The White House Week

The White House Week

P:President Coolidge called for his Cabinet and received his Secretaries three: Kellogg, Mellon, Jardine. The other seven members were away stumping for various Republican candidates.

P:The President accepted the invitation of Representative R. Walton Moore (Dem.) of Virginia to "quit work for the afternoon and go sightseeing in Virginia." Together with Mrs. Coolidge they ' quietly left the White House, motored south along the road which Henry Clay and John Randolph had traveled one early morning to fight a duel.* The Presidential party halted at the farmhouse which President Madison had occupied in 1814 when the British captured Washington and burned the White House. At Fairfax courthouse they looked upon the wills of George and Martha Washington, read some reports of an early Virginia Grand Jury. The clerk of the court told them that George Washington had once been fined for "profane swearing." Mrs. Coolidge asked: "What was profane swearing'?" The clerk could not answer. So they climbed in their car again and proceeded to Oak Hill, the 2,000-acre estate of President Monroe. Here the President and Mrs. Coolidge saw dinosaur footprints in the stone flooring of the breakfast room, had tea. A detour on the return to the White House added pleasure to the trip.

P:The President addressed the annual convention of the American Association of Advertising Agencies in his only speech within the fortnight. Said he: "The pre-eminence of America in industry, which has constantly brought about a reduction of costs, has come very largely through mass production. Mass production is only possible where there is mass demand. Mass demand has been created almost entirely through the development of advertising."

P:The President issued the traditional Thanksgiving Day proclamation, in spite of a telegram from the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism urging him to refrain. Said he:

"As a nation and as individuals we have passed another twelve months in the favor of the Almighty. He has smilled upon our fields and they have brought forth plentifully; business has prospered; industries have flourished, and labor has been well employed. While sections of our country have been visited by disaster we have been spared any great national calamity or pestilential visitation. We are blessed among the nations of the earth. . . ."

P:The President cabled birthday greetings to His Imperial Majesty, Emperor Yoshihito, 123rd sublime ruler of Japan, on his 47th birthday (see p. 19).

P:The President and Mrs. Coolidge took a special night train for Northampton, Mass. There they voted the Republican ticket; entrained forthwith for Washington.

*Neither died.