HYDE PARK.—By the time this column is published President Eisenhower will have started on his trip to Europe. One of the best political reporters I know, Doris Fleeson, is among the newspaper people accompanying him, and I shall watch with interest for her reactions.

But I must say that I do not envy the President the talks he must carry on with Chancellor Adenauer and General DeGaulle. All of the gentlemen with whom he will confer on this trip express a liking for the President personally, but this does not necessarily mean that this feeling will extend to the point of making them amenable to doing whatever President Eisenhower desires.

We can only hope, as Americans, that his trip will bring us greater unity in the West and, therefore, greater opportunity for peaceful solutions when he comes to his conversations with Premier Khrushchev.

I came up to Hyde Park on Tuesday morning to celebrate my granddaughter Joan's birthday. She is my son John's youngest daughter and on the 25th reached the advanced age of seven. Her father came all the way up from New York on an afternoon train just to be here for the evening and night, as she was allowed to have a celebration in the evening. And she did not go to bed until 10 o'clock—a very late hour for even such a grown-up young lady.

The day was filled for me with work of various kinds, but it was pleasant to be here. And while the afternoon was suddenly fairly warm again, I think the time for hot nights is over and that cool night air from now on will make sleeping out on my porch with all the windows open very pleasant.

The school question, which I have written about for the past two days, seems to be at last a very hot subject for discussion in our entire neighborhood. At least, on September 14 when the vote is taken on the revised school budget, there will be more knowledge and less apathy. The polls will be open from 12 noon until 9 p.m., which gives everyone ample time to cast his ballot. I hope there will be a very large vote so that no one can say that it does not represent all the people who are eligible to vote. Eligible voters must be either a taxpayer or a parent—and that covers a good many people.

I am sure many of my readers were interested in the success that greeted Leonard Bernstein and the New York Symphony Orchestra in Moscow.

Mr. Bernstein showed the Soviets his many-sided talents. For he is a concert pianist, a composer, and a conductor, and, in addition, I imagine he could not resist acting for his audience as well.

I enjoy watching him use his talents to sway an audience one way or another in Carnegie Hall, and I often think his explanations are not given purely to inform. I think he enjoys coming into close contact with the people sitting in the audience and he knows very well they enjoy the feeling of being in communication with him.

I wonder if many of my readers have seen the cookbook that the United States Committee for the United Nations has published. It is called "Favorite Recipes from the United Nations." The U.S. Committee hopes this new cookbook "will help increase international understanding through the appreciation of a culinary heritage of many lands."

I am afraid my hopes are not quite so high, but it might well be that knowing more about what people eat in different parts of the world will create an increased interest in one another.