Speaker tJt Woman,a · Club Tells About J · 1 F~utAlo~ementL-----------------~ On Club Program Garden Club Tells · of Plans for Show Wilmette Garden Club to Participate in Second Annual Garden and Flower Show (Contributed by Wilmette Garden Club) At the luncheon given Thursday, January 12, by John A. Servas at the Hotel Sherman to the presidents of the forty-five garden clubs in Illinois and to the board of the Garden Club of Illinois, Mrs. W. G. Mitchell, president of the Wilmette Garden club, and Mrs. C. D. Ewer, recording secretary of the Garden Club of Illinois, were present from Wilmette. One third· of the forty-five clubs have joined the state garden club since April 12, 1927, when it was founded, the others are charter members. The garden club movement is growing rapidly. Mr. Servas, a talented north shore artist, is the manager of the Chicago Garden and Flower show, which will hold its second annual exhibit March 24-April 1, at the Hotel Sherman. Mrs. Frederick Fisher of Lake Bluff, president of the Garden Club of Illinois, had charge of the meeting following the luncheon, during which the part that the garden clubs will play in this season's exhibit was discussed. It wilt be a larger and even more interesting part than last year's. The model house and grounds exhibit in particular, will can fdrth the greatest talent each club possesses. Besides this ~ntry, each club will have a shadow box flower picture ; a luncheon table for six, set at a moderate price, none to exceed one hundred dollars : and an arrangement of branches of seed pods, buds, or any natural growth other than flowers, in a container. This last exhibit is open to anyone, club member or not. Besides these entries for the clubs, there is a special ~arden exhibit of an educational nature which only a part of the clubs is ent~ring-. We are glad to say that our cluh will have an entry in this. Mrs. David Cooke, a charter member of our club and our first president, will be our representive at the Flower show. The names of the members of her committee will be made public soon. The clubs voted to have a tea room, set in a lovely g-arden, this year, where the members of the ~arden clubs will act as hostesses and help serve. The procf'eds of the tea room ' Will be devoted to special lectures for the garden clubs. ' The Wilmette Garden club plans to have a Wilmette clay on Wednesdav of the week of the show, March 2R. and to have a luncheon at 1 o'clock in one of the rooms of the hotel for the Wibpette people who plan to be present that day. A beautiful flower show is being heM this week and next at. the Garfield Park conseryatory featuring cyclamen and primrose plants. BY R. L. P. oman's Club of Wilmette to The growth of the fascist movement Hear Oriainal Repertoire of in Italy, and the rise of a blacksmith's Daughter of Noted Actor Cornelia Otis Skinner comes to the Woman's club of Wilmette Wednesday to sway the imagination of her afternoon audience until it lives with her in her little dramas of life and love and tragedy that leave a stage at first empty, no longer barren. Adroitly she evolves her character, her atmosphere, her plot One minute her hearers laugh uproariously at the woman who is havill$ her hair bobbed, the next one is homfied at the latent . tragedy she unrolls in sunny, warm, wind-swept Barbadoes, again one smiles at the American tourist lying on her back in the Sistine chapel the better to see the ceilibg. She plays on one's moods, and carries one with her in the realm of fancy. Miss Skinner's talent is the heritage from an author mother and an actor father, the former, Maud Durbin, the latter, Otis Skinner. In the space of a single season Cornelia Otis Skinner has stepped lrom the legitimate stage and has become one of the foremost of our American entertainers. Almost instantaneously her unique gift for holding and amusing her audience singlehanded was recognized. She was acclaimed a great genius. Every line of Miss Skinner's sketches is her own. Yet these are not Miss Skinner's only creative work. for her writings have found their way'1nto such magazines as Scribner's, Life, The Literary Review, the Theatre Arts Magazine, and others, and Otis Skinner produced and appeared in one of her full-length plays, "Captain Fury." Miss Skinner's training has from the beginning fitted her for her career. She attended both the Baldwin school at Bryn Mawr and Bryn Mawr college. She then went to Paris, studying, as shf' puts it, .,a little at 1he Sorbonne, and a great deal for the stage." Her pro· fessor was Dehelly of the ComedieFrancaise, and she also studied under Jean Herve, another societaire of the comedie. For modern stage she trained with the famous Jacques Copeau at the Theatre du Vieux Colombier. In America she has had four years' experience in New. York and on the road. During these years she has been writing her character sketches and presenting them first formally, then professionally. The gift to create imaginary people is rare, and, possessed of that Jift Miss Skinner has turned as a log1cal development to the entertainment field rather than continue in the theater. Her program will commence at 2, following the 1 o~clock luncheon; The morning session will be given over to a talk ·by J.. S. Mendenhall of Peacock's, who wdl give one of his interesting lectures on "Rock Crystal," which he will illustrate with charming examples of this glassware. The usual dramatic reading just before luncheon will be omitted W ednes. day. GROUP TO ELECT OFFICERS The senior group of the Mary Virginia Ellet Cabell society, Children of the American Revolution, meets this afternoon at 3 o'clock, at the home of Plorence Mitchell, 1009 Oakwood aveaae. At this meeting the officers for 1928 will be elected and the plans made for the eoming vear. - son to the rank of prime minister and each of the seven members of his own cabinet, was thrillingly told at the Wilmette club meeting on Wednesday, January 11, by Tom Skeyhill, an Australian soldier who has 'ipent the last fifteen years of his life adventuring around Europe, fighting the Turks at the Dardanelles, getting mixed up in the Red revolution in Russia and occasionally finding a few revolutions in other -countries to be joined with gusto. Mr. Skeyhill told the story of the "black shirts" as if he were unfolding a colorful breath-taking novel by Sabatini written around a remarkable personality, Benito M ussolini, "It Duce," -"The Chief," who comes from the soil and has been rocketed to th~ high position he now holds. He described M ussolini as a supreme realist, a man who knows how to wait and plan and who carries out his plan in the sweeping gestures of middle ages, imbuing his men with the sense of the romantic by tickling their Jove for the old Roman days when the immortal Julius lived. Primarily, said Mr. Skeyhill, the black shirts were organized to fight the Reds, bolshevism in Italy. Mussolini traveled about Italy organizin~ ex-soldiers, youths, and business men into g-roups called "fasces." He resurrected the old· Roman leg'ionnaire salute, and clothed the fascisti in black shirts, which do not seem to get dirtv. and which make the Italians verv picturesque. Thev pled~ed absolute -allegiance to "II Duce," dedicating their lives and their fortunes to save the country. They swept through Ttalv like a cleansing gale, going over the heads of the politicians and using direct action. They broke up Red J!roups by administering a ouart of castor oil, an old Roman punishment. tn traitors. and restored law and order. They finally organized as a political nartv. but about six vf'ars aP'o withdrew. because of crooked elections. Mttssolini's spectacular and romantic rise frotn then on. the enforced resiQ·nat:on of the controllinf! political narty of Rome, a net the instaJtation of M ""..,.,,; .. i hacked hv thousands of hl;trk '"'·irtf'cl men. was ~rlowing-lv told by Mr. ~1(~>,·hi11. "Italv," he c;aicf. "has sold J.er soul to Mu~~olini." It has ~one h'lck to the middle ag-es, and some day must return. In telling of the democracy Ital}' had hefore Mussolini came into power. Mr. ~keyhit1 said Italy lost the democracv hecause when the citizens had the n(i)wer to vote th~y (lid not use it. Those who did. elected crooked politicians and did not resoect laws th~t were made. In concludinJr. hP c:a .... soeakinR' of Australia and the Unitetl States, ··My country and your countrv have a democracv. · Let us take warn·ing." · . "A charminff personality, a great entertainer," wntes a critic of Cornelia Otis Skinner, daughter of the eminent actor, who comes to the Woman's club of Wilmette next Wednesday afternoon offering a repertoire of her original character sketches. This will be one of the outstanding events of the club's year. - School of Foreign Affairs Drawing Large Audiences The Thursday evening sessions of the School of Foreign Affairs now being conducted in Evanston under the auspices of a group of women's clubs, are proving to be oi intense interest 'in educational circles. Afternoon sessions are followed by a dinner and evening program, and the school is in session in the First Methodist church of Evanston. Each week some subject of national importance in some foreign The first relations is discussed. Th_ ursday was given . over to the consideration and survey of Nicaragua and the Central American political situation. Thursday of last week the discussion was on Russia, with one of the dinner speakers, Carleton Washburne, superintendent of the Winnetka Public schools, and a recent visitor in Russia. This past week "Disarmament" and the Borah and Kapper resolutions were considered. The school will close with its sessions next Thursday devoted to lectures on "Immigration." Mrs. U. S. Grant of Evanston has been in charge of arrangements. A large number of north shore residents has been in attendance at each week's session. Sewing at Club Today for Mary Bartelme Home JUNIOR ARTS SALON MEETS The regular meeting of the Junior Allied Arts Salon will be held Sunday, January 22, from 3 until 8, at the homf' of it~ presid~nt, Frances Maydelle Rochhtz, 215 Harbor street, · Glencoe. The guests of honor on this occasion will be Mme. Anna Balatka, pianist, of the Balatka School of Music in Chicago, and Miss Leila Peterson of the same school, a dramatic reader. The Mary Bartelme home for girls who come under the jurisdiction of the MERRILL LECTURE MONDAY Juvenile court is benefiting by the The second of the· series of lectures sewing done at the Wilmette Woman's on current literature and events given club this month.'· Again today all Wit- by 'Mrs. Anthony French Merrill at the mette women who are interested in Woman's club of Wilmette occurs doing their bit for purpose~ philan- Monday afternoon at 2 o'clock. The thropic are invited by the philanthropy subjer.t Mrs. Merrilt will dwell upon department of the club, under whose will be ..A New Study." The lecture auspices the bi-monthly sewing days hour is 2 o'clock. are held, to gather together at 10 o'clock a~ the clubh~u.s~ and ~pend t~e · The. Southern Woman's club of Chid~y sewmg and VISitmg w1th. the1r cago 1s planning what it considers one fnends and ne~comers to the village. of the largest and best evening enter~ luncheon ·~ served at noon, to tainments ever given, Thursday, }anuwhach school c~tldre~ may come. Mrs. ary 26, in the Red ballroom of the !'· E. Klunder as chatrman of the sew- Hotel La Salle. A cabaret dinner dance mg for the month of January. will celebrate the evening.