The Lebanese Women's Union

★ The Lebanese Women's Union invited the American journalist Dorothy Thompson, famous as president of the society of the Friends of the Middle East, to a dinner banquet which it held in her honor at the Officers' Club. The party was attended by a large group of personalities of the American diplomatic corps, the director of information and Mr. Habib Salih, the ladies of the Women's Union, and the presidents of the other women's organizations.

The president of the Union welcomed Miss Thompson, recalling America's good deeds in Lebanon — among them Miss Thompson's friendship for Lebanon — and reminded her of the need of the refugees, who, despite the millions spent upon them, have no refuge left but their Lord. She was followed by Mrs. Wadi'a Khartabil, president of the Palestinian Women's Union, with a speech in which she welcomed the guest of honor as a friend of the Arabs and a defender of their rights; she then set forth the Palestine question and laid its responsibility upon America. Miss Thompson thereupon replied as follows:

She said that this age is the age of dispersion, for in Europe there are twenty million refugees. She spoke of the driving out of the Jews in Germany up to the last war; then she said that she loves the Arabs, but that her real work is not to defend them but to make her nation understand truth and justice. She said that through her writings she had organized a group of Friends of the Middle East, and that in addition to writing about the grievances of the Middle East, she would acquaint America with what they do not know about its people, for she had observed among us a scientific renaissance and a naturally attractive and strategic position. She has founded branches of her society in Egypt and Libya, and will found a branch of it in Beirut, so as to guide the American tourist to what he ought to know. And she said that when America helped the Jews, it was on the basis of their complaint of Britain's injustice, and not on account of their enmity toward the Arabs.

★ The Women's Charitable Society of Tripoli, one of the societies of the Lebanese Union, celebrated its silver jubilee on Sunday, April 27, at ten o'clock in the morning. The Union delegated Mrs. Loreen Rihani to accompany its delegation and to deliver its word on the occasion. It was a successful celebration, and the Lebanese government presented the president of the society, Mrs. Iqbal al-Dhawq, with the Lebanese Order of Merit.

★ The office of the Prime Minister conveyed to the bureau of the Lebanese Women's Union its appreciation of one of its members, the learned physicist Dr. Salwa Nassar, and asked it to appoint the time it deems suitable for pinning the Lebanese Order of Merit upon her breast. The Union is pleased to observe that Dr. Salwa Nassar is worthy of this honor, and that this decoration is being conferred for the first time for the sake of "science" — and it is a lady who receives it.