OCTOBER 9, 1935-Hull Calls Spade by Nicer Name, but We Know What He Means
THE WASHINGTON DAILY NEWS — WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1935
Hull Calls Spade by Nicer Name, but We Know What He Means
By ERNIE PYLE
The big door of his office opens, and out walks Secretary of State Cordell Hull, into the big ante-room, with its fireplace and paintings of former secretaries.
He walks about five paces over to a big table in the center of the room. He stops behind a great high-backed chair at the end of the table, takes off his glasses and hooks them over the thumb of his right hand, then crosses his arms over the top of the chair back, and starts talking. He does it exactly this way every day.
At present he talks mostly about the war situation in Africa. The average American wouldn’t get very much out of what he is saying, for he talks in the devious, padded language of the international diplomat, in which you never, under any circumstances, call a spade a spade.
Fortunately for the public, he talks to about 30 newspapermen who know how to interpret what Hull says, or just as often what he doesn’t say, into reading matter that can be understood.
I went to Secretary Hull’s daily press conference the day before the U.S. declared its arms embargo against Italy and Ethiopia.
Hull talked, and answered questions, for some 15 minutes. All I could get out of the conference was that “we are watching the situation.” And yet the State Department reporters, long-trained in background and innuendo and omission, were able to write a whole column of war news from it.
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Secretary Hull is a handsome man. He is tall and straight. His thin hair is white and parted on the side. He was 64 just the day before I saw him, yet he does not look old. He is dignified, but human looking.
He wore a gray suit, with a pin-stripe; white shirt and blue tie. He speaks in a low, distinct, calm voice. There is no informality about the conference, he calls none of the reporters by name, they are respectful in their questions, and yet, even tho all language is couched in generalities, there somehow seems to be no artificiality about the get-together. Also there was no drama about it, no war-tension atmosphere.
Secretary Hull is the only Cabinet member who talks to the newspapermen every day. And sometimes, when things are hot, he sees them twice a day.
He always stands up thruout the conference. The reporters stand up, too, grouped around the table. At Hull’s right stands Michael McDermott, white-haired veteran press chief of the State Department.
Hull frequently hands a report of some kind to McDermott, and says to the reporters, “Mr. McBride will give you this after the conference.” Hull’s assistant is named McBride, and he is always getting him confused with McDermott.
Hull gives no indication of knowing any of the reporters personally, and yet he does know them all, and occasionally makes some remark when they come back from vacations.
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Tho some of the State Department reporters get a little annoyed now and then with Hull’s diplomatic generalities, nearly all of them like him and consider him a good Secretary of State. And even tho vague, they consider him honest with newspapermen, which is more than they could say for some of his predecessors.
They say one thing about him, that he never refuses to say something in reply to a question, as many Cabinet officers do. He may not give you the answer, but he talks in reply just the same.
It is only occasionally that a reporter gets “tough” and shoots insistent questions at Hull. And then the Secretary seems to enjoy it. He is, of course, a veteran of the more rough-and-tumble journalism of the House and Senate, where reporters often say to senators just what they think. And it is probable that this soft-gloved, smooth-tongued conversation of the State Department sometimes wearies him, and he welcomes a verbal joust with a reporter who talks straight.
One day, right in the middle of a sentence during his press conference, Hull happened to glance over at a bust on a pedestal along the wall. He stopped and, looking at it, said to a reporter, “Who’s that?” One of the others told him it was Brand Whitlock. Hull said, “Oh,” and went right ahead talking where he had left off.
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