Continental Congress

During the Revolutionary War one Clement Corbin fought with the Connecticut Regulars. Mr. Corbin might have become a famed hero, a traitor or a general. He did none of the three and was ignored by U. S. history until last week when, after 150 years, the ultimate result of his pugnacity finally became apparent in Washington, D. C. It was that his great-great-granddaughter, Mrs. Henry Martyn Robert Jr. of Annapolis, Md. was elected President General of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Mr. Corbin would doubtless have been bewildered by the spectacle of Mrs.

Robert being photographed with the D. A. R.'s Vice Presidents General and Honorary Vice Presidents General. Asked for details on his career in the army, she was unable to supply them. They were, said she, somewhere "in my papers."

Annual convention of the D. A. R.--which is not called a convention but a "Continental Congress"--occurred in Constitution Hall. To join the D. A. R., which currently has 2,503 chapters, 143,000 members, requires no more than an ability to show that one or more ancestors bore arms against George III. Belonging to the organization is a matter of considerably more moment. In addition to its routine political activities of viewing with alarm, the D. A. R. runs innumerable pilgrimages, student loan plans, charities, better citizenship contests, scholarships, historical shrines and exhibits.

In Washington last week, chief endeavor of the 3,001 delegates to the Continental Congress seemed to be to see who could carry the most flowers. One Washington florist's business increased 300% during their stay. Principal agendum at the Congress was rostrum-climbing. To help them avoid tripping over themselves, their long skirts and their flowers, delegates had a corps of debutante pages. Principal agendum of the pages standing at the rostrum steps was to lift the train of each ascending delegate with combined dexterity, good timing and discretion. From inspecting each other's clothes, writing messages and electioneering, the delegates found recreation in patronizing booths in the hall which specialized in D. A. R. pins, bronze plaques for marking old soldiers' houses and genealogical charts.

Well-assorted list of guest speakers at the Continental Congress last week included two who sprang surprises. On the opening day of the fiesta French Ambassador Rene de Saint-Quentin embarrassed his more serious listeners by whimsically admitting being mystified by the existence in a democracy of an order founded on such strictly aristocratic principles. The Congress had barely recovered from this shock when it learned that, for the first time since he has been in the White House, Franklin Roosevelt was going to accept an invitation to address it. Said the President extemporaneously:

"I thought of preaching on a text but I won't. I will only give you the text and I won't preach on it. I think I can afford to give you the text because it so happens --through no fault of my own--that I am descended from a number of people who came over on the Mayflower. . . .

"The text is this: Remember that all of us, you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists. . . ."

Bravely and politely, the Continental Congress remembered to applaud.

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