The Coolidge Week

P: It was a week of visiting around in South Dakota for the President, but there were, as well, several visitors at the summer White House. General John Joseph Pershing called on the way home from visiting his father-in-law., Senator Francis E. Warren, of Wyoming, and reported the condition of U. S. cemeteries abroad, discussed disarmament. Mr. & Mrs. Michael Gallagher, Cleveland friends of the Coolidges, dropped in on a motor tour and the President told them he was sorry the flooded, muddy condition of "the location I use" in Grace Coolidge Creek prevented him from returning their turkey of last Thanksgiving with a trout dinner. Other-visitors included officials of the Post Office Department and Department of the Treasury, to report on a nationwide survey of proposed sites for Federal buildings; a Kansas Congressman; a delegation of postmasters.

P: More notable than any, came Dwight W. Morrow, the President's classmate and close friend, potent Morgan partner and unseen influence in the G. 0. P. Mr. Morrow represented the politically bewildered East and high finance. Newsgatherers waited eagerly for Mr. Morrow to come away after interviews at which it was certain there would have been give and take on the renowned Coolidge "choice" for 1928. But Mr. Morrow came forth in owlish silence, boarded a train for his ranch in Idaho, left the world none the wiser.

P: After inspecting Battle Mountain Sanitarium, national soldiers' home near Hot Springs, S. Dak., the President said: "I want to see that old man alone." He left his wife and son in their motor, re-entered the sanitarium and sat down beside a stooped figure with cascading white hair and beard. The two talked for 20 minutes. Once the older man said: "Let's see. I saw him last in 1864." The old man was Hezron G. Day, 85, Civil War veteran, father of Admiral George Calvin Day, U. S. N., who commands the present Atlantic cruiser squadron. Mr. Day left Plymouth, Vt., 57 years ago, two years before Calvin Coolidge was born. He recalled President Coolidge's grandfather more clearly than the late Col. John Coolidge. Asked how President Coolidge had impressed him. Mr. Day said: "Very fairly. He runs pretty true to the Yankee type."

> Calvin Coolidge reverted to Calvin Wamblee-Tokaha (Leading Eagle) for a day. At Pine Ridge Indian Agency, 150 miles from Rapid City, S. Dak., he paid the first visit of a U. S. President to an Indian reservation (see next page).

> Preparations were made--secretly, with Sacco-Vanzetti disturbances in mind--for a seven-day presidential pilgrimage on horseback through Yellowstone National Park.

> The Rapid City police learned that a wrecked flivver had been found near their town with these words scrawled on the windshield: "I do not choose to run in 1928."

> While his father and mother received on the Hot Springs Country Club porch, John Coolidge strolled over to a group of five young girls, who put their arms around one another's backs and giggled. They said he should come over some night when there was a dance. He said, "I'd like to." He surveyed the golf course and stated that he had been playing that game in the East lately, with Russell Wood of the U. S. Secret Service.

> For seizing, singlehanded, the 18-man crew and $500,000 liquor cargo of the S. S. Grey Point, British rum boat, one night last month in New York Harbor, Charles L. Duke, temporary ensign in the U. S. coast guard, was last week commissioned a lieutenant, junior grade, by firm strokes of the presidential pen.

> Not until last week was it discovered that when Charles Augustus Lindbergh came home from Europe he brought with him a golden medal inscribed on one side: "To the High Protector of the International League of Aviators"; on the other side: "To President Coolidge from the King of the Belgians."

> At a luncheon in Hot Springs, the President inquired for Badger Clark, author of one of his favorite poems, "The Cowboy's Prayer."-- The luncheon hosts were embarrassed, not having invited Poet Clark, whom they at once sent for, whose eloquent mother later gave the President a U. S. flag, equipped with staff.

* Excerpts: Oh Lord, I've never lived where churches grow, I love creation better as it stood That day you finished it so long ago And looked upon your work and called it good. I know that others find you in the light That's sifted down through tinted window panes, And yet I seem to feel you near tonight In this dim, quiet starlight of the plains. I thank you, Lord, that I am placed so well, That you have made my freedom so complete ; That I'm no slave of whistle, clock or bell, Nor weak-eyed prisoner of wall and street. . . . Let me be easy on the man that's down; Let me be square and generous with all. I'm careless sometimes. Lord, when I'm in town, But never let 'em say I'm mean or small! . . . Just keep an eye on all that's done and said And right me, sometimes, when I turn aside, And guide me on the long, dim trail ahead That stretches upward toward the great divide.