The White House Week

The White House Week

P: Three airplanes slid out of the sky and alighted at Boiling Field, Washington. A delegation carrying an invitation climbed out and proceeded to the White House. Mr. Coolidge received them. The spokesman, Capt. Edward V. ("Eddie"), Rickenbacker, made a little "speech and presented the strange invitation--an airplane with a wingspread of about two feet, and on its upper wing the words:

"The President and Governors of the National Aeronautic Association request the honor of your presence at the Pulitzer Trophy Race at Mitchel Field, Saturday, Oct. 10, 1925."

P: President Coolidge announced two diplomatic appointments: William W. Russell, now Minister Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Dominican Republic, was appointed to Siam with the same honors and titles. Evan E. Young, Chief of the Bureau of Eastern Affairs in the State Department, was made Minister Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Dominican Republic.

P: Little did the President know of the full consequence of his action, the involutions and convolutions of human destiny, of life and - death, that hung upon the event when he set out to Swampscott last June (TIME, June 29). Now he knows at least in part. For when he went, one of his train was Miss Margaret Carr, a cook who had flipped him many a fine wheat-cake and other delicacies. She returned to Washington two weeks ago still in the President's train. But last week it became known that she was leaving, going back to Swampscott, going back to marry Jerry Shea, who is chauffeur to the President's good friend Frank W. Stearns, who lives next door to White Court, at Red Gables.

P: One of the President's callers was his former Secretary of the Navy Edwin Denby, now Chairman of a Committee raising $150,000 to advertise his home city of Detroit as a spot delightful to tourists and salubrious for industry.

P: C. Bascom Slemp, onetime (1923-25) Secretary to President Coolidge, called at the White House office. He did not come for the pleasure of looking over his former stamping ground, but went in order to advocate the appointment of a Judge in Virginia and the Carolinas.

P: William V. Hodges of Denver, Treasurer of the Republican National Committee, called at the White House to thank Mr. Coolidge--thank him for an honor declined. The President had offered Mr. Hodges the vacant embassy at Tokyo. Mr. Hodges, a widower, had declined for the sake of his children whom he wishes to have educated in the U. S.

P:President Coolidge appointed Miss Jessie Dell, Georgia Democrat, for 25 years an employe of the War Department, to be a member of the U. S. Civil Service Commission succeeding the late Mrs. Helen Hamilton Gardener who gave her brain to Cornell (TIME, Aug. 17, Sept. 14, WOMEN).

P: The President received Dwight W. Morrow, General Harbord, Admiral Fletcher, Senator Bingham and other members of the Aviation Inquiry Board, told them what he wanted of them, gave them luncheon, was photographed with them. (See ARMY and NAVY.)

P: The President let it be known that he regarded Mr. Kellogg's action in excluding Shapurji Saklatvala, Parsee and Communist member of the British Parliament, from U. S. shores, as the only action possible in compliance with the law. (See CABINET).

P: Ambassador Sheffield called at the White House to confer with the President before returning to his post at Mexico City.

P: At the unveiling of a Harding Memorial at Vancouver, B. C., where the late President spoke just before his death two years and more ago, a message was read from President Coolidge: "The United States has no higher ambition than that which inspires it to desire a continuance of those mutually beneficent relations which have so long existed between it and its nearest neighbor among the world's great nations."

P: The President made plans to visit Omaha on Oct. 6 to speak before the American Legion Convention and to review a parade of War Veterans, as well as to address the Convention of the American Farm Bureau Federation in Chicago early in December.

P: Mr. Coolidge, in spite of the advanced state of the calendar, went walking on a hot day in his straw hat. Said he: "I have resurrected my straw hat; summer isn't over yet."

P: If the President had been bearded, most assurely his whiskers would have been clipped last week by an automobile that swept around a corner on H Street as he was taking his constitutional. One of of secret service guardians snatched him from harm's way. Another jumped on the car's running board and had the driver arrested by the nearest policeman. The fellow was charged with cutting corners and failing to give the right of way to pedestrians, was bailed out for $3,500.