Douglas Daily Dispatch

ETIQUETTE OF THE PRESIDENT.

Cheer up, all ye who find recourse to the study of etiquette necessary from time to time, that you may do the right thing in the right way at the proper moment. Even those who try to fathom the answer to "What Is Wrong With This Picture" may take added comfort from the fact that the first gentleman of the land, our own President Coolidge, was just recently forced to make a long study of olden etiquette to decide what would be proper for him to do under a certain condition of affairs. On Tuesday and Thursday nights, the president was a guest at dinners, at which, because of illness, Mrs. Coolidge could not be present. The dinner party Tuesday night was one of the regular weekly dinners given for President and Mrs. Coolidge by members of the cabinet and their wives. The indisposition of Mrs. Coolidge caused a last minute rearrangement of the dinner plans; and President Calvin Coolidge escorted, or was accompanied to the dinner, by the wife of Secretary of Agriculture Jardine.

The dinner was given in the presidential suite of the New Willard hotel, there being many Vermonters, native state of both President Coolidge and Attorney General Sargent, present. The problem of the proper thing to do, or the etiquette of the affair, was not a trifling one, Mr. Average Citizen may rest assured. It was a problem in social usage that required search of archives far back, that the established precedent might be properly carried out. Back to the McKinley administration the inquiry led. The questions involved were: Should the president go to Mrs. Jardine's home and escort her from there to the dinner? Or should a White House automobile be sent to take her from her hotel, where the president would join her? Or should a White House car be sent to take her from her home to the White House, the president joining her there and accompanying her to the hotel?

It all worked out all right, when it was found that during the regime of McKinley, an illness of the then President. McKinley's wife made it necessary that he escort the wives of various members of his cabinet to social functions. In each case, one of the president's aides acted as escort from the cabinet member's home to the White House and the president took up his duties as escort there. So that procedure was followed Tuesday night. After the dinner, still following established precedent, the White House car returned first to the executive mansion, and the aide then accompanied Mrs. Jardine back to her home. One wonders if future generations will "dig up" this story to prove that Coolidge was merely human after all, as recently has been done with some of the social amenities of the late President George Washington.