Evening star., 1932-05-22

-
to Istanbul, up to Ankara-th
trail of a skyrocket-the route
of Gen. Charles Hitchcock Sheriff. pre-
senting his credentials to the Ghazi as
American Ambassador to Turkey; OF
Charles Hitchcock Sheriff., once Yale
80 Sheriff., the author, the diplomat,
the athlete, the traveller. the organizer,
the man of the world, the man of reli-
gion; Sheriff. the pyrotechnic, Sheriff.
the vivid, the avid, the amateur OF
arts. the Peter Pan Of diplomacy.
All the spats and monocles, all the
high hat and high life you like and
must have in an Ambassador when
spas, high hat and monocle are the
Ambassador when he is dealing with
high hats He has sophistication,
plenty of it. But it is his own kind
of sophStication.
His sophistication. like everything he
has. is his own. He is original. He
is not crude He talks so much
and SO fast that you think his mind
is on nothing but himself. But while
he is talking about what happened
when he was Minister to the Argen-
tine or when he was a 100-yard
champion. or when he was talking TO
prime ministers and kings, or when he
was writing about stained-glass WIN
dows, he is at the same time taking
swift mental notes upon everything go
ing on about him.
Registers Real Life.
He is a Photographic plate upon
which life registers a series of eXplo-
sions of color in which each shade is
equally interesting with every other.
Meeting him-dark-eyed, aquiline- point
nosed, loquacious, intuitive-you mis-
take him for Celt. He is pure Saxon.
Not for him the philosophers evalua-
ton into a relationship or relativity nor
the SophiSticate'S boredom with expert
ence nor the artists desire for pattern.
Timing a political parade, founding a
fine arts school, addressing a chamber
of commerce, exploring the symbolism
of Japanese garden, talking with Mus
soiipi or George V, rowing on a pro-
crew. lunching in his club in London,
Par!.. New York; searching out an an
cient glass Mountaineering and
thousand things are grist to this high
powered energy.
Yet everything that has come to this
man leaves him essentially Unchanged
essentially, for all his 65 years, a hero
WorShiper. a boy who believes in luck
and stretches out his hand to show his
luck line"
1t was luck" for example-he thinks
that made his way to starting the
l00-yarG dash into the accepted tech
nique. He was smallish. He was de-
pendent upon his nervous energy. He
was so excitable that he couldn't make
fair start-Was always getting away
too soon and having to be recalled. So
he adopted the habit of leaning over
and putting his hands on the ground
in front of him to hold himself back.
He became intercollegiate champion
in the 100 yards and in the 220.
Was Class Historian.
He was naturally, also. class his
tOrian, and Enthusiastically he pro-
duced with c. S. Day. an organiza-
ton Of class secretaries" called him
self the class slave" recorded ex-
penses for rent of hall and broken
glass" in multifarious reunion volumes
after graduation and while he was de-
veloping in the practice of law in New
York.
Within dozen years he had made
dozen trips to Europe, arranged the
first international match between Yale
and Oxford, Yale and Cambridge
served with the committee for the
Yale-Harvard VS. Oxford Cambridge
matches, as chairman of the Gradua-
ton Committee on Track Athletics for
Yale, had taken abroad the New York
athletic team which won the English
and French championship in 1900,
served as commiSsaire etrangere for
the French Exposition, on the Advisory
Committee on Amateur Sports for the
Buffalo Exposition, as chairman Of the
Committee On Sports for the st. Louis
Exposition.
Also. he had a mind too concrete
and too personal to be satisfied with
the practice of law alone. The cam
paign of 1896 came along and the old
college spirit was working in him.
Always a Republican, secretary of the
Lawyers Republican Association, he
turned into working up his fellow law
yers for the Sound Money Club and
got fascinated with the question OF
parades. That taste stuck with him.
Put Us in. War"
st put us in the war" he says with
a laugh. This is how he did it:
Nineteen-sixteen. Somehow, the
White House had to be shown there
was widespread preparedness senti-
ment Something spectacular had to
be done Sheriff. has taste for the
spectacular. At least. he has jour
nalistic instinct for what is spectacular.
He had. as an undergraduate, or
ganized the Yale "Depew Battalion"
and thoughtfully given every marcher
a cake, an apple and sandwich. mo
falling out of dog wagon" on that
marchD There had been the '96 pa
rade. the Roosevelt parade, other pa
rades. Sheriff. now would have pa
rade that would prove something.
He called a meeting OF the editors
of all the trade journals in New York,
told them his idea, asked them to sug-
gest men in each line as organizers
and then he got these men togther.
I'VE will have a preparedness parade
in IS cities" he told them.
Some of them walked out on him.
Most of them stayed. For six weeks a
sheet was sent out to each OF the ID
chosen cities. No marking on it showed
where it had come from. He wasn't
looking for credit" The local fellows
had to get the credit" This was
shrewd.
Knew Army Figures.
He knew the Army figures-8,000 men,
l6 files front, pass reviewing stand IN
an hour, He also knew amateur psy-
chology. When it rained the day OF the
Roosevelt parade. he had wired, cut
the files to eight" and the marchers
had gone on schedule.
Now. he took a tall man and short
man out on Fifth avenue and, stop
noticeable leaninps toward either radical