Cornelia Pinchot only entertains the “intellectuals,” and they are legion in Washington. Where you find an intellectual in the District you will probably find a Red. Mrs. Pinchot does not know it, but the Commies have taken the elderly hostess over and are making hay with her name.
She lives in a Gay Nineties mansion on Scott Circle, where she often throws parties for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, attended by white and colored college professors, pansies and political economists. Mrs. Pinchot looks her age, though her hair is dyed the most amazing shade of carrot-red.
Mrs. Robert Low Bacon, the hostess of the Republican intellectuals, rarely hits the gossip columns. Even Evie Robert and her mother, Mrs. Helen Walker, have been dormant for years. Evie, the wife of “Chip” Robert, a brilliant political wire-puller, does not and never did give parties for social advantage. They were to advance the political prospects of her husband.
Today’s Washington Society has no class levels. All you need is dough and the urge and the energy to spend it on freeloaders. If you can snag more important political people to your parties in any one calendar season, from October to May, than your neighbor, you are Number 1 social leader, regardless of whether you wore shoes before you were twenty.
Perle Mesta, a determined hostess who was lucky enough to have been gracious to Harry Truman when he was a secondary Senator from Missouri, is living proof of the potency of the Washington cocktail party. Her reward was the appointment as Minister to Luxembourg.
But Mrs. Mesta is by no means the only social climber in Washington, though she is and was the most publicized.
We would like to tell you about Mrs. Gussie (Gushie) Goodwin, formerly a Chicagoan. She is the wife of Federal Judge Clarence Norton Goodwin, who sentenced Harry Bridges in the Communist leader’s first round before the courts. They were friends of the Woodrow Wilsons, which gave them some kind of claim to social standing. Meanwhile, Judge Goodwin started to go deaf, which handicapped him as a social figure. Gussie’s star was setting.
Then came a turn to her fortunes. She met a charming Latin gentleman, Ramon Ramos, at a cocktail melee. He was a professor of Spanish. Gussie got an inspiration. She was going to cement Latin-American relations and her own social relations. She started a private class. Her little study group met once a week at her home. During the first year, there were eight women in it, each of whom chipped in a buck towards the professor’s fee.
Gussie began calling the wives of the more important officials and Senators, and invited them to join her group. She was very careful to see that it was equally divided between Republicans and Democrats. One of the ladies who gladly became a member was the wife of Senator Harry Truman. After the Trumans succeeded to the White House, the Secret Service wouldn’t allow Mrs. Truman to go to the lessons at Gussie’s house, so all the meetings were moved to the White House, though Gussie continued to be its leading spirit. Mrs. Goodwin was very offish. When Dean Acheson resigned as Undersecretary of State, his wife was not asked back.
Meanwhile, Professor Ramos showed he had hidden talents. His hobby is cooking. The ladies were charmed. So an extra feature was added. Each week the program was expanded to include a luncheon, held at a different woman’s house. The Professor masterminded the menu, while the ladies did the cooking and waited on the others. Mrs. Truman came to these parties and pitched in with the work. The luncheons were run on a Dutch treat basis, and each woman continued to pay her dollar fee per lesson.