Comings & Goings

Last week brought the New Deal to many a foreign and U. S. diplomat. Washington teemed with their comings & goings. From Southampton aboard the Berengaria sailed Ramsay MacDonald. Britain's Prime Minister, to visit President Roosevelt at the White House and there open negotiations which will make or break the World Economic Conference. He cabled the President: "Leaving in wonderful weather which I take as a good omen." Edouard Herriot, as France's special envoy on a similar mission to the White House, embarked on the lie de France at Havre. New Ambassadors from France and Germany entered New York harbor within three days of each other. President Roosevelt made two major appointments, pondered a half-dozen more. Chief comings:

From France on the Paris arrived Andre Lefebvre de la Boulaye, his wife and daughters Marie, 17, and Agnes, 13. Ambassador de la Boulaye's appointment derived from President Roosevelt's election because they were good friends in Washington when one was a French embassy secretary and the other was the Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Slim and soldierly, with clear eyes and a crisp mustache, the new French Ambassador is a career diplomat. When ship-news reporters in Manhattan sought to draw him out about himself, he said: "I am not an envoy extraordinary. I am a very ordinary ambassador." The de la Boulaye definition of diplomacy: "A free and open discussion in private between open-minded representatives of two countries who make their agreements public." The Ambassador's diplomatic ignorance about War Debts, French propaganda in the U. S. and M. Herriot's visit, was all in the best French tradition.

On reaching Washington, M. de la Boulaye courteously delayed presenting his credentials at the White House until Paul Claudel, his predecessor, sailed out of the U. S. to become the French Ambassador to Belgium. At a farewell party in Manhattan M. Claudel, always something of a literary rhapsodist, exclaimed: "It would of course be carrying optimism a little too far to say that at this moment the diplomatic situation of the world is excellent. . . . But my last vision of America is one most pleasing to the eye of a statesman-- it is a vision of a great nation behind a great leader!"

From Germany Dr. Hans Luther's arrival on the Bremen made front-page news not because of what he said but because of the manner in which he was prevented from saying anything. No Nazi, he was appointed Ambassador because he is a preeminent figure, a onetime president of the Reichsbank. All the way across the Atlantic he planned to meet the U. S. Press at Quarantine, make a good first impression. On the bridge he practiced words and gestures. With his dining companions he discussed possible questions, appropriate answers. When the Bremen anchored in the harbor he ordered up to his cabin sandwiches, cigars and bottles to play the host. What he did not reckon on was tall, masterful Dr. Otto Kiep, German consul-general in New York.

Presumably Dr. Kiep was under orders from Berlin to keep the new Ambassador from giving an interview, for he chartered a tug, raced down the harbor to beat the newshawks to the Bremen, dashed into the Luther suite, locked the door. When importunate reporters were finally admitted, they beheld Dr. Kiep standing guard over a chunky elderly man whose eyes swept the floor in terrible embarrassment. Ambassador Luther kept saying: "Good morning, gentlemen. I am happy to meet the Press--I am happy. . . ."

One bold reporter asked if Dr. Luther was being taken off in a tug to avoid a Jewish anti-Hitler demonstration in Manhattan. Striding forward, Dr. Kiep heatedly exclaimed: "No-- No-- No-- Herr Luther is in a hurry to get to Washington. He has said all he cares to say in this statement." Dr. Kiep pulled a typewritten sheet out of his own pocket. "Here, I'll read it to you. 'Diplomatic etiquet pre-venting--"

Ambassador Luther lunged across the cabin, snatched the paper from his subordinate's hand. His face was red with rage. His eyes blazed. Cried he: "Here, give me that statement! It's mine and I can read it myself. 'Diplomatic etiquet preventing foreign diplomats from touching upon political questions. . . .' "

What Ambassador Luther slowly read was a perfunctory nothing to the effect that he was glad to be in the U. S. and that Germany was "just as normal and orderly as could be desired." What every reporter on the Bremen saw in it was the power of Adolf Hitler to stifle all opinions but his own. Last week he dismissed Consul-General Kiep's colleague in Manhattan, rotund, jovial Consul Paul Schwarz, for not being a Nazi.

Diplomatic departures upon which President Roosevelt definitely decided last week:

To Poland James Michael Curley, thrice mayor of Boston, was given a nomination to be U. S. Ambassador. This one-time grocery boy had early hopped the Roosevelt bandwagon but failed to carry Massachusetts for his candidate in the presidential primary. He squeezed into the Chicago convention on a Puerto Rico proxy, campaigned lustily for the party nominee out of earshot of his own State. For his services he expected nothing less than a seat in the Cabinet. When he did not get that, he picked out Rome and the U. S. Ambassadorship there as his reward. Last month after a call at the White House he gleefully anticipated: "I can imagine nothing nicer than a gondola, a bottle of Italian wine and somebody singing 'O Sale Mio.' "

But President Roosevelt had some one else picked for Italy. Mayor Curley went back to Boston, took to his bed with a cold. The President last week announced his appointment as Ambassador to Poland. Two days later Mayor Curley leaped out of bed, sped to Washington and with a rhetorical flourish that sounded almost sarcastic told the President he was "eternally grateful" for the offer of the Warsaw post but he would have to decline it. His reason: "The clear call of duty . . . that I remain in America [and Boston] . . . cannot be disregarded."

To Denmark & Iceland* was assigned Ruth Bryan Owen, eldest daughter of the late Great Commoner Bryan, with the distinction of being the first woman in U. S. diplomatic history to attain ministerial rank. Joyfully asked the Copenhagen Press: "Who could understand us better than Denmark's girl friend?"--a reference to the fact that in 1931 Mrs. Owen & family toured that country with a Curtis Aerocar (a two-wheeled trailer containing a kitchenet and four bunks). Madam Minister Owen, who lost her Florida seat in the House March 4. promptly revealed that she had found some Danish ancestors who arrived in the U. S. in 1636. Said she: "I am very happy to have been assigned this post because of my father's connection with foreign affairs. When I was a little girl my favorites of all stories were those of Hans Christian Andersen. I always wanted to see the land of Andersen." Mrs. Owen will take a month's course of diplomatic sprouts at the State Department before sailing for her post with the two youngest of her four children.

To Mexico last week Ambassador Josephus Daniels was travelling along when in time's nick a section hand near Monterey discovered a "sun kink" on the track--a rail buckled by the heat. The Daniels train, guarded by six detectives and squads of soldiers, was held 30 minutes while a new rail was laid. Ambassador Daniels reached Mexico City without mishap.

Tentatively filled last week by President Roosevelt were the following jobs: Ambassador to Italy, Breckinridge Long, one-time Assistant Secretary of State; Ambassador to Turkey, Ira Nelson Morris of Chicago, Woodrow Wilson's Minister to Sweden; Ambassador to Belgium, Dave Hennen Morris. New York Attorney; Minister to Holland, William Gorham Rice, New York State Civil Service Commissioner and onetime private secretary to Grover Cleveland; Minister to Canada, Warren Delano Robbins, the President's first cousin and the Department of State's Chief of Protocol. Still being kept wide open to await developments was the Ambassadorship to Germany.

*An independent sovereignty under the King of Denmark

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