(2 of 3)
Next day had come a momentous meeting of the diplomatic corps at the British Embassy. About that old yellow building on Connecticut Ave., the street was black with diplomatic motors, discharging heads of missions come to discuss Mrs. Gann at length. The meeting might well have been broken up if Lady Isabella Howard's green parrakeet, Jerry, had fluttered into the assembly and, as is his custom, taken a seat on Sir Esme's shoulder. Jerry might have demanded to know what the Corps proposed to do about precedence for the Old Soak. Statesman Stimson's Chinese-chattering parrot recently ordered on from Manila (TIME, April 8). Canadian Minister the Hon Vincent Massey has a wire-haired fox terrier, Peter, who can claim a high place because of his ancestry. There is a disdainful tortoise family at the Italian Embassy. Prince Albert de Ligne, Belgian Ambassador, has a red and grey African parrot who would surely dispute any undue social recognition of the Old Soak.
But Lady Isabella's Jerry, a well-trained diplomat, did not interrupt the meeting, so the ambassadors and ministers confined their attention to Mrs. Gann and reached an agreement. The strange case of Mr. Gann was not broached.
The diplomats decided to accept Mrs. Gann as the Vice President's hostess and accord her full honors as such. This action, however, was only "provisional" until "constituted American authority" could make "a final arrangement." What this authority may be, no one knows, for Statesman Stimson, to avoid further social uproars, announced last week that his Department's Division of Protocol would henceforth cease functioning as an information bureau for Washington Society.
If Mr. Gann was troubled by his odd position as the Vice President's official hostess's husband, he resolutely concealed the fact. For publication, all he said was: "Please do not quote me except to say that I have no comment to make. I believe the incident closed. ... I sincerely hope it is closed."
Citizens in all parts of the land were deeply interested, however, and many a suggestion flooded into Washington. The Vice President was called upon to solve the problem by marrying again. That made him chuckle. Others suggested buffet dinners at which the question of precedence would be avoided by everybody standing up. Because Charles Curtis is himself part Indian, Chief Two-Guns-White-Calf of Glacier Park, Mont., famed redskin of Great Northern R. R. advertisements, was interviewed. Said he:
"These white squaws make much thunder over nothing. One is third and wants to be second. Tell them all to go into wigwam, sit in circle, then no first, no last. Thunder dies and the braves can sleep."
¶ The Baltimore Sim's always mordant Frank Kent said the case ought to produce "a more general appreciation of the importance to the country of Herbert Hoover's health."' He suggested doubling the Presidential bodyguard, hiring more and better White House physicians, and an enforced two-hour nap every afternoon for the President.