U.S.A. DIPLOMATS

Greymouth Evening Star, 24 November 1930, Page 6

U.S.A. DIPLOMATS

THE SPAT CAMPAIGN. Whoever started the controversy over tho question whether our bestdressed members of the American diplomatic service wear spats must have strongly desired to tease somebody. Nor has tho report that two years ago tho State Department officially frowned on spats helped to

soothe rasped nerves, says the “New York Times,” in comment on the circumstances which were reported on this page a few weeks ago. Truth is, spats have long been a sore subject in the State Department. They symbolise the curious process of hyper-eosmopolitanisatiori through which some of the younger diplomatic secretaries used to pass. Like the short morning coat and the propensity to balance a teacup with the little finger crooked at the correct angle, spats have been regarded by that species of mankind known as “the hundred-per-cent. American” with the healthy disdain which the men of the great open spaces have reserved for effete Easterners.

A spatless diplomat would be regarded by some as a sort of anachronism. By supposition, he should

also be mo're democratic and closer to the soil. But it is certain that the secretaries in the Department of State are beginning to wish that the prototype of our American diplomats had stoutly refused to wear the first spat. (