The Coolidge Week

P: "The most extortionate proposal that has ever been made upon the nation's revenues"--these would be harsh words from any man. From President Coolidge, who applied them last week to the Flood Control bill which had been passed by the Senate and was pending before the House, they sounded almost savage. President Coolidge added that the provisions of the bill would enrich great railroad and lumber companies besides impoverishing the national Treasury. The bill called nominally for $325,000,000, but every one realized that in practice the cost could run as high as $1,500,000,000, or $1,210,000,000 more than the Army engineers had asked for the work. The President suggested what an uproar Congress would have made if the situation were reversed, if the Administration had asked such a monster sum. He indicated pretty clearly what part he thought the railroad and lumber interests had played in the drafting of the provisions, which included purchase of rights-of-way as high as $75 per acre. "They shall not pass," said the President's tone of voice.

But the House had its back up, too. The Coolidge compromise proposals, carried by Republican Leader Tilson to the House Flood Control Committee, insisted upon local contributions of sites for levees and floodways. With equal insistence, the Committee--led by Reid of Illinois, Whittington of Mississippi, Driver of Arkansas, Wilson of Louisiana--would hear of no local contributions except, perhaps, sites for the bases of levees on the main stream of the Mississippi.

The twelve hours allotted by the House for the debate, wore on. Passage of the big bill impended. After that, a veto loomed. Meantime, in the Mississippi Basin, it was raining again.

P: Embarrassed by the Coolidge-Anyway movement, which last week cropped out right in his home State, President Coolidge issued further words on the subject, this time signing the letter himself instead of leaving it to Secretary Everett Sanders, as he did in March when Wyoming was importunate (see p. 8).

P: From the National Manufacturer's Association, President Coolidge received comfort. The association's chief, John E. Edgerton of Tennessee, notified the Senate Finance Committee that U. S. manufacturers regard "excessive" tax reduction as "a reckless invitation to an Executive veto under the President's responsibility to sustain a balanced budget." More, the manufacturers specifically endorsed the Administration's latest tax-reduction estimate -- $182,000,000 in case of a 30-million

Flood Control levy this year, or $201,000,000 if Flood Control is postponed. More still, the manufacturers took square issue with the U. S. Chamber of Commerce, whose insistence on a far larger tax-cut than the Administration approves is frequently represented to be the voice of Industry.

P: To the White House came Mayor E. D. Bass of Chattanooga, with 70 other Tennesseans, to urge President Coolidge to accept the estate of J. P. Pond on Lookout mountain as this year's Summer White House. To back up Mayor Bass, the Citizens of Chattanooga bought a full-page in the Washington Post and spread upon it a Lookout view of Moccasin Bend in the Tennessee River. But it was only mid-April and President Coolidge will not take his vacation much before July. Mayor Bass could take no assurance home with him. Other summer sites lately offered to President Coolidge include an old farm in Maine; a mountainy house at Colorado Springs; the shore residence of the late Rodman Wanamaker at Atlantic City, N. J.

P: It was Metropolitan Opera Week in Washington. President Coolidge sat through Norma, with Rosa Ponselle in the leading role. ... .A choir of 100 from Hampton Institute came to town, to sing for a new building for the National Training School for Women and Girls. President Coolidge heard that also.

P: Washington teemed with Daughters of the American Revolution. President Coolidge, having addressed the opening session of their congress, heard little more about it, for Mrs. Coolidge's health prevented her from joining in the excitement. But Mrs. Coolidge doubtless heard all about it from Mrs. John H. Trumbull, first lady of Connecticut, and her daughter Florence Trumbull, who were staying at the White House. Mrs. Coolidge heard how there had been a revolt by a few Daughters against the order's policy of "blacklisting" radicals, pacifists and organizations suspected of opposing U. S. national defense; how the "rebels" were voted down with President-General Mrs. Alfred J. Brosseau wielding her gavel doughtily. Florence Trumbull acted as one of Mrs. Brosseau's personal pages (another page was Miss Bina Day Deneen, daughter of Senator Deneen of Illinois). Miss Trumbull kept the Daughters wondering whether or not she was engaged to John Coolidge. Photographers so plagued her that she finally said: "They're wearing my face off."

P: From Professor W. A. Craigie of the University of Chicago, President Coolidge received an early copy of the new, 12-volume Oxford Dictionary. George V has been given copy Number one.