Evening Star Newspaper, June 8, 1930, Page 91

THE SUNDAY STAR, W'ASIIINGTON. P:. €. JUNE 8 1930. - Have a LL Mrs. Patrick J. Hurley, charming cabi- net hostess, declares that the younger generation has as fine ideals as any of the preceding generations has had. 'AS TOLD TO NELL RA4Y CLARKE. ITH any change in the administra- tion in Washington, there is a flood of new figures culled from the tall timbers and grasses of the out- lands. Looming larger than all the rest are the cabinet officers, and next to them, their wives. Among the most colorful figures of the new Hoover administration was Col. Patrick Jay Hurley of Oklahoma, who came to the Capital to help run the Army. Tall, handsome, very popular, with a brilliant war record and no small fame as a lawyer, he seemed ideal for the post he has since been elevated to fill. But he had an additional qualification for high office which has a peculiar weight of its own in Washington—a beautiful and charming wife. To Ruth Wilson Hurley, daughter of Admiral and Mrs. Henry B. Wilson, Washing- ton was the happy playground of her girlhood. She went to school, made her debut and found her husband in the Capital. The theme songs of social and official life belonged in the cate- gory of old favorites with her. Today she is ranked the prettiest and one of the most charming cabinet hostesses in Washington. THER! 3 more than the usaul charm of a ! lovely woman about Ruth Hurley. She has the rare type of Flemish beauty which some old masters captured on their canvasses—pale blund hair, with loose waves of natural curl, and soft brown eyes. She possesses, too, that “most ex- cellent thing in woman,” a sweet low-pitched voice. Tall, willowy and graceful, she knows how to wear those simple, unobtrusive yet ele- gant clothes which make the beauty of the woman herself paramount. She is as fascinating person to watch. No wonder Patrick Hurley could carry her memory with him to France and come back home bent on seeking her out immediately after he ar- rived in the country. During the early days of the war, when the young Oklahoman was stationed in Washington, he attended a riding and hunt club ball. “Pat,” as he is affectionately known among his friends, was already a rising attorney who had begun to make a national name for himself and to accumulate by wise investments considerable property. In a pageant at that ball his eye fell upon a slender, beautiful blond girl, a debu- tante of that season. It is perhaps part of his genius that he recognized immediately the pat- tern in which the fates were weaving the thread of his life. He turned to one of his fellow officers. “Some day I'll marry that girl,” he remarked. His friends looked at him in astonishment. “Do you know who she is?” he asked. “Why, she's Admiral Henry Wilson’s daughter,” he added by way of comment. “Surely,” answered the Hurley. Of course she knew nothing about his inten- tions at that time. She had danced with him # few times at various parties, but he had never called on her. About that time he was ordered t¢ France, so he dccided to kcep his csecret to confident Patrick 15 — e Esmmm——— ittle Faith in Modern Yout A Tribute to the Younger Generation From Mrs. “Pat” Hurley, Wife of the Secretary of War, Who Finds Them Self-Reliant, Intelligent, Physically Fit and Unafraid. himself and ask her to marry him when he came back from France. That seems rather a risk for him to have taken, for he was gone a long time. HE crowded a great deal into those vivid and terrible months on the western front. He fought at St. Mihiel, in the Aisne-Marne and Meuse-Argonne offensives, and steadily climbed in rank to a lieutenant colonelcy. He earned a citation for “gallantry in action,” and he was given the Distinguished Service Medal. After the armistice was signed, because of his knowledge of international law and his natural gallantry, he was sent to the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg to settle amicably those little irri- tations which the little neutral duchy, hemmed in between France and Germany, had suffered at the hands of the American Expeditionary Forces. The gay and dashing young American officer taught the Luxemburg Premier all the American slang he had mastered as cowpuncher; he danced, dined and rode with the grand duchess, and settled America’s debts to Luxem- burg to the gracious expressions of satisfaction of his hosts. But fame on the battlefield and romantic as- sociation with a grand duchess did not make Pat Hurley forget something he had in the back of his mind all the while—the memory of a tall, slender blond girl at home. When he came back he made his first engagement he had ever made to call on the admiral’s daughter, and he proposed to her that very first night. Naturally, she was astounded. Nothing like that had happened to her before—a man to propose the first time he called. She didn’t know him very well and she hadn't seen him nor heard from him in nearly two years. The Hurley home represents one of the finest types of American homes—two fine young per- sons with high and fine ideals, the wife born to high place, the husband attaining it by sheer ability, surrounded by a happy family of husky, vigorous youngsters—Patricia, Ruth and Wilson. Nor is this charming young matron worrying her head about the behavior of the younger generation, to which she almost belongs her- self. She thinks that at heart they are all right; that they probably have the same or, at any rate, just as fine ideals and conceptions of the place they are to assume in life as any of the preceding generations has had. “DURING the last year I have not seen as much of the younger set or the people of my own age as I used to,” she said, “because, naturally, my husband’s associates are older. But I am a great admirer of the younger gen- eration. I love their frankness, their freedom and their self-reliance. It seems to me that they are very intelligent. I am rather under the impression that, in spite of their seeming worldly wiseness, they are as sound and sensible in their ideas as the girls of my generation were. I shouldn't be surprised if they are bet- ter able to take care of themselves. I hear my friends laughingly say that these young people are informed and intelligent upon subjects upon which they in their youth were merely ‘dumb.’ “Nor do I admit that the younger generation is bad mannered. I have heard it said that with the more feminine styles in clothes which have recently ccme into vogue—the long skirts, the puff sleeves, the laces and the bows—these girls are becoming more demure in their man- ners. Perhaps that is one explanation—that it is now fashionable and ‘new’ to be demure and well behaved. But whatever small and more or less unimportant changes may tdke place in the outward behavior of the younger generation, they are all right at heart. At varfous times I have had groups of Wash- ington debutantes to assist me when entertain- ing. They nre rcired and at ease, and they have quite a nice MNttle dignity. Perhaps they wouldn't like any one to say that they were dig- nified, but they are so, possibly without realiz- ing it. “I remember very distinctly that when I was growing up our mothers thought the girls in our group were very frivolous. I came out during the war, you know, just at the beginning of the time when there was such a marked change in manners, behavior and dress. They were very much concerned about us. But when I think back over that group of girls, most of them are happily married and living the most regular and conventional sort of lives. Nearly all of them have children—not just one child, but several— and they have very strict ideas about how those children shall be reared. They are surprisingly well informed on theories of child education and training, “My mother was astonished when I let my first baby cry three nights in succession, and reproached me with, ‘I don’t know how you are able to do that. Your father used to walk the floor with you.’ “I answer that nobody in my house was going to walk the floor with a baby. After the third night the baby didn’'t cry, because she had found out that she didn’t get attention by ery- ing. My mother admits that my children are good—that is, usually. And the children of my friends are well behaved.” . Just at that moment Mrs. Hurley's statement was admirably demonstrated. Little Patricia, who had broken her ankle and was just conva- lescent from the mumps, put in her appearance. Such a combination of disasters might warrant a little spoiling. She wanted to go play with some little boy in the neighborhood. Her mother explained that she would have to get the little boy to come and play in her own yard. “Do you ever worry about the modern man- ners of young people in reference to your own chiidren?” Mrs. Hurley was asked. “No,” she said with a laugh. “I have no par- ticular fears for my own children when they grow up. Perhaps I am an optimist, but I have always felt that a girl or boy reared prop- erly, who has been carefully taught at home, would rememebr the home teachings. You may laugh at my simplicity, but I am not particu- larly uneasy about what mine may do. I know they’ll do what is right. I have confidence in them. I really admire the young people of to- day a great deal, especially their frank habit of Jooking things in the face. “Those same friends of mine who were con- sidered so frivolous 10 or 12 years ago have all turned out to be interesting women. Not only are they efficient housekeepers and excellent mothers to their children, but they are inter- ested also in national and international affairs, in music, in art or something else outside of the regular round of home duties. They are alert and entertaining. Most of them do some work for a pet charity. They are interested in the out of doors and keep physically fit. “SOME people seem to have the idea that the younger married women are interested only in gadding about and in playing cards. The married women of my generation—of course, I am speaking only from personal ex- perience and therefore mainly of my personal friends—do not spend much of their time play- ing cards. They are interested in too many other things. It seems to me that it is the older women who do most of the card playing— possibly women whose children have grown up and who have little else to amuse or interest them. “Naturally, while the children are young they take most of the time and the interest of the voung married women. Like the rest, my chil- dren are one of the biggest interests in my life. “It is fascinating and stimulating to watch Secretary of War Patrick J. Hurley. their minds unfold and to train their charac- ters. My children go to the public schools. My husband is very democratic, you know. He firmly believes that children get better training in the public schools than in private schools. He says that the public schools rate better scholastically and keep the children up to standards better than private schools. “That is his main reason for insistence on the public school for our children, but there is also the lesser one that in the public schools children learn to become judges of people: they learn to discriminate between those worthy of friendship and those unworthy of it. I was educated in private schools, but, of course, I gave in to my husband’s opinion in the matter, ¢ A ND now I, who probably would have sent my children to private schools, have to admit st the public schools are wonderful. My children come home every day to a nice hot luncheon, but it is possible for children, who would not be able to have a hot luncheon at home to get one at school. That is a fine thing for children whose mothers are busy or working outside the home. “When I first found that my children would be at school from 8:45 in the morning until 4 or 4:30 in the afternoon I rebelled, but I found that they are being taught to play as. well as to study, and after all, it is an excellent thing for children to have this care, so that those mothers who are employed outside the home or have other things they must do can feel that their children are being taken care of and are not left to shift for themselves.” Mrs. Hurley’s own life justifies her argument that the young married women who were the girls of the so-called jazz age have many and varied interests. In the ordinary course of events in Washington she has a great deal of official entertaining to do. But she loves to swim—of course, an admiral’'s daughter would have a weakness for the water. At her home in Tulsa, Okla., the Hurleys have a swimming pool and all the children have learned to swimn,