Tooted at by every passing steamer, there stands at No. 17 Battery Place, Manhattan, the Washington-Lafayette Institute, an organization founded recently by one Charles E. Bedaux to promote Franco-U. S. accord.
Last week the officers of this institution learned with alarm that the U. S. debt claims upon France were being held up to ridicule by a loud-voiced Parisian revue performer, Mlle. Marcelle Parisys, in Quel Beau Nu at the Concert Mayol, Paris, (TIME, Feb. 8). Swiftly the following cablegram was despatched to the Washington-Lafayette Institute’s Paris agent: “Parisys’ number Mayol against America bad effect on press here. Will do much harm if continued. See revue; also Oscar Dufrenne, producer; explain what Washington-Lafayette is doing. Cable results.”
The agent attended the revue. Next morning he reported to the Institute: “Oscar impressed by your cable. Promises immediate cutting of bad line.”
Mr. F. Ivan Anderson, Secretary of the Institute, declared: “We assume that ‘cutting of bad line’ means that Mlle. Parisys’ skit was removed entire, since all of the lines were about equally ‘bad.'”
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