National Affairs: Prodigious Protocol

George Thomas Summerlin, 67, an urbane West Pointer from Louisiana who rolls his own cigarets, rested last week in Washington after mighty labors. So did Colonel Edward W. Starling. The former as chief of the State Department’s Division of Protocol, the latter as chief of the White House detail of Secret Service, are explicitly responsible for the safety of Their Majesties George VI & Elizabeth during their visit to the U. S. this week.

Mr. Summerlin’s responsibilities begin when the royal train crosses the international boundary from Canada shortly before midnight Wednesday. They continue until the visitors recross the boundary early Monday morning, except for such time as Their Majesties are in the company of President Roosevelt. Then Colonel Starling takes over.

Messrs. Starling & Summerlin caused the channel leading in to the wharf at Mount Vernon to be dragged for possible obstructions when the yacht Potomac takes the King there to pay homage to George Washington. Secret Service men combed the length of Pennsylvania Avenue, interviewing shopkeepers and householders along the line of the arriving procession, and 50,000 soldiers, sailors, marines, Washington police and firemen were told off to wall the streets. The destroyer Warrington was chosen by the Navy to convey Their Majesties from Sandy Hook to the Battery after detraining at Red Bank on their way from Washington to the New York World’s Fair.

And 1,001 other preparatory details. Protocol finally determined that Chief Justice Hughes (if well enough to attend) would rank British Ambassador Sir Ronald Lindsay at the President’s State dinner, since the King would then represent himself. Mrs. Henrietta Nesbit, the White Housekeeper, noticed that Their Majesties ate a lot of strawberries in Canada, ordered a supply. Fields, the White House butler, decided to use the new F. D. R. china (white Lenox with cobalt & gold bands). He put polishers on the state service whose gold plating was begun under President Harrison, continued under McKinley, finished under Coolidge.

Mrs. Roosevelt learned that His Majesty likes a down puff at the foot of his bed, but Her Majesty does not. She equipped their beds in the White House with new springs & mattresses on the advice of her sons that the old ones were rock hard. She worried about the water being turned on in Mr. Roosevelt’s “dream cottage” at Hyde Park, where royalty would picnic Sunday. Princess Te Ata, a Choctaw-Chickasaw half-breed from Oklahoma, was engaged to tell Indian tales at the Hyde Park hot-dog fest. Her newspaper syndicate announced that she would describe Their Majesties’ doings in her column My Day. She added Kate Smith and a cowboy-song singer named Alan Lomax to her team of Lawrence Tibbett and Marian Anderson for the musicale after the State Dinner. Gifts received for Their Majesties (newspaper clippings, photographs, U. S. flags, etc. etc.) had to be returned.

Almost, but not quite, everyone in Washington was all steamed up and happy about the historic visit. Senator Borah suggested that someone should remind King George about Britain’s $85.000,000 War debt payment which she is defaulting as usual this month. California’s Senator Downey said he would be too busy with “American business” to join his colleagues in receiving Their Majesties in the Capitol rotunda. (The spot picked for this ceremony was under a portrait of Pocahontas, facing pictures of the surrenders of Cornwallis and Burgoyne, the signing of the Declaration of Independence.) Bush-bearded Representative Tinkham of Massachusetts asked to be assured that the royal visit portended no entangling alliance. Courtly Senator Ashurst promised everyone that he would bow low as usual, said his head is always “unbloody but bowed.”

A lot of Senate wives were miffed because only about half of their husbands were invited to the garden party at the British Embassy. Last week Sir Ronald Lindsay lunched with Vice President Garner and several Senators at the Capitol and afterward all Senators & wives were invited to the party. Credit went to Mrs. Garner, whose husband, it was rumored, threatened to send her home to Texas so he would have an excuse (inability to get into a stiff shirt without her) to give all the parties a miss. Lady Lindsay somewhat rehabilitated herself with the Washington press by calling attention to the fact that the Lady Lindsay roses in her garden are described in the catalog as ”stout, very thorny and tending to ramble.”

At Hyde Park, Rev. Frank R. Wilson had his telephone disconnected to keep people from pestering him for seats at the service he will perform Sunday in St. James Episcopal (“the President’s”) Church, with presiding Bishop Henry St. George Tucker of the U. S. Protestant Episcopal Church preaching the sermon. Rector Wilson declared that faithful past church attendance would now yield a dividend: regular worshippers would get seats, others would have to stand in the grounds outside. He also put churchmanlike perspective on all the hullabaloo. Said he: “We realize it is a great honor that our church will be the only one in the United States at which Their Majesties will worship. It will be historic. But then, the church is already rich in history.”