Royal Press

If a bridge fails, if a freight train gets shunted to the main line, or somebody leaves a bomb on the track, it will be 30 minutes before the train bearing King George VI and Queen Elizabeth across Canada this week (see p. 22) comes upon the wreckage of its pilot train and the mangled bodies of 56 correspondents and twelve photographers who are covering Their Majesties' trip. Besides brooding over such an unlikely fate, the representatives of the Canadian, U. S. and European press have the following causes for complaint: 1) a shortage of bathing facilities (one shower for seven women, another for 107 men); 2) absence of any laundry facilities; 3) the difficulty of getting enough to eat in one dining car; and 4) the fact that when the King arrives in a town that day automatically becomes a legal holiday, thereby occasioning the closing of all liquor stores.

In spite of these minor discomforts, and in spite of an earlier bit of snootiness on the part of Lady Lindsay, wife of the British Ambassador to the U. S. (see p. 15),* the King and Queen got a good press last week in the U. S. as well as Canada. Some of the credit went to fat, genial Walter S. Thompson, chief publicity agent of the Canadian National Railway System and pressherd of the Royal Tour. Some went to the press itself, which was notably well behaved. Most of it went to the King and Queen, who cor rected the mistakes of some of their representatives by showing a complete absence of side.

First piece of luck for the correspondents was the four-day wait for the delayed royalty in Quebec. During those days they practically lived in the cool, dark, comfortable Terrace Club of the Chateau Frontenac, improving their dispositions with the mild distillates of the Dominion. When the Royal ship docked at Wolfe's Cove, the New York Herald Tribune's Edward Angly, the Times's Raymond Daniell and John MacCormac, the A. P.'s Frank H. King and U. P.'s Webb Miller appeared on the dock in morning coats and striped trousers. By the time the King and Queen reached Ottawa, even the photographers were wearing cutaways and high hats (see cut).

Once the visitors were ashore, the correspondents rushed around ferreting out interesting facts about their private arrangements. Plump, ebullient Dixie Tighe of the Philadelphia Record, and New York Post plunged even deeper into the Royal private life, cabled her papers that at Quebec's Citadel the King and Queen slept in narrow beds in separate rooms, with a low door between. The door had a knocker on each side. Though the King and Queen had running water in their private bathrooms, members of their entourage had to use old-fashioned wash basins. "The wash bowl sets," added thoroughgoing Miss Tighe, "are absolutely complete."

Although only 56 correspondents are covering the entire tour, there were hundreds on hand to greet the King and Queen in Quebec, other hundreds spotted all the way across Canada and back to Halifax. The Toronto Star alone assigned 73 reporters to the story.

In Ottawa clothes-conscious Timesman Daniell reported that it took less than an hour for the King to change from "the uniform of a war lord," in which he attended Parliament, to "the bobtailed jacket and striped trousers of a City of London man" which he wore to greet the press. "The King and Queen," wrote Correspondent Daniell, "demonstrated that quick-changing quality which perhaps more than any other single factor has kept the House of Windsor ruling so long over a heterogeneous empire."

At the press reception the New York News's Canadian-born George Dixon provided his self-consciously democratic paper with its headline -of - the -week: NEWS REPORTER GABS WITH KING. Reporter Dixon's play-by-play account of his gabfest:

King: I suppose you have been working pretty hard.

Me: So have you. But you're certainly in there punching. You sure can take it.

King: Oh, yes, indeed. How do you manage to get around to all events? . . . It must be very exhausting. . . .

Me: No, everything has been made very pleasant. Besides, we carry enough credentials to choke a horse.

At this point (although he neglected to report it), Correspondent Dixon began to blush and stammer. Finally he managed to blurt out: "Oh, I guess I'm the clown of this trip," and retired while the King looked astonished and the Queen grinned.

Rules, red tape and confusingly elaborate arrangements hog-tied the correspondents wherever they went. Official regulations forbade members of the press to approach within 20 feet of Their Majesties, ordered them to step aside if Their Majesties approached within 20 feet of the press. It was "recommended" that cameramen wear their coats "when working in close proximity to Their Majesties." In Quebec police refused to let Correspondent Daniell into his hotel after he had gone out for breakfast. With a pocketful of tickets, Correspondent Daniell asked what kind of pass he needed. "I don't know," said the policeman.

In Montreal Correspondent Tighe had to fight her way through crowds for four blocks to get to a banquet, had her evening gown ripped to shreds. Next night in Ottawa some 40 members of the press gallery and four correspondents from the pilot train were invited to attend the Parliamentary dinner, were then seated in an alley between banquet hall and kitchen, kept from reaching the telegraph office 50 feet away for half an hour after the banquet was over.

Nevertheless, the stories reaching the U. S. contained no note of rancor. Most of the correspondents were indignant at stories from the German press, reprinted in Canadian papers, jeering at the ceremonies. They were blamed on pink-cheeked, 22-year-old Bruno Seymours, who had loved to sit around and drink with other correspondents until he suddenly disappeared from the trip at Montreal.

No U. S. correspondent, however, matched the eloquence of the Toronto Globe and Mail's, Royd Beamish, who wrote of the Royal Banquet at Quebec: " 'Neath the turreted roof of a Norman castle, where once the Canada of long ago had its seat of Government, the King and Queen had dined [from the breasts of 2,000 snowbirds]. . . . The wine glasses were filled and Lieutenant-Governor Patenaude stood to propose the age-old toast, heard nightly across one-fourth the globe: 'Gentlemen, the King.' . . . From some far corner of that spacious ballroom a strong male voice sounded, rich and true:

" 'God save our gracious King. . . .'

"The voice stirred others from their frozen trance of awe at the nearness of their King and Queen. One by one they joined in the pulse-quickening lyrics:

" 'Long live our noble King. God save our King. . . . '"

*After the Lindsay incident Columnist Westbrook Pegler tartly reminded the press: "It will be worth remembering . . . that they are not coming to visit the American newspapers. . . .

There is no obligation on the King or Queen to take any journalists on their laps or invite them to pull up chairs and shoot olive pits with them."

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