Prestes & Hoover

(See front cover)

A quiet chat had President Hoover recently with his good and moneyed friend Eugene Meyer Jr. The weather was becoming warm. Mrs. Meyer would perhaps be hastening a trifle her departure to the Meyer country estate. This would leave the Meyer mansion in Washington free to serve as house and home for four days to President-elect Julio Prestes of Brazil who arrived in Washington last week with his gay and handsome son Fernando.

Brazilians would not have been surprised had President Hoover vacated his White House, installed the Prestes therein. When Mr. Hoover as President-elect visited Rio de Janeiro* hospitable President Washington Luis of Brazil moved out of his official residence, Guanabara Palace, and in for 60 hours moved Mr. & Mrs. Hoover. Last week U. S. servants at the Meyer mansion were informed that they must not ascend to the second floor, where the President-elect, dynamic, Rooseveltian, big-boned, occupied Mrs. Meyer's pink-draped bedroom. The Prestes' own Brazilian "man" served his master's frugal breakfasts -- with emphasis on large tumblers of iced orange juice, heaping plates of grapes, and, of course, rolls with Brazilian coffee.

Popular Prestes. Not since the visit of Ramsay MacDonald & Daughter Ishbel has socialite Washington been so favorably impressed as it was by Julio Prestes & Son Fernando. With affable dignity they ably represented the 20 United States of Brazil, almost as populous as the islands of which Mr. MacDonald is Prime Minister, and 258,530 sq. mi. larger than the 48 states of which Mr. Hoover is President.

Only as the Prestes passed through New York en route to Washington did anyone crack a joke at their expense. Fog had delayed their ship seven hours. In his official speech of welcome Mayor James John ("Jimmy") Walker, notorious for being late on all occasions, wisecracked: "I concede to you. Sir, the championship which heretofore has been bestowed on me." Hearing the Tammanyites guffaw, President-elect Prestes laughed politely, though he does not speak English. In Brazil, where public greetings are taken seriously and must embody the flower of courtesy, such a "joke" would have been an insult and President-elect Prestes, understanding, might not have laughed.

For Men Only. In Washington, when ten-minute official calls had been made by Senhor Prestes at the White House and by Mr. Hoover at the Meyer mansion, the President-elect motored to Mount Vernon and Arlington, then dressed for dinner in his pink-draped bedroom, hurried back to the White House where pink roses, hollyhocks and maidenhair ferns decked a banquet board set for 56 men. Vice President Curtis, with Statesman Stimson on his right, faced President Hoover, with President-elect Prestes on his right.

In his dinner conversation through an interpreter Mr. Hoover may well have touched on the reason why the State Banquet was stag. Mrs. Hoover, still suffering from her fall, had been obliged to remain recuperating by the Rapidan (TIME, June 16). For his part Senhor Prestes may have mentioned the illness of his wife. She left Rio with him, had to be put ashore sick at Pernambuco, recovered, sailed for Europe last week, and will very shortly meet the President-elect in London or Paris, returning thence with him to become Brazil's First Lady.

"Faith and Beauty!" Next day Guest Prestes was welcomed to the imposing, white marble Pan-American Building by Statesman Stimson, who as an old school New York lawyer gallantly attempted an oration which would sound sufficiently fiery and cordial when cabled to Rio: ". . . Delightful task of welcoming you! ... In the history of international relations no country occupies a prouder place than Brazil! . . ."

In his reply President-elect Prestes, perfectly in the Latin tradition, showed how to employ the raging breast, the flowery metaphor and the torrential expletive while remaining perfectly correct and sleek: "Pan-Americanism, fruit of an ambitious dream! . . . one which only in idealism could be called excessive . . . Pan-Americanism . . . fought against the obstacles which were strewn in its way, triumphed over them even as faith and beauty must always triumph!

"My most sincere thanks for the homage of which [you] have made me the object."

Business Is Business: Coffee Is Coffee. Nearly every day last week President-elect Prestes denied anew that his visit had anything to do with the famed $97,000,000 "coffee loan" (TIME, April 21) now fully subscribed, which was floated in Britain and the U. S. to subsidize the hoarded Brazilian surplus of 16,500,000 bags and keep the price of coffee from dropping like a plummet.

As a matter of fact Senhor Prestes frequently saw both U. S. and Brazilian coffee men last week, but this was only natural. Before his election he was President (Governor) of the State of Sao Paulo (famed "Stepping Stone to the Brazilian Presidency") where more than half the world's coffee is grown and where almost every man of means is more or less "in coffee." When he landed at Manhattan nearly every paper flaunted a quarter page "WELCOME" advertisement signed by "The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, Largest Importers of Brazilian Coffee."

Son & Son. Many a Brazilian placed side by side last week pictures of Allan Hoover, 23, and Fernando Prestes, 22 . These smart sons are as typical of their respective peoples as their able fathers. Son Allan, graduate of Stanford University, is taking the course at Harvard Business School, must spend this summer in the employ of a real business (American Radiator Co.) to see such things as budgeting and accounting in practical operation. Son Fernando, graduate of the University of Brazil, spent his college vacations mostly in Europe, pleasure bent. At home he is rated an excellent horseman, tennis player, yachtsman, ladies' man.

Son Allan called on Son Fernando at the Meyer mansion. They chatted through an interpreter. Then son Fernando flew with a Navy pilot to Annapolis (his father following by motor).

Dizzying America. Brazilian Ambassador S. Gurgel do Amaral gave President-elect Prestes his final send-off from Washington with a banquet of 300 guests brilliantly staged in the Pan-American Union's imposing "Hall of the Americas." Although he had every legal right to serve wine the Ambassador refrained "at the request of Senhor Prestes" and "as a special courtesy to President Hoover."

In his banquet address Mr. Hoover did not (like Mr. Stimson previously) attempt to speak with fervor, but his painstakingly read remarks contained one fine superlative:

"One need not be a prophet to say that the future of Brazil is one of unlimited possibilities."

Easily master at the game of hyperbole, President-elect Prestes cried: ". . . The civilization of America is the greatest assertion of the intelligence and the capacity of a people! . . . Dizzying growth! . . The word 'energy' seems to have been devised to express and define American life in all its aspects even unto its most spiritual manifestations, even when it appears as moral energy, irradiating courage, altruism and human fellowship, asserting its civilization by deeds of daring and actions of good will, of confidence and of faith in the destiny of man, in peace, in liberty and in the justice of nations."

Next morning President-elect Prestes and party sped from Washington back to Manhattan, cruised up to West Point in the Jamaroy (yacht of Scripps-Howard Chairman Roy W. Howard) escorted by the U. S. destroyer King, then returned by motor to Manhattan for "several days of rest" before they sailed on the Olympic for Europe.

*Discoverer Martin Alfonso de Sousa mistook an arm of the Atlantic for a river, christened it seasonably the "River of January" (Rio de Janeiro) in 1531.

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