THE PRESIDENCY: At White Pine Camp- Sep. 13, 1926

¶ Fifty miles from White Pine Camp is Big Tupper Lake, whither motored the President last week. He shook hands with 20 veterans from the American Legion Convalescent Hospital.

Mr. Coolidge was impressed with Sheppey’s Island, a vast forest-covered camp on Big Tupper Lake. John V. Sheppey* of Toledo had offered his camp to the President this summer. There is a possibility that Mr. Coolidge will accept his offer in 1927, in case Irwin Kirkwood (publisher of the Kansas City Star) should dispose of White Pine Camp.

¶ Mrs. Elmira Goodhue is mother-in-law of the President of this Republic, which fact in itself is innocent enough. However, it provided a spicy stimulant for the tongues of Manhattan scandal mongers last May. They hatched a quotation, in which she was alleged to have said: “I never liked that man from the day Grace married him, and the fact he’s become President of the U. S. makes no difference.”

Last week, these Manhattan gossips had difficulty in finding domestic tribulations in the news that Mrs. Goodhue had arrived in White Pine Camp to visit the Coolidges for the remainder of their vacation.

¶ A lean, spare, silent man of the hills is he. Mountain trails and trout streams he knows. If blindfolded in the dense woods, he could find his way out without bumping into a single tree. Ormond (erroneously called “Omar”) Doty is an able guide and fishing companion of President Coolidge. Between them has grown a friendship which is shown by their understanding silence when together.

¶ Political playboys at White Pine Camp, last weekend, began to inform their readers what President Coolidge was expected to say in his message to Congress three months hence. They announced that he would not say anything to cause a tremor in the business world, that he would not tinker with the tariff nor make any radical changes in the Clayton and Sherman Anti-Trust laws. Correspondents anticipate that the President will urge the enactment of Senator Fess’ farm bill and General Andrews’ prohibition enforcement measures; that he will oppose independence* for the Philippines.

¶ An alarm clock clamored impatiently. The President leapt from his bed. It was 5 a. m. With his faithful guide Ormond Doty and Secret Service men, he drove 35 miles to Essex county, hiked through rugged woods to Ausable River. By 7 a. m., his boots were in the brook, his bait was on the hook. (In Franklin county, where White Pine Camp is, the game laws decree that trout fishing shall cease on Sept. 1, but in Essex county the deadline is Sept. 6).

¶ Dr. James F. Coupal reported that the President is in the pink of physical condition, that he has reduced his weight to 153 lb., that he has not had even a touch of rose fever,* to which he is subject.

* A good friend of President Harding and the original owner of the famed airedale, Laddie Boy. * A form of hay fever, attributed to the effluvia of roses.