The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1936-07-22
NOW
TnterUieU' With
Miss Bailey
YOUTH SAFE
By HELEN ESSARY

sort Of writer editors and publish
ers travel thousands Of miles tC
see. If they manage to catch ur
with her they patiently wait fol
days, trying to persuade her tc
sign a contract. With Mary Rob
erts Rinehart and Kathleen Nor
ris, Miss Bailey is one of the tri
umvirate of highest-price- per-word
women-writerS.
Yet, yesterday, after I had
whisked her from her apartment
In ,Wardman Park Hotel to the
Chevy Chase Club, she sat cheerily
over q cup of tea and scattered
costly words about the summer
landscape. Priceless phrases floated
out toward the petunia beds and
lowered above the swimming pool
And ! listened intently and had
. marvellous afternoon.
Not at all detached or remote is
Temple Bailey. Friendly, gay
pretty. Effervescing with charm
and ideas. Magnificently lacking
In pose, she is an amusing, provo
cative companion.
We discussed about dozen sub.
jectS intensely and touched lightly
on half hundred more.
Our first theme was the war cry
Of the feminist, Women are not
women-they are people" Mis-
Bailey, her blue eyes sparkling,
said:
absurd! Aren't people men
AND women? Why should wom-
en- forget they are women? 1t
isn't n e eSSary for them to
brood over the idea. Nor need
they emphasize it. But the fact
that they are women makes
their successes more dramatic.
EFF, for instance, the Ameri-
can minister to Denmark were
man, some of us wouldn't be
able to recall his name. But
since the minister is Ruth Bryan
Owen, the first women ever ap-
pointed to such an important
diplomatic post, and since Mrs.
Owen, or Mrs. Rhode, is a
charming woman, completely
feminine If ever q woman was,
ID the minister Of Denmark be-
comes q vivid personality"
From feminism we jumped to
youth and its present-day diff
culties. No morbid apologist is
Miss Temple about youth or about
anything else in the universe. She
asked:
"Why should we feel unhappy
because we are giving youth an
uncertain world to work
through? In every generation
youth has had to pick up the
dlNNreeabIe pieces, the left
OverN Of the past, and fit them
somewhere into . new world OF
its own making.
"T'm an OptimiSt about most
things. I can't believe there is
much to worry about. Why
I've even worked with an Ouija
board. The reason I have on
this big red hat is because q
brand-new horoscope said stop
wearing blue
'Tm 50 optimistic that I re-
fuse to think about diet"
Miss Temple laughed, taking
another piece of cinnamon toast
and adding an extra lump to her
tea.
Miss Bailey's explanation Of
why she moved to Atlantic City
for four years was a delightful DIT
Of character revelation:
eve had q chauffeur, my
mother and I, whom we liked
aWfuIIy. But he was a bad
driver. We couldn't tell him
we didn't want him any more.
That would have hurt his feel
angS, So we decided to move to
Atlantic City. Then we could
say we didn't need q chauffeur,
because we were going to use
the wheel chairs on the board
walk"
I asked Miss Bailey about her
new book, "I've Been to London"
to be published Serially in the
Cosmopolitan. She explained:
81 took the title from a
nursery rhyme. I've a weakness
for nursery rhymes. They have
80 much drama and information
in their jingIes. Children who
are reared on Mother Goose
acquire rhythm and a familiarity
with many English customs and
places"
Miss Bailey insists she is a COM
plete Victorian. She is provoked
by criticism Of the good queens
SentimentaliSm and prudiShnesS.
Victoria, she thinks, was Of her
own time. Just as women of the
present are products Of this era
Of thought and feeling. She said:
eve Of the present dramatic
our emotions fearfully. We
think, each of us, that our par
ticular experience is quite rare.
We forget that the same thing
10 probably happening to thou
sands Of other women.
"JuSt yesterday, for example,
i received two letters. One was
from . woman in a small West
ern town. One from q woman
In . big city. Each woman was
In the thrOeS of an affair with
o man she shouldn't have been