Blazing to Peace

Having slept in Abraham Lincoln's bed at the White House, Scot MacDonald moved to the British Embassy for his last days in Washington, rode out early in the afternoon to doff his hat at the tomb of Woodrow Wilson. Lest anyone suppose Mr. Hoover had told him to do this to ensure Democratic Senatorial votes for a future treaty, Embassy officials announced that he went of his own volition.

Doffing his hat to George and Martha Washington at Mount Vernon, the Prime Minister asked if Superintendent Colonel Dodge remembered the "frightful heat and thunderstorm" on the occasion of the Prime Minister's last visit, when he was only "Mr." (TIME, April 18, 1927, et seq.) Colonel Dodge looked perplexed.

Stimson's Stag. Spacious Woodley, home of Secretary of State Stimson, was the last place where Prime Minister clasped hands with President. Two hours previously they had formally farewelled at the White House, but Mr. Hoover slipped over to his Secretary's stag dinner. No socialites were present as such. Most of the stags were potent Congressmen and Senators of both parties, including Senatorial floor leaders Robinson (Dem.) and Watson (Rep.). Sound meat for conversation was a joint declaration issued earlier in the day by Stags Hoover and MacDonald, momentously summing the results of their conversations.

Hoover -MacDonald Declaration: "Both our Governments resolve to accept the [Kellogg-Briand] Peace Pact not only as a declaration of good intentions, but as a positive obligation. . . . Therefore, in a new and reinforced sense the two governments not only declare that war between them is unthinkable, but that distrusts and suspicions arising from doubts and fears which may have been justified before the Peace Pact must now cease to influence national policy. . . .

"The exchange of views on naval reduction has brought the two Nations so close to agreement that the obstacles in previous conferences arising out of Anglo-American disagreements seem now substantially removed. . . . We have been able to end, we trust forever, all competitive building between ourselves . . . by agreeing to a parity of fleets, category by category. . . ."

Return. As he left Washington in the private car of President Daniel Willard of the Baltimore & Ohio R. R., the tall and visibly tired Scot said to Statesman Stimson: "I wish I could stay longer." Five minutes at Baltimore were spent acknowledging cheers, receiving two engrossed scrolls which conferred honorary membership in the Maryland Academy of Sciences, the socialite St. Andrews Society.

In Philadelphia the silver-haired statesman warmly wrung the hand of Quakerdom's distinguished S. Solis Cohen, the physician who saved his life in Philadelphia two years ago. In gratitude the Prime Minister stopped over for three hours, facetiously recalled to august lunchers at the Bellevue-Stratford how "Philadelphians used to come in with long faces and look at me over the foot of the bed and reveal in their countenances how long I had to live."

Manhattan. To reporters: "I have been a guest of a nation of all colors and creeds. . . . The official visit is over. . . . I feel that I have returned to a city of adoption." He dined with Morgan Partner Thomas William Lamont.

Followed a hectic day in which adopted Scot MacDonald was forced to alternate at highest pressure between handshaking, food and talk. Audiences totaling 7,800 New Yorkers heard him orate some 7,000 words at a gala luncheon, a tea-reception, a banquet. With many a humorous and sage digression which brought laughter and cheers, he pursued with alternate lapses into weariness and spurts of fire the theme: Blazing the trail to Peace!

Axmen Hoover and Dawes. Teatotaler MacDonald grinned and did not deny a story told to 2,500 tea guests of the Foreign Policy Association at Hotel Commodore by the Association's founder Paul U. Kellogg. According to Mr. Kellogg three bottles of vintage stimulants were supplied by Art Tycoon Sir Joseph Duveen when it was a question of saving Scot MacDonald's life in Philadelphia. "One bottle bore the crest of the Bonapartes," cried waggish Informer Kellogg. "It was from the cellars of the great Emperor himself!"

Eschewing mention of Napoleon brandy, Teatotaler MacDonald harked back to Peace. He told history very much in the Alfred Emanuel Smith manner. "President Hoover came into office in March," he reminded. "I came into office in June. ... I found a man working in front of me with his coat off. I said 'Hello ! What are you doing?'

"He said, 'I am blazing a trail for peace.'

"I said, 'That is what I am here for.'

"And I said, 'Who are you?'

"He said, 'My name is Hoover.'

"And he said, 'Who are you?'"

Deafening applause drowned many another I-said-he-said. The third axman on the peace-blazing trail Mr. MacDonald described as "that delightful personality, that thoroughly genial personality, that extraordinary example of fine human nature whom you have sent to London. . . . We were informal. . . . You can imagine the language that General Dawes occasionally uses."

Birthday. In his tenth floor suite at Hotel Weylin the Prime Minister broached sturdily a cake with 63 candles plus an extra one. "Congratulations!" boomed a voice which ordinarily he has good right to fear, the voice of his doughtiest British political foe, famed Winston Churchill, Chancellor of the Exchequer in the recently fallen Conservative Cabinet, now winding up a whirlwind U. S. lecture tour. Grinning at each other, the friendly foes munched cake. Other birthday treats were Ishbel's presents (see p. 28), a trans-Atlantic telephone chat with Alastair MacDonald (son) and sprightly Joan ("little sister"). In the afternoon the weary, perceptibly hollow-eyed Prime Minister took a rural motor ride, ate his birthday dinner with Napoleon-brandyman Sir Joseph Duveen, who had been his cabin neighbor crossing on the Berengaria.

At Toronto. On Sunday the Prime Minister went to the country to visit his old friend Miss Lillian D. Wald, head of the Henry Street Settlement. Hounded by the press, he picked apples, went canoeing, motored for tea with Banker Felix Warburg, returned to Manhattan to eat "a typical American dinner" with welfare workers. Early the next morning the MacDonald party entrained for Toronto via Niagara Falls (his honeymoon spot). Toronto's convening A. F. of L. members', soothed by a propitiary telegram, looked forward to a half hour's interview with the world's leading labor statesman.