A Message

No pomp and no excitement marked the presentation of Mr. Coolidge's official message to Congress. The Senate and House assembled in their respective Chambers; and, at the same hour, the clerks of those bodies read.

The reading took about one hour. In the Senate, there was no applause, just listening. In the House, William Tyler Page read the message with great gusto, producing some smiles. Once the Democrats laughed when the message mentioned a commission which is considering the means of conserving the oil reserves of the Navy. At the conclusion, all the representatives rose and applauded.

The President's Major Recommendations:

1) Repeal of the publicity clause of the income tax law.

2) Eventual reduction of income surtaxes with a view to securing greater revenue and reducing the burden on business.

3) Flood control on the Mississippi and Colorado Rivers; construction of navigable waterways from the Great Lakes to the Gulf; agreement with Canada on the St. Lawrence waterway; development of the Mississippi Basin; Federal purchase of the Cape Cod Canal.

4) No price fixing for agriculture; farm relief in accordance with plans submitted by the special commission which he recently appointed.

5) Sale or a long term lease of Muscle Shoals to private enterprise with guarantees of nitrate production for agriculture.

6) Railway consolidation in accordance with a flexible plan and, as much as possible, by voluntary action; no changes in railroad labor laws unless the public be represented as an interested party in all settlements.

7) Reorganization of the Shipping Board and the Emergency Fleet Cor- poration so as to restrict the Shipping Board to its original duties as a semi-judicial, policy-and rate-making body and to segregate in the Emergency Fleet Corporation the business of operating the Government merchant fleet.

8) Authority for the Supreme Court to select and reject cases on its docket for consideration in accordance with their importance, in order to overcome the increasing congestion of the Supreme Court docket; authority for the Supreme Court to make rules improving and reforming the procedure in Federal Courts; appointment of a commission to reform and expedite procedure under the criminal code.

9) Strengthening of the Navy to the full allowance of the Limitation of Armaments Treaty.

10) No cancellation of foreign debts.

Points that received lesser mention:

P:Extension of time on payments should be granted to distressed farm- ers on Government irrigation projects.

P:Election laws should be reformed to equalize the privileges of all Parties.

P:Reformatories should be built for first and youthful offenders of both sexes in order to preserve them from contact with hardened criminals in Federal penitentiaries. P: It would be advantageous to enter the World Court with reservations.

P:Other Governments have proposed a conference in Europe to extend the scope of the Limitation of Armaments Treaties; but the U. S. should not participate if it restricted her freedom of action. P: The movement to outlaw war should be assisted so far as is consistent with safeguarding U.S. liberty.

Pronouncements of the Message:

GOVERNMENT DEBT AND TAXES. "The costs of our national and local Gov- ernments combined now stand at a sum close to $100 for each inhabitant of the land. A little less than one-third of this is represented by national expenditure ... It is an ominous fact that only the national Government is reducing its debt. Others are increasing theirs at about $1,000,000,000 each year. . .

AGRICULTURE. "It is estimated that the value of the crops for this harvest year may reach $13,000.000,000, which is an increase of over $3,000,000,000 in three years. It compares with $7,100,-000,000 in 1913; and, if we make deduction from the figures of 1924 for the comparatively decreased value of the dollar, the yield this year still exceeds 1913 in purchasing power by over $1,000,000,000; and in this interval there has been no increase in the number of farmers . . .

"The crop area of this season is estimated at 370,000,000 acres, which is a decline of 3,000,000 acres from last year and 6,000,000 acres from 1919. This has been a normal and natural application of economic laws."

MUSCLE SHOALS. (Additional excerpts from the message will be found under WATERWAYS. See Page 4.)

Adjectival Comment:

SENATOR CURTIS (Rep. Leader): "Very strong."

SENATOR LADLI (Insurgent): "Very good."

SENATOR OVERMAN (Dem.): "Nothing brilliant."

SENATOR SHORTRIDGE (Rep.): "Splendid, magnificent, masterly."

SENATOR BUTLER (Rep.): "Most excellent and thorough."

SENATOR SMOOT (Rep.): "Chock full of common sense."

SENATOR HEFLIN (Dem.): "Very well in some particulars, woefully weak in others."

SENATOR STERLING (Rep.): "All sound and wholesome."

SENATOR MOSES (Rep.): "Good stuff."

REP. LONGWORTH (Rep. leader): "Eminently statesmanlike."

SPEAKER GILLETT (Rep.): "Interesting, suggestive and wise."

REP. FINIS J. GARRETT (Dem. leader): "As expected."

REP. CONNALLY (Dem.): "Up to the Coolidge standard."