PROBLEM OF CURTSY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19758, 12 October 1938, Page 5

PROBLEM OF CURTSY

WASHINGTON INTRIGUED POSSIBLE ROYAL VISIT WIFE OF U.S. PRESIDENT (Klcc. Tel. Copyright—United Press Assn.) (Reed. Oct. 12, 9 a.m.) WASHINGTON, Oct. 11. . If the King and Queen of England visit White House, should Mrs. Roosevelt, the wife of the President of the United States, curtsy to the royal visitors?

However flimsy may be the foundation of ine report of the impending visit, this is the question of tne hour for society here.

Interrogated during a press confer, ence Mrs. Roosevelt said she knew nothing concerning the proposed visit and nothing regarding the etiquette of entertaining royalty. "I guess I would do whatever the protocol division of the State Department instructs me," she said.

Protocol experts declined to rule on the question until it is officially presented, but the correspondent of the New York Herald-Tribune reported that the consensus of opinion was that customary American forms of social greeting would be the thing instead of the curtsy.

The fact that Madame Lebrun, the wife of the President of France, curtsied on the occasion of the recent visit of the King and Queen to Paris, is not regarded as establishing a precedent. Most experts hold that the wife of the president of the United States is equal in rank to the heads of other Governments.