Evening star., 1932-05-22
Peter Pan of Diplomacy


THE vocabulary need has 600 words
and $50 phrases. With them thorough
lv mastered I can carry on the con-
versation. make the speeches 1 need
and not be able to order a dinner. Any
man who learns 1000 words is prude. "
He has begun to study Turkish.
With his stated vocabulary, as Min
! ister to the Argentine he made charm
! ing address in Spanish to the Univer-
! sitv of Buenos Aires. Even his severest
! critics admit that it was made in ex-
| cellent Spanish. In that university he
| founded the American Club, which cele-
| brated its twentieth anniversary two
years ago. Its qualification for mem
| bership is past residence IN an Ameri-
| can university.
| With this knowledge of the Spanish
| tongue he dealt with the proud Argen-
! tine officials TO such effect that, 1 am
| told, he greatly increased American
trade there and saved American ship
ping at critical moment. But 1 don't
| lay his commercial success to his gift
of tongues. Rather, to his point of
view about his job and his liking for
people.
Il was a scout for American trade, -
lie said.
"Just Happened to Notice"
| He simply just happened to notice, -
| for instance, that the Buenos Aires
| police were carrying an inferior sort of
! sidearms and showed them a better
manufactured in the United States.
| A germ caught him. He came back
| to what he calls "a small island lying
off the coast of the United States
namely, Manhattan-and began ad-
dressing chambers of commerce about
American trade
| To Paris next to consult a specialist,
who gave him six weeks to die in.
| Il haven't any time to die" he said.
We've given up dying in New York
Can't afford to. The estate taxes are
! too heavy"
| So he stayed alive in Paris and went
| to the Bibilotheque Rationale and
worked on French Memories of Eight
zenith Century America" It is a book
characteristic of his gift for organizing
omniverous reading and experience into
popular comprehension and interest.
One day he was standing on the
Ponte Vlcchio in Florence when this
/ thought came to him:
| Here is this poor city with so much
! great art and there is a great city like
| New York which should have so much
| more"
Wanted Art for ALL
Art for the pOor-that was what he
| wanted, art for every one who desired it.
HE went to the chancellor of New
| York University and told him he might
| De able to get some money together and
! put In, maybe, a ollar-forty-six my
/ sell. That was seven years ago. To-
/ Gay he points with pride to a college of
| fine arts with 4.5O0 students.
incidentally, he founded the Sheriff.
iectureShlp in international law and re-
| latlonS at Yale. But he is more in
| terested in art than he is in interna-
tIoIlai law, and international relations
| are, Tor him, the dealing with personal
friends in all the drawing rooms as well
as the chancelleries of the world.
FIRST there was art-the sudden pas
sion Tor stained-glaSs windows born the
moment he looked at his first preat
cathedral. Characteristicallv. he confd
not Keep it to himself A quarter CEN
| Jury ago he wrote his first book about
1t Stained Glass Tours in France
ana nve years ago his last, Stained
Glass Tours in Germany" with Italv
spain and England in between.
Ihen, and in the course of this con-
ClnuouS interest, there was ti,at hero
"otsnlplng and human-nature investi-
gazing urge OF his to study living
modeIs of success From Bethlen and
Horthy to Taft and Mussolini, he sticks
MS spoon of curiosity into living per
sonalltles with one hand, while with
the other he drives his spade into the
pooklsh background of their countries
past, hurls it onto paper and dashes off
10 another window or to take his
young son on a trip to Japan.
Analysed japanese Mind.
More revealing of himself than his
other books is the consequent volume
entitled Have We a Far Eastern
Policy?"
His analysis of the Japanese mind
mere Is given in no pompouS, abstract
terms
In the Far East" he says, every
thing means something Thought is be-
hind every sight or fact" And he adds:
My conclusions are that the japanese
With religious faith less helpful than
Christianity, are making a better use
OF their outlook upon spirituality than
are we of ours"
This man, so widely travelled so
widely experienced among the rulers of
the world, cherishes the point of view
OF the wide-eyed. learning child
He Is also enormously prolific, in
satiably industrious because insatiably
energetic, curious. When he was study
ing his stained glass in Flanders he
heard of an old workman, one of gener-
| atlons of the same family in the occu-
patton OF making cathedral glass. He
sought him out in his little work room
Got What He Wanted.
Come to dinner with me tonight at
the Cog dor and I'll buy you the best
bottle Of Burgundy We can get" he said.
The workman hesitated
I've never eaten in place like that
III my life" he said. And pulling back
his blouse to show his stained old coat,
he added And 1 haven't anything to
wear but this coat"
That's all right" said Sheriff., I'm
not going to pour it on your coat!"
They dined together and Sheriff. got
the sort of information that lay nowhere
but in that workman's mind
I can fancy him standing with per-
| feet propriety while some Ghazian deco
ration is added to the plateau of foreign
orders which already covers his chest on
state occasions. He likes to get the
decorations, one feels sure, and yet
some touch of mockery always pursues
his seriousness.
IONCN JL1C AIBCHJIlc, Ic OIlC6 IC-
marked. The year after I left there
they gave me a gold medal That's what
I call decoration!"
Remains a Boy.
He is boy, boy who can do things
so easily that he never can achieve the
conscious serious less of a man whose
effects are gained by heavy toll. Though
he often wears the mask of solemnity,
through the trappings a Puckish CLEAN
will force its way
One cherishes a natural curiosity
about the wife of such man An Am
bassador's wife is supposed to be so
per cent, at least of his success or fail
ure. Mrs. Sheriff., born George Gibbs,
daughter of the reorganizer of the Santa
Fe Railroad, is woman of presence
and of social experience She has a