Gracious Host

President Johnson last week invited a few folks to drop by the White House. About 8,000 of them did.

First came eight new ambassadors to the U.S., presenting their credentials. Next it was 155 children, most of them Negroes, from Washington settlement houses. Lyndon joined them for a puppet show in the East Room, was greeted by one boy with an airy "Hi, Johnson"; later, he escorted them to the Blue Room to see an 18-ft. balsam fir Christmas tree, thence to the State Dining Room for ice cream and eggnog.

A.F.L.-C.I.O. President George Meany and seven other labor leaders were put in proper holiday spirits by the President's renewal of a campaign pledge to work for repeal of the Taft-Hartley law's section authorizing state right-to-work laws. Then, after sandwiching in a buffet supper for some 1,500 White House staffers, the President greeted 14 business leaders. As he always does, Johnson impressed the businessmen, and A. T. & T.'s Frederick R. Kappel spoke for them all when he reported that the President "is being extremely wise in his thoughtful evaluation" of the U.S. economy.

Toward week's end Lady Bird Johnson and Muriel Humphrey conducted a White House tour for 1,500 women who had worked as volunteers for the Johnson-Humphrey ticket, and the President was host at a party for reporters accredited to the White House and their families, numbering 4,000. And one chilly night he appeared hatless and coatless before several thousand people gathered on the Ellipse, south of the White House, pushed a button turning on 5,000 red and white lights on a 72-ft. Adirondack white spruce, a gift of New York State.

''At this Christmas season of 1964," the President said, "we can think of broader and brighter horizons than any who have lived before these times. For there is rising in the sky of the age a new star--the star of peace.

"By his inventions, man has made war unthinkable, now and forevermore. Man must therefore apply the same initiative, the same inventiveness, the same determined effort to make peace on earth eternal and meaningful for all mankind.

"These are the most hopeful times in all the years since Christ was born in Bethlehem."

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