Time - Man of the Year/Time_Man_of_the_Year_Compact_Publishing_3YX-Disc-1_Compact_Publishing_1993.iso/moy/moyfiles/1936moy.001

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                                                                              ╚January 4, 1937

Woman of the Year

Mrs. Wallis Warfield Simpson



     Normally a courageous feminist, Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt
is accustomed to name annually "The Ten Women of the Year." This
week she not only did not name Mrs. Wallis Warfield Simpson as
one of her ten women of 1936 but emphasized her attitude by
announcing that she is not going to name any more women of the
years. In past years Mrs. Catt has named such women as Mrs.
Lindbergh, Miss Perkins, Miss Earhart, with President
Roosevelt's wife heading the list year after year.

     In the entire history of Great Britain there has been only
one voluntary royal abdication and it came about in 1936 solely
because of one woman, Mrs. Simpson. In 1935 she was quite as
intimate with Edward as she was later but he was then only
Prince of Wales, and there was no reason to think she was not
going to remain the wife of Mr. Simpson, just as in the days of
King Edward VII his female intimates generally had husbands and
stayed at Buckingham Palace ostensibly on the invitation of
Queen Alexandra as "her friends." Two years ago Mrs. Simpson was
hardly known as Edward's friend outside the most limited Mayfair
set. Three years ago their friendship was furtive: she would
"just happen" to be in a London nightclub with her own party,
the Prince of Wales would also "just happen" to be there with
his, and an equerry would go over to her table and ask if she
would care to dance with H.R.H.

     Edward of Wales had had many another friend on the same
terms, and Mrs. Simpson was an ordinary divorcee of the
international set, definitely not rich and seldom or never
mentioned in society columns. In the single year 1936 she became
the most-talked-about, written-about, headlined and interest-
compelling person in the world. In these respects no woman in
history has ever equaled Mrs. Simpson, for no press or radio
existed to spread the world news they made.

     In England the news that the King, as King, wanted to marry
Mrs. Simpson was the final culmination of a tide of events
sweeping the United Kingdom out of its cozy past and into a more
or less hectic and "American" future. Against this trend the
spirit of John Bull resolutely set himself, and the flesh was
that of the Rt. Hon. Stanley Baldwin. The Prime Minister
provoked the entire crisis, which otherwise might never have
arisen as a crisis, by making publicly in the House of Commons
the first official statement that King Edward was actually
resolved to marry Mrs. Simpson. This fact had been ascertained
as a "scoop" personally by William Randolph Hearst, but had it
not been made official, Edward VIII might simply have done
nothing until after he was crowned May 12, and then (Mrs.
Simpson having meanwhile obtained her absolute divorce on April
27), His Majesty had only to marry her and she would have been
Queen.

     By turning the course of Britain's history back into its
traditional channel, Stanley Baldwin certainly rose to a stature
equaled by few other candidates for Man of the Year. Indeed so
impressive was his handling of the Simpson Crisis that his
popularity in England reached an all-time high and evoked one
of the most extraordinary gestures of public acclaim ever
accorded to a modern politician; a gift of $10,000,000 to
implement the new era brought about by Mr. Baldwin. (Baron
Nuffield of Morris Motors, "the Henry Ford of Great Britain,"
last week gave $10,000,000 into the hands of three private
trustees "to give practical shape to current expressions of good
will toward King George and at the same time anything I can do
to support the National Government, particularly Prime Minister
Stanley Baldwin." Seated on a platform at Oxford University
recently, plain Lord Nuffield, who grew up in Oxfordshire from
bicycle tinkerer to motors tycoon, was so affected by the
intoxicating words in which Oxonians thanked him for giving
their medical school $6,250,000 that he got to his feet and
cried out he would give Oxford another $3,750,000, explaining
that he did so "on the sudden impulse of the moment." Punch
promptly cartooned Nuffield honking a motor horn from which gold
pieces pour into the inverted mortar-boards of scrambling Oxford
dignitaries.)

   The other three Men of the Year candidates on a par with
Stanley Baldwin would be Franklin Roosevelt, Benito Mussolini
and Chiang Kai-shek. But for all their greatness in achievement
in 1936, a historian on the moon at the end of the current
century could scarcely single out any of these as having put his
mark supremely and uniquely on 1936.

     Mr. Roosevelt's second electorial landslide, while the
greatest in modern U.S. history, was made against weak
opposition and, by its very magnitude, showed him to belong to
the decade, perhaps to the century, not to just one more year.
Moreover, political landslides however great are not compassed
in the U.S. by just one personality and to re-elect Franklin
Roosevelt because the U.S. electorate did would be a gross
injustice to his prophet and political teammate, James Aloysius
Farley.

     Mr. Baldwin's historic triumph at home came only after he
had earned from History some pretty low marks for 1936 in
statesmanship abroad, notably his weak and clumsy handling of
Mussolini. As for that Dictator in 1936, against odds which the
greatest European military experts called "insurmountable" for
a country so comparatively not strong as Italy, he carved out
for himself an Empire in Africa. He gambled on the weakness of
the League of Nations and on Britain being unable to make a
success of Sanctions. Finally, he gambled that the military
experts were wrong. In all three gambles Il Duce won, but
Ethiopia is not a prize so rich that because he won it history
must call him Caesar.

     In Eastern Asia, ten years of butchering Communists and
belaboring local satraps into submission were climaxed in 1936
by Premier & Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek when his China, for
the first time, stopped yielding to Japan's more impossible
demands and adopted a policy which could be called "strong."
Premier Chiang might well gave been Man of the Year had he not,
at the zenith of his prestige, been suddenly kidnapped.

     In 1936 the other Asiatic dictator, Joseph Stalin, gave to
the union of Soviet Socialist Republics "the world's most
democratic constitution" -- except that it is the very reverse
of that, a windy mockery which leaves the Stalin Dictatorship
unimpaired. In France the year brought the first Cabinet headed
by a Socialist that country has ever had, but Premier Leon Blum
and his "New Deal" have brought a series of nationwide strikes
and political headaches. Adolf Hitler in 1936 tore up the last
shreds of the Treaty of Versailles, but Dur Fuhrer has yet to
grapple with an external foe, and his "victories" to date have
nearly all been in Germany's backyard. Insane though the
international butchery in Spain became during 1936, and even
though it may end in another World War, no masterful Man of the
Year had emerged from Spain. Things there were just about as
Punch brilliantly sketched them in terms of Europe's Strong Men
(Mussolini, Franco, Hitler, Eden, Stalin, Largo Caballeri,
Blum).

     In Art, in Music, in Religion and in Science, 1936 was
barren of a Man or Woman of the Year. Typical was Mme. Curie-
Joliot, daughter of the late great discoverer of radium, who
became in 1936 one of the first three women ever to reach French
Cabinet rank. Not one of these proved an outstanding success and
Mme. Curie-Joliot, disgusted with what she saw of politics, soon
resigned. No Einstein Theory shot meteoric across Science's sky,
no deathless melody, canvas, or sculpture won world acclaim.

     In Sport the white Man of the Year was Lou ("Iron Man")
Gehrig who continued his string of consecutive baseball games
played with the New York Yankees to 1,808 in eleven years,
making 49 home runs in 1936, and being again voted "most
valuable player in the American League." Black Man of the Year
was Sprinter Jesse Owens. His Olympic record -- championships
in three individual events, one team event -- has been equaled
only by redskinned Jim Thorpe in 1912 and stamps him Sport's Man
of the Year.

     In her way as unique as Sprinter Owens, Writer Margaret
Mitchell uncorked in 1936 the first first-novel ever to sell a
million copies in six months, Gone With The Wind. Animal of the
Year was the Baby Giant Panda whose mistress calls her Su-lin.
In about the same 1936 class was President Arthur Sherman of
Covered Wagon Co., biggest auto trailerman of the first Auto-
Trailer Year.

     In the Theatre there was only Eugene O'Neill with his 1936
Nobel Prize for work done in other years; in the Cinema only
such as Robert Taylor with his 1936 profile. In Medicine there
was in 1936 the Surgeon General of the U.S. Public Health
Service, Dr. Thomas Parran Jr., the great syphilogist who this
year got syphilis on the radio for the first time. The service
of Dr. Parran in proving to 123,000,000 citizens of the U.S.
that about 12,000,000 of them are gonorrheics, about 6,000,000
syphilitics and that they had all better do something about it
promptly, was indeed a Service of the Year.

     But none of these faintly approached or in any degree
diminished Mrs. Simpson as Woman of the Year, the figure for
whom 1936 will be especially remembered. She was first in the
news; first in the heart of Edward VIII (who during most of 1936
was first in British hearts); first in that historic British
crisis -- moral, emotional, political, religious -- which
aroused all civilization.

     Archbishop's Aftermath. It was chiefly the Church of
England which was damaged, in the very fibre of English
Christian morality, by the open scandal of King Edward and Mrs.
Simpson. Yet there were outcries in the largest London
newspapers last week against kicking the Duke of Windsor and his
presumptive Duchess now that they are down. The Archbishop of
Canterbury who is Primate of All England last week evinced
regret that he had had to do so. The Archbishop of York, who is
Primate of England, made his attack in the form of a pastoral
letter. It was not so much an attack on the Duke of Windsor as
an attack on every man who might do as Edward VIII had done.

     "There is some danger," wrote the Archbishop of York, "that
regret for the loss of the brilliant qualities and sympathy for
a monarch who in critical days was confronted with a most
painful choice, may divert our attention from the fact that the
occasion for this choice ought never to have arisen. The harm
was not done in December or even in October when he announced
his intention of marriage to the Prime Minister, but much
earlier.

     "It has happened to many a man before now to find himself
beginning to fall in love with another man's wife. That is the
moment of critical decision and the right decision is that they
should cease to meet before the passion is so developed as to
create an agonizing conflict between love and duty. That
decision has often been taken by men of honor. And when the
power of personal attraction is reinforced by the glamour of the
throne, the moral obligation is more urgent for that reason.

     "Thirdly, let us remember that any kind of love which can
be in conflict with duty is not the love of which the Gospel
speaks. Love which has its roots on mutual attraction and
passion can be united with love which is the very nature of God
and the best of Christian graces and this takes place in a
multitude of marriages.

     "In the New Year we turn away from a sad, humiliating story
to what we are confident will be a happier future.

     "Let us prepare ourselves to enter into the full meaning
of the Coronation as a rededication of the whole national life
and ourselves as citizens that God may consecrate us alike as
individuals and as a people to His glory and in the service of
mankind.

     "The King and Queen are not yet so widely known as was
Edward the Prince of Wales at this time last year, but they are
sufficiently well known to have earned and won the trust and
affection of their subjects. We have every ground for the
assurance that this trust and affection will become deeper as
the years pass."

     The Archbishop of Canterbury followed on Sunday with a
remarkable broadcast which in effect rebuked himself and the
Archbishop of York for having rehashed the affair of Edward VIII
and Mrs. Simpson and announced it was time that all Britons
stopped making any further reference to it. He then switched
into a furious castigation of Soviet Russia and made this
glancing reference to birth control: "Many regard the rich
results of Science as being all-sufficing. This has brought
about a loosening of the ties of marriage and restraint upon
the impulses of sex. Well may we ask -- 'Whither is this drift
carrying us?'" As the Archbishop of Canterbury was by this time
getting definitely a "bad press," the sagacious Primate of All
England gave a most sumptuous feast to British journalists in
his Lambeth Palace, regaling them with pheasant and choice
wines.

     With unction the Archbishop drew attention to his principal
aphorism on the abdication crisis: "Truly this has been
wonderful proof of the strength and stability of the Throne."

     Career. In London last week, authoritative sources
continued their post-Abdication exploration and disclosure of
the Story of the Year. It became possible to fill in the sort
of life led by King Edward and Mrs. Simpson accurately. Her life
up to Mrs. Simpson's meeting with Edward VIII was
inconsequential to a degree, has never been rehearsed in TIME.
She was born to one of those typical Southern families who all
more or less descend from William the Conqueror, but Wallis
Warfield was not going to spend her life talking about her
family. She resolved early to make men her career, and in 40
years reached the top -- or almost. No man she careered is known
to have said a word not in her praise. Apart from her first
husband Commander Earl Winfield Spencer, U.S.N., and her second
(present) husband Ernest Aldrich Simpson, a London shipbroker,
probably her best friend, next to the Duke of Windsor, remains
the Argentine Ambassador in Washington, Felipe Espil. He, in the
years of which he now speaks was an Argentine bachelor. First
Secretary in Washington. "My, my!" sighed Ambassador Espil to
swank U.S. friends last summer, "who would ever have dreamed
that our little Wallis would ever be where she is now?"

     Mrs. Simpson from the moment King George V died, began to
"help" infatuated King Edward VIII, according to her lights. She
helped him to spend thousands of guineas royally, imperially,
wildly; and she helped him to pinch pennies, convincing His
Majesty that in housekeeping she is most economical. Together
they cruised the Balkans in one of the world's costliest yachts,
they ransacked Cartier's in Paris for diadems, in October they
picked out the ermine skins recently made up in London for Mrs.
Simpson's Christmas. Simultaneously she caught His Majesty's
servants spending too much for things like bath soap and King
Edward sacked retainers right and left on her lightest say-so.

     It was established last week that Edward VIII, a few hours
before reading his Abdication broadcast, asked his three closest
remaining attendants to accompany him to Austria, and they all
gave the Duke quiet, steady-eyed refusals. He personal private
secretary of 15 years, Sir Godfrey Thomas, an astute Welshman
with a standing (and perhaps a future) in the British diplomatic
service, simply "vanished." His personal bodyguard, Chief
Inspector David Storier, vainly tried at Scotland Yard to get
let off from guarding the Duke of Windsor. Both Mrs. Simpson
and the Duke separately tried to retain the services of
Chauffeur George Stabley Ladbrooke (who last winter persuaded
the King to buy Buicks, although Mrs. Simpson had originally
wanted Packards), but Chauffeur Ladbrooke had had enough. The
same applied to distinguished Major Hon. Alexander Hardinge,
the anti-Simpsonite who Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin forced
upon King Edward as Private Secretary in the early days of the
reign and later caused to be made a Privy Councillor. Last week
exhausted Major Hardinge was beginning a three-months rest,
before returning to be Private Secretary to King George VI. Back
in Buckingham Palace to the joy of all concerned was good and
great Lord Wigram, for 25 years private secretary to King George
V. Lord Wigram will get the Royal Household back on its Georgian
legs, then turn over to Major Hardinge, remaining available as
Lord-in-Waiting.

     The Duke & Mrs. Simpson. It was an achievement last week
that Mrs. Simpson was able for the first time to go shopping in
Cannes without causing a crowd to collect. She ate her Christmas
dinner not in the villa of her friends Mr. and Mrs. Herman
Livingston Rogers but with her famed chaperon Aunt Bessie in a
Cannes hotel. Greatest ambition of the Woman of the Year seemed
to be to drop from world publicity's most glaring spotlight to
utter oblivion, the perfect 1937 exit for the Woman of 1936.

     At the Rothschild castle in Austria, the Duke of Windsor
cheerily engaged a staff of body servants from local applicants.
Strangest post-abdication event was when the Duke, hitherto
notorious as Edward of Wales and as King Edward for his chronic
absence from church, suddenly drove in on Sunday to the English
Church of Vienna. He chatted at the door with U.S. Minister to
Austria George Messersmith and wife, invited them to luncheon,
but they had a previous engagement. Then, like abdicated Kaiser
Wilhelm II who incessantly takes part in divine service at
Doorn, abdicated King Edward VIII went to the lectern and in a
clear, ringing voice read the second Scripture Lesson. It was
about Biblical David (Luke II, 1-20), and the Duke has always
been called David in his own family. This performance was taken
to be a retort pious to the Archbishops of England and a
clincher on the pastor of Vienna's English Church, Rev. Dr.
C.D.H. Grimes, to perform the wedding of David Windsor some time
next spring to the Woman of 1936.