The Coolidge Week

The Presidency

President Coolidge's activities fall into distinct categories, for each of which he must have a distinct frame of mind. His activities last week included the following:

Executive. The President requested Attorney General Sargent to go at once to New England and confer with Vice Chairman James L. Fieser of the Red Cross on the flood situation (see p. 9). He requested Secretary Hoover to follow Attorney General Sargent this week, when flood data will be more complete.

P:The President appointed Lawyer Garland S. Ferguson Jr. of Greensboro, N. C., to fill the vacancy left by resignation of John F. Nugent of Idaho on the Federal Trade Commission.

P:Magnesite is an ore much mined in the U. S. In its crude form it is used for steel making. With lime, it is a filler in rubber making. It is also used in fireproof cement and insulating materials. . . . The President raised the U. S. tariff 50% on imported magnesite.

Ceremonial. On Armistice Day, President & Mrs. Coolidge were the first to lay flowers--he a wreath, she one white rose--on the Unknown Soldier's tomb in Arlington National Cemetery. They did not participate in the Canadian-U. S. ceremonies at Arlington later in the day (see p. 13).

P: Minister Francisco Sanchez la Tour from Guatemala to the U. S. died. President & Mrs. Coolidge attended his funeral in Washington (Episcopal) Cathedral.

P:. New York and Jersey Cities formally opened the 9,250-ft. Holland vehicular tunnel connecting them under the Hudson River (TiME, Aug. 30, 1926). Aboard the yacht Mayflower, midstream in the Potomac, the President pressed the same gold telegraph key which President Wilson pressed in 1914 to blast open the Panama Canal. At the Coolidge touch, U. S. flags fell away from the ends of the Holland tubes. Officials of New Jersey streamed underground into New York and vice versa, followed in the first hour by 20,000 common citizens (see p. 22).

P:As honorary chief of the Red Cross, President Coolidge asked that at least five million citizens answer the roll call of "the permanent voluntary agency of the people... in time of distress."

Study. President Coolidge last week made known that he would send his message to the 70th Congress by messenger, not read it himself. Before the messenger starts, the message must be written. Before it is written, problems of the 70th Congress must be studied. The President has much to ponder.

P:C Wickham Steed, British editor, a White House caller of last fortnight, left with President Coolidge a world peace plan involving boycott by the U. S. of the aggressor nation in any war. After study, President Coolidge indicated that he viewed with alarm even passive U. S. participation in foreign wars.

P:The 70th Congress will try to do something about U. S. shipping. U. S. bottoms have been less & less used since the War. The U. S. Emergency Fleet Corporation is still a white elephant. None will buy its idle ships. The U. S. Shipping Board is in a quandary. Its loans to private builders have not increased U. S. tonnage speedily. Last week -- while Senator Reed of Missouri, Rear Admiral Magruder, U. S. N., and Senator Copeland of New York flayed slow shipping progress in speeches -- President Coolidge received and pondered a plan from Edward N. Hurley, Wartime Chairman of the U. S. Shipping Board. Mr. Hurley advocated: 1) A 500-million construction fund (the present fund is 84 millions) to be loaned at 2 1/2% (the present rates are 5 1/4% and 4 1/4%) to U. S. builders; 2) Allowing railroads to participate in shipping (suspicion of trusts now prevents this) ; 3) Making the borrowing builders buy idle Government merchantmen; 4) Enrolling new vessels in the U. S. Naval Reserve; 5) Adjusting Panama Canal rates.

P: Farm aid is a problem upon which President Coolidge has been hoping farmers would some day agree. Dispute over the price-fixing feature of the unsuccessful McNary-Haugen Bill has not brought forth a compromise. The export debenture feature urged by anti-McNary-Haugenists is another stumbling stone. Last week President Coolidge notified farmers that he and Congress would not shirk their duty to try and find a farm aid solution without waiting for farmers to find it. He received Senator McNary (Oregon), whose bill had just had another rebuff from U. S. business men,*to discuss the new bill which Senator McNary, admitting defeat on his old bill, is trying to draw up.

P: At the President's request, Secretary of War Davis and Major General Edgar Jadwin, Chief of Engineers, called at the White House to assure President Coolidge that the War Department was getting on satisfactorily with its Mississippi Basin report, upon which national flood control legislation will be based (see p 10).

Political. There was nothing problematical about a ponderous man with two chins and two volumes of newspaper clippings on the Mississippi flood, who lumbered into the White House wearing a sombrero and a heavy grin. This caller shouted a good deal and waved his large hands, but he could tell President Coolidge nothing about the flood that was not already obvious. Nevertheless, the President felt he must ask him to come for breakfast next day and bring a dozen of his friends. The caller, Mayor William Hale ("Big Bill") Thompson of Chicago, is "a good Republican."

P:About the ensuing breakfast party, a Democratic correspondent later wrote: "'To the pure all things are pure'... Or it may mean that Mr. Coolidge thinks that to Republican politicians who control party machines in great States, a certain latitude should be allowed. . . ."

The dozen friends whom Mayor Thompson took to President Coolidge's table included Governor Len Small of Illinois, lately tried and acquitted of criminally embezzling his State's funds, but made to restore $650,000 such funds by the U. S. Supreme Court; and William Lorimer who was ejected in 1911 from the U. S. Senate for bribing the Illinois legislature which elected him.* Others of the party were Representative Frank R. Reid of Illinois, Chairman of the House Flood Control Committee (see p. 9) Publisher James M. Thompson of the New Orleans (tem. President John J. Walker of the Illinois Federation of Labor and various Mississippi Flood Commissioners.

Mayor Thompson smacked his lips over syrupy buckwheat cakes and sausages and afterwards said: "It was sort of quiet--just a nice sociable affair." Leaving the White House he asked if anyone knew where he could "have a good time tonight" and "where can I get a drink?" He called President Coolidge "a fine fellow."

Social. It seemed like "Ladies' Week" at the White House, socially. Actress Billie Burke (Mrs. Florenz Ziegfeld) called informally after the opening night of her show, The Marquise, which President Coolidge had attended. Gertrude ("Trudy") Ederle called and President Coolidge said: "I am amazed that a girl of your small stature could swim the [English] Channel!" Mrs. Ruth Elder Womack came for luncheon--together with Lieutenant George Haldeman, Colonel Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Clarence D. Chamberlin, Charles A. Levine,** Commander Richard Evelyn Byrd, Bert Balchen, /-/- Arthur Goebel, Lieutenants Albert Hegenberger and Lester Maitland, Emory Bronte, Paul Schluter, William S. Brock and Edward Schlee. That evening all the air notables stood by while President Coolidge pinned the National Geographic Society Hubbard medal on Colonel Lindbergh.

P: A Dr. & Mrs. Alfred E. Russell of Barre, Vt., called with their infant son, Robert McFarland Russell. In the lobby, Robert McFarland Russell cried, despite Mrs. Russell's telling him that he must stop if he wanted to see President Coolidge. He did not stop. He had to be pushed to the threshold of the President's room. Still he cried, until the President patted his hand, when he stopped as if by magic.

Recreation. The 71st birthday of President Coolidge's great & good friend, Merchant Frank Waterman Stearns of Boston, gave occasion for a small, intimate dinner party at the White House.

P: To cruise with them on the Mayflower over the weekend, President & Mrs. Coolidge took Senator & Mrs. Claude A. Swanson of Virginia, Representative & Mrs. Richard S. Aldrich of Rhode Island, Major General & Mrs. Charles Pelot Summerall, Rear Admiral & Mrs. Edward W. Eberle./-

Popular. Two other folk tales about President Coolidge came out during the week. One tale was that, when asked what he would do after retiring to Vermont, he replied: "Well, for a year or two I am going to whittle." The other tale: A taxi-driver drew up at the White House with an inquiring look. The President, just coming out, nodded. Off his seat leaped the taxi-driver and opened his taxi door. President Coolidge paid no heed. A detective told the taximan that the President's nod had merely been a greeting, not a summons.. . . Next day, walking with his detectives, President Coolidge ejaculated: "Say, do you think that taxi driver was disappointed?

*Had the meal at which President Coolidge received Mr. Lorimer been dinner instead of breakfast, a prediction by Mayor Thompson would have come true. In 1910, just prior to Mr. Lorimer's ejection from the Senate, Theodore Roosevelt refused to attend a club dinner in Chicago until an invitation to Mr. Lorimer was withdrawn. Said Mayor Thompson : "Roosevelt is riding for a fall. He will never get to the White House again. I predict that 'Billy' Lorimer will dine with a (rood Republican President in the White House. And I hope I'm there to see him!"

In a report by Charles Nagel of St. Louis onetime (1900-13) Secretary of Commerce & Labor chairman of a joint commission set up by the National Industrial Conference Board and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. /-Frank R. Kent of theBaltimore Sun. *He is Chief of Staff. He is Chief of Naval Operations.