Mr. Gann Sees It Through

Edward Everett Gann went to another grand Society party in Washington last week, a State dinner in honor of Senor Don Pablo Ramirez, Minister of Finance of Chile, given by Senor Don Carlos G. Davila, Chilean Ambassador to the U. S. There were 189 other people there, some of whom Mr. Gann knew, which made it pleasant.

A glittering table like two horseshoes laid end to end was spread in the Hall of the Americas at the Pan-American Union Building. Mr. Gann found his seat seventh from the foot of one horseshoe. On his left was Mrs. William Braden, wife of the Chilean copper operator. On his right was a Mrs. Paul Wooton, wife of the Washington correspondent of the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

Given by C of the potent ABC nations of South America, the dinner was an important affair. Present were, among others, eight members of the Cabinet, four ambassadors, four Senators, nine ministers, four Congressmen, three Hoover secretaries, two admirals, the Mayor of Philadelphia, et al. et ux. The setting was magnificent--a patio with orchids, palms, exotic birds, tropical fish. The dinner was also notable in that it was Dry.

Mr. Gann, no talker in Society, heard those about him discuss the Junoesque lady in a silver lace dress seated so grandly at the right hand of the diminutive Ambassador Davila at one end of the table. This was embarrassing for Mr. Gann because the lady in question was his own wife. In the other direction, all bathed and shaved and shining in his evening clothes, beside Senor Davila, was Mrs. Gann's brother. Vice President Charles Curtis, upon being whose official hostess Mrs. Gann had long been. bent. This dinner represented the final triumph of her and her brother's efforts to obtain for her the status that she would automatically have enjoyed if she had been Charles Curtis's wife instead of his sister, or if Edward Everett Gann had been elected Vice President.

Mr. Gann listened to the conversation around him and held his peace. This was his wife's big evening. He saw it through.

Well did Mr. Gann know that for his wife to reach her eminence, many an official wheel had had to. turn. The Vice President had protested against a State Department ruling which failed to accord Mrs. Gann full recognition (TIME, April 15). The matter was in the hands of Secretary of State Stimson.

Last week Mr. Curtis went to see Secretary Stimson about Mrs. Gann. Sir Esme Howard, British Ambassador and dean of the diplomatic corps, went to see Secretary Stimsori about Mrs. Gann. Secretary Stimson went to see President Hoover about Mrs. Gann. Secretary Stim son saw newsgatherers about Mrs. Gann. To them he gave correspondence which showed what a Statesman he really was -- correspondence which passed the whole question of Mrs. Gann's precedence back to the diplomatic corps.

Next day had come a momentous meeting of the diplomatic corps at the British Embassy. About that old yellow building on Connecticut Ave., the street was black with diplomatic motors, discharging heads of missions come to discuss Mrs. Gann at length. The meeting might well have been broken up if Lady Isabella Howard's green parrakeet, Jerry, had fluttered into the assembly and, as is his custom, taken a seat on Sir Esme's shoulder. Jerry might have demanded to know what the Corps proposed to do about precedence for the Old Soak. Statesman Stimson's Chinese-chattering parrot recently ordered on from Manila (TIME, April 8). Canadian Minister the Hon Vincent Massey has a wire-haired fox terrier, Peter, who can claim a high place because of his ancestry. There is a disdainful tortoise family at the Italian Embassy. Prince Albert de Ligne, Belgian Ambassador, has a red and grey African parrot who would surely dispute any undue social recognition of the Old Soak.

But Lady Isabella's Jerry, a well-trained diplomat, did not interrupt the meeting, so the ambassadors and ministers confined their attention to Mrs. Gann and reached an agreement. The strange case of Mr. Gann was not broached.

The diplomats decided to accept Mrs. Gann as the Vice President's hostess and accord her full honors as such. This action, however, was only "provisional" until "constituted American authority" could make "a final arrangement." What this authority may be, no one knows, for Statesman Stimson, to avoid further social uproars, announced last week that his Department's Division of Protocol would henceforth cease functioning as an information bureau for Washington Society.

If Mr. Gann was troubled by his odd position as the Vice President's official hostess's husband, he resolutely concealed the fact. For publication, all he said was: "Please do not quote me except to say that I have no comment to make. I believe the incident closed. ... I sincerely hope it is closed."

Citizens in all parts of the land were deeply interested, however, and many a suggestion flooded into Washington. The Vice President was called upon to solve the problem by marrying again. That made him chuckle. Others suggested buffet dinners at which the question of precedence would be avoided by everybody standing up. Because Charles Curtis is himself part Indian, Chief Two-Guns-White-Calf of Glacier Park, Mont., famed redskin of Great Northern R. R. advertisements, was interviewed. Said he:

"These white squaws make much thunder over nothing. One is third and wants to be second. Tell them all to go into wigwam, sit in circle, then no first, no last. Thunder dies and the braves can sleep."

P: The Baltimore Sim's always mordant Frank Kent said the case ought to produce "a more general appreciation of the importance to the country of Herbert Hoover's health."' He suggested doubling the Presidential bodyguard, hiring more and better White House physicians, and an enforced two-hour nap every afternoon for the President.

P:The New York Evening Post, always serious on social matters, declared venomously: "A bull-headed Vice President goaded by an ambitious woman can stir up all kinds of a mess. . . . Mrs. Gann is not set in the seats of the mighty by decree of her own country but by the amused complaisance of courteous foreigners. Will this memory spoil the fun of the Vice Presidentess as she looks down from the head of one of those jolly-diplomatic dinners, past six frozen-faced ambassadresses, to where her unrated husband hides at the foot of the board? . . . We devoutly hope so."