Mr. Coolidge's Week

P:Mr. and Mrs. Coolidge, with Mr. and Mrs. Charles Evans Hughes, attended the funeral of Vice Consul Robert W. Imbrie, killed at Teheran, Persia, in July. The body was brought to the U. S. on the cruiser Trenton; services were held at the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church and burial took place at Arlington. The Persian charge d'affaires was present and the Persian legation flew its flag at half mast (See PERSIA, Page 11). P:The President wrote a letter to a convention of the American Mining Congress at Sacramento. He affirmed that: "When all is said and done, the development of our great resources must in a large sense rest upon the courage and energy of our individual citizens. Ours is not a country of paternalism. . . ."

P:All Washington was mad. The whole town turned out in a great parade --such a demonstration as war and peace and conferences and statesmen seldom evoke from the Capital City. The parade was in honor of the return of the Washington Baseball Club with its first American League pennant. First came the inevitable police, then a U. S. Cavalry band mounted on black chargers, then red-coated, white-breeched fox hunters, then black and white female fox hunters, then the Commissioners of the District of Columbia in luxurious limousines, then the triumphant players, in even more luxurious automobiles provided by the foremost citizens. Up Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the ellipse below the White House, the procession wended its way and ended at a flag-draped platform, burdened with Cabinet officers and crushed between surges of fan thousands. The President's speech was interrupted, although it could hardly be said that he was heckled, by calls from the crowd: "Attaboy Bucky!" "Oh, you Bucky!" Between these interruptions, Mr. Coolidge delivered himself in masterly language :

"As the head of an enterprise which transacts some business and maintains a considerable staff in this town, I have a double satisfaction in welcoming home the victorious Washington baseball team.

"First, you bring home the laurels from one of the hardest-fought contests in all the history of the national game.

"Second, I feel hopeful that, with this happy result now assured, it will be possible for the people of Washington gradually to resume interest in the ordinary concerns of life.

"So long as we could be satisfied with a prompt report of the score by innings, a reasonable attention to business was still possible. But when the entire population reached the point of requiring the game to be described play by play, I began to doubt whether the highest efficiency was being promoted. I contemplated action of a vigorously disciplinary character, but the outcome makes it impossible. . . .

"Tuesday morning, when I had finished reading details of the decisive battle at Boston and turned to the affairs of government, I found on top of everything else on my desk a telegram which I shall read to you.

"Whether or not I shall be able to act on its advice, many will agree that it presents a correct, constructive and statesmanlike program for dealing with the present emergency. I have received worse suggestions on more important affairs. It is from a true and thoughtful friend of the people, Congressman John F. Miller of Seattle. He wires:

RESPECTFULLY SUGGEST IT IS YOUR PATRIOTIC DUTY TO CALL SPECIAL SESSION OF CONGRESS BEGINNING SATURDAY, OCT. 4, SO THE MEMBERS OF CONGRESS MAY HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY TO SNEAK OUT TO SEE WALTER JOHNSON MAKE BASEBALL HISTORY. CANNOT SPEAK FOR NEW YORK DELEGATION, BUT HEREBY PLEDGE ALL OTHERS TO ROOT FOR WASHINGTON AND SERVE WITHOUT PAY OR TRAVELING EXPENSES.

"Mr. Miller has such judgment and his sense of public psychology is so accurate that I do not need to say what party he represents. . . .

"Manager Harris, I am directed by a group of your Washington fellow-citizens to present to you for the club this loving cup. It is a symbol of deep and genuine sentiment. It is committed to you and your team mates in testimony of the feeling that all Washington has for you."

Afterwards, the principals were cinematized, and the President of the Board of District Commissioners gave Mr. Harris the golden key of the Capital in a plush case.

P:A few days later, on their wedding anniversary, at a few minutes before 2 p. m., Mr. and Mrs. Coolidge, with Mr. and Mrs. Frederick H. Gillett, Mr. and Mrs. Frank W. Stearns, C. Bascom Slemp, marched into the President's box at the ball park. The President smoked a cigar. Babe Ruth came to shake hands. The President threw out a ball and the game was on. Mrs. Coolidge kept a box score and yelled lustily; the President, not so lusty at first, perked up as the game went to an exciting finish. He was the first man to rise in the lucky seventh inning. When the score was tied in the ninth, the President autographed a ball brought him by the Washington mascot, a blooming little boy. When the home team lost, the President went off for a week-end on the Mayflower.

P:Mr. Coolidge dedicated a monument to the dead of the First Division. P:At the annual meeting of the Red Cross, of which he is president, Mr. Coolidge spoke these imaginative words : "The Red Cross believes that food is more helpful to hungry people than advice ; has found that hunger affects people very much the same in all countries, and that the method of coping with it is by feeding its victims. It is absolutely the only organization I have known that does any good by 'looking for trouble.'"