The Bismarck Tribune Newspaper, December 1, 1928, Page 7

_ -WASHINGTON-DEMOCRACYS DRAWING ROOM Y t Circles Within Circles Move in Vast, Giddy Maze OCIAL Washington is a busy solar system, independent in its own strange heaven, but draw- ing ite stars and ite nebuls, its brilliant meteors and its servile satel- lites trom the circumference of the ‘world. About this social phenomenon his. toric pen points have scribbled words pf sticky adoration, have scratched syllables of acid invective. It was a Peg of news interest as far back as the fall of 1800, when Mrs. John Adams, writing to her daughter, Abt- gail lams Smith, of the incompleted “President's Palace,” of which she Was the first mistress, confided: “You must keep all this to your self and, when asked how I like it, say that I write you the aituation ts beautiful . . . and the great un- finished audience room 1 make a dry- da room of, to hang up the clothes in.” And the phenomenon is still tmpor- tant enough to make state depart- ment typewriters click frantically all a because a hostess from the Dakotas, +, at her first official dinner party, places * the French ambassador above the Italian ambassador, when everybody knows that Nobile de Martino was ao credited March 2, 1925, while M. Claudel wasn't listed until March 28, 1927, * 8 Views on “Crashing” Vary. The things that are written and the things that are said—above all, the things that are whispered—about so- cial Washington are as divergent as the peoples who say them. Those peo ples. who come from everywhere to walk their official circuit and are then pushed out of the national corridor— some to linger on as faithful, volun teer subjects in this Republican court of our democracy; others to journey back to remote hearths with tales of what “Alice eald to me at Charlie awes’ dinner.” One annalist asserts, with robust confidence, “Why, any fish with @ stack of visiting cards and a pair of loves can get into Washington Another observer, with equal if more ‘, frigid conviction, declares that the climber cannot get anywhere near the headwaters of the social swim along the banks of the Potomac, not even if his scales be glittering with gold. The optimist is not right, as mant- fold failures prove. And the pessimist is wrong, as some spectacular successes demonstrate, s @ A Complex Society. Which goes to show how complex is this society which, because it belongs to the nation’s capital, is, vicariously, your society, and mine. It 16 a giddy, diverting proposition in animated geometry, fs our capital's society. It is a Euclidian diagram ‘with three dimensions. Frequently it _ has four dimensions; it ts a cosmic and a comic and an ironic problem in Mr. Einstein's theory of relativity. The social electrons whirl in mazy orbits. Here is a mass of circles of differ- ent sizes and variant speeds. There are a dozen independent little loops and scores of dependent circlets. Here are fragile bracelets of people trying to twine about a firmer, better estab- lished ringlet of celebrities. There are wistful semi-cireles that seem never able to close the band to newcomers. Here are tight cinctures squeezing eown toward the center; there are bulging ovoids ever expanding. + Over here two circles touch rims and overlap for a segment of an arc * (perhaps that arc is charity); then they swing away from each other with new impetus. Over there is a pattern of concentric circles, the larger banding tthe smaller, each distinct if not dis- tinctive. * The Washington Cave Dwellers. On the very outside is a spiral coil. It is the corkscrew of the social climber, It winds Its flexible way in and vut among the primary planets and the secondary ones, Its fabric is tough and springy. It recoils under all con- Gitions. But it never gets quite to the center. For at the very center is a small, slowly revolving, perfectly closed cir- cle. This is the most sacred forma tion in the celestial empyrean of the gtional capital. It is the home of Vige social gods, the Washington cave dwellers. ‘That, briefly, 1s Washington; yours and mine. Everybody is a member of some coterte, if Yt be only a confedera- tion of stardust particles. They who travel the most swiftly are often only ‘on the outer arc of a big circle, whirl- ing about in pursuit of orchids and champagie. Others, and there are men as well as women here, swirl along after a handful of gold lace and en alien title. Some want to have their pockets stuffed with letters trom foreign diplomats; others prefer @ local senator to a Devonshire duchess. Some use society as a stepping stone go politics; others use political power ‘us 4 social lever. ‘There 1s, too, an infinite number of circte skippers—those intrepid social oldiers of fortune who risk ridicule fy trying to flp trom the broad, se ‘cure circumference of a large, inclusive circle to the razor blade edge of a small, exclusive circle. ‘These adventurers spin and swivel ‘and bob about; they elip and fall, but they alwaye land in some geometric figure. Or, if they find themselves momentarily alone, they gather in the broken fragments of other meteors and form a new cosmic lump. Some- times, indeed, it ia°so obscure that, uke the asteroid up in the sky, it is invisible to the naked eye. \The important factor in all this chart {s relativity. What relation does this circle bear to that. and to hoped Henry Adams on Court Society. ‘This Buclidian plot is not dissimilar to the London society of 1864, as de scribed by Henry Adams, grandson ef John Quincy Adams. In‘his “ Edu- éxtion.” Adama, reflecting back on those days when he wae private sec retary to hfe father, then American envoy at the court of St. James, wrote of himself: “He never felt himself in society ‘ana he never knew definitely what was meant as society by those who were in it. He saw far enough to note @ wore of which ’ |" ‘ONE TRIES TO GET AN AMBASSADOR - FAILING THAT, THERE THE LESSER DIPLOMATS IND EMBASSY ATTACHES ~ Quite independent of each other. The stunrtest was the smallest.” ‘The smartest was the smallest. There is still truth enough in that axiom to give it pathetic verity in Washington in 1928. A dinner for a dozen, with @ diplo- mat reated to the right of the ecstatic hostess, is worth more than seven crushes with a mere undersecretary as ranking guest. A_rear admiral, formerly stationed in Washington, was bidden once to one of those vast post-Leriten lunch- eons at which the hostess pays off scores of the winter’s more stupid ob- Mgations. The lady next the navy man surveyed the guests and re- marked to her partner, “ Mrs. M. has certainly made a clean swéep of the town.” “Clean sweep,” and half the table heard the gruff admiral, “1 should say she did. She got all the crumbs,” * * Society and Politics, Years ago, when Washington's so- cial solur system war small and sim- ple, a clever commentator put it this very one in society is in poll- tics; but not every one in politics is in society.” The adage, for all that it is echoes in many a drawing room, has outlived its_ truthfulness. ‘The first part of the story—“ every one in society ts in politics "began to break down when the cave dwellers, the old timers who uséd to talk with Lincoln and walk with Arthur re treated so far Into their caves that now they have to read the newspapers to know who is occupying the big white house across Lafayette square. The second part of the phrase. “not every one in politics is in society,” has collapsed similarly. Just as war commerce, spendthrifts, democracy, have driven the cave-dwellers inte their recesses, eo have these same factors scooped out a path for the politician which, while it may not be royal, is regal in {ts ceremonies, Democracy elevates as it levels. Bo that now everybody in politive in Washington is in some dircle of other, evén if {tt be only the whirly- twirly merry-goround thet is about as exclusive as the laying of @ corner stone or an open meeting of the Als. nama state baa = ‘The Indifferent Senator Borsh. Every ene is in social activities then, excepting Senator Borah, the most sought after ofMfcial in our pub Ue Mfe. But Borah is: indifferent ac tively so. He prefers a table in the Through the long winter evenings he works with a fountain pen, not an oyster fork, It was Borah who denounced the sly en¢roachment of society on politics, wi he said: “It is much easier in Washington to go along than to disagree. If there is an atmosphere in God's world that weakens a man's backbone, It is the atmosphere of Washington. The diluting process 18 constant and: aris ic.” - Important undérsecretary, insignif- cant wife of an obscure congressman, wealthy widow and sedate justice— each wears a badge and knows a pass word; euch has some tribal allegiance and answers to roll call in some group or clique. But this does not cause the social hodge-podge which seems inevitable. For Washington today 1s not like London of sixty-five years ago where once more to quote Henry Adams: ‘Society had no unity; one wandered about in it like a maggot in cheese.” No such freedom is permitted the modern Washingtonian. ‘There is routine in the arrangemen: of the twirling spheres. ‘There is a ticket on every constei.ation: a tag on every star. The circumference of every circle is marked; its center is rated witb relation to every other center. * * + The Cave Dwellers. First of al) and most magical, be- cause its product cannot by synthetic- ally developed, ts the circle of the cave dweller, He is to Washington what the Cabots and the Lodges, are to Boston, and he ts likely to be kin to them. Bhe is to Washington what a first family is to Virginia, and she is pretty certain to trace back to one of them. They are to Washington what St. Peter is to heaven—chairmen of the membership committee. The cave dweller hanks his money at the National bank and his soul et St. John's Episcopai church, Until just a few years ago he drove -down Pennsylvania avenue in a vic toria. He has Viewed the pageantry of presidents tt has loft him with Mo great awe. iplomats he calle by their first names whén he choones to speak with them. He has.na great wealth and he smiles a bit wearily at yellow gold dinner plates and yellow white orchids. He came to town when it_ wae @ leinurely southern village. Why, hé remembéra when they pumped water from in. front of the treasury. Mets gentle, aristocratic, conserva: tive. Aid he clings teriaciously to the precise yard stick of a noble and a Drevious era. But he ie fant disappearing. te tinds that his niche tn history Is down the corridor marked ° ancient.” nut “ cur. rent.” ‘The Nevadw miner with gold spilling out of nie pocketa haa come to town and built a palace The be: Jewelled and smmewhet ungeninnimtions lady from Kansas. widow of. wey, © seemed library to one in the dining-room. evap manufacturer, has taken the big: gest sulte in the biggest hotel. Even the embassies, the cave dweller notes ruefully, aren't editing their dinner lists as carefully as they were wont to back in the days of Lord Paunce- fote. So the cave dweller has gone back into his cave with the walls lined with photographs of presidents and letters from ambassadors; personal me- mentoes of senators, preachers, writ- e the thoroughbrv« of a bygone age, an age that wa~ rich in expert ence and is now rich only in tradition a Career of the Money Bags. The retreat began in President Ar- thur's administration. First came the millionaire; then the multi-millionaire. From the Hudson and the Mississippt; from the delta and the golden gate; from the silver mine and the patent medicine factory, the newcomers came, driving the old settlers before them. For a season the newcomers rented old landmarks. Then they builded for themselves more magnificent man- sions, they imported French chefs. and they vegan tq entertain. Champagne and terrapin and grand opera in the same ballroom were the triple treat which an old Irishman staged for the foreign envoys many decades ago., They laughed at hie brogue; they christened his house “the Irish embassy;” but they ate his dinners and ‘rank his wine. A new rich New Yorker, in the first days of the onrush to the capital. devised a fantastic house in the shape of a ferry boat. “Ferry boat!" expostulated a cave dweller. “Well, it won't do him any good. Nobody will throw him a life line.” But the day of the muslin gown and the lace mitts passed. Modern. ism and money pushed tn at the ea cred circumference. And when the inner circle refused to break, the new- comers formed their own gay groups and the cave dwellers, still the ac knowledged brightest and best of all the soria) stars, made their slow, patrician way in @ small but satisfactory orbit, remote from most of the town's voanite excitemente and well content to be thus remote. s *%. The Residential Circle. The next circle is the residential. ‘Thin te large, fairly elastic, and com. posed of perhaps half a dozen emailer ewirls. In one subcircle are the “marhte palace widows.” women rich in yeare, in -dollars, und in the art of giving wood dinners. {n this number ts that famous vegetarian. prohibitionist, and real entate operator who tried, unauc- Cenxtulily, to give the government a house for its Vice President Thera {s, too. the grandmother of the mil: lion dollar baby There te the daveh- ter. wife. and tnother of a nendtor, whose daughter filted » duke to marry the son of an Nitnow iegwinior There fg“ Aunt Delis.” globe trotting widow of @ Chicagy merchant, speak only to God. Another curve of the residential cir- cle swinge around those “borderline cave dwellers,” Washingtonians who came to town so long ago, and with such good credentials, that they are almost cave dwellers. The outstanding figure in this group is the woman in- ternationally famous for her werk in Brit the American Red Cross. A third segment of the cirele takes in prominent exofficios who tarried on in Washington after their official duties were over. Conspicuous in thie coterie is a former New Yorker whose Sunday night suppers make her home on F atreet a sprightly salon filled with the city’s most interesting people. * * The Georgetown Highbrow. Another twist of the path winds up into Georgetown, where dwells the “ Georgetown highbrow.” Sometinies, indeed, he doesn't live in Georgetown at all, but so many writers and paint- ers and acientiste did settle in the quaint town on the west bank of Rock creek, the town which was old when Washington was new, that the entire group, regardless of geography, beara that tag. The first highbrow, so we are told, to chouse the capital as a permanent home was Joe! Barlow, the whimsical diplomat who yearned to be America’s Homer and was Connecticut's poet. He bought “Kulorama,” a beautiful ind entertained Robert the time he was perfecting his steamboat. No catalog of the residential circle would be complete without mention of its civics and philanthropy depart- ment. This is the group of women who are forever heading drives, giving balls, and sponsoring entertaininenta, in the name of charity. But since philanthropy, politi¢s, and society im- pinge so on one another's domains, this is a definite classification in the social chart. All residential society can afford to peg is, fies Jeroen dent than om. cia) society. wife's dinner party and the husband's votes are never interrelated, for the husbands are not in politics. In fact, most often. in this group, theré are no husbands, #0 soothing @ climate is Washington ing for the bereaved widow with lots ef money. The residentials may not have the prentige of thone priniatea, the cuve dwellers, but they have more wealth. They may not have the abandoned geature of tonsing away gold that some of the climbers have, but they have more sovereignty. Bo, riding along in the middie. with buth honor and money, they have @ busy, gay, and ofteh a iuxuriuue tine, They give swanky dinnera And, since no home town constituents are esatehing society colimns for etmunitinn at the ext election. these sonofficial reni- Gentiale gun bend the knee as much as they plenxe in homage to conti hental celebrities -~_ * The Wiphynatic Cirvte, This brings the stury w the third large lunenary in Waahingten’s social solar avatérn the diplomatic vircle ‘The digten are the Cece cards io cadet ome | Where the insiders speak only ¢o the diplomats and the diplomats But not even all the pretty face cards are of equal value. No more are the diplomats. ‘Che top card fe always the dean of the corps, with his wife, the doyenne, ranking with him. Right now that right and left bower of the deck arc Sir Esme Howard, ambassador, and Lady Isabella Howard. : 80 swiftly does diplomacy bestir iteelf these days that Sir Esme, though accredited in this country as recently as March 6, 1924, is now senior to the thirteen other ambassa- dors. (Since the breaking of diplo- ruatie relations between the United States and Russia the corps consists of fourteen, not fifteen, members.) Next to the British ambassador in dining out value comes, it would seem, M. Pau! Claudel of France. Prince Albert de Ligne of Belgium and Nobile Giacomo de Martino of Italy are both good. The Matsudairas, formerly at the Japanese embassy, were popular. A South American diplomat, if ti truth were told, rates eocially just a step or so lower than a European one. If you are an enterprising hostess, you try first to get Great Britain, then France, or Italy, or Belgium. Then you try Japan or Spain. If you can't wet them, you try for a South Amer- {can ambassador. If you can't manage an ambassador, you content yourself with one of the thirty-three foreign ministers. There is no dean of the corps of ministers. Right now the Hon. Vincent Massey, newly estab- Ushed minister from Canada, Is great- ly sought after, If you can't get # minister, you try one of the seven or eight (the number varies) of the chargés d'affaires on duty. But the best formula for a good dinner is: “Wait until you can get an ambassa- dor.” * * Ambassadors Dare Not Offend. Occasiunally a sincere heretic, and more often a defeated candidate for honors ag host to @ diplomat, ¢rit- clues as climbers those who are en: tertained at the embassies. Occasion: ally, too, a sturdy soul, lodged usually within the body of a cave dweller, will rebel at the way the diplomats ere Jearning democracy in this new coun: try, and will condemn them for invit- anybody to their parties.” if it 10 @ fault, te not Of the diplomat’s making Where the reaidential can afford to ignore just about anybody he wishes to—and where the cave dweller doss—thé am: bansador, in the glamorous and ambig- uous name of diplomacy, cannot risk One social minetep. He is fearful lest he offend those whom he should not offend, and ao he ounauimes hin time being pleasant to thore whom he might just as well offend. Perhaps that is why he goes with & amile to on many stupid pisces Perbaps, too, that explains the following patugrapb tn @ Washington aewkpuper last Jan: wary, “The National Asnociation of one und Cleaners, representing the prin! pal establishments of the industry th the United States and Cunuda. wil) open ite convention tomurruw morn ing. Owing to the presence of repre: sentatives of the industry from several European countries, tt im expected that several members of the diplumatic corps will be present.” In the name of diplomacy? Per haps. Though one acrimonious Amer {oan husband, as he figured up the ntonth's ry bill, had @ different reason, and he asked his wife, “Don't those ‘dips’ ever get anything to eat at home?” eTilustrative of the legend (eome call it a fact; others swear it is a Lbel) that the foreign envoy is an everiast- ing pligrim after food, Is the story @ cave dwi tells of a eumptuous party which a wealthy vulgartan gave to guests whom he barely knew. “The officials,” saya the cave dwell- er, “hesitated, but went. Tho diplo- mate went, without hesitating. The old residents went back into their caves. - 8 Liquor at the Embassies. ‘Well, if the ambassadors and min- isters are hungry, their American hosts erase the debt, and make a new one, by being thirsty guests at the embassies and legations. Since the advent in Washington of technical pro- hibition, oMclaldom te dry at many of its oMcial parties. But the embas- sies and legations, being possessed of extra territorial rights, do not observe the Volstead act. So the Friday after noon diplomatic teas are a mecca for all of Washington's thirsty. They spill the best wine on the rugs. They jockey for position around the bottle of Baccardi rum. They ask for cham- pag while a mystified English but- ler looks on, and a mystified Euro- pean ambessador looks away. Cave dweiler, residential, diplomat, all important circles. Their impor- tance is largely dependent upon the fact that they have been brought to ‘Washington by a fourth circle, that of the govérnment’s officialdom at the nation's capital, And yet, paradoxic- ally, this fourth circle sometimes does not know much about the other three which are dependent, but indepen- dent. * * Btatun of the President. At the official center af officialtom atand the President and his wife. The- oretically, they are important figures in the tapestry which society inter- laces with politics. Actually, they are esteemed ornaments, figurines, who appear on rtated occasions, and do def- initely routined things. Jefferson's tule of péle-méle, and Monroe's frigid foreign formality may have been tre- mendously real in their day. But mod. ern usage of the President stripped him of so many social obligations and has so despotically patterned his activities that the chief executive would find it impossible, even if he thought it desirable, to be the Ward McAllister of capital society, ‘His name is the Abou Ben Adam, leading all the rest in the list of patrons for every function given in the Disteict of Columbia. He is host, {n definite, pre-ordered sequence, at less than half a dozen state dinners; he is guest, by precise plan, at the cabinet dinners; he holds four official receptions; he shakes hands on New Year's day; there ts a garden party or two, and the story of the Presi- dent's place, officially, in society ts done. He is forbidden by an unwritten law, indelibly inscribed in the record, to visit in private homes or embassies, all for fear of local rivairies and international jealousies. And go he has a dining out proxy in the person of the Vice President. It was Thomas Riley Marshall who dubbed himself the “eating President of the United States,” and Charles Gates Dawes has had to defend that title. Gen. and Mrs. Dawes, eo the social calendar reveals, are obliged to dine out about twenty-wix nights a month during the season. This last year they were even booked for the night of their wed. ding anniversary. Mr. Dawes, by the way. doesn't care for Caviar ahd paté de fole gras. Hie favorite luncheon is a bow! of milk and a handful of crackers. But he must go to virtually all of the dining tables to which he is asked. for he to the liaison officer between the Presi. Gent, who has to eat at home, and the world’s hnapitality. ‘The other polltical-social liaison off- cer fe the secretary of state. He rep- resents the Proaldent at international dinner tables, and is entertained ex- tenaively at the embensier and the legations. As for the rest of the cabinet, they have various mandatory sovial duties which they discharge with Various abliitiés Ooeastonaly there comes to Washington @ cabinet minister whose social prestige unte-dated his appoint- ment: in there cusen be and big wife enrich the social tfadition of the town. | Otherwine they merely keep in step with thelf oMicia! obligations. Asked te- give the sotial status of the Supreme court ¢ircte tt the Wash ington .geometry. & witely known fhunteax aad, “ Good, but solemn.” And they ere, usually. Impressive rather ’ GENEVIEVE RBES HERRIK Cave Dwellers Plant Money in One Bank, Souls in One Church than gay; formal rather than fulsor.», ie the social program of these serious minded men end their wives. * © Senators and Congressmen. Senate and society are not synony- mous. Every senator is listed in the social register, but that is automatic, Hot axiomatic. Some of the more serious, following Borah's lead, are wary of silken, social entanglements. Some of the more strategic find thet &® place on an important committee is @ neat corollary to a place at an im- portant dinner table. Some of ¢ more frivolous, falling to make the inner circles, twirl about in outer ones. There are, perhaps, eix or ten dining- out senators whose wealth, birth, or reputation cause them to be wooed by nearly every hostess in Washington. In the house of representatives so cial distinction is even less an in-> evitable adjunct of election. Whereas every senator is listed in the social register, @ congressman has to have @ prior reason for getting in. There are fewer than a score now listed. Most of these hail from New York polo fields or Back Bay libraries. ‘The average politician, then, knows really little of what the world calls “capital society.” He goes through the proper motions: his wife makes the proper cails; leaves the proper carts; attends the proper receptions. But they may go through an entire e@eason and know, socially, nobody gave the members of their own dele- gation. * * The Army and Navy. No diagram of the major circles at the Washington court would be com- Plete without @ picture of that gay, Jaunty, cerefhonious group, the army and navy folk. Proud of its ancient tradition, this circle bows low, clankse {ts sword precisely, and revefes its etiquette as something canonical. Pleased, too, with modern good times, it gives, with all its ritual and cere- Mony, some of the most spontaneous parties in the town. This combina- tion of the old and the new, together with a third important element, the fact that so many of the young men re bachelors, makes the army-navy group exceedingly popular with the young women of the town. Of the two companion circumferences, army and navy, the first seems to be the biither, It is headed by Chief of Staff Charles P. Summerall, the most gentle man who ever shouted a hard boiled order. There are the army dances at Fort Meyer, the Sunday aft- ernoon teas at the Summerall home, the famous military circus, the polo matches. But the war has done to these cir- cles, directly, what the war did, indi- rectly, to the others. The army and navy first families have, in the very Practice of their professions, brought into the family newcomers whom the old timers eye sometimes with some- thing like social disapproval. At any rate, the circles have stretched and bulged and expanded quite beyond an- tcipation. * * ‘The Climber. And then, everlastingly, there is the climber. The capital on the Potomac is both an opportunity and a challenge to the climber. An opportunity, be cause it ts the one city in the country where the newcomer takes the initia- tive, and is supposed to; the one city where the newcomer can climb, rap- idly, on to the circumference of sev eral large circles, But it is also a challenge, a bitter challenge, for Washington, above every other city in this democracy, is still swayed by the gentle hand of the past, It is harder, therefore, to get from the circumference of the big circle to the center of a small one, than a sim lar Journey is in many another city. Of this opportunity and challenge, Henry Loomis Nelson, writing in 1902, sald: “In the ebb and flow of the classes which would be sharply divided from one another in a typical American city, the flood picks up individuals from the unaccustomed mase and car- ries them into quiet social pools where they are shaped in a measure to the requirements of conventions, but where they also shape @ little that with which they are brought into con- tact.” Mrs. William Howard Taft, recol lecting the changes that have come to the town since she went the! the young wife of a young justice, de clares: “Washington was much smaller then than it is now. Since that time @ great many people of very large means have gone to Washington to live because of its unusual attrac- tions, its innumerable aivantages as @ residential city. They have changed Washington by their generous hospi tality into one of the most brilliant centers of the world. 2 8 Changes Wrought by War. Then, once again a change, a world war this time, changed ern village into a clatt city. The new democracy pried deep wedges into the rim of the aristocratic circles. There was contusion, chuos. After the war the curves tightened; there was an attempt to reconstruc. the old figures, with each circle of the precise ante-war dimensions. It wae a failure. For Washington, sortally can never return to Its pre-war tabo-@ and fetishes any more than Warhing ton, numerically, can squeeze down to ite prewar site. : So Waahington, with a thousand dit. ferent facets and myriads of angler to each facet, shines forth. new and old. A democracy with aristocratic gestures. Founded by men who, though they declined title, brought some of the royal pur! into the wilderness, this nations: cupital is a colorful, wistful, howpitanie.