Vol. IV. No. 25

The Weekly News-Magazine

December 22, 1924

NATIONAL

THE PRESIDENCY

Mr. Coolidge's Week

One Howard Thurston played a trick on Calvin Coolidge. A stage

was erected in the East Room of the White House; and the Coolidges (who are not attending public theatricals) assembled with a score of guests. Howard Thurston arrived with a moving van full of paraphenalia. With ducks, geese, pigeons, rabbits he prestidigitated. Then he took the President's watch, a gift from the Massachusetts Legislature, smashed it with a hammer, called for a loaf of bread from the kitchen. It was brought. Mrs. Coolidge cut it; and who would believe it?-the watch appeared within, quite whole.

Fort

With a stroke of his pen, the President created five new National Monuments, making 35 in all. The penstroke took place some time ago, but publicity was just achieved. The five new monuments are: 1) Wood on Bechloe's Island in New York Harbor, the base on which stands the Statue of Liberty; 2) Castle Pinckney on Shutes' Folly Island, a mile from Charleston, S. C., close to Fort Sumter and close to the spot where the first vessel was ever sunk by a submarine (in the Civil War); 3) Fort Pulaski, Ga., at the entrance of the Savannah River, taken during the Civil War by Union troops after being pounded to pieces by some of the first rifled cannon ever made. It is on the site of Fort Greene (of the Revolution); 4) Fort Marion at St. Augustine, Fla., "the only intact example of medieval a fort in America." Built by the Spanish, it withstood a French siege; and, under its walls, the first oranges, lemons, limes, citrons and African slaves were introduced to the U. S.; 5) Fort Matanzas, 15 miles south of Fort Marion, the scene of a massacre in 1565 when the Spanish Governor of Florida, Don Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, received the surrender of 200 Huguenots and then lined them up before a firing squad.

President Coolidge granted a second year's leave of absence to Briga

dier General Smedley D. Butler, Public Safety Police Commissioner in Philadelphia. What with bootleggers and politicians General Butler has been having a "hot time," and Mr. Coolidge, after consideration, although not in general approving of such special leaves, decided to give Philadelphia the privilege of hiring the General for just one year more. He took occasion to point out that the Federal Government is not responsible for, General Butler's acts as a city official while on leave.

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President Coolidge attended a dinner of the Gridiron Club, an Association of Washington newspaper respondents (see page 22). As usual at such affairs, the President spoke, but there is a rule that his remarks may not be published.

By a later executive order, the President also established as a national monument two tracts of land 30 miles

northeast of Flagstaff, Ariz. They contain ruins of buildings constructed by the Snake family of the Hopi Indians during prehistoric times. They are to be known as Wupatki (Great Rain Cloud House) National Monu

ment.

Mr. Coolidge, with a company of executive and judicial notables, attended the funeral ceremonies for Mahlon Pitney, onetime Associate Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court. (See MILESTONES).

Mrs. Coolidge traveled to Boston accompanied by Mrs. Frank W. Stearns and guarded by Captain Adolphus Andrews, presidential naval aid. She attended a luncheon given by Lemuel H. Murlin, President of Boston University, and later, in the new Old South Church*, was invested with the purple hood with red and white facings of a Doctor of Laws and "all the rights and privileges thereto appertaining."

A letter was received at the White House with a dime inclosed:

President, urged him to call a conference of representatives of states to devise means of securing more local economy and reducing taxation of farm lands.

¶ Charalambous Simopoulos, first Greek Minister to the U. S. since 1920, presented his credentials at the White House.

A woman forester of Amawalk, N. Y., dug up a 35-ft. spruce from her nurseries and shipped it by special car to the White House-thereby furnishing the President with a living Christmas tree "as an example to the country that it is better to keep potted living trees than slaughter 5,000,000 young pines every year for Christmas."

THE CABINET

Lonesome Pines

Secretary of the Interior Work announced that the Committee appointed to select the site for a National Park in the Southern Appalachians had selected one in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. The Committee found that the Great Smoky Mountains would have been slightly superior in altitude and other respects, but chose the Blue Ridge because of their greater accessibility. "More than 40,000,000 people can go to the spot in less than a day." Mr. Work proposes that the new park be called "Shenandoah."

THE CONGRESS The Legislative Week

The Senate:

Discussed at great length and amended the Underwood Bill for the leasing of Muscle Shoals as a nitrate fertilizer plant (see Page 5).

Decided that no important measure should be taken up until the Muscle Shoals Bill was disposed of.

Adopted a resolution appointing a joint committee of Congress to arrange for the inaugural ceremonies of President Coolidge on Mar. 4.

Appointed a joint committee to arrange for the celebration of the 200th birthday of George Washington (Feb. 22, 1932).

Passed viva voce a bill authorizing $110,000,000 expenditures for alterations on six older battleships, construction of eight light cruisers and of six river gunboats (see Page 5). (Previously passed by the House.)

Ratified treaties with Canada, Panama, the Netherlands and France to aid

Passed the appropriation bill for the Department of the Interior, carrying $238,000,000. (Goes to the Senate.)

¶ Passed, with little debate, the supply bill for the Department of Agriculture, carrying appropriations of $124,000,000, of which $80,000,000 is for highway construction. (Goes to the Senate.)

Received the Naval Appropriations Bill from committee, carrying $290,000,000 for the support of the Navy. The report that went with the bill stated that the committee had learned from Secretary Wilbur that to keep our Navy at 5-5-3 strength, an annual appropriation, for the next 20 years, of $92,000,000 for ships and $18,000,000 for aircraft, or a total of $110,000,000 would be necessary.

Senate Program

The Steering Committee of the Senate is an unofficial body of the majority party which decides what bills out of the mass presented shall occupy the time of that august body. Last week, the Republican Steering Committee met and decided tentatively.

First will come, of course, the ap

propriation or supply bills, originating in the House, to furnish the money for running the Government in 1925-26. Such treaties as the Foreign Relations Committee may report will also come up for ratification. All agricultural bills were left off the tentative program until the President's Agricultural Commission shall report in January or February. Aside from these measures, eleven bills, a favorably reported by committees in the last session of Congress, are listed to occupy the vacancies in the Senate's time. The eleven:

1) A bill to provide foreign trade zones in ports (a device similar to the creation of "free ports"). In thesc zones, goods from abroad can be landed, stored and re-exported without payment of customs duties.

2) A bill to revise the laws relating to the jurisdiction of the Circuit courts of Appeal.

*3) A bill to permit the Supreme Court to establish rules for common law actions in district courts.

4) A bill to allow the establishment under certain restrictions of branches by National Banks.

5) A joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution whereby future amendments must be ratified by direct vote of the people of the several states or by conventions elected for that purpose.

6) A bill to provide for building a bridge (TIME, Aug. 25, ART) to be called the McKinley Memorial Bridge, across the Potomac from the Lincoln Memorial in the Capital to the Virginia side.

*7) A bill to establish a federal industrial reformatory for youthful first offenders.

*8) A bill for the settlement of the "French Spoilation Claims."

*9) A bill to reorganize the executive branch of the Government, creating a new Cabinet post for a Department of Education and Relief.

10) A bill to liberalize civil service retirement laws.

11) A bill to make valid and enforceable agreements for arbitration of maritime and commercial disputes in interstate and foreign commerce.

At once a great outcry went up at the important measures omitted from the list. It includes nothing in relation to taxation, to railroads, to the World Court. Yet, 'tis said that probably not more than half of the eleven named can be crowded into the short session and it is dubious whether all of these

*Approved and recommended by the Presi dent in his message to Congress.