NEW YORK, Tuesday—I was interested in reading yesterday morning one of our most able and sometimes conservative columnists who has been travelling abroad. In this particular instance his column came from Yugoslavia and he reported on his impressions of the atmosphere of the country and its leader.

I have never been in Yugoslavia and I have never met its leader, but I think this correspondent is fairly objective. If he says that its leader is calm and the atmosphere is a hopeful one in that country which is so near the menacings of a very powerful nation, I think we would perhaps feel a little more confident ourselves. Perhaps we are going to weather the present world difficulties and somehow work out solutions to living together in peace!

President Truman looks cheerful and apparently he preserves this atmosphere in spite of all the inside knowledge he must have on problems, in spite of political polls and the gloomy things that many Republican members of Congress have been saying.

I have an idea that he has taken the decision to travel around the country not just because he wants to bolster the chances of the Democratic members of Congress, but because he really wants to talk to the people and get a chance to feel out the way they feel.

My husband used to need that every now and then. His trips were frequently called "inspection trips." He looked at industries at projects that were being carried out, but really what he looked at was people and their condition.

I have an idea that it might be better to think of this trip of the President's as an inspection trip made to see and feel for himself the conditions under which the people of the United States are living and the state of mind and of heart which is theirs in the early summer of 1950. He is going to talk to people, and they will tell him a great many things. I think such trips are always very valuable.

We had a reminder yesterday in the Human Rights Commission from one of our members that our time was running out and that we had better be considering what can really be accomplished in this session.

Dr. Charles Malik, however, who is always hopeful, felt that we had weathered the worst of our difficulties and that from now on we would be reaching agreements and voting rapidly. The concrete suggestion he made was to point out that we had had several holidays each week so far and that perhaps this week we had better work solidly all week through.

I shall be glad to do that, but I fear that during the week there will be members who feel that they cannot keep up with the work of the Commission unless they have a little time to catch up with their homework. I hope he is correct and that we are going to move much more quickly.

We did cover several paragraphs of an article yesterday, but the number of new articles to be considered on second reading grows longer day by day.

I hope that each one of the members is privately making up his mind as to just what he thinks can be covered by the Covenant and will be ready to pass on his views to the Economic and Social Council on May 20.