The Wilmington morning star. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1909-1990, 1945-01-27
BY PETER EDISON
NEA Washington Correspondent

WASHINGTON, D. c., Jan. 26.-You might
as well know the full story on the 1000 Club
payoff. and how it's 291 members bowed them
selves out of the political picture in a big
blowout at Washington's new Statler hotel,
marking the windup of the Fourth term in
auguration lack-of-ceremonies.
Approximately 275 out of the 291 paid up
members of the 1000 Club came to Washington
for the inauguration, and though they had
collected only about third of the million
dollars the club founders had hoped to get,
they found they still had some $4,000 in the
treasury.
When party leaders suggested the money
be turned into the Democratic National Com
mittee to keep the party machine running till
1948 the club leaders said nothing doing. They
had been told that they were going to throw
a lot of weight around, and by golly they were
going to make a splurge if they had to pay
for it themselves. So the 291 member 1000
Club decided to give themselves a banquet
and to see what real 1000 Club would look
like if they had one, they decided to invite
every celebrity and near celebrity they could
rope, tie or otherwise lay hands on, to the
number of 1000. No tickets would be sold, the
food would be free, and they would build up
lot of good will.
IdE ChECk: $6l5S
BY actual count. there were I'LL tickets put
out. The breast of guinea hen dinner cost SIS
a plate, or $685., plus $375 for the Presidential
banquet room and $175 for the Congressional
banquet room adjoining Sum total, $6155.
The programs were the size of a news
magazine, though not so thick. At that, these
menu cards were 16 pages plus four-page
bristleboard cover. Printed in blue and gold
cord, they must have cost at least half
printed in compliance with wartime regula
tons on paper conservation was conspicu-
ously absent.
That wasn't the only thing conspicuously
absent about this program. A whole raft of
the distinguished Guests whose names and
stations were printed in the program were
also conspicuously absent Nine columns of
membership list revealed only about a dozen
names Of national prominence
Mrs. Roosevelt was there and General and
Mrs. Marshall. The new Vice-President was
there and on his very first day and night in
office got broken in on his long four years of
being a distinguished guest and a maker of
brief remarks at banquets. Henry Wallace for
a change had his first night off and how he
must have enjoyed it.
But the Honorable Justices Of the Supreme
Court stayed away en- masse, the Navy was
represented by the mere Commandant If the
Coast Guard and Secretary of Agriculture
Claude Wickard, bless his Hoosier heart, was
the only cabinet member so loyal or so in
nocent that he didn't join those who stayed
away.
George Jessel presided as master of cere-
monies and said he enjoyed the dinner be-
cause he had been to the White House for
lunch and never had so few chickens got mix
ed up with so much celery, Mrs. Roosevelt
topped that one later by saying she was glad
to know there had been any chicken at all
in that salad because by the time she and
Mrs. Truman sat down for bit after the
thousands of invited plate luncheon guests had
left, she couldn't find anything but celery.
NO SlNATRA
Frank Sinatra was another celebrity who
was supposed to be there but wasn't. Weather
not dogs-kept him from flying in but it was
no loss because the 372nd Infantry glee club
sang war songs and the Star-Spangled Banner
much better than frankie could ever have
done. If somebody had started a swoon at
that $1,000 guinea -hen-in-the- atmosphere,
there's no telling what might have happened.
There still remains the little matter of fl
nances. If the 1000 Club had only $4,000 sur
plus to begin with and this affair cost APP
proximately double that. somewhere, some
how, somebody must have dug down to foot
the difference, Sic transit gloria 1000 Club
and requescat in pace 291 suckers.