Escape from Arabs

"During four days of the Shriners' Convention in Washington:

"50,000 visitors called at the White House. . . .

"20,000 of them called on one day. . . .

"10,000 visitors shook the President's hand. . . .

"1,000 persons were admitted at a time by the White House police. . . .

"Three parades by day and by night, each of approximately four hours' duration, were reviewed by the President. . . .

"1,000 salutes were delivered by the President and Mrs. Harding to flags that passed in parades."

Thus TIME (June 18, 1923) reported the last convention held in Washington by the Ancient Arabic Order of Nobles of the Mystic Shrine and the part Shriner Warren Gamaliel Harding had to play in it.

Last week as the Shriners began to assemble once again in Washington matters were different. Secretary Early turned down a request to have Imperial Potentate Dana S. Williams, of Lewiston, Me., ride up to the White House on a camel to be received by the President. Only the vanguard of potentates caught Shriner Franklin D. Roosevelt (Cypress Temple, Albany, N. Y.) at his desk, induced him to put on an honorary fez of Washington's Almas Temple. That night in a darkened limousine the President sped past the Pavilion of Omar erected on the sidewalk in front of the White House with its papier-mache sphinxes and cardboard columns 52 ft. high, down avenues whose lamp posts had been camouflaged as palm trees to the Union Station where he escaped from a Shriner-ridden city on a Baltimore & Ohio special train. Next morning he stopped at Highland, N. Y., motored across the Hudson to the peaceful quiet of Hyde Park. There he would spend four easy days before going on to West Point to attend the graduation exercises at the U. S. Military Academy. By the time he returns to Washington the Shrine convention will be so far over that he will have to review only the last of three parades, "a spectacular pageant of floats with crews of dancing girls and actors." P: Next press conference after the one at which he delivered a message to the nation on the Constitution (TIME, June 10) President Roosevelt had a record attendance: 345 newshawks, crowding into his oval air-cooled office hoping for more sensations. Instead, he amiably discussed the business of burying the Blue Eagle's carcass (see p. 15). As he talked it became evident that the White House air-conditioning system had not been planned to take care of 345 perspiring visitors. Finally the President, contrary to custom, said that anyone who had to make an early edition could skip. Several dozen skipped. P: To Congress the President sent a message urging legislation to continue for another year the post of Federal Coordinator of Transportation, agreeing to postpone final coordination of railroad, water carrier, bus and air lines under a reconstituted Interstate Commerce Commission until the next session of Congress. P: Mme Lebrun, wife of the President of France, arrived in the U. S. on the Normandie's maiden voyage. Last week before returning on the same ship she visited Mount Vernon, Arlington Cemetery and Mrs. Roosevelt at the White House. Overwhelmed with the official attention she received, Mme Lebrun modestly declared: "In France I am only the wife of the President."

P: Many a Canadian has been impressed by Franklin Roosevelt's preachment of "the more abundant life." Last week one of the most impressed Canadians, slight, smart, sandy-haired Robert Cromie, editor-publisher of the Vancouver Sun, attended a Roosevelt press conference. "What would you say was the social objective of the Administration?" asked Newshawk Cromie. Obligingly, the President replied to his friend from over the border, waiving the White House rule against direct quotation:

"The social objective, I should say, remains just what it was, which is to do what any honest Government of any country would do ... increase the security . . . more of the good things of life . . . distribution of wealth in the wider terms . . . places to go in the summertime . . . not to starve in their old age . . . give honest business a chance. ... It is a little difficult to define. . . ."

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