A few days ago there landed at Beirut's little airport a plane carrying to Lebanon a great man.

Has the ground of this airport, one wonders, ever known a Lebanese dearer to Lebanon's heart than this man who returned to it yes-terday, on his brow a wreath of laurel, bound upon the greatest brow in the history of the modern Arabs?

Did the people in Lebanon grasp that this man who alights on their soil today — no drumming and no piping, no bullets and no gunpowder, no cheers and no hired, servile throats — did the people grasp that this man is president of the greatest body in the organization of the United Nations? And that this Lebanese from the Koura is the framer of the charter of the 'Rights of Man' — the greatest idea ever to enter a human mind since humanity began?

Did the people in Lebanon grasp that this man who alighted yesterday, in all meekness, on the soil of Lebanon, as any ordinary traveler alights, is the man for whom the halls of the United Nations rang as he spoke of the freedoms of peoples and of man's right to knowledge and to life, while the necks of the world's statesmen craned toward him to see that dark countenance — in its features the features of men, in its lines the struggle of deep and splendid thought, and in the tones of that voice the tones of a conscious, discerning, balanced human being?!

Did the people in Lebanon grasp any of this?

And do people grasp that one man in Lebanon like Charles Malik is in truth dearer to Lebanon than all we possess of history, of letters and thought — and of men as well...

And that a nation which has a Charles Malik is a nation whose brow is forever in the sun.

So, Charles Malik —

O minister who possesses in Lebanon no newspapers to cheer his name, and possesses in Lebanon no backing to shield him from the assaults of the vagabonds among men.

O Charles Malik —

Let it suffice you that you, alone, are Lebanon entire, root and branch....

A monthly women's magazine published by

the Lebanese Women's League

P.O. Box 1284 — Beirut — Lebanon

Responsible director: Heneni Tarcha

The supervisory committee: Afifi Majdalani,

Najla Cortas Zureik,

Salwa G. Shoucair,

Rida Jureidini

Managed and published by

Dar al-Kitab

Proprietors: Fuad H. Badr and Youssef al-Khal

Editor-in-chief: Fouad Suleiman

Editorial secretary: Edvick J. Shayboub

Business manager: Fuad H. Badr

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Beirut — Lebanon

Telephone: 48-00

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