National Affairs: Mamie & the Fur Trade

The beaver pelt, once the currency of a frontier, has had a treacherous history. In the 1840s the fashion for men’s beaver toppers collapsed with the rise of the silk hat, a fashion change that ended the great Western fur brigades and the day of the mountain man. In the 1950s beaver has been slipping from favor in women’s coats. “Ladies,” says Maine trapper Jasper Haynes, “just aren’t wearing beaver coats.”

Haynes, who uses a light plane to tend his winter trap line, got an inspiration after Mamie Eisenhower dazzled an inauguration ball with a sparkling gown covered with rhinestones. Said he: “A friend of mine, Jack Walsh, is both a trapper and a jeweler. When Mrs. Eisenhower wore that inauguration dress, all shimmering in pink rhinestones, Jack sold all his rhinestones. He ordered more rhinestones, and sold them too. I said to him, why couldn’t we get her to wear beaver?”

Promising Dream. Haynes persuaded Maine’s Senator Margaret Chase Smith to ask the First Lady if she would accept a promotional beaver coat from the Maine trappers. Mamie declined, but her refusal did not quite discourage Haynes. He explained: “Last March I had a dream. I could see Mrs. Eisenhower very clearly. I heard her say, ‘I have reversed my decision. I will accept the coat.’ ”

To catch her eye, Haynes wrote a second plea on birchbark, imploring her to reconsider. This time Mamie did agree to accept the makings of a coat, paid out $385 to have the 17 prime pelts, donated by two trappers’ associations, fashioned into a finished garment (worth, said Haynes, some $1,800). Last week Mamie obliged by smilingly modeling the three-quarter-length, sleek, dark coat for White House photographers while Trapper Haynes and Archie Clark chattered happily to reporters.

What Jasper Haynes had not dreamed was that the presentation, arranged months ago, would fall in a week when gifts in government had Washington newsmen in a happy, hungry chase. The State Department had just kicked downstairs affable Victor Purse, 38, deputy chief of protocol, for accepting a sort of grandiose tip from Arabia’s King Saud. The gift: a $3,000 Oldsmobile convertible, tendered to Purse’s wife after Purse had seen Saud to the diplomatic door by flying back to Saudi Arabia with him after last February’s state visit.

Taste & the Law. The Purse flap, which came close to a violation of regulations despite the fact that the car was registered in his wife’s name, brought questions on gifts in government at Dwight Eisenhower’s press conference. Ike, who is stuffing museums with the state gifts he receives from foreign governments, commented: “The problem should be decided on the basis of good taste. Of course, all within the law.”*

Mamie’s beaver coat was merely another of the thousands of gadgets, gimcracks and articles pressed on Presidents and their wives by well-meaning U.S. groups. (Ike once got a readymade flower bed.) The chief complaint, if beaver does come back, may come from U.S. husbands who have hocked themselves for mink.

* The Constitution provides that no officer of the U.S. may accept any “present” or “emolument” from any “king, prince or foreign state” without congressional approval. A statute provides that all foreign decorations and gifts to U.S. officials shall be received by the State Department and stored until an act of Congress authorizes delivery. An executive order specifies that delivery may be made only to retired personnel. Result: the State Department has a storehouse full of 6,000 gifts and decorations.