Part 36 (2/2)
2. Brand Whitlock, American minister to Belgium, was the princ.i.p.al guest at a private banquet given by the Lotos Club at its home, 110 West Fifty-seventh Street, last night. It was described by a prominent member of the club as a ”banquet that was not attended by any man prominent in politics, but one that was intended to do honor to Mr. Whitlock and to drink a little wine and to eat a little breast of guinea.”
Politics and newspaper reporters were barred, and Whitlock in his address made no reference to the European war or to the situation in Belgium. ”American Ideals” was the subject of the address, and he referred to the inscription on Was.h.i.+ngton Arch, in Was.h.i.+ngton Square, which says, ”Let us here erect a standard to which all the wise and honest may repair.”
”That is a sentence of which I like to think,” Mr. Whitlock said. ”It is a standard which to be effective must be erected in the life of each citizen, and no one can erect it there but himself. In no citizen did it ever attain such beautiful and symmetrical proportions as in the life of Lincoln.
”Once in a foreign city I happened to pick up a penny in the street. It was one of those that bear Lincoln's head. Looking at it and thinking of its implications, the thought of home and all that it brought up, the thought of all the hands through which it had pa.s.sed--hands of workmen, the hands of little children, the hands of beggars, even; hard hands and gnarled hands and honest hands, the hands of mine own people--it seemed to me to have been made precious by the patina of democracy, and I thought that nothing could have been more beautiful and significant than that Lincoln's n.o.ble head should have been engraved on our smallest coin, a token of our universal daily need in hands that humbly break the bread their toil has earned.
That head to me somewhat palpably wore the people's love like purple bays--the love of all those common people whom he so wisely loved and bore in sorrow in his mighty heart.
”In him, as I have tried to say, the American ideal was most perfectly exemplified, and it was exemplified in him because after the illusions of life had gone he retained his ideals and his faith in them. It was thus exemplified in him because in addition to his wisdom, his gentleness, his patience, his hope, and his faith, he had that other great American quality of humor, which saved him in every situation, and by American humor I mean that instinctive sense of human values that enables one to see all things or most things in their proper relations, and so becomes an integral part of the American ideal.”
Four hundred fifty members of the club and their friends were at the banquet. At the table with Whitlock were Dr. M. Woolsey Stryker, president of Hamilton College; M. A. Van der Vyede, Belgian Minister of Finance; Nathaniel C. Wright, editor of the Toledo _Blade_; Rev. Dr. Leighton Parks, Melville E. Stone, George Ade, and Hewitt H. Howland, of Indiana, all of whom spoke.
Mr. Whitlock was introduced by Chester S. Lord, vice president of the club, who presided in the absence of President F. R.
Lawrence, who was ill. Lord reviewed briefly some of the work of Whitlock in Belgium, where he worked ”with a fidelity and a fairness and a supreme regard for the interests of humanity that have won for him the praise and the admiration of the entire world.”
Speaking to Mr. Whitlock, Mr. Lord said: ”The neutral nations esteem you and love you. The belligerent nations admire and respect you. No one could have addressed himself to this task with greater loyalty, fidelity, or patriotism.”
_B._ Do you find the following story meritorious or blameworthy? Why?
_MRS. PALTIER ”NOT AT HOME”_
Mrs. Laura Paltier, who has just returned from Florida, was ”not at home” to reporters yesterday. They wanted to ask her several questions about the $20,000 exposition fund now in her charge.
A maid answered the doorbell at 4356 Lake Erie Drive.
”Is Mrs. Paltier at home?”
”Who is it wants to see her?”
”_The Tribune_.” The maid closed the door, leaving the reporter on the porch. Five minutes later she returned. ”Mrs. Paltier is not at home. I don't know where she is nor when she will return.” She closed the door.
The reporter went to a telephone. ”Is Mrs. Paltier at home?”
The maid's voice answered: ”I will see.” For a minute two voices could be heard at the other end of the wire.
”Who is this, please?” asked the maid. Upon learning the ident.i.ty of the inquirer she said: ”No, Mrs. Paltier is not at home.”
About that time the reporter decided that Mrs. Paltier was not eager to see him.
_C._ Special a.s.signments, such as reporting sermons, local addresses, commercial banquets, etc., may be taken as additional exercises for this chapter.
_CHAPTER XV_
_A._ From the following details write for a New York morning paper a story of the death of Tom Hilton:
Time and place of death, yesterday at the New York hospital; age, 36; occupation, s.e.xton at Christ Church on West Thirty-sixth Street; attending physician, Dr. Henry Adair; cause of death, swallowing false teeth while at breakfast with his wife yesterday; efforts to save him: Dr. Adair summoned immediately, incision made in throat, silver tube inserted to allow pa.s.sage of air to the lungs, and operation later at hospital. Patient failed to rally after operation. Survivors: wife and two children.
_B._ From the following details write for a Chicago evening paper a story of the fire that destroyed the plant of the W. M. Welch Manufacturing Company, makers of college and preparatory school diplomas:
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