First Families

Bess Truman once more gladdened the hearts of the temperance people by turning down a glass of wine, proffered by amateur waitress Congresswoman Jessie Sumner. (No prohibitionist, Mrs. T. just doesn't like the taste of the stuff.) Occasion: the monthly luncheon of her Spanish teacher's class. Mrs. Truman, who turned up in a hat to remember (see cut), was on a spot: no water was served with the meal, which was so spicily Iberian that Senator Homer Ferguson's wife Myrtle was moved to report: "Now I know where the flamethrowers come from."

Susan Peters, up & coming cinemactress partly paralyzed in a hunting accident last year, nuzzled her button-cute adopted son, Tim, for a memorable two-button picture (see cut). He came to her by air, and he was just the start, said she; she planned "lots of brothers and sisters" for him.

Eleanor Roosevelt looked back on five years of answering questions for Ladies' Home Journal readers, told a radio interviewer what seemed to be on people's minds: "a great deal of confusion." She deplored attempts she discerned to "make men and women equal instead of complementing each other." Their differences don't mean inequalities, she pointed out. "it simply means that you have variety--and I love variety."

George VI, Queen Elizabeth and Princess Elizabeth had a georgic week. In a talk to the Royal Agricultural College of Cirencester,* the King described himself as "a farmer--with all a farmer's responsibilities." The Queen wore a thistle tarn on a visit to the royal farms at Windsor with agricultural conference delegates. The Princess, in a radio talk that foreshadowed her adult responsibilities, denied that the empire was "built by cunning," put it thus: "The empire has grown like a garden, not a formal garden . . . but one that makes use of nature for its beauty, of the sort that used to be known abroad as an English garden."

Fashionable Set

Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt, whose cut-off allowance from daughter Gloria Stokowski last March put their family tiff in headlines, found just the place for her new soaps & lotions business: a Manhattan structure known as Peace House. Partner Maurice Chalom leased part of the building from longtime peace-plumper Mrs. J. Sergeant Cram, who emphasized to the press: "The 'peace' end of the building continues to be for my use. . . ."

James Vail Converse, 53, sat in a Manhattan jail. He was there for contempt of court--he had ignored a summons for a debt of $149 he owed a hospital. Onetime playboy Jimmy, onetime horseman and tennist, onetime husband of Gloria Vanderbilt Stokowski's aunt, Lady Furness--he was her first of two and she was the second of his five--waited for somebody to get up $100 to bail him out.

Lady Friends

Mae West, the iceman's unattainable ideal, was back on stage after a year's layoff. In her new play, Ring Twice Tonight, she opened in Long Beach, Calif., then rumbled northward, hoped to last all the way to Broadway. Her role: an undercover agent for the FBI. Supporting cast: two maids and 15 men. Covering her added attractions: two negligees (one at a time)--one in orange and dove grey, the other just lacy orange, backed with white satin here & there, and here & there.

George S. Messersmith, new Ambassador to Argentina, paused in Rio en route to Buenos Aires, had a reunion with ex-King Carol and Mistress Magda (he had known them in Mexico). Diplomat Messersmith had stoutly stuck up for them, and told how. When somebody had spoken slurringly about them, he had slammed back: "For 13 years he has been faithful to her; and for 13 years she has not looked at another man. Which is more than you can say."

Lieut. Colonel Gregory ("Pappy") Boyington swore out a warrant in San Diego for the lady friend he surprised last January by marrying another (TIME, Jan. 21). Lucy Rogers Malcolmson, charged the Marine ace, had stolen $9,340 he had sent her for the care of his children by his first wife (who married a newsboy last March). When the news reached Reno, Miss Malcolmson, who was preparing to become a landlady for marital transients, promptly disappeared. Six days later she was still missing.

Public Servants

Dr. Alexander Loudon, Netherlands Ambassador to the U.S., was ready with a brass band for the first Royal Dutch Air Lines plane to land at LaGuardia Field. The ship landed, blew two tires, rolled to a stop one mile from the reception committee, two hours later got to the terminal. The reception was off.

Ed Crump, foxy-grandpa boss of Memphis (TIME, May 27), said he had received an extortion note, but declared that he was positively not disconcerted. The threatening note ran; "Pay $50,000 or we will kill you or your wife at a certain date. . . . You will be contacted as to where the payoff is to take place and when. Revised Capone, Inc." The extortionists, theorized brave Boss Crump, "know that an election is coming on and are hoping to disconcert me. But it will have no effect.. . ."

Robert Moses, New York's panjandrum Park Commissioner, seized the occasion of the National Institute of Social Sciences' annual dinner to reel off impacted phrases until the gunpowder ran out the heels of his boots--his favorite hobby. "I have learned not to run up a high temperature and blood pressure," said Speaker Moses, "over the intolerant off-scourings of minds inflamed by revolutionaries . . . the wisecracks of sophisticates who are the eunuchs of our metropolitan seraglio, the lofty disdain of ivory-tower planners, the bitter, irresponsible mouthings of the radical press, the cheese spread of radio commentators and the slipcover advertising of former mayors." The Institute awarded the Commissioner a gold medal: for "distinguished services to humanity."

Chosen Three

Booker T. Washington, elected to the Hall of Fame last year, was there in personification (bronze bust). The slaveborn educator's bust--the Hall's first of a Negro or by a Negro (Sculptor Richmond Barthe)--was finally set in the Hall's colonnade in The Bronx.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower, in a season jampacked with academic kudos for generals, had something of a novelty in the family. Colorado Woman's College bestowed an honorary degree (Doctor of Humane Letters) on the General's wife, Mamie.

John Charles Thomas, operatic baritone, born & raised in Pennsylvania, adopted citizen of Manhattan and Hollywood, was chosen by Vancouver, B.C. as just the right Mr. Vancouver for its jubilee celebration.

*Pronounced siss-ister by those who are sure they know. Others, who think they know, call it variously sirensester, sissiter.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.