The White House Week

P: Mr. and Mrs. Coolidge telegraphed to Mrs. Marion LeRoy Burton their condolences on the death of her husband (see EDUCATION).

P: The White House was the scene of the first Army and Navy reception held in two years. Some 3,000 guests were invited. During the ordeal of receiving, Mrs. John W. Weeks, consort of the Secretary of War, fainted, was revived and taken home by her husband.

P: The President edited his inaugural address.

P: The press headlined "Coolidge Feels Saving Lash," "Coolidge is Victim of Own Thrift," etc.. apropos of the fact that the President has had the White House budget reduced $12,500. Incidents of the retrenchment: replacement of paper drinking cups by old-fashioned glasses; no free pencils for newspaper correspondents; reduction of the number of towels placed daily in White House office lavatories from 175 to 88; orders that all lights be turned out promptly when not needed; repeated use of manila envelopes for documents to be carried from one department to another; rationing, by weight, of food in the White House kitchen; replacement of a torn White House flag by a new one, with the understanding that the torn one be mended and used elsewhere. When the President turned in a dull eraser, the stockroom returned it with the comment that no new ones had been provided.

P: To delegates from the Women's Conference on National Defense as Peace Insurance, who visited the White House, President Coolidge said: "National safety requires such a measure of preparedness as shall be the guarantee against aggression without committing, the nation to militarism. . . .

P: It was reported that White House detectives had questioned the Navy Yard electricians who were believed to be responsible for having disclosed the secret of the President's electric hobby horse (TIME, Feb. 23), that the President was very angry, that the electricians were not responsible. It was suggested that the President's friend, Frank W. Stearns, had made public the fact and the opposition hinted that relations between the two were strained by the incident.

P: Spring being in the air, the President went windowshopping on F Street without his overcoat. A sample of some goods, sent by the owner of a woolen mill in Lawrence, Mass., with an offer to furnish enough free material to make the President an inauguration suit, was returned with the remark that the President liked the material and would pay for it.

P: On the weekly cruise of the Mayflower, the Coolidge guests numbered Actress Julia Arthur, Representative and Mrs. Martin B. Madden of Illinois and John T. Adams of Iowa, onetime Chairman of the Republican National Committee.

P: Addressing the National Tax Association in session at Washington, the President announced that he was in favor of abolishing Federal Inheritance Taxes, regarding them as both socialistic and confiscatory.