SPAIN: Moore’s Impressions

As the great Cunarder Berengaria warped up to her pier at Manhattan last week, pressmen surrounded that jovial former pressman, that internationally popular bon viveur, the returning U. S. Ambassador to Spain, Alexander Pollock Moore. When Mr. Moore departed for Spain he was perhaps best known as widower of Lillian Russell. He had not been in Spain six months, however, when it was reported that he habitually addressed el Rey Alfonso as “Chief” and the Duke of Alba as “Jimmy.”

Many a pencil raced as Ambassador Moore cheerfully expressed his opinions on a variety of subjects:

Himself. “For the first time in 35 years my lips are not padlocked, as they were when I was a news paper editor and later an ambassador. . . . .Now I have retired from both jobs, and what I shall do I don’t know; but I shall say whatever I please.”

King Alfonso. “Spain of course is fortunate in having a King who, in my opinion, is one of the most brilliant men of his years in Europe. He is a very keen, shrewd and observing business man, as well as one of the greatest diplomats that it has ever been my fortune to meet. There is no question but that he is beloved by his people. . . .

“I have never seen so hard working a man in my life. From 9 in the morning until 9 at night is his usual stint. . . . Of course he receives the equivalent of $1,000,000 a year for ‘sticking to his job,’ but that barely pays his expenses.

“The home life of the Royal Family is similar to that of any well conducted household. . . . The Infante Alfonso has started a model stock farm. . . . The King is not a sportsman in the usual sense, but has taken up various sports for the benefit of the exercise.”

Premier* General Primo de Rivera. “I think Dictator Rivera is the greatest strategist in the world. He is one of the greatest patriots I have ever known. It is he who is working out the problems hundreds of years old, and he is doing it quietly and carefully after a revolution in which not one civilian was shot or sent to prison. He feels that the military should not govern nor be the first line of defense. The army, he holds, is the last line of defense, and he is bringing the citizens to see it that way.”

“Revolutions.” “Spain is the most peaceful country that I have ever seen, notwithstanding the alarming reports that have been sent out from there. The whole trouble has been in the use of one word. In Spanish they refer to a change of government as a ‘revolution,’ and of course our people think that means turmoil and trouble. As a matter of fact, their ‘revolutions’ are nothing more than the ordinary changes of government in England and France.”

Cinemas. “Chaplin is known as ‘Charlo’ and Fairbanks as ‘Dooglaz.’ You never hear their last names spoken. From the analogy of their own system of giving names the Spanish suppose ‘Dooglaz’ to be the name of the actor’s father and ‘Fairbanks’ to be the name of his mother.”

Hot Milk. “There is plenty of wine in the country, and people drink it with their meals, but they usually spend their evenings in coffeehouses, drinking strong coffee and hot milk. They sit in coffeehouses for hours, settle all the questions that vex the world, and go to bed at night happy and satisfied.”

Attentive listeners failed to catch any allusion to the high-spirited and exceedingly graceful dancers whom Ambassador Moore may well have applauded when he set out of an evening to squander a few pesetas on hot milk and coffee.

It is still possible to go into one of the early-evening-coffeehouses, sip one’s coffee and witness as much of the performance as one has time for, at an outlay roughly equivalent to the cost of a doughnut and coffee at Childs.

* Formerly Dictator and head of the Military Directorate, which recently voluntarily restored something like civil government to Spain (TIME, Dec. 14).