The White House Week
The White House Week
P: If your beef is "embalmed," if there is alum in your bread, if your pickles are deleterious, if there is caffein in your bottled beverages, then the President will have ignored the admonition of "Old Borax." Dr. Harvey W. Wiley, longtime (1883-1912) chief chemist of the Department of Agriculture, known as "Old Borax," called at the White House last week. He called because he believed that the provisions of the Pure Food and Drug Act, drawn under his supervision, had been weakened by the administrative orders of successive Secretaries of Agriculture ever since 1907. He brought evidence demanding changes.
P: It was made known that 30 or 40 Marines will be detailed to guard the "Summer White House," White Court, at Swampscott, Mass., because the White House Secret Service force is inadequate to guard the rugged shoreline and all the boundaries at Swampscott. General Lejeune will pick the de- tail personally.
P: "I take sincere pleasure in extending to Your Majesty cordial birthday greetings. I trust that Your Majesty's health has been completely restored and that the coming years may hold health and happiness for you." -- Calvin Coolidge to George V.
P: The White House made it known that Mr. Coolidge had declined more than 20 invitations to attend University Commencements this month and receive degrees.
P: After consulting his Attorney General in order to avoid any legal faux pas such as President Harding's transfer of the Naval Oil Reserves to the Department of the Interior, the President issued an executive order transferring the Bureau of Mines to the Department of Commerce (see CABINET).
P: The President joined Postmaster General New, Secretary of Labor Davis, Justice McReynolds of the Supreme Court. John Hays Hammond and other friends of the late Thomas R. Marshall at the Willard Hotel, where funeral services were held for. the onetime (1913-21) Vice President before his body was taken to Indianapolis for burial.
P: The Treasury has cheated the President, so the Supreme Court decided. It was wrong to attempt to impose any income tax on the President or on Federal judges. Hence Mr. Coolidge is entitled to a refund of the taxes he paid on his salary for the latter half of 1923, and also what he has paid for 1924.
P: Mr. Coolidge attended the graduating exercises at the Naval Academy at Annapolis.
P: The President was congratulated. A delegation came to do it. Merchants and business men gathered round, told him that the law passed by the last Congress for the arbitration of business disputes was a boon to industry.
P: "Today we honor youth, beautiful youth, consecrated youth, ideal youth, youth that won our admiration and deepest love," said Dr. William Mann Irvine, headmaster of Mercersburg Academy, at Mercersburg, Pa. "Like Sir Galahad, his moral strength was ideal because it was clean. . . . The mantle of nobility was upon him." The headmaster's wife drew back a U. S. flag revealing a portrait of Calvin Coolidge Jr. Mrs. Coolidge sat in the audience. Later, the class of 1925, classmates of her dead son, presented her with a watch.
P: The President named Col. Frederick A. Fenning, 51, lawyer, Commissioner of the District of Columbia.*
P: The President appointed Porter J. McCumber, onetime (1899-1923) U. S-Senator from North Dakota, to the International Joint Commission; William D. Mitchell, St. Paul lawyer, to be Solicitor General (see CABINET) ; Albertus Hutchinson Baldwin to the Tariff Commission/-, Allan Robinson to rep- resent the U. S. at the Building and Public Works Congress at Paris this month.
P: Mrs. Calvin Coolidge, honorary President of the Girl Scouts of America, donned a Scout uniform, motored to Rosslyn, Va., was presented by Miss Juliette Low with a tenderfoot** pin and in turn awarded six "letters of merit" to, Washington women for service to the movement, four merit badges to as many Scouts and a silver cup to Mrs. J. P. Hovey, captain of a troop which won an intertroop contest.
P: The first section (five cars) of the Capitol Limited on the B. & O. made up long ahead of time, lay in the shadiest part of the sweltering railway yards in Washington. Great tubs of ice were carried into each compartment to keep it cool. The tubs were later removed and the train pulled into the station. There Mr. and Mrs. Coolidge, Secretary of State and Mrs. Kellogg (Minnesotans), Senator Lenroot of Wisconsin, with aids and concomitants including 15 Secret Service men, 12 newspaper men and several photographers boarded the train.* It was hot when they started, but about 4:30, the train ran into a shower. Once in the mountains, the temperature was less and less offensive. In the diner, Mr. and Airs. Coolidge ate alone, with Secretary Kellogg and Senator Lenroot across the aisle. Mr. Coolidge had a two-inch broiled steak, a cup of jellied consomme, toasted raisin bread and hot coffee. Mrs. Coolidge confined herself to the cold consomme, chicken salad and iced coffee. After dinner, they retired to the observation car. At Cumberland, Md., she received a delegation of Camp Fire Girls.
The evening was cool, and in the morning the train was in Chicago. Engines were changed in the railroad yards, and the train sped on over the Chicago & Northwestern tracks to St. Paul. The route led through Wisconsin and Senator Lenroot, foe of LaFollette, sat in the observation car with the President, where his constituents might see them. It was a hot, sticky day. Towards evening, the train pulled into St. Paul. In all the 30 hours, the President made not a single rear-platform speech. But he ate three steaks.
Hail to the Chief, burst out the familiar tones of the Marine Band in the St. Paul station. Mr. and Mrs. Coolidge made their way through the crowd, accompanied by a reception committee, and were whisked off to the home of Mr. and Mrs. Kellogg, where they spent the night.
Next morning dawned in wind and rain, 30DEG cooler than the day before. Crowds, undeterred, gathered before the Kellogg house. Shortly before noon, the President came out, motored across to Minneapolis for luncheon, so that the twin cities might not fall out in jealousy. For luncheon at the Nicollet Hotel, food was served, not speeches. Then the party drove to the State Fair Grounds--neutral territory between the rivalrous twins. No President had been in the vicinity since President Wilson called in 1919. In 1921, Vice President Coolidge spoke at that very spot and met a chilly reception. In spite of wind and rain, a crowd of 100,000 or more stood in rapt attention last week, while the President, speaking from the judges' stand opposite the grandstand, praised the Norwegians who first came to this country a century ago. The Norwegian Minister of Labor, the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Storting, the Bishop of Oslo, the rector of the Royal Frederiks University (Oslo), the Norwegian Minister to Washington were present in honor of the centennial. Said Mr. Coolidge:
"These Northmen, one of whose anniversaries we are celebrating today, have from their first appearance on the margin of history been the children of freedom. Native to a rigorous climate and a none too productive soil, they have learned the necessity for hard work and careful management. They were moved by that aspiration for a free holding in the land which has always marked peoples in whom the democratic ideal was pressing for recognition. Eager for both political and economic independence, they realized the necessity for popular education, and so have always been among the most devoted supporters of public schools. Thousands of them volunteered in the service of the country during the Civil and Spanish Wars, and tens of thousands in the World War. The institutions and the manners of democracy came naturally to them. Their glory is all about you, their living and their mighty dead. They have given great soldiers, statesmen, scientists, educators and men of business to the upbuilding of their adopted country. ..."
That evening, the President started back to Washington.
*The District of Columbia, residents of which have not the right to vote, has its laws and its form of government handed to it by Congress. The chief officers of this Government are three Commissioners appointed by the President. One of these is an Army Engineer, detailed from time to time, and the other two are civilians, who serve for a term of three years. The other civilian District Commissioner is at present Cuno H. .Rudolph. The Commissioners conduct the municipal Government, act as a Public Utilities Commission, make police and fire regulations, etc., and prepare expenditure estimates, which are transmitted to Congress through the Budget. Taxes collected in the District are paid into the Federal Treasury, which also pays the District's expenditures. The taxes collected equal only about one-half of the expenditures, the Federal Government contributing the difference.
/- Succeeding William S. Culbertson, appointed U. S. Minister to Rumania (TIME, May 4).
**Lowest rank in scoutdom. To achieve it, a girl must promise to keep the Scout Laws, some of which are:
1) To be useful and help others.
2) To be a friend to all.
3) To be a sister to every other Scout.
4) To be thrifty, courteous, kind to animals.
5) To be clean in thought and body.
She must also know the words of the National Anthem.
*Having an extra section instead of a special train saved the Government $1,800. Some said the special section cost the railroad as much as a special train, that the railroad lost the difference in the cost. Even so, it was repaid in advertising. U. S. Presidents customarily used the Pennsylvania in traveling West. When President Harding started on his fatal trip to Alaska, he changed to the B. & O.--allegedly because the Pennsylvania had failed to meet his wishes in a certain labor controversy. Since then, the B. & O. has had the Presidential patronage. Daniel Willard, President of the railway, put a basket of roses (red) and delphiniums (blue) in Mrs. Coolidge's drawing room.