Thalassocrats

The White House telephone tinkled. Secretary George Akerson answered it. His Chief was calling from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Now, said the President, it could be told: he and Prime Minister MacDonald had agreed to have the latter issue invitations to France, Italy and Japan to discuss naval reductions with Britain and the U. S. in London on Jan. 20. The invitations would go out on the morrow (see p. 27). Like most momentous news it was very simple. There was nothing more to say -- yet -- about the historic "conversations." So the President helped the world press out a bit by telling Secretary Akerson that the autumn foliage in the mountains was brilliant, beautiful; that the Rapidan River was in spate from the autumn rains. Hoover-MacDonald actions over the weekend. Three-hour motor ride to camp. After dinner, the President, the Prime Minister and Secretary of State Stimson sat in front of the fire in the living room of the President's cabin and talked "for hours." Sunday breakfast was at 8 o'clock. A Marine corps airplane dropped the Sunday newspapers. President and Prime Minister talked on the porch until 11, then the thalassocrats (chiefs of sea powers ) walked upstream beside the rushing Rapidan for three-quarters of a mile. Seeing a log, they sat upon and made it a historic log, still talking, talking.* Mrs. Hoover and Ishbel took a two-hour horseback ride. After 2 o'clock dinner, the President led everyone to the summit of Fork Mountain, 500 ft. higher than the camp. President and Prime Minister later talked again, before and after dinner. The start back to Washington was made soon after 8 o'clock next morning.

P: Monday evening came the President's great state dinner for his distinguished guest, now his friend. Seated at the mammoth horseshoe were 86 diners. Vice President Curtis and his sister Mrs. Gann, the British Ambassador and Mrs. Howard, all Cabinet members and their wives, Prime Minister MacDonald's official party, mainstay Senators and their wives, were chief guests. Notably absent were Speaker of the House and Mrs. Longworth, who were "in Cincinnati," thereby reviving still more gossip on the Longworth-Gann feud

P: While Prime Minister MacDonald was at the White House, waiting in Manhattan for his turn to see President Hoover was a slender little gentleman who looked not unlike a brownskin edition of Secretary Mellon (but with wider lips). This, a very finicky gentleman with his own chef, an imposing retinue of secretaries, an in come of $3,000,000 per year and a family tree 900 years old, was the much-married Maharajah of Kapurthala in the Punjab, accredited representative to the League of Nations of Their Highnesses the Indian ruling princes. Precisely what he wished to discuss with President Hoover in private, the Maharajah of Kapurthala was not pre pared to say.

P: To No. 2107 Connecticut Ave., went President Hoover. There in bed lay his good old friend Theodore Elijah Burton, 77, suffering complications after an attack of grippe he had last month. It was the President's second call since the senator fell ill. He stayed some little time, the chunky, healthy, 55-year-old executive talking with, and listening to, the venerable legislator, scholar, statesman, peace-seeker.

P:President Hoover accepted the resignation, long-since proffered, of Ogden H. Hammond, President of Hoboken Terminal Co., Ambassador to Spain. Urged by influential Senator Reed of Pennsylvania as the successor: Irwin Boyle Laughlin of Pittsburgh, career diplomat (Athens. Tokyo, Peking, Bangkok, St. Petersburg, Berlin, London), elder brother of Pittsburgh's George McCully Laughlin Jr. (Jones & Laughlin, steel).

P: The better to aid-the-farmer, President Hoover last week exercised power given him last winter in the Farm Relief Act and transferred to the Federal Farm Board the entire personnel, equipment and functions of the Department of Agriculture's division of co-operative marketing.

* It was on a stone high above Italian Lake Maggiore about a mile from the Villa of Locarno, Switzerland, that Germany's Stresemann talked momentously with France's Briand (see p. 28).