NEW YORK—The more you are in public life, the more you wonder at the credulity of the average human being. Sometimes the things that come me are such that I feel I can not even notice them but occasionally they are merely funny and I let others join me in a passing smile.

In a letter today I am told that in one neighborhood it has been spread abroad that the President is using his mother's home at Hyde Park as a Summer White House and that the Government is paying rent to the family! The idea somehow of my husband's mother accepting rent for the brief visits which my husband pays to her home, is one of the most humor-things I can think of. Yet I suppose some people actually believe it. As a matter of fact it is a saving to the government when a President has a summer home.

We had a very nice picnic last evening. Major General and Mrs. Frank McCoy drove up from Governor's Island and were much interested in our Val-Kill furniture as the government is being obliged to do over the Commandant's house at Governor's Island. When you are interested in a building, even though it may belong to the Government, you go about with a greater interest in all buildings. Of course, the Government buying is done in prescribed ways, but ideas which may be gleaned from other peoples' houses may turn out to be useful.

Mrs. Morgenthau and her eldest son also came up. He is taking architecture at Princeton, and as practical experience he is being allowed this summer to do over an old farm house on recently acquired land, so he looked with interest at every detail of our little kitchen.

After our picnic supper we launched at my table into a violent discussion on the future fate of nations and the possibilities for our own country in a troubled world. Finally I felt that we were becoming a little too serious and as all about us various games were being played, I moved my group into the other room and we played a game of "Rummey".

I took the seven-forty train this morning to New York, and Mrs. Morgenthau and I have attended a luncheon of the Good Neighbor League I have seen many different people which is one of the difficulties about coming to New York! I always see so many people that I want to stay longer but back I go to Hyde Park tonight and I will be glad to wake up there tomorrow!