WASHINGTON, Sunday—Friday I talked for a while with a representative of the East and West Association, and was interested to hear of the plans for their meetings here in Washington. The effort to acquaint us with Oriental people and to change our rather narrow conception of them is a good preparation for what we all hope will be better cooperation in the future.

A few friends came to lunch that day, among them Miss Marcia Dalrymple of the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, who has just visited nine of the Latin American countries, She was most enthusiastic about her trip and spoke especially of the work which the women are doing in the various countries to improve the standard of living among the people.

There is, of course, a great deal to be done from the point of view of health and nutrition and education, and many of those countries are beginning today on things which have long been accomplished in the United States. Therefore, we can be of real assistance. The head of the Department of Education in Nicaragua is at present studying in this country and came to see me not long ago. Miss Dalyrymple feels, as I do, that the exchange of students and teachers, and the visits privately arranged among men representing different professions or business occupations, will be of great value both to us and to our Central and South American neighbors.

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Much of the prosperity of the next few years lies in the development of untapped resources in these countries to the south of us. One young veteran, at the meeting of veterans which I attended in New York the other night, asked me where jobs are going to be found and how we expected to have full employment after the war. I pointed out to him that it was the development of resources in other countries, and the buying of their goods, which will enable us to sell them ours, and that our jobs depend on better conditions for them.

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In the afternoon I attended a meeting called by John McGarraghy, chairman of the Recreation Services, Inc, at the United Nations Service Center, to discuss the possibility of meeting the recreation needs of government girl workers more adequately than is now being done. It seemed to be the consensus of opinion that more recreational opportunities were not needed, but that getting the information of what is now available to the girls is not being successfully done. In addition, it was felt that because many of them live far away from the places where they work, and often do not want to go home between the end of work and the time for a dinner engagement or a movie, some kind of downtown center might be of real value. Whether this can be accomplished or not will have to be explored.