Lamest Duck

(See front cover)

For 24 hours last week Washington's fashionable Mayflower Hotel became the political centre of the U. S. Its spacious lobbies were jammed with Senators and Representatives eager for a peep at the next President of the U. S. Up & down its thick-carpeted halls marched a throng of important people ranging from Bernard Mannes Baruch to Rear Admiral Cary Grayson. Through the street crowd of plain citizens Supreme Court Justice Brandeis shouldered his way inside. So did Minnesota's Governor Olson and General William Mitchell, retired Army Air Service critic. In Room No. 776 Franklin Delano Roosevelt was holding court.

Ignored, forgotten in the Democratic excitement, was the Mayflower's star boarder--Vice President Charles Curtis. When he moved into his eleven-room $150-per-day suite (which costs him $5.53 per day) he was the hotel's prize social attraction. Once his vice-presidential progress through the lobby turned heads, drew crowds. Now, as the Vice President-reject, he passed quietly out of a side entrance without fluttering the slightest public interest.

Of all the 158 "lame ducks" in the "lame duck" session of Congress opening this week, Vice President Curtis is by far the lamest. Congressional districts turned down 144 Representatives and 14 States rejected sitting Senators but the Vice President was crippled by the vote of the entire country. The President-reject was similarly crippled but he at least has the responsibility and power to "run the country" until March 4. With little enough to do before his rejection, a defeated Vice President is a figurehead indeed. Charles Curtis' defeat ("the first popular election I ever lost") kept intact the record that no Republican Vice President has ever been able to succeed himself.

Defeat did not completely crush the sober spirits of the plump, brown little man whose grandmother was a Kaw princess. He got his first taste of vice-presidential privacy when, morning after election, he alighted from the Santa Fe's crack train, The Chief, in Chicago and was ignored by two newshawks and three cameramen sent to the station to cover Cinemactress Joan Bennett's arrival on the same train. Back in Washington he put on a brave smile and went about his business as usual. After his first call on his unlucky running mate at the White House, he was asked if the campaign had left him in debt. His chuckling answer: "Debt? No, we're not in debt. The only people I know in debt is the Republican National Committee."

In his big suite at the Senate Office Building he answered an average of 200 letters per day and began picking out the things he would take back to Topeka with him after March 4. The 6-ft. chair engraved "The Chief" would certainly go. So would the 2-ft. ebony elephant rampant and the framed collection of original newspaper cartoons (mostly friendly). Nor would he part with the composite photograph of the Senate in 1895 (that was his first term in the House) or the original Lincoln picture. Most of the books and the vice-presidential flag would probably have to be left behind. Recalling the jokes that had been cracked about the swanky display of his office, the Vice President mused out loud: "Some people may not like it but it suits my taste."

What he would do after March 4 the Vice President was not sure last week. He is not a rich man and not much of a $15,000 salary can be saved in Washington. There had been a suggestion that he become "tsar" of the oil industry--at $250,000 per year--but that seemed too good to be true. He also had friends in the real estate business who might use his services. If the worst came, he could always return to practicing law in Kansas.

The defeat of her half-brother also numbered the happy days of big, buxom, buoyant Dolly Curtis Gann as Second Lady of the Land. From a modest vine-clad house in Cleveland Park she had risen to queen it over Washington society. The nation's snickers at her battle for precedence over Alice Roosevelt Longworth, the late Speaker's wife, had left her unabashed. She it was who kept her brother Charlie's backbone stiff in demanding every honor due the Vice President. She had come to fancy herself as a political spellbinder and G.O.P. headquarters found her services really useful among women's clubs during the campaign. When she heard the election results, she bubbled:

"Of course I'm sorry. But I've had a wonderful time--wonderful! I wouldn't have missed the experience for anything.

I really didn't think we'd lose but now it's over, it's finished for me. I never go over things past. Today I start a new slate."

"What kind of slate?"

"I've had suggestions that I run for office. But what office? That remains to be seen. Politics makes my life. But I like to live in Washington.* If the Republican party needs me, I'll be ready."

The rise of Widower Charles Curtis from the Senate to the Vice-Presidency brought other members of his family to public attention. Two years ago his son Harry, a Chicago lawyer, was under investigation for operating as a go-between in contracts for new Government buildings. His clients complained that he had taken fees on the promise to get them fat construction jobs. Son Harry hotly denied that he had ever promised any such thing.

Last week when one R. M. Curtis was discovered as construction superintendent of N. P. Severin Construction Co. of Chicago, now building in Newark, N. J. a $2,744,900 post office, a story started to the effect that he was a brother of the Vice President and that Half-Sister Dolly Gann was largest Severin stockholder. Because Severin Co. averages two or three big post office contracts a year, rival contractors talked darkly of "Washington pull." Vice President Curtis indignantly denied that the superintendent at Newark was his relative "in any shape or form, near or distant" or that any of his family was interested in the Severin concern.

Most socialite of the Curtis children is his daughter Leona, wife of Webster Knight, Providence banker and onetime textile manufacturer. The elder Knight child is named for his grandfather. In the summer the Vice President has visited the Knights at their home near Newport, has been feted royally by local dowagers.

Another Curtis daughter is Permelia, wife of Lieut.-Colonel Charles P. George, U. S. A. who is conveniently stationed at Fort Myer, Va. just across the Potomac from Washington. Last week the Georges, with Charles Curtis George, 10, were the Vice President's Thanksgiving guests at the Mayflower.

When in Topeka the Vice President makes his home with his other sister, Mrs. Jerome A. Colvin, widow of a horse & mule dealer.

As Vice Presidents go Charles Curtis has been a steady, middle-of-the-road occupant of the nation's No. 2 job. None ever ruled over the Senate with more imposing dignity. Yet Mr. Curtis, once a jockey, becomes wholly human at horse races. If he lacks the humorous informality that made Tom Marshall a national favorite, he is not afflicted with the sour silence by which Calvin Coolidge stayed for two years in obscurity.

Out of the Senate rules Charles Gates Dawes fabricated a slapstick issue to keep himself politically alive and ended up by being a real backstage power in shaping legislation. The nearest Vice President Curtis ever came to influencing public affairs was when his vote broke a tie on tariff flexibility. Some day in the Senate corridor his marble bust will take its place along with those of James Sherman, Charles Fairbanks, Garret Hobart, Levi P. Morton, Adlai E. Stevenson and other substitutes who never got into the great game of running the country.

As a Senator, Charles Curtis was always "one of the boys." Nothing pleased him more than to take $2 from wealthy Senator Couzens in a game of draw poker. As Republican floor leader for five years his only speech was: "I move that the Senate do now adjourn." But the Vice-Presidency and the Mayflower Hotel worked a great change in him. He took his job with utmost seriousness. He ceased to be the friendly backslapper. He began making dull pompous speeches on all public occasions. Declared Vice President-elect John Nance Garner:

"Being Vice President sort of ruined Charlie Curtis. It used to be just 'Charlie.' I knew him well, played poker with him. Then he became Vice President. He decided he shouldn't be just 'Charlie.' 'Call me Mr. Vice President,' he finally commanded."

The President of the U. S. never dines out privately in Washington. That is the Vice President's job. Mr. Curtis, with Dolly Gann on his arm, has performed this social duty with obvious relish. On an average of five nights a week during the season they are to be found dining with Cabinet members. Ambassadors, Supreme Court justices, Senators and Washington socialites. Vice President Curtis' method:

"I eat sparingly at these dinners. I avoid the thick filet mignons, the rich dressings and the heavy food. At from 10:15 to 10:30 o'clock I say good night. If the occasion happens to be a dance I may sit in my box till midnight but never later. My rule is that I must be in bed between 11 and 12. I must keep in training, almost like an athlete. My exercise is obtained from walking. About two o'clock every afternoon I leave my office at the Capitol and walk briskly for a mile or more. As a result of careful watch over my diet and moderate exercise I keep myself inside the 168-pound limit."

Last week Vice President-elect Garner gave Washington a jolt when he announced that he had no intention of fulfilling the social obligations of his job. He began by refusing 20 invitations for Thanksgiving dinner. The only time he would leave his hotel, he said, would be for a White House banquet where his presence was required. The next Vice President explained: "If I should go to one I would have to go to all. Mrs. Garner and I have made it a fast rule not to accept any social invitations. We prefer carrying on the practice of 'early to bed and early to rise' we began years ago."*

Symbolic of the difference between their jobs are the gavels of the Vice President and the Speaker of the House. To tap for order the Vice President uses a small wooden cylinder about the size of a large salt shaker which he holds between his fingers. Under the Senate rules, he votes only to break a tie. He is not permitted to join in legislative debate or make any kind of speech. His utterances are confined to cut & dried parliamentary rulings which a Senate majority can overturn at will. On his Senate throne he is a glorified policeman, keeping peace in the chamber but powerless to influence any of its deliberations.

The Speaker of the House bangs out his will with a mallet-like gavel swung by the wrist and forearm. He is privileged to take the floor and join in legislative debate at will. He must vote to break a tie and may vote whenever else he chooses. As leader of the House majority he picks the legislation he wants brought up. Members speak only at his grace. During the last six days of a session his power to recognize a motion to suspend the rules makes him an absolute dictator of House procedure.

Such is the job John Nance Garner is giving up to succeed Charles Curtis. Members of the House of course think that while he is stepping up to the Vice-Presidency, he will really be stepping down from the Speakership.

*Many a "lame duck" remains in the capital long after his defeat because female members of his household, enchanted with Washington society, refuse to move back to the boredom of their home community. *Nevertheless, last week the Garners moved into more pretentious quarters on the seventh floor of the Washington Hotel, facing the Treasury. Said he: "We're home lovers and we like to stay in the place where we know everybody from the bellhops to the manager."

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