Ceremonies

The Class of 1928 at Amherst elected President Coolidge its honorary president. . . . President Coolidge laid a cornerstone in Washington, for the new American Red Cross Building, dedicated to U. S. women in the War. Chief Justice Taft presided. Mrs. Woodrow Wilson attended. . . . President Coolidge journeyed to Gettysburg, Pa., to deliver a Memorial Day speech. In charge of the train was one Grant Eckert, son of the later Conductor John Eckert who had charge of the train which took President Lincoln to Gettysburg in 1863. In his speech, President Coolidge called Abraham Lincoln "one of the greatest men ever in the world." Then he dipped into figures and said that the U. S. had given between six and seven billion dollars, in pensions and gratuities, to service men of the Civil War. For service men of the last War, five billions have been set aside in a decade, he said. "All the countries on earth in all their history, all put together, have not done as much. . . ."

Next he took up disarmament, obedience to law, world peace. He called Secretary of State Kellogg's multilateral treaty work "one of the most impressive peace movements that the world has ever seen." In closing he quoted Abraham Lincoln's phrases, "of the people, by the people, for the people" and suggested that efforts for war-prevention were the best tribute to dead soldiers.