The Coolidge Week

P: President Coolidge continued his "fight" to keep the Flood Control bill from passing the House in the form it was given by the Senate (TIME, April 9). When President Coolidge "fights" a bill he usually does it by inviting his Congressional lieutenants to the White House and hearing what they can tell him about the opposition, about the possibilities for compromise. He himself says little, letting the White House atmosphere and a few wry questions stimulate the mental activity of the lieutenants. Then, as the lieutenants plan and discuss, President Coolidge draws negative lines here and there. After last week's Flood Control conference, Speaker Longworth, Floorleader Tilson and Representatives Snell (New York), Madden (Illinois) and Kopp (Iowa) emerged from the White House talking about compromises which President Coolidge would be able to approve. The effect of the compromises would be, it was said, to keep the $325,000,000 expenditure "estimated" in the Senate bill actually down to some $325,000,000, instead of the $1,500,000,000 that had been talked about. Also, flood-work contracts would be controlled by the President and the Secretary of War; also, the States benefited would actually contribute some $10,000,000 in rights-of-way, to demonstrate the principle of local contribution.

P: Harry A. Mackay, mayor of Philadelphia, creature of the beery Republican machine of U. S. Senator-suspect Vare, took some Congressmen for a tour of the Philadelphia Navy Yard last week. On the way he made a speech, saying: "In Washington they have all the dry members of Congress who make the laws and have legislative authority over the District of Columbia. They could mobilize very easily the greatest force of dry agents in the country. They have the highest administrative authority--the President of the United States--and yet Philadelphia is making a far greater effort than Washington to enforce prohibition.

"Why don't the President and Congress set the rest of the country a real example in enforcement of the dry law, if prohibition is enforceable?"

P: Washington police, forewarned by the U. S. State Department, were on hand to disperse and arrest a brigade of placard-bearers who appeared one day outside the White House in the name of the All-American Anti-Imperialist League. "Wall Street and not Sandino is the real bandit," said one placard. "We do not appeal to the White House but to the masses against the White House," said another. In the White House, unaware that his Nicaraguan policy was being so openly criticized, President Coolidge shook hands with other, flattered, peaceful tourists.

P: Mrs. Coolidge returned to Washington from Northampton, Mass. Her sick mother was better. . . . Governor and Mrs. Trumbull of Connecticut and Florence Trumbull, their daughter, were invited to the White House. Mrs. Trumbull was attending a D. A. R. convention. . . . Persons who think President Coolidge should fly with Col. Lindbergh (see LETTERS) commented upon the matter-of-factness with which Governor Trumbull announced that he would fly to Washington from Hartford. He used a new Wasp-motored Ox-12 plane, piloted by an aide.

P: Governor Horton of Tennessee presented, and President Coolidge accepted for the Nation, a statue of Andrew Jackson in the curious cavelike room known as Statuary Hall in the Capitol. President Coolidge made a quite long speech extolling the turbulent patron saint of Democracy as a pioneer, patriot, general, statesman, husband. "He left the Treasury without obligations and with a surplus," noted the thirtieth U. S. President about the seventh President.

P: Daughters of the American Revolution flocked to Washington for their 37th Continental Congress amid a flutter of excitement over last fortnight's "black list" episode. President-General Mrs. Alfred J. Brosseau, gave out a pre-conventional statement saying: "The time seems to have arrived when Americanism must be added to the curricula of school, university and college. . . . Absolute enemies of society . . . are poisoning the minds of children with ideas of atheism, the loosening of marriage ties, or the sweeping aside of the essential American traditions. . . ." President Coolidge attended the Daughters' first evening session, and to them said: "Government must be kept out of Business."