◆ SpookStack

The Churehills and Roosevelts, t has been dawning and dawning upon moralists and| historians that many prominent and seemly people come from the most unpromising sources, and vice versa. ' The Churchill Kids and the Roosevelts, with one ee © ee eras eaten eee ee won eee | ceeds ee €xcepuon, passea on their Way cown. 690 Geiawiy brats of the carnivals and vaudeville on thelr way up. To be sure, the Hovick sisters, children of @% reporter in Seattle, may have sprung from remoter forebears of noble quality if obscure status. Sir Win- _ston, himself, actually came from a sorry family whose principal virtue down to his own career Was not honor nor even decency but mere success. i . ‘The Roosevelts had bad “blood,” including spec- tacular drunkards and fence-jumpers. ‘ The annals of royalty and aristocracy are not ‘alwave sweeter than those of the lowly mother who thrust Gypsy Rose Lee into strange renown achieved without sacrifice of virtue by dropping her shoulder straps and then her gown to stand briefly in the lunar glow of the spotlight. ‘prank? ; Philip of England found Sinatra in a crowded room in Hollywood with Leo Durccner, Alien Smiley, Buggsy Siegel and other such knighthood and the consort was so impressed that to cultivate ‘his catch he invited Frank and Ava to a command performance for the Queen in London. — Song Hardiy Deserved Sach Homer Noel Coward shook his head. Yes, yes: these were havdly the sort who deserved such honor hy ancien standards. But Scolland Yard and the FBI cod ‘and the Foreign Offices undoubtedly knew the * So objections must have been raised—and waived-—- Sead and who was he, though a Briton and a patriot, to cry “come, come!” | ' And, anyway, there had ‘been Edward, Prince of Wales, a remarkably lively man, and, on the con- finent, a whole roster of royal roosters whose #c- tivities were still honored tradition in certain premises in Paris.and Vienna not devoted to statesmanship ‘or culture in the best sense of the term. a . tt is not for me to argue whether Clare Luce was. @ good ambassador, . but the fact remains that she Pi? a) ae ee a ae a) es petit Make Ambassador in Rome on an cducation so meagre as barely to qualify as education at all after a childhood little to be desired over that of the Hovick sisters, , “Lhardly know what to pay I expected. ' Not that Gypsy would undress imprompta the patr of tem crack coarse jokes. But ohe es ladies of quality less genteel than the Hovick sisters and infinitely less intelligent. ee Sa _coprrteht. 1959, King Festares Synficste, Jas. aaa ~, ~