Calvin Coolidge

RECENT REPORTS SAY the Clinton White House has put a pretty stiff price tag on the right to spend a night in the Lincoln Bedroom.Fat cats apparently have to raise or fork over $750,000 to $1.2 million for the Democratic National Committee in order to curl up in the Lincoln Bed.President Clinton can't be accused of deceptive advertising in billing that commodious second-floor bedroom in the White House as Lincoln's. The designation stretches back over administrations of both parties.But any deep-pocketed political contributor who lands himself a night in the Lincoln Bedroom, will be doing something Abraham Lincoln never did. In fact, historians are certain he never even slept in the ''Lincoln Bed.''The wandering bedWhen the White House celebrated its 200th birthday in 1992, Life magazine and other publications marked the occasion with lengthy articles on the mansion, its inhabitants and lore.

WASHINGTON -- Stan Greenberg, President Clinton's pollster, was talking the other day about the ups and downs of his boss' ratings as gauged in the various public-opinion surveys. Some show Clinton climbing slightly and others have him running like a dry creek. While he seems to have gotten a temporary bump from the raid on Iraq in retaliation for the alleged plot to assassinate former President George Bush, his numbers on his economic performance have plateaued or fallen.Greenberg reported that in his own polling, after a few rough weeks, the president had "steadied himself a couple of weeks ago" and had "stabilized" his favorability at about 40 percent of those surveyed.

It was late in the evening and the caller was desperate. Could someone find out if an American president had ever had a pet raccoon named Rebecca?Of course someone could. This was the Enoch Pratt Free Library's Telephone Reference Service. In a minute, a staffer picked out Ruthven Tremain's "The Animals' Who's Who," one of approximately 1,000 reference volumes the TRS keeps on hand for just such occasions, and found this entry on page 215:"REBECCA, a raccoon, was sent to President Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929)

Second-ranked Hammond made its share of runs last night against Lake Clifton in the finale of the Greater Baltimore Women's Basketball Mixer at the College of Notre Dame.But in the end, the fourth-ranked Lakers simply ran away.Led by guards Lashina Gross and DaShawn Coleman, who each scored 20 points, Lake Clifton took an early lead and then answered every Hammond challenge, holding on for a 54-50 win.The Lakers' speedy backcourt seemed unstoppable at times, with Gross, the point guard, slashing through the lane for layups and Coleman -- a second-team All-Metro transfer from Walbrook -- consistently making three-pointers time and again to stop Hammond's comebacks.

A fellow who needed money for an operation walked into the American Political Items Collectors (APIC) convention in Anaheim, Calif., last August with a couple of old campaign buttons to see what he could get for them. The convention was called to order over the public address system and, in keeping with an APIC tradition, the buttons were auctioned, right then and there. One was an extremely rare button picturing John W. Davis and his running mate, Charles Bryan, the 1924 Democratic candidates.

Nathan Miller, a former reporter for The Sun who was the author of more than a dozen critically acclaimed books of American history and biography, died Friday at a Washington nursing home where he had been since suffering a stroke two years ago. He was 77. "Every newspaper person has a yearning to be an author. Nat didn't talk about it, he went out and did it, and he managed to draw thousands of readers into naval and presidential history," said James H. Bready, a retired editorial writer and author of a monthly column on regional books for The Sun. "His last book, New World Coming: The 1920s and the Making of Modern America, was a climax to his earlier works.

For 15 years the best girls and boys basketball teams in Baltimore City have tipped off against the best of Washington, D.C. in early December. To see some of the best public school basketball of the young season, head over to Lake Clifton Friday and Saturday to check out how we compare with our capitol neighbors at the Baltimore-Washington, D.C. Basketball Challenge. Friday (girls) Dunbar vs. Calvin Coolidge, 5 Digital Harbor vs. H.D. Woodson, 7 Saturday (boys) Edmondson vs. Woodrow Wilson, 1 Digital Harbor vs. Spingarn, 3 Dunbar vs. Calvin Coolidge, 5 Patterson vs. Theodore Roosevelt, 7

Two men were arrested Tuesday on rogue and vagabond charges after police found damaged vending machines at a Laurel motel and lock-picking tools in their car, Howard County police said.Walter Herschel Allen III, 21, of Baltimore and Calvin Coolidge Shifflett III, 19, of Burtonsville, were seen near vending machines at the Turf Motel on 9822 Washington Blvd. The machines were damaged and police found lock picking tools in their 1983 Chevrolet Cavalier.

Picture the Army's Fort Meade established as a national forest and not as western Anne Arundel County's engine of population growth and development. The first national forest in Maryland, it covered about 5,000 acres. But the designation of the pine tree forest, hardly a rare breed, didn't last long. President Calvin Coolidge gave the little-known executive order on April 14, 1925, and rescinded it three years later. The back story was political. The plan was to reforest several military posts by putting them under the auspices of the Department of Agriculture.

This is the 52nd presidential election.The 35th in 1924 was the second of three huge Republicanlandslides of the 1920s. Warren Harding, besieged by scandal, had died in 1923. An unsullied Calvin Coolidge of Massachusetts succeeded him and was renominated with no trouble.The Democrats, divided by region, race, religion and Prohibition, struggled for 103 ballots before nominating John W. Davis, a New York lawyer with little elective experience.Republicans ran a status-quo campaign, and with prosperity widespread among the voting public, were able to fend off Democratic criticisms of the Harding scandals.