The White House Week

The White House P:Week

(P: In a written message to Congress last week, President Coolidge asked for an additional $75,000 to continue U. S. participation in the Geneva Preparatory Com-mission for a disarmament conference under the League of Nations.

P:Senator Royal S. Copeland of New York, who wears a red carnation in his buttonhole, called on the President. On emergence from the White House, Mr. Copeland said: "His color is good and his lips are a healthy red."

P: It is no myth that President Coolidge was born in Vermont; neither is it a fable that Vermont celebrated the 150th anniversary of its independence last week. John Chipman Farrar, earnestly playful editor of the Bookman, composed an ode to commemorate the event. An excerpt:

Watch them as they march, O fair Vermont! . . . Coolidge dreaming over a furrow, Balancing a testy problem As he swings the ax over cordwood. He in a man of your mountains, He is a man of your hills. Firm and honest and gentle. Leader and honest citizen-- He Is a man of your breeding-- Coolidye--man of the mountains

P: William Allen White, who writes in Emporia, Kan., and talks anywhere, said last week in Brooklyn, N. Y.: "President Coolidge is as much of a mystic as any other New Englander ever has been, even Emerson; and his mysticism is that he believes that, given prosperity, justice will come as a byproduct. ... I think Calvin Coolidge represents the very best that can be said of this new commercial era in its political phase."

Concerning Governor Smith of New York, Mr. White remarked: "There will have to be a change in the attitude toward big business before Al Smith can ever go to Washington. Personally, I con- sider that Al Smith represents the biggest, best, keenest and cleanest brain in American public life to-day--and I am a Republican."

P:The President signed a bill providing for the enlargement of the Botanical Gardens in Washington.

P:Benjamin Wistar Morris III, famed architect of the Cunard Building (Manhattan) was appointed a member of the Fine Arts Commission by President Coolidge.

P:"A man who has and is contributing more to the man power of the nation than any other citizen" was introduced to the President by Representative Warren of North Carolina. His name is Reuben Bland; he is 72, healthy, twice-married and the father of 34 children. Said President Coolidge: "You ought to be thankful for all your blessings."

P:In the auditorium of the Department of the Interior Building, President Coolidge saw Tell It to the Marines, a cinema.

P:At the apartment of Secretary Mellon, the President and Mrs. Coolidge and other favored ones had dinner.

P:Among those who presented themselves at the White House last week were: Alanson B. Houghton, Ambassador to the Court of St. James's; S. Parker Gilbert, Agent General of Reparations; Senator Watson of Indiana with the Glee Club of Notre Dame University; 50 house-to-house salesmen of the Fuller Brush Co., to handshake.

P:President Coolidge sent to Congress the report of Secretaries Kellogg, Hoover and James J. Davis on immigration quotas. The figures showed that the national origins plan, which will go into effect on July 1, 1927, unless changed by new legislation, will cut the total immigration from 165,000 to 154,000; will increase the quotas of Great Britain, Italy and Russia; will heavily lower the quotas of the Irish Free State, Germany and the Scandinavian countries. The President attached no recommendation to the report, awaited its effect on Congress.

P:Patriotic citizens of Vermont wanted to bestow the name of Calvin Coolidge upon some high and worthy mountain peak. Last week the nomenclature committee reported that no unnamed mountain could be found.

P:The President sent to Congress a message explaining the Adminis- tration's attitude toward Nicaragua (see p. 10).