Budgetmen

From a Brooklyn pier one day last week steamed away the S. S. Coamo, Porto Rico-bound. Aboard her were eleven men who composed a commission going to Santo Domingo to establish a budget system in that little republic.* Chief Budgetman was Charles Gates Dawes, first U. S. Budget Director (1921-22). To limit expenses, most of the Commissioners paid their own bills. Santo Domingo will be billed only $10,000 for the job, which will require from three to six weeks. No Commissioner took a golf club, fishing tackle or a valet. Work, not play, was ahead of them. Budgetman Dawes, in fine fettle, wore a brown striped suit, a brown hat. The smell of his pipe led all visitors directly to his cabin. That newspapers kept referring to his nephew, Rufus C. Beach, Chicago attorney now on the Dominican Commission, as "Rupert Peach" caused him vast amusement. Questions ("Did you convert Marshal Foch from cigarets to a pipe?" "Will you be the next ambassador to Great Britain?") he parried with a gruff "Nothing doing."

*Santo Domingo (pop. 900,000) and Haiti share the same island, named Hispaniola (Little Spain) by Columbus in 1492. Here the Santa Maria grounded, was abandoned.