Blood, Curtseys & Mrs. Courtney

GREAT BRITAIN

Blood, Curtseys & Mrs. Courtney

When an English girl begins really to like a man from "the States," or when an English dowager designs to flatter one. she usually says: "You know, you don't really seem a bit like an American."

Foolish indeed would be any Englishwoman to try this out on Brig.-General Charles Gates Dawes. Just how foolish she would be, just how thoroughly American he is, Ambassador Dawes reminded the world in a speech last week at Cambridge.

The Ambassador was about to sail for a furlough in the U. S. Cambridge University had just made him an honorary Doctor of Laws and in the distinguished audience sat prim John Galsworthy, elfin Sir James Matthew Barrie, beefy Lords Beauchamp and Bridgeman, and His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, "Uncle Arthur" Henderson-- honorary degree men all.

Banging the rostrum as though to smash it, barking his words in thin staccato, turning from side to side and gesticulating so vigorously that his glasses seemed about to fall off, General Dawes delivered one of his best speeches in quite his best, slashing, he-American style:

"The friendly attitude of the two English-speaking peoples exists because of a blood tie and thus rests upon a foundation as immovable as the rock of Gibraltar!

"I have the honor to represent in this country the government of a people of over 120,000,000 population, of whom half are of British descent. In my country, therefore, there are at least 10,000,000 more people of British descent than live in the island of Britain itself!"

To the English audience this was the proper time to cry "Hear, hear," in low, carefully modulated tone. With rising tone General Dawes continued: "As American Ambassador I come frequently into contact with certain traveled Britons and Americans who are continual purveyors of the trivial and the irritating in international relationship. They do not seem to have sensed the inevitable consequence of an existing tie of blood upon the permanent and fundamental attitude of the two peoples."

Gold Star Mothers. From racial ties the Ambassador passed with ever-increasing fervor and sincerity to the theme of Motherhood. "We have recently had in London," he cried, "a body of American travelers representing a cross section of the American people, representing the heart and soul of the American people, representing the bone and sinew of the American people and the proud attitude of the American people--a body of travelers not self-invited, with their minds occupied by thoughts of society reporters or fashionable dressmakers, but mothers invited by the Government of the United States to make their first and last visit to the graves of their sons in France who fell in the 27th and 30th divisions of the American Army, fighting under British command by the side of their comrades of the British Army.

"They brought no social introduction. The credentials which each carried were but the photograph of a son and a few withered flowers from a garden at home to lay on a grave in France. They needed no more.

"The heads of many of them were gray and the years had left them feeble, but the heartbeats of two great peoples were keeping time with their footsteps.

"As Ambassador of the United States I met them at Westminster Hall, where they were assembled at the invitation of the British Government. That, to me, was the proudest hour of all my sojourn here!"

The Ladies Flayed. Among the ladies who may consider themselves to have been flayed by General Dawes are: Mrs. Despard Goff, wife of the West Virginia Senator of General Dawes' own party; Miss Vera Bloom, daughter of Democratic Congressman Sol Bloom of New York; Miss Doris Duke, richest of all heiresses ("Bull Durham"); two Philadelphia debutantes of bluest blood, the Misses Frances Hutchinson (her mother a Stotesbury) and Isabel Henry (her mother a Biddle), and furthermore the daughters of the presidents of Campbell Soup (Miss Charlotte Kelsey Dorrance), Thermos bottles (Miss Eleanore Edwards) and Atwater Kent Radio (Miss Elizabeth Brinton Kent).

If none of these ladies is in a position to make Ambassador Dawes smart for such words as "self-invited . . . purveyors of the trivial and irritating . . . with their minds occupied by thoughts of society reporters," there was at least one other presentee with power of rebuttal. She, Mrs. Bertha Baur, widow of Jacob Baur, Chicago's late famed Liquid Carbonic Co. tycoon, possesses abilities and energy which have brought her "up" from stenographer, to businesswoman, to society lady, to politician. Four years ago she ran a surprising though losing race against Congressman Fred A. Britten in the Republican primaries (TIME, Aug. 9, 1926). With her political and social contacts and popularity in General Dawes' home city and party she can well avenge the honor of U. S. presentees at court.

Naughty Mrs. Courtney. First of its character in 27 years, the following notice appeared in last week's official London Gazette:

Lord Chamberlain's Office,

St. James's Palace

Notice is hereby given that the presentation of Mrs. Christopher Courtney at Their Majesties' Court on May 14 has been canceled.

An American woman might cheerfully have sustained the blow, but to an Englishwoman it is grievous indeed. What had Mrs. Courtney done? Chin up, this singularly lovely woman, wife of smart Air Group-Captain Christopher Lloyd Courtney, C.B.E., D.S.O., refused to speak to newsfolk. She had been presented by Lady Salmond, wife of the Air Chief Marshal, who said: "I was not aware that the cancellation was to be announced. I cannot enlighten the newspapers as to the reason for the Lord Chamberlain's action."

The usual reason for refusing in advance an otherwise eligible candidate for presentation is divorce. Mrs. Courtney is a divorcee, used to be Mrs. Alexander Arnold Rayson. It was presumed in London that the Lord Chamberlain's Office did not find this out until last week. Even so the cancellation was unusually speedy. Strict though she was, Queen Victoria always allowed a considerable time to elapse before shaming a woman who had curtseyed to her. But Queen Mary--as King Edward VII often complained (TIME, March 17)--is inflexible where the morals of women are concerned.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.