Evening star., 1927-11-07
WASHINGTON OBSERVATIONS
BY FREDERIC WILLIAM VILE.

So many national organizations of
one kind or another now have their
headquarters in Washington that an en-
terprising real estate man has con-
ceived the idea of erecting for their
exclusive use q huge modern office
building. He intends calling it the
National Association Building" If
the scheme is carried out, the build
ing will rise in the midst of the down
town financial and Government office
district. Nobody knows just how
many national organizations actually
operate in Washington. Their num-
bar certainly runs into the hundreds.
They ramify into every imaginable
field of politics, commerce. agriculture,
trade, finance. labor, religion, educa-
ton, peace, war, patriotism. ethics
morals, sport, art, science and human
activity. Many Of them are crank
and fad concerns. In the majority of
cases these organizations perform here
for the purpose of bringing close
range influence to bear upon Congress
and upon the administration. In
many instances they are lobbies, pure
and simple In the aggregate they
give employment to thousands of per-
sons, and some Of their executive
secretaries" and Legislative agents"
are paid salaries bigger than cabinet
ministers receive. Some, like the
Chamber of Commerce of the United
States, lnhahit noble premises.
X X *
Senator Joseph T. Robinson of Ar
kansas. Democratic leader in the
Senate, Is about to reach the United
States after spending two months in
South America. Together with SEN
ator Jesse III. Metcalf, Republican or
Rhode Island. he represented the
United States, by appointment or the
State Department, at the Interpar-
liamentary Union of Commerce at RIO
de Janeiro in September. Robinson
reports that the conference opened
amid visible atmosphere of hostility
to the United States on the part of
Latin American delegates, but that
this. feeling was considerably dissl-
pated as the meeting progressed. Fol
lowing the conference, Senator and
Mrs. Robinson sailed to Buenos Aires
and then crossed the Andes to San
tiago de Chile. They came north
along the west coast by way Of Peru.
The Democratic Senate leader doesn't
think the time has come when the
United States needs to consider sec
ond American-built canal, to cross
Nicaragua. He believes the Panama
ditch will be adequate for years to
come.
One of the wittiest women in Wash
ington is Mrs. Ollie M. James, widow
of the Democratic senator from
Kentucky, who passed away during
the close of his first term, In 1918.
Somebody remarked to Mrs. James
the other day. speaking of the grow
| ing traffic congestion in the Capital,
| that the number of automobiles is
| increasing nowadays "by leaps and
| bounds" To which observation the
vivacious Kentuckian rejoined, eyes,
| and pedestrians nowadays survive by
| leaps and bounds, too"
There's a certain former ambassa-
dor of the United States who brought
back with him, from the post he re-
Gently adorned in Europe, a recipe
for candy that can be eaten with
impunity, without the slightest dan.
ger Of producing avoirdupois. He's
| made himself extremely popular in
| Washington society by supplying a
number of his woman friends with reg.
! uldr COilSiS1lIicHlS VI tlle dHtL-ide
sweets. An authority in the candy
trade claims that since the reducing
| craze struck American womankind.
sales Of chocolates and b0nbOnS have
appreciably fallen off.
|
Rear Admiral Hilary p. Jones,
president of the General Board of the
Navy, will reach retirement age t64)
! on November IA and thereupon
leave the service to which he has