Coolidge (86 page)

374   “Seems to me I’ve seen you before”: Rex Alan Smith,
The Carving of Mount Rushmore
(New York: Abbeville Press, 1985), 147.

374   “On the first bite”: Bulow, “In the Black Hills,” 121.

375   “Greetings from Mount Rushmore”: John Taliaferro,
Great White Fathers: The Story of the Obsessive Quest to Create Mount Rushmore
(New York: Public Affairs, 2002), 226.

376   the great concern: Edmund W. Starling,
Starling of the White House
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1946), 252.

376   “You will find”: President Calvin Coolidge’s Unpublished Press Conferences, June 28, 1927, vol. 8, p. 01389, Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum, Forbes Library, Northampton, Mass.

376   No one was fooled: Paul F. Boller, Jr.,
Presidential Wives
, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 269.

377   “The blow has fallen”: Quoted in Harold Nicolson,
Dwight Morrow
(London: Constable & Co., 1935), 307.

377   Still, others: Charles G. Dawes,
Notes as Vice President, 1928–1929
(Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1935), 7.

378   The recent St. Paul conference: Carlisle Bargeron paraphrased Bulow in “Hoover Will Visit Coolidge to Talk Over Flood Relief,”
The Washington Post
(July 17, 1928).

379   “My Dear Mr. President”: Gutzon Borglum to Calvin Coolidge, July 22, 1927, Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum, Forbes Library, Northampton, Mass.

380   “I like it well enough”: President Calvin Coolidge’s Unpublished Press Conferences, July 29, 1927, vol. 9, p. 01422, Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum, Forbes Library, Northampton, Mass.

381   “I am not a candidate”: Deborah Pickman Clifford and Nicholas R. Clifford,
“The Troubled Roar of the Waters”: Vermont in Flood and Recovery, 1927–1931
(Durham: University of New Hampshire Press, 2007), 129–130.

382   For Coolidge’s twelve: John T. Lambert, “The Presidential News Service,” President Coolidge Number,
Black Hills Engineer
15, no. 4 (November 1927): 266.

382   “if such nomination”: “Slemp Sees No Change,”
The New York Times
, August 4, 1927.

382   “It hadn’t occurred to me”: Press conference of August 5, 1927, Unpublished Press Conferences, Calvin Coolidge Memorial Collection, Forbes Library, Northampton, Mass.

383   A Native American girl: John A. Stanley, “Preparing the Presidential Home in the State Park,” President Coolidge Number,
Black Hills Engineer
15, no. 4 (November 1927): 229.

383   The first car: Smith,
The Carving of Mount Rushmore
, 151.

383   “in your honor”: Starling recounts his conversation with Norbeck in
Starling of the White House
.

384   “I may yet live long enough”: Smith,
The Carving of Mount Rushmore
, 153.

384   But the determined line: A video of this scene exists at Critical Past (Pathé News) and may be ordered for classrooms. See also Starling,
Starling of the White House
, 251.

385   Everyone thought back: That Coolidge himself was worried about his heart is evidenced in the fact that he insisted that his attending physicians take his pulse twice a day. Milton F. Heller, Jr.,
The Presidents’ Doctor: An Insider’s View of Three First Families
(New York, Vantage, 2000), 78.

385   “Had I been there”: Starling,
Starling of the White House
, 253.

385   “He realizes”: “Party Here Is Amazed,”
The New York Times
, August 3, 1927.

385   “Nothing is more sacred”: Starling,
Starling of the White House
, 259.

Chapter 14: Coolidge Agonistes

389   “The South appreciates”: “Coolidge Refusal of Extra Sessions Roils Democrats,”
The Washington Post
, September 16, 1927.

390   “I am having the usual experience”: Unpublished press conferences of President Coolidge, Calvin Coolidge Memorial Library, vol. 9, p. 01485, press conference of October 4, 1927.

391   Outlays that fiscal year: M. Slade Kendrick with Mark Wehle, “A Century and a Half of Fiscal Expenditures,” National Bureau of Economic Research, 1955, 77.

392   “I countered by asking him”: Alfred L. Castle,
Diplomatic Realism: William R. Castle, Jr., and American Foreign Policy, 1919–1953
(Honolulu: Samuel N. and Mary Castle Foundation, 1998), 34.

393   a heavy golden shield: The shield is now in the collection of the Vermont Division for Historic Preservation, President Calvin Coolidge State Historic Site, Plymouth, Vt.

393   “has no selfish political interest”: “Abyssinian Envoy Visits U.S. President,”
Chicago Defender
, October 1, 1927, p. 3.

395   “the most absurd thing”: “Coolidge on C. of C. Plan,”
The Wall Street Journal,
November 26, 1927, p. 2.

395   That man’s departure had cost: Andrew Mellon to Calvin Coolidge, December 3, 1927, series 1, box 21, Calvin Coolidge Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

395   John, at college: “John Coolidge on Class Hop Committee, 3d Time,”
Boston Herald,
November 1, 1927.

395   The papers reported that Grace: The story of the tea room call is in “Today in Washington by Rodney Deutscher,”
The Greensboro Record
, October 26, 1927, p. 4.

395   The fact that he was now: Calvin Coolidge to Clarence Barron, October 21, 1927, Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum, Forbes Library, Northampton, Mass.

396   Hoover even collected the RSVPs: Irwin Hood Hoover,
Forty-two Years in the White House
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1934), 127.

396   The writer Sinclair Lewis: Lewis wrote
The Man Who Knew Coolidge
over the fall and winter of 1927–1928. D. J. Dooley,
The Art of Sinclair Lewis
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1967), 142.

396   That fall there was yet another: Reports differ on when Cartotto’s painting was made, but the painter himself dates it to 1927. Ercole Cartotto, “The Man in the Portraits,” in
Meet Calvin Coolidge: The Man Behind the Myth
, ed. Edward Connery Lathem (Brattleboro, Vt.: Stephen Greene Press, 1960), 128–130.

397   “feared the results”: This telling discussion between Starling and Coolidge is reported in Edmund W. Starling with Thomas Sugrue,
Starling of the White House: The Story of the Man Whose Secret Service Detail Guarded Five Presidents from Woodrow Wilson to Franklin D. Roosevelt
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1946), 263.

397   “They’re going to try”: Ibid.

399   But it was from Vermont: The best volume on the Vermont flood is Deborah Pickman Clifford and Nicholas R. Clifford,
“The Troubled Roar of the Waters”: Vermont in Flood and Recovery, 1927–1931
(Durham: University of New Hampshire Press, 2007).

400   “He can’t do for his own”: “Vermont Folk Too Proud,”
The Boston Globe
, November 13, 1927.

402   “the greatest work ever done”: “Special Session Now Only History
,” St. Albans Messenger
, December 1, 1927.

403   “Proposals for promoting”: Coolidge’s Fifth Annual Message to Congress, December 6, 1927, American Presidency Project, University of California/Santa Barbara.

404   “Here we are the Nation”: Rogers spelled and punctuated in his own fashion. “Will on Mexican Relations,” in
Will Rogers’ Weekly Articles
, ed. James M. Smallwood and Steven K. Gragert (Stillwater: Oklahoma State University Press, 1981), vol. 4, column 223.

Chapter 15: The Shield and the Book

408   “universal undertaking”: Robert H. Ferrell,
Peace in Their Time
, 107.

409   half of the budget:
Statistical Abstract of the United States
, 72nd ed. (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce, 1951), 306. Total expenditures of the federal government are listed as $3.182 billion for the period 1926–1930. Of that, $405 million went to the Department of Army and Air Force, $340 million to the Department of the Navy, $244 million to veterans’ pensions, $738 million to interest on the public debt, and $37 million to Indians, leaving $1.4 million for “all other.”

410   “But Mr. Secretary”: Marian Cecilia McKenna,
Borah
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1961), 244.

410   “That’s the best way”: Quoted ibid., 244.

411   “We can do that”: Quoted in David Bryn-Jones,
Frank B. Kellogg: A Biography
(New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1937), 232.

411   Kellogg had suggested: The White House and State Department’s deliberations about Briand’s proposal are detailed in Robert H. Ferrell,
Peace in Their Time: The Origins of the Kellogg-Briand Pact
(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1952); Bryn-Jones,
Frank B. Kellogg
; and Alfred Castle,
Diplomatic Realism: William R. Castle, Jr., and American Foreign Policy, 1919–1953
(Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1998).

411   “If this is to be”: The whole exchange is in Bryn-Jones,
Frank B. Kellogg
, 232–233.

412   “worse than a waste”: “Ship Board Proposal a Waste,”
The Wall Street Journal
, March 17, 1923.

413   “Our general position”: 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), 215. See also President Calvin Coolidge’s Unpublished Press Conferences, January 31, 1928, vol. 10, p. 01588, Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum, Forbes Library, Northampton, Massachusetts.

413   He went back upstairs: Robert H. Ferrell,
Grace Coolidge: The People’s Lady in Silent Cal’s White House
(Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2008), 114–115.

414   “Briand Elated”: “Briand Elated at Plan’s Success,”
Los Angeles Times,
February 2, 1928.

414   “We are disarmed”: “Kellogg Hailed by Stresemann,”
Los Angeles Times
, January 31, 1928.

415   “The main difference”: Bernard M. Baruch, “So Different,” in
Meet Calvin Coolidge: The Man Behind the Myth
, ed. Edward Connery Lathem (Brattleboro, Vt.: Stephen Greene Press, 1960), 135.

415   The portrait work challenged Cartotto: Ercole Cartotto, “The Man in the Portraits,” in Lathem, ed.,
Meet Calvin Coolidge
, 128–129.

415   Grace was recovering: Grace Coolidge’s visits to Northampton were extensively covered in the
Springfield Republican
in the spring of 1928.

416   After conferring with Kellogg: Frank B. Kellogg to Calvin Coolidge, February 20, 1928, Calvin Coolidge Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

417   “If you have 400 delegates”: Herbert Hoover,
The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover: The Cabinet and the Presidency, 1920–1933
(New York: Macmillan, 1952), 193.

417   The president signed a tax bill: The 1928 tax law cut corporate taxes and a 3 percent manufacturers’ tax on autos. The act cut the tax on theater admissions as well. It did not, however, cut the marginal rates on the income tax as other rate cuts had. Therefore the act did not represent “scientific taxation” to the extent that preceding legislation did. The total estimated cost of the 1928 tax cut in revenue was higher than Treasury’s recommendation.

417   “I think it is a mistake”: Coolidge criticized the repeal of auto taxes in an April 27, 1928, press conference. He went on, “We had already repealed 40 per cent of them. We might reasonably look to that source of revenue for the expenses which the Federal government is incurring in road construction. Road construction by the federal government, of course, is a new proposition. Ferrell and Quint, eds.,
The Talkative President
, 111.

418   “My inside information”: Quoted in Ferrell,
Peace in Their Time
, 176.

419   “It is one-third paid”:
Addresses of the President of the United States and the Director of the Bureau of the Budget at the Fifteenth Regular Meeting of the Business Organization of the Government, June 11, 1928
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1928), 3.

419   “To Miss Riley”: Ellen Riley White House Papers, MSA 632, Vermont Historical Society, Barre, Vt.

420   “Let’s bring him over”: Edmund W. Starling with Thomas Sugrue,
Starling of the White House: The Story of the Man Whose Secret Service Detail Guarded Five Presidents from Woodrow Wilson to Franklin D. Roosevelt
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1946), 268.

420   “Let him talk”: Ibid.

421   “Well, no”: President Calvin Coolidge’s Unpublished Press Conferences, August 7, 1928, vol. 11, p. 01696, Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum, Forbes Library, Northampton, Mass.

421   “Had an agreement”: The speech Coolidge delivered on August 15, 1928, in Wausau, Wis., was carried in many papers, including the
San Diego Union
: “Calvin Coolidge Firm,” August 16, 1928, 1.

421   “The conception of renouncing”: Lodge’s editorial is detailed in William J. Miller,
Henry Cabot Lodge: A Biography
(New York: Heinemann, 1967), 83.

422   quiet cries for
l’Américain
: This and other details of the signing can be found in Ferrell,
Peace in Their Time
, 218.

423   “I hope it will be”: “This is a matter entirely up to the Senate,” Kellogg replied. Quoted ibid., 213.

423   “continuation of Coolidge policies”: “Hoover Appeals to Bay State Vote to Stand by Party,”
The New York Times
, October 16, 1928.

423   Hoover saw his farm: Details of the Hoover farm can be found in “Hoover as a Farmer Makes Ends Meet: Engineering Methods Applied to His California Acres Produce Ten Major Crops a Year,”
The New York Times
, August 26, 1928.