Tenure of Trophy

As the Normandie churned slowly up New York harbor last week on her final crossing for 1935, many a passenger gawped upward into the French Liner's rigging at one Chrysis de la Grange, a shapely girl who calls herself the world's champion twist rope acrobat, was busy proving it in a bathing suit for publicity purposes. Among the gawpers was another publicity-minded person, fubsy, pink-chopped, little Harold Keates Hales, Member of Parliament who has achieved his place in the sun not by cavorting on a rope but by donating the Hales Blue Ribbon Trophy for transatlantic speed (TIME, July 29).*The final masterpiece in a career of diligent eccentricity which includes never blowing his automobile horn, this gaudy prize periodically places Donor Hales in the public eye. Two months ago he trotted happily off to Genoa to present it to the Italian Liner Rex. Last week, accompanied by his purse-mouthed Committee-mate, Sir George Granville Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, the Duke of Sutherland, he arrived in Manhattan to give it to the Normandie.

Unfortunately, when peacock-proud Donor Hales first announced his Trophy, he offered it to the Rex, then holder of the transatlantic speed record, before he was ready to deliver it. Scarcely had the Italian Line accepted when the Normandie set a new record. To get around this development Harold Hales decreed that his trophy should be held by each consecutive winner for three months. The Italian Line displayed the $4,000 mass of encrusted silver in various places, finally brought it to Manhattan, put it in the window of their Fifth Avenue ticket office. Sweet to French hearts as the ceremony would have been if held in France, sweeter still was the prospect of publicity in Manhattan where most transatlantic tourist trade originates. From England therefore, the Normandie brought Donor Hales, his capacious wife, the Duke, and sleek Gualtiero Fedrigoni, Italian Line manager in London. Delayed at the dock because he forgot to fill out a custom's declaration, Mr. & Mrs. Hales finally hustled off to the Waldorf-Astoria for the night. On the way, the perky little M. P. espied his Trophy glittering in the Italian Line window. Bubbled he: "Fancy that now!"

Two days later, wearing his usual "jampot" collar, Donor Hales bustled back to the Normandie with many a shipping bigwig for a handsome luncheon and ceremony. Sutherland, as chairman of the Transatlantic Blue Ribbon Committee, took charge of the actual presentation, handing the huge globule over to bulky Captain Rene Pugnet of the Normandie along with a speech reciting the history of transatlantic crossings since 1492. Then Donor Hales clambered jovially to his feet, gave the speech he always gives, which usually begins: "The Haleses never amounted to much before, but now. . . ."

Same day, their mission completed, the Duke and the Donor sailed off in company with the Trophy for Europe. As the Normandie steamed down the harbor, no publicity-minded maiden swung in the rigging. But, holding forth in the saloon was Margaret Sanger, on her way to India to spread her gospel of Birth Control.

*Nearly four feet high, the Trophy consists of a globe of the world perched on a winged Victory sprouting from a plinth of mottled yellow onyx. Festooned around the middle is a brightly enameled Blue Ribbon. Attached elsewhere are models of old galleons, pictures of modern liners, statues of Neptune & Amphitrite. Atop the whole confection is a winged figure called Speed lunging forward with a liner held high in his right hand, while his left straight-arms a crumpling figure called Force of the Atlantic.

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