The Coolidge Week

P: When he stopped to think of it, President Coolidge must have thought of last week as his Latin-American Week. Dwight Whitney Morrow, his new ambassador to Mexico, was preparing to advance upon Mexico City (see POLITICAL NOTES).

On Thursday, telephone communication between Washington and Mexico City was established and the Presidents of the two countries, each surrounded by subordinates with headphones, inaugurated the service by reading to each other a formally prepared dialog from their respective ends of the wire. President Coolidge read first: "I am deeply impressed, President Calles, by the significance of this occasion. . . . "President Calles read back (in Spanish) : "I am very happy personally to return the greetings of Mr. Coolidge, the President of the United States, over the telephone. . . ." Diplomacy got no specific mention.

P: Two days after that, President Coolidge told a White House caller, who had just returned from South America, that he could imagine and had long considered the state of Maine and the Republic of Chili being joined some day by a monumental motor highway, which would unite North and South America commercially, socially.

The same day it was learned that, come Jan. 16, the President intended to return the call made upon him last April by President Gerardo Machado of Cuba by attending the opening session of the sixth international conference of American states in Havana. Should he do so, it-would be only the second time that a U. S. President had left U. S. soil on a diplomatic mission./-

While reading to President Calles President Coolidge wore, instead of his familiar black-rimmed spectacles, a shiny new gold pince-nez with long black cord. Observers realized that the change would not necessitate the striking of a new Coolidge medal,* since eyeglasses are not a frequent enough accessory to the Coolidge features. He wears them only when reading.

P: Callers during the week included: Senator Walter Evans Edge of New Jersey, asking favors for oystermen; Senator Frederick N. Gillett of Massachusetts, to pay respects and tell a story (see POLITICAL NOTES); Governor Louis Franck of the National Bank of Belgium, to be introduced; Chief Justice William Howard Taft of the U. S. Supreme Court and several senior judges of the circuit courts of appeals, to pay respects; supreme officers of the tall Cedars of Lebanon; /- Lieutenants Lester J. Maitland and Albert F. Hegenberger, U. S. A., to be taken out on the south lawn of the White House and given Distinguished Flying Crosses for the flight to Hawaii; Chief Justice Howard Taft of the U. S. Supreme Court (again), with the eight associate justices, to pay respects and indicate that they had resumed sitting on the bench.

/- As every one knows, Woodrow Wilson's Paris trip was the first of its kind. Taft visited Panama in 1910, but stayed in territory under U. S. jurisdiction, except for a brief stop-over at Cuba on the home trip. Harding, returning from his Alaskan tour, visited Vancouver, B. C., not, however, on a diplomatic mission.

* Among the duties of the Secretary of the Treasury is that of causing to be struck, as soon as possible after inauguration day, a bronze medal bearing the new Presi'dent's likeness. No effort or money is spared to reproduce the last freckle, pock, line, whisker; the exact crook of nose, areas of baldness, hair part, ear convulsions, etc., for the Presidential medals constitute the official record of what each President looked like while in office. Until about ten years ago, the medals were called "Indian peace medals," hundreds of them being distributed to chieftains at the beginning of every administration. Presidential medals can be obtained by anyone from the Treasury Department for $1.

/- Auxiliary of Masonry.