The Coolidge Week

P:As the vacation-bound presidential special crossed South Dakota, the state turned into a 400-mile-long cheering section. Farmers stood in fields of young, ankle-high corn, forgot mortgages and vetoes, cheered. Townspeople gathered at railroad stations; in their hands were hats and flowers; in their hearts were peace and goodwill. Senator Peter Norbeck of South Dakota, long an insurgent, exclaimed, "We will not go into past regrets." Representative Charles A. Christopherson, farm-relief advocate, announced that all doubt concerning a third term had been swept away. The President made no speeches, no promises, receded not an inch from the posi-tion he took in vetoing the McNary-Haugen farm-relief bill (TIME, March 7). But the honor of his presence, the potency of his office, turned suspicion into acclamation as hostility succumbed to hospitality. Should South Dakota love the President in November as it does in June, the state's electoral vote seems indeed assured.

P:At Huron, almost the entire population of 10,000 surged down to the railroad station. "South Dakota is the sunshine state, all the people here are feeling great," they chanted. A schoolgirl drum-corps accompanied the song, prompted Mrs. Coolidge to call out: "This is better than being in schoof, isn't it?" Then the crowd sang another song, a parody of the famed Gallagher-Shean melody, ending with the refrain: "Absolutely President Coolidge, South Dakota welcomes you." Pleased, the President asked for a copy of this song, received a fistful as he extended his arm from the observation car.

P:"It is a beautiful capitol you have," said President Coolidge to Governor William J. Bulow of South Dakota as he and Mrs. Coolidge inspected the capitol building at Pierre, S. D., the only western city besides Hammond, Ind., in which the presidential party left the train. Trucks crowded with cameramen flanked the motor car in which the President and the Governor headed the procession through Pierre streets, snapped the

President, bowing, smiling; snapped Mrs. Coolidge, bowing, smiling, carrying a presentation bouquet of roses and wild Canterbury bells. The President's visit started a boom for Governor Bulow for the Democratic nomination to the Vice Presidency.

P:One Hugh Jaynes, for 31 years proprietor of the People's Meat Market of Pierre, presented the President with a buffalo roast. The roast was certified as pure and wholesome by Game Warden O. H. Johnson. Mr. Jaynes had previously given President Roosevelt a similar buffalo roast, remembered that President Roosevelt had expressed keen enjoyment of it. A cowpuncher also presented the President with 18 Chinese pheasants, hoped that they would be served at the first Custer Park meal. P:Though making frequent car-end appearances at various brief stops, the President said hardly a word, left greeting-acknowledgments largely to Mrs. Coolidge. Despatches reported that one farmer nudged his wife, observed to her: "He don't talk; she does the talking."

P:An obvious, but forgiving, reference to the President's veto of the McNary-Haugen bill was found in a poem of welcome printed in the Rapid City Journal: We want you to know that we understand What you did you thought was

best for the land, And we want you to feel that we'll

back you, Cal,

To the last durned ditch like we do a pal.

P:Owing to the fact that the presidential party reached the State Game Lodge at Custer Park after dark, cameramen could not well picture their arrival. U. S. cinema patrons will, nevertheless, see the event quite as if it happened in broad daylight. For, on the following morning, the President and Mrs. Coolidge staged an after-the-show rehearsal and motored up to the lodge with cameras vigorously grinding. P:Household employes at the State Lodge are under the supervision of Miss Ellen Reilly, White House housekeeper. Miss Reilly came to the White House some twelve months ago. She had previously been employed in the Boston department store of Frank W. Stearns, where she had charge of the cafeteria.

P:There are some 20 full-blooded Indians in the (dismounted) cavalry guard assigned to care for the President during his vacation. Among them is Corporal Little Ghost, reputedly a grandson of Sitting Bull, Indian chief whose warriors defeated and killed General Custer at Little Big Horn. From his many Western descendants, Sitting Bull would appear to have been as prolific as the Mayflower was capacious. (I Fishermen everywhere were shocked to learn that President Coolidge, on his first fishing expedition in Squaw Creek, had used worm-bait in catching five trout. Flies, they said, were the only proper trout-bait, but the President specifically stated that he had used worms and showed a coffee-can full of wrigglers to prove it. He said, however, that next time he would use flies. The President's prize catch weighed one and seven-eighths pounds, was considered large for Squaw Creek. But it was recalled that President Roosevelt, fishing in another Black Hills stream, had caught an eight-pounder, established a mark to shoot at.

P:Prudence Prim, younger of the two collies (the senior is Rob Roy) taken on the trip, was indisposed on the morning following her arrival. Having taken a walk and sat in the sun with Mrs. Coolidge, she was reported as greatly improved. Rebecca Raccoon, confined in a hayloft, eyed speculatively the eggs of a neighboring hen. The five canaries first reported as accompanying the presidential party were later found to have been left at home though Mrs. Coolidge said that she felt lost without them. P:The President has occasionally been compared to a schoolmaster-- the comparison became more evident when he held his first Summer White House conference in Rapid City. For his executive headquarters is the Rapid City high school building and reporters were received in a room ordinarily devoted to Freshman English. With blackboards stretching along three walls and the President surrounded by some 30 newspapermen (whom he requested to "come up close and be neighborly") the professorial analogy became obvious. P:Hailstones large as golf balls crashed down on Rapid City. They tore shingles off houses, pierced motorcar tops, dented motorcar radiators, forced airmail aviators down with riddled wings. Fears were expressed for the President and Mrs. Coolidge, who had just left Rapid City as the sky began to blacken. But not a hailstone fell near them. So localized was the storm, so fortunate the Coolidges, that the President and his wife were sitting peacefully on the Game Lodge porch while Rapid City was inches deep in mammoth hailstones. P:Incidentally, there is apparently no way of disguising the fact that at the Summer White House conferences the President speaks directly and in his own person to the newspapermen. There are a great many persons around the Washington White House who can be taken as being responsible for statements printed with introductions such as "the Administration believes that" or "someone close to the President said." But such indirection is not so feasible at Rapid City. Indeed, correspondents flatly quoted the President, but Mr. Coolidge told them so little that it did not greatly matter to whom his words might be attributed. It seemed likely that summer conferences would be even less garrulous than those held in Washington. Although the conference room is a schoolroom, few chairs were available and the correspondents remained standing during the interview. P:Barbers in Deadwood, South Dakota town that once contributed much to the wildness of the Wild West, are doing exclusively a bobbing business. For Deadwood males are letting themselves become whiskered, have not shaved since June 1. The whiskers are intended to lend atmosphere to Deadwood's annual celebration (Aug. 4) of the Days of '76 when the town outwardly reverts to its frontier days and memorializes the good old times of Deadwood Dick and Wild Bill Hickok. President Coolidge has announced that he will attend the celebration.

P:"How do I look in it?" said the President to Mrs. Coolidge.

"You look like a real Westerner," said Mrs. Coolidge.

"It" was a typical wide-brimmed ten-gallon western hat, which the President maintained was worn to keep the sun out of his eyes. Col. Edward W. Starling, Secret Service man, has also a ten-gallon headpiece, ornamented with a rattlesnake band, but has refused to be photographed in it. P:Slabs of elk roasted on spits over open fires. Some 500 newspaper editors, members of the National Editorial Association, were giving an elk barbecue with the President and Mrs. Coolidge as guests of honor. To them the President made his first western speech, did not touch on the subject of farmers or farm relief. He said that the Northwestern country was interesting, impressive, romantic and that though in it only a few days he already felt like an old inhabitant. He also spoke in general terms of the approaching Geneva Arms conference (see p. 9); hoped that it would result in much good. P:"Boy, I've got a girl back home and she'll sure drop dead when she sees me in the movies." So said Ralph Lium, theological student after preaching the first sermon of his career, with the President & Mrs. Coolidge among his hearers. He had been assigned, for the summer, to the little church at Hermosa, some 13 miles from the State Lodge. Startled on learning of his famed visitors, he nevertheless acquitted himself with credit.