A Scene

At noon on Dec. 6 official Washington flocked to the chamber of the House of Representatives to hear the President deliver his message to Congress. Nearly all the members of both Houses were present. The Cabinet marched down the aisle amid applause.

Mark Sullivan, able Washington correspondent, said of the scene: "As you looked at the Representatives and Senators you were convinced that for such achievement as comes out of them we must rely on the capacities inherent in average men. In clothes and in countenance they were conspicuous, so to speak, in their averageness. . . . To the eye it was like a meeting of the Farmers' Cooperative Association of Des Moines, la., or a session of the male members of any small-town church."

So much could not be said of the galleries, crowded with "official ladies." There was Mrs. Coolidge in henna-colored dress and hat, with a coat of cocoa-colored velour, trimmed with fur. In another part was Mrs. Wood-row Wilson, gowned in black, with orchids at her waist. There were wives of seven or eight members of the Cabinet; also Miss Ailsa Mellon, representing her father. There was Mrs. Alice Roosevelt Longworth, wife of the Republican Floor Leader.

In the gallery throng were also Colonel George Harvey, "looking down benignly, like a wise old fowl who has just had a full meal." Also General Sawyer (physician to President Harding), R. B. Creager (expected-to-be Ambassador to Mexico), Commander Quinn of the American Legion, Samuel Gompers.

At 12:30 the President appeared. He shook hands with Speaker Gillett, Senate President Cummins, bowed to the audience. Then he mounted to the Clerk's desk, immediately below the Speaker's, and commenced his address.

His voice was high-pitched, slightly nasal. His enunciation was clear and precise. He spoke in an even monotone, never raising his hands, rarely emphasizing his remarks by intonation.

From time to time he was interrupted by bursts of applause--notably when he declared against remission of Allied War debts, when he gave his "unqualified approval" to tax reduction, when he favored restriction of immigration, when he demanded every aid for disabled War veterans. In 64 minutes he had finished. There was a burst of cheering. Gathering his manuscript, his handkerchief, his spectacle case, he disappeared.