New York—It was good to read that the House of Representatives on Tuesday again rejected a Southern curb on vote referees and virtually completed work on its civil rights bill for referral to the Senate.

There is no question that in both the House and the Senate the South will continue to fight and even produce a filibuster to prevent a final vote on a civil rights bill. But slowly the vote is coming and all these objections by the Southern group do nothing more than delay the inevitable end.

The rioting in South Africa that caused the police to shoot down and kill a fairly large number of people was a deplorable action to read about. The demonstration was against a law that requires African natives to carry passes at all times, and the police have the power to arrest any native found without this pass.

We do not have our own house sufficiently well in order to do more than say how sad we feel whenever outbreaks such as this cause bloodshed. We only wish we could set a better example ourselves.

Passive resistance is being tried in South Africa, but so often what begins as passive resistance turns into violence and those who are unarmed are the ones who suffer most. But perhaps in the long run the conscience of mankind will be touched and we will apply some of the longing we have for peace in the world to our local situations and realize that peace toward our neighbors has to come from within our hearts before we can have it between peoples of different lands.

It does not look much like spring outdoors in New York, but spring has come so far as calendar dates are concerned. And we in the city will have in the next few weeks the opportunity to see a great many exhibitions of paintings by various artists—one of our regular joys of spring.

One of the first exhibitions and sales is put on by the National Council of Jewish Women, at 9 East 69th Street, and the dates are March 26 through March 30.

This exhibition is made up from the works of many painters from many countries. One painter who has come to us from Peru and whose name is Macedonio de la Torre will show his work to a large number of cities for the first time. Also shown, of course, will be paintings of many artists already widely recognized, such as Marc Chagall, Ivor Rose, Don Kingman, Jo Davidson and Moses Soyer.

Senor de la Torre came to our country on a cultural mission but few people have as yet seen his work, though he has made a name for himself in Peru. In the interest of our good-neighbor policy we hope there will be some special attention shown and possibly some examples of his work will remain in the collections here.

I hope the Westinghouse Broadcasting Company is getting a favorable reaction to its series, "Reading Out Loud." A number of poeple have talked to me about the enjoyment they derived from some of the programs.

Everyone who watched and listened to Archibald MacLeish reading aloud to his grandchildren must have enjoyed hearing poetry read with such evident zest and listened to with such pleased attention. It is too often forgotten that poetry is really the music of words and can be much better appreciated when read aloud.

I hope the program will continue and lead to more reading aloud in the home.