Again, Walker

If President Coolidge should pack up a galaxy of green silk pajamas and 36 pairs of spats, go jaunting in the Southland, perform like a clown and be hit on the nose by a lollypop at the New Orleans Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday)--he would no doubt be flayed in the press for wantonly neglecting his duty. But an unlimited amount of insouciance is expected and applauded when it is exhibited by Mayor James J. Walker of New York City.

Two facts make this possible: 1) Mayor Walker's buffoonery is shrewdly directed; 2) New York, despite its turbulent subway problem, gets along somehow no matter who is mayor or where he is.*

And so on Fat Tuesday, 125-pound Mayor Walker was standing on a reviewing platform in New Orleans with 300-pound Mayor Arthur O'Keefe. They were watching white-robed Negroes lead mules through the streets. The mules were attached to creaking floats filled with masked and strangely costumed debutantes, bankers, brokers and cotton kings. Behind the masks were eyes that had an unmistakable champagne glitter, for New Orleans was celebrating the pre-Lenten festival that seven roistering French students began a century ago.

There were a half-million people in the streets. It was fun. Hot oysters and cold bottles. "Promiscuous masking," said the official program. It was a fine old tradition. The gentility rules the city. Their clubs--Comus (the oldest), Atlanteans, Momus, Proteus, Twelfth Night, Mystics, Druids--gave balls and there was much whispering as to whether little Miss Such-&-Such got any invitations. Then there was the Queen, chosen more for her social graces than for Atlantic City qualifications. This year she was Miss Betty Watson, daughter of Banker Eli T. Watson, last year's Rex. The new Rex was Leon Irwin, insurance man, to whom Mayor Walker drank his only champagne toast of the trip.

The Zulu Rex, pride of the Negro population, tossed Mayor Walker a coconut which he caught with the words: "From one nut to another."

A float, entitled "The Gods of Our Ancestors," moved into view and its commander threw Mayor Walker a ten-pound box of candy, which almost bowled him over. He grinned happily and said: "Don't throw any watermelons."

Christopher Columbus passed as the Mayor cried: "There is the greatest man that ever lived. Except for him, I'd be in Ireland now."

Pocahontas poked along and the Mayor pointed "Smith she was in love with, wasn't it? Yes, Pocahontas looking for Al Smith. Good."

Later, after receiving a large gold key to the city and a gold badge signifying life membership in the Louisiana Jockey Club, Mayor Walker made his farewell address: "Ladies and gentlemen of New Orleans and surrounding cities, hamlets, villages, towns and states, I was never quite so thrilled in my life. . . ."*

At Mobile, Ala., Mayor Walker did not leave his train. He had canceled an engagement to speak when he heard that politicians hostile to Governor Alfred Emanuel Smith were planning to put him in a private home instead of a theatre.

At Atlanta, Ga., contrary to his custom, Mayor Walker arrived six hours ahead of schedule. But Robert Tyre Jones Jr., golfer-lawyer, and Major John Sanford Cohen, editor of the Atlanta Journal, went to the station to arouse the Mayor from his green-pajama sleep. He visited the Confederate memorial at Stone Mountain, made lofty speeches and pleased his guests so well that the powerful Atlanta Constitution said in an editorial next day: "Tammany as an organization may have its detractors, but the men of Tammany are Democrats of the old Jeffersonian and Jacksonian schools. They are not everlastingly chasing after false gods and new 'isms' and 'schisms' . . . . Thousands of New York's Democracy may be Irish, but they are as good Americans as they are Democrats, and the Irishman is as jealous of his party as of the age-worn tradition of the shamrock.

"Thousands of them may be Catholics, but the foundation of the Democratic Party was erected with sufficient strength to hold those of every creed, without bias or prejudice or favoritism of discrimination."

At Winston-Salem, N. C., Mayor Walker made perhaps the least sincere statement of his whole trip. "Do you realize," he said, "that I come from a community that gives politics little thought?" The inaccuracy of this statement was that New Yorkers were "thinking plenty" about politics--thinking that perhaps the Walker trip was, after all, a bid to succeed Governor Smith at Albany.

*There is in the New York City Hall a quiet, efficient President of the Board of Alderman, Joseph V. McKee, 38, who patronizes a conservative tailor and does much that Mayor Walker leaves undone. He is at his desk before 10 a.m., whereas Mayor Walker seldom appears before noon, if at all. Mr. McKee likes law reports and biographies. *Mayor O'Keefe confessed that he had never seen anyone get so hilarious on ginger ale as did Mayor Walker.