As custom requires, Vice President Charles Curtis gave a Christmas dinner last week to the 19 Senate pages (age 12 to 16) in the Capitol restaurant.* Likewise as custom requires, the pages gave the Vice President a Christmas present. Page Philip J. (“Peewee”) Bassford passed to Vice President Curtis an enormous wooden gavel with the statement: “We have christened this gavel ‘Discipline’ and it is guaranteed to mash ’em flat.”
Contrary to custom, Vice President Curtis did not make to his young guests a long inspirational speech about “getting on in the world.” Instead Page Laureston Porter read a poem to the Vice President, the composite work of all the pages, entitled: “The Pages’ Christmas Dinner.” Excerpts:
A page may work, but prefers to play, And his greatest joy is three meals a day, So when Marshall invited the pages to dine Not one of the boys was heard to decline. . . . This fine innovation was given each year, As long as Tom Marshall remained with us here, And then came Coolidge, so silent, yet plain. Quoth he: “Lads must eat, so let’s choose It again.” . . . So thus the tradition established in fact Decreed a Vice President thereafter shall act. Now when Dawes, with his pipe with its inverted flue Appeared on the scene, which to him seemed quite new And was told of the dinner which custom decreed He promptly assented and ordered a feed. . . . So it came to pass that when Dawes went away A friend of the pages, Charles Curtis, held sway.
Now he was a boy who made hard times retreat, And knows what it means to a youngster to eat. So that is the reason we’re merry and gay While eating his turkey on this Christmas Day.
* Vice President Curtis was again given 1931 District of Columbia automobile license No. 111 in which he fancies symbolizes his 1928 victory (“won, won, won”).
Republican House Leader Tilson, Yale graduate of 1891, secured license No. Y-91, No. 7-11 went to superstitious Congressman Williams of Texas. As usual White House cars were licensed from No. 100 to No. 110.
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