Nations Bound Together In Mountain Camp

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 788, 8 October 1929, Page 9

Nations Bound Together In Mountain Camp

Mac Dona Id and Hoover Confer at Fishing Lodge RAPIDAN CAMP. VIRGINIA In a little pine-wood fishing camp. ; 2,500 fee: above sea-level on the Blue Ridge Mountains, Madison County, Virginia, the destinies of two groat nations were deliberated over the week-end. when Mr. Ramsay MacDonald. Prime Minister of Great Britain, was the guest of Mr. Herbert C. Hoover, President of the United States of America. There the peoples of the two great nations talked together through their elected leaders. Guarded by marines to prevent the possibility of interruption, the spot, was ideal for the quiet heart-to-heart talk in an endeavour to promote peace and security and bind more closely together the two great Anglo-Saxon nations of the world. According to the latest cables, gratifying progress has been made. MIDST OAK AND MAPLE Undoubtedly, the scene of this historic conference is of interest, to the English-speaking world. President Hoover calls it. Rapidan Camp. Set away up in the Virginia mountains, in the midst of oak and maple, lacy hemlock and laurel, it is a camp in the best sense of the word. It began as a group of khaki tents pegged down in a hurry so that the President might enjoy a spring fishing season. It has now been changed to a group of pine buildings, but without losing its simplicity, the only suggestion of luxury lying in its adequate supply of bathrooms. The story goes that the President was taken first to a high point and shown, a panorama of peaks and valleys. He looked at it, and then, as though he had enough of the wide world and working days, he turned and walked away. All he said was. “I like trees.” BETWEEN TWO BROOKS And where his camp is now set he has them in profusion. Elm. beech, oaks that have stood for a hundred years, and white birch encircled the camp, and there is no sound but the liquid gurgle of Mill Prong and Laurel Prong, the two brooks which hurry around either side of the house to join in the historic dignity of Rapidan River, from which the camp takes its name.

It is the kind of camp that calls for old clothes and strong, husky boots and picnics in the open air. One of the favourite Hoover diversions is to take the materials of a picnic out of the reproachful hands of the chef and carry it up along one of the little streams to a place where he can build j a fire and broil chops or steak or j bacon, roast corn and make coffee. ; But life in the camp is not just one : picnic after another. There are • serious things to be done —dams to be j built, and streams diverted, trails to j be cleared and tramped, new coun- 1 try to be surveyed. The two creeks i offer endless possibilities of the kind of work that is play to an engineer. J President Hoover has laid out a series of pools and has many other changes j under consideration—changes which make it necessary to pry out big, boulders that the stream may ruu here, and take them further down that i a pool may lure trout there. MRS. HOOVER BUSY TOO Ever since the builders took their litter away from the camp Mrs. Hoover has been busy restoring the ground to its original leafy state and planting shrubs, vines and ferns, thus giving back to the spot the green veil which was temporarily torn away. The nearest neighbours are ten miles away in Criglersville. That is the last town before one starts up the steep and rocky road over Chapman’s Mountain, the last chance to get gas and oil, to buy eggs or harvester parts, garters or overalls, it is the crossroads town of a dozen novels. And 3'et all this is within an easy morning’s car drive from Washington. There are exactly 103 miles of road from the tourist-thronged White House to the simple camp on the Rapidan River. Good Virginia highway, dusty dirty road and three and a-half miles of mountain road still in the building take the President from the turmoil and trials of the nation to the freedom of the wilderness.

The camp consists of a collection of low, brown buildings, built of pine boards. There is little more glass than the old pioneers used. Windows are screened and shuttered to keep out storms. There is said to be room ! in the encampment for 24 people, j The Hoovers have for their own use what is known as the “White House.” Behind it, and spreading away at the sides, is a group of guest cottages, a dniing-house with a connected kitchen and a central lounging house where guests may meet to talk or play on rainy days. The inside of the buildings is as simple as the exterior. The “White House” consists of a living-room 60ft long, with an enormous fireplace. There is a screen porch, an open porch and a sleeping porch, a bedroom and two baths. That is all. It is lit by electric light. Mr. Hoover has bought 160 acres oi the 327,000 acres of land, which Yir ; ginia hopes to make into Sbenandoak | National Park, and the deed will ! stand in his name until the park be comes public property, when he wil give his lodge to the nation as a week end retreat for future Presidents. ’ The building of the camp presentee in miniature all the problems whief confront a city. The work was don< by marines. They put one guest house up in four days just to s'nov • that it could he done. Electric ligh comes into the camp on the wires o 1 the Madison Electric Co., which ran ; special high-tension wire carrying 6.G00 volts for 12 miles over the mountains. Telephone service came in the | same fashion. Mail is dropped on a white cross by an airplane that comes down from Washington and ran he picked up from the same spot by means of an ingenious hook. And now* this quiet spot in the wild--1 j erness has become historic, for there j the leaders of the two greatest nations ! in the world have advanced the mutual interests of the two great branches of the Anglo-Saxon racs.