(2 of 2)
The convention heard and applauded a speech by Oklahoma's Senator Josh Lee against War, a speech by Secretary Henry Agard Wallace about the ever-normal granary, one by Stuart Chase about erosion: "Three billion tons of solid continent are washed into the oceans every year. ... It would take a train of freight cars 475,000 miles long to cart this continental slide away. Such a train would girdle the equator 19 times. . . ." High point of every NEA gathering is the election of a president for the coming year. The Association alternates between a man and a woman and this year it was a woman's turn. All week in a thirteenth floor suite at the Statler Hotel stout Candidate Amy Hinrichs, principal of New Orleans' Audubon School, poured Louisiana chicory coffee for tired delegates, gave each a small box containing Spanish moss, cane sugar, pecan pralines. On the third floor stately, white-haired Candidate Caroline S. (for Salome) Woodruff, principal of Vermont's State Teachers' College, dispensed Vermont maple candies. At week's end maple candies and Miss Woodruff won.