Imperial Valley Press

Don't Quote Me

By United Press

WASHINGTON, Aug. 16.—To soothe the injured photographers who weren't allowed to take pictures of President Hoover's fishing trip, Coolidge enjoyed little humorous incidents of the vacation trip as they leak out. Often he is going to let them have the run of Rapidan camp later this week.

It seemed selfish, but when the rabbit gentleman saw the wondering looks on the faces of his bunny boys and girls, he laughed and said: 'The reason I must go first is that I want to try this new swing and see if it is safe. It might break, even with Baby Bunty, and then she would fall and be hurt. But if I try it first, I am so much heavier that, if it holds me, the swing will hold any of you.'

White House secretaries are emphatic in declaring President Hoover's vacation is not a political fishing trip. They did their best to discourage photographers and reporters from venturing into the vicinity of the President's cruising ground.

But, when a man becomes president, or only a candidate for president, he automatically forfeits a share of privacy.

Most presidents become weary of being eternally dogged by secret service men, photographers and reporters. The President is never annoyed and never spoken to, but the mere knowledge that this retinue is at his heels palls. The time comes when all he wants is to be left alone.

Wilson once hinted he would enjoy smashing the nose of the first man who printed another story about a rumored engagement of one daughter. Harding, ordered to golf for health, asked reporters to be lenient and let him play his game in peace.

New presidents particularly feel self-conscious in the secret service shadow even around the White House. But the law requires that the secret service guard the President and his family.

So great is the protection thrown around a president that he can see almost anyone he wishes secretly.

In the crisis of 1893, Grover Cleveland called a special session of congress and then went aboard a yacht off the Battery in New York and had his upper left jaw bone removed.

The operation was performed while the yacht cruised slowly up the East river. A vulcanized rubber contrivance was substituted for the removed jaw bone, and the whole episode did not become generally known until years after Cleveland died.

Roosevelt was blind in one eye years before it became known.

After he was elected president...