Evening star., 1924-09-23
WASHINGTON OBSERVATIONS
BY FREDERIC HILLIAM VILE

Dick" JerviS, veteran chief of the
PRESIDENTS Own"-the White House
secret service squad-says that the
crowd of $4,000 or 100.o 900 addressed
by Mr.. Coolidge on the Monument lot
! on September 21 was by far the big
gest face-to-face audience to which
President of the United States ever
talked. Few who observed the vast
| Holy Name Society demonstration
! ever glimpsed more Impressive
scene. On the outermost rim of the
throng. at the base OF the Monum ent
four figures were silhouetted in con-
spicuous relief. They were nuns
champion cheerers. They voIIeyed
their approval of the Presidents s
principal points in well regulated
clusters of three cheers on each oc-
caSion.
Republican and Democrat faced
each other in lively debate at radio
station WRC in Washington the other
night when Frank w. Mondell of
Wyoming, the former q. o. +. floor
leader in the House, and Senator II.
II. Caraway OF Arkansas were on the
bill. Each watched the others per-
formance before the microphone.
First Mondell heard Caraway call the
out of the criminal code. Then Cara
way listened to Mondell in praise of
the unparalleled blessings of the
Fordney- -McCumber tariff, especially
for the farmer. When it was all
over they walked out of the studio
arm in arm, a symbol that after ali
politics isn't a game in which all
friendship ceases.
\
~
wants Uncle Sans workladies who
have husbands to acknowledge 1t
when they sign their names, has been
extending his sphere of activities
across the Atlantic. More than two
years ago Congress voted $150,000 to
rehabilitate the Pierpont Morgan gift
houses in London, which the United
States accepted for embassy purposes.
The property still stands in a state
of dismal disrepair, with cobwebs on
the windows and tall weeds in the
front yard The controller generals
department., it would appear. has had
a finger in the pie. Mr.. McCarl ruled
that the funds voted by Congress
couldn't be regarded as a "continu-
ing" appropriation, but would have to
be provided for afreSh each fiscal
year. AS there were legal delays in
taking title to the London houses, the
appropriation, under the McCarl rul-
ing lapsed. 1t was jammed into the
deficiency bill last Spring. but, as the
bill failed Of passage, there is still no
money for the work Secretary
Hughes will try his luck again in De-
cember.
Prince Caetani, who has asked Mus
solini to relieve him as Italian Am
bassador to the United States, will be
sadly missed in Washington society.
The princes parties" at his luxu-
rious Massachusetts, avenue apart
ment, adjoining that of Secretary
Mellon, were among the most sump-
tuous the Capital has ever known.
The Ambassador is a millionaire. and
able to do that sort of thing. In Rome
last Summer there were reports that
Prince Caetanis failure to deliver"
Mr. Hughes in that city, In connec-
ton with the visits the Secretary of
State made to London, Paris, Brussels
and Berlin, had undermined his po-
sition with Mussolini. The Fascist
dictator bitterly resented Mr.. Hughes
boycott of the Eternal City, al
though the italian government was
advised long beforehand that the
Secretary's sixteen days in Europe
would not permit an excursion so far
aheld as the Tiber Valley.
4
NJ Stephane Lauzanne, editor of
the Paris Matin, has been digging
up some Franco-American history
apropos Edward N. Hurley's project
for refunding of Frances debt to the
United States. NJ. LauZanne discov-
ers that in 177s, when the young
American republic was on the eve
of bankruptcy and had $140,000,000 in
paper notes in circulation, the paper
dollar was worth only sixth of a
gold dollar. At that grave juncture
France made the United States a
loan of 100000 livres for re-es-
tablishment of American credit Lau-
zanne quotes a letter written by the
King Of France. in which tho mon
arch announced that he had taken
] the American situation INTO consider.