Coolidge (80 page)

113   “We cannot permanently”: Stephen Stagner, “The Recall of Judicial Decisions and the Due Process Debate,”
American Journal of Legal History
24, no. 3 (July 1980): 257.

113   Coolidge lined up with eighteen other: “Test on People’s Primary Comes in the Senate Today,”
Boston Journal
, March 11, 1912, 1.

114   Workers at the American Woolen Company: This contemporary account of the strike that discusses the role immigrants played in it is representative of much of what was written in the mainstream press at the time. W. Jett. Lauck, “The Lesson from Lawrence,”
North American Review
195, no. 678 (May 1912): 665–672.

114   the IWW collected $5,250: Bruce Watson,
Bread and Roses: Mills, Migrants, and the Struggle for the American Dream
(New York: Viking, 2005), 203.

116   The premier flyer: The text of “A Contract with the People,” the 1912 Progressive Party Platform, can be found at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/primary-resources/tr-progressive/.

120   Harlan Stone was now: Alpheus Thomas Mason,
Harlan Fiske Stone: Pillar of the Law
(New York: Viking Press, 1956), 83.

124   “Inaugeration is over”: Lathem, ed.,
Your Son, Calvin Coolidge
, 126.

Chapter 5: War

125   The evening star: This story is told in several places. One is “Account of Eliot Wadsworth,”
Boston Evening Transcript
, August 6, 1914.

126   The price and provenance of marble: “Governor Lays Cornerstone,”
Springfield Union
, August 7, 1914.

126   “The production of our plant”: E. H. Broadwell, letter to the editor, 
Springfield Republican
, August 6, 1914.

127   Senator Lodge: Karl Schriftgiesser,
The Gentleman from Massachusetts: Henry Cabot Lodge
(Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press/Little, Brown and Company, 1944), 260.

127   The crowning achievement: “Coolidge Kills Stock Tax Bill,”
The Boston Journal
, July 2, 1914.

129   he addressed a crowd of three hundred farmers: “Farmers Gather,”
Springfield Union
, August 13, 1914, 9.

132   “The yeas have it”: Alpheus Thomas Mason,
Brandeis: A Free Man’s Life
(New York: Viking, 1946), 174.

133   At Amherst, President Meiklejohn: Claude M. Fuess, ed.,
The Amherst Memorial Volume: A Record of the Contribution Made by Amherst College and Amherst Men in the World War, 1914–1918
(Amherst, Mass.: Amherst College Press, 1926), 3.

133   The Aluminum Company of America: Charles C. Carr,
Alcoa: An American Enterprise
(New York: Rinehart and Co., 1952), 150.

134   “murder on the high seas”: Stefan Lorant,
The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt
(Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1959), 603.

135   the legislature of 1915 had enacted: Michael E. Hennessy,
Twenty-five Years of Massachusetts Politics: From Russell to McCall, 1890–1915
(Boston: Practical Politics, 1917), 376.

137   Coolidge had lost Ham’s town: Frank Waterman Stearns to Dwight Morrow, October 7, 1915, series 1, box 43, folder 23, Dwight Morrow Papers, Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, Amherst College Library, Amherst, Mass.

138   “an eloquent listener”: “Bay State Grooming Coolidge,”
Baltimore Sun
, December 14, 1919, gives a typical description: “He is a most eloquent listener, waits until you have said your say. . . .”

138   the staff at the Bureau of Internal Revenue: Shelley Davis,
IRS Historical Fact Book: A Chronology
(Washington, D.C.: Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service, 1993), 89.

143   There was violence: Stephen Puleo,
The Boston Italians: A Story of Pride, Perseverance, and Paesani, from the Years of the Great Immigration to the Present Day
(Boston: Beacon Press, 2007), 107.

143   “I had formed”: William McAdoo,
The Crowded Years: The Reminiscences of William G. McAdoo
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1931), 382.

145   “While Washington was yet dumb”: Speech delivered at the Tremont Temple, November 3, 1917, in Calvin Coolidge,
Have Faith in Massachusetts: A Collection of Speeches and Messages
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1919), 88. The speech is available at http://www.calvin-coolidge.org/html/tremont_temple_-_november_3__1.html.

146   Later he figured: Frank Waterman Stearns to Dwight Morrow, February 7, 1919, series 1, box 43, folder 23, Dwight Morrow Papers, Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, Amherst College Library, Amherst, Mass.

146   “It was 2:30”: Calvin Coolidge to John C. Coolidge, November 6, 1918, in
Your Son, Calvin Coolidge: A Selection of Letters from Calvin Coolidge to His Father
, ed. Edward Connery Lathem (Montpelier, Vt.: Vermont Historical Society, 1968), 142.

147   “treason”: “Calls Opposition to War Treason,”
The New York Times
, January 2, 1918.

148   “We have reached”: Clement’s speech is in the archives of the state of Vermont at Vermont-archives.org.

148   At dinner with Clarence Barron: Clarence Barron,
They Told Barron: Conversations and Revelations of an American Pepys in Wall Street
, ed. Arthur Pound and Samuel Taylor Moore (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1930), 17.

148   because of the revolution in Russia: “Kronstadt in Flames,”
The New York Times
, June 18, 1919.

149   The Yankee Division alone: Harry A. Benwell,
History of the Yankee Division
(Boston: Cornhill Company, 1919), 5.

149   Coolidge had issued a proclamation: “Coolidge and Peters Differ Regarding Holiday for Wilson,”
The Boston Globe
, February 22, 1919.

149   “a great leader of the world”: William Allen White reported this in
A Puritan in Babylon: The Story of Calvin Coolidge
(New York: Macmillan, 1938), 144.

150   On April 3:
Fourteenth Annual Report of the Police Commissioner for the City of Boston: Year Ending November 30, 1919
(Boston: Wright & Potter Printing Co., State Printers, 1920), 34.

150   Amid the din: “Yankee Troops Welcomed to New England,”
Springfield Republican
, April 5, 1919.

150   “I welcome you”: Ibid.

Chapter 6: The Strike

151   Boston Police Union Number 16,807: A good short account of the story of Union 16,807 can be found in
The Police Chief
73, no. 5 (May 2006), published online at policechiefmagazine.org.

151   “A police officer cannot consistently”: Police Commissioner O’Meara is quoted in Claude M. Fuess,
Calvin Coolidge: The Man from Vermont
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1940), 206.

152   De Valera had appeared: “Eamon De Valera Pleads Irish Cause at Fenway Park,”
The Boston Globe,
June 30, 1919.

152   “I am tired”: “Ole Hanson Quits,”
The New York Times
, August 29, 1919.

153   The cost of food: The National Bureau of Economic Research website provides data series on this period, including Index of 58 Foods, Retail, series ao4184. That index shows that prices rose from a level of 60 in 1913 to 112 in 1919. http://www.nber.org/databases/macrohistory/rectdata/04/a04184.dat.

154   Blind and Cripples’ Union: “Hearing on Bills to Help Cripples: Deitrick Wants State to Supply Employment
,
”
The Boston Globe
, October 22, 1919, 3.

154   The policemen had selected as union president: McInnes’s work and life are described in “Police Union Head Has Fine Record,”
The Boston Globe
, September 8, 1919.

154   there were not yet stoplights: The installation of some of the first lights is described in “Globe Is Mushroomed into Street,”
The Springfield Republican
, August 1, 1921, 3.

155   “Governor in about 9:30”: The summer 1919 diary entries of Coolidge’s secretary, Henry Follansbee Long, are reprinted in Robert Gilbert,
The Tormented President: Calvin Coolidge, Death, and Clinical Depression
(Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2003), 85.

155   Their destination was the old burial ground: Judge Field described the details of this trip in remarks he gave before the Hampshire County Bar after Coolidge’s death. At least one author has suggested that the visit to Watertown was related to Coolidge’s agony over the police strike, but Field gives no evidence of that. The text of Field’s remarks is at the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum, at the Forbes Library, in Northampton, Mass.

155   “I think you might find him some comfort”: This line comes in a June 23, 1918, letter from Coolidge to his father in
Your Son, Calvin Coolidge: A Selection of Letters from Calvin Coolidge to His Father
, ed. Edward Connery Lathem (Montpelier, Vt.: Vermont Historical Society, 1968), 139.

155   “Governor getting tired”: These details come from a letter describing Coolidge’s summer calendar from Henry Follansbee Long to Coolidge’s biographer, Claude Fuess. Henry F. Long to Claude M. Fuess, August 4, 1938, Fuess Collection, Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum, Forbes Library, Northampton, Mass.

156   The matter of jurisdiction was complicated: Coolidge lays out the subtleties in his autobiography,
The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge
(New York: Cosmopolitan Book Corporation, 1929), 130.

156   More than a thousand police: Fifteen hundred policemen were involved; more than 1,100 walked out. This material, and more detail on the strike, can be found in Richard Lyons, “The Boston Police Strike of 1919,”
New England Quarterly
20, no. 2 (June 1947): 147–168.

156   The president of the R. H. Stearns Department Store: Many details about the Boston Police strike can be found in
Boston Police Records
56 (January 1, 1919–December 31, 1919), Boston Public Library, Boston, Mass.

157   “Bay State Orations”: Fuess,
Calvin Coolidge
, 235–236.

157   “Here was presented”: “A Night of Terror and Riot,”
Hampshire Gazette
, September 10, 1919.

158   At around 2:00
P.M.
Wednesday, at the State Armory in West Newton, an alarm rang: Massachusetts State Guard, 11th Infantry Regiment, “A” Company,
Dates, Data and Ditties: Tour of Duty, “A” Company, 11th Regiment Infantry, Massachusetts State Guard, During the Strike of the Boston Police, Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen
(Boston: The Company, 1920), 11. This short memoir of “A” Company gives many details on the guard side of the strike.

158   “nawsty”:
Ibid
.

159   “As viewed here”: “Troops in Boston; Washington Concerned,”
The Christian Science Monitor
, September 12, 1919.

159   “The president suggests the advisability”: Wilson’s opinion, laid out by adviser James Tumulty, is republished in “President Orders Halt in Police Row,”
The Washington Post
, September 11, 1919.

160   “Nothing doing”:
Hampshire Gazette
, September 11, 1919.

161   “The police are all on strike”: Jessie Woodrow Wilson Sayre to Woodrow Wilson, September 10, 1919, in
The Papers of Woodrow Wilson
, vol. 63,
September–November 5, 1919
, ed. Arthur S. Link and J. E. Little (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990), 168.

161   Fifty-three officers: “Fatal Riot in Boston,”
The Washington Post
, September 11, 1919, 1.

161   “The crowd laughed and hooted”: “Rioting Is Renewed in Boston,”
Hampshire Gazette
, September 11, 1919. This is an evening paper, but it was apparently reporting events on September 10.

161   a young man was killed: “State Guards Fire,”
The Boston Globe
, September 11, 1919, 1.

163   The damage of the night of September 9: “$200,000 Loss by Lawless Mob,”
The Boston Globe
, September 11, 1919.

166   All day long: The picture of Boston on September 11, 1919, is sketched in “One More Killing, but Rioting Is Stopped, Governor Takes Over Command in Boston: Henry Grote Is Shot Dead . . . No Action by Central Labor Union,”
The Boston Globe
, September 12, 1919.

166   in case the sailors mutinied: “War Department Ready,”
New York Tribune
, September 12, 1919.

167   “it has gone by”: This letter from Storrow is quoted in Henry Greenleaf Pearson,
Son of New England: James Jackson Storrow, 1864–1926
(Boston: Thomas Todd Company, 1932), 233.

167   “The action of the police”:
Daily Hampshire Gazette
, September 12, 1919. The
Gazette
was then an evening paper.

168   coming down on the Boston police: Wilson’s turn is described by Admiral Cary Travers Grayson, his doctor, in a September 11 entry in his diary in Link and Little, eds.,
The Papers of Woodrow Wilson
, vol. 63,
September–November 5, 1919
, 169.

168   “The American Federation of Labor”: The
Wall Street Journal
editors wrote, “A policeman is a trustee of the lives and fortunes of other men. He should not at any time find himself penalized by the acceptance of his trust. This however is a secondary question, whatever ransom a successful police union might exact. No such union is tolerable under a government of law. The American Federation of Labor is depriving the Law of its right hand and Mr. Wilson, by temporizing with the unionized, while he talks valiantly to Boston is hoisting the flag of surrender.” “No Police Union Permissible,”
The Wall Street Journal
, September 13, 1919.

169  
Boston Labor World
: Editorial,
Boston Labor World
, September 13, 1919, p. 8. At the time this book was written, that periodical was not available in digital form; this material was retrieved from microfiche at the Boston Public Library.