LONGVIEW, Wash.—Little Hall Randolph Walker was his smiling placid self through most of his christening ceremony the other day. I had told his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Danny Walker, that he must cry a little or the devil would stay in him, so they insisted that the few sounds he made were really crying the devil out.

Just members of the family and his godparents were on hand. And among the family was his great-grandfather, 89-year-old Mr. Campbell, looking certainly younger than anyone in their early seventies. He confided to me that he only had to go to the office twice a week nowadays and he didn't like it at all, for he had no reason for getting up in the morning.

Mr. Campbell was one of the early pioneers out here, and his eyes are bright, his skin unwrinkled, and he walks firmly. The only sign of age I could detect was a slight deafness. And he certainly is a gentleman of definite opinions, with an inquiring and active mind.

He not only attended the christening but the dinner and my talk in the evening, and he greeted everyone warmly at the reception after the evening meeting.

This climate evidently is a healthy one in which to grow old as well as to be young in, for both Mr. Campbell and my four-month-old godson look blooming and behave as though life were treating them well.

I attended a short Democratic meeting in mid-afternoon after the christening and then in the evening a big dinner was held by the new organized chapter of the American Association for the United Nations. It was estimated that 500 people were present, and the organizers felt that they had gained a goodly number of members at that meeting. This new group wanted concrete examples of how they could go to work to help some of the specialized agencies of the U.N. and I must send out some suggestions from the office on my return.

There was a very delightful reception for the committee and some of my host's friends after the dinner, and I discovered that this architecturally modern house lends itself very pleasantly to entertainment because all the areas merge into one and no group is cut off from any other group.

On Wednesday morning we took the Great Northern train from Bellingham to Seattle and made a close connection from Seattle to Kelso-Longview. Much of the way we went along the water and it was beautiful, with snow-capped mountains on one side and the water on the other. Here and there we caught glimpses of blue sky, but on the whole it was a gray sky and a gray soft light with now and then spurts of rain. They have had so much rain that for a good part of the way we crawled along because of the fear of washouts, which made us rather late in Seattle.

We reached Longview, however, only about a half-hour late and were met by representatives of the Lower Columbia Community Forum and were taken directly to the hotel where we are having dinner with the committee before the evening lecture.