The Coolidge Week

P: President Coolidge announced last week that he would take his summer vacation in the West. In what particular spot, he did not say. The West is big; it begins, no one knows just where; it ends at the Pacific Ocean. Some say that the President is going West to placate the embattled farmers; others believe that he merely wants to fish. Also, said some, to shoot.*

P: At the home of Speaker and Mrs. Nicholas Longworth, the President and Mrs. Calvin Coolidge were dinner guests of honor.

P: Not content without her, the President brought Rebecca, famed raccoon, from the back yard (South grounds) of the White House to the back yard of No. 15 Dupont Circle. Rebecca rode with the President in his limousine.

P: Wilson Jackson, Negro porter and keeper of the Presidential zoo of raccoons, bees, dogs, cats, owls, etc., quivered last week when President Coolidge told him that two lion cubs were on the way from Johannesburg, South Africa-- the gift of the mayor of that city. With his eyeballs rolling, Keeper Jackson said he would be glad to care for the lions "if they are young enough and not too ornery." The President explained that they are supposed to be especially playful, even though one of them had bitten off a man's foot just before being shipped to the U. S.

P: President Coolidge was pleased to announce, through the Department of State, that delegates from Great Britain, Japan and the U. S. would assemble in Geneva, Switzerland, for a naval disarmament conference, probably in June. It is hoped, said the President, that France and Italy will take part in the conference informally if not officially.

P: It was a tough job for the President to give a job to William Josiah Tilson, brother of House Floor Leader John Q. Tilson of Connecticut. Last spring the President nominated him as Judge in a newly created Federal district in Georgia, but withdrew his name when the Senate showed hostility. When the long session adjourned, the President gave him a recess appointment. In the short session the President repeated this performance and last week presented Mr. Tilson with a second recess appointment. Senators were vexed. Said Senator Harris of Georgia: "If he [the President] can withdraw appointments from confirmation and make recess appointments without limit, he can virtually deprive the Senate of its right to confirm or reject. It seems that an evasion of the Constitution is tantamount to an infraction of it."

* In his Vermont boyhood, Calvin Coolidge was reputed to be a crack squirrel shot.