National Affairs: Surprise Party

Grey-haired Mrs. Ruth Ericksen is the owner (with her husband) and the dominant personality of historic Fontainebleau Inn, near Odessa, N.Y. Ericksenian is the table she sets. Ericksenian the way she describes it. For instance:

“Broiled Lamb Chops $1.00

“I dream of lamb chops! . . . They rollop up and down in front of Fontainebleau, parading huge signs: ‘Ruth Ericksen is unfair to lamb chops! We are young, tender and juicy. . . . Moreover, we are modest, we wear frills down to our ankles and that is more than SHE does on some of these Saturday nights—yeah, man!'”

According to what Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt had heard, Mrs. Ericksen was not only unfair to lamb chops, she was unfair to youth. Mrs. Roosevelt had heard that Mrs. Ericksen did not like the American Youth Congress, to which Mrs. Roosevelt is very partial. Last month she invited Mrs. Ericksen to the White House. There the astounded Mrs. Ericksen was met by the President’s wife and members of the A. Y.C., who straightway whelmed her with arguments. Mrs. Ericksen spent the night, went home, wrote a “thank you” note to her hostess, added: “But my opinion of the American Youth Congress has not changed.” Retorted Mrs. Roosevelt, who is not easily downed: “May I come and speak to your community?” and set a date.

The hostess of Fontainebleau decided she needed some big-league help. A constant reader of the New York Herald Tribune’s conservative Columnist Mark Sullivan, she wrote to him, emitting an Ericksenian cry of distress. When Mrs. Roosevelt arrived at Fontainebleau, wearing flame-colored chiffon, a necklace of sharks’ teeth, great was her surprise to encounter Mr. Sullivan, in white tie & tails.

For about 45 minutes, while 500 other guests listened, Mrs. Roosevelt spoke on Youth, then said graciously to Mr. Sullivan: “Don’t you want to say something?” Mr. Sullivan had come all the way from Washington with just that in mind. Said he: a number of things have lately been “regrettable”: that Mrs. Roosevelt should have attended Dies Committee meetings with A. Y. C. members who were to be questioned; that members of the A. Y. C. should have booed her husband when he addressed them last winter on the White House lawn. Rejoined Mrs. Roosevelt: “Many things are regrettable, Mr. Sullivan.” Mrs. Ericksen’s party, the guests agreed, was an exciting success.

Last week, probably to Mr. Sullivan’s surprise, Mrs. Roosevelt herself mildly rebuked the A. Y. C. (which had gone on record against conscription). Wrote Mrs. Roosevelt in “My Day”: “The American Youth Congress . . . [seems] to me to be discussing the world of a year ago, not the world as it is today.”

Last week, back among her lamb chops, Mrs. Ericksen said she had enjoyed the party, too, had not changed her mind a whit about the A. Y. C. Yeah, man!