The White House Week
The White House Week
tured Mrs. Coolidge gave a dinner and musicale in honor of Speaker and Mrs. Longworth. The last time Mr. and Mrs. Longworth were guests of honor at the White House was on Feb. 17, 1906, when they were married. The other guests at the dinner included Senator and Mrs. Joseph T. Robinson, Senator and Mrs. Wadsworth, the Republican and Democratic leaders in the House (Messrs. Tilson and Garrett) and their wives, Mr. Alexander P. Moore (onetime Ambassador to Spain), James A. Drain (onetime Commander of the American Legion) and Mrs. Drain, two former ex-Secretaries to the President (C. Bascom Slemp and George B. Christian) and Mrs. Christian, Mrs. J. Borden Harriman, Dr. and Mrs. Jason Noble Pierce (the President's minister), Dr. and Mrs. Stanley Rinehart, Governor and Mrs. Trumbull of Connecticut. Afterwards, seated on gilded chairs in the East Room, the guests were regaled with the notes of Alberto Salvi (harpist) and Miss Anna Case (soprano).
Washington that Chicago is to have a new hotel, a $5,000,000 structure with 2,000 rooms, 25 stories high; down the block and across the street from The Blackstone, at the corner of Seventh St. and Wabash Ave.; and to be named The Coolidge. The President did not comment, but ardent Republicans felt it was an appropriate honor. The hotel is designed by its builders to be a moneymaker, not over-eloborate.
th a positiveness quite beyond his usual manner and without the inspiration furnished by the usual written questions of the newspapermen, made his views known on four subjects:
1) He let it be known that he was sharply disappointed by the postponement of the preliminary disarmament conference of the League of Nations. He was quite polite of course, but made it plain that he did not like the postponement even a little bit.
2) He let it be known that he does not approve at all of the propaganda which usually appears "at this time of year" (that is, when appropriations are in the making), propaganda deploring our military and naval unpreparedness and issuing from Army and Navy circles in hope of getting larger appropriations.
3) He let it be known that he thinks U.S. adherence to the World Court will be helpful and will not be a step toward entrance into the League of Nations.
4) He let it be known that he hoped the country would not be misled into thinking there are all sorts of corruption and incompetence in the Government, because "at this time of year" (that is, when elections are in the offing) politics leads to the making of bitter criticisms in Congress.*
rt Mr. Garvey to the British West Indies on expiration of his prison term, because he was convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude within five years of his arrival in the U.S. Mr. Garvey therefore applied for clemency and permission to stay 90 days in the U.S. before being deported. The President does not however consider applications for clemency until at least one-third of a prisoner's sentence has been served.
*Senator Pat Harrison, Democrat from Mississippi, with cat-o'-nine-tails tongue, made reply: "If there ever has been in the White House an adroit politician, a man who in smooth and apparently secretive ways can win over to his side men in his own party, it has been the present occupant of the White House. . . .
"Yet, notwithstanding all of this, which the country knowsrrespondents and made a startling statement to them, a statement that has no counterpart in the history of any occupant of the White House. Indeed, none has been so courageous before as to make such a pronouncement. He told all the correspondents of the press there assembled to warn the country against speeches in the country, and especially in Congress, as having political bearing. . . .
"The minority party, both in the House and in the Senate, has played less politics since December than at any other time in the history of the American Congress.
"The minority party has played no politics in the House. We have played no politics here. If we had been playing politics, we would have told some truths about the majority party. . .
"It is unworthy of a President of the United States, it does not become an occupant of the White House to have the newspapers through their correspondents warn the country that all speeches made in Congress are liable to be of a political tinge and cast during this year. There are going to be some political speeches made, not only here, but in the country. It has been true throughout the history of this Government that political speeches are made in political years, and we invite the President to make his political speeches, whether they are to the farmers in the West, to delude them, or to chambers of commerce up in the city of New York."