Evening star., 1924-11-13
WASHINGTON OBSERVATIONS
BY FREDERIC WILLIAM VILE

win, jr., will not be over, and it Is not
likely she thinks of urging the Presi-
dent to hold a ball. Mrs. Coolidge, in
vice presidential days. was passion
ately fond of dancing. Like most men
and women who like 1T, she dances
exceedingly well. There is no record
ed instance of the President ever hav-
ing indulged in so frivolous a pastime
in Washington, or even points North.
Golf, small talk and fox-trotting are
three things which conspicuously fail
to appeal to him. Going to balls bores
many a man. Calvin Coolidge takes
his place in that class, brave and un-
ashamed.
Many who heard Huston Thompson.
chairman of the Federal Trade Com
mission, deliver his impressive eu-
logy of Woodrow Wilson at the Ma
tional Cathedral on Armistice day,
were surprised to hear him blushing-
ly confess afterward that he himself
is the author of the sonnet with which
he closed. No tribute In verse, Will
sonians in Washington say. ever
glorified the war President so beau
tifully. Here it is:
Ho: steadfast spirit, who peers into the night
While demagogues and slanderers dumbiy
Reckoning not the whirlwinds words mag
They never dreamed that eager prayers for
light
Like shafts of FIRE that led the ancients' flight
From countless common hearths were vision
To guide the ship Of state with Godlike view
Through chartless seas, where might was
counted right.
But when wars waves had ceased to roll and
And @ you had .teered the keel to sste,ys
zone,
The .lsepeFs sleeper reused themselves and leapt
And hurled their hate. until with stifed
Spirit sublime, eternal and alone.
The sonnet was written in 1920
y y X X
Senator George H. Moses Of New
Republican senatorial campaign COM
mittee. garnered new laurels by re-
capturing control of the upper house
for the g. o. p, is recuperating from
battle at French Lick Springs. French
Lick is usually the first-aid station
for Democratic casualties, for Tom
Taggart Of Indianapolis is lord of
the manor, but Republican good fell
lows of the Moses type are not ban
ned. "A' Smith and George Brennan
are pow-wowing with Taggart at the
Springs next week. In addition to
resting from recent strife, the New
Hampshire politician is girding for a
new f1ght-the forthcoming special
election in Connecticut to elect a sue
cessor to Senator Brandegee.
Has a street railway company. oc-
cupying the streets in lieu Of a pub
lie franchise, the right to use the
streets for advertising purposes?
This observer hears that that piquant
question has just been raised in
Washington, where one Of the trac-
tion companies is running q per-
ambulating billboard, advertising a
moving picture, over one of It's best
paying lines. A lawyer addressed an
inquiry to the company, the writer's
Information says, and was told that
the company feels itself wholly with
in Its rights. The officials are said
to admit that the portable billboard
is worth $4,000 a year in revenue, or
the equivalent Of $4,000 fares at the
Scent rate charged in Washington.
No foreign country has noted the
passing of Senator Lodge with live
ller interest than the people and the
government Of Japan. A Toxic news
paper cabled to Washin gton to ask
If the Massachusetts veterans disap-
pearance from the Senate meant the
revision Of the Japanese exclusion
law. The Nipponese editor remem-
bered that 1t was Lodges interpreta-
tion of Ambassador Hanihara's cele-
brated grave consequences" as a
| "veiled threat" that melted the Senate
to reject President Coolidge's pro-
posal for diplomatic negotiation of
exclusion. Japan always felt that
but for Senator Lodges precipitancy
and great power in the Senate the
exclusion incident might have been
differently closed.
Copyright, 1924