Monday, May. 25, 1931
"Names make news." Last week the following names made the following news:
Elinor Whitney and Dorothy, buxom, frizzy-haired daughters of Manhattan Pastor Harry Emerson Fosdick, were appointed "grass cops" at Smith College. Armed with whistles, they will blow a smart blast whenever they see trespassers treading tender turf.
It became known that at a recent dinner in Berlin, U. S. Ambassador Frederic Moseley Sackett was placed next to the wife of the Japanese Ambassador to Germany. He spoke only English; she spoke only Japanese and French. When asked how he enjoyed himself he grinned, said: "It was as tasty a dinner as ever I sat to." Pressed for details of his conversation, he grinned more broadly, explaining : "Well, it was this way. The lady reads English. I read French. So rather than speak, we wrote. Questions written in English were answered in French, or were written in French and answered in English. It worked perfectly."
U. S. Ambassador to France Walter Evans Edge cabled to Camden, N. J. for fresh asparagus. Two crates were promptly shipped to him on S. S. Ile de France.
President Thomas Aylette Buckner of
New York Life Insurance Co. revived the waning reputation of Colyumist Calvin Coolidge for terseness and cogency with these stories: "We were having a [directors'] meeting not long ago, and the matter of waiving certain of our requirements for the benefit of our more elderly agents came up. There was a pause, and [Director] Coolidge said: 'What would this cost us?' Well, he had us stumped. . . . We told him so, and he said: 'About how much?' We just made a guess and let it go at that. . .
"The Governor of Hawaii was visiting him at the White House. He ... told how many, many thousand crates of pineapples were shipped from [the islands] every year. 'How many to the crate?' Mr. Coolidge asked. The Governor, like us at the board-meeting, was caught."
Also last week a letter-writer to the New York Sun told this story: "President Coolidge was taking one of his morning walks with a friend. . . . 'There's Borah on his horse,' remarked the President's companion. 'Is he headed in the same direction as the horse?' asked President Coolidge."
In Tokyo a Mrs. Irvin H. Correll, 80-year-old U. S. Missionary, related that in the late 19th Century she and her husband had encountered in Nagasaki a Japanese teahouse girl named Cho-San (Butterfly), who told how she had been betrayed by a Russian officer. Some years afterward, said Mrs. Correll, she was in Philadelphia and told the story to her lawyer brother, the late John Luther Long. He sat up all that night. At breakfast he showed his sister a completed manuscript of a story called Madame Butterfly, with the Russian changed to U. S. officer. In
1900, David Belasco hastily wrote a play from Mr. Long's story, produced it successfully in Manhattan, transferred it to London. The stage manager of Covent Garden opera sent a message to famed Composer Giacomo Puccini that he had just the libretto for him. Puccini hastened to London, saw Madame Butterfly, wrote the opera.
The smartchart New Yorker recently published verses by Poet Arthur Guiterman complaining that the fountain statue which confronts Manhattan's Hotel Plaza was in bad condition. Two weeks later it published a long rhymed response by Ralph Pulitzer, whose father gave the Lady of the Plaza to New York City. Excerpt :
For know! The lady's guardians ad litem, Aroused by her attempts to mock and
spite 'em,
Have joined the city in a contribution To give her an immaculate ablution.
It was estimated that Mr. Pulitzer's share in the contribution would be nearly
$30,000. Doris Doscher, a model who posed for Sculptor Carl Bitter when he made the statue, wrote to the New York Times: "I want to take this opportunity to offer my thanks to Mr. Pulitzer for enabling me to again stand exalted--and scrubbed--above the grounds on Fifth Avenue, generously spurting precious, clear water--flush, in these times of dried-up prosperity." Thomas Alva Edison announced that he would give no more of his annual examinations to scientifically-minded boys, no more scholarships. Explanation offered: none. The name of the Yale junior who last month in The Harkness Hoot attacked Yale's senior honor societies and urged his classmates to boycott them by staying in their rooms on Tap Day, was Richard Storr Quids (TIME, May 4). Last week came Tap Day. Junior Childs stayed in his room. When a senior from Scroll & Key knocked on the door, Junior Childs let him in, took the tap, joined.
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