MANNERS & MORALS: Americana, Aug. 9, 1948

MANNERS & MORALS

¶New Yorkers watched their highways for four miracle Fords which, it was said, went 60 miles per gallon of gasoline, could also be run by atomic energy, and (as some heard it) sprouted wings at the touch of a button. The cars had escaped somehow from a secret research lab. Answering his 50th phone call, Ford's North Eastern Regional Manager Charles J. Seyffer said wearily: "It's the heat." ¶Three hundred members of "Tall Clubs" (men must be 6 ft. 2 in. or over, women 5 ft. 10 in.), met in Chicago, filed their annual pleas for longer Pullman berths and higher telephone booths, crowned Marie Van Leuren, 6 ft. 1½ in., as "Queen of Height, 1948" (see cut). ¶An ad in the Miami Herald said: "Unborn child for adoption. Call 5-4955." ¶Washington's only legitimate theater, the National, closed its doors. Actors Equity Association had forbidden its members to play there after Aug. 1 unless the theater lifted its ban against selling seats to Negroes. The National refused. It will reopen next month as a movie house.

¶New York Times Radio Editor Jack Gould described the life of the television set owner: "He opens his home to the world . . . The video hostess soon finds that her cocktail shaker ... is no better than a thimble . . . The family's evening is not tainted with such an archaic pursuit as ... conversation. A mute tranquillity has overtaken the American home." ¶Two Congressmen introduced a bill proposing 1) that the U.S. build a $2,500,000 house for its Vice President, and 2) pending construction of the new mansion, house him in dignified old Blair House, now used to accommodate foreign visitors. Blair House's longtime custodian, Mrs. Victoria Geaney, protested with vigor. "Visitors from other lands go away from here feeling really friendly," said she. "They never again think of us Americans as a bunch of barbarians."