The Coolidge Week

P: Washington was like a village on the eve of a barn dance. Guests bustled and bundled into town on every train.. There was a buzz of greetings, a helter-skelter of calls, a busy matching and arranging of programs. The White House received an ample quota of the more dis- tinguished guests as callers. The Administration, a thoroughgoing host, prepared all for the opening of the 70th Congress. To the White House came:

Secretary Wesley L. Jones of Washington, to talk Merchant Marine from the Pacific point of view.

Senators Charles Curtis and his lively colleague, Senator Arthur Cap- per, to introduce a band of Kansas flood-controllers headed by Governor Ben Sandford Paulen.

Representatives Elbert S. Brigham and Ernest W. Gibson of the Presi- dent's native Vermont, to show how Federal aid was needful to rebuild Vermont's washed-out highways.

The oldest of Senators, Francis Emory Warren (aged 83) of Wyoming, to introduce onetime (1918-19) Governor William Evelyn Cameron of Wyoming.

Rentfro Banton Creager, Republican National Committeeman from Texas, to pay respects (see BOOMS).

George Busby Christian, who was President Harding's secretary, with Chambermen of Commerce, to laud Philadelphia as a G. O. P. convention city.

The Senators from Kansas, again, to recommend a friend for a judgeship.

Senator Frank B. Willis of Ohio, to recommend a friend for a judge-ship.

Senator Charles Winfield Waterman of Colorado to introduce Ethel Pugh, aged 12, author of an essay on safety which won first prize in a national contest held by the Highway Education Board.

Ambassador-designate to Cuba Col. Noble Brandon Judah, whom Secretary of State Kellogg presented with some formality.

Chief Justice William Howard Taft of the U. S. Supreme Court to discuss the Philippines and, doubtless, the impending appointment of a new Governor-General. As he put on his coat and started to leave the White House, Judge Taft's constitutional smile took on a baffled expression. He walked off but soon returned, heaving with discomfort. By mistake, he had been helped into the coat of Senator Robert Beecher Howell of Nebraska. Changing coats, Judge Taft chuckled something about reducing, walked off smiling broadly once more. Big but not bulky, Senator Howell was closeted, all unknowing, in a 45-minute discussion of "general matters" with the President.

The Italian Ambassador, Signer Nobile Giacomo de Martino, with 60 countrymen, members of the Vatican Choir. The latter presented the President first with a collection of copper engravings of Vatican paintings, encased in tooled leather; second, with singing at the White House steps. Mrs. Coolidge listened from an upper window.

President George M. Kober of the Washington Tuberculosis Association and Mona Laurent, a small girl in a white cape, came and gave President Coolidge his "stickers" (Christmas seals), thus inaugurating an annual national "t. b."-prevention campaign.

1,100 Americanization workers from Massachusetts, shepherded by Senator David Ignatius Walsh, to pay respects.

P: President Coolidge went to the Washington Monument on New Mexico Day (Dec. 2). Senator Andreius Aristieus Jones of New Mexico was there to receive and preside. Spec- tators craned and squinted upward through a drizzle while the President said: ". . . We are to dedicate the stone which New Mexico has embodied in this noble monument. It represents not only the tribute of the Sunshine State to Washington but is a token of the part she has in the unity binding together our forty-eight commonwealths. . . . This massive pile will sooner crumble and pass away than the fame of him whose name it bears. . . ." Some 250 feet above the speaker's head, masons set New Mexico's tablet of red sandstone into the obelisk.* It was the 47th stone so set, all States except Idaho having set their Washington Monument stones.

P: Came the first of the Eight Festive Thursdays at the White House --the evening of the Cabinet Dinner (see p. 10). Elsewhere in Washington the Cuban Ambassador was dining the British Ambassador and the Minister from Salvador was dining the Minister to Salvador. The Minister from Switzerland was also entertaining. At the White House, besides the Cabinet & wives, were Vice President & Mrs. Dawes, President William Green of the American Federation of Labor, Budget Director & Mrs. Herbert Mayhew Lord, Mr. & Mrs. Frank G. Allen (he, a Boston leather man, was Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts 1925-1926), Mr. & Mrs. William Morgan Butler, Mr & Mrs. Frank Waterman Stearns, Mr. & Mrs. Arthur Atwater Kent (radios), Colonel Blanton Winship (President Coolidge's aide), Miss Mary Randolph (Mrs. Coolidge's secretary), and a few more. On Thursdays yet to come were scheduled the diplomatic recep-tion, the diplomatic dinner, the judicial reception, the Supreme Court dinner, the Congressional reception, the Speaker's dinner, the Army & Navy reception. The New Year's reception will be on Jan. 2, a Monday.

P: The morning after the Cabinet party, President Coolidge welcomed eleven gentlemen with Congressional appetites for breakfast and conversation--Senators Curtis of Kansas, Smoot of Utah, Watson of Indiana, Warren of Wyoming, Robinson of Arkansas, Harrison of Mississippi; Representatives Madden of Illinois, Green of Iowa, Snell of New York, Burton of Ohio, Garner of Texas.

P: President & Mrs. Coolidge telegraphed their sympathy to the "widow of Chancellor Herbert Spencer Hadley of Washington University, St. Louis, Mo. Mr. Hadley, dead after long illness, had been a notable Republican Governor of Missouri (1909-1913).

*The President pointed out about the Washington Monument (height 555 ft.): "Modeled after the obelisks of ancient Egypt, it differs from them in an essential particular. They are monoliths, hewn out of the solid rock. This is built stone on stone, forming a solid and harmonious structure, just as America is composed of 48 states joined by the cohesive power of our Constitution."