Coolidge Finale

To the gaunt, barnlike Washington auditorium five blocks away from the White House, where George Washington University was holding its mid-year commencement, went President and Mrs. Coolidge. In the stage wings they slipped on the caps and gowns of scholars and went out upon the platform. There, while college students cheered and Cabinet members, diplomats, professors, patted their hands in approval, Calvin Coolidge adjusted his spectacles to read his last Presidential address.

It was a world-speech. George Washington, "best business man of his day," was its occasional theme. Its substantive text was U. S. foreign relations. In them President Coolidge found much satisfaction. President Washington, he imagined, would also have been well pleased. Said President Coolidge:

"Our foreign relations at the present time . . . have rarely been in a more happy condition. . . . Our relations with South America are on the most satisfactory basis that they have been for 25 years. On the far side of the Pacific our situation is equally satisfactory. We have no important unadjusted problem with the government of any European nation, with the exception of Russia . . . . All the issues that arose, even out of the World War, have been adjusted."

This felicitous condition President Coolidge traced back to the Republican policy of isolation, thus:

"We do not seek isolation for its own sake . . . but we cherish our position of unprejudiced detachment because through that means we can best meet our world obligations."

Nevertheless, the President was unquestionably thinking about a most important unsolved issue--reparations--which Coolidge-chosen though unofficial experts were even then pondering in Paris (see p. 23). As a G. O. P. formula, the President has repeated that reparations is not a U. S. problem, but never has he denied his country's large interest in finding a solution.

P: The Coolidge speech was obviously designed to generate a warm atmosphere of U. S. friendliness throughout the world. Other auxiliary U. S. heating plants were also in full blast abroad--Ambassador Schurman in Berlin, Ambassador Herrick in Paris.

To avoid misquotation, President Coolidge cables his foreign affairs speeches in advance to American embassies, for U. S. diplomats to peruse and distribute to the foreign press. To Paris thus went the Coolidge farewell speech, in which was some careful research on foreign alliances. "He [Washington] warned us to beware of permanent and political alliances," said President Coolidge. "The phrase 'entangling alliances' is not from him but from Jefferson." Taking his cue almost verbatim, Ambassador Herrick said: "Washington did not use the phrase 'entangling alliances' but warned against permanent alliances." This was no mere echo, for Mr. Herrick, in Paris, said it some five hours before President Coolidge in Washington.

P: To the White House last week went Herbert Hoover. President Coolidge led him upstairs to his private office. They talked for 50 minutes. When Mr. Hoover emerged he said: "We talked over general affairs of State. That is all I can say."