The Waterbury Democrat., 1931-02-04
NEA Service Writer

Washington.-The state depart ment is full of anecdotes about old Edd.e Savoy, the 75-year-old colored messenger who has been there for 59 years and is regarded as indis-. pensable. Eddie, the man who has shown the diplomats in to secretar- ies of state for many decades, is full of anecdotes about the depart ment and the social life of Wash ington in which he has always played part
 Eddie Savoy has given more than one mbassador his passports. The first was Sir Lionel SackvilleWest of Great Britain in 1888. Sackville- West had written the famous I "Murchison letter." advising a citizen of self-alleged British extraction how to vote in the election and, as 1 it was a trick played on the demo- crats, President Cleveland decided he would have to leave. Eddie was given the ambassadors passports by Secretary Bayard who, he recalls, cautioned him not to h.gh-hat Sir Lionel by saying:
 and not kicking the gentleman out Of our house." Gets Autograph for Receipt We'll, Eddie had to come back with some kind of receipt, so he indicated that he admired Sir Lionel and would like an autograph on the back of the envelope. Sir Lionel autographed and Eddie went proudly back with what served as a receipt. Some 10 years later he pulled the same trick on the Spanish ambas- sador, Barnaby, with the oncoming of the Spanish American war. It was also Eddie who handed the walking papers to Charge d'Affaires | Algara when we last broke rela- tions with Mexico. He recalls sadly that Leslie Woolsey, solicitor in the | department, took the papers to Ger | man Ambassador BernstOrff. Ed die always understood that the req son for that was that there was | some legal business to transact with
 Bernstorff at the same time.
 | Made One "Slip'
 l Secretary of State Lansing had already told Bernstorff about it,
 though. During the exciting pre- i war days of 1917 there came an early
 morning tip to newspaper corre- spondents that Bernstorff was calling | on the secretary on most important business and 30 or 40 of them gath cred in the corridor to confirm the report. Eddie never revealed a se-
 cret in his life, but he had them
 all shouting and yelling at him. Finally one ,demanded: What did 1 the visitor look like?'
 'I dunno" blurted the badgered
 Eddie. "I dunno. He was a Teu- tonic gentleman and that's all 1 can
 say"
 Once in those days when Eddie
 was off for lunch or something his
 understudy put Bernstorff and French Ambassador Jusserand in the
 same anteroom together, which was | just the sort of thing Eddie had al-
 ways carefully avoided as he sorted 1 out the agents of warning nations. Bernstorff and Jusserand sat and 1 glared at each other. Suddenly Ed die dashed in and grabbed Bern
 storff. assuring him that it wasn't l Lansing but the under-secretary of state whom he wanted to See. And
 he took the ambassador off down the 1 corridor to another room.
 | No wonder Secretary Stimson
 went to the civil service commission
 last year and said Eddie was real
 ly needed" in the department. Stim-
 son now backs a bill to extend Ed | dies tenure another year.
 | Began and Ended War
 Eddie sort of began and ended the
 Spanish war. He gave
 Barnaby his passports and later
 handled the final papers as mes-