The White House Week

THE PRESIDENCY

The White House Week

P:John L. Lewis and Philip Murray, President and Vice President of the United Mine Workers of America, called at the White House with Secretary of Labor Davis. President Coolidge's automobile, which had come to take him for a late afternoon ride, was dismissed so that he might confer with the miners.

P:A week after the Diplomatic Corps Reception, the President and Mrs. Coolidge held the annual Diplomatic Corps Dinner. There were 80 guests and their wives, all diplomats except five, beginning in order of seniority with Ambassador and Mme. Jusserand of France. The non-diplomats were Senator Lodge (Chairman of Foreign Relations Committee), Representative Stephen G. Porter (Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee), Dr. L. S. Rowe (Director General of the Pan American Union), and the President's two aides, Colonel Sherrill and Captain Andrews. Mrs. Coolidge wore red velvet trimmed with silver; the decorations of the horseshoe table were poinsettias, farlayense ferns, red candles. Afterwards there was an informal musicale, to which members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee were invited.

P:President Coolidge ordered that all federal aid for road building in Arkansas be stopped until investigation showed whether the Arkansas method of taxation resulted in practical confiscation of farm land along the proposed highways.

P:Immediately before Christmas there were many callers at the White House, including Secretary and Mrs. Wallace, Senator and Mrs. Watson, Senator Underwood, ex-Governor Beeckman of Rhode Island.

P:The President let it be known that he did not believe this to be an opportune time to call a conference for the limitation of air forces, submarines and light cruisers (not included under the present Limitation of Armament Treaty). The Duke of Sutherland,

Under Secretary for Air in the British Cabinet, called and discussed the matter with the President.

P:The President and Mrs. Coolidge invited guests for a Saturday afternoon cruise on the Mayflower. A fog intervened and dinner was served aboard the yacht, but in the Navy Yard.

P:The President and Mrs. Coolidge sent Christmas greetings to the children of the U. S. and, by radio, to the MacMillan expedition, which is now within eleven degrees of the North Pole.

P:John and Calvin Coolidge, Jr., spent the holidays at the White House. Mr. and Mrs. Frank W. Stearns of Boston were also Christmas guests.