". . . Many thanks for the welcome to Wisconsin extended on behalf of your State as well as yourself. We are looking forward to a most enjoyable summer."
The trace of informality in this letter from President Coolidge to Governor Fred Zimmerman of Wisconsin suggested the spirit in which the President's summer outing was being planned. White House familiars said that, whereas the President attended his Rapid City office five days per week last year, trips this year from Cedar Island Lodge to the office in the Superior, Wis., high school would be kept down to three or four per week.
At the Wisconsin end, preparations buzzed. Roads were oiled. An electric canceling' machine was sent to the Brule, Wis., post office to help Postmaster Harold E. Webster handle the swollen mail. Arrangements were also made to have air mail delivered specially to and from Brule.
Electricians swarmed through the cedar groves stringing telegraph wires and radio aerials. The U. S. Radio Commission notified Station WEBC at Superior that it might quadruple its wattage to assure good reception at the Summer White House.
Enterprising persons bid up the rents of all available house space in small Brule. Gift "shoppes" opened. Tourists arrived to look around long before the Coolidges' trunks were even half-packed in far away Washington.
In Madison, Wis., a jeweler was set to work making a gold button which, when inserted in the Coolidge lapel, will signify that he, a nonresident of Wisconsin, is legally licensed to take fish from Wisconsin waters. Boy Scouts in Superior "chipped in" for a $55 fishing rod to give the President.
Someone recalled that President Grover Cleveland fished the Brule River in 1894, as the guest of the St. Paul Club. Antoine Denny, oldtime caretaker of the club's lodge on the Brule, was reported to be still at his post, eager to take care of another President.
In Washington, the party chosen to board the Coolidge Special for Brule grew to 60, to 80, to 90. The total number included newsgatherers and camera men, but did not account for Rob Roy (white collie), Terrible Tim (red chow), Diana (white collie), Bessie (yellow collie), King Cole (black police dog) and the five White House canaries, all of whom were going too.
Besides Secretaries Sanders and Clark, Physicians Coupal and Boone, and Colonel J. Osmun Latrobe (aide), all of whom receive public mention fairly frequently, the moving of the White Household reminded citizens of White Housekeeper (Mrs.) Ellen Riley and of Personal Stenographer Erwin Geisser, who transcribed the famed "I do not choose" last summer.
Mrs. Coolidge, after some hesitation, let it be known that she would forego seeing John Coolidge graduated at Amherst College and go direct to Brule with the President.
The Coolidge Special got up steam. Behind it, when it started, would lie a Capital devoid of newsful Governmental activity save for the Federal Trade Commission's lively but long-drawn investigation of the Power Trust.