The Coolidge Week

P:For 62 years one John Tracy, aged 90, of Pittsburgh, has officially been listed as a deserter from the U. S. Marine Corps. In 1864, while on a ten-day furlough to Baltimore, onetime Devildog Tracy took some drinks, lost consciousness, awoke on an oyster dredge in Chesapeake Bay. He had been "shang-haied." Ill, he was put ashore. The Civil War was over before he recovered. . . . Last week the President signed an act of Congress ruling that Mr. Tracy's desertion was "involuntary." Henceforth he shall receive $50 monthly pension. P:Said Gov. Alfred E. Smith to President Calvin Coolidge: "You can do anything you like here [New York] provided you don't get caught." Said President Coolidge to Governor Smith: "Well, I'll take a chance." Such, newsgatherers discovered, was the nub of the conversation when, last fortnight, Governor Smith ascended from his 15th story room in the Biltmore Hotel, Manhattan, to welcome President Coolidge, who was stopping on the 17th floor the evening he addressed the United Press (TIME, May 2). P: In a Safe in the office of the U. S. Department of State reposes an object which all good Democrats hope will be taken out in 1929, which many good Republicans trust will remain undisturbed till 1933. The object is the Grand Cross of the National Order of Merit Carlos Manuel de Cespedes,* famed among Cubans as the Victoria Cross is famed among British, the Iron Cross among Germans. President Gerardo Machado of Cuba, lately a presidential guest (TIME, May 2), wished to bestow the cross upon President Coolidge, but found that the President could wear no foreign decoration while U. S. Chief Executive. The cross was sent to the Department of State, to be kept in trust until President Coolidge becomes eligible to wear it. P:Two months ago (TIME, March 21), Wilson Jackson, Negro porter and keeper of the presidential collection of raccoon, collies, bees, owl, etc., rolled his large eyes, blew on his large hands when told that two lion cubs were coming to the White House, gifts of the Mayor of Johannesburg, South Africa, brought by one C. B. Deitz, Omaha coalman. Last week the cubs (Joe & Hannah) arrived, aged ten months; size, larger than airedales. Smaller, non-carnivorous, personal gift to Mrs. Coolidge, a duikerbok* came with them.

*Alive 1819-1874, he was first president of the "first" Cuban Republic which consisted only in a revolt against Spain. He committed suicide, sooner than be taken Spain's prisoner. The Cespedes cross is Cuba's highest honor, bestowed only on heads of governments and never before on a U. S. president. *Small antelope. Its Dutch name means "diving buck"--from its facility at plunging through thickets, hedges.