The Coolidge Week

P:With Congress soon assembling, these are days when people air their notions of what Congress ought to do. President Coolidge has his own ideas on that subject and lest Congress should come together in a difficult frame of mind, he frequently feels obliged to answer critics, theorists, reformers.

P: Last week it was tax cutting, to start with. The U. S. Chamber of Commerce had called for a tax cut of 400 millions with special relief for corporations. Senator Furnifold McLendel Simmons of North Carolina, ranking Democrat on the potent Senate Finance Committee, was in Washington talking about a tax cut of perhaps 500 millions. President Coolidge sharply announced that, with a U. S. debt of 18 billions, a tax cut of 500 millions was out of the question and 400 millions was immoderate. He strongly favored some tax reduction, he said, but would not say how much. Prior to last week the Administration's tax cut estimate was 300 millions

P: Senator Carter Glass's attack on the State Department's foreign loan policy called forth a statement by the President (see p. 9); and Major General Charles Pelot Summerall's remarks on Army housing called forth another statement, though President Coolidge avoided taking open issue with his Chief of Staff (see p. 10).

P: President Coolidge went to Pittsburgh. Andrew W. Mellon, Secretary of the Treasury, conducted his chief & Mrs. Coolidge to the Mellon mansion near the smoky fork of the Allegheny & Monongahela Rivers. In the morning they breakfasted with the Secretary's brother, Richard B. Mellon, in another Mellon mansion. Then President Coolidge drove through the streets to visit, among other places, the Fort Pitt blockhouse and the Washington Cross-his Chief of Staff (see p. 10). a time when George Washington was swept off a raft in the icy Allegheny and almost drowned.

P: Though never noted for artistic sensibilities, President Coolidge was more than equal to a Founder's Day celebration and international painting exhibit at Carnegie Institute, the occasion for his Pittsburgh visit. Diplomats from France, Italy, Belgium, Rumania, Austria & Holland sat by and heard the history of Pittsburgh interpreted as a characteristic evolution of U. S. culture. Beginning 150 years ago with the pioneers who "could face facts," "grapple with realities" and subdue savages; touching briefly on George Washington, the University of Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh's present bank clearances (9.198 billions) ; recounting with admiration the rise of an alien child, Andrew Carnegie, and his beneficent works; hailing the Mellon brothers, the "distinctly American effort" of the painting exhibition and Andrew Carnegie once more, President Coolidge finished on a note especially pitched for Pittsburgh. "There are still some," he said, "who sit apart, who do not see,, who cannot understand. To them our industrial life is the apotheosis of selfishness. They cannot realize that the rattle of the reaper, the buzz of the saw, the clang of the anvil, the roar of traffic are all part of a mighty symphony, not only of material but of spiritual progress. Out of them the nation is supporting its religious institutions, endowing its colleges, providing its charities, furnishing adornments of architecture, rearing its monuments, organizing its orchestras and encouraging its painting.

"But the American people see and understand. Imperturbed, they move majestically forward in the consciousness that they are making their contribution in common with our sister nations to the progress of humanity." Another Pittsburgher of the Cabinet,* Secretary of Labor James J. Davis, accompanied President Coolidge back to Washington.

P: Schoolteachers were glum, but some other persons cheered, when President Coolidge chose not to proclaim an American Education Week this year. In 1923, 1924, 1925 he proclaimed this "Week" but not last year, when U. S. Commissioner of Education John J. Tigert advised it was unnecessary. The President's secretary, Everett Sanders, explained this year to President Cornelia S. Adair of the National Education Association: "The President has expressed himself fully as to his convictions on the value of education and holds that to rephrase such sentiments tends rather to weaken them. ..."

P:In Nebraska, a hen which had laid 165 eggs in 165 days laid another egg on the 166th day./- This egg was fitted into a jewel case, sent by air mail to President Coolidge.

P:From newspapers a President of the U. S. receives blessings and maledictions in about equal proportions. Seldom is a President reluctant to perform as President Coolidge did last week. In the White House, he pressed a button which closed a circuit which passed a current which started a motor which set a-humming some news presses in a new plant of the Akron (Ohio) Beacon-Journal.

P: White House callers of the week include: contestants in the International Oratorical Contest and a delegation of railroad ticket agents, to be introduced; onetime (1911-23) U. S. Senator Atlee Pomerene of Ohio to report the progress of himself and colleagues on the U. S. prosecution of oil litigation (see p. 11) and to ask for $100,000 to meet expenses; Roy T. Davis, U. S. Minister to Costa Rica, to pay respects.

*The home cities of the Cabinet: Frank Billings Kellogg Minneapolis Andrew W. Mellon Pittsburgh Dwight Filley Davis St. Louis Curtis Dwight Wilbur Washington John G. Sargent Ludlow, Vt. Hubert Work Pueblo, Col William M. Jardine Manhattan, Kan Herbert Clark Hoover Stanford, Calif. James John Davis Pittsburgh Harry S. New Indianapolis

/-Last week the Department of Agriculture announced that all the hens in the U. S. lay 760 eggs per second, 24 billion eggs per annum.