Tribune
Dei Moines, Iowa
JUN1 194.
Getting Around
Wk. TED ASHBY
knocK"yofi with it—I
noon at th
tith a ccllarfu) of dough an* tal background (New York, New-id m like that there) that would _, off—and a nice guy along >ent frn hour or so Monday after-
____-. -..e WAC training center. Fort D*s
! Moines. He did not l^nlto his fags with bill* of large denomination.
• • •
HtS ONLY DISPLAY of financial security was the retaining of the taxlcab in which he arrived for a tour of the i training center. And he did that chiefly because It was raining. , * * *
/•pHE VISITOR was Cornelius Vanderbllt. I J_ Jr.. who seldom has adhered to thfl aristocratic pattern of life into which he was Born 45 years ago. In fact, Cornelius has not infrequently thumbed his Inose and waved good-by to America's "four hundred." Once he wrote a book that •ibbed the (one word censored) out of the Fifth Avenue set.
• • •
CDRNKLIUS did no big- | shotting around Col. I Frank U. McCoskrie'i acreage. He impressed | everyone who met him as VANDE|(BlLT being as common as an old shoe. Come to think of It, an old shoe now has gained considerable social standing, and may enjoy having ft Vflndcrbllt be as common as It. The "Bad Boy of Fifth Avenue."' who now has been a newspaperman 25 years, visited the training center as a representative of the New York Post and Bell Syndicate.
o o o
HE CAME to get an overall picture of WAC life. And he was visibly impressed with a number of things, including the extreme cleanliness of the entire center and its buildings. He visited the .motor pool and expressed real amazement | at the vehicle-repair and convoy maneuvers in which the WaCs engage. Vanderbxlt was Gen. John Pershing's chauffeur in France during the first world war.
THE FLYING TRIP on which the WAC training center was a "must" stop has taken 12 pounds from Vanderbllts aristocratic carcass. He disclosed that he always sleeps in an upper berth. Don't know where he got his figures (he seemed positive of them, though), but he announced that the upper berth is two inches wider and three inches longer than the lower. And he said there is more air space up there. He even named the exact amount.
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VANDERBILT, who once interviewed Stalin, Hitler, the late Chamberlain and some other terrific shot in a single week, also visited the consolidated mess halt at the training center. A few cooks, who didn't know him from a load of Idaho potatoes, looked up a second or two and went back to sharpening their knives.
* • •
ONLY PERSON who got any headaches from Vanderbilt's visit was the guy who drove the cab. Until late in the tour, he had no idea who he was hauling. Not Infrequently he glanced nervously over at the meter, which was running Into rather significant money. A light that never had been there before dawned in his eyes when he learned the nice man in the rear seat was Cornelius Vandcrbilt, jr.
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THE DRIVER listened eagerly for a chance to bust into the conversation. Finally it came. Vanderbllt made the statement that he understood "Fort Dodge" would be closed July 1, "It ain't Fort Dodge," the cabbie hastened to interject, "ifo Camp Dodge." Then he lapsed into , a blissful silence, satisfied that he, a cab/ driver, had corrected a Vanderbllt. /
