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"So Secure." Today the remaining citadels of resident society are held by such doughty widows as Mrs. J. Borden ("Daisy") Harriman, and three other garrison leaders known as "the three Bees." They are a pretty subdued lot.
Mrs. Robert Low Bacon is the leading Republican hostess, a tall, tweedy woman with an air of conscious aristocracy who, in the nervous summer of 1948, was heiress presumptive to Mrs. Mesta's crown. At her small, select salon in the John Marshall house there is no foolishness about fun or songs. Each table is assigned a topic of conversation and their hostess sees that her guests stick to it.
Mrs. Robert Woods Bliss is heiress of the Castoria millions ("Children Cry For It"), and of an unassailably long Washington ancestry. She and her ex-diplomat husband quietly entertain a small, gilt-edged group of diplomats, officials and cave dwellers in their Georgetown home.
A stooped old lady, who in her daytime tweeds and cotton stockings looks like a tired, worn housewife, Mrs. Truxtun Beale entertains with rigid selectivity at Decatur House, the only house in Washington still lighted by gas and candlelight. Said a society writer: "If you go to Beale's you're made. She has no ax to grind, nothing to sell. She's just so secure."
Visiting diplomats find Washington society more hectic, more alcoholic, and less chic than that of European capitals. They go to parties because they have to: drawing rooms are their workrooms. But they miss the sure social structure of London, the intellectual tone of Paris, the darkened grace of Rome's great palazzi. They deplore the fact that official Washington society is made up of small-town politicians, uninteresting businessmen, journalists, and wives who wear the same dress three or four times. Embassies used to be consecrated ground for uninhibited splendor—but no longer. Now host and guest alike feel a little self-conscious about lavish suppers when the U.S. is doling out aid to the ambassador's hungry nation.
Center Ring. The main ring in Washington's three-ring circus is the official circle. Here are the big governmental names which the successful hostess, of whatever circle, must catch. Most of them are ready to be caught: they hold offices of high prestige and medium salaries, which limit their own powers of entertaining. In, this ring, Perle Mesta is supreme.
Perle Mesta's parties are neither so fancy nor so noisy as Mrs. Evalyn McLean's, so exclusive as Mrs. Truxtun Beale's, so smart as Mme. Bonnet's at the French embassy. Her menus are adequate but not sumptuous. At the Alben Barkley dinner last week, the 24 guests had turtle soup, filet of beef, peas, browned potatoes, aspic salad, and a rum-and-ice-cream dessert.
No Senator need worry at a Mesta party if he cannot quote Oscar Wilde, if he thinks Picasso is a ham & eggs painter, or is unable to pronounce the name of French Premier Queuille. In the new, hearty Mesta milieu, the lorgnette has abdicated to the guitar. Said a friend: "You go to a great many beautiful formal houses here where people barely speak above a whisper. You go to Perle's, and you know it's going to be fun."