Junketing Mayors

A gentle air of insanity continued last week to pervade reports of the U. S. mayors' junket to France as guests of that country. On a four-day frolic about Normandy they received careful instructions in French manners and etiquette preparatory to their Paris reception. Always in the press spotlight was big, breezy, beetle-browed George Baker, Mayor of Portland, Ore. and chairman of the delegation of 25 executives. At a banquet at Dinard, Mayor Baker grandly announced that he would adopt a five-year-old French orphan who played the bass drum in a church band which entertained the visitors. When he found he could not take the boy home with him, Mayor Baker promised to send him $50 per year. Not to be outdone by this Portlandish gesture, Henri Prince, representing New York's Mayor Walker, proclaimed adoption of the eight-year-old cornetist in the same band. Then all the mayors sang "Sweet Adeline." A portentous thunderstorm marked the night arrival of the mayors in Paris. They were met by Count jean de Castel-lane, president of the Municipal Council, who invited them to luncheon next day at the Hotel de Ville "in behalf of the Town of Paris." Quipped irrepressible Mayor Baker: "If Paris is just a town, I want to see one of your cities." Next morning the mayors, grumbling among themselves at the public attention Mayor Baker was getting, assembled at the Arc de Triomphe to put a wreath on the Unknown Soldier's tomb. France was startled when Mayor Baker, violating the tradition of silence at this place, made a long-winded goodwill speech. The grumblings of the other mayors grew louder as the visitors trooped to the Hotel de Ville for luncheon. Mayor Baker was accused of "hogging the show," of making all the addresses, bossing the itinerary. After the meal there was an open revolt. "Let's settle this thing right here in the city hall." cried one mayor. But calmer counsel prevailed and the mayors adjourned to Claridge's where at a three-hour secret session all jealousies and animosities were threshed. The result was appointment of a soviet of five members to control everything, apportion the speech-making and publicity. Remarked Mayor Baker later: "This party's like a regiment with only generals and no privates. But now everybody takes a turn at speaking. All's quiet on the western front." The mayors' soviet kept things more orderly thereafter but peace was threatened again when a report got about that the French Government was to decorate Mayor Baker, as chief of the party, with a knighthood in the Legion of Honor. Red ribbons for all or for none was the demand of the other mayors. At an American club luncheon in their honor the mayors greeted General John Joseph Pershing with this cheer: "Omaho! Omaha! Omaha! Ha! Ha! Ha! PERSHING!" The club's president, Theodore Rousseau, extolled the French, warned the visitors that they could find "naughtiness" in Paris if they searched for it. Broke in Mayor Baker: "We've seen nothing naughty here yet. So if Mr. Rousseau would only lead the way. ..." But it required no leading for most of the mayors to go hunting for Paris "naughtiness." Each insisted after a night out that his research was "purely psycho-logical." New Orleans' Walmsley declared: "Paris night life is not nearly as bad as Harlem's but I must admit the Casino display of flesh was worth looking at." The youngest mayor in the party, Syracuse's Marvin, 33, took a contrary view. Apparently he had gone forth without his wife. "Paris is really as sinful as its reputation," he announced. "I can't understand how the street women are tolerated. They stopped me twelve times between the Folies Bergere and my hotel! Paris is tame until midnight but after that the sidewalks are teeming with sin." Liquor continued to be a preoccupation with the party after rude Mayor Porter of Los Angeles walked out on the Havre banquet (TIME, June i). Harry's New York Bar advertised a Porter cocktail: orange, lemon, grapefruit juice, grenadine, water. Dry-voting Atlanta sprouted headlines when press despatches quoted its Mayor James Lee Key as saying: "Prohibition should be submitted again to the people. One need only travel in a country where there is no such thing to see the nefarious results of our present system . . . Let the mayors drink! It will show Europe how Prohibition has corrupted our Government, the nation and our people." At Dinard Mayor Baker, with champagne corks popping all around him, boisterously exclaimed: "We're getting used to this bombardment." When he reached Paris, however, he confided to correspondents: "I wish the newspapers would ease off on our drinking as it is likely to raise Ned back home. We're eating light, although the cooking is good." Hartford's Mayor Batterson boasted: "We're 21 mayors who have been continuously banqueting now for a whole week and not one of us has been drunk. Name another 21 men going through the same experience who could say as much for themselves!" Climax of the mayors' junket was their visit to the International Colonial & Overseas Exposition at Vincennes where they were welcomed by Marshal Hubert Lyautey. In the Restaurant de Bagdad, one more huge meal was spread for them. The septuagenarian Marshal, as Commissioner General of the exposition, toasted them thus: "Like sensible men, most of you have brought your wives and daughters and how lovely are your daughters! Gentlemen in this good wine of France I drink your health and I drink to American youth and beauty, the loveliest and most charming of your delegation-- Miss Betty Smith." Amid cheers the pretty 15-year-old daughter of the Mayor of Kansas City went forward to the hero of France's Moroccan empire. He handed her a glass of champagne. She hesitated. "Mais buvez la, ma cherie!" he coached. She drank it. Marshal Lyautey bent low and kissed her hand. She gave him back a dainty little kiss. French editors, charmed by this pleasant little scene, wrote that it all but wiped out the mayors' quarrelings and gaucheries of the past fortnight.

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