The Autobiography Of Calvin Coolidge

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CALVIN COOUDGB

The Autobiography
OF

CALVIN COOLIDGE

COSMOPOLITAN BOOK CORPORATION
1929

COPYRIGHT 1929 CALVIN COOLIDGE

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
FIRST TRADE EDITION

PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. BY

J.J. LITTLE & JtVBS CO., NSW YOEIC

CONTENTS

I. SCENES OF MY CHILDHOOD . . . . . I

II. SEEKING AN EDUCATION 35

III. THE LAW AND POLITICS ...... 8l

IV. IN NATIONAL POLITICS ...... 139

V. ON ENTERING AND LEAVING THE

PRESIDENCY 169

VI. SOME OF THE DUTIES OF THE PRESIDENT 193

VII. WHY I DID NOT CHOOSE TO RUN . - . 237

ILLUSTRATIONS
CALVIN COOLIDGE . . . Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

VICTORIA JOSEPHINE (MOOR) COOLIDGB. . . 30
Mofhfff tf Calvin

COLONEL JOHN C. COOLIDGE ...... 48

Vermont Senate

CALVIN COOLIDGE . . . . * ..... 66

At tht A$t of Tbrtt

CALVIN COOLIBGE . . . * . ..... 90

Agtd S^en

CALVIN COOLIDGE ...,,.... 136
At Amberst College

GRACE GOODHUE .......... 190

B$fm H*r Marwagt to Calvin

CALVIN COOLIDGE AND HIS FAMILY . . . 220
Tbt Day Ht Bfeawt Gwtrnor of Mamcku$tt$

SCENES OF MY CHILDHOOD

CHAPTER ONE
SCENES OF MY CHILDHOOD

THE town of Plymouth lies on the easterly
slope of the Green Mountains, about twenty
miles west of the Connecticut River and
somewhat south of the central part of Vermont. This
part of the state is made up of a series of narrow val-
leys and high hills, some of which rank as mountains
that must reach an elevation of at least twenty-five
hundred feet.

Its westerly boundary is along the summit of the
main range to where it falls off into the watershed
of Lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence River. At
one point a little rill comes down a mountain until
it strikes a rock, where it divides, part running north
into the Ottauquechee and part south into the Black
River, both of which later turn easterly to reach the
Connecticut*

In its natural state this territory was all covered

[3]

CALVIN COOLIDGE

with evergreen and hardwood trees. It had large
deposits of limestone, occasionally mixed with mar-
ble, and some granite. There were sporadic out-
croppings of iron ore, and the sands of some of the
streams showed considerable traces of gold. The soil
was hard and rocky, but when cultivated supported
a good growth of vegetation.

During colonial times this region lay in an un-
broken wilderness, until the coming of the French
and Indian War, when a military road was cut
through under the direction of General Amhcrst,
running from Charlestown, New Hampshire, to
Fort Ticonderoga, New York, This line of march
lay through the south part of the town, crossing the
Black River at the head of the two beautiful lakes
and running over the hill towards the valley of the
Otter Creek.

When settlers began to come in around the time
of the Revolution, the grandfather of my grand-
father, Captain John Coolidge, located a farm near
the height of land westward from the river along
this military road, where he settled in about 1780.

He had served in the Revolutionary army and

[43

CHILDHOOD SCENES

may have learned of this region from some of his
comrades who had known It in the old French wars,
or who had passed over it in the campaign against
Burgoyne, which culminated at Saratoga.

He had five children and acquired five farms, so
that each of his descendants was provided with a
homestead. His oldest son Calvin came into pos-
session of the one which I now own, where it is said
that Captain John spent his declining years. He lies
buried beside his wife in the little neighborhood
cemetery not far distant.

The early settlers of Plymouth appear to have
come mostly from Massachusetts, though some of
them had stopped on the way in New Hampshire.
They were English Puritan stock, and their choice
of a habitation stamps them with a courageous pio-
neering spirit*

Their first buildings were log houses, the remains
of which were visible in some places in my early
boyhood, though they had long since been given
over to the sheltering of domestic animals. The town
must have settled up with considerable rapidity, for
as early as 1 840 it had about fourteen hundred in-

[5]

CALVIN COOLIDGE

habitants scattered about the valleys and on the sides
of the hills, which the mountains divided into a con-
siderable number of different neighborhoods, each
with a well-developed local community spirit.

As time went on, much land was cleared of for-
est, very substantial buildings of wood construction
were erected, saw mills and grist mills were located
along the streams, and the sale of lumber and lime,
farm products and domestic animals, brought con-
siderable money into the town, which was laid out
for improvements or found its way into the country
store. It was a hard but wholesome life, under which
the people suffered many privations and enjoyed
many advantages, without any clear realization of
the existence of either one of them.

They were a hardy self-contained people. Most
of them are gone now and their old homesteads are
reverting to the wilderness. They went forth to con-
quer where the trees were thicker, the fields larger,
and the problems more difficult. I have seen their
descendants scattered all over the country, especially
in the middle west, and as far south as the Gulf of
Mexico and westward to the Pacific slope.

[6]

CHILDHOOD SCENES

It was into this community that I was born on
the 4th day of July, 1 872. My parents then lived in
a five room, story and a half cottage attached to the
post office and general store, of which my father
was the proprietor. While they intended to name
me for my father, they always called me Calvin, so
the John became discarded.

Our house was well shaded with maple trees and
had a yard in front enclosed with a picket fence, in
which grew a mountain ash, a plum tree, and the
customary purple lilac bushes. In the summertime
my mother planted her flower bed there.

Her parents, who were prosperous farmers, lived
in the large house across the road, which had been
built for a hotel and still has the old hall in it where
public dances were held in former days and a spa-
cious corner on the front side known as the bar
room, indicating what had been sold there before
my grandfather Moor bought the premises* On an
adjoining farm, about sixty-five rods distant, lived
my grandfather and grandmother Coolidge. Within
view were two more collections of farm buildings,
three dwelling houses with their barns, a church, a

[7]

CALVIN COOLIDGE

school house and a blacksmith shop. A little out of
sight dwelt the local butter tub maker and beyond
him the shoemaker.

This locality was known as The Notch, being sit-
uated at the head o a valley in an irregular bowl of
hills. The scene was one of much natural beauty , of
which I think the inhabitants had little realization,
though they all loved it because it was their home
and were always ready to contend that it surpassed
all the surrounding communities and compared
favorably with any other place on earth.

My sister Abbie was born in the same house in
April, 1875. We ^ ve d there until 1876, when the
place was bought across the road, which had about
two acres of land with a house and a number of
barns and a blacksmith shop. About it were a con-
siderable number of good apple trees. I think the
price paid was $375. Almost at once the principal
barn was sold for $100, to be moved away. My
father was a good trader.

Some repairs were made on the inside,, and black
walnut furniture was brought from Boston to fur-
nish the parlor and sitting room* It was a plain

[8]

CHILDHOOD SCENES

square-sided house with a long ell, to which the
horse barn was soon added. The outside has since
been remodeled and the piazza built. A young
woman was always employed to do the house work.
Whatever was needed never failed to be provided.

While in theory I was always urged to work and
to save, in practice I was permitted to do my share
of playing and wasting. My playthings often lay in
the road to be run over, and my ball game often in-
terfered with my filling the wood box* I have been
taken out of bed to do penance for such derelictions.

My father, John Calvin Coolidge, ran the country
store. He was successful The annual rent of the
whole place was $40, I have heard him say that his
merchandise bills were about $10,000 yearly. He
had no other expenses. His profits were about $100
per month on the average, so he must have sold on a
very close margin.

He trusted nearly everybody, but lost a surpris-
ingly small amount. Sometimes people he had not
seen for years would return and pay him the whole
bill.

He went to Boston in the spring and fall to buy

[9]

CALVIN COOLIDGE

goods. He took the midnight train from Lodlow
when they did not have sleeping cars, arriving in
the city early in the morning, which saved him his
hotel bill

He was a good business man, a very hard worker,
and did not like to see things wasted. He kept the
store about thirteen years and sold it to my mother's
brother, who became a prosperous merchant.

In addition to his business ability niy father was
very skillful with his hands. He worked with a car-
riage maker for a short time when he was young,
and the best buggy he had for twenty years was
one he made himself. He had a complete set of tools,
ample to do all kinds of building and carpenter
work. He knew how to lay bricks and was an excel-
lent stone mason.

Following his sale of the store about the time
my grandfather died, besides running the farm, he
opened the old blacksmith shop which stood upon
the place across the road to which we had moved.
He hired a blacksmith at $i per day, who was a
large-framed powerful man with a black beard, said
to be sometimes quarrelsome,

[10]

CHILDHOOD SCENES

I have seen him unaided throw a refractory horse
to the ground when it objected to being shod. But
he was always kind to me, letting me fuss around
the shop, leaving his own row to do three or four
hills for me so that I could more easily keep up with
the rest of the men in hoeing time, or favoring me
in some way in the hay field as he helped on the
farm in busy times*

He always pitched the hay on to the ox cart and
I raked after* If I was getting behind he slowed up
a little. He was a big-hearted man* I wish I could
see that blacksmith again. The iron work for farm
wagons and sleds was fashioned and put on in the
shop, oxen and horses brought there for shoeing, and
metal parts of farm implements often repaired. My
father seemed to like to work in the shop, but did
not go there much except when a difficult piece of
work was required, like welding a broken steel sec-
tion rod of a mowing machine, which had to be
done with great precision or it would break again.

He kept tools for mending shoes and harnesses
and repairing water pipes and tinware. He knew
how to perform all kinds of delicate operations on

CALVIN COOLIDGE

domestic animals. The lines he laid out were tree
and straight, and the curves regular. The work he
did endured.

If there was any physical requirement of country
life which he could not perform, I do not know
what it was. From watching him and assisting him,
I gained an intimate knowledge of all this kind of
work:

It seems impossible that any man could adequately
describe his mother. I can not describe mine,

On the side of her father, Hiram Dunlap Moor,
she was Scotch with a mixture of Welsh and Eng-
lish. Her mother, Abigail (Franklin) Moor, was
chiefly of the old New England stock* She bore the
name of two Empresses, Victoria Josephine. She
was of a very light and fair complexion with a rich
growth of brown hair that had a glint of gold in it*
Her hands and features were regular and finely
modeled. The older people always told me how
beautiful she was in her youth.

She was practically an invalid ever after I could
remember her, but used what strength she had IE
lavish care upon me and my sister, who was three

CHILDHOOD SCENES

years younger. There was a touch of mysticism and
poetry in her nature which made her love to gaze at
^ the purple sunsets and watch the evening stars.
p Whatever was grand and beautiful in form and
(f) color attracted her. It seemed as though the rich
T^green tints of the foliage and the blossoms of the
^ flowers came for her in the springtime, and in the
autumn it was for her that the mountain sides were
struck with crimson and with gold.

When she knew that her end was near she called
us children to her bedside, where we knelt down to
receive her final parting blessing.
L In an hour she was gone. It was her thirty-ninth
^birthday. I was twelve years old. We laid her away
f-in the blustering snows of March. The greatest grief
wthat can come to a boy came to me. Life was never
to seem the same again.

Five years and forty-one years later almost to a
day my sister and my father followed her. It always
^seemed to me that the boy I lost was her image,
hey all rest together on the sheltered hillside among
five generations of the Coolidge family.

My grandfather, Calvin Galusha Coolidge, died

CALVIN COOLIDGE

when I was six years old. He was a spare man over
six feet tall, of a nature which caused people to con-
fide in him, and of a character which made him a
constant choice for public office. His mother and her
family showed a marked trace of Indian blood, I
never saw her, but he took me one time to see her
sister, his very aged aunt, whom we found sitting in
the chimney corner smoking a clay pipe.

This was so uncommon that I always remem-
bered it. I thought tobacco was only for men, though
I had seen old ladies outside our neighborhood buy
snuff at the store.

He was an expert horseman and loved to raise colts
and puppies. He kept peacocks and other gay-col-
ored fowl and had a yard and garden filled with
scarlet flowers. But he never cared to hunt or fish.
He found great amusement in practical jokes and
could entice a man into a nest of bees and make him
think he went there of his own accord.

He and my grandmother brought up as their own
children the boy and girl of his only sister, whose
parents died when they were less than two years old.
He made them no charge, but managed their in-

CHILDHOOD SCENES

heritance and turned it all over to them with the in-
come, besides giving the boy $800 of his own money
when he was eighteen years old, the same as he did
my father. He was fond of riding horseback and
taught me to ride standing up behind him. Some of
the horses he bred and sold became famous. In his
mind, the only real, respectable way to get a living
was from tilling the soil He therefore did not ex-
actly approve having his son go into trade*

In order to tie me to the land, in his last sickness
he executed a deed to me for life of forty acres, called
the Lime Kiln lot, on the west part of his farm, with
the remainder to my lineal descendants, thinking
that as I could not sell it, and my creditors could
not get it s it would be necessary for me to cultivate
it* He also gave me a mare colt and a heifer calf,
which came of stock that had belonged to his grand-
father*

Two days after I was two months old, my father
was elected to the state legislature. By a curious
coincidence, when my son was the same age I was
elected to the same office in Massachusetts. He was
reelected twice, the term being two years, and, while

CALVIN COOLIDGE

he was serving, my grandfather took my mother
and me to visit him at Montpelier.

I think I was three years and four months old,
but I always remembered the experience. Grand-
father carried me to the State House and sat me in
the Governor's chair, which did not impress me so
much as a stuffed catamount that was in the capital
museum- That was the first of the great many jour-
neys which I have since made to legislative halls*

During his last illness he would have me read to
him the first chapter of the Gospel of John, which
he had read to his grandfather. I could do very welt
until I came to the word "comprehended," with
which I always had difficulty. On taking the oath
as President in 1925, I placed my hand on that
Book of the Bible in memory of my first reading it.

So far as I know, neither he nor any other mem-
bers of my family ever entertained any ambitions in
my behalf. He evidently wished me to stay on the
land. My own wish was to keep store, as my father
had done.

They all taught me to be faithful over a few
things. If they had any idea that such a training

[16]

CHILDHOOD SCENES

might some day make me a ruler over many things,
it was not disclosed to me. It was my father in later
years who wished me to enter the law, but when I
finally left home for that purpose the parting was
very hard for him to bear.

The neighborhood around The Notch was made
up of people of exemplary habits. Their speech was
clean and their lives were above reproach. They had
no mortgages on their farms. If any debts were con-
tracted they were promptly paid. Credit was good
and there was money in the savings bank.

The break of day saw them stirring. Their in-
dustry continued until twilight. They kept up no
church organization, and as there was little regular
preaching the outward manifestation of religion
through public profession had little opportunity, but
they were without exception a people of faith and
charity and of good works. They cherished the teach-
ings of the Bible and sought to live in accordance
with its precepts.

The conduct of the young people was modest and
respectful. For most of the time during my boy-
hood regular Sunday school classes were held in the

CALVIN COOLIDGE

church which my grandmother Coolidge superin-
tended until in her advanced years she was super-
seded by my father. She was a constant reader of the
Bible and a devoted member of the church, who
daily sought for divine guidance in prayer.

I stayed with her at the farm much of the time
and she had much to do with shaping the thought
of my early years. She had a benign influence over
all who came in contact with her. The Puritan se-
verity of her convictions was tempered by the sweet-
ness of a womanly charity. There were none whom
she ever knew that had not In some way benefited
by her kindness.

Her maiden name was Sarah Almeda Brewer.
When she married my grandfather she was twenty
and he was twenty-eight years old. She was accus-
tomed to tell me that from his experience and obser-
vations he had come to have great faith in good
blood, and that he chose her for his wife not only
because he loved her, but because her family, which
he had seen for three generations, were people of
ability and character.

While he would have looked upon rank as only

CHILDHOOD SCENES

pretense, he looked upon merit with great respect.
His judgment was vindicated by the fact that more
of her kin folks than he could have realized had
been and were to become people of merited dis-
tinction.

The prevailing dress in our neighborhood was
that of the countryside. While my father wore a busi-
ness suit with a white shirt, collar and cuffs, which
he always kept clean, the men generally had colored
shirts and outer garments of brown or blue drilling.
But they all had good clothes for any important oc-
casions,

I was clad in a gingham, shirt with overalls in the
summer, when I liked to go barefooted. In the win-
ter these were changed for heavy wool garments and
thick cowhide boots, which lasted a year.

My grandmother Coolidge spun woolen yarn,
from which she knitted us stockings and mittens*
I have seen her weave cloth, and when I was ten
years old I had a frock which came from her loom.
We had linen sheets and table cloths and woolen bed
blankets, which she had spun and woven in earlier
days, I have some of them now. My grandfather

CALVIN COOLIDGE

Coolidge wore a blue woolen frock much of the
time, which is a most convenient garment for that
region. It is cut like a shirt, going on over the head,
with flaps that reach to the knees.

When I went to visit the old home in later years
I liked to wear the one he left, with some fine calf-
skin boots about two sizes too large for me, which
were made for him when he went to the Vermont
legislature about 1858. When news pictures began
to be taken of me there, I found that among the
public this was generally supposed to be a makeup
costume, which it was not, so I have since been
obliged to forego the comfort of wearing it, In pub-
lic life it is sometimes necessary in order to appear
really natural to be actually artificial.

Perhaps some glimpse of these pictures may have
caused an English writer to refer to me as a Vermont
backwoodsman. I wonder if he describes Ms King
as a Scotchman when he sees him in kilts*

To those of his country who remember that Bur-
goyne sent home a dispatch saying that the Green
Mountains were the abode of the most warlike race
on the continent, who hung like a thunder cloud on

[20]

CHILDHOOD SCENES

Ms left which was fully borne out by what they
helped to do to him at Bennington and Saratoga
I presume the term of Vermont backwoodsman still
carries the implication of reproach. But in this
country it is an appellation which from General
Ethan Allen to Admiral George Dewey has not
been without some distinction.

While the form of government under which the
Plymouth people lived was that of a republic, it had
a strong democratic trend. The smallest unit was
then the school district. Early in my boyhood the
women were given a vote on school questions in both
the district and town meetings.

The district meeting was held in the evening at
the school house each year. The officers were chosen
and the rate of the school tax was fixed by popular
vote. The board and room of the teacher for two-
week periods was then assigned to the lowest bid-
ders. The rates ran from about fifty cents each week
in the summer to as high as $1.25 in the winter.

The town officers were chosen annually at the
March meeting. Here again the rate of taxes was
fixed by popular vote* The bonded debt was rather

[21]

CALVIN COOLIDGE

large, coming down, as I was told, from expenses
during the war and the costs of reconstructing roads
and bridges after the disastrous freshet of 1869.

The more substantial farmers wanted to raise a
large tax to reduce the debt. I noticed my father did
not vote on this subject and I inquired his reason,
He said that while he could afford to pay a high rate,
he did not wish to place so large a burden on those
who were less able, and so was leaving them to make
their own decision.

In those days there were about two hundred and
fifty qualified voters, not over twenty-five of which
were Democrats, and the rest Republicans. They
had their spirited contests in their elections, but not
along party lines.

One of the patriarchs of the town, who was a
Democrat, served many years as Moderator by unan-
imous choice. He was a man of sound common
sense and an excellent presiding officer, but without
much book learning.

When he read that part of the call for the meet-
ing which recited that it was to act "on the follow-
ing questions, viz." he always read it "to act upon

[22]

CHILDHOOD SCENES

the following questions, vizley." This caused him
to be referred to at times by the irreverent as Old
Vizley.

I was accustomed to carry apples and popcorn
balls to the town meetings to sell, mainly because
my grandmother said my father had done so when
he was a boy, and I was exceedingly anxious to grow
up to be like him.

On the even years in September came the Free-
men's meeting- This was a state election, at which
the town representative to the legislature was chosen.
They also voted for county and state officers and for
a Representative to the Congress, and on each fourth
year for Presidential electors. I attended all of these
meetings until I left home and followed them with
interest for many of the succeeding years.

Careful provision was made for the adminis-
tration of justice through local authorities. Those
charged with petty crimes and misdemeanors were
brought before one of the five Justices of the Peace,
who had power to try and sentence with or without
calling a jury. He also had a like jurisdiction in
civil matters of a small amount.

CALVIN COOLIDGE

The more important cases, criminal and civil*
went to the County Court which sat in the neigh-
boring town of Woodstock in May and December,
My father was nearly all his life a Constable or a
Deputy Sheriff, and sometimes both, with power to
serve civil and criminal process, so that he arrested
those charged with crime and brought them before
the Justice for trial.

Unless it would keep me out of school, he would
take me with him when attending before the local
justices or when he went to the opening session of
the County Court. Before him my grandfather had
held the same positions, so that together they were
the peace officers most of the time in our town for
nearly seventy-five years.

Mn addition to this they often settled the estates
of deceased persons and acted as guardian of minors*
This business was transacted in the Probate Court,
where I often went.

My father was at times a Justice of the Peace and
always had a commission as notary public. This en-
abled him to take the acknowledgment of deeds*
which he knew how to draw, and administer oaths

CHILDHOOD SCENES

necessary to pension papers which he filled out for
old soldiers usually without charge, or to take affi-
davits required on any other instruments.

In my youth he was also always engaged in the
transaction of all kinds of town business,, being con-
stantly elected for that purpose. He was painstak-
ing, precise and very accurate, and had such wide
experience that the lawyers of the region knew they
could rely on him to serve papers in difficult cases and
make returns that would be upheld by the courts*

This work gave him such a broad knowledge of
the practical side of the law that people of the neigh-
borhood were constantly seeking his advice, to which
I always listened with great interest. He always
counseled them to resist injustice and avoid unfair
dealing, but to keep their agreements, meet their
obligations and observe strict obedience to the law*

By reason of what I saw and heard in my early
life, I came to have a good working knowledge of
the practical side of government* I understood that
it consisted of restraints which the people had im-
posed upon themselves in order to promote the com-
mon welfare.

[35]

CALVIN COOLIDCE

As I went about with my father when he col-
lected taxes, I knew that when taxes were laid some
one had to work to earn the money to pay them, I
saw that a public debt was a burden on all the people
in a community, and while it was necessary to meet
the needs of a disaster it cost much in interest and
ought to be retired as soon as possible.

After the winter work of laying in a supply of
wood had been done, the farm year began about the
first of April with the opening of the maple-sugar
season. This was the most interesting of all the farm
operations to me.

With the coming of the first warm days we broke
a road through the deep snow into the sugar lot*
tapped the trees, set the buckets, and brought the
sap to the sugar house, where in a heater and pans it
was boiled down into syrup to be taken to the house
for sugaring off. We made eight hundred to two
thousand pounds, according to the season,

After that the fences had to be repaired where
they had been broken down by the snow, the cattle
turned out to pasture, and the spring planting done.
Then came sheep-shearing time, which was followed

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CHILDHOOD SCENES

by getting in the hay, harvesting and threshing of
the grain, cutting and husking the corn, digging the
potatoes and picking the apples. Just before Thanks-
giving the poultry had to be dressed for market, and
a little later the fattened hogs were butchered and
the meat salted down. Early in the winter a beef
creature was slaughtered.

The work of the farm was done by the oxen, ex-
cept running the mowing machine and horse rake.
I early learned to drive oxen and used to plow with
them alone when I was twelve years old. Of course,
there was the constant care of the domestic animals,
the milking of the cows, and taking them to and
from pasture, which was especially my responsibility.

We had husking bees, apple-paring bees and sing-
ing schools in the winter. There were parties for the
young folks and an occasional dramatic exhibition
by local talent. Not far away there were some public
dances, which I was never permitted to attend.

Some time during the summer we usually went to
the circus, often rising by three o'clock so as to get
there early. In the autumn we visited the county fair.
The holidays were all celebrated in some fashion.

CALVIN COOLIDCE

O course, the Fourth of July meant a great deal
to me, because it was my birthday. The first one I can
remember was when I was four years old. My father
took me fishing in the meadow brook in the morn-
ing. I recall that I fell in the water, after which we
had a heavy thundershower, so that we both came
home very wet. Usually there was a picnic celebra-
tion on that day*

Thanksgiving was a feast day for family reunions
at the home of the grandparents, Christmas was a
sacrament observed with the exchange of gifts, when
the stockings were hung, and the spruce tree was
lighted in the symbol of Christian faith and love,
While there was plenty of hard work, there was no
lack of pleasurable diversion.

When the work was done for the day y it was
customary to drop into the store to get the evening
mail and exchange views on topics of interest* A
few times I saw there Attorney General John G.
Sargent with his father, who was a much respected
man.

A number of those who came had followed Sher-
idan, been with Meade at Gettysburg, and served

CHILDHOOD SCENES

under Grant, but they seldom volunteered any in-
formation about it. They were not talkative and took
their military service in a matter of fact way, not as
anything to brag about but merely as something they
did because it ought to be done.

They drew no class distinctions except towards
those who assumed superior airs. Those they held in
contempt, They held strongly to the doctrine of
equality. Whenever the hired man or the hired girl
wanted to go anywhere they were always understood
to be entitled to my place in the wagon, in which
case I remained at home. This gave me a very early
training in democratic ideas and impressed upon me
very forcibly the dignity and power, if not the supe-
riority of labor.

It was all a fine atmosphere in which to raise a
boy. As I look back on it I constantly think how
clean it was. There was little about it that was arti-
ficial. It was all close to nature and in accordance
with the ways of nature. The streams ran clear. The
roads,/the woods, the fields, the people all were
clean. Even when I try to divest it of the halo which
I know always surrounds the past, I am unable to

CALVIN COOLIDGE

create any other impression than that it was fresh
and clean.

We had some books, but not many* Mother liked
poetry and read some novels. Father had no taste
for books, but always took and read a daily paper.
My grandfather Moor read books and papers, so that
he was a well-informed man.

My grandmother Coolidge liked books and be-
sides a daily Chapter in the Bible read aloud to me
"The Rangers or the Tory's Daughter" and <4 The
Green Mountain Boys/* which were both stories of
the early settlers of Vermont during the Revolu-
tionary period* She also had two volumes entitled
" Washington and His Generals/' and other biog-
raphies which I read myself at an early age with a
great deal of interest.

At home there were numerous law books* In this
way I grew up with a working knowledge of the
foundations of my state and nation and a taste for
history.

My education began with a set of blocks which
had on them the Roman numerals and the letters of
the alphabet. It is not yet finished. As I played with

[30]

Allison Spence

VICTORIA JOSEPHINE (MOOR) COOLIDGE
Mother of Cahin Coolidge, about the time her marriage

CHILDHOOD SCENES

them and asked my mother what they were, I came
to know them all when I was three years old. I
started to school when I was five.

The little stone school house which had unpainted
benches and desks wide enough to seat two was at-
tended by about twenty-five scholars. Few, if any, of
my teachers reached the standard now required by
all public schools. They qualified by examination be-
fore the town superintendent. I first took this exam-
ination and passed it at the age of thirteen and my
sister Abbie passed it and taught a term of school in
a neighboring town when she was twelve years old.

My teachers were young women from neighbor-
ing communities, except sometimes when a man was
employed for the winter term. They were all in-
telligent, of good character, and interested in their
work. I do not feel that the quality of their instruc-
tion was in any way inferior. The common school
subjects were taught, with grammar and United
States history, so that when I was thirteen I had
mastered them all and went to Black River Acad-
emy, at Ludlow.

That was one of the greatest events of my life.

[3*]

CALVIN COOLIDGE

The packing and preparation for it required more
time and attention than collecting my belongings in
preparation for leaving the White House. 1 counted
the hours until it was time to go.

My whole outfit went easily into two small hand-
bags, which lay on the straw in the back of the trav-
erse sleigh beside the fatted calf that was starting to
market. The winter snow lay on the ground. The
weather was well below freezing. But in my eager-
ness these counted for nothing.

I was going where 1 would be mostly my own
master. I was casting off what I thought was the
drudgery of farm life, symbolized by the cowhide
boots and every-day clothing which I was leaving be-
hind, not realizing what a relief it would be to re-
turn to them in future years. I had on my best clothes
and wore shoes with rubbers, because the village had
sidewalks,

I did not know that there were mental and moral
atmospheres more monotonous and more contami-
nating than anything in the physical atmosphere of
country life. No one could have made me believe
that I should never be so innocent or so happy again.

CHILDHOOD SCENES

As we rounded the brow of the hill the first rays
of the morning sun streamed over our backs and
lighted up the glistening snow ahead. I was per-
fectly certain that I was traveling out of the darkness
into the light.

We have much speculation over whether the city
or the country is the better place to bring up boys, I
am prejudiced in behalf of the country, but I should
have to admit that much depends on the parents and
the surrounding neighborhood. We felt the cold in
winter and had many inconveniences, but we did
not mind them because we supposed they were the
inevitable burdens of existence,

It would be hard to imagine better surroundings
for the development of a boy than those which I had.
While a wider breadth of training and knowledge
could have been presented to me, there was a daily
contact with many new ideas, and the mind was
given sufficient opportunity thoroughly to digest all
that came to it.

Country life does not always have breadth, but it
has depth. It is neither artificial nor superficial, but
is kept close to the realities.

[33]

CALVIN COOLIDGE

While I can think of many pleasures we did not
have,, and many niceties of culture with which we
were unfamiliar,, yet if I had the power to order my
life anew I would not dare to change that period of
it. If it did not afford me the best that there was, it
abundantly provided the best that there was for me.

[34]

SEEKING AN EDUCATION

CHAPTER TWO
SEEKING AN EDUCATION

ONE of the sages of New England is re-
ported to have declared that the education
of a child should begin several generations
before it is born. No doubt it does begin at a much
earlier period and we enter life with a heritage that
reaches back through the ages. But we do not choose
our ancestors* When we come into the world the
gate of gifts is closed behind us. We can do nothing
about it. So far as each individual is concerned all
he can do is to take the abilities he has and make the
most of them. His power over the past is gone. His
power over the future depends on what he does with
himself in the present. If he wishes to live and pro-
gress he must work.

During early childhood the inspiration for any-
thing like mental discipline comes almost entirely
from the outside. It is supplied by the parents and

[37]

CALVIN COOLIDGE

teachers. It was not until I left home In February
of 1886 that I could say I had much thought of my
own about getting an education. Thereafter I began
to be more dependent on myself and assume more
and more self-direction. What I studied was the re-
sult of my own choice. Instead of seeking to direct
me, niy father left me to decide. But when I had
selected a course he was always solicitous to see that
I diligently applied myself to it.

Going away to school was my first great adven-
ture in life. I shall never forget the impression it
made on me. It was so deep and remains so vivid
that whenever I have started out on a new enter-
prise a like feeling always returns to me. It was the
same when I went to college, when I left home to
enter the law, when I began a public career in Bos-
ton, when I started for Washington to become Vice-
President and finally when I was called to the White
House. Going to the Academy meant a complete
break with the past and entering a new and untried
field, larger and more alluring than the past, among
unknown scenes and unknown people.

In the spring of 1886 Black River Academy had
[38]

SEEKING AN EDUCATION

just celebrated its fiftieth anniversary. While it had
some distinguished alumni, the great body of its
former students were the hard-working, every-day
people, that made the strength of rural New Eng-
land- My father and mother and grandmother Cool-
idge had been there a few terms. While it had a
charter of its own, and was independent of the pub-
lic authorities, it was nevertheless part village high
school. At its head was a principal, who had under
him two women assistants. A red brick structure,
built like a church, with an assembly room and a few
recitation rooms made up its entire equipment, so
that those who did not live at home boarded in pri-
vate families about the town of Ludlow. The spring
term began in midwinter in order that the girls
could be out by the first Monday in May to teach a
summer district school and the boys could get home
for the season's work on the farm.

For the very few who were preparing for college
a classical course was off ered in Latin, Greek, history
and mathematics, but most of the pupils kept to the
Latin Scientific, and the English courses. The stu-
dent body was about one hundred and twenty-five in

[39]

CALVIN COOLIDGE

number. During my first term I began algebra and
finished grammar. For some reason I was attracted
to civil government and took that. This was my first
introduction to the Constitution of the United States.
Although I was but thirteen years old the subject
interested me exceedingly. The study of it which I
then began has never ceased, and the more I study it
the more I have come to admire it, realizing that no
other document devised by the hand of man ever
brought so much progress and happiness to human-
ity* The good it has wrought can never be measured.
It was not alone the school with its teachers, its-
students and courses of study that interested me, but
also the village and its people. It all lay in a beauti-
ful valley along the Black River supported on either
side by high hills. The tradespeople all knew my
father well and he had an intimate acquaintance
with the lawyers. Very soon I too knew them all,
The chief industry of the town was a woolen mill
that always remained a mystery to me. But the lesser
activity of the village was a cab shop, I worked there
some on Saturdays, so I came to know how toys and
baby wagons were made. It was my first acquaint:-

[40]

SEEKING AN EDUCATION

ance with the factory system, and my approach to it
was that of a wage earner. As I was employed at
piece work my wages depended on niy own ability,
skill and industry. It was a good training. I was
beginning to find out what existence meant.

My real academy course began the next fall term
when I started to study Latin. In a few weeks I
broke my right arm but it did not keep me out of
school more than two days. Latin was not difficult
for me to translate, but I never became proficient in
its composition. Although I continued it until my
sophomore year at college the only part of all the
course that I found of much interest was the orations
of Cicero. These held my attention to such a degree
that I translated some of them in later life.

When Greek was begun the next year I found it
difficult. It is a language that requires real attention
and close application. Among its rewards are the
moving poetry of Homer, the marvelous orations of
Demosthenes, and in after life an increased power of
observation.

Besides the classics we had a course in rhetoric,
some ancient history, and a little American litera-

CALVIN COOLIDGE

turc. Plane geometry completed our mathematics.
In the modern languages there was only French,

In some subjects I began with the class when it
started to review and so did the work of a term in
two weeks, I joined the French class in mid year
and made up the work by starting my study at about
three o'clock in the morning.

During the long vacations from May until Sep-
tember I went home and worked on the farm* We
had a number of horses so that I was able to indulge
my pleasure in riding. As no one else in the neigh-
borhood cared for this diversion I had to ride alone*
But a horse is much company, and riding over the
fields and along the country roads by himself , where
nothing interrupts his seeing and thinking,, is a good
occupation for a boy. The silences of Nature have a
discipline all their own.

Of course our school life was not free from pranks.
The property of the townspeople was moved to
strange places in the night. One morning as the jan-
itor was starting the furnace he heard a loud bray
from one of the class rooms. His investigation dis-
closed the presence there of a domestic animal noted

SEEKING AN EDUCATION

for his long ears and discordant voice. In some way
during the night he had been stabled on the second
floor. About as far as I deem it prudent to discuss
my own connection with these escapades is to record
that I was never convicted of any of them and so
must be presumed innocent.

The expenses at the Academy were very moder-
ate. The tuition was about seven dollars for each
term, and board and room for each week not over
three dollars. Oftentimes students hired a room for
about fifty cents per week and boarded themselves.
In my own case the cost for a school year averaged
about one hundred and fifty dollars, which was all
paid by my father. Any money I earned he had me
put in the savings bank, because he wished me to be
informed of the value of money at interest. He
thought money invested in that way led to a self-
respecting independence that was one of the founda-
tions of good character.

It was about twelve miles from Ludlow to Plym-
outh. Sometimes I walked home Friday afternoon,
but usually my father came for me and brought me
back Sunday evening or Monday morning. When

[43]

CALVIN COOLIDGE

this was not done I often staid with the elder sister
of my mother, Mrs. Don C. Pollard, who lived about
three miles down the river at Proctorsville, This was
my Aunt Sarah who is still living. She was wonder-
fully kind to me and did all she could to take the
place of my own mother in affection for me and
good influence over me while I was at the Academy
and ever after. The sweetness of her nature was a
benediction to all who came in contact with her.
^Vhat men owe to the love and help of good women
can never be told. ]

The Academy had no athletics in those days, as
the boys from the farms did not feel the need of such
activity, A few games of baseball were played, but
no football or track athletics were possible. Games
did not interest me much though I had some skill
with a bat. I was rather slender and not so tall as
many boys of my age.

Those who attended the school from out of town
were all there with a real purpose of improving
themselves, so that while there was no lack of fun
and play they all worked as best they could, for their
coming had meant too much sacrifice at home not to

[44]

SEEKING AN EDUCATION

be taken seriously. They had come seeking to better
their condition in life through what they might learn
and the self-discipline they might secure.

The school had much to be desired in organiza-
tion and equipment, but it possessed a sturdy spirit
and a wholesome regard for truth. Of course the
student body came from the country and had coun-
try ways, but the boys were inspired with a purpose,
and the girls with a sweet sincerity which becomes
superior to all the affectations of the drawing-room.
In them the native capacity for making real men
and women remained all unspoiled.

The Presidential election of 1888 created con-
siderable interest among the students. Most of them
favored the Republican candidate Benjamin Harri-
son against the then President Grover Cleveland.
When Harrison was elected, two nights were spent
parading the streets with drums and trumpets, cele-
brating the victory.

During most of my course George Sherman was
the principal and Miss M. Belle Chellis was the first
assistant. I owe much to the inspiration and schol-
arly direction which they gave to my undergraduate

[45]

CALVIN COOLIDGE

days. They both lived to see me President and sent
me letters at the time, though they left the school
long ago. It was under their teaching that I first
learned of the glory and grandeur of the ancient
civilization that grew up around the Mediterranean
and in Mesopotamia. Under their guidance I be-
held the marvels of old Babylon, I marched with the
Ten Thousand of Xenophon, I witnessed the con-
flict around beleaguered Troy which doomed that
proud city to pillage and to flames, I heard the tramp
of the invincible legions of Rome, I saw the victo-
rious galleys of the Eternal City carrying destruction
to the Carthaginian shore, and I listened to the lofty
eloquence of Cicero and the matchless imagery of
Homer, They gave me a vision of the world when it
was young and showed me how it grew* It seems to
me that it is almost impossible for those who have
not traveled that road to reach a very clear concep-
tion of what the world now means*

It was in this period that I learned something of
the thread of events that ran from the Euphrates and
the Nile through Athens to the Tiber and thence
stretched on to the Seine and the Thames to be car**

SEEKING AN EDUCATION

ried overseas to the James, the Charles and the Hud-
son. I found that the English language was gener-
ously compounded with Greek and Latin, which it
was necessary to know if I was to understand my
native tongue. I discovered that our ideas of democ-
racy came from the agora of Greece, and our ideas of
liberty came from the forum of Rome. Something
of the sequence of history was revealed to me, so that
I began to understand the significance of our own
times and our own country.

In March of my senior year my sister Abbie died.
She was three years my junior but so proficient in
her studies that she was but two classes below me in
school. She was ill scarcely a week. Several doctors
were in attendance but could not save her. Thirty
years later one of them told me he was convinced
she had appendicitis, which was a disease not well
understood in 1 890. I went home when her condi-
tion became critical and staid beside her until she
passed to join our mother. The memory of the charm
of her presence and her dignified devotion to the
right will always abide with me.

In the spring of 1890 came my graduation. The

[47]

CALVIN COOLIDGE

class had five boys and four girls. With so small a
number it was possible for all of us to take part in
the final exercises with orations and essays. The sub-
ject that I undertook to discuss was "Oratory in
History/' in which I dealt briefly with the effect of
the spoken word in determining human action.

It had been my thought, as I was but seventeen,
to spend a year in some of the larger preparatory
schools and then enter a university. But it was sud-
denly decided that a smaller college would be pref-
erable, so I went to Amherst On my way there I
contracted a heavy cold, which grew worse, interfer-
ing with my examinations, and finally sent me home
where I was ill for a considerable time.

But by early winter I was recovered, so that I did
a good deal of work helping repair and paint the
inside of the store building which my father still
owned and rented. There was time for much read-
ing and I gave great attention to the poems of Sir
Walter Scott. After a few weeks in the late winter
at my old school I went to St. Johnsbury Academy
for the spring term. Its principal was Dr. Putney >
who was a fine drill-master, a very exact scholar, and

[48]

COLONEL JOHN C. COOLIDGE
While in the Vermont Senate

Allison

SEEKING AN EDUCATION

an excellent disciplinarian. He readily gave me a
certificate entitling me to ' enter Amherst without
further examination, which he would never have
done if he had not been convinced I was a proficient
student. His indorsement of the work I had already
done, after having me in his own classes for a term,
showed that Black River Academy was not without
some merit.

During the summer vacation my father and I
went to the dedication of the Benniagton Battle
Monument. It was a most elaborate ceremony with
much oratory followed by a dinner and more speak-
ing, with many bands of music and a long military
parade. The public officials of Vermont and many
from New York were there. I heard President Har-
rison, who was the first President I had ever seen,
make an address. As I looked on him and realized
that he personally represented the glory and dignity
of the United States I wondered how it felt to bear
so much responsibility and little thought I should
ever know.

The fall of 1 89 1 found me back at Amherst tak-
ing up my college course in earnest. Much of its

[49]

CALVIN COOLIDGE

social life centered around the fraternities, and al-
though they did not leave me without an invitation
to join them it was not until senior year that an op-
portunity carne to belong to one that I wished to
accept. It has been my observation in life that, if one
will only exercise the patience to wait, his wants are
likely to be filled.

My class was rather small, not numbering more
than eighty-five in a student body of about four
hundred. President Julius H. Seelye, who had led
the college for about twenty years with great suc-
cess as an educator and inspirer of young men, had
just retired. He had been succeeded by President
Merrill E. Gates, a man of brilliant intellect and
fascinating personality though not the equal of his
predecessor in directing college policy. But the fac-
ulty as a whole was excellent, having many strong
men, and some who were preeminent in the educa-
tional field.

The college of that day had a very laudable desire
to get students, and having admitted them, it was
equally alert in striving to keep them and help them
get an education, with the result that very few left

SEEKING AN EDUCATION

of their own volition and almost none were dropped
for failure in their work. There was no marked ex-
odus at the first examination period, which was due
not only to the attitude of the college but to the at-
titude of the students, who did not go there because
they wished to experiment for a few months with
college life and be able to say thereafter they had
been in college, but went because they felt they had
need of an education, and expected to work hard for
that purpose until the course was finished. There
were few triflers.

A small number became what we called sports,
but they were not looked on with favor, and they
have not survived. While the class has lost many ex-
cellent men besides, yet it seems to be true that un-
less men live right they die. Things are so ordered
in this world that those who violate its law cannot
escape the penalty. Nature is inexorable. If men do
not follow the truth they cannot live.

My absence from home during my freshman year
was more easy for me to bear because I was no longer
leaving my father alone. Just before the opening of
college he had married Miss Carrie A. Brown, who

CALVIN COOLIDGE

was one of the finest women of our neighborhood*
I had known her all my life. After being without a
mother nearly seven years I was greatly pleased to
find in her all the motherly devotion that she could
have given me if I had been her own son. She was
a graduate of Kimball Union Academy and had
taught school for some years. Loving books and
music she was not only a mother to me but a teacher.
For thirty years she watched over me and loved me ?
welcoming me when I went home, writing me often
when I was away, and encouraging me in all my ef-
forts. When at last she sank to rest she had seen me
made Governor of Massachusetts and knew I was
djfig considered for the Presidency.

seems as though good influences had always
been coming into my life. Perhaps I have been more
fortunate in that respect than others. But while I am
not disposed to minimize the amount of evil in the
world I am convinced that the good predominates
and that it is constantly all about us, ready for our
service if only we will accept it?!

In the Anxherst College ofmy day a freshman
was not regarded as different from the other classes*

SEEKING AN EDUCATION

He wore no distinctive garb, or emblem, and suf-
fered no special indignities. It would not have been
judicious for him to appear on the campus with a
silk hat and cane, but as none of the other students
resorted to that practice this single restriction was
not a severe hardship, A cane rush always took place
between the two lower classes very early in the fall
term, but it was confined within the limits of good-
natured sport, where little damage was done beyond
a few torn clothes. If we had undertaken to have a
class banquet where the sophomores could reach us,
it undoubtedly would have brought on a collision,
but when the time came for one we tactfully and
silently departed for Westfield, under cover of a
winter evening, where we were not found or mo-
lested.

It had long been the practice at Amherst to give
careful attention to physical culture. It had, I be-
lieve, the first college gymnasium in this country.
Each student on entering was given a thorough ex-
amination, furnished with a chart showing any
bodily deficiencies and given personal direction for
their removal. The attendance of the whole class was

[53]

CALVIN COOLIDGE

required at the gymnasium drill for four periods
each week, and voluntary work on the floor was
always encouraged. We heard a great deal about a
sound mind in a sound body.

At the time of my entrance the two college dor-
mitories were so badly out of repair that they were
little used. Later they were completely remodeled
and became fully occupied. About ten fraternity
houses furnished lodgings for most of the upper class
men, but the lower class men roomed at private
houses. All the students took their meals in private
houses, so that there was a general comingling of
all classes and all fraternities around the table, which
broke up exclusive circles and increased college de-
mocracy.

The places of general assembly were for religious
worship, which consisted of the chapel exercises at
the first morning period each week day, and church
service in the morning, with vespers in the late after-
noon, on Sundays. Regular attendance at all of these
was required. Of course we did not like to go and
talked learnedly about the right of freedom of wor-
ship, and the bad mental and moral reactions from

[54]

SEEKING AN EDUCATION

which we were likely to suffer as a result of being
forced to hear scriptural readings, psalm singings,
prayers and sermons. We were told that our choice
of a college was optional, but that Amherst had been
founded by pious men with the chief object of train-
ing students to overcome the unbelief which was
then thought to be prevalent, that religious instruc-
tion was a part of the prescribed course, and that
those who chose to remain would have to take it. If
attendance on these religious services ever harmed
any of the men of my time I have never been in-
formed of it. The good it did I believe was infinite.
Not the least of it was the discipline that resulted
from having constantly to give some thought to
things that young men would often prefer not to
consider. If we did not have the privilege of doing
what we wanted to do 5 we had the much greater
benefit of doing what we ought to do. It broke down
our selfishness, it conquered our resistance, it sup-
planted impulse, and finally it enthroned reason.

In intercollegiate athletics Amherst stood well. It
won its share of trophies on the diamond, the grid-
iron and the track, but it did not engage in any o

[55]

CALVIN COOLIBGE

the water sports. The games with Williams and
Dartmouth aroused the keenest interest, and honors
were then about even* But these outside activities
were kept well within bounds and were not permit-
ted to interfere with the real work of the college.
Pratt Field had just been completed and was well
equipped for outdoor sports, while Pratt Gymna-
sium had every facility for indoor training. These
places were well named, for the Pratt boys were very
active in athletics. One of them was usually captain
of the football team. I remember that in 1892
George D. Pratt, afterwards Conservation Commis-
sioner of the State of New York, led his team to vic-
tory against Dartmouth, thirty to two, and a week
later kicked ten straight goals in a gale of wind at
the championship game with Williams, leaving the
score sixty to nothing in favor of Amherst But both
these colleges have since retaliated with a great deal
of success,

In these field events I was only an observer, con-
tenting myself with getting exercise by faithful at-
tendance at the class drills in the gymnasium* In
these the entire class worked together with dumb-

[56]

SEEKING AN EDUCATION

bells for most of the time, but they involved suffi-
cient marching about the floor to give a military
flavor which I found very useful in later life when
I came in contact with military affairs during my
public career.

The Presidential election of 1892 came in my
sophomore year. I favored the renomination of Har-
rison and joined the Republican Club of the college,
which participated in a torch-light parade, but the
unsatisfactory business condition of the country car-
ried the victory to Cleveland.

For nearly two years I continued my studies of
Latin and Greek. Ours was the last class that read
Demosthenes on the Crown with Professor William
S. Tyler, the head of the Greek department, who
had been with the college about sixty years. He was
a patriarch in appearance with a long beard and
flowing white hair.

His reverence for the ancient Greeks approached
a religion. It was illustrated by a story, perhaps
apocryphal, that one of his sons was sent to a theo-
logical school, and not wishing to engage in the min-
istry, wrote his father that the faculty of the school

[57]

CALVIN COOLIDGE

held that Socrates was in hell* Such a reflection on
the Greek philosopher so outraged the old man's
loyalty that he wrote his son that the school was no
place for him and directed him to come home at
once.

In spite of his eighty-odd years he put the fire of
youth into the translation of those glowing periods
of the master orator, which were such eloquent ap-
peals to the patriotism of the Greeks and such tre-
mendous efforts to rouse them to the defense of their
country- Those passages of the marvelous oration he
said he had loved to read during the Civil War.

My studies of the ancient languages I supple-
mented with short courses in French., German and
Italian.

But I never became very proficient in the lan-
guages, I was more successful at mathematics, which
I pursued far enough to take calculus. This course
was mostly under George D. Olds, who came to
teach when we entered to study , which later caused
us to adopt him as an honorary member of our class,
In time he became President of the College. He had
a peculiar power to make figures interesting and

[58]

SEEKING AN EDUCATION

knew how to hold the attention and affection of his
students. It was under him that we learned of the
universal application of the laws of mathematics.
We saw the discoveries of Kepler, Descartes, New-
ton and their associates bringing the entire universe
under one law, so that the most distant point of light
revealed by the largest reflector marches in harmony
with our own planet. We discovered, too, that the
same force that rounds a tear-drop holds all the
myriad worlds of the universe in a balanced posi-
tion. We found that we dwelt in the midst of a
Unity which was all subject to the same rules of
action. My education was making some headway.
In the development of every boy who is going to
amount to anything there comes a time when he
emerges from his immature ways and by the greater
precision of his thought and action realizes that he
has begun to find himself. Such a transition finally
came to me. It was not accidental but the result of
hard work. If I had permitted my failures, or what
seemed to me at the time a lack of success, to dis-
courage me I cannot see any way in which I would
ever have made progress. If we keep our faith in

[59]

CALVIN COOLIDGE

ourselves, and what is even more important, keep
our faith in regular and persistent application to hard
work, we need not worry about the outcome.

During my first two years at Amherst I studied
hard but my marks were only fair* It needed some
encouragement from my father for me to continue.
In junior year, however, my powers began to in-
crease and my work began to improve. My studies
became more interesting. I found the course in
history under Professor Anson D. Morse was very
absorbing. His lectures on medieval and modern
Europe were inspiring, seeking to give his students
not only the facts of past human experience but also
their meaning. He was very strong on the political
side of history, bringing before us the great figures
from Charlemagne to Napoleon with remarkable
distinctness, and showing us the influence of the
Great Gregory and Innocent IIL The work o Abe-
lard and Erasmus was considered, and the impor-
tant era of Luther and Calvin thoroughly explored.

In due time we crossed the Channel with William
the Conqueror and learned how he subdued and
solidified the Kingdom of England, The signifi-

[60]

SEEKING AN EDUCATION

cance of the long struggle with the Crown before
the Parliament finally reached a position of inde-
pendence was disclosed, and the slow growth of a
system of liberty/finder the law, until at last it was
firmly es|M)lish|o,wa& carefully explained. We saw
th$ British Empire r/ab until it ruled the seas. The
k of the statesmanship of the different pe-
d character of the patriotic leaders,
Sin^n/ae Montfort, of Cromwell
the/ Pur tans, whb| djlred to oppose the tyranny
3|vth of learning, the develop-
.ent of commerc :, tlie administration of justice

more we|e

these

m. WhateV'
henlion of

it waV4men he
that Jtrofessor Morse
placko^nrticular empha;
institutions
treated with
mate was pi
financial ca

rented for our consider-
to a general compre-
we had.

ned to the United States
ie most impressive. He
on the era when our
tg. Washington was
'erence, and a high esti-
statesmanlike qualities and
>f Hamilton, but Jefferson was

not neglected. In spite of his many vagaries it was

[61]

CALVIN COOLIDGE

shown that in saving the nation from the danger of
falling under the domination of an oligarchy, aad
in establishing a firm rule of the people which was
forever to remain, he vindicated the soundness of
our political institutions. The whole course was a
thesis on good citizenship and good government.
Those who took it came to a clearer comprehension
not only of their rights and liberties but of their
duties and responsibilities.

The department of public speaking was under
Professor Henry A. Frink. He had a strong hold on
his students. His work went along with the other
work, practically through the four years, beginning
with composition and recitation and passing to the
preparation and delivery of orations and participa-
tion in public debates. The allied subject of rhetoric
I took under Professor John F. Genung, a scholarly
man who was held in high respect. The courses in
biology, chemistry, economics and geology I was
not able to pursue, though they all interested me and
were taught by excellent men.

Not the least in the educational values of Amherst
was its beautiful physical surroundings. While the

[62]

SEEKING AN EDUCATION

college buildings of the early nineties were not im-
pressive, the town with its spacious common and
fine elm trees was very attractive. It was located on
the arch of a slight ridge flanked on the north by
Mount Warner and on the south by the Holyoke
Range. The east rose over wooded slopes to the hori-
zon, and the west looked out across the meadows of
the Connecticut to the spires of Northampton and
the Hampshire Hills beyond. Henry Ward Beecher
has dwelt with great admiration and affection on
the beauties of this region, where he was a student.
Each autumn, when the foliage had put on its rich-
est tints, the College set aside Mountain Day to be
devoted to the contemplation of the scenery so won-
derfully displayed in forest, hill, and dale, before
the frosts of winter laid them bare.

It always seemed to me that all our other studies
were in the nature of a preparation for the course
in philosophy. The head of this department was
Charles E. Garman, who was one of the most re-
markable men with whom I ever came in contact.
He used numerous text books, which he furnished,
and many pamphlets that he not only had written,

[63]

CALVIN COOLIDGE

but had printed himself on a hand press in his home.
These he pledged us to show to no one outside the
class, because, being fragmentary, and disclosing but
one line of argument which might be entirely de-
molished in succeeding lessons, they might involve
him in some needless controversy. It is difficult to
imagine his superior as an educator. Truly he drew
men out.

Beginning in the spring of junior year his course
extended through four terms. The first part was de-
voted to psychology, in order to find out the capacity
and the limits of the human mind. It was here that
we learned the nature of habits and the great ad-
vantage of making them our allies instead of our
enemies.

Much stress was placed on a thorough mastery
and careful analysis of all the arguments presented
by the writers on any subject under consideration.
Then when it was certain that they were fully under-
stood they were criticized, so that what was unsound
was rejected and what was true accepted. We were
thoroughly drilled in the necessity of distinguishing
between the accidental and the essential. The proper

SEEKING AN EDUCATION

method of presenting a subject and an argument was
discussed. We were not only learning about the hu-
man mind but learning how to use it, learning how
to think. A problem would often be stated and the
class left to attempt to find the solution unaided by
the teacher. Above all we were taught to follow the
truth whithersoever it might lead. We were warned
that this would oftentimes be very difficult and re-
sult in much opposition, for there would be many
who were not going that way, but if we pressed on
steadfastly it was sure to yield the peaceable fruits
of the mind. It does.

Our investigation revealed that man is endowed
with reason, that the human mind has the power
to weigh evidence, to distinguish between right and
wrong and to know the truth. I should call this the
central theme of his philosophy. While the quantity
of the truth we know may be small it is the quality
that is important. If we really know one truth the
quality of our knowledge could not be surpassed by
the Infinite.

We looked upon Garman as a man who walked
with God. His course was a demonstration of the

[65]

CALVIN COOLIDGE

existence of a personal God, of our power to know
Him, of the Divine immanence, and of the complete
dependence of all the universe on Him as the Cre-
ator and Father "in whom we live and move and
have our being." Every reaction in the universe is a
manifestation of His presence. Man was revealed as
His son, and nature as the hem of His garment,
while through a common Fatherhood we are all em-
braced in a common brotherhood. The spiritual ap-
peal of music, sculpture, painting and all other art
lies in the revelation it affords of the Divine beauty.

The conclusions which followed from this posi-
tion were logical and inescapable. It sets man off in
a separate kingdom from all the other creatures in
the universe, and makes him a true son of God and
a partaker of the Divine nature. This is the warrant
for his freedom and the demonstration of his equal-
ity. It does not assume all are equal in degree but all
are equal in kind. On that precept rests a founda-
tion for democracy that cannot be shaken. It justi-
fies faith in the people.

No doubt there are those who think they can
demonstrate that this teaching was not correct. With

[66]

?"<*-.,

CALVIN COOLIDGE
At the age of three

XJnderwocrd & Underwood

SEEKING AN EDUCATION

them I have no argument. I know that in experience
it has worked. In time of crisis my belief that people
can know the truth, that when it is presented to
them they must accept it, has saved me from many
of the counsels of expediency. The spiritual nature
of men has a power of its own that is manifest in
every great emergency from Runnymede to Marston
Moor, from the Declaration of Independence to the
abolition of slavery.

In ethics he taught us that there is a standard of
righteousness, that might does not make right, that
the end does not justify the means and that expedi-
ency as a working principle is bound to fail The
only hope of perfecting human relationship is in ac-
cordance with the law of service under which men
are not so solicitous about what they shall get as they
are about what they shall give. Yet people are en-
titled to the rewards of their industry. What they
earn is theirs, no matter how small or how great. But
the possession of property carries the obligation to
use it in a larger service. For a man not to recognize
the truth, not to be obedient to law, not to render
allegiance to the State, is for him to be at war with

[67]

CALVIN COOLIDGE

his own nature, to commit suicide. That is why "the
wages of sin is death/' Unless we live rationally we
perish, physically, mentally, spiritually.

A great deal o emphasis was placed on the neces-
sity and dignity of work. Our talents are given us
in order that we may serve ourselves and our fellow
men. Work is the expression of intelligent action for
a specified end. It is not industry, but idleness, that
Is degrading. All kinds of work from the most me-
nial service to the most exalted station are alike hon-
orable. One of the earliest mandates laid on the hu-
man race was to subdue the earth. That meant work.

If he was not in accord with some of the current
teachings about religion, he gave to his class a foun-
dation for the firmest religious convictions. He pre-
sented no mysteries or dogmas and never asked us
to take a theory on faith, but supported every posi-
tion by facts and logic. He believed in the Bible and
constantly quoted it to illustrate his position. He
divested religion and science of any conflict with
each other, and showed that each rested on the com-
mon basis of our ability to know the truth.

To Garman was given a power which took Ms
[68]

SEEKING AN EDUCATION

class up into a high mountain of spiritual life and
left them alone with God,

In him was no pride of opinion, no atom of self-
ishness. He was a follower of the truth, a disciple of
the Cross, who bore the infirmities of us all. Those
who finished his course in the last term of senior
year found in their graduating exercises a real com-
mencement, when they would begin their efforts to
serve their fellow men in the practical affairs of life.
Of course it was not possible for us to accept imme-
diately the results of his teachings or live altogether
in accordance with them. I do not think he expected
it. He was constantly reminding us that the spirit
was willing but the flesh was strong, but that never-
theless, if we would continue steadfastly to think
on these things we would be changed from glory
to glory through increasing intellectual and moral
power. He was right.

To many my report of his course will seem in-
complete and crude. I am not writing a treatise but
trying to tell what I secured from his teaching, and
relating what has seemed important in it to me,
from the memory I have retained of it, since I began

[69]

CALVIN COOLIDGE

it thirty-five years ago. He expected it to be supple-
mented. He was fond of referring to it as a mansion
not made with hands, incomplete, but sufficient for
our spiritual habitation. What he revealed to us of
the nature of God and man will stand. Against it
"the gates of hell shall not prevail"

As I look back upon the college I am more and
more impressed with the strength of its f acuity, with
their power for good. Perhaps it has men now with
a broader preliminary training, though they then
were profound scholars, perhaps it has men of
keener intellects though they then were very exact
in their reasoning, but the great distinguishing mark
of all of them was that they were men of character.
Their words carried conviction because we were
compelled to believe in the men who uttered them.
They had the power not .merely to advise but liter-
ally to instruct their students.

In accordance with custom our class chose three
of its members by popular vote to speak at the com-
mencement. To me was assigned the grove oration,
which according to immemorial practice deals with
the record of the class in a witty and humorous way,

[70]

SEEKING AN EDUCATION

While my effort was not without some success I very
soon learned that making fun of people in a public
way was not a good method to secure friends, or
likely to lead to much advancement, and I have
scrupulously avoided it.

In the latter part of my course my scholarship had
improved, so that I was graduated cum laude.

After my course was done I went home to do a
summer's work on the farm, which was to be my
last. I had decided to enter the law and expected to
attend a law school, but one of my classmates wrote
me late in the summer that there was an opportu-
nity to go into the office of Hammond and Field at
Northampton, so I applied to them and was ac-
cepted. After I had been there a few days a most
courteous letter came from the Honorable William
P. Dillingham requesting me to call on him at
Montpelier and indicating he would take me into
his office. He recalled the circumstance when I
found him in the Senate after I became Vice Presi-
dent. But I had already reverted to Massachusetts,
where my family had lived for one hundred and
fifty years before their advent into Vermont* Had

[7*]

CALVIN COOLIDGE

his letter reached me sooner probably it would have
changed the whole course of my life,

Northampton was the county seat and a quiet but
substantial town, with pleasant surroundings and
fine old traditions reaching back beyond Jonathan
Edwards. It was just recovering from the depression
of 1893, preparing to eliminate its grade crossings
and starting some new industries that would add to
the business it secured from Smith College, which
was a growing institution with many hundreds of
students.

The senior member of the law firm was John (X
Hammond, who was considered the leader of the
Hampshire Bar. He was a lawyer of great learning
and wide business experience, with a remarkable
ability in the preparation of pleadings and an insight
that soon brought him to the crucial point of a case.
He was massive and strong rather than elegant, and
placed great stress on accuracy. He presented a cause
in court with ability and skilL The junior member
was Henry P. Field, an able lawyer and a man of
engaging personality and polish, who I found was
an Alderman. That appeared to me at the time to be

[73]

SEEKING AN EDUCATION

close to the Almighty in importance. I shall always
remember with a great deal of gratitude the kind-
ness o these two men to me.

That I was now engaged in the serious enterprise
of life I so fully realized that I went to the barber
shop and divested myself of the college fashion of
long hair. Office hours were from eight to about six
o'clock, during which I spent my time in reading
Kent's Commentaries and in helping prepare writs,
deeds, wills, and other documents. My evenings I
gave to some of the masters of English composition.
I read the speeches of Lord Erskine, of Webster, and
Choate. The essays of Macaulay interested me much,
and the writings of Carlyle and John Fiske I found
very stimulating. Some of the orations of Cicero I
translated, being especially attached to the defense
of his friend the poet Archias, because in it he dwelt
on the value and consolation of good literature. I
read much in Milton and Shakespeare and found
delight in the shorter poems of Kipling, Field and
Riley.

My first Christmas was made more merry by get-
ting notice that the Sons of the American Revolu-

[73]

CALVIN COOLIDGE

tion had awarded me the prize of a gold medal
worth about one hundred and fifty dollars for writ-
ing the best essay on "The Principles Fought for in
the American Revolution/' in a competition open to
the seniors of all the colleges of the nation. The no-
tice came one day, and it was announced in the next
morning papers, where Judge Field saw it before I
had a chance to tell him* So when he came to the
office he asked me about it. I had not had time to
send the news home. And then I had a little vanity
in wishing my father to learn of it first from the press,
which he did. He had questioned some whether I
was really making anything of my education, in pre-
tense I now think, not because he doubted it but
because he wished to impress me with the desirability
of demonstrating it.

But my main effort in those days was to learn the
law* The Superior Court had three civil and two
criminal terms each year in Northampton. When-
ever it was sitting I spent all my time in the court
room. In this way I became familiar with the prac-
tical side of trial work, I soon came to see that the
counsel who knew the law were the ones who held

l74l

SEEKING AN EDUCATION

the attention of the Judge, took the jury with them,
and won their cases. They were prepared. The office
where I was had a very large general practice which
covered every field and took them into all the Courts
of the Commonwealth but little into the Federal
Courts. I assisted in the preparation of cases and
went to court with the members of the firm to watch
all their trial work and help keep a record of testi-
mony for use in the arguments. It was all a work of
absorbing interest to me.

The books in the office soon appeared too pon-
derous for my study, so I bought a supply of students'
text books and law cases on the principal subjects
necessary for my preparation for the bar. These en-
abled me to gain a more rapid acquaintance with the
main legal principles, because I did not have to read
through so much unimportant detail as was con-
tained in the usual treatise prepared for a lawyer's
library, which was usually a collection of all the au-
thorities, while what I wanted was the main ele-
ments of the law. I was soon conversant with con-
tracts, torts, evidence, and real property, with some
knowledge of Massachusetts pleading, and had a

[75]

CALVIN COOLIDGE

considerable acquaintance with the practical side of
statute law.

I do not feel that any one ever really masters the
law, but it is not difficult to master the approaches
to the law, so that given a certain state of facts it is
possible to know how to marshal practically all the
legal decisions which apply to them. I think coun-
sel are mistaken in the facts of their case about as
often as they are mistaken in the law.

All my waking hours were so fully employed that
I found little time for play. My college was but
eight miles distant, yet I did not have any desire to
go back to the intercollegiate games, though I was
accustomed to attend the alumni dinner at com-
mencement. There was a canoe club which I joined,
on the Connecticut, about a mile over the meadow
from the town where I often went on Sunday after-
noons. I was full of the joy of doing something in the
world. Another reason why I discarded all outside
enterprises and kept strictly to my work and my
books was because I was keeping my monthly expen-
ditures within thirty dollars which was furnished me
by my father. He would gladly have provided me

SEEKING AN EDUCATION

more had I needed it, but I thought that was enough
and was determined to live within it, which I did.
Not much was left for any unnecessary pleasantries
of life.

Soon after I entered the office Mr. Hammond
was elected District Attorney and Mr. Field became
Mayor of the city, so that I saw something of the
working of the city government and the adminis-
tration of the criminal law.

The first summer I was in Northampton came
the famous free silver campaign of 1896. When Mr.
Bryan was nominated he had the support of most of
the local Democrats of the city, but he lost much of
it before November. One of them sent a long com-
munication to a county paper indorsing him. This I
answered in one of the city papers. When I was home
that summer I took part in a small neighborhood
debate in which I supported the gold standard. The
study I put on this subject well repaid me. Of course
Northampton went handsomely for McKinley.

With the exception of a week or two at home in
the summer of 1 896 I kept on in this way with my
work from September, 1895, to June, 1897. I then

[77]

CALVIN COOLIDGE

felt sufficiently versed in the law to warrant my tak-
ing the examination for admission to the Bar. It
was conducted by a County Committee of which Mr.
Hammond was a member, but as I was his student
he left the other two. Judge William G. Bassett and
Judge William P. Strickland, to act on my petition.
I was pronounced qualified by them and just before
July 4, 1897, 1 was duly admitted to practice before
the Courts of Massachusetts. My preparation had
taken about twenty months. Only after I was finally
in possession of my certificate did I notify my father.
He had expected that my studies would take another
year, and I wanted to surprise him if I succeeded and
not disappoint him if I failed. I did not fail. I was
just twenty-five years old and very happy.

It was a little over eleven years from the time I
left home for the Academy in the late winter of
1886 until I was admitted to the Bar in the early
summer of 1 897. They had been years full of expe-
rience for me, in which I had advanced from a child
to a man. Wherever I went I found good people,
men and women, and young folks of my own age,
who had won my respect and affection. From the

[78]

SEEKING AN EDUCATION

hearthstone of my father's fireside to the court room
at Northampton they had all been kind and helpful
to me. Their memory will always be one of my most
cherished possessions.

My formal period of education was passed, though
my studies are still pursued. I was devoted to the
law, its reasonableness appealed to my mind as the
best method of securing justice between man and
man. I fully expected to become the kind of coun-
try lawyer I saw all about me, spending my life in
the profession, with perhaps a final place on the
Bench. But it was decreed to be otherwise. Some
Power that I little suspected in my student days took
me in charge and carried me on from the obscure
neighborhood at Plymouth Notch to the occupancy
of the White House.

[79]

THE LAW AND POLITICS

CHAPTER THREE
THE LAW AND POLITICS

IT is one thing to know how to get admitted to
the Bar but quite another thing to know how
to practice law. Those who attend a law school
know how to pass the examinations, while those who
study in an office know how to apply their knowl-
edge to actual practice. It seems to me that the best
course is to go to a school and then go into an office
where the practice is general. In that way the best
preparation is secured for a thorough comprehension
of the great basic principles of the profession and for
their application to existing facts. Still, one who has
had a good college training can do very well by start-
ing in an office. But in any case he should not go into
the law because it appears to be merely a means of
making a living, but because he has a real and sin-
cere love for the profession, which will enable him to
make the sacrifices it requires.

[83]

CALVIN COOLIDGE

When I decided to enter the law it was only nat-
ural, therefore, that I should consider it the highest
of the professions. If I had not held that opinion it
would have been a measure of intellectual dishon-
esty for me to take it for a life work. Others may be
hampered by circumstances in making their choice,
but -I was free, and I went where I felt the duties
would be congenial and the opportunities for service
large* Those who follow other vocations ought to
feel the same about them, and I hope they do.
&i My opinion had been formed by the high esti-
mation in which the Bench and Bar were held by
the people in my boyhood home in Vermont, It
was confirmed by my more intimate intercourse
with the members of the profession with whom I
soon came in contact in Massachusetts after I went
there to study law in the autumn of 1895. When
I was admitted to practice two years later the law
still occupied the high position of a profession. It
had not then assumed any of its later aspects of a
trade.

The ethics of the Northampton Bar were high.
It was made up of men who had, and were entitled

LAW AND POLITICS

to have, the confidence and respect of their neigh-
bors who knew them best. They put the interests of
their clients above their own, and the public inter-
ests above them both. They were courteous and tol-
erant toward each other and respectful to the Court.
This attitude was fostered by the appreciation of the
uprightness and learning of the Judges.

Because of the short time I had spent in prepa-
ration I remained in the office of Hammond and
Field about seven months after I was admitted to the
Bar. I was looking about for a place to locate but
found none that seemed better than Northampton.
A new block called the Masonic Building was under
construction on lower Main Street, and when it was
ready for occupancy I opened an office there Feb-
ruary i, 1898. I had two rooms, where I was to
continue to practice law for twenty-one years, until
I became Governor of Massachusetts in 1919. For
my office furniture and a good working library I
paid about $800 from some money I had saved and
inherited from my grandfather Moor. My rent was
$200 per year. I began to be self-sustaining except
as to the cost of my table board, which was paid by

[85]

CALVIN COOLIDGE

my father until September, but thereafter all my ex-
penses I paid from the fees I received.

I was alone. While I had many acquaintances
that I might call friends I had no influential sup-
porters who were desirous to see me advanced and
were sending business to me. I was dependent on
the general public; what I had, came from them. My
earnings for the first year were a little over $500.

My interest in public affairs had already caused
me to become a member of the Republican City
Committee, and in December, 1898, 1 was elected
one of the three members of the Common Council
from Ward Two. The office was without salary and
not important, but the contacts were helpfuL When
the local military company returned that summer
from the Cuban Campaign I did my best to get an
armory built for them, I was not successful at that
time but my proposal was adopted a little later.
This was the beginning of an interest in military
preparation which I have never relinquished.

During 1899 I began to get more business. The
Nonotuck Savings Bank was started early that year,
and I became its counsel. Its growth was slow but

[86]

LAW AND POLITICS

steady. In later years I was its President, a purely
honorary place without salary but no small honor.
There was legal work about the county which came
to my office, so that my fees rose to f i ,400 for the
second year.

I did not seek reelection to the City Council, as
I knew the City Solicitor was to retire and I wanted
that place. The salary was $600, which was not un-
important to me. But my whole thought was on my
profession. I wanted to be City Solicitor because I
believed it would make me a better lawyer. I was
elected and held the office until March, 1902. It
gave me a start in the law which I was ever after
able to hold,

The office was not burdensome and went along
with my private practice. It took me into Court
some. In a jury trial I lost two trifling cases in an
action of damages against the city for taking a small
strip of land to widen a highway. I felt I should
have won these cases on the claim that the land in
question already belonged to the highway. But I
prevailed in an unimportant case in the Supreme
Court against my old preceptor Mr. Hammond. It

CALVIN COOLIDGE

is unnecessary to say that usually my cases with him
were decided in his favor. The training in this office
gave me a good grasp of municipal law, that later
brought some important cases to me.

In addition to the mortgage and title work of the
Savings Bank, I managed some real estate, and had
considerable practice in the settlement of estates.
Through a collection business I also had some insol-
vency practice. I recall an estate in Amherst and one
in Belchertown, both much involved in litigation,
which I settled. In each case Stephen S. Taft of
Springfield was the opposing counsel. Perhaps there
is no such thing as a best lawyer, any more than
there is a best book, or a best picture, but to me Mr.
Taft was the best lawyer I ever saw. If he was try-
ing a case before a jury he was always the thirteenth
juryman, and if the trial was before the court he was
always advising the Judge. But he did not win these
cases. He became one of my best friends, and we
were on the same side in several cases in later years.
One time he said to me: " Young man, when you
can settle a case within reason you settle it. You will
not make so large a fee out of some one case in that

[88]

LAW AND POLITICS

way, but at the end of the year you will have more
money and your clients will be much better satis-
fied/' This was sound advice and I heeded it* People
began to feel that they could consult me with some
safety and without the danger of being involved
needlessly in long and costly litigation in court.
Very few of my clients ever had to pay a bill of costs.
I suppose they were more reasonable than other
clients, for they usually settled their differences out
of court. This course did not give me much experi-
ence in the trial of cases, so I never became very pro-
ficient in that art, but it brought me a very satisfac-
tory practice and a fair income.

I worked hard during this early period. The mat-
ters on which I was engaged were numerous but did
not involve large amounts of money and the fees
were small. For three years I did not take the time
to visit my old home in Vermont, but when I did
go I was City Solicitor. My father began to see his
hopes realized and felt that his efforts to give me an
education were beginning to be rewarded.

What I always felt was the greatest compliment
ever paid to my professional ability came in 1903.

CALVIN COOLIDGE

In the late spring of that year William H. Clapp,
who had been for many years the Clerk of the Courts
for Hampshire County died. His ability, learning
and painstaking industry made him rank very high
as a lawyer. The position he held was of the first im-
portance, for it involved keeping all the civil and
criminal records of the Superior Court and the Su-
preme Judicial Court for the County. The Justices
of the Supreme Judicial Court appointed me to fill
the vacancy. I always felt this was a judgment by
the highest Court in the Commonwealth on my
professional qualifications. Had I been willing to
accept the place permanently I should have been
elected to it in the following November. The salary
was then $2,300, and the position was one of great
dignity, but I preferred to remain at the Bar, which
might be more precarious, but also had more possi-
bilities. Later events now known enable any one to
pass judgment on my decision. Had I decided other-
wise I could have had much more peace of mind in the
last twenty-five years.

As the Clerk of the Courts I learned much relat-
ing to Massachusetts practice, so that ever after I

[90]

CALVIN COOLIDGE
At the age of seven

Undcrwoerd & Underwood

LAW AND POLITICS

knew what to do with all the documents in a trial,
which would have been of much value to me if I had
not been called on to give so much time to political
affairs. These took up a large amount of my atten-
tion in 1904 after I went back to my office, so that
my income diminished during that year. I had been
chosen Chairman of the Republican City Commit-
tee. It was a time of perpetual motion in Massa-
chusetts politics* The state elections came yearly in
November, and the city elections followed in De-
cember. This was presidential year. While I elected
the Representatives to the General Court by a com-
fortable margin at the state election I was not so suc-
cessful in the city campaign. Our Mayor had served
three terms, which had always been the extreme
limit in Northampton, but he was nominated for a
fourth time. He was defeated by about eighty votes.
We made the mistake of talking too much about the
deficiencies of our opponents and not enough about
the merits of our own candidates. I have never
again fallen into that error. Feeling one year was all
I could give to the chairmanship I did not accept a
reelection but still remained on the committee.

CALVIN COOLIDGE

My earnings had been such that I was able to
make some small savings. My prospects appeared
to be good. I had many friends and few enemies.
There was a little more time for me to give to the
amenities of life. I took my meals at Rahar's Inn
where there was much agreeable company consist-
ing of professional and business men of the town
and some of the professors of Smith College* I had
my rooms on Round Hill with the steward of the
Clarke School for the Deaf. While these relations
were most agreeable and entertaining I suppose I
began to want a home of my own.

After she had finished her course at the Univer-
sity of Vermont Miss Grace Goodhue went to the
Clarke School to take the training to enable her to
teach the deaf. When she had been there a year or
so I met her and often took her to places of enter-
tainment*

In 1 904 Northampton celebrated its two hundred
and fiftieth anniversary. One evening was devoted
to a reception for the Governor and his Council,
given by the Daughters of the American Revolu-

[93]

LAW AND POLITICS

tion. Miss Goodhue accompanied me to the City
Hall where the reception was held, and after stroll-
ing around for a time we sat down in two cotn-
fortable vacant chairs. Soon a charming lady ap-
proached us and said that those chairs were reserved
for the Governor and Mrs. Bates and that we should
have to relinquish them, which we did. Fourteen
years later when we had received sufficient of the
election returns to show that I had been chosen Gov-
ernor of Massachusetts I turned to her and said,
"The Daughters of the American Revolution can-
not put us out of the Governor's chair now."

From our being together we seemed naturally to
come to care for each other. We became engaged in
the early summer of 1905 and were married at her
home in Burlington, Vermont, on October fourth
of that year. I have seen so much fiction written on
this subject that I may be pardoned for relating the
plain facts. We thought we were made for each
other. For almost a quarter of a century she has
borne with my infirmities* and I have rejoiced in
her graces.

After our return from a trip to Montreal we

[93]

CALVIN COOLIDGE

staid a short time at the Norwood Hotel but soon
started housekeeping. We rented a very comfortable
house that needed but one maid to help Mrs. Cool-
idge do her work. Of course my expenses increased,
and I had to plan very carefully for a time to live
within my income. I know very well what it means
to awake in the night and realize that the rent is
coming due, wondering where the money is coming
from with which to pay it. The only way I know of
escape from that constant tragedy is to keep run-
ning expenses low enough so that something may be
saved to meet the day when earnings may be small.
When the city election was approaching in De-
cember I was asked to be a candidate for School
Committee. It was a purely honorary office, which
had no attraction for me, but I consented and was
nominated. To my surprise another Republican took
out nomination papers, which split the party and
elected a Democrat. The open compliment was that
I had no children in the schools, but the real reason
was that I was a politician. That reputation I had
acquired by long service on the party committee
helping elect our candidates. The man they elected

[94]

LAW AND POLITICS

gave a useful service for several years and left me
free to turn to avenues which were to be much more
useful to me in ways for public service. I was also
better off attending to my law practice and my new
home.

The days passed quietly with us until the next
autumn, when we moved into the house in Massa-
soit Street that was to be our home for so long. I
attended to the furnishing of it myself, and when it
was ready Mrs. Coolidge and I walked over to it. In
about two weeks our first boy came on the evening
of September seventh. The fragrance of the clematis
which covered the bay window filled the room like
a benediction, where the mother lay with her baby.
We called him John in honor of my father. It was
all very wonderful to us.

We liked the house where our children came to
us and the neighbors who were so kind. When we
could have had a more pretentious home we still
clung to it. So long as I lived there, I could be inde-
pendent and serve the public without ever thinking
that I could not maintain my position if I lost my
office. I always made my living practicing law up

[95]

CALVIN COOLIDGE

to the time I became Governor, without being de-
pendent on any official salary. This left me free to
make my own decisions in accordance with what I
thought was the public good. We lived where we
did that I might better serve the people.

My main thought in those days was to improve
myself in my profession. I was still studying law
and literature. Because I thought the experience
would contribute to this end I became a candidate
for the Massachusetts House of Representatives* In
a campaign in which I secured a large number of
Democratic votes, many of which never thereafter
deserted me, I was elected by a margin of about two
hundred and sixty,

The Speaker assigned me to the Committees on
Constitutional Amendments and Mercantile Af-
fairs. During the session I helped draft, and the
Committee reported, a bill to prevent large concerns
from selling at a lower price in one locality than they
did in others, for the purpose of injuring their com-
petitor. This seemed to me an unfair trade practice
that should be abolished. We secured the passage of
the bill in the House, but the Senate rewrote it in

[96]

LAW AND POLITICS

such a way that it finally failed. I also supported a
resolution favoring the direct election of United
States Senators and another providing for woman
suffrage. These measures did not have the approba-
tion of the conservative element of my party, but I
had all the assurance of youth and ignorance in sup-
porting them, and later I saw them all become the
law.

The next year I was reelected, but in running
against a man who had a strong hold on some of the
Republican Wards, my vote was cut down. Serving
on the Judiciary Committee, which I wanted because
I felt it would assist me in my profession, I became
much interested in modifying the law so that an
injunction could not be issued in a labor dispute to
prevent one person seeking by argument to induce
another to leave his employer. This bill failed. While
I think it had merit, in later years I came to see that
what was of real importance to the wage earners was
not how they might conduct a quarrel with their
employers, but how the business of the country
might be so organized as to insure steady employ-
ment at a fair rate of pay. If that were done there

[97]

CALVIN COOLIDGE

would be no occasion for a quarrel, and if it were
not done a quarrel would do no one any good.

The work in the General Court was fascinating,
both from its nature and from the companionship
with able and interesting men, but it took five days
each week for nearly six months, so that I thought
I had secured about all the benefit I could by serving
two terms and declined again to be a candidate. An-
other boy had been given into our keeping April 13
who was named Calvin, so I had all the more reason
for staying at home.

My law office took all my attention. I never had a
retainer from any one, so my income always seemed
precarious, but a practice which was general in its
nature kept coming to me. In June of 1 909 I went
to Phoenix, Arizona, to hold a corporation meeting.
It was the first I had seen of the West. The great
possibilities of the region were apparent, and the
enthusiasm of the people was inspiring. It told me
that our country was sure to be a success.

For two years Northampton had elected a Demo-
crat to be Mayor. He was a very substantial business
man, who has since been my landlord for a long

[98]

LAW AND POLITICS

period. He was to retire, and the Republicans were
anxious to elect his successor. At a party conference
it was determined to ask me to run and I accepted
the opportunity, thinking the honor would be one
that would please my father, advance me in my pro-
fession, and enable me to be of some public service.
It was a local office, not requiring enough time to
interfere seriously with my own work.

Without in any way being conscious of what I
was doing I then became committed to a course that
was to make me the President of the Senate of Mas-
sachusetts and of the Senate of the United States, the
second officer of the Commonwealth and the coun-
try, and the chief executive of a city, a state and a
nation. I did not plan for it but it came. I tried to
treat people as they treated me, which was much bet-
ter than my deserts, in accordance with the precept
of the master poet. By my studies and my course of
life I meant to be ready to take advantage of oppor-
tunities. I was ready, from the time the Justices
named me the Clerk of the Courts until my party
nominated me for President.

Ever since I was in Amherst College I have re-

[99]

CALVIN COOLIDGE

membered how Garman told his class in philosophy
that if they would go along with events and have the
courage and industry to hold to the main stream,
without being washed ashore by the immaterial
cross currents, they would some day be men of
power. He meant that we should try to guide our-
selves by general principles and not get lost in par-
ticulars. That may sound like mysticism, but it is
only the mysticism that envelopes every great truth.
One of the greatest mysteries in the world is the suc-
cess that lies in conscientious work.

My first campaign for Mayor was very intense.
My opponent was a popular merchant, a personal
friend of mine who years later was to be Mayor, so
that at the outset he was the favorite. The only issue
was our general qualifications to conduct the busi-
ness of the city. I called on many of the voters per-
sonally, sent out many letters, spoke at many ward
rallies and kept my poise. In the end most of my
old Democratic friends voted for me, and I won by
about one hundred and sixty-five votes.

On the first Monday of January, 1910,! began a
public career that was to continue until the first

[100]

LAW AND POLITICS

Monday of March, 192,9, when it was to end by my
own volition.

Our city had always been fairly well governed and
had no great problems. Taxes had been increasing.
I was able to reduce them some and pay part of the
debt, so that I left the net obligations chargeable to
taxes at about $100,000. The salaries of teachers
were increased. My work commended itself to the
people, so that running against the same- opponent
for reelection my majority was much increased. I
celebrated this event by taking my family to Mont-
pelier where my father was serving in the Vermont
Senate. Of all the honors that have come to me I still
cherish in a very high place the confidence of my
friends and neighbors in making me their Mayor.

Remaining in one office long did not appeal to
me, for I was not seeking a public career. My heart
was in the law. I thought a couple of terms in the
Massachusetts Senate would be helpful to me, so
when our Senator retired I sought his place in the
fall of 1911 and was elected.

The winter in Boston I did not find very satisfac-
tory. I was lonesome. My old friends in the House

hoi]

CALVIN COOLIDGE

were gone. The Western Massachusetts Club that
had its headquarters at the Adams House, where
most of us lived that came from beyond the Con-
necticut, was inactive. The Committees I had, except
the Chairmanship of Agriculture, did not interest
me greatly, and to crown my discontent a Demo-
cratic Governor sent in a veto, which the Senate
sustained, to a bill authorizing the New Haven
Railroad to construct a trolley system in Western
Massachusetts.

But as chairman of a special committee I had
helped settle the Lawrence strike, secured the ap-
pointment of a commission that resulted in the pas-
sage of a mothers' aid or maternity bill at the next
session, and I was made chairman of a recess com-
mittee to secure better transportation for rural com-
munities in the western part of the Commonwealth.

During the summer we did a large amount of
work on that committee and made a very full and
constructive report at the opening of the General
Court in 19 13. This was the period that the Repub-
lican party was divided between Taf t and Roosevelt,
so that Massachusetts easily went for Wilson. But

[102]

LAW AND POLITICS

in the three-cornered contest I was reelected to the
Senate,

It was in my second term in the Senate that I
began to be a force in the Massachusetts Legislature.
President Greenwood made me chairman of the
Committee on Railroads, which I very much wanted,
because of my desire better to understand business
affairs, and also put me on the important Commit-
tee on Rules. I made progress because I studied sub-
jects sufficiently to know a little more about them
than any one else on the floor. I did not often speak
but talked much with the Senators personally and
came in contact with many of the business men of
the state. The Boston Democrats came to be my
friends and were a great help to me in later times.

My committee reported a bill transforming the
Railroad Commission into a Public Service Commis-
sion, with a provision intending to define and limit
the borrowing powers of railroads which we passed
after a long struggle and debate. The Democratic
Governor vetoed the bill, but it was passed over his
veto almost unanimously. The bill came out for our
trolley roads in Western Massachusetts and was

CALVIN COOLIDGE

adopted. He vetoed this, and his veto was overrid-
den by a large majority. It was altogether the most
enjoyable session I ever spent with any legislative
body.

It had been my intention to retire at the end of
my second term, but the President of the Senate was
reported as being a candidate for Lieutenant-Gover-
nor, and as it seemed that I could succeed him I an-
nounced that I wished for another election. When it
was too late for me to withdraw gracefully President
Greenwood decided to remain in the Senate* I
wanted to be President of the Senate, because it was
a chance to emerge from being a purely local figure
to a place of state-wide distinction and authority. I
knew where the votes in the Senate lay from the
hard legislative contests I had conducted, and I had
them fairly well organized when I found the Presi-
dent was not to retire.

In this year of 1913 the division in the Republi-
can party in Massachusetts was most pronounced.
Our candidate for Governor fell to third place at the
election, and another Democrat was made chief ex-
ecutive, carrying with him for the first time in a

t I0 4]

LAW AND POLITICS

generation the whole state ticket. But my district
returned me. When I reached my office the next
morning I found President Greenwood had been
defeated. Again I was ready. By three o'clock that
Wednesday afternoon I was in Boston, and by Mon-
day I had enough written pledges from the Republi-
can Senators to insure my nomination for President
of the Senate at the party caucus. It had been a real
contest, but all opposition subsided and I was unani-
mously nominated.

The Senate showed the effects of the division in
our party. It had twenty-one Republicans, seventeen
Democrats and two Progressives. When the vote was
cast for President on the opening day of the General
Court, Senator Cox the Progressive had two votes,
Senator Morgan the Democrat had seven votes, and
I had thirty-one votes. I had not only become an
officer of the whole Commonwealth, but I had come
into possession of an influence reaching beyond the
confines of my own party which I was to retain so
long as I remained in public life.

Although I had arrived at the important position
of President of the Massachusetts Senate in January

CALVIN COOLIDGE

of 1914, I had not been transported on a bed of
roses. It was the result of many hard struggles in
which I had made many mistakes, was to keep on
making them up to the present hour, and expect to
continue to make them as long as I live. We are all
fallible, but experience ought to teach us not to re-
peat our errors,

My progress had been slow and toilsome, with
little about it that was brilliant, or spectacular, the
result of persistent and painstaking work, which
gave it a foundation that was solid. I trust that in
making this record of my own thoughts and feeling
in relation to it, which necessarily bristles with the
first personal pronoun, I shall not seem to be over-
estimating myself, but simply relating experiences
which I hope may prove to be an encouragement to
others in their struggles to improve their place in the
world.

It appeared to me in January, 1914, that a spirit
of radicalism prevailed which unless checked was
likely to prove very destructive. It had been encour-
aged by the opposition and by a large faction of my
own party,

[106]

LAW AND POLITICS

It consisted of the claim in general that in some
way the government was to be blamed because every-
body was not prosperous, because it was necessary to
work for a living, and because our written constitu-
tions, the legislatures, and the courts protected the
rights of private owners especially in relation to large
aggregations of property.

The previous session had been overwhelmed with
a record number of bills introduced, many of them
in an attempt to help the employee by impairing the
property of the employer. Though anxious to im-
prove the condition of our wage earners, I believed
this doctrine would soon destroy business and de-
prive them of a livelihood* What was needed was
a restoration of confidence in our institutions and in
each other, on which economic progress might rest.

In taking the chair as President of the Senate I
therefore made a short address, which I had care-
fully prepared, appealing to the conservative spirit
of the people. I argued that the government could
not relieve us from toil, that large concerns are nec-
essary for the progress in which capital and labor all
have a common interest, and I defended represen-

[107]

CALVIN COOLIDGE

tative government and the integrity of the courts.
The address has since been known as "Have Faith
in Massachusetts." Many people in the Common-
wealth had been waiting for such a word, and the
effect was beyond my expectation. Confusion of
thought began to disappear, and unsound legislative
proposals to diminish.

The office of President of the Senate is one of
great dignity and power. All the committees of the
Senate are appointed by him. He has the chief place
in directing legislation when the Governor is of the
opposite party, as was the case in 1914. At the in-
auguration he presides over the joint convention of
the General Court and administers the oaths of office
to the Governor and Council in accordance with a
formal ritual that has come from colonial days, and
is much more ceremonious than the swearing-in of
a President at Washington.

It did not seem to me desirable to pursue a course
of partisan opposition to the Governor, and I did not
do so, but rather cooperated with him in securing
legislation which appeared to be for the public in-
terest. The general lack of confidence in the country

[108]

LAW AND POLITICS

and the depression of business caused by the reduc-
tion of the tariff rates in the fall of 1913 made it
necessary to grant large appropriations for the relief
of unemployment during the winter. But I could see
the steady decrease of the radical sentiment among
the people.

In the midst of the following summer the World
War enveloped Europe. It had a distinctly sobering
effect upon the whole people of our country. It was
very apparent in Massachusetts, where they at once
began to abandon their wanderings and seek their
old landmarks for guidance. The division in our
party was giving way to reunion. Confidence was
returning.

The Republican State Committee chose me to be
chairman of the committee on resolutions at the state
convention which met at Worcester, largely because
of the impression made by my speech at the opening
of the Senate. I drew a conservative platform, pitched
in the same key, pointing out the great mass of legis-
lation our party had placed on the statute books for
the benefit of the wage earners and the welfare of
the people, but declaring for the strict and unim-

[109]

CALVIN COOLIDGE

paired maintenance of our present social, economic
and political institutions. While I did not deliver it
well, in print it made an effective campaign docu-
ment. After starting in the contest with little confi-
dence, our strength increased, so that our candidate,
Samuel W.McCall, received 198,627 votes and was
defeated by only 1 1,8 15 plurality. All the rest of our
state ticket was victorious. The political complexion
of the Senate was completely changed. From a bare
majority of twenty-one the Republican strength rose
to thirty-three, and the opposition was reduced to
seven Democrats.

My district returned me for the fourth time and
I was again made President of the Senate by a unani-
mous vote. My opening address consisted of forty-
two words, thanking the Senators for the honor and
urging them in their conduct of business to be brief.

As a presiding officer it has constantly been my
policy to dispatch business. It always took a long
time to get all the Committees of the General Court
to make their reports, but I was able to keep the
daily sessions of the Senate short. I also wanted to
cut down the volume of legislation. In this some

[no]

LAW AND POLITICS

progress was made. The Blue Book of Acts and Re-
solves for 1913 had 1,763 pages, for 1914 it had
1,423, and for 1915 only 1,230, which was a very
wholesome reduction of more than thirty per cent.
People were coming to see that they must depend
on themselves rather than on legislation for success.

Massachusetts was beginning to suffer from a
great complication of laws and restrictive regula-
tions, from a multiplicity of Boards and Commis-
sions, which had reached about one hundred, and
from a large increase in the number of people on
the public pay rolls, all of which was necessarily ac-
companied with a much larger cost of state govern-
ment that had to be met by collecting more revenue
from the taxpayers. The people began to realize that
something was wrong and began to wonder whether
more laws, more regulations, and more taxes, were
really any benefit to them. They were becoming tired
of agitation, criticism and destructive policies and
wished to return to constructive methods.

When I went home at the end of the 1 9 1 5 session
it was with the intention of remaining in private life
and giving all my attention to the law. During the

CALVIN COOLIDGE

winter theLieutenant-Governor had announced that
he would seek the nomination for Governor which
caused some mention of me as his successor, but I
was President of the Senate and did not propose to
impair my usefulness in that position by involving it
in an effort to secure some other office, so I gave the
matter no attention. A very estimable man who had
done much party service and was a brilliant plat-
form speaker had already become a candidate, but
although my record in the General Court was that
of a liberal, the business interests turned to me. In
this they were not alone as the event disclosed. To
the people I seemed, in some way that I cannot ex-
plain, to represent confidence. When the situation
became apparent to me I went to Boston and made
the simple statement in the press that I was a candi-
date for Lieutenant-Governor, without any reasons
or any elaboration.

It was at this time that my intimate acquaintance
began with Mr. Frank W. Stearns. I had met him in
a casual way for a year or two but only occasionally.
In the spring he had suggested that he would like
to support me for Lieutenant-Governor. He was a

[IM]

LAW AND POLITICS

merchant of high character and very much respected
by all who knew him, but entirely without experi-
ence in politics. He came as an entirely fresh force
in public affairs, unhampered by any of the animos-
ities that usually attach to a veteran politician. It
was a great compliment to me to attract the inter-
est of such a man, and his influence later became of
large value to the party in the Commonwealth and
nation. I always felt considerable pride of accom-
plishment in getting the active support of men like
him. While Mr. Stearns always overestimated me,
he nevertheless was a great help to me. He never ob-
truded or sought any favor for himself or any other
person, but his whole effort was always disinterested
and entirely devoted to assisting me when I indi-
cated I wished him to do so. It is doubtful if any
other public man ever had so valuable and unselfish
a friend.

My activities were such that I began to see more
of the Honorable W. Murray Crane. When he came
to Boston he was accustomed to have me at break-
fast in his rooms at the hotel. Although he had large
interests about which there was constant legislation

CALVIN COOLIDGE

he never mentioned the subject to me or made any
suggestion about any of my official actions. Had I
sought his advice he would have told me to consult
my own judgment and vote for what the public
interest required, without any thought of him. He
confirmed my opinion as to the value of a silence
which avoids creating a situation where one would
otherwise not exist, and the bad taste and the dan-
ger of arousing animosities and advertising an oppo-
nent by making any attack on him. In all political
affairs he had a wonderful wisdom,, and in every-
thing he was preeminently a man of judgment, who
was the most disinterested public servant I ever saw
and the greatest influence for good government with
which I ever came in contact. What would I not
have given to have had him by my side when I was
President! His end came just before the election of
1920.

These men were additional examples of good in-
fluences coming into my life, to which I referred in
relating the experience of some of my younger days.
I cannot see that I sought them but they came. Per-
haps it was because I was ready to receive them.

LAW AND POLITICS

In the summer of 1915 politics became very ac-
tive in Massachusetts. There was a sharp campaign
for the nomination for Governor, my own effort
to secure the Lieutenant-Governorship, and many
minor contests. I shall always remember that Augus-
tus P. Gardner, then in Congress, honored me by
becoming one of the committee of five who con-
ducted my campaign. Many local meetings were
held, calling for much speaking. In the end Samuel
W. McCall was renominated for Governor. I was
named as candidate for Lieutenant-Governor by a
vote of about 75,000 to 50,000. The news reached
my father on the one-hundredth anniversary of the
birth of his father. My campaign was carried on in
careful compliance with the law, and the expense
was within the allowed limit of $1,500, which was
contributed by numerous people. I was thus under
no especial obligation to any one for raising money
for me.

In the campaign for election I toured the state
with Mr. McCall, making open-air speeches from
automobiles during the day, and finishing with an
indoor rally in the evening. It was the hardest kind

["53

CALVIN COOLIDGE

of work but most fascinating, I remember that
Warren G. Harding and Nicholas Longworth came
into the state to promote our election and spoke with
us at a large meeting one night at Lowell.

I did not refer to my own candidacy, but spent all
my time advocating the election of Mr* McCalL He
was a character that fitted into the situation most
admirably. He was liberal without being visionary
and conservative without being reactionary. The
twenty-five years he had spent in public life gave
him a remarkable equipment for discussing the
issues of a campaign. Whatever information was
needed concerning the state government I was in a
position to supply* Much emphasis was placed by
me on the urgent necessity of preventing further in-
creases in state and national expense and of a drastic
reduction wherever possible. The state was ready for
that kind of a message.

When the election of 1915 came, Mr.McCall
won by 6,313 votes and my plurality was 52,204.
After having been held five years by Democrats, the
Governorship of Massachusetts was restored to the
Republican party, where it was to remain for the

[n6J

LAW AND POLITICS

next fifteen years and probably much longer. The
extended struggle in which the Republicans had
been engaged to restore the people of Massachusetts
to their allegiance to sound government under a re-
united party had at last been successful. With that
prolonged effort I had been intimately associated.

The office of Lieutenant-Governor of Massachu-
setts differs from that of most states. As already dis-
closed he does not preside over the Senate. The con-
stitution of our Commonwealth is older than the
Federal Constitution and so followed the old colo-
nial system, while most of the states have followed
the Federal system. I was ex officio a member of the
Governor's Council and chairman of the Finance
and Pardon committees. As the Council met but
one day each week I was pleased with the renewed
opportunity I expected to have to practice law. But
it soon developed that I must be away so much that
I asked Ralph W, Hemenway to become associated
with me, and he has since carried on my law office
so successfully that it has become his law office rather
than mine.

It has become the custom in our country to dx-

CALVIN COOLIDGE

pect all Chief Executives, from the President down,
to conduct activities analogous to an entertainment
bureau. No occasion is too trivial for its promoters
to invite them to attend and deliver an address. It
appeared to be the practice of Governor McCall to
accept all these invitations and when the time came,
to attend what he could of them, and parcel the rest
out among his subordinates. In this way I became
very much engaged. It was an honor to represent
the Governor, and a part of my duties according to
our practice. Some days I went to several meetings
for that purpose, ranging well into the night, so I
was obliged to stay in Boston most of the time.

It was during this period that I wrote nearly all
of the speeches afterwards published in "Have Faith
in Massachusetts." They were short and mostly
committed to memory for delivery. This forced me
to be a constant student of public questions.

It did not seem best for me to take a very active
part in the Presidential primaries of 1916, but I
quietly supported the regular ticket for delegates,
which was elected. We had at least three candidates
for President in Massachusetts, with all of whom I

[118]

LAW AND POLITICS

was on friendly terms, as I had never allied myself
with any faction of the party, but I felt the conven-
tion did the wise thing in turning to the great states-
man Charles Evans Hughes, and I supported him
actively in the campaign for election. He carried
Massachusetts by a small vote. My renomination
came without opposition, as did that of the Gover-
nor, who had a plurality of 46,240 at the election.
My own was 84,930.

During the summer I had been chairman of a
special commission to consider the financial con-
dition of the Boston Elevated Street Railway, and
helped make a report recommending that the Gov-
ernor be authorized to appoint a Board of Trustees
who should have the control of this property and be
vested with authority to fix a rate of fare sufficient
to pay the costs of operation and a fair return to the
stockholders. This was adopted by the General Court
and solved the pressing problem of street railway
transportation, which became so acute on account of
the increasing costs of operation. Later the plan was
applied to the other large company in the eastern
part of the state. It was not perfect, but saved the

CALVIN COOLIDGE

properties from destruction and gave a fair means
of travel at cost, which was to be ascertained by pub-
lic authority.

It was in the ensuing year that the United States
entered the World War. While this took most of our
thoughts off local affairs it did not prevent opposi-
tion to the renomination of Governor McCall. Had
it been successful it would have deferred any chance
for me to run for Governor for two or three years
and probably indefinitely. Under the circumstances
most of my friends supported the Governor, and he
was renominated by a wide margin. I had no oppo-
sition. But interest in the election was not great, so
that the vote was light. Nevertheless the Governor
ran 90,479 votes ahead of his nearest competitor.
In my own contest my opponent secured the Dem-
ocratic, the Progressive and the Prohibition nomina-
tion. I did not think the combination would prove
helpful to him, and it did not. He fell off 77,000
from the vote of his predecessor, and I won by
101,731.

While the United States had been engaged in the
World War every public man, and I among them,

[120]

LAW AND POLITICS

had been constantly employed in its many activities.
It increased every function of government from the
administration in Washington down to the smallest
town office. The whole nation seemed to be endowed
with a new spirit, unified and solidified and willing
to make any sacrifice for the cause of liberty. I was
constantly before public gatherings explaining the
needs of the time for men, money and supplies.
Sometimes I was urging subscriptions for war loans,
sometimes contributions to the great charities, or
again speaking to the workmen engaged in con-
struction or the manufacture of munitions. The re-
sponse which the people made and the organizing
power of the country were all manifestations that it
was wonderful to contemplate. The entire nation
awoke to a new life.

It was no secret that I desired to be Governor.
Under the custom of promotion in Massachusetts a
man who did not expect to be advanced would
scarcely be willing to be Lieutenant-Governor. But
I did nothing in the way of organizing my friends
to secure the nomination. It is much better not to
press a candidacy too much, but to let it develop on

[121]

CALVIN COOLIDGE

its own merits without artificial stimulation. If the
people want a man they will nominate him, if they
do not want him he had best let the nomination go
to another.

The Governor very much desired to be United
States Senator, but made no statement indicating he
would seek that honor which would cause him to
retire from his present office. Neither I nor my
friends approached him or sought to influence him.
Finally he called me aside and told me to announce
that I would run for Governor, which I did. As no
one knew what he had told me, some supposed I
would run against him, which I would not have
done,

I had a strong liking for this veteran public ser-
vant, and so I felt sure he liked me. He was away
on many occasions, which under the constitution left
me as Acting Governor, but at such times I was al-
ways careful not to encroach upon his domain. While
I may have differed with my subordinates I have
always supported loyally my superiors. They have
never found me organizing a camp in opposition to
them, Finally the Governor sought the Senatorship,

LAW AND POLITICS

but before his campaign was under way he very
manfully announced that as the country was at war
he was entirely unwilling to divert public attention
from the national defense to promote his political
fortune and therefore withdrew. My nomination
was again unanimous.

The campaign was difficult. The really great
qualities of my principal colleague, Senator John W.
Weeks, had been displayed mostly in Washington
and were not appreciated by his home people. A
violent epidemic of influenza prevented us from
having a State Convention, or holding the usual
meetings, and the party organization was not very
effective. In spite of my protest and the fact that we
were engaged in a tremendous war, criticism was
too often made of President Wilson and his admin-
istration. My own efforts were spent in urging that
the people and government of Massachusetts should
all join in their support of the national government
in prosecuting the war. While I was elected by only
16,773, Senator Weeks to my lasting regret was de-
feated, so the state and nation lost for a time the
benefit of his valuable public service. Later he was

CALVIN COOLIDGE

in the Cabinet where he remained until, during my
term, he retired due to ill health, and did not long
survive.

Again I supposed I had reached the summit of
any possible political preferment and was quite con-
tent to finish my public career as Governor of Mas-
sachusetts an office that has always been held in
the highest honor by the people of the Common-
wealth.

To get a few days' rest I went to Maine the next
Friday after the election. It was there that I was
awakened in the middle of Sunday night to be told
that the Armistice had been signed. I returned to
Boston the following day to take part in the cele-
bration. What the end of the four years of carnage
meant those who remember it will never forget and
those who do not can never be told. The universal
joy, the enormous relief, found expression from
all the people in a spontaneous outburst of thanks-
giving, '

While the war was done, its problems were to
confront the state and nation for many years. I was
to meet them as Governor and President. They will

LAW AND POLITICS

remain with us for two generations. Such is the
curse of war.

In my inaugural address I dwelt on the need of
promoting the public health, education, and the op-
portunity for employment at fair wages in accord-
ance with the right of the people to be well born,
well reared, well educated, well employed and well
paid. I also stressed the necessity of keeping govern-
ment expenses as low as possible, assisting in every
possible way the reestablishing of the returning vet-
erans, and reorganizing the numerous departments
in accordance with a recent change of the constitu-
tion which limited their number to twenty.

There being no Executive Mansion the Governor
has no especial social duties, so I kept my quarters
at the Adams House, as I had always lived there
when in Boston, where Mrs.Coolidge came some-
times; but as our boys needed her she staid for the
most part in Northampton. She never had taken
any part in my political life, but had given her at-
tention to our home. It was not until we went to
Washington that she came into public prominence
and favor.

CALVIN COOLIDGE

In February, President Wilson landed at Boston
on his return from France and spoke at a large meet-
ing, where I made a short address of welcome, pledg-
ing him my support in helping settle the remaining
war problems. I then began a friendly personal re-
lation with him and Mrs. Wilson which has always
continued. Our service men were constantly return-
ing and had to be aided in getting back into private
employment. About $20,000,000 was paid them
out of the state treasury.

In the confusion attending the end of the war the
work of legislation dragged on well into the sum-
mer. While I did not veto many of the bills which
were passed, I did reject a measure to increase the
salaries of members of the General Court from
$1,000 to $1,500, but my objection was not sus-
tained.

In the great upward movement of wages that had
taken place those paid by street railways had not
been proportionately increased. It is very difficult
to raise fares, so sufficient money for this purpose
had not been available, though some advances had
been made. Because of this situation a strike oc-

[126]

LAW AND POLITICS

curred in midsummer on the Boston Elevated that
tied up nearly all the street transportation in the city
district for three or four days. Finally I helped ne-
gotiate an agreement to send the matter to arbitra-
tion., so that work was resumed. The men secured a
very material raise in wages, which I feel later con-
ditions fully justified.

In August I went to Vermont. On my return I
found that difficulties in the Police Department of
Boston were growing serious and made a statement
to the reporters at the State House that I should sup-
port Commissioner Edwin U. Curtis in his decisions
concerning their adjustment. I felt he was entitled
to every confidence.

The trouble arose over the proposal of the police-
men, who had long been permitted to maintain a
local organization of their own 3 to form a union and
affiliate with the American Federation of Labor.
That was contrary to a long-established rule of the
Department, which was agreed to by each member
when he went on the force and had the effect of law.

When the policemen's union persisted in its course
I was urged by a committee appointed by the Mayor

CALVIN COOLIDGE

to interfere and attempt to make Commissioner
Curtis settle the dispute by arbitration. The Gover-
nor appoints the Commissioner and probably could
remove him, but he has no more jurisdiction over
his acts than he has over the Judges of the Courts;
besides, I did not see how it was possible to arbitrate
the question of the authority of the law, or of the
necessity of obedience to the rules of the Depart-
ment and the orders of the Commissioner. These
principles were the heart of the whole controversy
and the only important questions at issue. It can
readily be seen how important they were and what
the effect might have been if they had not been
maintained. I decided to support them whatever the
consequences might be. I fully expected it would
result in my defeat in the coming campaign for re-
election as Governor.

While I had no direct responsibility for the con-
duct of police matters in Boston, yet as the Chief
Executive it was my general duty to require the laws
to be enforced, so I remained in Boston and kept
carefully informed of conditions. I knew I might be
called on to act at any time.

[128]

LAW AND POLITICS

On Sunday, September seventh, I went to North-
ampton by motor and remained overnight as I had
an engagement to speak before a state convention of
the American Federation of Labor at Greenfield
Monday morning, which I fulfilled. I left that town
at once for Boston, stopping at Fitchburg to call my
office to learn if there were any new developments,
I reached Boston after four o'clock that afternoon,
and had a conference with some of the representa-
tives of the city. I did not leave Boston again for a
long time.

When it became perfectly apparent that the po-
licemen's union was acting in violation of the rules
of the Department the leaders were brought before
the Commissioner on charges, tried and removed
from office, whereat about three-quarters of the
force left the Department in a body at about five
o'clock on the afternoon of Tuesday, September
ninth. This number was much larger than had been
expected.

The Metropolitan Police of more than one hun-
dred, and the State Police of thirty or forty men,
had been kept in readiness and were at once put on

CALVIN COOLIDGE

duty, the Motor Corps of the State Guard was held
at the armory, and that night I kept the Attorney
General, the Adjutant General and my Secretary at
my hotel to be ready to respond to any call for help.
As everything was quiet the Motor Corps went
home. Around midnight bands of men appeared on
the street, who broke many shop windows and car-
ried away quantities of the goods which were on
display. Many arrests were made, but the remain-
ing police and their reinforcements were not suffi-
cient to prevent the disorder. I knew nothing of this
until morning.

The disorder of Tuesday night was most repre-
hensible, but it was only an incident. It had little
relation to the real issues. I have always felt that I
should have called out the State Guard as soon as the
police left their posts. The Commissioner did not
feel this was necessary. The Mayor, who was a man
of high character, and a personal friend, but of the
opposite party, had conferred with me. He had the
same authority as the Governor to call out all the
Guard in the City of Boston. It would be very un-
usual for a Governor to act except on the request of

LAW AND POLITICS

the local author! ties . No disorder existed, and it
would have been rather a violent assumption that it
was threatened, but it could have been made. Such
action probably would have saved some property,
but would have decided no issue. In fact it would
have made it more difficult to maintain the position
Mr. Curtis had taken, and which I was supporting,
because the issue was not understood, and the dis-
order focused public attention on it, and showed just
what it meant to have a police force that did not
obey orders.

On reaching my office in the morning it was re-
ported to me that the Mayor was calling out the
State Guard of Boston to report about five o'clock
that afternoon. He also requested me to furnish
more troops. I supplemented his action by calling
substantially the entire State Guard to report at once.
They gathered at their armories and were patrolling
the streets in a few hours. When they came with
their muskets in their hands with bayonets fixed
there was little more trouble from disorder.

It was soon reported to me that the Mayor, acting
under a special law, had taken charge of the police

CALVIN COOLIDGE

force of the city, and by putting a Guard officer in
command had virtually displaced the Commissioner,
who came to me in great distress. If he was to be
superseded I thought the men that he had discharged
might be taken back and the cause lost. Certainly
they and the rest of the policemen's union must have
rejoiced at his discomfort. Thinking I knew what to
do, I consulted the law as is my custom. I found a
general statute that gives the Governor authority to
call on any police officer in the state to assist him. I
showed this to the Attorney General and to Ex-
Attorney General Herbert Parker, who was advising
Mr. Curtis. They thought I was right and consulted
a profound judge of law, Ex- Attorney General Al-
bert E. Pillsbury, who confirmed their opinions.
The strike occurred Tuesday night, the Guard were
called Wednesday, and Thursday I issued a General
Order restoring Mr. Curtis to his place as Commis-
sioner in control of the police, and made a proclama-
tion calling on all citizens to assist me in preserving
order, and especially directing all police officers in
Boston to obey the orders of Mr. Curtis.

This was the important contribution I made to

LAW AND POLITICS

the tactics of the situation, which has never been
fully realized. To Mr. Curtis should go the credit for
raising the issue and enforcing the principle that
police should not affiliate with any outside body,
whether of wage earners or of wage payers, but
should remain unattached, impartial officers of the
law, with sole allegiance to the public. In this I sup-
ported him.

When rumors started of a strike at the power
house which furnished electricity for all Boston, a
naval vessel was run up to the station with plenty of
electricians on board ready to go over the side and
keep the plant in operation. A wagon train of sup-
plies, arms, and ammunition was brought in from
Camp Devens and all the State Guard mobilized. A
statement was made by President Wilson strongly
condemning the defection of the police. Volunteer
police began to come in, and over half a million dol-
lars was raised by popular subscription to meet neces-
sary expenses in caring for dependents of the Guard
and even for helping the families of some of the
police whp'left their posts. Later I helped these men
in securing other employment, but refused to allow

[133]

CALVIN COOLIDGE

them again to be policemen. Public feeling became
very much aroused. While offers of support came
from every quarter the opposition was very active.

Soon, Samuel Gompers began to telegraph me
asking the removal of Mr. Curtis and the reinstate-
ment of the union policemen. This required me to
make a reply in which I stated among other things
that "There is no right to strike against the public
safety by any body, any time, any where." This
phrase caught the attention of the nation. It was
beginning to be clear that if voluntary associations
were to be permitted to substitute their will for the
authority of public officials the end of our govern-
ment was at hand. The issue was nothing less than
whether the law which the people had made through
their duly authorized agencies should be supreme.

This issue I took to the people in my campaign
for reelection as Governor. Though I was hampered
by an attack of influenza and spoke but three or four
times, I was able to make the issue plain even beyond
the confines of Massachusetts. Many of the wage
earners both organized and unorganized, who knew
I had always treated them fairly, must have sup-

LAW AND POLITICS

ported me, for I won by 125,101 votes. The people
decided in favor of the integrity of their own gov-
ernment. President Wilson sent me a telegram of
congratulations.

I felt at the time that the speeches I made and
the statements I issued had a clearness of thought
and revealed a power I had not before been able to
express, which confirmed my belief that, when a
duty comes to us, with it a power comes to enable us
to perform it. I was not thinking so much of the
Governorship, which I already had, as of the grave
danger to the country if the voters did not decide
correctly. My faith that the people would respond
to the truth was justified.

The requirements of the situation as it developed
seem clear and plain now, and easy to decide, but as
they arose they were very complicated and involved
in many immaterial issues. The right thing to do
never requires any subterfuges, it is always simple
and direct. That is the reason that intrigue usually
falls of its own weight.

After the election I had the work of making the
appointments in order to reduce the entire state ad-

CALVIN COOLIDGE

ministration to the limit of twenty Departments and
a special session of the General Court to deal with
some street railway problems, so I had little time to
think of politics. But I soon learned that many peo-
ple in the country were thinking of me.

The two years that I served as Governor were a
time of transition from war to peace. New problems
constantly arose, great confusion prevailed, nothing
was settled and it was possible only to feel my way
from day to day. But they were years of progress if
partly in a negative way. The new position of the
wage earners was perfected and solidified. A forty-
eight-hour week for women and minors was estab-
lished by a bill passed by the General Court, which
I signed. The budget system went fully into effect
the first year I was Governor and helped keep the
state finances in good condition. The departments
were reorganized, and the street railways given re-
lief. In my second year a bill was passed allowing
the sale of beer with a 2.75 per cent alcoholic con-
tent, which I vetoed because I thought it was in vio-
lation of the Constitution which I had sworn to de-
fend. The veto was sustained. A constant struj

CALVIN COOLIDGE
At Amherst College

Wide World Photos

LAW AND POLITICS

was going on to keep the costs of living down and
the rate of wages up. A State Commission was held
in office with increased powers to resist profiteering
in the necessaries of life. In the depression of 1920
some of our banks and manufacturers found them-
selves in difficulties* All of these things reached the
Governor in one form or another. But, in general,
conditions were such that the entire efforts of the
people were engaged in easing themselves down.
There was little opportunity to direct their attention
towards constructive action. They were clearing
away the refuse from the great conflagration prepar-
atory to rebuilding on a grander and more preten-
tious scale. Nothing was natural, everything was
artificial. So much energy had to be expended in
keeping the ship of state on a straight course that
there was little left to carry it ahead. But when I
finished my two terms in January, 1921, the demo-
bilization of the country was practically complete,
people had found themselves again, and were ready
to undertake the great work of reconstruction in
which they have since been so successfully engaged.
In that work we have seen the people of America

CALVIN COOLIDGE

create a new heaven and a new earth. The old things
have passed away, giving place to a glory never be-
fore experienced by any people of our world.

IN NATIONAL POLITICS

CHAPTER FOUR
IN NATIONAL POLITICS

NO doubt it was the police strike of Boston
that brought me into national prominence.
That furnished the occasion and I took ad-
vantage of the opportunity. I was ready to meet the
emergency. Just what lay behind that event I was
never able to learn. Sometimes I have mistrusted
that it was a design to injure me politically; if so it
was only to recoil upon the perpetrators, for it in-
creased my political power many fold. Still there was
a day or two when the event hung in the balance,
when the Police Commissioner of Boston, Edwin U.
Curtis, was apparently cast aside discredited, and my
efforts to give him any support indicated my own
undoing. But I soon had him reinstated, and there
was a strong expression of public opinion in our
favor.

The year 1919 had not produced much on the

CALVIN COOLIDGE

positive side of our political life. President Wilson
had returned from the peace conference at Paris de-
termined to have the United States join the League
of Nations as established in the final Treaty of Ver-
sailles. He found opposition in the Senate both
within and without his own party. In attempting to
gain the approval of the country he had made his
trip across the continent and returned a broken man
never to regain his strength. For eight years he had
so dominated his party that it had not produced any
one else with a marked ability for leadership. Dur-
ing these months the contest was raging in the Sen-
ate over the peace treaty, but as a result it had put
the leadership of our party in a negative position,
which never appeals to the popular imagination, and
besides in the country many Republicans favored a
ratification of the treaty with adequate reservations.
Many of the Senators on our side cast their vote for
that proposal, which would have prevailed but for
the opposition of the regular administration Demo-
crats. In this confusion no dominant popular figure
emerged in the Congress, but many ambitions be-
came apparent.

NATIONAL POLITICS

Following my decisive victory in November there
very soon came to be mention of me as a Presiden-
tial candidate. About Thanksgiving time Senator
Lodge came to me and voluntarily requested that he
should present my name to the national Republican
convention. He wished to go as a delegate with that
understanding. Of course I told him I could not
make any decision in relation to being a candidate,
but I would try to arrange matters so that he could
be a delegate at large. When he left for Washington
he gave out an interview saying that Massachusetts
should support me.

Very soon a movement of considerable dimen-
sions started both in my home state and in other
sections of the country to secure delegates who would
support me. An" old friend and long time Secretary
of the Republican National Committee, James B.
Reynolds, was placed in charge of the movement,
and I was gaining considerable strength. Senator
Crane in his own quiet but highly efficient way
became very interested and let it be known that I
had his support, as did Speaker Gillett, who is now
our Senator, but then represented my home district

CALVIN COOLIDGE

in Congress. They both went as delegates pledged
tome.

Already several candidates were making a very
active campaign. The two most conspicuous were
Major General Leonard Wood and Governor Frank
O. Lowden. Senator Hiram Johnson had consid-
erable support, and in a more modest way Senator
Warren G. Harding was in the field. In addition to
these, several of the states had favorite sons. It soon
began to be reported that very large sums of money
were being used in the primaries.

When I came to give the matter serious attention,
and comprehended more fully what would be in-
volved in a contest of this kind, I realized that I was
not in a position to become engaged in it. I was
Governor of Massachusetts, and my first duty was
to that office. It would not be possible for me, with
the legislature in session, to be going about the coun-
try actively participating in an effort to secure dele-
gates, and I was totally unwilling to have a large,
sum of money raised and spent in my behalf.

I soon became convinced also that I was in dan-
ger of creating a situation in which some people in

NATIONAL POLITICS

Massachusetts could permit it to be reported in the
press that they were for me when they were not at
heart for me and would give me little support in the
convention. It would, however, prevent their hav-
ing to make a public choice as between other candi-
dates and would help them in getting elected as dele-
gates. There was nothing unusual in this situation.
It was simply a condition that always has to be met
in politics. Of course the strategy of the other can-
didates was to prevent me from having a solid Mas-
sachusetts delegation. Moreover, I did not wish to
use the office of Governor in an attempt to prosecute
a campaign for nomination for some other office. I
therefore made a public statement announcing that
I was unwilling to appear as a candidate and would
not enter my name in any contest at the primaries.
This left me in a position where I ran no risk of
embarrassing the great office of Governor of Massa-
chusetts. That was my answer to the situation.

Nevertheless a considerable activity was kept up
in my behalf, and some money expended, mostly in
circulating a book of my speeches. In the Massachu-
setts primaries six or seven delegates were chosen

CALVIN COOLIDGE

who were for General Wood, and while the rest were
nominally for me several of them were really more -
favorable to some other candidate, partly because
they supposed a Massachusetts man could never be
nominated, and if the choice was going outside the
state, they had strong preferences as between the
other possibilities,

At a state convention in South Dakota held vef y
early to express a preference for national candidates
I had been declared their choice for Vice-President.
Some people in Oregon desired to accord me a like
honor. As I did not wish my name to appear in any
contest and did not care to be Vice-President I de-
clined to be considered for that office. In my native
state of Vermont it was proposed to enter my name
in the primary as candidate for President, which I
could not permit. Nevertheless it was written on the
ballot by many of the voters at the polls.

When the Republican National Convention met
at Chicago, Senator Lodge, who was elected its chair-
man, had indicated that he did not wish to present
my name, so it was arranged that Speaker Gillett
should make the nominating speech. Massachusetts

NATIONAL POLITICS

had thirty-five delegates. On the first ballot I re-
ceived twenty-eight of their votes and six others from
scattering states, making my total thirty-four. As
the balloting proceeded a considerable number of
the Massachusetts delegates, feeling I had no chance,
voted for other candidates, but a majority remained
with me until the final ballot when all but one went
elsewhere, and Senator Warren G. Harding was
nominated. My friends in the convention did all
they could for me, and several states were at times
ready to come to me if the entire Massachusetts dele-
gation would lead the way, but some of them refused
to vote for me, so the support of other states could
not be secured.

While I do not think it was so intended I have
always been of the opinion that this turned out to be
much the best for me. I had no national experience.
What I have ever been able to do has been the result
of first learning how to do it. I am not gifted with
intuition. I need not only hard work but experience
to be ready to solve problems. The Presidents who
have gone to Washington without first having held
some national office have been at great disadvantage.

CALVIN COOLIDGE

It takes them a long time to become acquainted with
the Federal officeholders and the Federal Govern-
ment. Meanwhile they have had difficulty in deal-
ing with the situation. *

The convention of 1920 was largely under the
domination of a coterie of United States Senators.
They maneuvered it into adopting a platform and
nominating a President in ways that were not satis-
factory to a majority of the delegates. When the
same forces undertook for a third time to dictate the
action of the convention in naming a Vice-Presi-
dent, the delegates broke away from them and lit-
erally stampeded to me,

Massachusetts did not present my name, because
my friends knew I did not wish to be Vice-President,
but Judge Wallace McCamant of Oregon placed me
in nomination and was quickly seconded by North
Dakota and some other states. I received about
three-quarters of all the votes cast. When this honor
came to me I was pleased to accept, and it was es-
pecially agreeable to be associated with Senator
Harding, whom I knew well and liked.

When our campaign opened, the situation was

NATIONAL POLITICS

complex. Many Republicans did not like the some-
what uncertain tone of the platform concerning the
League of Nations, Though it was generally con-
ceded that the bitter-enders had dictated the plat-
form there were some who felt it was not explicit
enough in denouncing the League with all its works
and everything foreign, and a much larger body of
Republicans were much disappointed that it did not
declare in favor of ratifying the treaty with reser-
vations.

The Massachusetts Republican State Convention
in the fall of 1 9 1 9 had adopted a plank favoring im-
mediate ratification with suitable reservations which
would safeguard American interests. While later
the treaty had been rejected by the Senate it was still
necessary to make a formal agreement of peace with
the Central Powers, and for that purpose some treaty
would be necessary. Many Republicans favored our
entry into the League as a method of closing up the
war period >and helping stabilize world conditions.
Senator Crane had taken that position in Massachu-
setts and repeated it again at Chicago.

Since that time the situation has changed. The

CALVIN COOLIDGE

war period has closed and a separate treaty has been
made and ratified. The more I have seen of the con-
duct of our foreign relations the more I am con-
vinced that we are better off out of the League. Our
government is not organized in a way that would
enable us adequately to deal with it. Nominally our
foreign affairs are in the hands of the President.
Actually the Senate is always attempting to inter-
fere, too often in a partisan way and many times in
opposition to the President. Our country is not ra-
cially homogeneous. While the several nationalities
represented here are loyal to the United States, yet
when differences arise between European countries,
each group is naturally in sympathy with the nation
of its origin. Our actions in the League would con-
stantly be embarrassed by this situation at home.
The votes of our delegates there would all the time
disturb our domestic tranquillity here. We have
come to realize this situation very completely now,
but in 1920 it was not so clear.

At that time we were close to the war. Our sym-
pathies were very much with our allies and a great
body of sentiment in our country, which may be

NATIONAL POLITICS

called the missionary spirit, was strongly in favor of
helping Europe. To them the League meant an in-
strument for that end. That was a praiseworthy
spirit and had to be reckoned with in dealing with the
people in a political campaign. This sentiment was
very marked in the East where it had a strong hold
on a very substantial element of the Republican party.
While I was taking a short vacation in Vermont
several thousand people came to my father's home
to greet me. I spent most of my time, however, in
preparing my speech of acceptance. The notification
ceremonies were held on a pleasant afternoon in
midsummer at Northampton in Allen Field, which
was part of the college grounds, and its former
President, the venerable Dr. L. Clark Seelye, pre-
sided. The chairman of the notification committee
was Governor Morrow of Kentucky. A great throng
representing many different states was in attendance
to hear my address. I was careful to reassure those
who feared we were not proposing to continue our
cooperation with Europe in attempting to solve the
war problems in a way that would provide for a
permanent peace of the world.

CALVIN COOLIDGE

Not being the head of the ticket, of course, it was
not my place to raise issues or create policies, but I
had the privilege of discussing those already declared
in the platform or stated in the addresses of Senator
Harding. This I undertook to do in a speech I made
at Portland, Maine, where I again pointed out the
wish of our party to have our country associated with
other countries in advancing human welfare. Later in
the campaign I reiterated this position at New York.

This was not intended as a subterfuge to win
votes, but as a candid statement of party principles.
It was later to be put into practical effect by President
Harding, in the important treaty dealing with our
international relations in the Pacific Ocean, in the
agreement for the limitation of naval armaments,
in the proposal to enter the World Court, and finally
by me in the World Peace. Treaty. All that I said
and more in justification of support of the Republi-
can ticket by those interested in promoting peace,
without committing our country to interfere where
we had little interest, has been abundantly borne out
by the events.

Shortly before election I made a tour of eight days,

NATIONAL POLITICS

going from Philadelphia by special train west to
Tennessee and Kentucky and south as far as North
Carolina, We had a most encouraging reception on
this trip, speaking out-of-doors, mostly from the rear
platform during the day, with an indoor meeting at
night. During the campaign I spoke in about a
dozen states.

The country was already feeling acutely the results
of deflation. Business was depressed. For months
following the Armistice we had persisted in a course
of much extravagance and reckless buying. Wages
had been paid that were not earned. The whole
country, from the national government down, had
been living on borrowed money. Pay day had come,
and it was found our capital had been much im-
paired. In an address at Philadelphia I contended
that the only sure method of relieving this distress
was for the country to follow the advice of Benjamin
Franklin and begin to work and save. Our produc-
tive capacity is sufficient to maintain us all in a state
of prosperity if we give sufficient attention to thrift
and industry. Within a year the country had adopted
that course, which has brought an era of great plenty.

CALVIN COOLIDGE

When the election came it appeared that we had
held practically the entire Republican vote and had
gained enormously from all those groups who have
been in this country so short a time that they still
retain a marked race consciousness. Many of them
had left Europe to escape from the prevailing con-
ditions there, While they were loyal to the United
States they did not wish to become involved in any
old world disputes, were greatly relieved that the war
was finished, and generally opposed to the League
of Nations, Such a combination gave us an over-
whelming victory.

After election it was necessary for me to attend a
good many celebrations. My home town of North-
ampton had a large mass meeting at which several
speeches were made. In Boston a series of dinners
and lunches were given in my honor. Shortly before
Christmas Mrs. Coolidge and I paid a brief visit to
Mr. and Mrs. Harding at their home in Marion,
Ohio. They received us in the most gracious man-
ner. It was no secret to us why their friends had so
much affection for them.

We discussed at length the plans for his adminis-

NATIONAL POLITICS

tration. The members of his Cabinet were consid-
ered and he renewed the invitation to me, already
publicly expressed, to sit with them. The policies he
wished to adopt for restoring the prosperity of the
country by reducing taxes and revising the tariflf
were referred to more casually. He was sincerely
devoted to the public welfare and desirous of im-
proving the condition of the people.

When at last another Governor was inaugurated
to take my place and the guns on Boston Common
were giving him their first salute, Mrs. Coolidge and
I were leaving for home from the North Station on
the afternoon train which I had used so much before
I was Governor. It had only day coaches and no par-
lor car, but we were accustomed to travel that way
and only anxious to go home. For nine years I had
been in public life in Boston.

During the winter I made an address before the
Vermont Historical Society at Montpelier and spoke
later at the Town Hall in New York for a group of
ladies who were restoring the birthplace of Theodore
Roosevelt.

CALVIN COOLIDGE

After a brief stay at Northampton, Mrs. Coolidge
and I went to Atlanta where I spoke before the South-
ern Tariff Association. A great deal of hospitality
was lavished upon us by the state officials and the
people in the city. In a few days we went to Ashe-
ville, North Carolina, where we remained about two
weeks. The Grove Park Inn entertained us with
everything that could be wished, and the region was
delightful

When the Massachusetts electors met, Judge Henry
P, Field of the firm where I read law, who had moved
my admission to the Bar, now had the experience of
nominating me for Vice-President.Twenty-f our years
had intervened between these two services which he
performed for me.

The time soon came for us to go to Washington.
A large crowd of our friends was at the station to
bid us goodbye although the hour was very early.
We went a few days before March 4 in order to have
a little time to get settled. The Vice-President and
Mrs. Marshall met us and gave us every attention and
courtesy. When Mr. and Mrs. Harding arrived, we
went to the station to meet them and they took us

NATIONAL POLITICS

back with them to the New Willard where we too
were staying in the White House car President
Wilson sent for them.

About ten-thirty the next morning a committee
of the Congress came to escort us to the White House
where the President and Mrs. Wilson joined us and
we went to the Capitol. Soon President Wilson sent
for me and said his health was such it would not be
wise for him to remain for the inauguration and
bade me goodbye. I never saw him again except at
a distance, but he sent me a most sympathetic letter
when I became President. Such was the passing of
a great world figure.

As I had already taken a leading part in seven
inaugurations and witnessed four others in Massa-
chusetts, the experience was not new to me, but I
was struck by the lack of order and formality that
prevailed. A part of the ceremony takes place in the
Senate Chamber and a part on the east portico,
which destroys all serfiblance of unity and continu-
ity. I was sworn in before the Senate and made a
very brief address dwelling on the great value of a
deliberative body as a safeguard of our liberties.

CALVIN COOLIDGE

It was a clear but crisp spring day out-of-doors
where the oath was administered to the President by
Chief Justice White. The inaugural address was able
and well received. President Harding had an im-
pressive delivery, which never failed to interest and
hold his audience. I was to hear him many times in
the next two years, but whether on formal occasions
or in the freedom of Gridiron dinners, his charm and
effectiveness never failed.

When the inauguration was over I realized that
the same thing for which I had worked in Massa-
chusetts had been accomplished in the nation. The
radicalism which had tinged our whole political and
economic life from soon after 1900 to the World
War period was passed. There were still echoes of
it, and some of its votaries remained, but its power
was gone. The country had little interest in mere
destructive criticism. It wanted the progress that
alone comes from constructive policies.

It had been our intention to take a house in Wash-
ington, but we found none to our liking. They were
too small or too large. It was necessary for me to live
within my income, which was little more than my

NATIONAL POLITICS

salary and was charged with the cost of sending my
boys to school. We therefore took two bedrooms
with a dining room, and large reception room at the
New Willard where we had every convenience.

It is difficult to conceive a person finding himself
in a situation which calls on him to maintain a posi-
tion he cannot pay for. Any other course for me
would have been cut short by the barnyard philos-
ophy of my father, who would have contemptuously
referred to such action as the senseless imitation of a
fowl which was attempting to light higher than it
could roost. There is no dignity quite so impressive,
and no independence quite so important, as living
within your means. In our country a small income
is usually less embarrassing than the possession of a
large one.

But my experience has convinced me that an offi-
cial residence with suitable maintenance should be
provided for the Vice-President. Under the present
system he is not lacking in dignity but he has no
fixed position. The great office should have a settled
and permanent habitation and a place, irrespective
of the financial ability of its temporary occupant.

CALVIN COOLIDGE

While I was glad to be relieved o the responsibility
o a public establishment, nevertheless, it is a duty
the second officer of the nation should assume. It
would be much more in harmony with our theory
of equality if each Vice-President held the same po-
sition in the Capital City.

Very much is said and written concerning the
amount of dining out that the Vice-President does.
As the President is not available for social dinners
of course the next officer in rank is much sought
after for such occasions. But like everything else that
is sent out of Washington for public consumption
the reports are exaggerated. Probably the average of
these dinners during the season does not exceed three
a week, and as the Senate is in session after twelve
o'clock each week day, there is no opportunity for
lunches or teas.

When we first went to Washington Mrs. Cool-
idge and I quite enjoyed the social dinners. As we
were always the ranking guests we had the privi-
lege of arriving last and leaving first, so that we were
usually home by ten o'clock. It will be seen that this
was far from burdensome. We found it a most en-

[160]

NATIONAL POLITICS

joyable opportunity for getting acquainted and could
scarcely comprehend how anyone who had the priv-
ilege of sitting at a table surrounded by representa-
tives of the Cabinet, the Congress, the Diplomatic
Corps and the Army and Navy would not find it
interesting.

Presiding over the Senate was fascinating to rne.
That branch of the Congress has its own methods
and traditions which may strike the outsider as pe-
culiar, but more familiarity with them would dis-
close that they are only what long experience has
demonstrated to be the best methods of conducting
its business. It may seem that debate is endless, but
there is scarcely a time when it is not informing, and,
after all, the power to compel due consideration is
the distinguishing mark of a deliberative body. If
the Senate is anything it is a great deliberative body
and if it is to remain a safeguard of liberty it must
remain a deliberative body. I was entertained and
instructed by the debates. However it may appear
in the country, no one can become familiar with the
inside workings of the Senate without gaining a great
respect for it. The country is safe in its hands.

[161]

CALVIN COOLIDGE

At first I intended to become a student of the Sen-
ate rules and I did learn much about them, but I
soon found that the Senate had but one fixed rule,
subject to exceptions of course, which was to the ef-
fect that the Senate would do anything it wanted to
do whenever it wanted to do it. When I had learned
that, I did not waste much time on the other rules,
because they were so seldom applied. The assistant
to the Secretary of the Senate could be relied on to
keep me informed on other parliamentary questions*
But the President of the Senate can and does exer-
cise a good deal of influence over its deliberations.
The Constitution gives him the power to preside,
which is the power to recognize whom he will. That
often means that he decides what business is to be
taken up and who is to have the floor for debate at
any specific time.

Nor is the impression that it is a dilatory body
never arriving at decisions correct. In addition to
acting on the thousands of nominations, and the nu-
merous treaties, it passes much more legislation than
the House. But it is true that unanimous consent is
often required to close debate, and because of the

NATIONAL POLITICS

great power each Senator is therefore permitted to
exercise which is often a veto power, making one
Senator a majority of the ninety-six Senators great
care should be exercised by the states in their choice
of Senators. Nothing is more dangerous to good
government than great power in improper hands. If
the Senate has any weakness it is because the people
have sent to that body men lacking the necessary
ability and character to perform the proper func-
tions. But this is not the fault of the Senate. It can-
not choose its own members but has to work with
what is sent to it. The fault lies back in the citizen-
ship of the states. If the Senate does not function
properly the blame is chiefly on them.

If the Vice-President is a man of discretion and
character, so that he can be relied upon to act as a
subordinate in such position, he should be invited
to sit with the Cabinet, although some of the Sena-
tors, wishing to be the only advisers of the President,
do not look on that proposal with favor. He may not
help much in its deliberations, and only on rare oc-
casions would he be a useful contact with the Con-
gress, although his advice on the sentiment of the

CALVIN COOLIDGE

Senate is of much value, but he should be in the Cab-
inet because he might become President and ought
to be informed on the policies of the administration.
He will not learn of all of them. Much went on in
the departments under President Harding, as it did
under me, of which the Cabinet had no knowledge.
But he will hear much and learn how to find out
more if it ever becomes necessary. My experience in
the Cabinet was of supreme value to me when I
became President.

It was my intention when I became Vice-Presi-
dent to remain in Washington, avoid speaking and
attend to the work of my office. But the pressure to
speak is constant and intolerable. However, I re-
sisted most of it. I was honored by the President by
his request to make the dedicatory address at the un-
veiling of a bust of him in the McKinley Memorial
at Niles, Ohio. I also delivered the address at the
dedication of the Grant statue in Washington.

During these two years I spoke some and lectured
some. This took me about the country in travels that
reached from Maine to California, from the Twin
Cities to Charleston. I was getting acquainted. Aside

NATIONAL POLITICS

from speeches I did little writing, but I read a great
deal and listened much. While I little realized it at
the time it was for me a period of most important
preparation. It enabled me to be ready in August,
1923.

An extra session of the Congress began in April
of 1 92 1, which was almost continuous until March
4, 1923, While an enormous amount of work was
done it soon became apparent that the country ex-
pected too much from the change in administration.
The government could and did stop the waste of the
people's savings, but it could not restore them. That
had to be done by the hard work and thrift of the
people themselves. This would take time.

While the country was improving it was still de-
pressed. There was some unemployment and a good
deal of distress in agriculture because of the very low
prices of farm produce and the shrinkage in land
values. When I began to make political speeches in
the campaign of 1922 I soon realized that the coun-
try had large sections that were disappointed because
a return of prosperity had not been instantaneous.
Moreover the people had little knowledge of the great

[165]

CALVIN COOLIDGE

mass of legislation already accomplished, which was
to prove so beneficial to them within a few months
in the future. After I had related some of the record
of the relief measures adopted they would come to
me to say they had never heard of it and thought
nothing had been done. While my party still held
both the House and Senate it lost many seats in the
election, which made the closing session of Congress
full of complaints tinged with bitterness against an
administration under which many of them had been
defeated. That being the natural reaction it is useless
to discuss its propriety.

While these years in Washington had been full
of interest they were not without some difficulties.
Its official circles never accept any one gladly. There
is always a certain unexpressed sentiment that a new
arrival is appropriating the power that should right-
fully belong to them. He is always regarded as in
the nature of a usurper. But I think I met less of this
sentiment than is usual, for I was careful not to be
obtrusive. Nevertheless I could not escape being
looked on as one who might be given something
that others wished to have. But as it soon became

[166]

NATIONAL POLITICS

apparent that I was wholly engaged in promoting
the work of the Senate and the success of the admin-
istration, rather than my own interests, I was more
cordially accepted.

In these two years I witnessed the gigantic task of
demobilizing a war government and restoring it to
a peace-time basis. I also came in contact with many
of the important people of the United States and
foreign countries. All talent eventually arrives at
Washington. Most of the world figures were there
at the Conference on Limitation of Armaments.
Other meetings brought people only a little less dis-
tinguished. While I had little official connection
with these events the delegates called on me and I
often met them on social occasions.

The efforts of President Harding to restore the
country became familiar to me. I saw the steady in-
crease of the wise leadership of Mr. Hughes and
Mr. Mellon in the administration of the govern-
ment and the passing of some of the veteran figures
of the Senate. Chief among these was Senator Knox
of Pennsylvania. He was a, great power and had a
control of the conduct of the business of the Senate,

CALVIN COOLIDGE

which he exercised in behalf of our party policies,
that no one else approached during my service in
Washington.

In the winter of 1923 President Harding was far
from welL At his request I took his place in deliv-
ering the address at the Budget Meeting. While he
was out again in a few days he never recovered. As
Mrs. Coolidge and I were leaving for the long re-
cess on the fourth of March I bade him goodbye.
We went to Virginia Hot Springs for a few days
and then returned to Massachusetts, where we re-
mained while I filled some speaking engagements,
and in July went to Vermont. We left the President
and Mrs. Harding in Washington. I do not know
what had impaired his health. I do know that the
weight of the Presidency is very heavy. Later it was
disclosed that he had discovered that some whom he
had trusted had betrayed him and he had been
forced to call them to account. It is known that this
discovery was a very heavy grief to him, perhaps
more than he could bear. I never saw him again.
In June he started for Alaska and eternity.

[168]

ON ENTERING AND LEAVING
THE PRESIDENCY

CHAPTER FIVE

ON ENTERING AND LEAVING
THE PRESIDENCY

IT is a very old saying that you never can tell
what you can do until you try. The more I see
of life the more I am convinced of the wisdom
of that observation.

Surprisingly few men are lacking in capacity, but
they fail because they are lacking in application.
Either they never learn how to work, or, having
learned, they are too indolent to apply themselves
with the seriousness and the attention that is neces-
sary to solve important problems.

Any reward that is worth having only comes to
the industrious. The success which is made in any
walk of life is measured almost exactly by the
amount of hard work that is put into it.

It has undoubtedly been the lot of every native
boy of the United States to be told that he will some

CALVIN COOLIDGE

day be President. Nearly every young man who
happens to be elected a member of his state legisla-
ture is pointed to by his friends and his local news-
paper as on the way to the White House.

My own experience in this respect did not differ
from that of others. But I never took such sugges-
tions seriously, as I was convinced in my own mind
that I was not qualified to fill the exalted office of
President.

I had not changed this opinion after the Novem-
ber elections of 1919, when I was chosen Governor
of Massachusetts for a second term by a majority
which had only been exceeded in 1 896.

When I began to be seriously mentioned by some
of my friends at that time as the Republican candi-
date for President, it became apparent that there
were many others who shared the same opinion as
to my fitness which I had so long entertained.

But the coming national convention, acting in
accordance with an unchangeable determination,
took my destiny into its own hands and nominated
me for Vice-President.

Had I been chosen for the first place, I could

THE PRESIDENCY

have accepted it only with a great deal of trepidation,
but when the events o August, 1923, bestowed
upon me the Presidential office, I felt at once that
power had been given me to administer it. This was
not any feeling of exclusiveness. While I felt quali-
fied to serve, I was also well aware that there were
many others who were better qualified. It would be
my province to get the benefit of their opinions and
advice. It is a great advantage to a President, and a
major source of safety to the country, for him to
know that he is not a great man. When a man be-
gins to feel that he is the only one who can lead in
this republic, he is guilty of treason to the spirit of
our institutions. .

After President Harding was seriously stricken,
although I noticed that some of the newspapers at
once sent representatives to be near me at the home
of my father in Plymouth, Vermont, the official re-
ports which I received from his bedside soon became
so reassuring that I believed all danger past.

On the night of August 2, 1923, I was awak-
ened by my father coming up the stairs calling my
name. I noticed that his voice trembled. As the only

CALVIN COOLIDGE

times I had ever observed that before were when
death had visited our family, I knew that something
of the gravest nature had occurred.

His emotion was partly due to the knowledge
that a man whom he had met and liked was gone,
partly to the feeling that must possess all of our citi-
zens when the life of their President is taken from
them.

But he must have been moved also by the thought
of the many sacrifices he had made to place me
where I was, the twenty-five-mile drives in storms
and in zero weather over our mountain roads to
carry me to the academy and all the tenderness and
care he had lavished upon me in the thirty-eight
years since the death of my mother in the hope that
I might sometime rise to a position of importance,
which he now saw realized.

He had been the first to address me as President
of the United States. It was the culmination of the
lifelong desire of a father for the success of his son.

He placed in my hands an official report and
told me that President Harding had just passed
away. My wife and I at once dressed.

THE PRESIDENCY

Before leaving the room I knelt down and, with,
the same prayer with which I have since approached
the altar of the church, asked God to bless the
American people and give me power to serve them.

My first thought was to express my sympathy for
those who had been bereaved and after that was
done to attempt to reassure the country with the
knowledge that I proposed no sweeping displace-
ment of the men then in office and that there were
to be no violent changes in the administration of
affairs. As soon as I had dispatched a telegram to
Mrs. Harding, I therefore issued a short public
statement declaratory of that purpose.

Meantime, I had been examining the Constitu-
tion to determine what might be necessary for quali-
fying by taking the oath of office. It is not clear that
any additional oath is required beyond what is taken
by the Vice-President when he is sworn into office.
It is the same form as that taken by the President.

Having found this form in the Constitution I had
it set up on the typewriter and the oath was admin-
istered by my father in his capacity as a notary pub-
lic, an office he had held for a great many years.

CALVIN COOLIDGE

The oath was taken in what we always called the
sitting room by the light of the kerosene lamp,
which was the most modern form of lighting that
had then reached the neighborhood. The Bible
which had belonged to my mother lay on the table at
my hand. It was not officially used, as it is not the
practice in Vermont or Massachusetts to use a Bible
in connection with the administration of an oath.

Besides my father and myself, there were present
my wife, Senator Dale, who happened to be stop-
ping a few miles away, my stenographer, and my
chauffeur.

The picture of this scene has been painted with
historical accuracy by an artist named Keller, who
went to Plymouth for that purpose. Although the
likenesses are not good, everything in relation to
the painting is correct.

Where succession to the highest office in the land
is by inheritance or appointment, no doubt there
have been kings who have participated in the induc-
tion of their sons into their office, but in republics
where the succession conies by an election I do not
know of any other case in history where a father has

THE PRESIDENCY

administered to his son the qualifying oath of office
which made him the chief magistrate of a nation.
It seemed a simple and natural thing to do at the
time, but I can now realize something of the dra-
matic force of the event.

This room was one which was already filled with
sacred memories for me. In it my sister and my
stepmother passed their last hours. It was associ-
ated with my boyhood recollections of my own
mother, who sat and reclined there during her long
invalid years, though she passed away in an adjoin-
ing room where my father was to follow her within
three years from this eventful night.

When I started for Washington that morning I
turned aside from the main road to make a short
devotional visit to the grave of my mother. It had
been a comfort to me during my boyhood when I
was troubled to be near her last resting place, even
in the dead of night. Some way, that morning, she
seemed very near to me.

A telegram was sent to my pastor, Dr. Jason
Noble Pierce, to meet me on my arrival at Wash-
ington that evening, which he did.

CALVIN COOLIDGE

I found the Cabinet mostly scattered. Some mem-
bers had been with the late President and some were
in Europe. The Secretary of State, Mr, Hughes, and
myself, at once began the preparation of plans for
the funeral.

I issued the usual proclamation.

The Washington services were held in the ro-
tunda of the Capitol, followed by a simple service
and interment at Marion, Ohio, which I attended
with the Cabinet and a large number of officers of
the government.

The nation was grief-stricken. Especially notice-
able was the deep sympathy every one felt for Mrs.
Harding. Through all this distressing period her
bearing won universal commendation. Her attitude
of sympathy and affection towards Mrs. Coolidge
and myself was an especial consolation to us.

The first Sunday after reaching Washington we
attended services, as we were accustomed to do, at
the First Congregational Church. Although I had
been rather constant in my attendance, I had never
joined the church.

While there had been religious services, there was

THE PRESIDENCY

no organized church society near my boyhood home.
Among other things, I had some fear as to my abil-
ity to set that example which I always felt ought to
denote the life of a church member. I am inclined
to think now that this was a counsel of darkness.

This first service happened to come on commun-
ion day. Our pastor, Dr. Pierce, occupied the pul-
pit, and, as he can under the practice of the Congre-
gational Church, and always does, because of his
own very tolerant attitude, he invited all those who
believed in the Christian faith, whether church mem-
bers or not, to join in partaking of the communion.

For the first time I accepted this invitation, which
I later learned he had observed, and in a few days
without any intimation to me that it was to be done,
considering this to be a sufficient public profession
of my faith, the church voted me into its member-
ship.

This declaration of their belief in me was a great
satisfaction.

Had I been approached in the usual way to join
the church after I became President, I should have
feared that such action might appear to be a pose,

CALVIN COOLIDGE

and should have hesitated to accept. From what
might have been a misguided conception I was thus
saved by some influence which I had not anticipated.

But if I had not voluntarily gone to church and
partaken of communion, this blessing would not
have come to me.

Fate bestows its rewards on those who put them-
selves in the proper attitude to receive them.

During my service in Washington I had seen a
large amount of government business. Peace had
been made with the Central Powers, the tariff re-
vised, the budget system adopted, taxation reduced,
large payments made on the national debt, the Vet-
erans' Bureau organized, important farm legislation
passed, public expenditures greatly decreased, the
differences with Colombia of twenty years' standing
composed, and the Washington Conference had
reached an epoch-making agreement for the prac-
tical limitation of naval armaments.

It would be difficult to find two years of peace-
time history in all the record of our republic that
were marked with more important and far-reaching
accomplishments. From my position as President of

THE PRESIDENCY

the Senate, and in my attendance upon the sessions
of the Cabinet, I thus came into possession of a very
wide knowledge of the details of the government*

In spite of the remarkable record which had al-
ready been made, much remained to be done. While
anything that relates to the functions of the govern-
ment is of enormous interest to me, its economic re-
lations have always had a peculiar fascination for me.

Though these are necessarily predicated on order
and peace, yet our people are so thoroughly law-
abiding and our foreign relations are so happy that
the problem of government action which is to carry
its benefits into the homes of all the people becomes
almost entirely confined to the realm of economics.

My personal experience with business had been
such as comes to a country lawyer.

My official experience with government business
had been of a wide range. As Mayor, I had charge
of the financial affairs of the City of Northampton.
As Lieutenant-Governor, I was Chairman of the
Committee on Finance of the Governor's Council,
which had to authorize every cent of the expend-
itures of the Commonwealth before they could be

[181]

CALVIN COOLIDGE

made. As Governor, I was chargeable with re-
sponsibility both for appropriations and for expend-
itures.

My fundamental idea of both private and public
business came first from my father. He had the
strong New England trait of great repugnance at
seeing anything wasted. He was a generous and
charitable man, but he regarded waste as a moral
wrong.

Wealth comes from industry and from the hard
experience of human toil. To dissipate it in waste
and extravagance is disloyalty to- humanity. This is
by no means a doctrine of parsimony. Both men and
nations should live in accordance with their means
and devote their substance not only to productive
industry, but to the creation of the various forms of
beauty and the pursuit of culture which give adorn-
ments to the art of life.

When I became President it was perfectly appar-
ent that the key by which the way could be opened
to national progress was constructive economy. Only
by the use of that policy could the high rates of tax-
ation, which were retarding our development and

THE PRESIDENCY

prosperity, be diminished, and the enormous burden
of our public debt be reduced.

Without impairing the efficient operation o all
the functions of the government, I have steadily and
without ceasing pressed on in that direction. This
policy has encouraged enterprise, made possible the
highest rate of wages which has ever existed, re-
turned large profits, brought to the homes of the
people the greatest economic benefits they ever en-
joyed, and given to the country as a whole an unex-
ampled era of prosperity. This well-being of my
country has given me the chief satisfaction of my
administration.

One of my most pleasant memories will be the
friendly relations which I have always had with the
representatives of the press in Washington. I shall
always remember that at the conclusion of the first
regular conference I held with them at the White
House office they broke into hearty applause.

I suppose that in answering their questions I had
been fortunate enough to tell them what they wanted
to know in such a way that they could make use of it.

While there have been newspapers which sup-

CALVIN COOLIDGE

ported me, of course there have been others which
opposed me, but they have usually been fair. I shall
always consider it the highest tribute to my admin-
istration that the opposition have based so little of
their criticism on what I have really said and done.

I have often said that there was no cause for feel-
ing disturbed at being misrepresented in the press.
It would be only when they began to say things det-
rimental to me which were true that I should feel
alarm.

Perhaps one of the reasons I have been a target
for so little abuse is because I have tried to refrain
from abusing other people.

The words of the President have an enormous
weight and ought not to be used indiscriminately.

It would be exceedingly easy to set the country
all by the ears and foment hatreds and jealousies,
which, by destroying faith and confidence, would
help nobody and harm everybody. The end would
be the destruction of all progress.

While every one knows that evils exist, there is
yet sufficient good in the people to supply material
for most of the comment that needs to be made.

THE PRESIDENCY

The only way I know to drive out evil from the
country is by the constructive method of filling it
with good* The country is better off tranquilly con-
sidering its blessings and merits, and earnestly striv-
ing to secure more of them, than it would be in nurs-
ing hostile bitterness about its deficiencies and faults.

Notwithstanding the broad general knowledge
which I had of the government, when I reached
Washington I found it necessary to make an exten-
sive survey of the various Departments to acquaint
myself with details. This work had to be done inten-
sively from the first of August to the middle of No-
vember, in order to have the background and knowl-
edge which would enable me to discuss the state of
the Union in my first Message to the Congress*

Although meantime I was pressed with invita-
tions to make speeches, I did not accept any of them.
The country was in mourning and I felt it more ap-
propriate to make my first declaration in my Mes-
sage to the Congress. Of course, I opened the Red
Cross Convention in October, which was an official
function for me as its President.

I was especially fortunate in securing C. Bascom

CALVIN COOLIBGE

Slemp as my Secretary, who had been a member of
the House for many years and had a wide acquaint-
ance with public men and the workings of legisla-
tive machinery. His advice was most helpful. I had
already served with all the members of the Cabinet,
which perhaps was one reason I found them so sym-
pathetic.

Among its membership were men of great ability
who have served their country with a capacity which
I do not believe was ever exceeded by any former
Cabinet officers,

A large amount was learned from George Harvey,
Ambassador to England, concerning the European
situation. He not only had a special aptitude for
gathering and digesting information of that nature,
but had been located at London for two years, where
most of it centered.

I called in a great many people from all the dif-
ferent walks of life over the country. Among the first
to come voluntarily were the veteran President and
the Secretary of the American Federation of Labor,
Mr.Gompers and Mr. Morrison. They brought a
formal resolution expressive of personal regard for

[186]

THE PRESIDENCY

me and assurance of loyal support for the govern-
ment.

Farm organizations and business men, publishers,,
educators, and many others all had to be consulted.

It has been my policy to seek information and ad-
vice wherever I could find it. I have never relied on
any particular person to be my unofficial adviser. I
have let the merits of each case and the soundness of
all advice speak for themselves. My counselors have
been those provided by the Constitution and the law.

Due largely to this careful preparation, my Mes-
sage was well received. No other public utterance
of mine had been given greater approbation.

Most of the praise was sincere. But there were
some quarters in the opposing party where it was
thought it would be good strategy to encourage my
party to nominate me, thinking that it would be easy
to accomplish my defeat. I do not know whether
their judgment was wrong or whether they overdid
the operation, so that, when they stopped speaking
in my praise they found they could not change the
opinion of the people which they had helped to
create.

CALVIN COOLIDGE

I have seen a great many attempts at political
strategy in my day and elaborate plans made to en-
compass the destruction of this or that public man.
I cannot now think of any that did not react with
overwhelming force upon the perpetrators, some-
times destroying them and sometimes giving their
proposed victim an opportunity to demonstrate his
courage, strength and soundness, which increased his
standing with the people and raised him to higher
office.

There is only one form of political strategy in
which I have any confidence, and that is to try tQ do
the right thing and sometimes be able to succeed.

Many people at once began to speak about nomi-
nating me to lead my party in the next campaign.
I did not take any position in relation to their efforts.
Unless the nomination came to me in a natural way,
rather than as the result of an artificial campaign, I
did not feel it would be of any value.

The people ought to make their choice on a great
question of that kind without the influence that
could be exerted by a President in office.

After the favorable reception which was given to
[188]

THE PRESIDENCY

my Message, I stated at the Gridiron Dinner that I
should be willing to be a candidate. The convention
nominated me the next June by a vote which was
practically unanimous.

With the exception o the occasion of my notifi-
cation, I did not attend any partisan meetings or
make any purely political speeches during the cam-
paign. I spoke several times at the dedication of a
monument, the observance of the anniversary of an
historic event, at a meeting of some commercial
body, or before some religious gathering. The cam-
paign was magnificently managed by William M.
Butler and as it progressed the final result became
more and more apparent.

My own participation was delayed by the death
of my son Calvin, which occurred on the seventh of
July. He was a boy of much promise, proficient in
his studies, with a scholarly mind, who had just
turned sixteen.

He had a remarkable insight into things*

The day I became President he had just started
to work in a tobacco field. When one of his fellow
laborers said to him, "If my father was President I

CALVIN COOLIDGE

would not work in a tobacco field/ ' Calvin replied,
"If my father were your father, you would."

After he was gone some one sent us a letter he had
written about the same time to a young man who
had congratulated him on being the first boy ' in the
land. To this he had replied that he had done noth-
ing, and so did not merit the title, which should go
to c 'some boy who had distinguished himself through
his own actions/'

We do not know what might have happened to
him under other circumstances, but if I had not been
President he would not have raised a blister on his
toe, which resulted in blood poisoning, playing lawn
tennis in the South Grounds.

In his suffering he was asking me to make him
well. I could not.

When he went the power and the glory of the
Presidency went with him*

The ways of Providence are often beyond our
understanding. It seemed to me that the world had
need of the work that it was probable he could do.

I do not know why such a price was exacted for
occupying the White House.

[190]

GRACE GOODHUE
Before her marriage to Calvin Coolidge

THE PRESIDENCY

Sustained by the great outpouring of sympathy
from all over the nation, my wife and I bowed to the
Supreme Will and with such courage as we had went
on in the discharge of our duties.

In less than two years my father followed him.

At his advanced age he had overtaxed his strength
receiving the thousands of visitors who went to my
old home at Plymouth. It was all a great satisfaction
to him and he would not have had it otherwise.

When I was there and visitors were kept from the
house for a short period, he would be really dis-
tressed in the thought that they could not see all they
wished and he would go out where they were him-
self and mingle among them.

I knew for some weeks that he was passing his
last days. I sent to bring him to Washington, but he
clung to his old home.

It was a sore trial not to be able to be with him,
but I had to leave him where he most wished to be.
When his doctors advised me that he could survive
only a short time I started to visit him, but he sank
to rest while I was on my way.

For my personal contact with him during his last

CALVIN COOLIDGE

months I had to resort to the poor substitute of the
telephone. When I reached home he was gone.
It costs a great deal to be President.

SOME OF THE DUTIES OF
THE PRESIDENT

CHAPTER SIX
SOME OF THE DUTIES OF THE PRESIDENT

A recall the mounting events of the years I
spent in Washington, I appreciate how im-
possible it is to convey an adequate reali-
zation of the office of President. A few short par-
agraphs in the Constitution of the United States
describe all his fundamental duties. Various laws
passed over a period of nearly a century and a half
have supplemented his authority. All of his actions
can be analyzed. All of his goings and comings can
be recited. The details of his daily life can be made
known. The effect of his policies on his own country
and on the world at large can be estimated. His
methods of work, his associates, his place of abode,
can all be described. But the relationship created by
all these and more, which constitutes the magnitude
of the office, does not yield to definition. Like the
glory of a morning sunrise, it can only be experi-
enced it can not be told.

CALVIN COOLIDGE

In the discharge of the duties of the office there
is one rule of action more important than all others,
It consists in never doing anything that some one
else can do for you. Like many other good rules, it
is proven by its exceptions. But it indicates a course
that should be very strictly followed in order to pre-
vent being so entirely devoted to trifling details that
there will be little opportunity to give the necessary
consideration to policies of larger importance.

Like some other rules, this one has an important
corollary which must be carefully observed in order
to secure success. It is not sufficient to entrust details
to some one else. They must be entrusted to some
one who is competent. The Presidency is primarily
an executive office. It is placed at the apex of our
system of government. It is a place of last resort to
which all questions are brought that others have not
been able to answer. The ideal way for it to function
is to assign to the various positions men of sufficient
ability so that they can solve all the problems that
arise under their jurisdiction. If there is a trouble-
some situation in Nicaragua, a General McCoy can
manage it. If we have differences with Mexico, a

PRESIDENTIAL DUTIES

Morrow can compose them. If there is unrest in the
Philippines, a Stimson can quiet them. About a
dozen able, courageous, reliable and experienced men
in the House and the Senate can reduce the problem
of legislation almost to a vanishing point.

While it is wise for the President to get all the
competent advice possible, final judgments are nec-
essarily his own. No one can share with him the re-
sponsibility for them. No one can make his deci-
sions for him. He stands at the center of things where
no one else can stand. If others make mistakes, they
can be relieved, and oftentimes a remedy can be pro-
vided. But he can not retire. His decisions are final
and usually irreparable. This constitutes the appal-
ling burden of his office. Not only the welfare of
120,000,000 of his countrymen, but oftentimes the
peaceful relations of the world are entrusted to his
keeping. At the turn of his hand the guns of an
enormous fleet would go into action anywhere in the
world, carrying the iron might of death and destruc-
tion. His appointment confers the power to admin-
ister justice, inflict criminal penalties, declare acts of
state legislatures and of the Congress void, and sit in

CALVIN COOLIDGE

judgment over the very life of the nation. Practically
all the civil and military authorities of the govern-
ment, except the Congress and the courts, hold their
office at his discretion. He appoints, and he can
remove. The billions of dollars of government reve-
nue are collected and expended under his direction.
The Congress makes the laws, but it is the President
who causes them to be executed. A power so vast in
its implications has never been conferred upon any
ruling sovereign.

Yet the President exercises his authority in accord-
ance with the Constitution and the law. He is truly
the agent of the people, performing such functions
as they have entrusted to him. The Constitution spe-
cifically vests him with the executive power. Some
Presidents have seemed to interpret that as an author-
ization to take any action which the Constitution,
or perhaps the law, does not specifically prohibit.
Others have considered that their powers extended
only to such acts as were specifically authorized by
the Constitution and the statutes. This has always
seemed to me to be a hypothetical question, which it
would be idle to attempt to determine in advance. It

PRESIDENTIAL DUTIES

would appear to be the better practice to wait to de-
cide each question on its merits as it arises. Jefferson
is said to have entertained the opinion that there was
no constitutional warrant for enlarging the territory
of the United States, but when the actual facts con-
fronted him he did not hesitate to negotiate the Lou-
isiana Purchase. For all ordinary occasions the spe-
cific powers assigned to the President will be found
sufficient to provide for the welfare of the country.
That is all he needs.

All situations that arise are likely to be simplified,
and many of them completely solved, by an appli-
cation of the Constitution and the law. If what they
require to be done, is done, there is no opportunity
for criticism, and it would be seldom that anything
better could be devised. A Commission once came
to me with a proposal for adopting rules to regulate
the conduct of its members. As they were evenly di-
vided, each side wished me to decide against the
other. They did this because, while it is always the
nature of a Commissioner to claim that he is entirely
independent of the President, he would usually wel-
come Presidential interference with any other Com-

1*99]

CALVIN COOLIDGE

missioner who does not agree with him. In this case
it occurred to me that the Department o Justice
should ascertain what the statute setting up this
Commission required under the circumstances. A
reference to the law disclosed that the Congress had
specified the qualifications of the members of the
Commission and that they could not by rule either
enlarge or diminish the power of their individual
members. So their problem was solved like many
others by simply finding out what the law required.
Every day of the Presidential life is crowded with
activities. When people not accustomed to Wash-
ington came to the office, or when I met them on
some special occasion, they often remarked that it
seemed to be my busy day, to which my stock reply
came to be that all days were busy and there was
little difference among them. It was my custom to
be out of bed about six-thirty, except in the darkest
mornings of winter. One of the doormen at the
White House was an excellent barber, but I always
preferred to shave myself with old-fashioned razors,
which I knew how to keep in good condition. It was
my intention to take a short walk before breakfast,

[200]

PRESIDENTIAL DUTIES

which Mrs. Coolidge and I ate together in our rooms.
For me there was fruit and about one-half cup of
coff ee, with a home-made cereal made from boiling
together two parts of unground wheat with one part
of rye. To this was added a roll and a strip of bacon,
which went mostly to our dogs.

Soon after eight found me dictating in the White
House library in preparation for some public utter-
ance. This would go on for more than an hour, after
which I began to receive callers at the office. Most
of these came by appointment, but in addition to the
average of six to eight who were listed there would
be as many more from my Cabinet and the Con-
gress, to whom I was always accessible. Each one
came to me with a different problem requiring my
decision, which was usually made at once. About
twelve-fifteen those began to be brought in who were
to be somewhat formally presented. At twelve-thirty
the doors were opened, and a long line passed by
who wished merely to shake hands with the Presi-
dent. On one occasion I shook hands with nineteen
hundred in thirty-four minutes, which is probably
my record. Instead of a burden, it was a pleasure and

[201]

CALVIN COOLIDGE

a relief to meet people in that way and listen to their
greeting, which was often a benediction. It was at
this same hour that the numerous groups assembled
in the South Grounds, where I joined them for the
photographs used for news purposes and permanent
mementoes of their White House visit.

Lunch came at one o'clock, at which we usually
had guests. It made an opportunity for giving our
friends a little more attention than could be extended
through a mere handshake. About an hour was de-
voted to rest before returning to the office, where the
afternoon was reserved for attention to the immense
number of documents which pass over the desk of
the President. These were all cleaned up each day.
Before dinner another walk was in order, followed
by exercises on some of the vibrating machines kept
in my room. We gathered at the dinner table at
seven o'clock and within three-quarters of an hour
work would be resumed with my stenographer to
continue until about ten o'clock.

The White House offices are under the direction
of the Secretary to the President. They are the center
of activities which are world-wide. Reports come in

[202]

PRESIDENTIAL DUTIES

daily from heads of departments, from distant pos-
sessions, and from foreign diplomats and consular
agents scattered all over the earth. A mass of corre-
spondence, from the Congress, the officials of the
states, and the general public, is constantly being re-
ceived. All of this often reaches two thousand pieces
in a day. Very much of it is sent at once to the De-
partment to which it refers, from which an answer
is sent direct to the writer. Other parts are sent to
different members of the office staff ; and some is laid
before the President. While I signed many letters, I
did not dictate many. After indicating the nature of
the reply, it was usually put into form by some of the
secretaries, A great many photographs were sent in
to be inscribed, and a constant stream of autographs
went to all who wrote for them.

At ten-thirty on Tuesdays and Fridays the Cabi-
net meetings were held. These were always very in-
formal. Each member was asked if he had any prob-
lem he wished to lay before the President. When I
first attended with President Harding at the begin-
ning of a new administration these were rather nu-
merous. Later, they decreased, as each member felt

[203]

CALVIN COOLIDGE

better able to solve his own problems. After entire
freedom of discussion, but always without a vote of
any kind, I was accustomed to announce what the
decision should be. There never ought to be and
never were marked differences of opinion in my
Cabinet. As their duties were not to advise each
other, but to advise the President, they could not
disagree among themselves. I rarely failed to accept
their recommendations. Sometimes they wished for
larger appropriations than the state of the Treasury
warranted, but they all cooperated most sincerely in
the policy of economy and were content with such
funds as I could assign to them.

The Secretary of State is the agency through
which the President exercises his constitutional au-
thority to deal with foreign relations. As this sub-
ject is a matter of constant interchange, he makes no
annual report upon it. Other Cabinet officers make
annual reports to the President on the whole conduct
of their departments, which he transmits to the Con-
gress. All the intercourse with foreign governments
is carried on through the Secretary of State, and a
national of a foreign country can not be received by

[204]

PRESIDENTIAL DUTIES

the President unless the accredited diplomatic rep-
resentative of his government has made an appoint-
ment for him through the State Department.

All foreign approaches to the President are through
this Department. When an Ambassador or Minister
is to present his credentials, the Undersecretary of
State brings him to the White House and escorts
him to the Green Room. After the President has
taken his position standing in the Blue Room ac-
companied by his aides, the diplomat is then brought
before him. He presents his letters with a short for-
mal statement, to which the President responds in
kind. When the mutual expressions of friendly in-
terest and good will have been exchanged, the ac-
companying staff of the diplomat is brought in for
presentation, after which he retires. Except when
foreign officials are presented for an audience in this
way, the etiquette of the White House requires that
those who are present should remain until the Presi-
dent and the Mistress of the White House retire
from the room.

A competent man is assigned from the State De-
partment to have the management of the White

[205]

CALVIN COOLIDGE

House official social function. He has under him a
considerable staff located in one of the basement
rooms, known as the Social Bureau, They keep a
careful list of all those who leave cards and of the
officials who should be invited to receptions, which
is constantly revised to meet changing conditions*
While the President has supervision over all these
functions, the most effective way to deal with them
is to provide a capable Mistress of the White House,
I have often been complimented on the choice which
I made nearly twenty-five years ago. These func-
tions were so much in the hands of Mrs. Coolidge
that oftentimes I did not know what guests were to
be present until I met them in the Blue Room just
before going in to dinner.

These social functions are almost as much a part
of the life of official Washington as a session of the
Congress or a term of the Supreme Court* The sea-
son opens with the Cabinet dinner. Following this
come the Diplomatic reception,, the Diplomatic din-
ner, then the Judicial reception, the Supreme Court
dinner, then the Congressional reception and the
Speaker's dinner, with the last reception of the year

[206]

PRESIDENTIAL DUTIES

tendered to the Army and Navy. About fifty guests
assemble at the dinners, except that given to the
diplomats, when the presence of the Ambassadors
or Ministers, with their wives, of all countries
represented in Washington brings the number up
to about ninety. The Marine Band is in attendance
on all these occasions. Following the dinners a short
musical recital by famous artists is given in the
East Room, to which many additional guests are
invited.

A reception is a particularly colorful event. About
thirty-five hundred invitations are issued. When the
guests are assembled the President and his wife, pre-
ceded by his aides and followed by the Cabinet and
his Secretary and their wives, go down the main
staircase, pausing for a moment to receive the mili-
tary salute of the band, and then pass to the Blue
Room where the receptions are always held. When
the foreign diplomats are present in their official
dress, the scene is very brilliant. After all the pres-
entations have been made, the President and his
retinue return to the second floor. Immediately after
this there is dancing in the East Room to furnish en*

CALVIN COOLIDGE

tertainment while the long line of cars comes up to
take the guests home.

Whenever the prominent officials o foreign gov-
ernments visit Washington, it is customary to re-
ceive them at a luncheon or dinner at the White
House. When the Prince of Wales was here in 1 924
we were in mourning, due to the loss of our son, so
that he lunched with us informally without any
other invited guests. When the Queen of Rumania
came to Washington she was entertained at dinner.
There have also been Princes of the reigning house
of Japan and of Sweden, the Premier of France, the
Governor General of Canada, the Presidents of the
Irish Free State, of Cuba, and of Mexico, who have
been received and entertained in some manner.
Whenever an official gathering of foreigners, like
the Panama Conference, convenes in Washington,
the President and the Mistress of the White House
tender them a reception and a dinner.

Besides these formal social gatherings, there were
various afternoon teas and musicales, which I some-
times neglected, and usually one or two garden par-
ties held in the South Grounds, one of which was for

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the disabled veterans who were patients in Washing-
ton hospitals. These parties were accompanied with
band music and light refreshments, which always
seemed to be appreciated by the veterans.

My personal social functions consisted of the
White House breakfasts, which were attended by
fifteen to twenty-five members of the House and
Senate and others, who gathered around my table at
eight-thirty o'clock in the morning to partake of a
meal which ended with wheat cakes and Vermont
maple syrup. During the last session of the Con-
gress I invited all the members of the Senate, all the
chairmen and ranking Democratic members of the
committees of the House, and finally had breakfast
with the officers of both houses of the Congress. Al-
though we did not undertake to discuss matters of
public business at these breakfasts, they were pro-
ductive of a spirit of good fellowship which was no
doubt a helpful influence to the transaction of pub-
lic business.

In addition to these White House events, the
President and his wife go out to twelve official din-
ners. They begin with the Vice-President, go on

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among the ten members of the Cabinet, and close
with the Speaker of the House, Aside from these, it
is not customary for the President to accept the hos-
pitality of any individuals. This is not from any de-
sire on his part to be exclusive, but rather arises from
an application of the principle of equality. The
number of days in his term of office is limited. If he
gave up all the time when he is not otherwise neces-
sarily engaged, it is doubtful if he could find fifty
evenings in a year when he could accept invitations.
At once he would be confronted with the necessity
of deciding which to accept and which to reject. If
he served eight years, he could only touch the fringe
of official Washington, even if he chose to disregard
all the balance of the country. The only escape from
an otherwise impossible situation is to observe the
rule of refusing all social invitations.

The President stands at the head of all official and
social rank in the nation. As he is Commander-in-
Chief of the Army and Navy, all their officers are
his subordinates. As he is the head of the govern-
ment, he outranks all other public officials. As the
first citizen, he is placed at the top of the social scale.

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PRESIDENTIAL DUTIES

Wherever he goes, whenever he appears, he must be
assigned the place of honor. It follows from this that
he can not consistently attend a dinner or any other
function given by some one else in honor of any
other person. He can have ceremonies of his own at
the White House, or outside, in which he recognizes
the merit of others and bestows upon them appro-
priate honors. But his participation in any other oc-
casion of such a nature is confined to sending an
appropriate message.

It would make great confusion in all White House
relations unless the rules of procedure were observed.
If this were not done, the most ambitious and in-
truding would seize the place of honor, or it would
be bestowed by favor. In both cases all official posi-
tion would be ignored. In its working out, there-
fore, the adoption of rules which take no account
of persons, but simply apply to places, is the only
method which is in harmony with our spirit of
equality. In its application it gives us more com-
pletely a government of laws and not of men.

As he is head of the government, charged with
making appointments, and clothed with the execu-

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tivc power, the President has a certain responsibil-
ity for the conduct of all departments, commissions
and independent bureaus. While I was willing to
advise with any of these officers and give them any
assistance in my power, I always felt they should
make their own decisions and rarely volunteered any
advice. Many applications are made requesting the
President to seek to influence these bodies, and such
applications were usually transmitted to them for
their information without comment. Wherever they
exercise judicial functions, I always felt that some
impropriety might attach to any suggestions from
me. The parties before them are entitled to a fair
trial on the merits of their case and to have judg-
ment rendered by those to whom both sides have
presented their evidence. If some one on the outside
undertook to interfere, even if grave injustice was
not done, the integrity of a commission which comes
from a knowledge that it can be relied on to exercise
its own independent judgment would be very much
impaired,

I never hesitated to ask commissions to speed up
their work and get their business done, but if they

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PRESIDENTIAL DUTIES

were not doing it correctly my remedy would be to
supplant them with those who I thought would do
better. At one time the Shipping Board adopted a
resolution declaring their independence of the Presi-
dent and claiming they were responsible solely to the
Congress. As I always considered they had a rather
impossible task, I doubted whether any one could be
very successful in its performance. If they wished to
try to relieve me of its responsibility, I had no per-
sonal objection and would probably be saved from
considerable criticism. But they found they could
not carry on their work without the support of the
President, so that some of them resigned and the re-
mainder reestablished their contact with the White
House, which was always open to them.

The practice which I followed in my relations
with commissions and in the recognition of rank
has been long established. President Jefferson seems
to have entertained the opinion that even the Su-
preme Court should be influenced by his wishes and
that failing in this a recalcitrant judge should be im-
peached by a complaisant Congress. This brought
him into a sharp conflict with John Marshall, who

CALVIN COOLIDGE

resisted any encroachment upon the independence
of the Court. In this controversy the position of
Marshall has been vindicated. It is also said that at
some of his official dinners President Jefferson left
all his guests to the confusion of taking whatever
seat they could find at his table. But this method did
not survive the test of history. In spite of all his
greatness, any one who had as many ideas as Jeffer-
son was bound to find that some of them would not
work. But this does not detract from the wisdom of
his faith in the people and his constant insistence
that they be left to manage their own affairs. His
opposition to bureaucracy will bear careful analysis,,
and the country could stand a great deal more of its
application. The trouble with us is that we talk about
Jefferson but do not follow him. In his theory that
the people should manage their government, and not
be managed by it, he was everlastingly right.

Tradition and custom, it will be seen, are often-
times determining factors in the Presidential office,
as they are in all other walks of life. This is not be-
cause they are arbitrary or artificial, but because long
experience has demonstrated that they are the best

PRESIDENTIAL DUTIES

methods of dealing with human affairs. Things are
done in a certain way after many repetitions show
that way causes the least friction and is most likely
to bring the desired result. While there are times
when the people might enjoy the spectacular, in the
end they will only be satisfied with accomplishments.
The President gets the best advice he can find, uses
the best judgment at his command, and leaves the
event in the hands of Providence.

Everything that the President does potentially at
least is of such great importance that he must be con-
stantly on guard. This applies not only to himself,
but to everybody about him. Not only in all his offi-
cial actions, but in all his social intercourse, and even
in his recreation and repose, he is constantly watched
by a multitude of eyes to determine if there is any-
thing unusual, extraordinary, or irregular, which can
be set down in praise or in blame. Oftentimes tri-
fling incidents, some insignificant action, an unfor-
tunate phrase in an address, an injudicious letter, a
lack of patience towards some one who presents an
impossible proposition, too much attention to one
person, or too little courtesy towards another, become

CALVIN COOLIDGE

magnified into the sensation of the hour. While such
events finally sink into their proper place in history
as too small for consideration, if they occur fre-
quently they create an atmosphere of distraction that
might seriously interfere with the conduct of public
business which is really important.

It was my desire to maintain about the White
House as far as possible an attitude of simplicity and
not engage in anything that had an air of pretentious
display* That was my conception of the great office.
It carries sufficient power within itself, so that it
does not require any of the outward trappings of
pomp and splendor for the purpose of creating an
impression. It has a dignity of its own which makes
it self-sufficient* Of course, there should be proper
formality, and personal relations should be con-
ducted at all times with decorum and dignity, and
in accordance with the best traditions of polite so-
ciety. But there is no need of theatricals.

But, however much he may deplore it, the Presi-
dent ceases to be an ordinary citizen* In order to
function at all he has to be surrounded with many
safeguards. If these were removed for only a short

PRESIDENTIAL DUTIES

time, he would be overwhelmed by the people who
would surge in upon him. In traveling it would be
agreeable to me to use the regular trains which are
open to the public. I have done so once or twice.
But I found it made great difficulty for the railroads.
They reported that it was unsafe, because they could
not take the necessary precautions. It therefore
seemed best to run a second section, following a reg-
ular train, for the exclusive use of the President and
his party. While the facilities of a private car have
always been offered,! think they have only been used
once, when one was needed for the better comfort of
Mrs. Coolidge during her illness. Although I have
not been given to much travel during my term of
office, it has been sufficient, so that I am convinced
the government should own a private car for the use
of the President when he leaves Washington. The
pressure on him is so great, the responsibilities are so
heavy, that it is wise public policy in order to secure
his best services to provide him with such ample fa-
cilities that he will be relieved as far as possible from
all physical inconveniences.

It is not generally understood how much detail is

CALVIN COOLIDGE

involved in any journey of the President. One or
two secret service men must go to the destination
several days in advance. His line of travel and every
street and location which he is to visit are carefully
examined. The order of ceremonies has to be sub-
mitted for approval. Oftentimes the local police are
inadequate, so that it is necessary to use some of the
military or naval forces to assist them. Not only his
aides and his personal physician, but also secret serv-
ice men, some of his office force, and house servants,
have to be in attendance. Quarters must also be pro-
vided for a large retinue of newspaper reporters and
camera men who follow him upon all occasions.
Every switch that he goes over is spiked down. Every
freight train that he passes is stopped and every pas-
senger train slowed down to ten miles per hour.
While all of this proceeds smoothly, it requires care-
ful attention to a great variety of details.

It has never been my practice to speak from rear
platforms. The confusion is so great that few people
could hear and it does not seem to me very dignified.
When the President speaks it ought to be an event.
The excuse for such appearances which formerly ex-

PRESIDENTIAL DUTIES

isted has been eliminated by the coming of the radio.
It is so often that the President is on the air that al-
most any one who wishes has ample opportunity to
hear his voice. It has seemed more appropriate for
Mrs. Coolidge and me to appear at the rear of the
train where the people could see us. About the only
time that I have spoken was at Bennington in Sep-
tember of 1928, where I expressed my affection and
respect for the people of the state of Vermont, as I
was passing through that town on my way back to
Washington. I found that the love I had for the
hills where I was born touched a responsive chord in
the heart of the whole nation.

One of the most appalling trials which confront
a President is the perpetual clamor for public utter-
ances. Invitations are constant and pressing. They
come by wire, by mail, and by delegations. No event
of importance is celebrated anywhere in the United
States without inviting him to come to deliver an
oration. When others are enjoying a holiday, he is
expected to make a public appearance in order to
entertain and instruct by a formal address. There are
a few public statements that he does not deliver in

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person, like proclamations, and messages, which go
to the Congress, either reporting his views on the
state of the Union in his Anitual Message or giving
his reasons for rejecting legislation in a veto. These
productions vary in length. My Annual Message
would be about twelve thousand words* My speeches
would average a little over three thousand words. In
the course of a year the entire number reaches about
twenty, which probably represents an output of at
least seventy-five thousand words.

This kind of work is very exacting. It requires
the most laborious and extended research and study,
and the most careful and painstaking thought, Each
word has to be weighed in the realization that it is
a Presidential utterance which will be dissected at
home and abroad to discover its outward meaning
and any possible hidden implications. Before it is
finished it is thoroughly examined by one or two of
my staff, and oftentimes by a member of the Cabi-
net. It-is not difficult for me to deliver an address*
The difficulty lies in its preparation. This is an im-
portant part of the work of a President which he can
not escape. It is inherent in the office.

22

PRESIDENTIAL DUTIES

A great many presents come to the White House,
which are all cherished, not so much for their in-
trinsic value as because they are tokens of esteem
and affection. Almost everything that can be eaten
comes. We always know what to do with that. But
some of the pets that are offered us are more of a
problem, I have a beautiful black-haired bear that
was brought all the way from Mexico in a truck, and
a pair of live lion cubs now grown up, and a small
species of hippopotamus which came from South
Africa. These and other animals and birds have been
placed in the zoological quarters in Rock Creek
Park* We always had more dogs than we could take
care of. My favorites were the white collies, which
became so much associated with me that they are
enshrined in my bookplate, where they will live as
long as our country endures. One of them, Prudence
Prim, was especially attached to Mrs. Coolidge. We
lost her in the Black Hills. She lies out there in the
shadow of Bear Butte where the Indians told me the
Great Spirit came to commune with his children.
One was my companion > Rob Roy. He was a stately
gentleman of great courage and fidelity* He loved

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CALVIN COOLIDGE

to bark from the second-story windows and around
the South Grounds, Nights he remained in my room
and afternoons went with me to the office. His es-
pecial delight was to ride with me in the boats when
I went fishing. So although I know he would bark
for joy as the grim boatman ferried him across the
dark waters of the Styx, yet his going left me lonely
on the hither shore.

As I left office I realized that the more 1 had seen
of the workings of the Federal government the more
respect I came to have for it. It is carried on by hun-
dreds of thousands of people. Some prove incompe-
tent. A very few are tempted to become disloyal to
their trust. But the great rank and file of them are
of good ability, conscientious, and faithful public
servants. While some are paid more than they would
earn in private life, there are great throngs who are
serving at a distinct personal sacrifice. Among the
higher officials this is almost always true. The serv-
ice they perform entitles them to approbation and
honor.

The Congress has sometimes been a sore trial to *
Presidents. I did not find it so in my case. Among

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PRESIDENTIAL DUTIES

them were men of wonderful ability and veteran ex-
perience. I think they made their decisions with an
honest purpose to serve their country. The member-
ship of the Senate changed very much by reason of
those who sacrificed themselves for public duty. Of
all public officials with whom I have ever been
acquainted, *the work of a Senator of the United
States is by far the most laborious. About twenty
of them died during the eight years I was in Wash-
ington,

Sometimes it would seem for a day that either the
House or the Senate had taken some unwise action,
but if it was not corrected on the floor where it oc-
curred it was usually remedied in the other chamber.
I always found the members of both parties willing
to confer with me and disposed to treat my recom-
mendations fairly* Most of the differences could be
adjusted by personal discussion* Sometimes I made
an appeal direct to the country by stating my posi-
tion at the newspaper conferences* I adopted that
course in relation to the Mississippi Flood Control
Bill As it passed the Senate it appeared to be much
too extravagant in its rule of damages and its pro-

CALVIN COOLIDGE

posed remedy. The press began a vigorous discus-
sion of the subject, which caused the House greatly
to modify the bill, and in conference a measure that
was entirely fair and moderate was adopted. On other
occasions I appealed to the country more privately,
enlisting the influence of labor and trade organiza-
tions upon the Congress in behalf of some measures
in which I was interested. That was done in the case
of the tax bill of 1928. As it passed the House, the
reductions were so large that the revenue necessary
to meet the public expenses would not have been fur-
nished. By quietly making this known to the Senate,
and enlisting support for that position among their
constituents, it was possible to secure such modifica-
tion of the measure that it could be adopted without
greatly endangering the revenue.

But a President cannot, with success, constantly
appeal to the country. After a time he will get no
response. The people have their own affairs to look
after and can not give much attention to what the
Congress is doing. If he takes a position, and stands
by it, ultimately it will be adopted. Most of the pol-
icies set out in my first Annual Message have become

PRESIDENTIAL DUTIES

law, but it took several years to get action on some
of them.

One of the most perplexing and at the same time
most important functions of the President is the
making of appointments. In some few cases he acts
alone, but usually they are made with the advice and
consent of the Senate. It is the practice to consult
Senators of his own party before making an appoint-
ment from their state. In choosing persons for serv-
ice over the whole or any considerable portion of a
single state, it is customary to rely almost entirely on
the party Senators from that state for recommen-
dations. It is not possible to find men who are per-
fect. Selection always has to be limited to human
beings, whatever choice is made. It is therefore al-
ways possible to point out defects. The supposition
that no one should be appointed who has had experi-
ence in the field which he is to supervise is extremely
detrimental to the public service. An Interstate Com-
merce Commissioner is much better qualified, if he
knows something about transportation* A Federal
Trade Commissioner can render much better service
if he has had a legal practice which extended into

[3*5]

CALVIN COOLIDCE

large business transactions. The assertion of those
who contend that persons accepting a government
appointment would betray their trust in favor of
former associates can be understood only on the sup-
position that those who make it feel that their own
tenure of public office is for the purpose of benefit-
ing themselves and their friends.

Every one knows that where the treasure is, there
will the heart be also. When a man has invested his
personal interest and reputation in the conduct of a
public office, if he goes wrong it will not be because
of former relations, but because he is a bad man. The
same interests that reached him would reach any bad
man, irrespective of former life history. What we
need in appointive positions is men of knowledge
and experience who have sufficient character to re-
sist temptations. If that standard is maintained, we
need not be concerned about their former activities*
If it is not maintained, all the restrictions on their
past employment that can be conceived will be o
no avail.

The more experience I have had in making ap-
pointments, the more I am convinced that attempts

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PRESIDENTIAL DUTIES

to put limitations on the appointing power are a mis-
take. It should be possible to choose a well qualified
person wherever he can be found. When restrictions
are placed on residence, occupation, or profession, it
almost always happens that some one is found who
is universally admitted to be the best qualified, but
who is eliminated by the artificial specifications. So
long as the Senate has the power to reject nomina-
tions, there is little danger that a President would
abuse his authority if he were given the largest pos-
sible freedom in his choices. The public service
would be improved if all vacancies were filled by
simply appointing the best ability and character that
can be found. That is what is done in private busi-
ness. The adoption of any other course handicaps the
government in all its operations.

In determining upon all his actions, however, the
President has to remember that he is dealing with
two different minds. One is the mind of the coun-
try, largely intent upon its own personal affairs, and,
while not greatly interested in the government,, yet
desirous of seeing it conducted in an orderly and
dignified manner for the advancement of the public

CALVIN COOLIDGE

welfare. Those who compose this mind wish to have
the country prosperous and are opposed to unjust
taxation and public extravagance. At the same time
they have a patriotic pride which moves them with
so great a desire to see things well done that they are
willing to pay for it. They gladly contribute their
money to place the United States in the lead. In gen-
eral, they represent the public opinion of the land.

But they are unorganized, formless, and inarticu-
late. Against a compact and well drilled minority
they do not appear to be very effective. They are
nevertheless the great power in our government. I
have constantly appealed to them and have seldom
failed in enlisting their support. They are the court
of last resort and their decisions are final.

They are, however, the indirect rather than the
direct power. The immediate authority with which
the President has to deal is vested in the political
mind. In order to get things done he has to work
through that agency. Some of our Presidents have
appeared to lack comprehension of the political
mind. Although I have been associated with it for
many years, I always found difficulty in understand-

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PRESIDENTIAL DUTIES

ing it. It is a strange mixture of vanity and timidity,
of an obsequious attitude at one time and a delusion
of grandeur at another time, of the most selfish pre-
ferment combined with the most sacrificing patriot-
ism. The political mind is the product of men in
public life who have been twice spoiled. They have
been spoiled with praise and they have been spoiled
with abuse. With them nothing is natural, every-
thing is artificial. A few rare souls escape these in-
fluences and maintain a vision and a judgment that
are unimpaired. They are a great comfort to every
President and a great service to their country. But
they are not sufficient in number so that the public
business can be transacted like a private business.

It is because in their hours of timidity the Con-
gress becomes subservient to the importunities of
organized minorities that the President comes more
and more to stand as the champion of the rights of
the whole country. Organizing such minorities has
come to be a well-recognized industry at Washing-
ton, They are oftentimes led by persons of great
ability, who display much skill in bringing their in-
fluences to bear on the Congress* They have ways of

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CALVIN COOLIDGE

securing newspaper publicity, deluging Senators and
Representatives with petitions and overwhelming
them with imprecations that are oftentimes decisive
in securing the passage of bills. While much of this
legislation is not entirely bad, almost all of it is ex-
cessively expensive. If it were not for the rules of the
House and the veto power of the President, within
two years these activities would double the cost of
the government*

Under our system the President is not only the
head of the government, but is also the head of his
party. The last twenty years have witnessed a decline
in party spirit and a distinct weakening in party
loyalty. While an independent attitude on the part of
the citizen is not without a certain public advantage,
yet it is necessary under our form of government to
have political parties. Unless some one is a partisan,
no one can be an independent. The Congress is or-
ganized entirely in accordance with party policy,
The parties appeal to the voters in behalf of their
platforms. The people make their choice on those
issues. Unless those who are elected on the same
party platform associate themselves together to carry

PRESIDENTIAL DUTIES

out its provisions, the election becomes a mockery.
The independent voter who has joined with others in
placing a party nominee in office finds his efforts were
all in vain, if the person he helps elect refuses or
neglects to keep the platform pledges of his party.

Many occasions arise in the Congress when party
lines are very properly disregarded, but if there is to
be a reasonable government proceeding in accord-
ance with the express mandate of the people, and
not merely at the whim of those who happen to be
victorious at the polls, on all the larger and impor-
tant issues there must be party solidarity. It is the
business of the President as party leader to do the
best he can to see that the declared party platform
purposes are translated into legislative and adminis-
trative action. Oftentimes I secured support from
those without my party and had opposition from
those within my party, in attempting to keep my
platform pledges*

Such a condition is entirely anomalous* It leaves
the President as the sole repository of party respon-
sibility* But it is one of the reasons that the Presi-
dential office has grown in popular estimation and

CALVIN COOLIDGE

favor, while the Congress has declined. The country
feels that the President is willing to assume respon-
sibility, while his party in the Congress is not. I have
never felt it was my duty to attempt to coerce Sena-
tors or Representatives, or to take reprisals. The
people sent them to Washington. I felt I had dis-
charged my duty when I had done the best I could
with them- In this way I avoided almost entirely a
personal opposition, which I think was of more value
to the country than to attempt to prevail through
arousing personal fear.

Under our system it ought to be remembered that
the power to initiate policies has to be centralized
somewhere. Unless the party leaders exercising it
can depend on loyalty and organization support, the
party in which it is reposed will become entirely in-
effective. A party which is ineffective will soon be
discarded. If a party is to endure as a serviceable in-,
strument of government for the country, it must pos-
sess and display a healthy spirit of party loyalty- Such
a manifestation in the Congress would do more than
anything else to rehabilitate it in the esteem and con-
fidence of the country.

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PRESIDENTIAL DUTIES

It is natural for man to seek power. It was be-
cause of this trait of human nature that the founders
of our institutions provided a system of checks and
balances. They placed all their public officers under
constitutional limitations. They had little fear of the
courts and were inclined to regard legislative bodies
as the natural champions of their liberties. They
were very apprehensive that the executive might seek
to exercise arbitrary powers. Under our Constitu-
tion such fears seldom have been well founded. The
President has tended to become the champion of the
people because he is held solely responsible for his
acts , while in the Congress where responsibility is
divided it has developed that there is much greater
danger of arbitrary action*

It has therefore become increasingly imperative
that the President should resist any encroachment
upon his constitutional powers. One of the most im-
portant of these is the power of appointment. The
Constitution provides that he shall nominate, and
by and with the advice and consent of the Senate
appoint, A constant pressure is exerted by the Sen-
ators to make their own nominations and the Con-

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CALVIN COOLIDGE

gress is constantly proposing laws which undertake
to deprive the President of the appointive power.
Different departments and bureaus are frequently
supporting measures that would make them self -per-
petuating bodies to which no appointments could
be made that they did not originate. While I have
always sought cooperation and advice, I have like-
wise resisted these efforts, sometimes by refusing to
adopt recommendations and sometimes by the exer-
cise of the veto power. One of the farm relief bills,
and later a public health measure, had these clearly
unconstitutional limitations on the power of appoint-
ment. In the defense of the rights and liberties of
the people it is necessary for the President to resist
all encroachments upon his lawful authority.

All of these trials and encouragements come to
each President. It is impossible to explain them.
Even after passing through the Presidential office,
it still remains a great mystery. Why one person is
selected for it and many others are rejected can not
be told. Why people respond as they do to its influ-
ence seems to be beyond inquiry* Any man who has
been placed in the White House can not feel that it

[234]

PRESIDENTIAL DUTIES

is the result of his own exertions or his own merit.
Some power outside and beyond him becomes mani-
fest through him. As he contemplates the workings
of his office, he comes to realize with an increasing
sense of humility that he is but an instrument in the
hands of God.

CALVIN OOOUDOK AND His FAMILY
The day he became Governor of Massachusetts

WHY I DID NOT CHOOSE TO RUN

CHAPTER SEVEN
WHY I DID NOT CHOOSE TO RUN

PERHAPS I have already indicated some of
the reasons why I did not desire to be a can-
didate to succeed myself.
The Presidential office takes a heavy toll of those
who occupy it and those who are dear to them*
While we should not refuse to spend and be spent
in the service of our country, it is hazardous to at-
tempt what we feel is beyond our strength to ac-
complish.

I had never wished to run in 1928 and had de-
termined to make a public announcement at a suf-
ficiently early date so that the party would have
ample time to choose some one else. An appropri-
ate occasion for that announcement seemed to be the
fourth anniversary of my taking office- The reasons
I can give may not appear very convincing, but I
am confident my decision was correct.

1>39]

CALVIN COOLIDGE

My personal and official relations have all been pe-
culiarly pleasant. The Congress has not always done
all that I wished, but it has done very little that I
did not approve. So far as I can judge, I have been
especially fortunate in having the approbation of the
country.

But irrespective of the third-term policy, the Presi-
dential office is of such a nature that it is difficult to
conceive how one man can successfully serve the
country for a term of more than eight years.

While I am in favor of continuing the long-estab-
lished custom of the country in relation to a third
term for a President, yet I do not think that the prac-
tice applies to one who has succeeded to part of a
term as Vice-President. Others might argue that it
does, but I doubt if the country would so consider it.

Although my own health has been practically
perfect, yet the duties are very great and ten years
would be a very heavy strain. It would be especially
long for the Mistress of the White House. Mrs. Cool-
idge has been in more than usual good health, but
I doubt if she could have stayed there for ten years
without some danger of impairment of her strength.

WHY I DIB NOT CHOOSE

A President should not only not be selfish, but he
ought to avoid the appearance o selfishness. The
people would not have confidence in a man that ap-
peared to be grasping for office.

It is difficult for men in high office to avoid the
malady of self-delusion. They are always surrounded
by worshipers. They are constantly, and for the most
part sincerely, assured of their greatness.

They live in an artificial atmosphere of adulation
and exaltation which sooner or later impairs their
judgment. They are in grave danger of becoming
careless and arrogant.

The chances of having wise and faithful public
service are increased by a change in the Presidential
office after a moderate length of time.

It is necessary for the head of the nation to differ
with many people who are honest in their opinions.
As his term progresses, the number who are disap-
pointed accumulates. Finally, there is so large a
body who have lost confidence in him that he meets
a rising opposition which makes his efforts less ef-
fective.

In the higher ranges of public service men appear
[34*1

CALVIN COOLIDGE

to come forward to perform a certain duty. When
it is performed their work is done. They usually find
it impossible to readjust themselves in the thought
of the people so as to pass on successfully to the solu-
tion of new public problems.

An examination of the records of those Presidents
who have served eight years will disclose that in al-
most every instance the latter part of their term has
shown very little in the way of constructive accom-
plishment. They have often been clouded with grave
disappointments.

While I had a desire to be relieved of the preten-
sions and delusions of public life, it was not because
of any attraction of pleasure or idleness.

We draw our Presidents from the people. It is
a wholesome thing for them to return to the people.
I came from them. I wish to be one of them again.

Although all our Presidents have had back of
them a good heritage of blood, very few have been
born to the purple. Fortunately* they are not sup-
ported at public expense after leaving office^ so they
are not expected to set an example encouraging to a
leisure class.

[242]

WHY I DID NOT CHOOSE

They have only the same title to nobility that be-
longs to all our citizens, which is the one based on
achievement and character, so they need not assume
superiority. It is becoming for them to engage in
some dignified employment where they can be of
service as others are.

Our country does not believe in idleness. It hon-
ors hard work. I wanted to serve the country again
as a private citizen,

In making my public statement I was careful in
the use of words* There were some who reported
that they were mystified as to nay meaning when I
said, "I do not choose to run."

Although I did not know it at the time, months
later I found that Washington said practically the
same thing. Certainly he said no more in his Fare-
well Address, where he announced that "choice and
prudence" invited him to retire.

There were others who constantly demanded that
I should state that if nominated I would refuse to
accept. Such a statement would not be in accord-
ance with my conception of the requirements of the
Presidential office. I never stated or formulated in

CALVIN COOLIDGE

my own mind what I should do under such circum-
stances, but I was determined not to have that con-
tingency arise.

I therefore sent the Secretary to the President,
Everett Sanders, a man of great ability and discre-
tion, to Kansas City with instructions to notify sev-
eral of the leaders of state delegations not to vote for
me. Had I not done so, I am told, I should have been
nominated.

The report that he had talked with me on the
telephone after his arrival, and I had told him I
would not accept if nominated, was pure fabrication.
I had no communication with him of any kind after
he left Washington and did not give him any such
instruction or message at any time.

I thought if I could prevent being nominated,
which I was able to do, it would never be necessary
for me to decide the other question. But in order to
be perfectly free, I sent this notice, so that if I de-
clined no one could say I had misled him into sup-
posing that I was willing to receive his vote.

I felt sure that the party and the country were in
so strong a position that they could easily nominate

i>443

WHY I DID NOT CHOOSE

and elect some other candidate. The events have con-
firmed my judgment.

In the primary campaign I was careful to make it
known that I was not presenting any candidate. The
friends of several of them no doubt represented that
their candidate was satisfactory to me, which was
true as far as it went.

I can conceive a situation in which a President
might be warranted in exercising the influence of
his office in selecting his successor. That condition
did not exist in the last primary. The party had
plenty of material, which was available, and the
candidate really should be the choice of the people
themselves. This is especially so now that so many
of the states have laws for the direct expression of
the choice of the voters,

A President in office can do very much about the
nomination of his successor, because of his influence
with the convention, but the feeling that he had
forced a choice would place the nominee under a
heavy handicap.

When the convention assembles it is almost cer-
tain that it will look about to see what candidate has

CALVIN COOLIDGE

made the largest popular showing, and unless some
peculiar disqualification develops it will nominate
him.

That was what happened in the last convention,
although no one had a majority when the conven-
tion assembled.

A strong group of the party in and outside of the
Senate made the mistake of undertaking to oppose
Mr. Hoover with a large number of local candidates,
which finally resulted in their not developing enough
strength for any particular candidate to make a show-
ing sufficient to impress the convention.

Although I did not intimate in any way that I
would not accept the nomination, when I sent word
to the heads of certain unpledged state delegations
not to vote for me, they very naturally turned to Mr.
Hoover, which brought about his nomination on the
first ballot.

The Presidential office differs from everything else.
Much of it cannot be described, it can only be felt.
After I had considered the reasons for my being a can-
didate on the one side and on the other, I could not say
that any of them moved me with compelling force*

WHY I DID NOT CHOOSE

My election seemed assured. Nevertheless, I felt
it was not best for the country that I should succeed
myself. A new impulse is more likely to be bene-
ficial*

It was therefore my privilege, after seeing my ad-
ministration so strongly indorsed by the country, to
retire voluntarily from the greatest experience that
can come to mortal man. In that way, I believed I
could best serve the people who have honored me
and the country which I love-

THE END

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