White House Romance

They met in a routine way. Handsome, quick-smiling Mrs. Louise Macy thought she should be working in Washington, in the war effort. Gaunt Harry Hopkins was a good man to see about a job. She met him at the St. Regis in Manhattan, armed with a letter of introduction from their mutual friend Lawrence W. Lowman, a CBS vice president.

The socialite, a grass widow, and the Iowa harnessmaker's son, a widower, got on famously. A few nights later they were dining together at a little restaurant on East 51st Street. They talked again about war work; they also began talking about themselves. They went together to see Katharine Cornell play Candida, to a party at the W. Averell Harrimans. By the time they were invited to a quiet dinner given by Lord and Lady Halifax for the departing Winston Churchill, they had decided to be married. The engagement was one of the secrets Winston Churchill -first person to know about it -took back with him to England.

The Woman. In smart sets from Santa Barbara to Long Island, "Louie" Macy is popular. She radiates good spirits, talks well, laughs easily. At 36 she is trim as an athlete. She dresses with elegant plainness -sometimes in colors to match a ginger-brown French poodle which she leads on a pink patent-leather leash. Her dark hair falls in a long bob; her eyes are bright blue, a little gap between two front teeth emphasizes her firm chin and nose.

She grew up in Pasadena, went to the Madeira School in Washington, then to Smith College, married a Manhattan attorney named Clyde Brown Jr., divorced him in Reno within a year.

She got into fashions, became Paris editor of Harper's Bazaar. As a career woman, she had extravagant energy, ambition and good humor. At Paris fashion-selection time, she worked hard all day, entertained visiting buyers until 4 or 5 o'clock in the morning, was bright as a lark when her office opened at 9.

After the Lowlands invasion, Louie Macy returned to Manhattan, soon quit Harper's Bazaar to start a swank whole sale dress shop. Her first spring style show was a flat flop. She tried again with a fall & winter collection. This flopped, too, and she turned to being a nurse's aide. She was the model for a recruiting poster prepared by the Office of Civilian Defense.

The Man. Harry Hopkins, at 51, does not look like the kind of man Louie Macy would look at. His face, sallow and lined by illness, is not so much against him socially as his restless, jittery wriggling which keeps his suits wrinkled and baggy. His thin, straggly hair is combed carefully over a growing bald spot.

His background could hardly be more different from Mrs. Macy's fashion career. He played basketball at Iowa's Grinnell College, before going to Manhattan as a $45-a-month social worker. In those days he was shy, uncertain, socially awkward. But he learned fast.

Today no man in the U.S. is more fanatical at laying down and arguing for New Deal policies. But somewhere up the ladder from young social worker to Presidential alter ego, Hopkins doffed the reformer's sackcloth, donned a sports jacket.

Hopkins is equally at home now in a relief office or at Newport, at a faculty dinner or in a rich friend's box at the races, with high-minded old ladies or with glamor girls. Many a wealthy New Deal-hater has been doubly horrified, after a week's grind in the factory, making money for Hopkins to boondoggle with, to find him in the house for the weekend. When he has not been busy in Washington, or getting a going over in a hospital, he has blazed a merry trail through Manhattan's El Morocco and "21."

Hopkins was divorced by his first wife in 1930; his second wife died in 1937. Since then he has been one of Washington's most eligible bachelors, a serious New Dealer who could also be the life of a party, a hot-eyed social reformer with an eye for a pretty face.

The Day. For weeks Washington had buzzed with rumors that Harry Hopkins was about to be married again. Most people guessed, wrongly, that the bride-to-be was Cinemactress Paulette Goddard, whom he had squired occasionally. Finally Gossip Columnist Igor Cassini of the Washington Times-Herald nosed out the truth.

Their secret out, Harry Hopkins and Mrs. Macy held a press conference devoted exclusively to romance. Eleanor Roosevelt was there, in a summery white dress, helping along the announcement with a firm and experienced hand. Mrs. Macy, smiling and bright-cheeked, wore an egg-sized diamond engagement ring designed by cafe society's Verdura. Hopkins grinned and twisted like any embarrassed bridegroom.

They announced that they wrould be married on July 30 at the White House, the first marriage there since 1914,* would take a honeymoon trip whose route was a "military secret," would then live in the White House for a while. Said Harry Hopkins, unable to think of a more memorable line for the occasion: "I like the whole business. It suits me. That's an unqualified endorsement." Louise Macy flashed a brilliant smile.

*When Eleanor Wilson was married to William G. McAdoo in the Blue Room.

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