The Coolidge Week

P: The President appeared in his office with his right wrist swollen, bandaged. Cause: undefined and perhaps undefinable*. . . . He watched workmen on the roof of the White House, suddenly retreated eight yards. Cause: a crane dangling lumber above his head. . . . Mrs. Coolidge wore a green scarf. Cause: St. Patrick's Day.

P: By "pocket veto" (failure to act on a bill ten days after receiving it, Congress having ad-journed), the President killed a bill to increase the pensions of Civil War widows, over 75 years of age, from $30 to $40 a month.

P: The first official diplomatic visitor at No. 15 Dupont Circle (temporary "White House") was J. H. Van Roijen, newly appointed Minister from the Netherlands.

P: Notwithstanding the ardor of their "coonship," President Coolidge last week despatched Rebecca Raccoon to the public zoo for permanent residence. Washington wondered what Rebecca had done to sever, so suddenly, happy domestic relations.

P: Last week, four mournful men, Judge Eugene O. Sykes, Orestes H. Caldwell, Henry A. Bellows and Col. John F. Dillon, called on the President, told him their troubles. All of them held posts on the newly appointed radio commission; they were beginning their work without salaries, offices, desks or even wastebaskets, for Congress had failed to appropriate money to carry on their work. The President condoled with them, thanked them for their public spirit. Comforted, they returned to an office in an empty wing of the Department of Commerce building, sat down on borrowed chairs. From the Department of Agriculture they borrowed one Sam Pickard to act as their secretary, from the Department of Justice borrowed attorneys, from the War, Navy and Commerce Departments borrowed clerks. They got desks and typewriters by begging here and there.

P: Last week the President glanced over the preliminary reports of the March income tax receipts of the Department of the Treasury; from Treasury officials he heard the gratifying news that bigger and better returns indicated a $600,000,000 surplus. Forthwith he returned to the pleasing subject of tax reduction, opined that reduction would be in order by October, if there is no business depression. Newspaper headlines were more conservative than in the past. Editors recalled that President Coolidge, last November, had "foreseen" tax reduction in the session of Congress just ended; but Republican leaders would have none of it. Secretary of the Treasury Andrew W. Mellon, with customary caution, refused to talk of tax reduction in 1928. But the fact remains that the Treasury now expects by July 1 to have a surplus close to $600,000,000, instead of the $383,000,000 predicted. It is highly probable that a large part of the surplus will be used to reduce taxes.

--Some thought the swollen hand was the result of prolific handshaking. This the President stoutly denied. It is just a case of old-fashioned rheumatism, he guessed.