"Unusual," "Proper"

One morning last week the telephone jangled in the office of Idaho's Senator William Edgar Borah. The British Embassy was calling. Could Senator Borah see the British Ambassador? Yes--the next day. Punctual for his appointments. Sir Esme Howard arrived at the Senate Office building, found his way to room 139 without direction, was there long closeted with the senators.

The door was fast shut but all Washington felt sure the subject of the talk was naval disarmament.

When the meeting was over, from the White House came an anonymous, ominous comment: "highly unusual."

What made the conference unusual was that it apparently violated an ancient custom that all diplomatic matters be conducted by foreign envoys at the U. S. State Department or the White House, not with the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations or any other non-state person. Since Sir Esme is dean of the Diplomatic Corps, the prospect was presented of lesser Ambassadors and Ministers flocking to Capitol Hill to confer with lesser Senators. This prospect recalled the trouble of 1793 when Citizen Genet, as Republican France's first Minister to the U. S., attempted to make a popular appeal for his country over the grim neutrality of George Washington's Cabinet, thereby causing his downfall as a diplomat and prompting the passage of the Logan Act to prevent, under penalties, U. S. citizens from dealing directly with foreign governments.

Senator Borah and Sir Esme were uneasy over the reported White House criticism until Statesman Stimson soothed their feelings with a public statement to the effect that their conference, informal, personal, had been quite "proper."