The White House Week

P: The President formally approved a sentence of death imposed by a court martial on Lieutenant John S. Thompson, U. S. A. The Lieutenant had pleaded guilty to the murder of a young woman in the Philippines. The father, a minister on Long Island, asked the President to grant clemency on the ground that his son was insane. But the President confirmed the sentence. It is believed to be the first death sentence ever imposed by a U. S. court martial in peacetime.

P:President Coolidge, facing reporters in his usual conference, intimated that he did not expect to spend next summer at Swampscott; that if it was true, as reported, that Congressman Davey of Ohio had said (TIME, Feb. 15 POLITICAL NOTES) that $500,000,000 could be saved by having fewer Federal employes and keeping them on the job, the Congressman was mistaken; that as for the Senate's resolution asking him to enter the negotiations in the anthracite strike, it gave him no authority, did not alter the deadlock, and he saw no more reason for intervening than he had previously.

P: Taking a walk one afternoon at 5:00, the President was nearly run down by a Ford delivery truck driven by a Negro. Just as the President was crossing the street between the White House and the Treasury Building, the car swung into the street from Pennsylvania Ave. Two secret service men seized the President by the arms and drew him back. He said nothing.

P: C. Bascom Slemp, Washington lawyer, onetime major domo at the White House office building, announced last week the forthcoming publication of a book, a compilation of President Coolidge's utterances on domestic and foreign policies. The book is to have a foreword by the President and explanatory notes by his former Secretary. Mr. Slemp last week set forth its raison d'etre:

"The book was prepared in response to hundreds of queries I got while at the White House asking what President Coolidge said on a subject, and I have attempted to make a handbook for ready reference which would be both authoritative and informative."

P: Delegates representing the interests of Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Wisconsin and Canada called on the President and urged him to oppose any effort by Chicago to withdraw more water from Lake Michigan for sanitary purposes than is now allowed: "Chicago now presents the brazen spectacle of undertaking to induce the national Congress to sanctify a bold theft into an honest act. We strenuously protest against any legislation at the hands of Congress that may sanction the abstraction of water likely to lower the levels of the Great Lakes."

P: Two gentlemen from Oregon walked into the White House office. They needed no introduction. One was Senator Charles L. McNary, the other Senator Robert N. Stanfield. They brought the President news which he was not glad to receive. They told him that the Judiciary Committee of the Senate could not be induced to recommend the confirmation of Judge Wallace McCamant of Oregon as Federal Circuit Judge--McCamant who nominated Coolidge in 1920, and who allowed himself to be forced into saying that Roosevelt "was not a good American" (TIME, Feb. 8, POLITICAL NOTES).

P: The final official reception of the season, the reception for the Army and Navy, took place in the Blue Room. The President and Mrs. Coolidge, followed by the members of the Cabinet and their ladies and Mrs. Dawes,-- advanced down the stairs together, while the Marine Band played "Hail to the Chief." In the Blue Room they received in order: the Secretaries of War and Navy; the Army Chief of Staff, General Hines; the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Eberle; the Commandant of the Marines, General LeJeune, followed by other officers. Also present was General John Joseph Pershing.

P: General Pershing, newly arrived from Tacna-Arica, called on the President and on Secretary Kellogg.

P: The President let it be known that he looked with disfavor on any bills for reorganizing the Army Air Service except in accordance with the report of the Morrow Air Board.

P: It was announced that the portrait of the President will adorn one side of a memorial half dollar, not more than 1,000,000 of which are to be struck off by the mint in honor of the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Antiquaries said it was the first time that a living President was graven on a U. S. coin.

P: In accordance with the flexible clause of the Tariff Law, the President on recommendation of the Tariff Commission last week increased the duty on straw hats worth less than $9.50 a dozen from 60% to 88% ad valorem (50% of the present duty is the limit of the increase or decrease which the President may make). The Tariff Commission had found that producing-costs in Italy, the chief competing country, are less than in the U. S.

P: Asked to comment on Lincoln's birthday, President Coolidge declared that he had nothing more to say than he had said in a proclamation issued as Governor of Massachusetts. He gave out copies of that proclamation, which has some literary interest.

--The Vice President was detained at the Capitol by a night session of the Senate. It became known last week that he has made it an absolute rule never to be out of reach when the Senate is in session.