THE PRESIDENCY: Callers

Duty whispered low, “Thou must,” and Calvin Coolidge got ready to leave Wisconsin. Callers of note became more plentiful at the Summer White House.

Secretary of War Davis appeared, to tell about Hawaii’s forts and sesquicentennial celebration. The Lakes-to-Atlantic seaway, as an outlet for Midland farm produce, was also on the Secretary’s mind. He issued a statement in behalf of the St. Lawrence River route as against the Mohawk Valley-Hudson River route.

Chairman Eugene Meyer of the Federal Farm Loan Board stopped in on his annual western tour. Again the Farm Problem received highest official contemplation.

Secretary of the Interior Roy Owen West called, to bring the President up to date on the Boulder Dam (Colorado River) project and also, presumably, on the Hoover campaign as seen from Washington.

Politics was more obviously and exclusively the news-burden borne by other visitors—Charles Beecher Warren, National G. O. P. Committeeman from Michigan; Assistant Secretary of Commerce Walter F. Brown, Ohio organizer; Senator Capper of Kansas; Irvine Luther Lenroot, onetime (1918-27) Wisconsin Senator.

President Coolidge has promised to help along the Hoover campaign if and when he seems needed, but not before.

¶ President Coolidge viewed with alarm the Budget Bureau’s report that the U. S. has a paper deficit of some 94 millions for the fiscal year ending next June 30. He said he would call together the bureau heads, preach Economy, see what can be done.

¶ The open season for trout ended, but not before the President had caught one more fat rainbow trout (4½ lbs.) and, by moonlight one evening, a grayling. Fifty grayling—slim, gamey cousins of the trout with a high dorsal fin, plentiful in Montana but almost extinct in Wisconsin—had been turned into the Brule from the Pierce estate’s fish nurseries.

¶ President Coolidge executed an order raising the tariff on sodium silicofluoride from 25% of its foreign value to 25% of its market value in the U. S. The chemical is used for acid rinses in laundries and for manufacturing enamel ware and opalescent glass. The U. S. consumption is some 5,000,000 lbs. per annum, of which about half is imported, mainly from Denmark.

¶ John Coolidge departed from Brule for Hartford, Conn., whither his father and mother were to follow him on Sept. 10. Governor Trumbull of Connecticut again denied the engagement of his daughter, Florence Trumbull. Confirmation was lacking also for a report that John Coolidge had accepted employment with the Pennsylvania R. R.

¶ Photographs were circulated in the U. S., advertising the Chrysler Imperial “80” Touralette, showing President Coolidge, Mrs. Coolidge and John Coolidge sitting together in the rear seat of such an automobile (the day they went to the American Legion convention at Wausau, Wis.). It was the first time in a long time that President Coolidge had got into an advertisement.