''Delighted"

Through the double glass doors of the White House, past the expressionless Negro footmen, into the ultimate social sanctum of the land, there passed one afternoon last week a slender, middle-aged invited guest wearing an afternoon dress of capri blue chiffon, a grey coat trimmed in moleskin, a small grey hat, moonlight grey hose, snakeskin slippers. She was well pleased to be there; to be greeted by the First Lady; to see Mrs. Good, the Secretary of War's wife, pouring the tea, and Mrs. Attorney-General Mitchell conversing politely. Also present were a Mrs. Bacon, a Mrs. Kelly, a Mrs. Free, whose husbands are U. S. Representatives from New York, Pennsylvania and California, respectively, and many another lady of Washington's officialdom. The guest in the blue chiffon gown with moonlight hose and snakeskin slippers was glad to meet them all because she felt that she belonged among them. She was Mrs. Oscar De Priest, the wife of a new U. S. Representative from Illinois. Mrs. De Priest's husband is the first Negro to sit in Congress since 1900. She was the first U. S. member of their race to be entertained in the White House proper since Oct. 18, 1901, when President Roosevelt had the late Booker T. Washington at his luncheon table.* After that occasion there was such a socio-political commotion that President Roosevelt thought it best to explain that Booker T. Washington had called while the President was just finishing his lunch and had been invited into the dining room "to save time." No such aftermath followed Mrs. De Priest's visit. In fact, almost before Washington started buzzing this time, George Akerson, the President's Secretary, issued a statement saying:

"All the wives and families of all members of the Senate and House have been invited to call at the White House for a series of teas given by Mrs. Hoover. No names whatsoever have been omitted.'' Negro Congressman De Priest was thoroughly pleased. Said he: "I am delighted beyond measure at the fine social contacts my wife was able to make at the White House. . . . She greatly enjoyed herself and is greatly delighted." By no means everyone in Washington was delighted, however, and though the Akerson statement closed the matter so far as the Hoovers were concerned, it did not silence the capital's buzzings, which contained a deep political undertone.

Senator Caraway of Arkansas had a newsstory of the affair read into the Congressional Record, refraining carefully, save for a characteristic wrinkling of his nose, from any comment. But South Carolina's Senator Blease blurted: "Didn't I warn my audiences in the South in the last campaign that this would happen, if Hoover should be elected? ... I told them Negroes would be eating in the White House next!" Other Southern Senators, including Texas' Sheppard, Alabama's Heflin, Mississippi's Harrison, "deplored" the event, viewed it as a "recognition of social equality," warned of "infinite danger to our white civilization." In Maryland, a Negro-problem State which voted for Hoover in 1928, the leading daily (Baltimore Sun, Democratic) carried a long front page story in which Correspondent J. Fred Essary took pains to mention that Mrs. De Priest had arrived early, stayed late, enjoyed herself hugely; and that Congressman De Priest differed greatly from William H. Lewis of Boston, the Negro Taft-time Assistant Attorney-General, who invariably declined invitations to the functions of white Washington officialdom. In Texas, a Negro-subjugating State which voted for Hoover in 1928, the one woman in the State Senate, Miss Margie Neal, got up, offered a resolution, declared:

"Mrs. Hoover has violated the most sacred social custom of the White House, and this should be condemned."

The State Senate adopted, 26 votes to 2, her resolution which said: "We bow our heads in shame and regret and express in the strongest and most emphatic terms our condemnation and humiliation of said conduct ... on the part of the mistress of the White House and her associates."

The two voters against the resolution were Senators Thomas Love and Julien Hyer, "Hoovercrats" who helped to turn the State Republican last year. When Senator T. J. Holbrook used the phrase "political nigger lovers" in denouncing Mrs. De Priest's visit to the White House, Senator Love rushed at him savagely, shouting: "Any man who says the 300,000 Texans who voted for Hoover are nigger-lovers has the word LIAR branded across his brow." In Florida, another Negro-subjugating state that voted for Hoover, a resolution was passed, 71 to 13, in the state house, condemning "certain social policies of the administration. . . ." In presenting it, Representative Way, Democrat, said: "The State of Florida has been betrayed "

*Many a U. S. Negro is received at the White House executive office. And of course foreign Negroes--officials from Liberia, Abyssinia, Haiti --present their credentials in the Blue Room.