The White House Week

The White House Week

P: Ambassador Henry Berenger, Senator of France, appeared at the White House and presented his credentials as Ambassador and the papers recalling his predecessor, M. Daeschner. The Ambassador declared: "France is resolved to settle the debts contracted for her defense." And the President replied: "There should be no insuperable difficulty."

P: To the 48 Governors, President Coolidge addressed a letter urging them to be represented at the National Conference on Street and Highway Safety called by Secretary Hoover for March 23. Mr. Coolidge reminded the Governors: "I scarcely need to refer to the importance of the subjects at issue. Nearly 24,000 of our citizens were killed and probably more than 500,000 were hurt by street and highway accidents during the last year."

P: Noah W. Cooper, Chairman of the Methodist Church Sabbath Crusade, presented his visage and his hand to the President. Mr. Cooper suggested forcibly that the spiritual health of the nation would be greatly improved if on Sundays all interstate commerce, all newspapers, all sports, all business were suspended. He said: "Every one of the 2,500 Sunday trains is tooting America's downfall. America must emancipate her 10,000,000 slaves to Sunday labor or go to ruin." (See RELIGION, p. 22.)

P: Two delegations opposed to each other on the question of equal rights for men and women, both from the National Conference of Women in Industry meeting in Washington by invitation of the Secretary of Labor (see WOMEN), after separate visits with the President, both emerged beaming.

P: It was announced last week that the President had donated a $5,000 gold cup to be raced for annually on the Potomac by power boats. Many Americans were doubtless misled and shocked by so great an impairment to the President's small private fortune. It is customary in such "donations" for the association supervising the race to provide the cup and for the President merely to lend his name so that it may be called "The President's Cup."

P: A cable from Sydney, New South Wales, announced that the local government had decided to send to President Coolidge a painting of the U. S. fleet as it lay in Sydney harbor last summer. A committee in charge decided to inquire whether a canvas 84 by 60 feet could be cared for in the Capitol.

P: A delegation from the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity called on its "brother," the President of the U. S., and explained a plan for an annual essay contest among senior and junior members in college, with prizes of $400.

P: News from Plymouth, Vt., apprised the world that a telephone had been placed in Colonel Coolidge's house so that he, now so weak and bedridden, might converse with his son at the White House.

P: The President reviewed the conviction of Colonel William Mitchell for violating the 96th Article of War and mitigated the sentence (see ARMY & NAVY).