Coolidge (98 page)

SURPRISINGLY LOQUACIOUS.
Congress quickly learned that “Silent Cal” was not as taciturn as alleged. The title of this cartoon is “But when he does speak, he says a mouthful.” The speech of December 1923 was the one in which he staked his presidency on tax cuts.

A SON’S SENSE OF OFFICE.
Coolidge sent his younger son, Calvin, Jr., to work in a Massachusetts tobacco field over the summer. A fellow laborer told the boy, “If my father was president, I would not work in a tobacco field.” Young Calvin responded, “If your father were my father, you would.”

BEFORE A LOSS.
Calvin Coolidge, Jr.; President Coolidge; the first lady; and John Coolidge on June 30, 1924. The day this picture was taken, Calvin, Jr., had developed a blister on his toe from playing tennis on the White House court. A week later the boy died of sepsis.

AN OUTSTANDING VICTORY.
The swearing in of President Calvin Coolidge on March 4, 1925. Coolidge won an absolute majority of the popular vote although he faced two competitors, Democrat John W. Davis and Progressive Robert La Follette, a former Republican.

“I DON’T KNOW WHAT I WOULD DO WITHOUT HER.”
Grace, a kind extrovert, paved the way in Washington for the reserved Coolidge. Coolidge protected his wife jealously. In all matters, their friends counseled, Grace came first.

TECHNOLOGY IS KEY.
Coolidge meeting with Thomas Edison in 1924. His reputation as a Victorian throwback notwithstanding, Coolidge avidly promoted and used new technologies, from the radio to cars to airplanes. Coolidge himself benefited politically from the radio, through which he often addressed the public. “Over the radio,” said editor William Allen White, “he went straight to the popular heart.”

THE AMHERST MEN.
Dwight Morrow, an old Amherst friend, in September of 1925, when he was chair of the Special Aviation Board. Another Amherst acquaintance, Harlan Fiske Stone, became Coolidge’s attorney general and then Supreme Court justice.

THE ADVISER.
Coolidge with Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon. Mellon wagered that what he called scientific taxation would yield greater budget surpluses and a stronger economy. Coolidge backed Mellon in his policy experiment. Observers joked that the two reserved men conversed in pauses
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ALOFT.
President Coolidge speaks at a ceremony held in honor of Charles Lindbergh, after he completed his epic flight from France to America. Aviation was to Coolidge evidence of the country’s future greatness and its ability to get around regulatory bottlenecks involving highways and railroads.

CONFLICT OVER A FLOOD.
Members of Coolidge’s cabinet gathered to discuss the administration’s response to the disastrous Mississippi River Valley flood of 1927. Herbert Hoover, at center, advocated strong federal intervention and infrastructure spending.

“I DO NOT CHOOSE TO RUN FOR PRESIDENT IN NINETEEN TWENTY-EIGHT.”
With these historic words, Coolidge upended his party by refusing to run for office even though polls indicated he was a sure winner. This note and other copies were handed out to shocked reporters during Coolidge’s 1927 stay in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

A DIFFICULT DECISION.
Coolidge, ambivalent, at a ceremony naming him honorary chief of the Sioux Native Americans, days after his decision not to seek reelection.
Left to right
: Grace Coolidge, Calvin Coolidge, Rosebud Yellow Robe, Chief Chauncey Yellow Robe, and Henry Standing Bear. His policy of helping Indians to assimilate through education differed dramatically from his successors’ treatment of Native Americans as a nation and a group.