In the Public Eye

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIII, Issue 72, 7 March 1933, Page 4

In the Public Eye

Sir Horace Rumbold. Sir Horace Rumbold, who was the host of Mr. Stanley M. Bruce when he visited Germany to hand over the name plate of the cruiser Emden, has been British Ambassador to Germany for the last live years. Sir Horace had been Ambassador at Madrid for four years when he was sent to Germany, and he has held posts at Berne, Warsaw, and Constantinople. He is one of the most distinguished of British diplomats. When war was declared against Germany in 191-1, Sir Horace was Charge d* Affaires at the British Embassy at Berlin. Ou July 2-1, 1923, he signed the Treaty of Lausanne on behalf of the British Empire, and has represented Great Britain on many notable occasions. Sir .Horace, who was burn in 1809, married, in 1905, Miss Ethclrcd Fane, C.8.E., second daughter of the late Sir Edmond Fane, and there is one son and one daughter of the union. Lady Rumbold is a handsome and distinguished looking woman, who has become very popular during her residence at the Embassy in Berlin. She is considered a notable hostess and her brilliant parties have been all the more enjoyable, because, like her husband, she speaks languages fluently. She is the daughter of a diplomat also, her late father having been British Minister to Denmark many years ago, while she has accompanied her husband to many countries. When he was Minister to Berne, during the Great War, Lady Rumbold, who has a talent lor organisation, was president of the British lied Cross in Switzerland. Immediately after the war Bir Horace and Lady Rumbold were transferred to the British Legation in Poland, a place which then had every appearance of being the next storm centre in Europe, but the following year he was appointed High Commissioner at Constantinople. Both are great supporters of athletic sports of various kinds, Sir Horace himself being a keen lawn tennis and polo player. Professor A. Piccard. A rather unusual scientist is to bo . found in Professor August Piccard, the explorer of the stratosphere, who has been on a tour of the United States. When he was ia New York Professor Piccard naturally saw a great deal of the younger explorer, adventurer, scientific set, including William Beebe, Colonel Lindbergh, Admiral Byrd, and Amelia Earhart Putnam. They found the Professor rather odd. At a luncheon given to him Admiral Byrd produced a pipe. A messenger hurried down to the Admiral as the Professor scowled. Byrd was hurriedly informed that tho scientist had come to the function strictly on the understanding that there should be no smoking, and the polar explorer sucked at an unlighted pipe for the rest of the time. Professor Piccard hates alcohol just as much as he does smoking, but he detests Prohibition almost as much. He believes that people should be able to discover the harmfulness of alcohol for themselves. He has always refused to be measured for a suit, and buys hand, me-downs hurriedly, not caring whether they fit or not. He also cuts his own hair, and he wears pasteboard collars of a Belgian make, which are torn up and thrown away when removed. He Carries his money next to his skin in a small bag tied round his neck. He sleeps with the bag, and in a flannel nightgown. He cares nothing for the arts, his only hobby being photography, and he always carries two watches If they do not correspond he knows that he has not got tho right time. Another invariable companion of tho Professor is a slide rule, an instrument on which the scientific-minded can calculate almost anything. When he was sitting at dinner between Lindbergh and Mr Putnam he produced this rule and used it to turn kilometres into miles. Once he openly used it at a Brussels banquet to check the accuracy of statements made. Just now the one thing that interests him is travel by rocket, and he believes that this is certain to be practicable soon. In fact the problem of crossing from NewYork to Paris by rocket has alreadybeen solved in his view, and he has passed on to more advanced problems.

Tobacco and alcohol are almost the only things that upset him. Otherwise he is very serene. When he reached his New York hotel he underwent several uncomfortable nights in a bed that was too short for him, but did not complain. Then the management discovered his predicament and brought in a divan with neither head nor foot. At home in Belgium he is never disturbed by noise, and will work away at abstruse problems while his five children romp around. He is mainly working at a treatise on special seismographs, which are one of his interests. He has invented a special kind of seismograph to record mild earthquakes of the kind that there are in the Alps. He will drop his work at any moment to go out into the garden to inflate a bicycle tire or perform any task. In New York Dr. Beebe asked him what he saw in the stratosphere. “No angels,” said Piccard. Colonel Louis Howe. When President Roosevelt takes his place at the White House he will have as his right-hand man Mr Louis Howe, who became “Colonel” Howe by being given a post in the Kentucky militia the other day. Colonel Howe has been called “the man nobody knows.” He is discretion itself, he is the President’s constant companion and he is deviled to the second Roosevelt to hold the highest office in the United States. Their association really goes back to 19W when Colonel Howe eyed • youthful Roosevelt, and said “That oinig fellow is presidential timber.” Since then the Colonel has been secretary, personal assistant, speech writer, arranger, persuader campaigner, and planner lor tho President, embarking on a tight which led to the great tiiumph of the last election. Though he is universally referred to as “Colonel Howe” because of the office conferred upon him by Governor Laffoon, the “Colonel’’ thinks the title is silly and thus has earned for himself a name for surpassing modesty. As a boy he worked for tho “Saratoga Herald” and later was a correspondent for the “New York Herald.” Later he was secretary to the National Crime Commission, and after 1920 when President Roosevelt rag for VTee-Preßideat st the

United States and was defeated, Colo- I nel Howe attached himself to tne for- I tunes of the rising young politician. Of that defeat Howe said that “it was I just as well, that Roosevelt was a young man and that a low more years I would be enough to have him elected President.” After that, of course, I came the President’s long illness, and the threat of retirement. But he le- I turned to the arena and with him came I : Howe. The Colonel knew how to manage a campaign for the Presidency, and it was by liis choice that the big, genial “Jim” Earley was appointed campaign manager and given the post which lie filled with such distinction. Sir George Schuster. Sir George Schuster, who delivered a statement on the finances of India last week, is now Finance Member of the Viceroy s Executive Council, but used to hold a novel posi. tion. This was the office of economic and financial adviser to the British Government on the whole question of colonial development. Sir George

came to this position from another important post, that of Financial Secretary to the Government of the Sudan, where he initiated several commercial and municipal undertakings and some highly important irrigation projects which will transform the Sudan into a garden of the Mediterranean. It was arranged when Sir George took over his new appointment at the Colonial Office that he should bo at liberty to undertake private work, and that ho

should continue to act as consultant to the Sudan Government. Sir George was born in 1.881, and after education at Charterhouse and Oxford he graduated brilliantly, ami became a member of the law firm of Schuster, Son, and Company, where ho remained from 1906 to 1914. Dur. ing this time ho became a director in numerous companies, and then served in the European War with the Queen’s Own Oxfordshire Hussars, and was ell the staff in France, and in 1919 became Assistant Adjutant and Quarter-master-General of the Murmansk Force, being mentioned in dispatches four times, and awarded the M.C., the C.8.E., and the Order of St. Vladimir. In 1920 he travelled Central Europe to report on economic conditions lor the Anglo-Danubian Association and in the following year was appointed chief assistant to the Organiser of International Credits under the League of Nations, He has also been chairman of the Advisory Committee to the Colonial Secretary on East African loans. In 1922 he became Financial Secretary to the Sudan Governments, and in 1927 it was announced that he would relinquish that responsible position at the end of the year and return to London for good. Mr. James A. Farley. ,

The new Postmaster-General of the United States, Mr. James A. Earley (“Big Jim”), is not only the liead of the New York Boxing Commission—lie is the building materials Tsar of New York. If you wish to erect a building in New York City you must use Farley bricks, Farley cement, Farley plaster, and Farley terracotta, if you are wise. Farley is the man who directed the Roosevelt campaign for the Presidency, and has been directing tho Camera campaign for the world’s heavyweight championship. In the past lie operated the Roosevelt boom for the State Governorship and the Schmcling boom for the heavyweight title. The secret of it all, according to Mr Farley, is personal contacting. He appoints Magistrates, makes champions, and creates Grand Exalted Rulers of the Order of Elks because he has grown to know many thousands of his fellow-citizens. “He is probably America’s fastest contacter, ” wrote a journalist when describing him in “The New Yorker.”

“Last summer he contacted the leading Democrats ia nineteen States in twenty days on a tour for Franklin D. Roosevelt. It is a higher education in contacting to see Big Jim contacting a crowded hotel lobby at a convention. One corner of his mouth asks the man on his left about the wife, the kiddles, and dear old Aunt Anti; the other corner asks the man on the right for tho low-down on the patronage situation in Oswego; the centre tells the boys that Tuffy Griffiths is looking better and may do a come-back; the Farley arms encircle important shoulders anil the Farley paws smite influential backs; the Farley teeth flash greeting from the middle distance, and the Farley eyebrows wig-wag messages into the background. In two minutes he has the entire hotel lobby contacted and recontacted. He is said to have more personal friends than any other man in New York except Al Smith and Louis Wiley.” Mr. Farley rose by industry and complimentary tickets. Hard work established him at the age of thirty-five as the most active Democrat in the State and a fine salesman; complimentary tickets have established him at the ago of forty-three as one of the, most thoughtful of politicians and prominent voung industrial leaders in tho country. As chairman of the State Boxing Commission he has been the source of a shower of tickets to his thousands of friends. His rise to the chairmanship of the Boxing Commission is typical. When he was appointed Mr.’ George E. Brower was chairman of the commission, and was under the impression that he was permanent chairman. In less than a year Farley had supplanted him. Brower, who had been absent from the meeting which had appointed the new chairman, did not understand. “We’re rotating the chairmanship,” Farley explained to him. The following year Farley was re-elected. “I thought we were rotating the chairmanship,” said Brower. “We stopped rotating it,” explained Farley.