Blessed Event

Four years ago, there was a rumor in Washington to the effect that Mrs. Nicholas Longworth, 42, was about to have a baby. Experienced newshawks didn't quite know what to do with the story, even if they could verify it which they couldn't quite think how to. Several days later a cub on the United Press picked up the rumor from his superiors, and, without thinking much about it, telephoned Mrs. Longworth.

"Mrs. Longworth? Yes, this is the U. P. Is it true you are expecting a baby?"

"Yes, quite true,--in March."

"Thank you."

"Not at all. Goodbye."

In March, the baby was born and with it, thought sophisticated newsreaders, a precedent. They foresaw future front pages headlined with "scoops" in a day when scoops are rare. . . . ASTERBILTS ABOUT TO HAVE A CHILD. . . . MOVIE QUEEN WILL BEAR TWINS, DOCTOR PREDICTS. . . . MAGNATE'S OFFSPRING THREE WEEKS OVERDUE. . . .

As usual, the sophisticates were wrong. Since the advent of the daughter of "Princess Alice" Longworth, not a single birth, except royal births, has been forecast in respectable papers, throughout the U. S.*

Last week, an expected baby again appeared as a news item. The despatch, sent by the Associated Press wire, was dated from Chicago. Who in Chicago was important enough to have an impending descendant talked about in print? A McCormick? A Swift? A Wrigley? An Insull? Whatever may have been their anticipations, none of these were named last week as prospective parents. Perhaps then a politician or a gangster was expecting: was Big Bill Thompson about to be a parent? Scar-Face Al Capone, had he a blushing hope ? Or was it Len Small who was soon to gain an issue?

It was no politician, but an opera star. Surely there is only one opera star in Chicago sufficiently distinguished to have her future family recorded, and surely her name is Mary Garden. Yet it was not Mary Garden, the aged unmarried maiden. The name that appeared was that of a less spectacular but artistically far more competent diva, Rosa Raisa. She, a lady with an equally imposing stage presence, and a far better voice, who refused this winter the leading role in the world premiere of Boito's long delayed Nerone, and who, at 34, is listed among the greatest dramatic sopranos in the world, last week left Manhattan on a boat bound for Italy. Ship news reporters watched her sail away, and whatever they may have observed, reported nothing. Three days later, when Mme. Raisa was far away and out of hearing, the A. P. sent out from Chicago its short despatch which contained a compliment usually reserved for royalty. It said:

"Rosa Raisa, prima donna of the Chicago Civic Opera Company, and her husband, Giacomo Rimini, who sailed April 13 for their villa near Verona, Italy, are expecting the birth of a child next August. . . ."

The despatch did not reveal the fact that Rosa Raisa would return to America in time to insure her child a U. S. birthplace.

*It is true, however, that the Daily News, Manhattan tabloid, three years ago disseminated a rumor that Mrs. Coolidge was about to have a child. In another Manhattan tabloid, the Evening Porno-Graphic, Columnist and Theatre Critic Walter Winchell, a journalistic obstetrician famed equally for his unquestioned ability to make wisecracks and his sometimes suspected foreknowledge of what he refers to scornfully as "blessed events," habitually prognosticates imminent infants to eminent folk. Cocking an experienced eye at every popular celebrity, he announces his discoveries on Monday afternoons. Sometimes his childish observations are surprisingly acute and prompt. Occasionally they provide him with further fodder for his gossip-stick, in the form of a divorce suit.