The Coolidge Week

P: Washington's famed Japanese cherry trees burst into bloom days ahead of time as the President welcomed his son to No. 15 Dupont Circle. President Coolidge's son John was home from Amherst for a ten-day spring vacation. P: At noon, one day last week, at the executive offices at the White House, the President formally received the members of the musical clubs of his alma mater, Amherst. At teatime, Mrs. Coolidge and son John received them informally at No. 15 Dupont Circle; in the evening, applauded them generously from a box in Continental Hall. President Coolidge, no music-lover, did not attend the concert. P: Mrs. Coolidge, colorfully attired in a dark red suit, was guest of honor at a luncheon of the National Women's Press Club of Washington. For table decorations, she sent pink roses from the White House greenhouses. P: When invited to spend his summer vacation in Idaho, President Coolidge let it be known that he thought Idaho too far west. This limits his field. He is not going to pitch a tent in the middle of an Iowa cornfield; nor is he likely to choose a Rocky Mountain playground, away from the angry farmers' area.* Current political strategy hints that the President will select the Black Hills of South Dakota or some convenient fishing spot in Wisconsin. To him will be called dirt farmers, farm organizers, midwestern Senators and Representatives. The President will tell them how anxious he is to solve the farm problem, will ask their suggestions. Meanwhile, a compromise farm bill will be constructed with his approval. Congress will pass it next winter and the President will have solved a tough knot. . . . Such is the predicted strategy. P: Paul Claudel, French Ambassador to the U. S., called on President Coolidge, presented his credentials.

*Republican National Committeeman Charles Dewey Hilles returned from the Middle West last week and announced that here and there but not everywhere the farmers resent the veto of the McNary-Haugen bill.