Evening star., 1923-11-03
COOLIDGE FACING
HIS SUPREME" TEST
Congressional Events Cast
ing Shadows, Parliamentary
Control in Doubt.
BY FREDERIC WILLIAM VILE.

Coming congressional events are now
casting their shadows before For
the next five weeks they will monopo-
NE attention at both ends of Penn
syiVania avenue. The President
steadily and studiously pursues the
practice of Saving wood" He con-
tlnues to listen ravenously. Senator'S
ana representatives are gradually
drifting back to Washington, either
TO remain for the impending session
or to put their offices in order in
| preparation for it. The majority of
them have not seen Calvin Coolidge
| before in his capacity of President
and make early pilgrimages to the
White House. Many of them are
summoned for conference
To those who have been out among
the people during the past summer
ana autumn Mr.. Coolidge extends a
particularly cordial welcome. He is
cross examining them in great detail
! on the state of the nations mind as
they had occasion to observe it,
Expect "Middle-Of-ROad' Policy.
One Of the things the President is
I nearing with persistence. especially
Eo, f,0n miaule,western members of
ing TO him for middle of -the-road
program The people are saying that
tney view Washington as vacillating
between the Scylla of conservative
stanu s,1 u-pattism and the Charybdis of
[ wild radfcalism. Except for regions
dominated by La Toilette Brookhart,
Magnus Johnson & Co., the popular
demand is reported to Mr.. Coolidge
10 be for policies that do not veer
too much toward either conservat tism
or radlcaltsm. The electorate is de-
scribed to be in liberal" and pro
sresslve mood, and the task of the
administration. white House visitors
are reporting, is to evolve a program
amdt answers such description
Iherein lie both the opportunity and
Tic uheinma OF Calvin Coolidge.
President Present Dilemma.
Ihe PRESIDENTS dilemma springs
from the fact that the La Foilette-
ibrookhart radicals will virtually be
tI;, II parliamentary control on Capitol
HUI. In both houses there are Just
enough votes in the slim republican
majority that can be controlled by
the Wisconsin progressive" chief
lam. Inc problem facing the White
. house is whether any program sub
mltted by Mr.. Coolidge will measure
up as sufficiently liberal or pro
gressive' to command the support of
OF power. Republican leaders are
more than skeptical on that point
With democrats ready, for obvious
reasons, to play politics. c. o. p.
managers are afraid it will be COM
paratively easy for an unholy alli-
ance of La Toilette insurgents and
democrats to block any Coolidge poll
lcies, no matter how literally or
/ rub.
How the President will meet the
situation is likely to be the test of
his, his poljticai poll 1ain fiber Wi he take op;
| the big stick? Will he make genuine
concessions to the liberal elements
of the country? Or will he be
hard boiled New England lstand-
patter"?
See Little Constructive Work.
Many congressional authorities in
cline to the belief that partisan and
factional conditions in the Sixty
eighth Congress. will be such that
constructive legislation of any kind
sparring for position-for getting on
record"-in countless quarters. for
presidential campaign and congress
sional election are in immediate pros
pect. But statesmen may be content
to have shown their colors, for the
sake of presenting themselves in
yote-catching garb in 1924, and may
make no serious attempts to enact
legislat tion.
From many trusted counselors Presi-
dent Coolidge has heard that the issue
of issues stirring the minds of the
American people is the cost of living.
They're interested. almost to the ex-
clusion of everything else, in what af-
fects "the pocket nerve"
That applies to everything from the
soldiers bonus to taxation reform.
The country undoubtedly expects Con-
gress and the President to perform
miracles. They have it in their power
the average man and woman thinks, to
legislate the. United States out of it's
troubles.
Want Cures for Economic Woes.
The people are persuaded there are
political remedies for economic woes
and they expect their rulers at Wash
fngton to devise them. 1t may be that
Calvin Coolidge, in the terse English
of which he is a master, will point out
that no President and no Congress are
capable of producing the millennium
Be these things as they may, the
hour of the Presidents "acid test" is
approaching. Another five or six
weeks will tell the story. To the hour
of the assembling of Congress he is
determined to remain a sealed book
Thenceforward his political fate will be
on the knees Of the gods
Copyright, 1921