THE PRESIDENCY: The White House Week: Dec. 24, 1923

THE PRESIDENCY

The White House Week

¶ The President submitted to the Senate a list of over 2,000 appointments for confirmation, most of them recess appointments by President Harding. The list included ex-Senator Frank B. Kellogg as Ambassador to Great Britain and Edward P. Farley as Chairman of the Shipping Board. (See page 2.)

¶A petition from the Minnesota branch of the League of Women Voters advocating entrance into the World Court, and said to carry 100,000 signatures was presented to Mr. Coolidge. He advised that in order to secure action the petition be taken to the Minnesota Senators, Hendrik Shipstead and Magnus Johnson, Farmer-Laborites.

¶Mortimer L. Schiff, of Kuhn, Loeb & Co., Manhattan, was called to the White House for a conference on the railway situation.

¶William J. Bryan visited Mr. Coolidge personally to regret that he coul’d not attend a “Diplomatic Reception” at the White House. As Mr. Bryan left, a reporter asked his opinion of Mr. Coolidge’s political future. Mr. Bryan replied: “I never discuss individuals.”

¶A Junior at Mt. Holyoke College, Miss Ruth Muskrat, Cherokee, presented the President with a book, The Red Man in the United States, dedicated to: “The Great White Father.” Afterwards Mr. and Mrs. Coolidge invited her to stay for lunch.

¶The President commuted the sentences of the 31 men still in prison for violation of War-time laws. (See page 4.)

¶The President and Mrs. Coolidge held their first Diplomatic Reception. Between 9 p. m. and midnight 2,000 guests passed the receiving line. Mrs. Coolidge, in ivory white brocade with white roses, was assisted by Mrs. Hughes. In the diplomatic group, headed by the French Ambassador, M. Jusserand, were the Ambassadors, Ministers and Charges d’Affaires of 49 nations, with their wives, their secretaries and attaches (from two to a score for each nation) and the wives of the secretaries and attaches. One notable group who conversed together in the Blue Room after being received included, Ambassador and Mme. Jusserand of France, Ambassador and Baroness de Cartier of Belgium, Ambassador and Frau Wiedfeldt of Germany.

¶Mrs. Coolidge was obliged to engage a second social secretary in addition to the one she already had; “Lohengrin, Jr.,” first prize-winning singer at the International Canary Show at Chicago was presented to Mrs. Coolidge; Mrs. Coolidge made arrangements for a choir of 60 voices to sing Christmas carols on the White House grounds on Christmas Eve; President Paul D. Moody ¶ Middlebury College, Vt., axe in hand, felled a pine tree which was shipped to Washington to be erected in the oval behind the White House as a national Christmas tree.