Coolidge (87 page)

423   “I wish you would”: Calvin Coolidge to Collector of Taxes, City Hall, Northampton, October 8, 1928, in Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum, Forbes Library, Northampton, Mass.

423   The tax bills in his files: Tax Inventory to Be Filed with Listers, Tax Year 1927, Personal Presidential File 1, Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum, Forbes Library, Northampton, Mass.

424   “I had the smallest”: President Calvin Coolidge’s Unpublished Press Conferences, November 2, 1928, vol. 11, p. 01746, Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum, Forbes Library, Northampton, Mass.

425   “the prospect for”: President Calvin Coolidge’s Unpublished Press Conferences, January 8, 1929, vol. 11, p. 01783, Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum, Forbes Library, Northampton, Mass.

425   more than twenty local banks: Coolidge’s investments and his father’s can be found in Document 392, Coolidge Family Papers, Vermont Historical Society, Barre, Vt.

425   He agreed with Merrill: Charles Merrill’s visit to the White House and Coolidge’s concurrence are detailed in Edwin J. Perkins,
Wall Street to Main Street: Charles Merrill and Middle-Class Investors
(Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 103.

426   First, Coolidge picked up: The pen story is told in “The Presidency,”
Time
, December 31, 1928.

427   “It would not cost”: Hoover,
The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover: The Cabinet and the Presidency 1920–1933
, 211.

428   final budget meeting: “Coolidge Demands Further Economies to Aid Prosperity,”
The New York Times
, January 29, 1929.

428   “The results of economy”: “Thrift Plea Renewed,”
Los Angeles Times
, January 29, 1929.

429   “a man of small stature”: Coolidge’s clothing and other details from the Vermont trip are given in “Coolidge in Speech Extols Vermont,”
The New York Times
, September 22, 1928. The story also reported his visit to the sugar lot.

430   “Speech, speech!”: Reported in “Coolidge Praises People of Native State in Most Fervent Talk of His Career,”
Springfield Republican
, September 22, 1928.

430   “Vermont is a state I love”: Many versions of this speech exist, including ones autographed and approved by Coolidge months after the speech was given. The version in the text is that reported by
Time
magazine on October 1, 1928. Other versions, reported elsewhere, used different wording.

431   “I do not think”: President Calvin Coolidge’s Unpublished Press Conferences, November 23, 1928, vol. 11, p. 01759, Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum, Forbes Library, Northampton, Mass.

431   Senator Carter Glass: Ferrell,
Peace in Their Time
, 251.

432   To capture the weakness: Michael A. Weatherson and Hal W. Bochin,
Hiram Johnson: Political Revivalist
(Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1995), 153.

432   Suddenly, the reporters recognized: That Coolidge had planned it all along is evident in an article by Wickham Steed, a British editor. In a review of Coolidge’s autobiography published in
Time and Tide
, a U.K. magazine, Steed wrote that in the autumn of 1927, he called on Coolidge and found the president already immersed in the subject of the Kellogg-Briand Pact. He concluded: “But for his perspicacious and persistent action, it is doubtful what is known as the Paris Peace Pact would ever have been concluded. It is doubtful whether Mr. Kellogg would ever have taken action.” Wickham Steed, “A Great American,” series 1, box 43, folder 28, Dwight Morrow Papers. Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, Amherst College Library, Amherst, Mass.

433   “Keep perfectly still”: Ferrell,
Peace in Their Time
, 254.

433   Castle of the State Department: Diary of Castle, January 17, 1928, Houghton Library, Harvard College Library.

433   It took the United States away: Robert Ferrell,
The Presidency of Calvin Coolidge
(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998), 142. The document discusses a memo from Kellogg in which he warns ambassadors against an expansive interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine; the doctrine, he wrote, “is not a lance it; is a shield.”

Coda: The Blessing

434   “There is another”:
Selected Letters of William Allen White, 1899–1943
, ed. Walter Johnson (New York: H. Holt and Company, 1947), 292.

434   Hoover shut them down: Seven saddle horses were ordered to the army remount service, and the stable attendants to the cavalry. “White House Stables Closed by Hoover in Interests of Economy,”
Springfield Republican
, March 26, 1929.

435   “It fits us”: “Mrs. Coolidge Glorifies Return to Cottage Life,”
Lodi
(California)
Sentinel
, January 14, 1930.

435   The only other living ex-president: William Howard Taft fell ill the following winter and died in 1930.

435   “Put Cal to Work”: “Put Cal to Work,” in
Will Rogers’ Weekly Articles
, ed. James M. Smallwood and Steven K. Gragert (Stillwater: Oklahoma State University Press, 1981), vol. 4, column 441.

435   “I should like to express”: Bruce Barton to President Coolidge, February 17, 1929, Calvin Coolidge Personal Files, Forbes Library, Northampton, Mass.

436   Yet the reporters persisted: Lathem, ed.,
Meet Calvin Coolidge
, 167.

436   “I have considerable doubt”: Quoted in
The Talkative President: The Off-the-Record Press Conferences of Calvin Coolidge
, ed. Robert Ferrell and Howard Quint (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1964), 134.

436   “It’s really kinder”: Smallwood and Gragert, eds.,
Will Rogers’ Weekly Articles
, vol. 4, column 330.

436   John had predicted: John’s thoughts about the Coolidges’ future are cited in Cynthia Bittinger,
Grace Coolidge: Sudden Star
, Presidential Wives Series (New York: Nova History Publications, 2005), 99.

437   “Lindy may beat us to it”: Quoted in “Miss Trumbull Plans: Fiancee of John Coolidge Says Lindbergh ‘May Beat Us to It,’ ”
Boston Herald
, February 27, 1929.

437   Six airplanes: “Planes Adorn John Coolidge Wedding Cake,”
Dallas Morning News
, September 23, 1929, 1.

437   That was too much: “Daylight Time Fools Sargent; ‘Mike’ in House Angers Coolidge,”
Boston Herald
, September 24, 1929.

437   the rent: The rent is reported in “Notables at Wedding,” Associated Press, reprinted in
The Repository
(Canton, Ohio), September 23, 1929.

437   Coolidge gave: That the amount was “four figures” is mentioned in “Florence and John Take a Motor Trip,”
Rockford Daily Gazette
, September 24, 1929.

437   He purchased shares: Coolidge’s financial documents, including the purchase and sale of Standard Brands shares, are stored in the Vermont Historical Society, Barre, Vt.

437   “depression-proof”: The
Journal
’s comment in its entirety reads, “Important interests are optimistic on the long pull prospects of Standard Brands, because the company is in a ‘depression-proof’ industry.” “Abreast of the Market,”
The Wall Street Journal
, November 28, 1929. One letter in January 1931 shows that Coolidge suffered a $21,570 loss on 3,000 shares of Standard Brands that he bought in September 1929 and sold in April 1930.

438   Coolidge and Borglum had now been: Their correspondence is now in the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum, Forbes Library, Northampton, Mass.

440   But the silent back: Rex Alan Smith,
The Carving of Mount Rushmore
(New York: Abbeville Press, 1985), 283.

440   Some commentators, including: “Mr. Durant’s Invective,”
The Wall Street Journal
, April 25, 1930.

441   fifty cars an hour: Susan Lewis Well, “Calvin Coolidge: At Home in Northampton,” 64. Well describes the move in detail.

441   Coolidge paid cash: “Coolidge Buys a $45,000 Estate,”
The New York Times
, April 2, 1930.

441   “It should be filed”: The details of Coolidge’s column are laid out in the introduction of
Calvin Coolidge Says: Dispatches Written by Former-President Coolidge and Syndicated to Newspapers in 1930–1931
, ed. Edward Connery Lathem (Plymouth, Vt.: Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation, 1972).

443   “Been here first twenty-odd years”: Herman Beaty, “A Secretary’s View,” in
Meet Calvin Coolidge: The Man Behind the Myth
, ed. Edward Connery Lathem (Brattleboro, Vt.: Stephen Greene Press, 1960), 175.

443   “might put them out”: Ibid., 176.

444   “And as much more”: Ralph W. Hemenway, “His Law Partner Looks Back,” in Lathem, ed.,
Meet Calvin Coolidge
, 171.

444   Days after Coolidge left office:
Okanogan Indians et al. v. United States
was the test case of the pocket veto. A good account of it can be found in
Time
, March 25, 1929.

445   “Coolidge treated the bracelet”: Beaty, “A Secretary’s View,” in Lathem, ed.,
Meet Calvin Coolidge
.

445   Another story: This account appears in “Remembering Calvin Coolidge,” a memoir dictated by Scandrett and recorded by Richard Polenberg for the Cornell Oral History Program,
Vermont History XI
(1972): 194.

446   “Those are
my
works of art”: Ercole Cartotto, “The Man in the Portraits,” in Lathem, ed.,
Meet Calvin Coolidge
, 130.

446   In addition, his records show: Calvin Coolidge Financial Records, box 392, 20 and 26, Coolidge Family Papers, Vermont Historical Society, Barre, Vt.

447   “You, my son”: Cyndy Bittinger transcribed Grace’s poem of July 1929 and added some details about it in a one-page essay on the Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation website, “Grace Anna Goodhue Coolidge and Her Poetry,” www.calvin-coolidge.org/html/poetry.html. See also Grace Goodhue Coolidge,
Grace Coolidge: An Autobiography
, ed. Robert H. Ferrell and Lawrence E. Wikander (Plymouth, Vt.: Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation, 1992), 115.

448   “I sewed and wrote”: Quoted in Ishbel Ross,
Grace Coolidge and Her Era: The Story of a President’s Wife
(Plymouth, Vt.: Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation 1988), 273.

448   “he established himself”: Grace Coolidge Round Robin Letters, Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation, Plymouth, Vt.

450   “You are doing very well”: The letters to John are in the Coolidge Family Papers, Vermont Historical Society, Barre, Vt.

451   “Now my career”: Claude M. Fuess,
Calvin Coolidge: The Man from Vermont
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1940), 494.

451   “That was one difference”: Ibid.

451   “What subjects can I discuss?”: This postscript to a September 21 letter is quoted by Sanders in his memoir in Lathem, ed.,
Meet Calvin Coolidge
.

452   “We are willing”: Henry J. Allen, in charge of publicity for the Republican National Committee, quoted in Lathem, ed.,
Meet Calvin Coolidge
, 204.

452   “
UNABLE TO MAKE SPEECH
”: Everett Sanders, “A Final Effort,” in Lathem, ed.,
Meet Calvin Coolidge
, 206.

453   “I have thought of you”: Calvin Coolidge to Grace Coolidge, December 8, 1932, Document 392, Folder 12, Coolidge Family Papers, Vermont Historial Society, Barre, Vt.

454   “Me for the hills”: James G. Hepburn, ed.,
Robert Frost: An Introduction
(New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1961), 60.

454   “But as I look about”: Charles Andrews remembered this line of Coolidge’s in Lathem, ed.,
Meet Calvin Coolidge
, 216.

454   He and Harry also: Many details of this last morning can be read in “Found by Mrs. Coolidge,”
The New York Times
, January 6, 1933.

455   One hymn was: William Allen White,
A Puritan in Babylon: The Story of Calvin Coolidge
(New York: Macmillan, 1938), 442. White mentions “Lead Kindly Light.” Colonel Starling recalls hearing “Lead Kindly Light” outside Harding’s funeral train in Edmund W. Starling,
Starling of the White House
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1946)
, 201.

455   Eleanor Roosevelt: The guests who attended are listed in many news stories, such as the Associated Press’s “Coolidge Buried in Native Vermont,” printed in the Canton, Ohio,
Repository
, January 8, 1933.

455   the service lasted: “The Death of Coolidge,”
Time
, January 16, 1933.

456   “the lowest ebb”: Alfred E. Smith, “A Shining Public Example,” in Lathem, ed.,
Meet Calvin Coolidge
, 220.

456   Clarence Barron’s business daily: The short obituary is “Calvin Coolidge,”
The Wall Street Journal,
January 6, 1933, 6.

456   “I am perfectly willing”: Calvin Coolidge to Walter Lynds, January 12, 1926, Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum, Forbes Library, Northampton, Mass.

456   “I want to thank you”: Calvin Coolidge to Walter Lynds, May 6, 1927, Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum, Forbes Library, Northampton, Mass.

Selected Bibliography

Books and Dissertations

Abels, Jules.
In the Time of Silent Cal
. New York: Putnam, 1969.

Abrams, Richard M.
Conservatism in a Progressive Era: Massachusetts Politics, 1900–1912
. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1964.

Adams, Samuel Hopkins.
Incredible Era
. New York: Octagon Books, 1979.

Addresses of the President of the United States and the Director of the Bureau of the Budget at the Regular Meetings of the Business
Organization of the Government
. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1921–1928.

Aldrich, Lewis Cass, and Frank R. Holmes, eds.
History of Windsor County, Vermont: With Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Men and Pioneers
. Syracuse, N.Y.: D. Mason & Co., 1891.