Parley Preparations

Backstage bumpings and thumpings in Washington last week betokened the setting of the scene for U. S. participation in the London Five Power Parley next January. While official performers ran back and forth adjusting their make-up and learning their lines, President Hoover appeared before the curtain on Armistice Day to utter a prolog at the Washington Auditorium.

Stimson's Studies. Secretary of State Henry Lewis Stimson completed a three-week "instruction course" which qualified him as a naval expert for the London conference. His teachers, admirals of the Navy's General Board, called one after another at his office to give lessons in naval equipment, strategy, statistics. It was announced that as a lover of peace, not as a pacifist, would Statesman Stimson lead the U. S. delegation to London.

Cotton's Boast. The State Department has been working cooperatively with the Navy in an effort to attain specific agreements as to the Navy's needs. Representing the State Department has been Undersecretary Joseph Potter Cotton, onetime Manhattan lawyer. Out of these State-Navy conferences last week came this story: Undersecretary Cotton, impatient with the Navy's attitude on cruiser design and gun effectiveness, remarked across the council table: "If I could not design a cruiser with six-inch guns that could whip a cruiser with eight-inch guns, I'd go and jump out of the window." Bang went the fist of Secretary of the Navy Charles Francis Adams upon the council table. "Then go jump now!" he barked.

Diplomat Dawes. Upon the backstage scene appeared Charles Gates Dawes, Ambassador to the Court of St. James's. London had altered his standardized attire: a batwing collar replaced the well-known high turndown with V-opening; in place of the famed, florid hand-sewn neckties made by an old friend of his mother, now deceased, was a typically British cravat. He explained: "I've an alibi now. I'm a diplomat."

A two-night White House guest, General Dawes conferred with President Hoover on the forthcoming conference, reported on the negotiations which led to the U. S. visit of Prime Minister MacDonald. Many a complex angle of sea power was carefully canvassed by the chief executive and his No. 1 diplomat.

The latest quirk in the problem cropped up last week in Paris when French Senator Henry de Mery arose to comment on the proposed. duPont-financed seadromes of Inventor Edward R. Armstrong (TIME. Oct. 28). Senator de Mery urged the French delegation to the London parley to bring up this matter in connection with U. S. naval strength, warning that otherwise "just outside our territorial waters we will someday likely see islands appear flying the Star-Spangled Banner."

State Department attaches had long been wondering whether any complaint would be made to Ambassador Dawes about the excessive costliness of his cable messages from London. On diplomatic business the Ambassador has been anything but brief and $400 messages from him to Washington have not been rare. If Statesman Stimson had any intention of suggesting that Ambassador Dawes economize on cable tolls, he put it aside when the Ambassador, all geniality, asked him to put up at the U. S. embassy during the London conference. Arm-in-arm they went off to Woodley, the Stimson estate, for luncheon. Secretary Stimson repeating to all-comers: "It is always such a joy to see General Dawes."