The Coolidge Week

P:The President & family attended church, accompanied by U. S. Senator from Connecticut Hiram Bingham and the Senator's son, Woodbridge Bingham. Rolf Lium, student preacher of the Hermosa Church, gave his last sermon of the summer. When the collection plate was passed, the Coolidges, consistently impressed by the young man's ability, contributed to a $50 purse which members of the parish tendered Rolf Lium in addition to his monthly salary of $50. Mrs. Coolidge shook hands with Rolf Lium after the service and secured his mother's address.

P: The President sat in a grandstand and listened to a speech. "Every American boy ought to want to be President of the United States, but when he develops and finds his real work that work may be even more important than being President. . . ." The speechmaker was Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor;* the occasion was the dedication of a Boy Scout camp near Custer, S. Dak. The President was informed that its name would be Camp Coolidge.

P: Farmers in Newell, S. Dak., gave President Coolidge one small gold irrigation shovel, two sheep, then offered to give him a farm of 160 acres on condition that he would settle thereon with sheep and shovel. Said the President: "These presents round out just what I need to be a farmer in South Dakota. ... I have been presented with a fine saddle horse and accoutrements. ... I am the possessor of a herd of cattle. . . ."

Later, an old grisled man, one George Surfin, of Dryden, N. Y., walked up to the President. Said he: "I have shaken hands with Lincoln, McKinley, Roosevelt; now I want to shake hands with you."

Asked whether he favored the use of a cruiser to take U. S. Navy Lieutenant Alford J. Williams and his speed plane to Venice in time for the Schneider Cup races, President Coolidge stated that in his opinion transatlantic steamship service would be adequate. Later, when navy officials had approved sending a cruiser, the President withdrew his objection.

P: Into the shopping district of Rapid City ventured Mrs. Coolidge & John Coolidge. At the butcher's, the baker's, the gift shop, they dallied; then they entered a jeweler's store. Mrs. Coolidge, peering through the glass counter at a darkly sparkling jumble of bracelets, brooches, silver chains, earrings and intricate pendants, spied a shiny ring, forged from the golden dust of the Black Hills. She turned to John Coolidge, said: "How would you like to have one of these?" John Coolidge was reported to have said: "I don't wear rings, thank you."

Rapid City became, suddenly, a noisy pandemonium. Mill whistles screeched, fire alarms wailed loudly, people cheered and shouted; through all this racket was deeply audible the steady stentorian drumming of an airplane motor. President Coolidge, a curiously small and inconspicuous figure, stood with a group of Sunday-School children, waving a white handkerchief as he craned up at the aviator who was circling the town barely above the trees. Presently the plane dipped sharply over where the President was standing, then flew swiftly away over the distant hills. The roar of its motor, all whistles and alarms dwindled and the city grew quiet again.

This was the salute of Col. Charles Augustus Lindbergh to President Calvin Coolidge. Flying from Pierre, S. Dak., to Cheyenne, Wyo., Colonel Lindbergh had come to drop a card to the President. The card was an engraved announcement that he was touring the country to promote commercial aviation. It was signed, in pencil scrawl, "Charles A. Lindbergh."

P:The President and Mrs. Coolidge made ready to "break camp" in the Black Hills. Autumn, Washington, Duty were calling. But first they issued a blanket invitation to the villagers of Hermosa, between the state lodge and Rapid City, where they had been going to church the past summer, for a lawn social. Hermosa's census shows only a few score of residents, but hundreds acted upon the invitation. The young Reverend Rolf Lium, their summer pastor, stood beside his host and hostess to introduce every one. They had ice cream, cake, a cavalry band.

P: Once back in Washington, the President will have much to do, much to say. Here are some of the things to be done:

Select an Ambassador to Mexico and a Governor General of the Philippines.

Call, or refuse to call, a special session of the Congress.

Formulate a tax reduction, and a flood relief, and a naval building program.

P:The Congress will open--barring a special session--on the first Monday in December. Then is the time the President will have to say things, in his formal message to the Legislators. Correspondents at Rapid City were allowed last week to peer into the President's mind and see that formal message in an early, formative stage. They learned, or guessed, that the message will touch oni four prominent questions as follows:

Tax Reduction & Flood Relief. These are thought of together because what the Government plans to pay out in the Mississippi Valley it must plan to take in from the whole country. The President believes that taxes can be reduced if flood relief is approached with proper economy.

Farm Relief. The President will not compromise with liberal Congressmen on anything like the equalization feature of the McNary-Haugen Bill. But he will support a large appropriation for extension of the present co-operative marketing system.

Tariff. The President is opposed to revision.

Mexico, China. The President foresees no change of U. S. policy towards either country. U. S. troops will continue to guard U. S. lives in China. When a semblance of government emerges there, then will be the time to think about treaties.

*Now engaged in carving on the face of Mount Rushmore, in South Dakota, heads of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt.