. Therefore, it must have been rather pleasant to sit and listen to tributes which so evidently came from the heart and not to have a single disagreeable word mar the evening.

Miss Helen Jepson sang "America" most beautifully and the evening came to an end to the strains of the "Star Spangled Banner" sung by Lawrence Tibbett. Having no voice and less ear, I enjoy singing with other people when I feel that whatever I do is well covered up, but when things are sung really beautifully, I am never tempted to spoil what the artist is giving me and I enjoyed both these national anthems sung last night.

I kept seeing familiar faces and I am sure if I had had an opportunity I would have met a great many old friends, but I sat at a table conveniently near the important gentlemen of the evening and when the dinner was over my son beckoned to me and then stepped hurriedly down to say: "You have to come quickly because father is going right straight out," so the proverbial last words that ladies are supposed to say were said only to my pretty hostess, Mrs. Lawrence Robert, and the other guests at the table, and I dashed up the steps and into my coat. The secret of this obedience on my part lay in the fact that I had kept the processions waiting before dinner and that is something one must not do. The President should never wait for anyone and everyone looks at you with a horrified expression when you are guilty of this breach of etiquette.