The Coolidge Week

P: Pending the findings and final recommendations of the Senate investigators, President Coolidge reiterated his opinion that the seat of trouble in the bituminous coal industry is too many mines and too many miners. He agreed with Senators Gooding and Wheeler, Miner John L. Lewis and many an operator, that amendment of the anti-trust laws will probably be necessary to let the operators make agreements in salutory restraint of their own trade--but not until miners and operators shall have reached production agreements among themselves.

P: Hearing early reports that the income tax revenue was less than had been expected this year, President Coolidge sent word around to the Government departments (in effect): "Be cautious. Be frugal. Economize."

P: In a dirty little shack by a worn-out copper mine near the crest of the Bluebird Range in Montana, lives an old man with tobacco juice in his beard, holes in his shoes and memories in his head. His name is Bill Martin. He is a mine caretaker, sometimes a sheepherder, virtually a beggar. When he was young, he says, he prospected for silver and copper with a fellow called Bill Clark, formally named William A. Clark. Together they found metal, a lot of metal. Bill Martin drank up and gambled away his share. But not Bill Clark, who kept his head, went into politics, went to the U. S. Senate, built an extravagant palace full of works of art on Fifth Avenue, way off in New York. Three years ago, Senator Clark died, willing his art treasures to the Metropolitan Museum, Manhattan, on condition that it would keep them as an integral exhibit. The Metropolitan refused the treasures on these terms, but not the Corcoran Art Gallery of Washington, substitute legatee. ... Last week, with Senator Clark's widow on his arm, President Coolidge walked through the Corcoran's new Clark annex, followed by a gala procession, and looked at the pictures, tapestries, laces, rugs, faiences, sculptures, furniture and other gimcracks collected to the tune of perhaps five millions by old Bill Martin's alleged oldtime pardner, Bill Clark.

P: President Coolidge's guests last week at the White House were as varied as usual, including:

Chairman William Morgan Butler of the Republican National Committee, to discuss some inscrutable political matter.

Some American Legionnaires, asking that the Legion be given representation as an official "observer" at any and all international disarmament conferences attended by the U. S.

The Ambassador from Chile, Senor Don Carlos G. Davila, who lunched.

Senator Andre Honnorat of France, to tell President Coolidge about the Cite Universitaire foundation in Paris, to which many countries, including the U. S., have been invited to contribute dormitories for their nationals.

The Rev. Rolf Lium, who preached to the Coolidges last summer in the First Congregational Church of Hermosa, S. D. He was in Washingtonon the Carleton College (Northfield, Minn.) team to debate the question: "Resolved, that the U. S. should not protect by armed force capital invested in foreign lands except after formal declaration of war." In the course of the debate, the Rev. Lium said he thought the President of the U. S.--any President, he made clear--had too great power in the matter of military intervention. His team (against armed intervention) won the debate. P: Four Hungarians, claiming membership in the Anti-Horthy League of America, were arrested for picketing the White House grounds while President Coolidge was receiving a delegation of other Hungarians, discussing a statue of Lajos Kossuth. The picketeers' signs said: "Hejjas was a mass murderer," "They dishonored Kossuth."

P: If President Coolidge reads news despatches from Chicago he doubtless read about himself last week. Mayor William Hale ("Big Bill") Thompson of Chicago is conducting a "Coolidge-anyway" movement, on a Wet platform. On the ticket is Martin Barnaby Madden, snowy-polled Chairman of the Appropriations Committee of the U. S. House of Representatives. Mr. Madden is threatened by defeat in his home district, where the voters, mostly Negroes, are being incited to elect a Representative of their own race. To strengthen the Coolidge-Thompson-Mad-den ticket, Mr. Madden wrote and Mayor Thompson published the following: ". ... Mr. Coolidge is thoroughly trained in the art of government. He possesses a patriotism that knows no turning. He has an industry that knows no limit. He is a good listener. . . . His marvelous knowledge of the Government in all its phases is amazing. One wonders how he acquired this knowledge. ... I have never yet found him ignorant. . . . Coolidge is quiet. He is unassuming but strong and brave. ... There is no problem too great . . . none too small. ... He moves forward, day by day, under the lash of his own well-trained mind. . . ."