Backslaps

Harry S. Truman & family traded backslaps with the folks. Radio Fan Truman was moved to send a congratulatory wire to a couple of radio comics who had involved him in the plot of a script: so George Burns & Gracie Allen had the Presidential endorsement: "We all enjoyed the show immensely. . . ." Bess Truman and Daughter Margaret won applause from the Chenango Street Methodist Church of Binghamton, N.Y., which paid happy tribute to "the courage that you . . . showed [at a Manhattan banquet] when you ordered orange juice instead of cocktails."

Lord Keynes, British money expert, arriving in the U.S. for a meeting of Bretton Woods wizards, was asked by newsmen to comment on a Londoner's remark that the U.S. loan would make England "an illegitimate 49th state of the Union." Smiled Keynes: "No such luck."

Greer Garson and Brigadier General Carlos P. Romulo, Resident Commissioner of the Philippines, got the homage of honorifical Rollins College at Winter Park, Fla. Actress Garson: an honorary Doctor of Humanities; Statesman Romulo: an honorary Lit.D.

General George S. Patton Jr.'s widow approved a proposal which the Massachusetts Legislature may soon tackle: a statue of the general on the Statehouse grounds.

Paste-Ins

The family albums of royalty acquired two new paste-ins for their age-of-innocence section:

Prince William, elder son of the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, gravely polishing the royal crest on the family car in Devonport, Tasmania;

Prince Alexander, out-laughing his boyish father, Yugoslavia's Peter, fresh out of a kingdom and still biding his time in London.

Old Sweet Song

Leonora Margaret, 35-year-old dowager Countess of Inchcape (newspaper nickname: "Princess Gold") and eldest of the abdicating Raja of Sarawak's three marrying daughters,* prepared to marry a 49-year-old divorced Vermonter in London (and incidentally forfeit a $12,000 widow's annuity). The groom-to-be: plump Colonel Francis P. Tompkins, lifetime Army man, pre-D-day Counter-intelligence planning chief.

Frances Heenan ("Peaches") Browning Hynes Civelli, relict of Millionaire "Daddy" Browning and favorite child bride of the tabloids in the '20s, said that she was going to marry her fourth. After Browning had come 1) a Denver showman, 2) a San Francisco department-store tycoon. Groom-in-prospect: Ralph N. Willson, a former Columbus, Ohio picture-frame maker.

Barbara Hutton, whose first was Prince Alexis Mdivani, whose second was Danish Count Court Haugwitz-Reventlow and whose third was Gary Grant, swore rather faintly that she was swearing off. The wheat-blond, Ry-Krisp-thin dime-store heiress told the Hearst press: "I'm not going to get married again as long as I live. I hope."

Politics

Alois Hitler, half-brother of Adolf, was getting pretty tired of it all: U.S. newsmen in Germany were still getting in his hair. For the umpteenth time he recited his grubby life story for them, and then offered a self-portrait. Said he: "I am a tired old man who is fed up with being questioned about Hitler."

Senator Burton K. Wheeler achieved the age of 64 in Washington, and, striking a preprandial birthday pose for photographers, achieved something more remarkable : simply staring at a quarter of buffalo he managed to look as if he were giving his brightest, politest attention to a talkative constituent (see cut).

Congressman James Michael Curley had scarcely resumed his job as mayor of Boston--after drawing a six to 18 months' prison sentence for mail fraud--before he ran into yet another embarrassment. Free on bail pending appeal, the mayor had been given a brass-band welcome by devoted Bostonians; then somebody chose to bellyache about a new constable he had just appointed: Frank J. Moriarty, alias "Turkey" Joyce, oldtime housebreaker and off-&-on jailbird. Careworn Statesman Curley sighed, bowed to the popular will, booted out Moriarty.

Patients & Fortitude

Oona O'Neill Chaplin, 20-year-old mother of a 1 1/2-year-old, expected her second any minute.

Shirley Temple began to be overtaken by the infirmities of age: out, forcibly, came two impacted wisdom teeth; out soon would come two more.

Nikolai Lenin, reported one of his embalmers happily, was in splendid shape.

* Elizabeth ("Princess Pearl") married a jazz bandsman; Nancy Valerie ("Princess Baba") married and was divorced by a wrestler. Elizabeth, awaiting a divorce, may next marry New York Herald Tribune Correspondent Richards Vidmer, friend of Leonora's Tompkins.

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