The Bismarck Tribune Newspaper, February 9, 1929, Page 6

Marble Palace Widows Next to Cave Dwellers WEALTHY and widowed sena- tor was seated at dinner one night, not so long ago, next the wife of a cabinet minister. She began to twit him, as all Washington twits its wifeless officials, about the widows who were setting their caps for him. The senator laughed away the;charge, admitted that the town was filled with blithe and bereaved ladies, but pointed out that their widow’s mites were su vast that they had little interest in matrimony. The wife of the cabinet minister looked up and down the table to cather statistics. There were thirty- two dinner guests. That meant six- teen women. Of the sixteen, nine were widows with millions. It 1a no wonder, then, that the colony of “marble palace widows” forms an important part of that larger circle known as the “resi- dentials* in Washington society. These residentials, who stand mid- way between yesterday’s cave dweller 4nd tomorrow's climber, form a circle that ta large and important, moneyed and satisfied. Fate, politics, leisure, Qdventure sent them, originally, to the federal city. They stayed on from choice. Their evolution, from stroll- ing players from forty-eight states, into an indigenous band, passionately loyal to the community in which they have no citizenship, is entirely logical, in the light of early Washington his- tory, For the mighty Powhatan's red- skins who glided down the Potomac end loitered by its banks long enough to quarry. stone near Mr. Coolidge's back yard centuries before it was Mr. Coolidge’s back yard were a nomadic tribe. Likewise, many of their pale- face brothers at the nation’s capital today are members of a shifting guild —political gypsies of America's democ- racy, changing every time the ballots &re counted. But even a rolling stone sometimes finds a cozy resting place, in the right neighborhood, where it builds a iine house, sends the address to the social register, and gathers what social moss there is. That is happening every ay in Washington. Since the major rhythm of official Ule is marked into bars of four years each, and since there is likely to be @ change in the melody every fourth March 4, the rotating job holders and the itinerant visitors on Capito! hill regard as an old timer any one who bas weathered three administrations. Nor is this a contradiction of the previous statement that the real ‘Washington cave dweller measures time by the clock that hung at Mount Vernon. To the cave dweller it is true—anything introduced since the days of President Arthur is a vulzar tmnovation. But to the day's influx of millionaires anything more than a four year term smacks of old Nestor bimselt. * * Up Near the Top. In between these two extremes, then, stand the residentials. Some are very near the cave dwellers them- selves in prestige and millinery. Others who started out as blatant climbers have climbed so high that they employ haughty social secret- Ties to guard against the 1928 climber, even as they were guarded against a ecade or #0 ago. Most conspicuous of the residentials are the marble palace widows, those ladies with vast fortunes and roomy, gloomy mansions, who entertain luzx- urtously and furiously, and who par take of all Washington's festivities ave the annoying, because so ex- clusive, simplicity of the cave dwell- @r's hospitality. There:is Mrs. John Brooks Hender- gon, who sells rea] estate, pours wine {nto gutters, and tried to give Calvin Coalidge = mouse. There is Mrs. Thomas F. Walsh, widow of the Irish millwright, who made millions in ail- ver, and lived to eat cabbage off gold plate: and there is Mrs. John R. ‘Williams, Joo Leiter's independent mother-in-law. There is Mrs. Stephen Elkins, whose daughter turned mpperiod senator whom she And, of qourpe, there a i i iu | it { I ad t { 53 : eg Then he reminded her that she was outdone, however, by an Indian tribe who “live wholly on odors.” Meat never has a place on her din- ner plates, any more than alcohol finds @ way into her glasses, or nico- tine into the atmosphere. But she doesn't choose to call herself a vege- tarian. “ Sanditarian” is the word she finds most appropriate, and she explains that it is composed of “ san,” from the Latin word “sanus,” or healthy, and a derivative of the word “diet.” A healthy diet, she insists, makes no truce with meat, which she labels “nothing but dead animals.” Her chef is so expert a technician that her subterfuge meat dishes aro said to have won over Wu Ting-fang, the Chinese diplomat, and to have sent him back to China with a trunk full of sanditarian recipes. The more skeptical, however, point out that Wu Ting-fang was a diplomat.” If meat is bad, alcohol is worse, she believes, And, being the widow of that Senator Henderson of Missouri who introduced the thirteenth amend- ment, abolishing slavery, she has not forgotten some of his battles. So, one post-Volstead spring day, when she was feeling particularly in- dependent, she lined up her servants, led them down cellar and ordered them to follow the lead of their gray haired mistress as she carried a priceless bottle of wine down to the street and, there, with a magnificent Gesture, poured into the gytter the burgundy colored liquid. Reluctantly the servants did their duty. The gut- ters ran red with wine, and Wash- ington’s thirsty went on a three day drunk following the precious deluge. More recently, when the first train from Kansas City had brought back to the nation’s capital the Republican leaders from the convention, Mrs. Henderson got up a grand dinner for Senator Smoot that she might thank him for the dry plank in the party platform. ** * A Dealer in Land. But the wine glass and the ash tray were not always taboo. Referring to earlier customs, Mrs. Henderson, in her book on health, writes this apolo- gia for bygone hospitalities: “My own atrocious sinning in converting the dining room into a dram shop and the library into a tobacco joint was as execrable as the bad taste of mentioning self. . . . It would have been easy to serve dinners with- out wine or cigars if 1 had been in the habit of entertaining Americans only.” . But, most emphatically, she {s not in the “habit of entertaining Ameri- cans only.” Her outdoor swimming pool is an international pond, with diplomats splashing around in friend. ly amity. Her tennis court is really extraterritorial. Foreigners throng her Monday afternoon tea dances, where this energetic widow, in an elaborate afternoon frock, receives the guests as a frisky black dog snaps at the heels of the bedroom slippers which so strangely complete the hostess’ costume. And, by the way, she who dances for health rather than for pleasure Outdances many who twirl about for pleasure rather than health. Calories and arteries, important as they are to Mrs. Henderson, are, how- ever, subordinate to her main interest: the value or a plot of land, Left a comfortable fortune by her father, the late Judge Elisha Foote of New York, one time commissioner of patents, she has multiplied it magnificently, tor she is nobody's fool when it comes to real estate, For many years Massachusetts ave- nue had been the corridor of the lega- tions and embassies, The street was smug and complacent, confident that no upstart thoroughfare would dare challenge its position. Then, one morning, Mary Foote Henderson de- clared that Massachusetts avenue was @ terrible place. She called it “ Dead Man’s Gulch,” and vowed she'd swing the diplomatic trafic over to Sixteenth streét, on its high part, out. near Flor- ida avenue, the city’s former boundary line. The city laughed and called the plan crazy., First she built her own castle, with its high turrets and its sunken swimming pool; {ts Venetian palazzo. Then she built hai @ dozen or more ESE i The wedding picture of Alice Roose- velt and the present speaker, Nicholas Longworth. ment would require. Then they shook their heads and commanded Senator Fernald to decline the gift with thanks. Meanwhile, from his hotel room, Calvin Coolidge sent word that it was ® pretty house, but that he did not Choose to run it. And that ts the only plan of Mrs. John Brooks Hen- derson that is ever known to have met defeat. There is a lot of talk about the best technique and the best set of tools with which to break a wedge into fashionable circles at the nation's cap.’ ital. The usual procedure is to get into a good circle at Washington, then edge into the diplomatic circle, and presently jump the ocean to the mid- dle of a Mayfair drawing room or the rim of a royal tea party at Windsor castle. The Walshes just used re verse English. They had to go clear over to Europe in order to walk down the red carpet and up through the front door into Washington society. When Tom Walsh came to the cap- ital, in the late nineties, his pockets were bulging with some of the mil- ions he had received for the sale to an English syndicate of his famous Camp Bird mine out west. But the two fisted lad from Tipperary who had adventured to th® Black hills in the rush of '76, and who had found that everything he touched his fingers to turned, promptly, to silver, was Breeted by no reception. committee eager to welcome him into the sacred Metropolitan club. And his wife, the former Caroline Reed of Wisconsin, whose westward Journey in search of health had culminated, some years back, in marriage to the enterprising miner, was dismayed at the lack of invitations the postman brought to their rented but very elaborate home. In 1900 President McKinley ap- pointed Walsh United States commis- sioner to the Paris exposition. Then things began to happen. The miner and his lady sailed away unsung. But once in Paris they took half of the Elyaée Palace hotel and European no- bility dropped in for sandwiches. He hired a boat on the Seine and wave @ $40,000 dinner. The prima donna who sang for the crowd re. ceived $2,000, and that was an Arabian Nights fee in those days. He got chummy with the king of Belgium and Ud him to dinner at the Ritz He said he wanted the czar’s Russian band to play at the feast. Paris laughed and called him a fool. But he reached for his check book and the band played. es * Washington’s Surrender. When they sailed back to Washing- ton the Walshes found that a lot of natives who had friends who had relatives who had signed the Declara- tion of Independence but who hadn't been able to meet an obscure countess were suddenly desperately fond of that Quaint self made millionaire who had been hobnobbing with royalty. The invitations poured in. Tom Walsh and bis. wife built their big house ard Gossip reported that it cost one million Ubree-quarters of @ million. And to- Gay every manicure girl in town will swear that it has a solid gold bath tub, while the Leiters have only @ white and gold ballroom, ‘The miner and his wife began to en- tertain so abundantly that Baron Coubertain exclaimed: ” Withoyt sixty Washington, of most of it. had sur- rendered, but Newport was more mgongly fortified, St is recurded that Mrs. flerman Oviricha, one, of ire rotumieer defenders of the seaide WASHINGTON-DEMOCRACYS Mrs. Edward B. McLean, daughter of tertainer at her estate, “ Friendship.” Upstart.” Whereupon Mrs. Walsh Suggested that Mrs. Oelrichs, and Mrs. Oelrichs’ sister, Mrs. Willlam K, Van- derbilt Jr., turn their thoughts on their own genealogy and recollect that their own father, James G. Fair, owed hia fortune to a mine, While it lasted it was a delightful scrap. Mrs, Walsh fired the last shot when she proclaimed: “ Society doesn't interest me. I wouldn't live in New- bert—not if they gave me the place.” And she went back to the sixty room house on Massachusetts avenue. to dispense fairylike hospitality off golden plates, to the tune of an organ, to ambassadors, senators, hungry no- bility with the proper credentials; above all, large numbers of army and nevy people. Upon the death of her husband, in 1910, she retained the palace, which she loans out, every now and then, to friends who want to entertain on the gigantic scale. se Gold for Royalty. When the king and queen. of Belgium stopped off in Wash- ington as official guests of Vice President and Mrs. Marshall, the genial Hoosier didn’t quite know Where “to billet traveling - royalty. Mrs. Walsh, a friend of the queen and of democracy, stepped forward and offered her home, gold plates and all. The offer was accepted. . No ancient Greek dramatist could have asked fora more artistic last act. Back in 1900, you will remember, it was King Leopold who, by his friendship for the western miner and his wife, had, all unwittingly, given them the royal boost which - landed them safe in democracy’s haughty inner circle. And then, almost two decades later, Mrs. Walsh returns the favor, plays fervent hostess to King Albert, descendant of these same Bel: gians, and shows the queen how suc- cesstul royal protégés they the Walshes, have been, since all Wash- ington is now clamoring for invita- tions to the marble palace. Does society impinge on govern: ment? Does a dinner party often avert a war; can a boner in etiquette bring one on? People don't agree at all about the answers to these ques- tol but how they love to talk about. them! episode in which Mabel Boardman is Teputed|to have sodthed a diplomat’s the woun feelings by assuring him that it was proper for Dawes to stand next to Coolidge and ahead of the ambassa- dors since our diplomats ut the Court of St. James would not’ presume to precede the Prince of Wales, and that Charlie Dawes was, for the purpose © of the‘argument, our Prince of Wales. This is frequently cited as an exam- ple of the feminine touch in: govern- ment, ‘ ‘heard, the other side of the palms, One man will quote you the” DRAWING ROOM Divorce and multiple remarriages are now so interlaced with good old names in the District of Columbia that every day brings forth its embar- rassing moment to the casual conver. sationalist who talka before he looks at the Paris divorce news. Last win- ter the Gerrys were giving a big dance. The afternoon of the day on which the ball was to take place a youthful member of the state depart- ment met Mrs. Weltes at tea. “TI am looking forward,” lisped. the Young diplomat, “to a dance with you at your party this evening.” “Sorry,” Mrs. Welles replied, “ but I'm not going to be dancing this eve- ning: I'm going to play bridge.” ‘The young man stumbled on, deter- minded, and finally mentioned some- thing about “your husband, the sen- ator.” Then, in a horrible flash, he recollected that he was not talking to the current Mrs. Gerry, but to the former one. His social aspirations, along with his teacup, clattered down to the oriental rug. Still another lady gains distinction, The Thomas F. Walsh Washington, and, at left, Walsh, its chatelaine. e in Mrs. weeds she wears for a general but trom ‘her position as independent mama-in-law to an independent son- inlaw. This is Mrs. John R. Wil: Hams, whose daughter, Juliette, married to Joseph Leiter, Chicago's defendant in a suit of many millions waged by discontented co-heirs to the fortune of Joe’s father, Levi Z. Leiter, pioneer merchant. One of the most dangerous imple- ments along the Potomac is the thin blue pencil wielded by Mrs. Williams. With one stroke of it she can make, or as surely break, a debutante. Years ago, when her own daughters, Juliette and Dorothy (now the wife of Freder- ick Sterling of the American legation at Dublin), were debutantes, this Wash- ington matron started “The Dancing Class,” and the designation “The expresses its social infallibility. With the years it gathered unto itself more prestige. Its rival, Mrs. Walsh's “Friday Evening Dancing Class,” is really not a rival at all to Mrs. Wil- liams’. Mra. John B. Henderson, who tricd to give the vice president a mansion. (Photo Copyright by Harris & Ewing.) e 8 Her Crue! Blue Pencil. “The” dancing class meets in the white and gold ballroom of the Leiter triclan and sometimes cruel blue pen- cil. scgtiarog gp cece crate debs of the year, chosen from a that is ‘way over a hundred, is to be made happy and conspicuous with @ social accolade. \ But not all of the residentials are i ba r are Some are much younger; a few much merrier. And one, at least, is much more regal than her own mother. About thirty years ago Mrs. Tom Walsh, wife of the lucky, plucky miner, would have been tickled death to have received a sheaf of invitations each morning, and she would have hurried from place to place to. accept them all. But today her daughter, Evelyn, wife of Ned McLean, newspaper publisher, it mere amusing to. assume. the pre- rogatives of royalty and decline to Airs. Joe Leiter and her mother, Mra. John G. Wiliams. Mrs. Williams is one of the marble palace widows. (Photo © Harris & Ewing.) heart of Katherine Elkins and wooed her the year she should have made her debut but didn't because she vowed she'd “certainly make faces at the guests.” In 1908 the Duke of Abruzzi, cousin of the dead King Hum- bert, came a-visiting. The Larz An- dersons gave him a ball; he asked to be presented to Miss Elkins, and fell @ royal victim to her beauty and her piquant wit. The international ques- tion of the day speedily became, “Is she going to marry the duke?” There was talk that Queen Marghe- rita, King Humbert's widow, opposed the match. There was talk that the opposition softened when Miss Elkins agreed to turn Catholic:and give a marriage dot of a cool half million. go Some said she refused to be a mor- ganatic wife; others sald the duke had pledged that morganatic wife. "Until one fall day in 1913 when she invited her family and his to a wed- the Tom Walshes. A most lavish en- WU. & U. photo.) to come, and apologizing for - being a fine dinner in her home in Embassy @ fellow guest. But, in most cases, row on Sixteenth street. No star likes an all-star cast, and it is a cou- rageous hostess, indeed, who dares ask more than a pair of ambassadors to the same party. But Mrs. Field (the former Mrs. Arthur Caton of Chicago who married the dry goods merchant less than a year before his death in 1906] is courageous and well be- loved. She had five ambassadors at her party. When the meal was over, she stood up, rings on her fingers, bracelets at her wrists, gems at her throat, and Proposed a toast to “our foreign friends," and she named four of the five. To make the blunder more se- rious, the name she had accidentally omitted was that of-the only South American diplomat present. It wasn't until she had sat down and noted the look of dismay on the gentleman’s face that she realized her mistake. She thought it more gracious, however, not to direct attention to the unintentional slight by making a speech of apology; so she said nothing. Later, she took one of her friends aside and asked advice. This friend counseled her to forget it and let the South American envoy do likewise. rr It was a year later that this guest, @@. whom Mrs. Field had confided -her Worry and chagrin that pight, walked into a conservatory at a reception and the diplomat whose name had been omitted from the toast telling his ver- sion of the story to an important Chilean official. Risking the sin of z i E E g g juctant guest since ve eavesdropping, the woman listened Pirsig Parkins’ che has tober and picked out the Spanish phrases ed from her father those gestures of well enough to know that the envoy flinging’ money across the table and was interpreting that affair of a year forth a feast of Lucullus. ae pol ae. 07 Rouben but as a de- In 1912, at ‘a reception to the Rus- pity rinp tio diceege Han ambassedot, ake, auite Utarally, { FEE ¢ i the ambassador, and his friend trom 0D fancied yellow lilies for a party. Chile, just what Mra. Field had said B. ‘sent to England for five thousand of to her ‘that night.” The unfortunate retary of them. Two men went down to New omission was, she pointed out, no War in ‘Their son, Yori fetch the fragrant cargo from subtle political plot, but a mistake senate. newsies | $ f Ela: ba ee i i i H he Fe E. ing invited, not to one but to al} four tiful disappointed of the state dinners on the White of them, yao. ‘kept her in France until February, $0 topmont when she returned with her niece, Grunk @ sorry ana gj Mrs. Albert J. Beveridge, to remain to Peter vd quietly at home. 4 ‘Those P not only from the important widow's ~ GENEVIEVE. BES HERRUK Guard Against” Those Who Seek: to Climb Upward ship, the estate from which Alice and Nicholas Longworth started their honeymoon, and to which Mrs. Hard- @ ing went an a widow. Here there is a quaint mixture of Monroe's formal- ity and Jefferson's péle-méle. Tables dot the lawn. But there are place cards for only the gold braid guests. ‘The others are bidden to “sit where you wish.” The magnificoes sit according to chart. The social peasants, eagér to chat, in cozy téte-&-téte, with an am- bassador ora baron, need no pbdlice sergeant to keep them away from the tables of the great, for each climber is fearful of the unspoken rebuke of his fellow climbers. So, frequently. he slinks of to a table in the hinter- lands of the estate, and sits in silence -with other mediocrities whose social ambitions, for the day, have been sim!- larly thwarted. But Mrs. McLean could seat some * of her guests in the alley and they would accept her invitations; and hope for better luck. 1 We have already spoken of Juliette ‘Williams. Leiter and the unchallenged supremacy of her dancing class. A few years ago a Washington woman, whose girlhood as the daughter of an Ohto plumber was glittered over with the prestige of a womanhood abroad as the wife of an ambassador, did dare to challenge Gen. Williams’ daughter. She announced a party for the same night that Mrs. Leiter was giving a ball The guest list was ak most a carbon copy. The papers got hold of the story. Both hostesses de- nied that there was a crisis. Rut those who know swear that the daugh- ter of the Ohio plumber got in so bad that it will be a long, long time before she, or any one save a cave dweller, will try to compete against Levi Z. Leiter’s daughter-in-law. When she isn’t entertaining Mrs. Leiter is a dilettante shopkeeper. Her dress establishment, “Francois,” iscne @ of the buildings which her mother, with an interest in real estate, has re modeled.» =~ s * i Frocks and Politics, What the amateur interior decorat- ing shop is to the society ‘woman and the Little theater is to the Philadelphia society woman real es- tate and dresses are to Washington women, For instance, there ts Mrs. Laura Merriam Curtis, who married, di- yorced, and then remarried James F. » New York broker. She has to gone into business, operates “ Cies Curtis,” a smart dress shop on Con- necticut avenue, has a branch in New York, and seems to be having a grand tme of it. She gave a practical demonstration of her clothes sense down at City at the Republican national co! vention, whither she went to sit at & table in the Hoover headquarters, dispense literature, and win a reputa- tion as the most beautifully gowned woman at the meeting. Once a year ahe forgets frocks and Politics and turns all her vivacious energies toward the annual Charity hich she sponsors with such HEE Fee & rit Ef eggs 2eek i i 5 g F 4 i i i Ff i ? t f i afes 437 7 tf FEE