Among the outstanding events of this spring was the meeting of the American Mothers' Association and their naming the Marquise Alice de Freige Mother of Lebanon for the year 1950. The Marquise addressed a letter to the president and members of the delegations of the mothers' associations in America on the day they gathered to deliver the certificate to Madame Francis Kettaneh, as Madame de Freige was unable to attend that memorable day. This is the text of the letter:

"With great pleasure I send your gracious assembly my best wishes for a happy and successful meeting. And with greater pleasure still I express to the members of the American Mothers' Association my thanks for their generous gift — the bestowal upon me of the most honorable of decorations, and then the naming of me Mother of Lebanon for 1950. I do not know at which of the two things I am more delighted: at the honor coming to me from so respected a body as your association, or at being named 'Mother of Lebanon'? Truly I have been showered with blessings, and truly your letter will remain the dearest surprise that has gladdened me in my life.

I confess now that all my life I have striven to be a good mother! This longing was the firmest and warmest longing I have felt in all my days. And I ask myself whether I have truly succeeded, despite your assembly's assurance and your honoring acknowledgment. In this acknowledgment there is pride for me, because it is pride for my children.

I have long believed that motherhood is the noblest and holiest fulfillment of a woman's being. This belief of mine was one of the reasons for my striving to show the importance of the mother among my countrymen, just as I found in it the greatest comfort, which I feel the moment I answer the needs of mothers in want of tenderness and care; it is as if there were in this a give-and-take among mothers in a world of understanding and love, even if one of them does not know the other, for motherhood is the common bond among women. This bond can become a power in the world; if the mothers of the earth united to deliver their children from the problems of modern society and from wars and their woes, they might well succeed. It may not be given to us to prevent wars, but we shall succeed in any case in turning world opinion against them — and what is world opinion but our opinion and the opinion of our children — and we shall succeed in making our governments more understanding of the dangers of wars and more conscious of their responsibility the moment they drag us into them, or the moment they allow our peoples to fling themselves into their fire.

I do not doubt that the American Mothers' Association took a great and happy step when it understood its world responsibility. And I believe with certainty that Lebanon will share in preparing a program that unites the mothers of the earth.

Let us all strive to glorify motherhood and to work together to create a better world, and may the Almighty Lord help us and