NEW YORK—For a Democrat, the election news from Maine was certainly encouraging. I never doubted that Governor Edmund S. Muskie would be reelected, for he has been a good governor and Maine occasionally has elected Democratic governors before.

One Democratic Congressman was elected from that state and that really seems a remarkable victory. In another case, the vote was so close that there may be a recount.

The only real significance of the Maine vote, of course, is the fact that even in that rock-ribbed state there can be a breach in the Republican ranks! This rarely happens, but when it does, it might just mean that more people than we are aware of are not quite happy with the Republicans in power.

As I read the papers every day and see stories of Negro children being kept out of schools in the South, I wonder if some of us realize that these stories are reprinted throughout Europe and Asia.

We no longer live in a country where we act without the rest of the world knowing what we do, and the effect of a story which says that two small Negro children are kept out of a school for white children is not going to be a happy one in India or in Indonesia or anywhere in Asia or Africa.

I stopped on the way up from New York to Hyde Park Monday night to have dinner with Mr. and Mrs. Henry Morgenthau Jr. The country looks beautiful. The leaves have hardly begun to turn color and there are still flowers in the garden in spite of the fact that I was warned of a frost on Monday night.

I was busy all day Tuesday putting my house in order so that I can go up with a few guests for a weekend if I want to, but I am closing most of it for I fear that it is going to be empty most of the autumn, since I have promised to do a good bit of campaigning.

I woke up on my porch Tuesday morning and, for a moment, I wondered where I was and thought it might be Geneva, or some place on our trip through France. Then I remembered that I was home and my little black Scottie, Mr. Duffy, looked up at me happily and it seemed very good to be at home.

The race for United States Senator in the State of New York between State Attorney General Jacob K. Javits and Mayor Robert F. Wagner should be an exciting one. Both of them are good campaigners and both of them have a record of public service and of liberalism.

Being a Democrat I am hopeful that Mayor Wagner, with his experience in the City of New York and with the background of his father's long service in the Senate, will win out and continue the record which made his father's name beloved throughout the state.

Javits will be no mean opponent, however, and the Democrats of this state will have to make a real fight—just as the Democrats in the nation already are doing.

I went back to New York Wednesday morning but will go to Hyde Park again Saturday for a picnic for friends from the United Nations who were invited by the Mayor's Hospitality Committee.