The Coolidge Week

P: Five angry-eyed turkey gobblers (half as many as last year) arrived at the White House. The biggest, a 30-lb. creature from the North Platte Valley Co-operative Market Association of Nebraska, was elected, to rear its inverted bulk on the Presidential platter. Mr. & Mrs. Frank Waterman Stearns of Boston were the only White House guests, so there was plenty for all.* Dinner was served in the evening after a day, more springlike than autumnal, during which President & Mrs. Coolidge sat in a box at Keith's Theatre and heard a sermon on "The Real Thanksgiving" by Rev. Jason Noble Pierce, whose First Congregational Church is being repaired.

P: President Coolidge designated Col. Noble Brandon Judah, Chicago lawyer, to succeed Major General Enoch Herbert Crowder as U. S. Ambassador to Cuba.

P: His message to the 70th Congress was the opus maius of President Coolidge's week. The document could not be called complete until actually despatched to Capitol Hill. People came and went continually with suggestions and requests as to what the President might say. President William Green of the A. F. of L. made requests. Commander Edward Elwell Spafford made suggestions: a universal draft act, retirement of disabled emergency Army officers, adequate national defense, more veterans' hospitals, flood control. Thomas D. Campbell of Hardin, Mont., raiser of wheat on the largest scale in the U. S., talked so interestingly that the President kept him late after dinner. Doubtless some of Farmer Campbell's wisdom helped shape what the President planned to say about farm relief. Other topics upon which he seemed sure to touch were Navy agenda, foreign policy, railroad mergers, highway construction, merchant marine, establishment of a U.S. Department of Education and Relief with representation in the Cabinet.

P: Plans to make the U. S. officially a guardian of world peace abound in Washington. Senator Capper of Kansas has such a plan. Representative Burton of Ohio has one. Senator Borah of Idaho has another. Last week President Coolidge delivered himself of the opinion that "outlawing" war is close to impossible. It is so hard, for one thing, to define an "aggressor nation." It might be unconstitutional, for another thing, to commit the U. S. to become automatically hostile towards an "aggressor nation." To do so would infringe the exclusive right of Congress to declare war. So thought the President. Senator Borah spoke up through the press in reply; said he agreed that "aggressor nation" plans were delusive; that the thing to do was to make war internationally illegitimate and create a situation whereby the war-declaring power of Congress would not only never be infringed but perhaps never even be exercised.

P: Some large maps appeared at the White House, revealing a new and special interest of the President. They were maps of the Caribbean Sea. They showed commercial air routes already operating, air routes proposed. A German company operating in Colombia wants to have a flying field in the Panama Canal Zone. A U. S. company operating between Florida and Cuba plans to extend its service to Panama. Questions of defense as well as trade arose when the State Department was asked by the German company about a field in Panama. President Coolidge took the matter in hand personally, and advised by a special joint committee of the State, War, Navy, Post Office and Treasury Departments, studied maps of the Caribbean Sea.

P: Upon tax reduction President Coolidge had said his say. The Treasury Department's recommendation of a $225,000,000 cut seemed to him the maximum compatible with proper economy. It was many weeks since President Lewis Eugene Pierson of the U. S. Chamber of Commerce had published the demand of himself & colleagues for a $400,000,000 reduction. This figure had been termed extravagant and out-of-the-question by the Administration. Secretary Mellon had stoutly defended himself against the Chamber's hint that he habitually took more money from the taxpayers than was necessary. For these reasons, and because the Chamber had not recommended any new economies but on the contrary had been urging appropriations for this & that as eagerly as anyone else, President Coolidge experienced a genuine burst of temper and indignation when, last week, President Pierson and the Chamber again called for a $400,000,000 tax cut. President Pierson said that a referendum of all the Chambers of Commerce had backed their rational executives' program 90% strong. The Chamber was anxious for its tax cut, said President Pierson, even if, combined with big appropriations, it resulted in a deficit. President Coolidge's voice rose and rang bitterly as he called this talk "absurd," especially coming from Business men who apparently were unaware that budget law obliges the Treasury to eschew deficits.

P: Another cause of Presidential annoyance during the week was a well-intentioned but (according to President Coolidge) ill-advised chain-letter boom for his renomination, started but obediently stopped by Philip M. Tucker, Boston banker.

P: Mrs. Coolidge gave a portrait of the late Calvin Coolidge Jr. to the Walter Reed Hospital (Washington). It seemed appropriate to do so because he had anticipated a military career and because he died in Walter Reed Hospital, where War veterans are rehabilitated.

P: President Coolidge received the football team of the Newman Preparatory School (Lakewood, N. J.). They wore their dressiest civilian clothes, of course, and the President said: "I am glad to see that your trousers are not flopping around on the ground." Recalling a similar episode last year, when some collegiate callers had worn floppy trousers and been chivvied about them by the President, a newspaper headlined: "BELL BOTTOM DRIVE MAY MAKE COOLIDGE STYLE CZAR."

P: White House callers included:

Prime Minister Mackenzie King of Canada.

Actresses Minnie Maddern Fiske and Henrietta Crosman, and Actor Otis Skinner, who were playing The Merry Wives of Windsor.

Publisher William Randolph Hearst, who answered all queries as to what he and the President had talked about by saying: "We had a very delightful conversation."

Governor Theodore Christiansen of Minnesota, to urge a 50% increase in the tariff on Argentine corn.

Two other Governors called during the week -- John E. Martineau of Arkansas, to pay respects; Ralph Owen Brewster of Maine, to talk Merchant Marine.

P: Down the Potomac toward Norfolk, with an account of the Army-Navy football game droning in on her radio, steamed the yacht Mayflower, much used these days. President & Mrs. Coolidge's guests this time were Senator & Mrs. McNary of Oregon, Senator & Mrs. Oddie of Nevada, Senator & Mrs. Dale of Vermont, Mr. & Mrs. Frank Waterman Stearns (house guests) and Mr. & Mrs. E. T. Clark (he used to be the Coolidge private secretary).

*John Coolidge and an Amherst classmate visited Miss Florence Trumbull and a Mount Holyoke classmate at the Plainville, Conn., home of Governor John H. Trumbull of Connecticut.