Prime Minister Mackenzie King was in Washington on this date in 1927 to hold talks with President Calvin Coolidge and senior members of his Administration. After a private luncheon at the White House, King and Coolidge held private discussions without any officials present. Afterwards, in the privacy of his famous diary, King recorded his impressions of America’s President.
“All through our conversation I felt the President was a man of much clearer vision and thought than I had believed,” King wrote, “a man well-informed, very careful in all his utterances and exceedingly astute. He looks the pin of perfection in dress, is quiet and composed beyond words. Speaks when he wants to and is silent when he wants to be silent. The impression I have formed of him is much more favourable than I had supposed it would be. I regard him as anything but a silent man only.”
Coolidge was not the only President King held talks with. Former President William Howard Taft, now serving as Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, also called on Canada’s Prime Minister. “(We) talked for quite a little time,” King wrote. “He seemed interested in the development of Canada and the progress the country is making. Was most friendly and affable.”