The Washington times., 1936-07-03
NOW
White House
Grass Uncut
NOT IN STREET
By HELEN ESSARY

II am suburban housewife.
I have to watch my yardman to
see that obscure corners of my
flower bed are not left to weeds
and grass. Therefore l am
finding consolation in the look
of a certain part of the White
House garden. The lawns are
neatly clipped. The flower beds
are in apple pie order every
where.
Everywhere, that is, but on
that steep bank on the south
west side of the Executive Of
ficeS. This spot is easily seen
from the street but not from
inside the grounds.
There plantain and grass
are growing so tall that they
have bIOOmed and gone to seed"
Ans: Anyhow, l. K, it isn't
growing in the streets, is it!
Mr.. William C. Bullitt, United
States Ambassador to Soviet Rus
Sia is going to represent President
Roosevelt at the Patrick Henry
Bi-Centennial Celebration. This
will take place on July IS to II
at Hanover Court House, Virginia.
Mr.. Bullitt, although a good
ambassador to a country that has
outlawed its past, traces his own
ancestry back to Annie Henry, the
favorite sister of the obStreperouS
Patrick.
The old Hanover Court House,
by the way, was the scene of the
trial of the famous Parsons case
which caused the people round
about in Prince Williams county
to think Mr.. Henry was a promiS-
ing young laWer.
Vacation Notes. Arctic Series
Highland county, Virginia, the
tourists paradise" sends this line
in an advertising blurb:
ATTACHES of the Swiss En-
baSsy in Washington, as we'll as
legiOns of congressman, bust
ness and professional people,
spend their summers here-and
they sleep SOundly beneath
blankets during July and Au-
gust"
It's a relief to know this. I've
been worrying about how the dis
tinguished gentlemen got on
during the hotter season.
Dukes Hotel, London, "immedi-
ately adjacent to St. James Palace
and Green Park" announces in
its tariff of summer charges:
Fire during whole day, SO.
Fire, morning or evening,
The tariff On ice water and soap
Is not listed.
Speaking of ice water reminds
me of the English visitor whom I
have been quoting lately.
We found him moody the other
morning. He said he felt very
badly. He must be a bit livery"
No, the four whiskies and sodas
he'd had the night before had
nothing to do with his misery. Nor
did the champagne nor the liqueur
nor the bottles of beer at bed
time.
It was the ice, the evil ice that
he'd had in his highballS and his
drinking water. Ice wasn't fit for
human stomachs. Every English
man knew that.
Henry Mencken, who had been
listening to this earnest COM
plant, said sympathetically:
you're right, Jim, you're
right. Looks to me like you must
have got a piece of bad ice
somewhere"
Advice unsolicited, but sweetly
meant:
No woman is more interested in
seeing her sex get on in the world
than 1 am. But know that if
women really want to count in
politics, count Importantly, mean,
they will have to acquire new
public-speaking voices.
Female voices shattered the ears
and the nerve fibers during the
Cleveland and Philadelphia con-
vention. With a few beautiful eX-
ceptions they were terrible, simply
terrible They were shrill and
Shrieking and CONF.
They made their owners into
muSic-hall burlesques of lady per
formers.
This leads me to say again with
out encouragement, that if a wom
an has the wisdom of Gree and
the virtue of LucreCe-before the
fall and tells the world what it
ought to do in the raucous voice
of most feminine orators, she is
not only completely Intellectual as
a Spellbinder, she is a joke.
The loud speaker and the radio
have almost destroyed the quality
of the human voice generally.
They have been fearfully cruel to
the female voice in particular.
They have inspired women to feel
that as soon as they get into the
neighborhood of microphone
they must pitch their voices to a
high &C" and holler desperately.
I write in this bitter way be-
cause 1 think women are on the
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