A Man Who Keeps London Guessing

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 862, 4 January 1930, Page 16

A Man Who Keeps London Guessing

Unconventional Ambassador Dawes Gets His Own Way... Did He Drink the Loving Cup? .... “That’s My Business”

HHEN President Hoover appointed Charles G. Dawes to be Ambassador at the Court of ■ St. James, he “started something.” To appoint Dawes —the former supply chief of the American armies in Europe, of “Hell and Maria” fame; the man who had to fight the diplomats, who countered their diplomatic “buts” with undiplomatic but effective profanity in order to get things done; the man whose very name must have been anathema to the chancellories of Europe—this dynamic man of action, to the highest diplomatic post, was like putting the proverbial bull In the china shop Cesar Saerchinger). When General Dawes arrived in London, people who knew him expected things to happen. They were not disappointed. Even his arrival at Southampton was picturesque. Forty-odd reporters were there to meet him and a very ceremonious Lord Mayor made a speech of welcome. Dawes replied in about 50 words, then said: “Now let me see the newspaper boys, for I have nothing to tell them.” Of course, he had plenty to tell them, for no Ambassador ever had more important State secrets in his portfolio. But Dawes, the nondiplomatic. famous for his outspokenness and his "indiscretions,” had already learned the art of silence, which is the sine qua non of diplomats. But with a difference. The older diplomats use words to hide their thoughts: Dawes doesn't mind telling you he has thoughts to hide. Actions, however, speak louder than words, and Dawes, even as an Ambassador, is a man of action. His famous “hustle” to present his credentials to the King on the morning after his arrival and his historic dash to Scotland to meet Prime Minister MacDonald. w ithin 24 hours of setting foot on English soil, took people’s breath away. The staid old diplomates shook their heads at this sort of thing, which was against every conception of dig-

nity and decorum, against the very traditions of diplomacy itself. But there was worse to come. First came the incident of the knee breeches. People might have foreseen this, for when General Dawes sailed from New York a reporter was said to have asked the Ambassador whether he had a pair of knee breeches in his trunk. The new Ambessador was quoted to have replied: “You go plump to h . That’s my own business.” Whether Dawes remembered that diplomats in London are required to wear knee breeches or not, he probably made up his mind then, and there to be the first to break this rule. When the time came for his attendance at the first of the season’s courts, the news trickled out that the Ambassador would go to Buckingham

Palace in ordinary evening dress. Diplomats stood aghast. Society scratched its head. This was too much. But did the King and Queen and the members of the Court regard this as an affront? Not a bit of it. The Lord Chamberlain had been asked to consent and, since the reasons given were satisfactory, the consent was given. Dawes had scored his point. Next came the matter of drink.

Nobody in London knew where the general stood on prohibition; nobody cared; for prohibition had never made any difference in an American Embassy. Embassies are privileged soil; Embassies are above mere local legislation. And diplomacy depends quite largely on the cup that cheers.

So when the news went forth that the American Embassy had gone dry, society thought there must be some mistake. But there wasn’t.

“There has been a rumour going the rounds,” ran a statement issued by the Ambassador, “that I am going to serve liquor at the Embassy. I never served liquor at the Embassy. 1 never served liquor at my home and I see no reason to change now.” Shortly after his startling innovation, Ambassador Dawes attended a luncheon of the Travel Association at the Vintners Hall, one of the famous guildhouses in the City of London. Such dinners are very ceremonious affairs, and one of the sacred and time-honoured traditions is the passing of the loving cup containing a very choice wine or sack. In this case it was sack. The Ambassador touched the cup to his lips, but no one could tell whether he drank of it or not.

That doubt evidently rankled in the minds of strict prohibitionists in the United States, who wanted to know whether the general had lived up to the spirit of the Volstead Act as well as to the letter of it.

Next day there was a Press conference at the Embassy, and the general was asked whether he had seen the

“reactions” to the episode in the American Press. Yes, he had. “Well,” asked one of the correspondents, “are there any reactions to the reactions?” “Do you want to know my reaction?” asked the general.

The Press did. “Well, my reaction is that it’s my own business.”

So that’s that. People in London know just as much about the general’s attitude toward liquor as they did before—just as much as the general wants them to know. But in the matter of smoking, things are very different. Dawes is a smoker and he doesn’t mind telling the world. Dawes without, his famous underslung pipe is unthinkable.

That pipe has become his trademark in England even more than Stanley Baldwin’s pipe was the trademark of England’s former Prime Minister. Yes, Dawes is a new kind of Ambassador. The stony dignity, the ceremonial courtesy of the council chamber, are gone. Frankness and cordiality have taken their place. When he doesn’t want to tell anything, he doesn’t mind saying so. And he makes no bones about what he doesn’t know. “Just what are our relations with Russia, general?” somebody asked him. "Ask somebody who knows,” said the general. "Ask So-and-So. t don’t want to sit here looking wise and make you think I know it all.” Another time he mentioned some documents which might contain the answer to a certain question. “But,” he said, “they’re in French, and I don’t know French.” French is the accepted diplomatic language of the world. There have been many Ambassadors who didn’t know it, but one seldom meets one who admits it voluntarily. But Dawes is not a diplomat. He has siid so himself, publicly. "I have my shortcomings, but you’ll have to take me as I am.”

When necessary, Dawes keeps his counsel as well as anybody else, but he abhors the reserve of Old World diplomacy. Even In his public speeches he is frank. Ambassadors’ speeches are generally expected to be polite and dignified expressions of nothing In particular or, in the case of American Ambassadors, hands-across-the-sea platitudes. That, however, is not Dawes’s style. When the Travel Association asked him to speak at that famous loving-cup luncheon at the Vintners Hall, Dawes gave them a little straight talk. He didn’t merely pat them on the back, but he took a few well-aimed “cracks” at a certain kind of traveller —Britons who travel in America and Americans who travel in England—people filled with their own importance, who are incompetent to judge conditious but are free with their opinions when they get home. It was not exactly a diplomatic pronouncement, but it struck home.

“I don’t know what the repercussions -of this speech will be,” said the general, “but I’m going to take a chance on the repercussions.” An Ambassador who “takes a chance on the repercussions” is certainly something new. The repercussions, so far, have been distinctly good. A few have turned up their noses; a few have objected to the “tub-thumping” style of his oratory, but everybody realises that no petty criticism and backbiting can swerve this sturdy and vigorous Middle Westerner from his course. Those who know him appreciate that even his vagaries have a purpose, that even his indiscretions are calculated (as Theodore Roosevelt admitted of his own).