Dawes to London

Last week Charles Gates Dawes was defensively preoccupied with the finances of the Dominican Republic. Mulling over matters of revenue, expenditures and interest on foreign loans, he could barely pause long enough to acknowledge publicly the fact that President Hoover had appointed him Ambassador to the Court of St. James's to succeed Alanson Bigelow Houghton, resigned. Congratulatory telegrams which preceded the official message from the State Department he tossed aside impatiently. Newsgatherers finally coaxed this statement from him:

"I am appreciative of the high honor done me and recognize the responsibilities which it involves."

London stirred at the prospect of seeing and hearing this forthright man, so boldly histrionic on the outside, so warm, gentle, shrewd on the inside. The Kansas City Convention had refused to renominate him as Vice President only to have President Hoover recognize his worth in this highest diplomatic appointment.

An ambassador to France still had to be found by President Hoover. The names of General Pershing, Alvan Tufts Fuller, Frederick Henry Prince seemed eliminated. Other names brought forward included New Jersey's Senator Walter Evans Edge, New York's onetime (1915-27) Senator James Wolcott Wadsworth jr., Ohio's automobile-maker John North Willys.