Vol. IV. No. 17

The Weekly News-Magazine

October 27, 1924

Came Secretary of the Navy Wilir escorting Dr. Hugo Eckener and ther ranking members of the crew

the ZR-3. The President hoped they ad had a pleasant trip, recalled a legram he had sent Dr. Eckener at akehurst, N. J., in which he had aid: "I congratulate you . . . I ope that your stay in the United tates will be enjoyable and that the otable services you have rendered 1 bringing over this airship will be matter of satisfaction and pride to ou throughout your life."

I Some Coolidge letters of the week: National Commander Frank J. rwin of "Forget-me-not Day" (Nov. ), endorsing that movement's renembrance of and aid for, disabled J. S. soldiers; to Harry C. Meek, of he Uptown Lions' Club of Chicago, endorsing the observance of the third Sunday in October as Father's Day, an idea Mr. Meek originated four ears ago; to Henry Ford, acknowledging Mr. Ford's withdrawal of an offer to lease Government property at Muscle Shoals, Tenn. (see Page 5); to Commander Marion Eppley, National Chairman of the Navy League, approving the observance of Oct. 27, the birthday of President Roosevelt, as Navy Day.

Early one bright morning, Mr. and Mrs. Coolidge stood on their threshold. Up drove automobiles, out piled two-score laughing, talkative guests. Everyone shook hands and then Mrs. Coolidge said: "Let's go in to breakfast." Immediately the President offered his arm to a tall, deep-voiced,

blonde young lady named Charlotte Greenwood and led the party into the state dining-room. Mrs. Coolidge took the arm of a dignified gentle

man

named Colonel Rhinelander Waldo, then spied a smiling man called Al Jolson and took his arm as well. Said she: "I want two partners for this occasion."

Soon the Executive Mansion "rang with merriment." Within three minutes the President's lips were parted, his teeth showed, his mouth opened, he laughed outright. The guests were delegates of the Coolidge Non-Partisan League, actor-folk all (except Col. Waldo), come to assure the President of their support next month and, incidentally, to gain headline publicity. Colonel Waldo, the League's head, seated at Mr. Coolidge's left, sought to be serious over the pancakes and coffee, but Mr. Coolidge was in a lighter

mood. He smiled and smiled at Miss Charlotte Greenwood. He laughed and laughed at Messrs. Ed Wynn and Raymond Hitchcock, the latter of whom talked incessantly. He permitted himself to be mildly convulsed with all the rest at a story of Mr. Al Jolson's about two frogs and a turtle*

The pancakes dispatched, the coffee finished, all strolled to the White House lawn, where Mr. Hitchcock continued to talk until all the guests, and a band, burst into a new campaign song written by Mr. Jolson. The burden of this song was that it would be wise and appropriate to keep Mr. Coolidge in the Presidential chair for the reasons that: "Without a lot of fuss he did a lot for us" and "He's never asleep; still water runs deep."

Mr. Coolidge's Cabinet was waiting, so the party dispersed and said "thank you." Mr. Jolson said: "I ate everything but the sausage."

"Does that include the doilies?" asked Mrs. Coolidge.

"No," said Mr. Jolson. "I have those in my pocket."

Other incidents of the week were less gay. Mr. Coolidge attended two funerals that of the late Senator Brandegee of Connecticut, and that of the late H. H. Kohlsaat, publisher, who had died at the home of Secretary of Commerce Hoover. He joined with and spoke to the high apostles of Methodism at the unveiling of an equestrian statue to that sect's first U. S. bishop, Francis Asbury (1745-1816). In this address the President said: "Our Government rests upon Religion."

Into the custody of his naval and military aides, the President gave a silver loving cup, purchased by him and presented by him as a trophy to be played for annually by football teams composed of ten enlisted men

and one officer from U. S. warship stationed in the Atlantic and soldiers belonging to Army commands in the East. Said the President: "I desire to mention the great benefits to mind and body that result from participation in good, clean, wholesome sport."

THE CAMPAIGN Alarums and Excursions

The progress of another week's campaigning brought all candidates seven days nearer to the election.

Calvin Coolidge sat tight and held his peace.

Charles G. Dawes rolled out of Louisville on the Dawes special to Shelbyville, Frankfort, Lexington, Covington and sundry other centres. He stood on the back platform, cried: "Look out, citizens of Kentucky !"; warned against LaFollette and the latter's attitude toward the Supreme Court. Soon after, the citizens of Evanston, Ill., saw their townsman returning to his home to rest, to write speeches for an invasion of Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and points. East.

Pulling out of the Indiana stormcentre, the Davis Special puffed across Illinois to Mattoon, Springfield, Quincy. At Mattoon, John W. Davis said: "We propose no crooks inside and no petted favorites at the door." At Springfield, he laid a wreath on Lincoln's grave. Later, at a mass meeting, he described the whole duty of Governments: to be honest,to honor equality and justice, to be efficient and undivided. At Quincy, he spoke; crossed the Mississippi, spoke; recrossed, spoke again. Then back rolled the Special, through flat brown cornlands, into Chicago, where Mr. Davis entered the Auditorium and a heckler bawled out: "Where do you stand on the Ku Klux Klan?"

Said Mr. Davis: "I think I'll answer the gentleman's question . . . The fact that he asks it at all convinces me that there are still left in the United States some people who do not read the newspapers." He "scored the Klan," as public prints put it. Then he resumed a rebuttal of what Secretary Hughes had been saying in the East about a Democratic Party "cut to pieces in the West, honeycombed in the East." "Surely," said Mr. Davis, "either the gentleman is suffering from aphasia or -like some others-is not thoroughly in touch."

Other Chicago audiences heard the Davis dicta before the Special puffed out again, southbound this time through

East St. Louis, Ill., into Missouri. In East St. Louis, Mr. Davis paused long enough to tell 5,000 hearers that the election of Candidate Coolidge might well intensify public feeling so as to cook up widespread social revolt. In St. Louis, one riding a donkey led the

Wide World

CANDIDATE BRYAN "What a salesman!"

parade into the Coliseum, where Mr. Davis promised tax reform.

Tennesseewards puffed the Special, stopped at Nashville for the week-end, took on coal and puffed for Louisville. Evansville, Ind., and Cleveland were soon to see it, to hear its main passenger.

At Nashville, Mr. Davis arose to notable heights of oratorical fury. In pulling to pieces Mr. Coolidge's letter endorsing Navy Day, wherein the President referred to the Washington Conference on Limitation of Armaments as having marked "an epoch in which

the leading sea powers

have united in an agreement that the U. S. is entitled to maintain a navy equal to that of any other power," Mr. Davis exploded: "In the language of old Ethan Allen, 'In the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress,' when did we need an agreement with any power to maintain a navy such as we desired?"

Next to nothing was heard of Democandidate Charles W. Bryan in his Nebraska haunts. One day William

J. Bryan alighted from a train in

Lincoln, was met with a motor by b brother, was driven to Seward a there spoke; another day it was a nounced that the candidate would soo set out upon a tour of Illinois, Indian Ohio. However, the Democratic pres helped keep Mr. Bryan in the public ey One paper printed "an intimate view. Said the biographer: "Mr. Bryan has manner rather better than Vice Pres dential and presence enough for any office. He is tall, big-framed, nervou and muscular, a cross between an ur bane Kentucky colonel and a rough and restless Westerner ranger. Here on the home Axminster he towers and talks at ease. His polished, well-modeled head and flashing eyes give him a little the look of a large-size, unfinished Venize los. . . . His own chauffeur by choice, he changes tires and drives at a terrific pace, shakes the insides out of his light automobile. . . . What a salesman he must have been in the early days when he sold soap and toilet goods!"

Robert M. LaFollette continued his arousal of the Mississippi Valley. He dropped his notes and eyeglasses, shook his high silvery pompadour, shook his finger at the microphones, deserted his stand to pace the planks and extemporize as of old in splendid blazing bursts of oratory. His sons, Robert Jr., and Philip, sat on the platforms behind him, calming him discreetly, coaxing him back to his typewritten texts. Sometimes "Bob Jr.," sometimes "Phil" opened the meetings. Invariably the Senator followed them in fighting mood. Leaving St. Louis after a stormy session, the father and his sons boarded their special train for Des Moines and the Northwest. The Federal Reserve Banks, the railroad interests, Dawes, Coolidge, Butler, Slemp, Wall Street -all received their weekly flayings in Des Moines and Minneapolis. "Attacks," "scores," "hits," "accuses," "challenges," "condemns"-with such words did the press of all parties headline its reports of the candidate's daily diatribes. Back southward went the Special to Sioux Falls, S. D., for a rest. ful week-end; then on to Omaha, Neb.; then northeast into Illinois. At Sioux Falls, Senator La Follette denied charges by T. V. O'Connor, Chairman of the U. S. Shipping Board, that Soviet funds had arrived via Mexico to aid the Third Party.

Burton K. Wheeler busied himself arousing southern California, and rais ing campaign funds as he did so Twelve thousand voters in Hollywood Bowl paid $7,500 to hear him; more voters, more dollars in a Long Beach auditorium. An express whisked Sena