Imperial Valley press., 1937-03-28
"THUMBPRINTS
OF THE GREAT"
BY Cornelius Vanderbilt, F.
Vanderbilt, E.
TED ROOSEVELT, JR.

A IE HAVE known him years and liked
w him too with reservations. 1t was
late one fall evening in Washington D. u
nearly sixteen years ago. we were lnVesti-
eating an important international story we
needed corroboration for we believed we mad
made an all-mportant discovery but every
government official busy state dinner
at the Secretary of Wars home official
Washington was dressing itself in preparation
:. A bleak, damp, rainy night the dim
street lamps shed dull yellow rays all save
newspapermen, taxi-drivers and prostitutes
could remain indoors.
We three had our occupations to fulfill
and mine was in checking an important story
. . almost all news, by the way, to all news
papermen is called story and most
of it has to be checked. Ted Roosevelt
couldn't come to the phone even an Assist
ant Secretary of the Navy has to bathe himself
sometimes. Mrs. Roosevelt believed it, too
G. and besides, it after office hours.
Nothing can faze the newspaper investi-
gator . a story must be secured at any cost
:. Thus it happened we were ringing his door,
bell I. a scant half hour before the State
dinner and were inside, even at the colored
maids demonstrations her master, she
claimed, was busy working and she disap-
peared behind damask drape. =.
Singing raucously and Justify a voice
sounded from upstairs it was Enthusiastically
the voice wanted in two bounds we were
there and Ted Jr., looking for all the world
like skinny Santa Claus enveloped in
shrouds of soapsuds &. lay outstretched in
the bathtub. q. Was he angry? :. That's
another story We confronted him. :. We
held before him an extraordinary sheet of paper
j.. He'd hardly finished swearing at us :.
t,o ,-;y
holding. Where had we found it? Surely
we wouldn't dare print it. :. Why hadn't we
told him before? -.
That was enough of a corroboration .. . we
had what we had come for yet even a news
paper man sometimes considers his nation, be-
fore himself verfcation and publication
might upset the countrys apple cart. i. :. Fur
ther, Ted Jr. gave us his word when the time
came we'd have an exclusive story :.
He lunged from his tub and we from his
house. -.
Our boss agreed it best to give the govern
ment the break. We were called upon to
testify as to where, how and why we
had this map the late President Harding
sat in former Secretary of War Weeks
osCreIdry Oh Tie navy DenDy McMurray,
then chief of Asiatic Affairs of our State De-
partment :. and Coontz later Admiral of the
Pacific fleet. -.
At the Disarmament Conference few days
after we were the youngest correspondent
present we sat beside Wickham Sted of the
London Times and Arthur Brisbane
AS result of this map Great Britain agreed
to abrogate the Anglo-Japanese alliance
and she sided with the United States in the
naval treaty that followed . known as the
5-5-3 agreement. Ted Jr. told us later when
we released that map and its explanatory
code to hundreds of Sunday papers through
out the United States :. that it was its ex-
istence that caused the calling of Dis
armament Conference at the time . . and that
our copy was one of only four known to be then
existent 1t therefore corroborated the one
which had come into possession of this Gov
ernment's secret service a few months previ-
ousy at the termination of the Premier's
Conference in London .
All or which and more because a
feller sings in his bath-tub . and isn't on
his guard =. E!