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N.Y TIMES MARCH 4. 1939
KING'S VISIT 'ACTED' BY WOMEN WRITERS
Washington Party Depicts the Arrival of Royalties with Crowns and Umbrellas
MRS. ROOSEVELT A GUEST
Lady Lindsay, Envoy's Wife, Is Also Among Those at Annual Stunt Dinner

Special to THE NEW YORK TIMES
Washington, March 3.—A forecast of the visit of King George and Queen Elizabeth to Washington was the feature of the annual stunt part dinner given tonight by the Women's National Press Club, attended by 400 persons.

Equipped with crowns and umbrellas, Their Majesties were depicted arriving at the White House, inspecting a WPA barracks erected on the south lawn to accommodate the lords and ladies of their entourage, preparing to visit Mount Vernon and returning footsore and weary after a sight-seeing tour personally conducted by Mrs. Roosevelt.

There was an embarrassing moment when the "King," to the horror of the "Queen" and their attendants, was searched for matches by Secret Service men, who deprived him even of his cigarette lighter as a precaution against British carelessness with matches in the White House; and the incident of the poker party with Vice President Garner and "Jimmy" Roosevelt, from whom the "King" returned without his crown.

"Where's your crown!" the "Queen" demanded.
"Jimmy's got it," the abashed "King" replied.

ENVOYS' WIVES AMONG GUESTS

Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lady Lindsay, wife of the British Ambassador, were the ranking members of the honor guests.

The group also included Mrs. Charles Evans Hughes, wife of the Chief Justice; Mrs. William B. Bankhead, wife of the Speaker; all the ladies of the Cabinet circle, except Secretary Perkins, who was unable to be present/ Senator Caraway and the "ladies of the House," Representatives Rogers, Norton, O'Day and Sumner countess van der Straten Bonthoz, wife of the Belgian Ambassador; Mme. Ertegun, wife of the Ambassador of Turkey; Señora Doña Isbel Reyes de Lopez, wife of the Colombian Ambassador; Mme. Horinouchi, wife of the Ambassador of Japan, and Mme. Marc Peter, wife of the Minister of Switzerland.

This year's honor guests of personal achievement were Neysa McMein, Julia Peterkin and Audrey Wuderman (Mrs. Jacob Auslander), both Pulitzer Prize winners; Alice Duer Miller, Bess Streeter Aldrich and Margery Sharp, Clare Boothe, dramatist; Gertrude B. Lane and Betsy Talbott Blackwell, magazine editors; Dr. Louise Boyd, explorer and geographer and recent winner of the Cullum Medal; Katherine Blodgett, discoverer of invisible glass; Cornelia Van A. Chapin, sculptor, and her sister, Katherine Garrison Chapin, poet and wife of Francis Biddle, recently appointed judge of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, and Miss Helen Jabobs, former tennis champion.

Mrs. Roosevelt Says Last Word

The program opened with the introduction of the honor guests by Hope Ridings Miller, president of the club society editor of The Washington Post, and was concluded with an off-the-record "last word" by Mrs. Roosevelt, the only speaker at these annual dinner frolics.

After dinner, footlights were turned on a bare stage and an interlocutor announced to the guests that tonight's show would be "Our Town," an idea "swiped" from last year's Pulitzer Prize play by Thornton Wilder, "because it didn't have any scenery, an idea that helps us balance our budget."

Four gorgeously dressed ladies, carrying money bags, who resembled Mrs. Roosevelt, Mr. Woodrow Wilson, Alice Roosevelt Longworth and Evalyn Walsh McLean, lamented in a song and dance number that Cleopatra, Good Queen Bess, Marie Antoinette and Dolly Madison, "the old meanies, keep their secrets in their beanies," changing in conclusion:

"We tell!
"And tell!
"And tell!
"But not quite all."

Here, one dancer, very dignified, stepped forward and said :
"But Edith Bolling Wilson" —

The other three, pointing at her, chorused: "The Little Girl," as she finished her sentence with the words "tells all."

Many Feminine Notables Present

Women who have achieved notable success in many fields were in the group at the head table, the group including Neysa McMein, artist; Julia Peterkin, fiction writer, who won the 1928 Pulitzer fiction prize with "Scarlet Sister Mary"; Audrey Wurdermann (Mrs. Joseph Auslander), who won a Pulitzer Prize with "Bright Ambush"; Alice Duer Miller, writer and dramatist; Bess Streeter Aldrich, fiction writer; Clare Booth, dramatist, who wrote "The Women" and "Kiss the Boys Goodbye"; Gertrude B. Lane, editor of Woman's Home Companion; Betsy Talbott Blackwell, editor of Mademoiselle; Dr. Lousie Boyd, explorer and geographer, who was recently awarded the Cullum medal; Katharine B. Blodgett, scientist, who discovered invisible glass; Cornelia Van A. Chapin, sculptor and her sister, Katharine Garrison Chapin, poet who husband, Francis Biddle, was recently appointed judge of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.

Numerous visitors from other cities were in the gay groups, which gathered at small, flower-decked tables to dine, stayed on for a diverting program, came together afterward at Mrs. Eleanor Patterson's supper party or at Mrs. Eugene Meyer's supper party — or at both.

Mrs. Joseph Patterson, wife of Captain Patterson, owner and publisher of the New York Daily News, had come on from New York.

Others from out of town among the guests were: Mrs. Joseph Brooks, Miss Antoinette Donnelley, Mrs. Joseph Connolly, Mrs. boerge Rohde, the former Ruth Bryan Owen; Mrs. William H. Speidell, Adela Rogers St. Johns, Miss Constance Enslow, Mrs. John Paul Jones and Mme. Ahmet Yalman, wife of the Turkish journalist who is a guest at the Turkish Embassy.

WASHINGTON TIMES HERALD. MARCH 4
These Fascinating Ladies

Demands of public life never disturb her communion with the Muses nor her intellectual calm...Takes gracefully to her job as hostess for a prominent husband while she finds time for the flowering of her own genius...Is of medium height...Slender...Unobtrusive with a pervading gentleness...Her features are patrician...Her dark hair coils in a simple knot in the back.

...Finds a few intimate friends more to her liking than party "crushes"...Entertained delightfully when her husband was here as chairman of the National Labor Relations Board and later as general counsel of the Congressional Committee investigating TVA...His recent appointment to a Federal judgeship will undoubtedly keep her closer to her Germantown home, much to the grief of her admirers here...Comes naturally by her flair for the arts...Her poetry vies in symmetry and beauty with the sculpture of her famous sister, Cornelia Van Chapin...Despite her modern life, her verse turns to the more classic forms...Her subjects glow with imaginative invention.
...Such as "Outside the World." ..."Time Has No Shadow." "Bright Banniner" ...Won loudest praise for her "Lament for the Stolen," a poetic treatise of the Lindbergh tragedy...Harl McDonald set the composition to music to be played by the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy and augmented by a Greek chorus of 250 voices...Takes her accomplishments for granted and is overwhelmingly modest in the face of her brilliant achievements. Her name: Mrs. Francis Biddle.

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Mrs. Francis Biddle

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