People, May 25, 1931

• Share

"Names make news." Last week the following names made the following news:

Elinor Whitney and Dorothy, buxom, frizzy-haired daughters of Manhattan Pastor Harry Emerson Fosdick, were appointed "grass cops" at Smith College. Armed with whistles, they will blow a smart blast whenever they see trespassers treading tender turf.

It became known that at a recent dinner in Berlin, U. S. Ambassador Frederic Moseley Sackett was placed next to the wife of the Japanese Ambassador to Germany. He spoke only English; she spoke only Japanese and French. When asked how he enjoyed himself he grinned, said: "It was as tasty a dinner as ever I sat to." Pressed for details of his conversation, he grinned more broadly, explaining : "Well, it was this way. The lady reads English. I read French. So rather than speak, we wrote. Questions written in English were answered in French, or were written in French and answered in English. It worked perfectly."

U. S. Ambassador to France Walter Evans Edge cabled to Camden, N. J. for fresh asparagus. Two crates were promptly shipped to him on S. S. Ile de France.

President Thomas Aylette Buckner of

New York Life Insurance Co. revived the waning reputation of Colyumist Calvin Coolidge for terseness and cogency with these stories: "We were having a [directors'] meeting not long ago, and the matter of waiving certain of our requirements for the benefit of our more elderly agents came up. There was a pause, and [Director] Coolidge said: 'What would this cost us?' Well, he had us stumped. . . . We told him so, and he said: 'About how much?' We just made a guess and let it go at that. . . .

"The Governor of Hawaii was visiting him at the White House. He ... told how many, many thousand crates of pineapples were shipped from [the islands] every year. 'How many to the crate?' Mr. Coolidge asked. The Governor, like us at the board-meeting, was caught."

Also last week a letter-writer to the New York Sun told this story: "President Coolidge was taking one of his morning walks with a friend. . . . 'There's Borah on his horse,' remarked the President's companion. 'Is he headed in the same direction as the horse?' asked President Coolidge."

In Tokyo a Mrs. Irvin H. Correll, 80-year-old U. S. Missionary, related that in the late 19th Century she and her husband had encountered in Nagasaki a Japanese teahouse girl named Cho-San (Butterfly), who told how she had been betrayed by a Russian officer. Some years afterward, said Mrs. Correll, she was in Philadelphia and told the story to her lawyer brother, the late John Luther Long. He sat up all that night. At breakfast he showed his sister a completed manuscript of a story called Madame Butterfly, with the Russian changed to U. S. officer. In

1900, David Belasco hastily wrote a play from Mr. Long's story, produced it successfully in Manhattan, transferred it to London. The stage manager of Covent Garden opera sent a message to famed Composer Giacomo Puccini that he had just the libretto for him. Puccini hastened to London, saw Madame Butterfly, wrote the opera.