Visitors

The three principal visitors at the White House last week were King Prajadhipok and Queen Rambai Barni of Siam and Bryan Untiedt, 13-year-old hero of last month's Colorado blizzard (TIME, April 6, 13). The ailing little King, first absolute monarch ever to cross the Executive Mansion's threshold, called on President Hoover at 10:15 one morning, hurried back to his quarters to receive the President at n, then spent the afternoon in a dentist's office. After a state dinner at the White House that evening, during which Master Untiedt was permitted to peep through the door, the Siamese ruler left for Baltimore to have a cataract on his eye looked after.

Master Untiedt's visit was elaborately handled by the Press as a story of human interest in the White House. The boy was reported as entertaining the President with a mouth organ, "winning the heart" of five-year-old Granddaughter Peggy Hoover, further peeping in on a Cabinet meeting and the morning medicine ball exercises, eating "an informal, pleasant family luncheon with the President regaling the table with amusing stories."

As the visit lengthened from 36 hr. to four days, White House reporters prepared for an interview with Master Untiedt. Surprised and irritated were they when the boy hero refused to be interviewed, said that he had promised his Washington observations to enterprising Fred G. Bonfils' Denver Post. Said the Post's managing editor: "Naturally we are very proud of the boy keeping his promise. It was characteristic of this fine lad."

P:Along with many another notable, President Hoover last week sent a congratulatory letter to William C. Creamer, octogenarian silk salesman of Manhattan's Arnold, Constable & Co. Salesman Creamer remembers selling silk by the yard to Mrs. Abraham Lincoln, Mrs. Ulysses Simpson Grant, recalls seeing Theodore Roosevelt brought to the store by his mother.

P: Vanity Fair received a scathing letter from Mrs. Ava Long, White Housekeeper, last week. Mrs. Long had read an article, Your Host in the White House by Jefferson Chase, in the smartchart's March issue which ridiculed the sorry lack of ceremony at White House functions. Said Author Chase: "There is not a humble Negro lodge-brother who could not give pur Government cards and aces and beat it every time on dignified ceremonial." Said Housekeeper Long: "Jefferson Chase should be run out of town. . . . You would be the first to object if your taxes were increased in order to increase the White House appropriation to allow of lavish entertainments."

P: Peace through disarmament was President Hoover's topic in a speech last week welcoming the International Chamber of Commerce to Washington. Said he: "It is within the power of business men of the world to insist that this problem shall be met with sincerity, courage, and constructive action. It is within the power of statesmen to give to the world a great assurance for the future and a great moral victory for humanity."

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