The President

NOVEMBER, 1923

BY EDWARD ELWELL WHITING

I

EARLY in December the sixty-eighth Congress will assemble at Washington. It will be in session during the months when the country is making up its mind for whom it wishes to vote, in the following November, for President of the United States; months when the major political parties are making up their minds whom they shall nominate. The outstanding political figure at this moment is, by virtue of his office and by virtue of some other things, Calvin Coolidge. Will he be as outstanding a political figure next spring? During the difficult days of transition, following the death of President Harding, President Coolidge has commanded respect and has encouraged his friends to believe their judgment of his qualities is sound. The real test is to come after Congress assembles. This will be a test of his capacity for national leadership; not political-party leadership, but leadership of the nation. What is his equipment for the test?

I recall a day in the spring of 1920, and a ride through a beautiful hillcountry with a former Senator of the United States. He was an admiring friend of Governor Coolidge. The conversation was of Coolidge and of the efforts by his friends to nominate him for the Presidency. ‘The Presidency,’ said the former Senator, ‘is a high office. It is not something to be given to a friend as a gift or an honor. Many men aspire to it. Few are equipped for it. Is Calvin Coolidge equipped?’

The background of Calvin Coolidge — christened John Calvin Coolidge — is New England. He is a concentrated example of a familiar type. His thrift in words is not unique in his part of the country; but he has carried it further in life, and wider afield, than most of those who by custom and inclination practise it. He was born in Plymouth, Vermont, on July 4, 1872. Some have seen an ‘omen’ in the date. We do not know how the many obscure persons who have been born on the national holiday interpret this. Others have seen an omen in the fact that at the time of his election to the VicePresidency Calvin Coolidge was fortyeight years old; one year for each state in the Union. Another ‘omen’! Yet many men reach forty-eight, and go on to forty-nine without a pause of the stars in their courses and without even a flag raised in celebration of the event.

The omens that mark the course of Calvin Coolidge are of other sorts. The atmosphere of his birthplace has something to do with it. On July 15, 1920, after his nomination but before his election to the Vice-Presidency, he made a speech to a few thousand of his neighbors, at Plymouth, Vermont. Among the things he said was this: —

‘Vermont is my birthright. Here, one gets close to nature, in the mountains, in the brooks, the waters of which hurry to the sea; in the lakes, shining like silver in their green setting; fields tilled, not by machinery but by the brain and hand of man. My folks are happy and contented. They belong to themselves, live within their income, and fear no man.’

This little speech has not been celebrated. Few read it, few know of it. Yet in that paragraph you have some key to the man who made it. It is necessary to remember this Vermont background. Calvin Coolidge loves the silent hills. He is kin to them. Once on a trip through Vermont I took some little photographs of his home town. There were pictures of the little school which stands on the site of the one he first attended, of the cottage in which he was born, of his father’s house, of his grandmother’s house, of the local cheese-factory, and so forth. And there was one that showed just a view up the valley, on the road between Plymouth and Ludlow, a manufacturing town twelve miles from Plymouth. I showed prints of them to Governor Coolidge, believing they might interest him. They did; he looked at them, one by one, until he came to the one of the view up the valley. It was a scene of characteristic New England beauty — hills rising to right and left, tree-clad and eloquent of the religion of nature. Governor Coolidge looked long at it. It was the hour of dusk; and the shadows crept into the fine old executive chamber in the Massachusetts State House and laid a screen of mystery on all that was there. The corners of the room faded into the uncertainty of passing things; the pictures on the wall crept back into the distance whence they had come at the hand of almost forgotten painters. There was no Governor sitting at the great desk in the centre of the room; just a plain man of the hills, swept back to them by the current of memories. And I went from the room, silently, leaving him sitting in the gathering twilight, his eyes seeing far through a little photograph, far into the green hills of his homeland, far into the history of strong young America. ‘They belong to themselves . . . and fear no man.’

Vermont is Calvin Coolidge’s birthright; but ‘Vermont’ stands for more than a state of the Union. It stands for vigor, for thrift, for courage physical and moral, for a mighty pioneer past maintained in a sturdy present. Maybe he idealizes his home state. Who of us does not idealize the thing he loves? And what would become of us if we did not? And what great work of civilization, what achievements of humanity’s progress, could Time chronicle on the wide pages of experience, if ideals did not snatch some magnificent image from the facts of life, and so set a new and greater goal for the race? We think the national ideal in Mr. Coolidge’s mind is needed. ‘My folks are happy and contented. They live within their income, and fear no man.’

II

It is not easy to place Mr. Coolidge. He, too, has been idealized. ‘A second Lincoln.’ Strong praise. There is no second Lincoln: there will be none. Lincoln was Lincoln — not a type. Coolidge is Coolidge. His career in public life, spanning already nearly a quarter of a century, has been marked by industry and achievement. He has filled many offices. He has filled them well. He has always been ready for the task at hand. ‘Do the day’s work’ has been called his motto. They are his own words. A man who has always been ready, who has grasped opportunity, who has not pursued office but who has filled many offices, who has never been defeated in a political contest — he commands more than interest. He is now at the top; he occupies a great position — one of powder and responsibility. It is here that he will make his permanent reputation, or from here he will fall into oblivion. The test is ahead. A friend called on him in the first days of his occupancy of this office. The usual greetings were passed. The first sentiment expressed by President Coolidge was that he needed advice. That is a good sign. It may presage good results, if he seeks, obtains, and applies advice that is good. I recall a conversation with a leader in the Republican party, some years ago, concerning another public man elevated to high office. ‘He will take advice,’ I said. ‘Yes,’ said the oracle, ‘but — whose?’ Advice may help or hinder, may strengthen or destroy. What will be the advice that President Coolidge receives — and uses?

The country is now idealizing President Coolidge. This is good for the country; probably it will not hurt Mr. Coolidge. He is not likely to succumb to flattery, not likely to idealize himself. It is good for the country, because it indicates a capacity in the national character without which this nation could not have grown in moral strength as we like to believe it has. As a people we see in leaders what we want to see in them. We dream, and we fit our favorites into our dreams. We see things, in our mind’s eye, a little better than they are. So we try to sustain them on the level to which we have idealized them. We idealize our past heroes. We have erected in memory a gigantic figure of George Washington, the Father of his Country. We have forgotten, we will not recall, the attacks made upon him in his life. We retain the golden image of him, the colossal statue of him, created by his good works and kept brilliant and bold by the quality which is in our people. It is good for the country that we do so. Lincoln has grown so, as he should. The perspective of Time aids truth. The best of men is the truth of men. Civilization is an accumulation. Generation after generation adds to the treasures of massed human memory. Individuals contribute, memory makes sacred, these accumulations. Civilization goes forward by idealizing men and epochs, by retaining for everlasting inspiration the great things of life and thrusting aside the unworthy and futile things.

We idealize memories of the past. We idealize the new star. The heavens are filled with stars, one as mysterious and as splendid as the others to the layman. But discovery of some new star awakens the wonder anew. Betelgeuse, red rising in Orion, dims for a time the glory of Mars. We idealize the new star in political life; partly because of the unceasing reaching out for better things, the hope that springs unconquered in the heart of humanity, the unquenchable thirst for progress; partly because we are dissatisfied with things as they are and greet change with new hope. So now the country is in the stage of idealizing Calvin Coolidge. This we do, not only as we idealize each newcomer in authority, but as witnesses before a mysterious and curiously new manifestation. Coolidge is ‘different.’ He piques curiosity. He is so different that we hope the difference may be demonstrated as superiority.

Some men rise to high place, pass through their time of authority, and step aside, never challenging greatness, never risking disaster. There are even ways traversible in high places as well as in the valleys. There are lofty plateaus in public life, and upon them walk men who control vast things. Raised by circumstance above the valleys, they yet scale no peaks. He who seeks the greater heights, he whom idealization has pictured there, can have no middle course. He must stand erect, looking clear-eyed into the sun, or must fall, blinded, and be torn. The idealization of Coolidge is pushing him toward the peaks. He has yet to stand there.

To native-born and -bred New Englanders Calvin Coolidge is less mysterious than he is to the rest of the country. New Englanders will understand the experience of a Springfield man, a member of the Republican citycommittee of that place, who during the term of Coolidge as Governor heard his name called as he started down across Boston Common from the State House one summer twilight. He turned and saw the Governor coming behind him. He waited for him. This was the conversation: —

‘Going down town?’

‘Yes, Governor.’

‘I’ll walk along with you.’

That was all. They fell into step, and together walked to the Adams House where both were staying. No word was spoken on the walk across the Common and through to the hotel. Arrived there the Governor said: ‘Well, good-night.’ And the Springfield man said, ‘Goodnight.’ The incident shows the love of human companionship: the perfect companionship that does not rest on the ornamental foundation of words. Had he been uncompanionable the Governor would not have called on his friend to wait and walk with him. Companionship gained, conversation was not necessary.

This thrift of words is common in hill countries, not alone of New England. The man whose constant companion is wide spaces loses, or never has, the need of speech for the sake of sound. Colonel John Coolidge, the President’s father, is as chary of speech as is his son. I sat one day talking with him in his home in Plymouth. I asked about Calvin as a boy. Was he a hard worker on the farm? Did he do a good day’s work in those days? The father was silent for so long I thought he had not heard. Then the corner of his mouth twitched a bit, at some memory of years gone, and his eyes narrowed to a twinkle. A11 he said was this: —

‘Always seemed to me Cal could get more sap out of a maple tree than any other of the boys round here.’

On the day when Calvin Coolidge was officially notified, at Northampton, of his nomination for the VicePresidency, — July 27, 1920, a day of much honor for the Coolidge family, a day when the mind of the father must have overflowed with pride for the son, — I saw Colonel Coolidge standing silent and alone at a little distance from the crowd. The formal ceremonies were ended. Groups of persons were talking and visiting. But Colonel John stood alone. I approached him.

‘Colonel Coolidge, this is a wonderful day for you. We all expect great things from your son.’

The father said: ‘I hope you’ll never be disappointed.’

The Coolidge kind does not slop over.

Mrs. Coolidge was radiant, laughing with friends, echoing the splendor of a perfect summer day. ‘This has been a hard day for all of you,’ I said. ‘I suppose you will rest a day or two now.’

‘No,’ said the Governor’s wife, ‘Calvin says it is about like any other day. We are going right back to Boston.’ And they did. The Governor was at his desk early the next morning. He was doing the day’s work.

III

There are countless stories about Calvin Coolidge. Few men in public life in our time have given material for so many. Some of them are inventions of the tellers. Stories of his thrift are plentiful; no story that indicates lack of decent generosity is true. His is the thrift of his forbears. It is at the foundation of our land.

Other stories emphasize his ‘coldness.’ He is not cold; he merely is not emotionally demonstrative. His own mother died when he was a boy, thirteen years old. Her picture is on his desk in Washington, as it was on his desk at the Massachusetts State House. His stepmother, who loved him greatly, died in 1920. It is right to set down this fact: that Calvin Coolidge wrote to his stepmother personal letters not less than once a week, always. It is right to add this fact: since his stepmother’s death he has written, not less often, personal letters to his father. It is right to add this: the two Coolidge boys, by their father’s teaching and example, write not less than once a week to their grandfather. During the period of his stepmother’s painful illness, and not long before her death, a newspaper man visited the family in Plymouth. He returned to his home near Boston, arriving in the late evening. He found that the Governor had twice during the evening tried to reach him by telephone; he found by a message from his office that the Governor had several times during the afternoon tried to reach him there. What had happened? He called the Governor, at his rooms in the Adams House. He heard his voice on the wire.

‘ You wanted to reach me, Governor? ‘

‘How’s my mother?’

That was the reason — that was the only reason — the Governor of Massachusetts had tried all the afternoon and all the evening to reach by telephone the newspaper man who had been at Plymouth. A cold man? Not he.

Most of the stories about Calvin Coolidge emphasize his silence. Yet he will talk — when he wants to. A Boston newspaper writer tells of his first effort to induce him to talk. He had no more than a casual acquaintance with Governor Coolidge then. He had mapped out in his mind an article dealing with the national political situation in a general way, and he wanted to test it by consulting with someone who was well informed. Governor Coolidge obviously qualified, so he obtained an appointment with him. He entered the Governor’s office and was greeted pleasantly but not effusively. There was no air about the Governor of ‘I’m glad you came; anything I can do for you I will; make yourself right at home.’ Nothing of the sort. The Governor looked at him and said: ‘What can I do for you?’ Then he looked away.

The young man began to set forth the plan of his article. He tried to catch the Governor’s eye. He wanted guidance, wanted to see how his ideas were being received. The Governor appeared to have forgotten he was in the room. He was not ostentatiously inattentive. He was just detached. It is hard to talk to a man who does not, apparently, either see or hear you. You get no help. When you can hold a man’s eye you are quick to sense it if you go on a wrong track. You are as quick to note a fortunate effect. You key your own ideas and you shape your interview accordingly. There is no such opportunity with Coolidge. The interviewer has to fight his own way. He must go entirely on the merits of his case. He must exhibit himself.

This young newspaper man talked, with increasing difficulty, for some time, maybe forty minutes. He had not the slightest knowledge if the Governor approved or disapproved his ideas, or even whether the Governor had listened to him. At last he was talked out. He felt rather foolish, like a man who has suddenly discovered himself to be walking about in his shirtsleeves at a cold and formal reception. He desperately forced the situation, by asking the Governor, point blank: —

‘Well, Governor, what do you think of it? Have I the right idea of the situation? ‘

The Governor looked again at the young man, and said this: —

‘I suppose there’s a good deal going on at Washington we don’t know anything about. Come in any time and see me.’

That was all. Why was the Governor so brief? Because the young man was not well known to him, and there was no reason why he should undertake a fruitless discussion; because what the young man had mapped out was of no great value, and it made no difference whether it was or was not printed. In short, there was nothing for the Governor to say; so he said — nothing.

This incident has value by which to gauge the man. As President, he will be faced by many kinds of men, many of whom want something. They will try to feel their way with him. They will try to read him. They will fail. The most difficult task in human contact is to read a man who appears to have forgotten your presence. Mr. Coolidge greets his visitor with a direct, straight look. It is likely to give the visitor an idea that he sees much more than the visitor is willing to have him see. One is likely to have a sudden fear lest he has unwittingly done the wrong thing, or has blunderingly betrayed a secret thought; and he is likely to examine his own mind, rapidly, to be sure he had no secret he was trying to conceal. Then the Coolidge gaze wanders. It does not return for some time; sometimes not until the close of the interview, when he looks at his caller with an expression that carries the thought that he has dug deep into the personality of his caller. Sometimes in the middle of the presentation of a case to him he will dart a sharp look at the caller — who thereupon wonders what is the matter. Men who go to talk with Coolidge will take precaution to be quite sure of their ground before they start. They will, after a first experience.

The degree of success of most men in life rests upon their determination and ability to capitalize their strength. The wise man passes through a process of conscious and premeditated elimination. He overcomes weaknesses. He avoids developing that in him which promises no value. He concentrates his time and strength on what is best in him. He finds that which he can do best, and devotes himself to that line. He gives to each position he holds the best he has. He finds in each position a new school, or a new grade in school. He builds himself. Calvin Coolidge has been going through that process. Through more than twenty years of active public service he has schooled himself. To be silent, to listen, are not by themselves of value. The inarticulate and the moron may be silent and futile. The dull may listen. The sponge absorbs. The capacity to withhold unnecessary speech, the capacity to listen, may be of great value, to self and to society, if to them is joined an ability to sift what is heard, to balance facts, assort opinions, organize thought, and produce a product. We do not know what self-purpose has controlled the career of Calvin Coolidge. We do not know to what extent, if at all, he has deliberately calculated the effect of silence and listening. We do see the results. We believe that he early discovered that by joining creative and constructive mental processes to his willingness to listen and his ability to remain silent, he could achieve.

IV

Calvin Coolidge’s education was not surrounded by any remarkable incidents or circumstances. He attended the Plymouth district school, a school duplicated many times in similar communities. He went down to Black River Academy in Ludlow, twelve miles distant. It was a good school, but not at all extraordinary. Later he went to St. Johnsbury Academy, also in Vermont, a familiar type of New England academy. Through all these preparatory schools he was in the original atmosphere. He kept what he had. There is no indication that he added any new vision or had any new experience. Then he entered Amherst College, a typical New England college where fine ideals have held their ground through many years. There his contact was more varied. He was not a great student, but he did his work well. He was not conspicuous. Accounts indicate that he was an average boy, with his share of friends. He was asked, a few years ago, if he had been at all interested in athletics at college. ‘Some,’ he said. ‘What did you do in athletics?’ was the next question. Coolidge said: ‘I held the stakes, mostly.’ He was busy with books; and he was thorough. He delivered the ‘Grove Oration.’ It is a humorous feature of commencement; somewhat akin to the ‘Ivy Oration’ at Harvard. Thus the youth Calvin was something of a humorist. It was a good oration. In his senior year he won the prize, a gold medal, in a contest open to all colleges, with an essay on the principles and causes of the Revolutionary war. This essay has lately been reprinted. It shows maturity of thought. It might stand as the work of a man much older than twenty-three years, which was his age when he wrote it. He was graduated from Amherst in 1895.

The next stage in his education was yoked with work. He moved to Northampton and in a law office studied law. After twenty months of such study he was admitted to the bar, in 1897. He began the practice of law. Two years later he was elected to the Northampton City Council. That was the beginning of his political career. The next year he was Northampton City Solicitor. Then, from 1901 to 1907, he was out of office except for some service as Clerk of Courts in Hampshire County. In 1907 he was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives. In 1910 he was elected Mayor of Northampton. The city was a Democratic city. He was a Republican. The day after his election a Democratic acquaintance met him on the street and congratulated him. ‘But I did n’t vote for you,’ he added.

‘Well,’said Coolidge, ‘somebody did.’

In 1912 he was elected to the State Senate, in which he served until 1915. During the last two of the four years he was President of the Senate. This was his first test in leadership. He had already been noted for ability. In trying to judge whether his mind is ‘conservative’ or ‘progressive,’ it is worth while recalling that in 1907 he voted for the direct election of United States senators; that at that time he was on record in favor of the woman suffrage amendment. He was an active champion of a bill designed to prevent cheating in the sale of coal in small lots; he supported a bill for one day’s rest in seven; he supported a bill to prevent overtime work for women and children; he supported a bill placing surgical instruments in factories; a bill to pension widows and children of deceased firemen; he himself drew an anti-monopoly bill. He voted for pensions for public-school teachers; for playgrounds for children; workmen’s compensation; low fare for workmen and half-fare for school children. He put through the House an anti-discrimination bill. He actively, by speech and vote, favored an antiinjunction bill which passed the House. In 1912 he voted for the full-crew bill, against which the railroads made a successful fight with the aid of a veto by Governor Eugene N. Foss.

The rest of Mr. Coolidge’s political ascent, to date, is well known. He was elected Lieutenant-Governor in 1916 and served three years. His service there was marked by loyalty to the Governor, his chief. The next two years he was Governor of Massachusetts. During the first term the Boston police strike occurred. We need not discuss that dramatic event here. It has been much celebrated. It drew the country’s attention to him. It made him Presidential timber. It made him VicePresident. It did not create a new Coolidge; but it advertised him.

The campaign to nominate him for President was unusual, because he issued an announcement, in the middle of the campaign, that he was not a candidate. He refused to be a candidate, because he did not think it seemly for the Governor of Massachusetts to take part in a contest for delegates. The campaign was continued, under difficulties, without his consent, without consultation with him. It did not nominate him for President. It did, though it had no intention of doing so, nominate him for Vice-President.

On the day before the Convention opened, after the delegates had reached Chicago, one of his close personal friends thought he had a way to wring a declaration from the Governor. He concocted a telegram which read like this: —

‘Your friends all send their best regards and want to know if you are a candidate for the Presidency. What shall I tell them?’

He was sure this would bring a reply. It did. The reply was this: —

‘Thank my friends for their good wishes and tell them the truth.’

V

Throughout his public career Calvin Coolidge has done his duty in each office. He is now in a far higher office than he has held before. Its duties are many. Its difficulty is great. What is his equipment? He has yet to show. By his efficiency in past performance he indicates the best. Will his known qualities avail him in the new responsibility? Of his abstract qualifications we are reasonably sure. It is of his equipment to meet the specific needs of the high office that we are uncertain. There is promise in what may be called his mental attitude.

First, his attitude toward ‘politics.’ He regards politics as a means, not an end — as the art of government. These are his expressions. He believes that national stability requires public respect for men in office — the men who carry on the machinery of representative democracy. This is not an apology for the incompetent or the corrupt. It is a demand that public office, the functioning of democracy, shall command a respect based on faith in our form of government. That is a wholesome and a stimulating attitude. If we do not respect public men, we lose faith in our government. If we lose faith in that, the gates are opened to the substitution of a quite different form of government. Corrupt and incompetent men must be hurled from posts of authority; honest and able men must be elevated to power for the public good. But faith in service must prevail. We have to judge politics as we judge the professions, business, the church — by its best. Else civilization perishes.

Next, President Coolidge’s attitude toward law and the Constitution is interesting and important. In July 1920, after a conference with Warren Harding, he said, in a formal statement, this: —

‘I am here to coöperate with my associates. We have problems ahead. Many men have many remedies. The best remedy is the observance of the Constitution and the laws. Not their enforcement, mind you. I am not now speaking of that. Of course, the Government will enforce the laws. That is far from enough. There must be a return of public opinion toward a self-control by the people, toward a great and overmastering desire to observe the law. When that is done, the other problems will fall away; there will be peace, prosperity, and progress.’

This thought by Mr. Coolidge is closely related to his high conception of politics. The country must regard law not as a burden, an irksome restraint, but for what it is, in theory at least — a formulation of the public will in terms of application. Much might be written on another aspect of this idea; much might be said of the folly and futility, and even the danger, of laws which leap too far ahead of public opinion. If law is to be observed, as well as obeyed, if law is to be loved, it must be in fact what it is in theory, a true and faithful translation of the public will. That is why perversions of legislation, stultification of manifest public will, exploitation of the public by exertion of selfish authority, menace all law and all politics. There is much discussion of means to purify politics, means to secure sound laws, to abort or uproot corruption and decay. The thought which President Coolidge brings to this discussion is this: that a decent respect for public service and public servants, and a spontaneous public observance of law, in spirit as well as in act, are mighty levers to attain the perfection of representative democracy.

Calvin Coolidge has had executive experience as the Governor of Massachusetts. He has had intimate understanding of legislative bodies as President of the Massachusetts Senate and as President of the national Senate. He has served an apprenticeship under President Harding, by whose far-seeing courtesy he was a participant, or at least a listener, in Cabinet meetings. He has enlarged his horizon through two years and a half at Washington. He takes government with intense seriousness. He will listen to advice, but not to command. He holds law in high regard as law. He believes in national as well as individual selfcontrol. He is of sturdy stock, of frugal upbringing. He is kin with the hills and the enduring manifestations of God. His capacity for national leadership is to be tested. He faces problems and difficulties. He comes from folk who ‘ belong to themselves, live within their income, and fear no man.’ We believe he fears no problem ahead.