Eleanor Roosevelt, tireless globetrotter, was the guest who mattered in England last week. "She is welcome not only for the great name she bears," observed the London News Chronicle, speaking for a great many people, "but for her own endearing qualities of heart and mind."
She spent her first weekend at Windsor Castle with the royal family. In London she shook 300 hands at a daytime reception (she wore a black hat, scattered with daisies), dined with the U.S. Ambassador, the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister. She went to Covent Garden (in a black lace dress) to hear La Traviata, and got a thundering ovation as she entered the royal box. She visited the House of Lords, was entertained by the Lord Chancellor, had tea with the Prime Minister. Once as she was entering a London hotel all the men in the crowd outside respectfully took off their hats.
The morning she achieved the purpose of her visit was warm and golden with spring sunshine. In budding Grosvenor Square, in her black dress and coat among the pastel dresses of royalty, she walked with George VI to the towering bronze statue of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and pulled down the Union Jack that had veiled it. It was the third anniversary of her husband's death.
"We must ascribe to her the marvelous fact," said one of the speakers, Winston Churchill, "that a crippled man, victim of a cruel affliction, was able for more than ten years to ride the storms of peace and war at the summit of the U.S. The debt we owe to President Roosevelt is owed also to her."
In the London Times appeared a tribute to the late President by Poet Laureate John Masefield:
Honor this man, so stricken in his prime, So shattered in his life's most kindling years,
That, had his spirit not been strong as
Time,
He could have won no tribute more
than tears.
Honor a dauntless soul and golden voice;
None sweeter ever spoke in Christian
lands.
Through him, the horror passed, and we
rejoice,
Our countries are released, and Freedom
stands.
The Literary Life
Edgar Rice Burroughs, biographer of Tarzan, drove his Buick convertible out of the driveway of his home in Tarzana, Calif., was thereupon struck by another Buick convertible which had just been struck by yet another Buick convertible. The autos were injured; 72-year-old Burroughs was not scratched.
In Paris, Sacha Guitry, 63, had a slight collision. A court assessed the famed Jack-of-all-theatrics and a friend 700,000 francs (about $2,300) for causing "grave prejudice" to the Goncourt Academy. Each year the academy hands some novelist a Goncourt Prize, but Guitry and the academy have been on the outs. So this year Guitry awarded his own "Goncourt Prize" to a novel of his own choice. The book was labeled Prix Goncourt in big letters, and Le Goncourt Hors de Goncourt in little ones.
Also fined was Britain's bearded Philosopher C. E. M. Joad, who had twice failed to appear in court to answer a charge of having ridden on a train without paying his fare (from Waterloo to Salisbury, 83½ miles). In London, he was finally found guilty and soaked a maximum 40 shillings ($8), plus court costs of 25 guineas ($106).