The White House Week

The White House Week

P: The President disapproves of compulsory military training for U. S. youths because it engenders a militaristic mental attitude; the physical benefits derived from the training are of exceptional value, he believes. He told reporters last week that the fencing and dumb-bell exercise he got at Amherst have helped him through life.

P: The President of the U. S. and the President of Mexico exchanged tactful felicitations over a new unbroken circuit between New York and Mexico City recently completed by the Western Union Telegraph Co.

P: For the second time within a year the President visited a Government office. First occasion, five minute inspection of the Office of the Secretary of War; second, four minute inspection of handsome charts showing the work at the Veterans' Bureau.

P: Louis Borno, president of Haiti, after a hurried inspection of various government bureaus, et cetera, was entertained ceremoniously at a White House luncheon last week by President and Mrs. Coolidge.

P: President Coolidge last week withdrew his nominations for three Federal appointments in Georgia--Tilson for U. S. Judge, Deaver for U. S. Attorney, Parvis for U. S. Marshal--as a courtesy to the Georgia Senators, who had intimated to the Senate Judiciary Committee that Tilson was a carpet bagger.*

P: The President announced to news gatherers a Treasury surplus of $390,000,000 for this year. Lest business men should trim their budgets in expectation of another tax cut, Mr. Coolidge hastily added that back taxes collected this year total $350,000,000, that no such large back tax surplus is expected next year, that to cut taxes further would not be "constructive economy."

* A "carpet-bag" was a traveling bag usually made of carpeting. "Carpet-bagger" came to be applied to fly-by-night adventurers who appeared in the South after the Civil War and set themselves up without any material baggage or backing to exploit the community.