Excerpt from Weekly Articles Volume 6 The Roosevelt Years, 1933-1935:

A CHILD AND A ROYAL WEDDING

Well all I know is just what I read in the papers. I just picked up a last Sunday's paper, last Sunday mind you, and I was surprised to see the things in it that are still hanging on. There was a lot of comment then about the Vanderbilt child, and there is yet. Can you imagine the child coming home from one place to t he other and then the so called subtle questions, "Have a good time dear. You dident have as good time as you do here did you? I bet it feels good to you to be back home don't it?"

Why say, the poor kid will be so showered with attentions, one trying to outdo the other. But the judge said that was the way, and he knows best. Never dispute the baseball umpire, the movie director, or the judge.

Well here in last Sunday's paper was Japan and dissarmament. It's been a week now, and not a thing has been settled. Japan says we want this, America says you can't have that. England sits there and plays both ends against the middle. When I was in Japan and Manchuria away last summer they all said that Japan was just trying to make an alliance with England. That is fix so that whatever she, (Japan) might start, they could count that England while not maby actively agreeing to help her, she would at least not help the other side. Like the old negro story, if you can't hep me for God sake don't you help that bear. And that case they meant that bear too, that Russian bear. Or that eagle. Well England can tie up with Japan if she wants to if she thinks she would rather have Japan in her corner than us. She has had us in her corner once, and maby she thinks she can do better with somebody else the next time. Maby we was a dissapointment.

Well that's any nation's privalege, and this is new signing up time. Everybody is a free lance now, and can hustle out and do the best they can in the new alliances. You will find England using mighty good judgement. She has men that are trained from the cradle up to do nothing only study what to do when a situation arises. Some guy is not a high place there just because he dug up $50,000 for the campaign. He is attending conferences because he knows something, not because he has something. And I don't think they will throw us over any too quick. Maby we are not all that could be desired, but we will do till something better come along.

Course the big wedding in England was big news and the paper was full of what was happening Well it's still full of it. King Carol was pretty sore on account of not receiving an invite. They picked all around him, but muffed him. Well I don't know, but I think that was a sort of dirty dig. He is not a bad sort of a fellow from what they all say over there in his own country, and he is doing a pretty good job. You see he is not so fortunate as the King of England. Carol has to think of what to do and say himself. His power is more than just social. Say he is right in the heat of things. Course the English plan is the best, like a lot of their plans are the best. They have a great king, and a great royal family all the way through, and they know just what they are to do, and they do it, and no more.

I imagine that it is the best of systems. It must be for it's worked for many years. There is a great loyalty, and great devotion over there, and it's never been misstreated by the receivers. There is not a well trained servant in England that knows his place any more than royalty does in England. They would no more monkey with affairs of state than an English butler would monkey with slang. But old Carol he has to double in brass. He has to do the whole thing himself, and dodge bulletts in between. Then too he would have been a big drawing card at the wedding. He would have been a hit with the ladies anyhow.

Well it must be a mess telling who to invite in a situation like that. I bet you there has been times when the King and Queen of England wishes that the couple had run off to a Justice of the peace and got married and saved all this trouble and worry. Either that or just invited everybody, and just served a box lunch.

Do you know I read what this was going to cost them. It was not less than $100,000. And they (the King and Queen) have to pay it themselvs. If it was the Prince of Wales, or the oldest daughter, why the government would have to pay it, but for these third and fourth sons, why they have to get them off themslvs.4 They say they don't like for them to marry a "Commoner" but I bet you they wish he had, a wedding to a "Commoner," why they don't rate very high in the social order. Then the commoner has generally got the money, so that helps. But it is a wonderful match. He seems a fine boy, and her a lovely girl, a fine wholesom type of girl. It's one of those things where there is lots of money spent, but it's distributed all over the country, and a wedding is a thing that appeals to everybody, we all heartily approve of it, and wish them a long and useful life.