Monday, Mar. 03, 1930
Mary, Doug & Alba
Shocked were ladies of the Spanish court, and particularly Her Majesty Queen Victoria Eugenie (granddaughter of Britain's arch-stickler, Queen Victoria) when Miss Mary Pickford and Mr. Douglas Fairbanks were actually received on terms of cordial and convivial intimacy by sporting King Alfonso XIII's closest pal, exalted Jacobo Stuart Fitz-James, Duke of Alba, Constable of Navarre and 14 times a grandee of Spain (TIME, Dec. 2).
Month ago the champagne cocktail Duke* became Minister of Education in the new Spanish Cabinet of Dictator Damaso Berenguer, successor to ousted General Primo de Rivera (TIME, Feb. 10). Last week the Ministry of State and Foreign Affairs, suppressed during the regime of Dictator Primo de Rivera who dealt directly with foreign Ambassadors, was reestablished by Royal decree. Next day it was King Alfonso's pleasure that his crony, the Duke of Alba, should step up from Minister of Education to Foreign Minister--the highest ranking cabinet post.
In Hollywood, just before the promotion, Mr. Fairbanks, graduate of Jarvis Military Academy, the East Denver High School, and the Colorado School of Mines, was asked what sort of a Minister of Education he thought Alba would make. Calling a secretary he dictated two sentences which were transcribed thus: "Spain's greatness will be perpetuated so long as it calls to high administrative office such men as Duke de Alba. He is fitted for leadership by personal attainment as well as by his traditions."
Solemn was Alba as he took his new ministerial oath at Madrid last week, but directly afterward he said with a grin to Dictator Berenguer: "I have never been a diplomatist, and, although my family has such qualifications, they are not necessarily hereditary, but I shall do my best to serve Spain."
*Alba's recipe: one and one-half lumps cane sugar in an empty champagne glass, plus quarter teaspoonful of Angostura bitters, plus brut (i. e. "natural" unsweetened) champagne.
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