Peasant at the Creation: Some Highlights of an Eventful Life as if Told by Mr. Acheson

Abstract

The offer to join the University of California faculty came soon after the New Year, when we had returned to Middletown, Connecticut, after our trip to Washington, D.C., recounted in the last chapter, where we renewed our life-long friendship with my mother, Edythe Polsby (later Mrs. H. X. Salzberger), the well-known capital hostess and short-order cook.My wife had a slight cold, and so did not join me for the evening at the home of our neighbor, Professor Clement E. Vose, then Chairman of the Wesleyan University Department of Government. Vose was a sparkling raconteur and wit, a fact not known to many people. In consequence they were often puzzled by his conversation. He was in rare form that evening, no doubt stimulated by the presence of several of the wives of the younger faculty, and also by the guest of honor, Professor Samuel Krislov of the University of Minnesota, then on leave and teaching at Columbia. Vose described in detail the process by which he had acquired knowledge of efforts to repeal the 18th Amendment, and this in turn led naturally to a series of toasts to the memories of Messrs. Joseph Choate, John W. Davis, Harrison Tweed, and so on, all of whom had been in the forefront of that important movement.