Washington Confidential 21 – Mortimer · Verses Across
Literature · Crime, Thrillers & Mystery
Washington Confidential 21Part 2 · CALL ME MADAM
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Literature · Crime, Thrillers & Mystery
Washington Confidential 21
Part 2 · CALL ME MADAM
MortimerEnglish
This is a brief brush-off of the social parvenus who scrambled up as Society scrammed out--through death and Democratic administration.
Faded and forgotten are the days and nights when Washington was ablaze with social brilliance and the gossip behind the fans reflected the sturdy foibles and feuds and infidelities of a class in superior strata of lineage, wealth and those graces which cannot be acquired with sudden fortune.
Society is always the shadow of one luminous, scintillant, predominant woman, such as Mrs. Potter Palmer was in Chicago and the dowager Vanderbilt remained until senility denatured her in New York. In Washington that woman, even though she seldom entertains or permits herself to be entertained, must be the wife of the President. She need not be a Dolly Madison. She can be a recluse, a Quaker like Mrs. Herbert Hoover; a New England villager, like Grace Coolidge; a grande dame like Mrs. Benjamin Harrison or an Ohio hick like Mrs. Warren Harding. But she is the undisputed ex officio queen bee of the social life of the capital. She sets its tempo, she elevates with a nod and she extirpates with a frown.
Few Presidents’ wives would have won social preference had their husbands not squirmed through the labyrinthian catacombs with that miraculous luck which makes one man what they say any American boy can become. But once he takes that oath, his lady assumes a crown. Whether she chooses to wear it or not, she can and must exercise its power over her realm, Society.
And Society withstood the hostesses of gentlemen, soldiers, backwoodsmen, a sheriff, a tailor, a school-teacher, a rail-splitter and a Buchanan. But it could not survive Eleanor Roosevelt.
Here came a woman of blood and millions, married to an equally high-bred, landed manor squire, perhaps the most charming and dynamic and handsome of all our Presidents. And the first tap of her flat heels across the White House threshold led off the funeral march of Society in the capital.
It is unnecessary to review her attitude and behavior; no First Lady was ever so unendingly publicized. That she became invested with certain homely and all-wooly virtues by the worship of millions is precisely why she choked the last breath out of social tradition with her Negro friends, her boondoggling, sweaty indigents, her professional Socialists, her dedicated slum-house guardians of gutter garbage, and her antics as the militant apostle of democracy and equality. The bedrock of Society is inequality, the existence and recognition of an aristocracy.
Whether it is good or not for fundamental Americanism, it was as lethal to the remnants of a baronial stratum in Washington as the Emancipation Proclamation was below the Mason and Dixon line.
No female in American history had ever been so despised in the drawing-rooms and so venerated in the kitchens and furnished rooms. But that hatred within the walls of the elegant was not enough to sustain even a social underground. A few dauntless matrons held out. They tried to continue executing the motions from memory, but they perished on the inglorious field of futility. They were the last. There were no wounded and no prisoners taken. A dynasty that had flourished for 150 years had been wiped out as were the Romanoffs.
And, surely, Bess Truman was not sent from above for the Restoration.
From the founding of the city until the recent demise of Evelyn Walsh McLean, who owned the Hope Diamond, Washington was celebrated for its intrigue, romance and scandal in high Society.
Eleanor “Cissie” Patterson and Mrs. McLean were the last of the city’s great hostesses. Mrs. Patterson retired from the tea-table wars when she became active in newspaper work. With her death, and that of Mrs. McLean, the Washington Society pages were taken over by the climbers.
One needs no long memory to remember when social leaders from everywhere converged on this city. Dupont Circle was Fifth Avenue refined and rarefied, the cream of established snobbery, wealth, officialdom and diplomacy.
Ambitious minglers from the Middle West, such as the Pullmans, the Leiters and others, bypassed New York’s fatuous 400 and came directly to Washington.
Social history there begins with beauteous Elizabeth Patterson, of Baltimore, who wed Napoleon’s younger brother. Its first tasty scandal was whispered in Jefferson’s time, about the French Ambassador who was reputed to have married his jailer’s daughter, who had saved him from the guillotine.
Early Washington Society was titillated by duels among high personages. The duel on the Hudson shore in which Alexander Hamilton was killed by Aaron Burr, in 1804, was talked about for years, until 1820, when a new gory sensation arose to take its place: the mortal wounding of Commodore Stephen Decatur in an arranged meeting of gentlemen across the District line in Maryland.
After a hundred years, Washington still talks about Peggy Eaton and President Jackson’s Kitchen Cabinet. But, today’s mundane morsels will make no interesting reading, leave no spice for the raconteur.
Society is on the wane everywhere. Taxes, Communist and New Deal propaganda, the high cost of living, make it virtually impossible to keep up huge menages. Now only rich labor leaders, black marketeers, gangsters and grafters can afford the expense.
There are a handful of rich dowagers like Mrs. Jay Borden Harriman and Mrs. Gifford Pinchot, but they are out of the running.
Cornelia Pinchot only entertains the “intellectuals,” and they are legion in Washington. Where you find an intellectual in the District you will probably find a Red. Mrs. Pinchot does not know it, but the Commies have taken the elderly hostess over and are making hay with her name.
She lives in a Gay Nineties mansion on Scott Circle, where she often throws parties for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, attended by white and colored college professors, pansies and political economists. Mrs. Pinchot looks her age, though her hair is dyed the most amazing shade of carrot-red.
Mrs. Robert Low Bacon, the hostess of the Republican intellectuals, rarely hits the gossip columns. Even Evie Robert and her mother, Mrs. Helen Walker, have been dormant for years. Evie, the wife of “Chip” Robert, a brilliant political wire-puller, does not and never did give parties for social advantage. They were to advance the political prospects of her husband.
Today’s Washington Society has no class levels. All you need is dough and the urge and the energy to spend it on freeloaders. If you can snag more important political people to your parties in any one calendar season, from October to May, than your neighbor, you are Number 1 social leader, regardless of whether you wore shoes before you were twenty.
Perle Mesta, a determined hostess who was lucky enough to have been gracious to Harry Truman when he was a secondary Senator from Missouri, is living proof of the potency of the Washington cocktail party. Her reward was the appointment as Minister to Luxembourg.
But Mrs. Mesta is by no means the only social climber in Washington, though she is and was the most publicized.
We would like to tell you about Mrs. Gussie (Gushie) Goodwin, formerly a Chicagoan. She is the wife of Federal Judge Clarence Norton Goodwin, who sentenced Harry Bridges in the Communist leader’s first round before the courts. They were friends of the Woodrow Wilsons, which gave them some kind of claim to social standing. Meanwhile, Judge Goodwin started to go deaf, which handicapped him as a social figure. Gussie’s star was setting.
Then came a turn to her fortunes. She met a charming Latin gentleman, Ramon Ramos, at a cocktail melee. He was a professor of Spanish. Gussie got an inspiration. She was going to cement Latin-American relations and her own social relations. She started a private class. Her little study group met once a week at her home. During the first year, there were eight women in it, each of whom chipped in a buck towards the professor’s fee.
Gussie began calling the wives of the more important officials and Senators, and invited them to join her group. She was very careful to see that it was equally divided between Republicans and Democrats. One of the ladies who gladly became a member was the wife of Senator Harry Truman. After the Trumans succeeded to the White House, the Secret Service wouldn’t allow Mrs. Truman to go to the lessons at Gussie’s house, so all the meetings were moved to the White House, though Gussie continued to be its leading spirit. Mrs. Goodwin was very offish. When Dean Acheson resigned as Undersecretary of State, his wife was not asked back.
Meanwhile, Professor Ramos showed he had hidden talents. His hobby is cooking. The ladies were charmed. So an extra feature was added. Each week the program was expanded to include a luncheon, held at a different woman’s house. The Professor masterminded the menu, while the ladies did the cooking and waited on the others. Mrs. Truman came to these parties and pitched in with the work. The luncheons were run on a Dutch treat basis, and each woman continued to pay her dollar fee per lesson.
By this time there were sixty or seventy ladies in the group, including good Queen Bess. Some took private Spanish lessons on the side. Mrs. Truman was one of the few who was really serious and wanted to learn the language. Most of the others apparently came to the meetings because the Professor had the personality to hold “menopause Minnies.” Among the students were a few who thought they should come along for the ride without paying for lessons or the luncheon, because of their social position. One was Mrs. Robert Patterson, wife of the then Secretary of War. Mrs. Truman always paid.
When the Professor began to get too much publicity, Gussie busted it up. After all, the whole purpose was to make Gussie a figure, not the Professor. Gussie even went so far as to ask newspaper society writers to use her name instead of his, saying Mrs. Truman had complained about the Professor’s publicity, which was not accurate.
Anyway, no one learned much, but that wasn’t the Prof’s fault.
In the absence of Madame Mesta, Gwendolyn Cafritz is ballyhooed as Washington’s leading hostess. She is a social climber who invites only those in office or who she thinks are due to be in. She sadly misjudged the 1948 elections. She excommunicated the Democrats. So she had a hell of a time recouping her position. She still has her eye on the Republicans in 1952.
Compared to Madame Mesta, Mrs. Cafritz is a good-looking woman, in early middle age. She may have been a raving beauty when she was a slim, black-haired girl.
Her husband, Morris Cafritz, is a millionaire Washington real estate owner. His office, in the Ambassador Hotel, which he owns, is next door to the hotel’s High Hat cocktail lounge, which is favored by the pick-up gals as a hunting preserve. Gwen drives her husband slightly nuts with her parties. He would prefer to play poker, at which he is adept. A lot of hogwash has been written about the Cafritzes since they zoomed into political and social prominence. Gwen was born in central Europe and may or may not have been the daughter of a college professor or a nobleman, as the stories go.
Cafritz’s father ran a grocery store in Washington. The son’s early days were spent in a bowling alley which he owned and operated. Then he turned to real estate in boomtime and found the Midas touch.
Gwen’s enemies spread catty stories about her. One says she was a Broadway chorus-girl before she met her husband. If she was, she must’ve been a beaut. The other is that she was employed in Cafritz’s bowling alley. The researcher finds it difficult to separate the truth from the chaff. There are no clippings about her early days in the Washington newspaper morgues. Cissie Patterson was her close friend. It is reported she destroyed the clippings in her own library and asked the publishers of Washington’s other papers to do likewise.
Meanwhile, Mmes. Mesta and Cafritz had better look to their laurels, because a new assault is being made on Washington’s social citadel, this time by a bullet-proof princess--Tawhida Halim, a cousin of King Farouk of Egypt, and immensely rich. She and Frank Rediker, a denizen of Gotham’s cafe society set, were recently wed, repeat engagements for both.
The princess then acquired a mansion at 2339 Massachusetts Avenue, in which she and her bridegroom began to give lavish parties, designed to outdo any of the Cafritz woman’s, with the elan that goes only to those born to the purple.
(INSIDE STUFF: The Redikers’ social campaign is being managed by Leonard McBain, elegant publicist and society arbiter of New York’s plush El Morocco, where the snootiest people on earth gather. Leonard has steered royalty before. He could do marvels for Tawhida.)
Since the old aristocrats died or went into hiding, it is easier to get into Washington’s society columns, if you care to horn in with inferior white trash.
Almost anyone, including justices of the United States Supreme Court, will go to any party to which they are invited. Many who aren’t invited will also show up. The trick nowadays is to entertain lavishly and often, and sooner or later the papers will have to write about you, because there is nothing else to write about.
Ambitious hostesses buy the “Social List of Washington, D.C.,” and invite names from it at random. The odds are 90 percent will show up, but the odds are as high that 95 percent of the 90 per cent aren’t social. This list competes with the standard “Social Register.” It contains most of the names in the latter, plus an amplification consisting of prominent politicians and diplomats. It is published by Carolyn Hagner Shaw. Mrs. Shaw told us a “board” selects the candidates for entry in the book. The board, however, is highly secret. One Washington newspaper insists it is as mythical as the balanced budget. Mrs. Shaw claims no one ever tells her why a name is added or dropped.
If you thought Maj. Gen. Harry Vaughan was part of the crème de la crème of the Washington social whirl, you’d better change your mind. He isn’t any more. Not if you take the word of Mrs. Shaw. She omits the military aide to the President from her fancy green directory of the socially prominent. Mrs. Shaw doesn’t know why General Vaughan isn’t socially correct any more. She blamed it on the anonymous board.
About 200 who sought to make the list were turned down. Again no reasons given. Many bought copies at 12 bucks, hoping to see their names in. They didn’t.
However, Guy George Gabrielson and William Marshall Boyle, respective chairmen of the Republican and Democratic National Committees, were among the new names added this year. The book also has the dernier cri on what to do about cards. They should not be left at Blair House, but given to the guard at the northwest gate of the White House.
“A courtesy call should be made on the President and his family once a year. This is a mark of respect that should not be neglected.” (This was before two Puerto Rican enthusiasts tried it.)
Mrs. Shaw reminds her readers “During World War II, formal observance of the conventional days set aside for leaving cards on various officials was canceled. A return to formal recognition of these traditional days has yet to take place, and it is doubtful that it will ever again become obligatory to leave cards on certain days.”
As to protocol, it notes: “It is well to remember personal friendships do not count. The rank of one’s guest must be the deciding factor.”
If you are not sure of the comparative ranking of any guest, it is better not to invite him. Many of the biggest social wars were caused by such things. Still remembered is the feud between Alice Roosevelt Longworth, then wife of the Speaker of the House, and Dolly Gann, sister and hostess of Vice-President Curtis, over their respective precedence.
Officials and embassies receive advice on protocol matter from the State Department, but non-official hostesses are on their own. Mrs. Shaw supplies a service which gives assistance in seating.
An important fixture in Washington is the debutante party. These have almost disappeared in New York, where each year’s crop of young hopefuls is introduced in a mass get-together. In Washington, the girl who doesn’t get a dinner-dance on her own is a social slob. Washington’s Elsa Maxwell for these parties is Mrs. Curt Hetzel, who succeeded Mrs. Merriam. Mr. Hetzel is a pianist in a restaurant--Ted Lewis’. Mary Stuart Price, a young woman, handles some debby parties as a sideline.
Club life is another sacred institution. Many important political decisions are reached at such places as the Burning Tree Club, the Chevy Chase Club, and the Sulgrave, famous for the McCarthy-Pearson battle of the century--more maybe than in the Senate and the House cloakrooms. The 1925 F Street Club, where ranking members of the Senate give parties, was once the exclusive home of Mrs. Laura Curtis Gross, who lent her house for parties. It is now a sanctuary for the whipped-cream of Washington society. Its dining-room seats about 60 and the club’s membership is strictly limited.
Washington’s newest aristocracy is evidenced by stone piles. The wife of the man who can build the biggest and plushiest office building is the reigning social leader.
Those currently with the highest batting average are Morris Cafritz, of course, Gus Ring, Garfield Cass and Preston Wire, all with gleaming new structures named after themselves. Much of the money of the real estate nouveau riche came from wise investments in Black Belt housing, or from refugee sources.
Until very recent years the august justices of the United States Supreme Court remained aloof from social functions, but during the days of the New Deal and Fair Deal, when the court was packed with soft-shirted politicians, the custom changed. Judges like Douglas are avid party-goers. The late Frank Murphy was a mixer with true CIO deportment, a hoofer and Saturday night sport. The result is that the opening of the fall season is now coincident with the convening of the Supreme Court. Then the jurists can meet the typists and clink cocktails with mobsters’ mouthpieces.
The easiest way to get into what is called “society” is to be elected or appointed into it. Every ex-cow-puncher, dirt-farmer, smalltown lawyer and big-city ward-heeler who now has an “Honorable” in front of his name is as social as those who were born into it, bought their way in, or got in through a diplomatic passport.
All 96 Senators and 435 Representatives, nine cabinet officers, countless under-secretaries, assistant secretaries, judges, department heads and military brass are social, with a listing in the directory, though some never wore ties or socks until they got to Washington. These ex-officio lions became the life of the party in 1933.
Washington once thrived on dirt in high places. Grover Cleveland’s bastard child didn’t interfere with his electoral or social standing. Nor was Woodrow Wilson ruined when a certain lady was booted out of Washington by the Secret Service. President Harding’s house on K Street is still remembered. There’s nothing like it now. And his village sweetie and her baby have vanished. President Truman’s poker games are penny-ante, not the lusty ones of yore.
The late Roosevelt administration is credited with more snappy spice than any other in history. Out-of-school tales were told about most of his children. The President and his wife were not spared by gossipers. But President Truman’s personal life is treated as dull and austere.
His advisers are farmers or aging professors. They were pirates in the first Roosevelt decade. The sports, drinkers and rounders who held high cabinet and military rank then are either gone or too old. Now most official vice is grubby stuff, with call-girls supplied by a protected vice-ring, about which nothing is ever heard, and which no Congressman or Senator will admit he knows.
President Truman’s pal, General Harry Vaughan, is comparatively quiet now, held to mama’s apron-strings. There’s gambling for him and the President in the White House. There’s no liquor shortage, either. The President likes his bourbon. He never smokes. He will not countenance whoring in his official family, though he doesn’t put detectives on official tails.
Probably the only real sport in town is Senator Warren Magnuson. The others save their skylarking for New York. When they do it in Washington, they are as frightened as schoolboys at it, and often as unimaginative.
What a change from the Roosevelt days, when sex was the prerogative of all government officials, and usually paid for by the grateful tax-payers! Uncle Sam even had to help Harry Hopkins do it. A monkey-gland doctor grafted sex virility on Hopkins and two other aging administration stalwarts, one of whom recently resigned from a little-cabinet post.
The doctor billed the wealthiest of the three $3,000 for each treatment. He charged the other two $1,000. Hopkins had already stiffed the medico for three operations when he asked for the fourth, in view of his pending marriage to a young woman. The doctor’s verdict was no money, no honeymoon. But Hopkins had a way out. He suggested the doctor needed a vacation anyway, so he offered to get him an appointment to make an inspection trip to army medical bases in the West Indies, with all expenses paid for self and wife, plus $35 a day fee until the $3,000 was paid. The doctor took the trip and Hopkins took the honeymoon.
High military brass is quiet today compared to the lusty generals and admirals of the ’20s and ’30s. Washington is still talking about how General Pershing, then chief of staff, ordered young General Douglas MacArthur to the Philippines after MacArthur married Mrs. Louise Cromwell Brooks, of the Philadelphia Stotesbury clan. Mrs. Brooks, after her divorce from her first husband, met “Black Jack” Pershing abroad. When she returned to America, she became his official hostess in Washington. She was 25 to his 60. Two months after their wedding, in 1922, the MacArthurs were shipped to the Philippines. Washington cats said Pershing sent his successful young rival into exile to get even. He had also exiled the captain of the Army polo team, who was attentive to the rich, beautiful Louise. She is now Mrs. Alf Heiberg, the proud owner of Washington’s only private atom-bomb shelter, which she constructed under her Georgetown Mansion.
The late General of the Armies, a widower, was quite a man with the women. He kept a Roumanian babe and her mother at the Shoreham Hotel for 20 years.
“Thirty” was written to Washington Society when a local paper fired its social editor because she refused to print the names of Negro hostesses!
