Mayors' Junket

More than 7,000,000 U. S. citizens were temporarily mayorless, last week, when the chief executives (or their delegates) of 24 cities sailed for France. The cities were those which entertained transatlantic Airmen Costes & Bellonte on their cashing-in tour last year (TIME, Sept. 15). The mayors are to be guests of the French Republic, to see the International Colonial & Overseas Exposition in Paris (TIME, May 11) and take a whirlwind junket through France. Entrusted to the mayors by the U. S. exposition committee was a bust of the late Ambassador Myron Timothy Herrick, carved from a beam of the original White House, to be placed in the Paris Hotel de Ville.

Oldest mayor in the party came from the smallest town. He was Alvin Parker Gray, 78, of Pasco, Wash. (pop. 3,500). He said he was going to "team-up" with the youngest mayor, R. B. Marvin of Syracuse, N. Y., who is 33. Bigger and louder than even St. Louis' Victor J. ("Oh, Boy") Miller was Mayor George L. Baker of Portland, Ore. Large, breezy, beetle-browed Mayor Baker lost no time in making himself the personage of the party. He wore a 10-gallon hat, was elected chairman of the delegation, gave out the big interview during the party's two-day stay in Manhattan. Excerpts: "It may seem like taking a ham sandwich to a banquet, but you'll notice that all of us who have wives are taking them along, too. The party is sure to be dignified and the ladies may lend some grace to an otherwise motley assemblage. All classes, kinds and politics are represented here, but we're going to try to sink our political differences over there."

Oldest Mayor Gray also had something to say. He bridled when Mrs. Gray, ardent W. C. T. U. supporter, told newshawks: "Liquor is wicked in itself, and the source of most of the world's wickedness." Said her husband: "Oh, don't listen to her. She's not just a Dry, she's a Prohibition crank. Prohibition will never work, in my opinion." He is proud that little Pasco has not had a murder in 30 years.

When the mayors get to France, where Boston's Curley will join the party, Mayor William Frederick Broening of Baltimore will have $8,000 in extra spending money. Just before he sailed he decided to accept the back pay from a salary increase which his city granted him in 1927 but which he had hitherto rejected.

Set to watch the behavior of the 20 executives including Los Angeles' Porter. Cleveland's Marshall, New Orleans' Walmsley, Atlanta's Key, Milwaukee's Hoan and Omaha's Metcalfe, and mayoral representatives from New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Indianapolis, was a United Press correspondent. He slyly observed that "three Western mayors" were drinking in the ship's bar the first day out, refrained from naming them.

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