Dinner for Ten

Amid pink chrysanthemums and maidenhair fern, and to the melodious murmuring of the Marine Band Orchestra, the Cabinet et ux. dined at the White House. It was the traditional fiesta which Presidents always give their hardworking Secretaries after the latter have spent a busy season preparing reports, and before the hurly-burly of a Congressional session begins.

All ten members were present, with seven of their eight wives./-

In their evening gear and party moods, the Secretaries did not much resemble the men they are during their working hours. Lately (a month ago) the Secretaries left their desks and followed their leader out to the White House lawn. Beside one of the gravelled paths, six chairs were arranged--five straightbacks and one armchair--for picture-taking. President Coolidge, in one of his new grey double-breasted suits, sat in the armchair, motioning short, white-haired Secretary Frank Billings Kellogg to his right side. In the end chair on that side, well-built, well-dressed, young-looking Secretary of War Davis sat. Secretary Andrew William Mellon (Treasury), got the chair on the President's immediate left, of course. He kept his chin up, with his lean, close-cropped, snowy head cocked alertly until the camera clicked. Attorney General John Garibaldi Sargent, physically the biggest Cabinet man, betrayed camera-shyness in his expressions of head, face, hands (one holding a cigar) and crossed legs. Postmaster General Harry Stewart New took his seat on the last chair, frowning benignly and nowhere nearly so tightly as Secretary Kellogg (whose expression was almost challenging) or the President (who had the sun in his left eye). The chairless back row looked far more happy than the front, like the carefree junior editors of a college publication who are always relegated to the back of the yearbook picture. They did not have to worry about hands, feet or the bottoms of their coats. Stalwart, silver-haired Secretary James John Davis (Labor) put one hand in his pocket, straightened his shoulders and let a small boyish smile start. Next, bulking solidly behind the President, was Secretary Herbert Clark Hoover (Commerce) who casually plunged each hand into a trouser pocket (without brushing his coat back) and squinted pleasantly. Secretary William M. Jardine (Agriculture), baldest Cabinet member, put his right hand in his trouser pocket (with coat swung back), hid his left hand behind him and gazed seriously, straight ahead. Secretary Hubert Work (Interior), but for whose mustache and Secretary Mellon's this would be the first clean-shaven Cabinet in U. S. history, frowned quizzically and held something in his hands behind Attorney General Sargent's head. Secretary Curtis Dwight Wilbur (Navy) let his long arms hang at his sides and peered forth from beneath the heaviest dark eyebrows and highest shock of hair in the Cabinet, through the only pair of spectacles (rimless) in the picture.

/-Mrs. Sargent could not come. Secretary Work is a widower. Secretary Mellon is divorced.