Monday, January 9, 2012

Prince Paul is in Chicago, "unroyal, free and glad"

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 January 10, 1926

Prince Paul of Greece is staying in Suite 407-9 at Chicago's Blackstone Hotel, having arrived tonight from New York City.  The 24-year-old prince met with reporters at the hotel, reports the Chicago Daily Tribune.

Leaning across the dresser in his room, the 6 feet 2 inches tall prince, "crossed his fee, grinned boyishly," and "gazed amusingly through a highly polished monocle, immovably gripped over his right eye."

"You know as much about conditions in Greece as I do," the prince said. 

He speaks flawless English with a Greek-English accent.  He graduated from Britain's naval academy.

"One thing is certain: the steps we had planned toward moving the body of my father, the late King Constantine, from Florence, Italy, to a final and formal resting place in Athens have been dropped for the present.

"Indeed, as things seem to be over there now, none of us, the quick or the dead, will ever return to my country."

Prince Paul, third son of the late King Constantine and his German wife, Sophie, has been in the United States for four months.

"Most of the time I have spent with my cousin, Mrs. William B. Leeds, the former Princess Xenia, and her husband on Long Island.  I have made several visits to eastern cities."

A reporter asked:  "Have you been impressed by our prohibition law?" 

Prince Paul, who "seemed indifferent" to what he was called -- Master Paul or your royal highness -- thought for a few minutes before responding. 

"I've been impressed to this extent, that there seems to be all the liquor that one wants to find everywhere one goes.  I don't drink, but if I did I'd have as little trouble getting it in America as in England."

In answer to another question, Prince Paul said he was not "seeking a marketable appraisal of his title in the marriage mart."  He also chose not to make the "usual bromidic alien applesauce" about the "feminine marvels" of American girls.

He did "discuss with anticipatory pleasure" the places he will visit in Chicago, before returning to the Leeds home next week.  He "seemed eager" to meet with seventy-five Greeks who waited for him in the hotel's reception hall.

Tomorrow, Prince Paul will attend a memorial service for his father at Holy Trinity Church.  The service was conducted by the Hellenic National Union of Chicago.

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