Unusual
Political Career of Calvin Coolidge, Never Defeated for an Office
Won First Renown in Police Strike
His Firm Action
in the Boston Disorders Brought Fame Throughout Nation
Known for Few
Words
And Economical
Way of Life--Waited for Circumstances to Shape His Destiny
Shunned a Third
Term
He Did 'Not
Choose' to Run Again--Feared Wife's Health Would Break Under Strain
January 6, 1933
OBITUARY
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
Calvin Coolidge began his career as a small-town lawyer, the first of his line
to leave the soil after three centuries in New England. The Coolidges had always
been farmers, frugal in their living, Puritan in spirit, and honorable in their
dealings with their neighbors. When Calvin finally left the rocky farm in
Vermont, from which a living was so laboriously wrung, it was simply a change of
circumstances, not of principles of conduct. He proposed simply to lead a
disciplined life and do the day's work the best he could.
He became the
thirtieth President of the United States; and, at the end of his second term, he
shared with the first President, George Washington, the distinction of retiring
before the nation was willing to let him go.
All during his
life he never changed his character or methods. He listened, he assimilated, and
he waited until there appeared what seemed to be the soundest course. He did not
try to make circumstances; but, when they appeared in the right configuration,
he acted. Otherwise he waited.
His distinguishing
characteristic was his ability to wait in silence. At first it made him a
subject of ridicule. His opponents offered his career as a proof that if a man
keeps his mouth shut long enough, something fortunate is likely to happen to
him. Eventually his silence was regarded as a heroic manifestation and became a
legend.
Two situations
which Calvin Coolidge did not create opened the way to the Presidency. The first
was the Boston police strike of 1919, which brought him national prominence and
the nomination for the Vice Presidency. The second was the death in 1923 of
President Harding, which placed him in the White House.
His own political
initiative obtained for him the nomination to succeed himself in 1924 and the
confidence which the country felt after fifteen months of his administration was
expressed in the vote that returned him to the Presidency.
The prestige of
Coolidge was so great at the end of his second term that the leaders of his
party wished to override the tradition that no President should have a third
term. It was with difficulty that President Coolidge prevented his enthusiastic
renomination by the Republican National Convention in 1928.
"I Do Not Choose to Run"
As early as the
Spring of 1927 the opinion that he could be re-elected was so generally
expressed that President Coolidge attempted to dispose of it on the fourth
anniversary of his accession to the office. On Aug. 2, 1927, he issued his
famous statement: "I do not choose to run for President in 1928."
It was variously
interpreted throughout the country. Many saw in it a sincere wish for
retirement, but still a willingness to accept the nomination should an insistent
demand arise. Others looked upon it as a final decision that he would not be a
candidate for re-election. There were many, too, who regarded it as a shrewd
attempt to avoid the third term issue by having himself "drafted for office."
The "draft
Coolidge" movement assumed such proportions, moreover, that Mr. Coolidge
undertook to clarify the situation once more, in an address before the
Republican National Committee the following December. In six sentences which
were added at the last minute to a prepared speech, the President declared that
he had eliminated himself entirely and advised the party to continue "the
serious task of selecting another candidate."
"This decision,"
he said, "must be respected."
But the "draft
Coolidge" movement could not be stopped. When the Republican National Convention
met in Kansas City in June, 1928, so many influential leaders of State
delegations were preparing to vote for him that the President sent his
secretary, Everett Sanders, from his Summer camp in Wisconsin to Kansas City to
notify those leaders to vote for anybody else. It was not his doing, he wrote
after leaving the Presidency, that they turned to Mr. Hoover.
"Had I not sent
Mr. Sanders to Kansas City," Mr. Coolidge wrote after entering private life, "I
am told, I should have been nominated. I never stated or formulated in my own
mind what I should do under such circumstances, but I was determined not to have
that contingency arise. My election seemed assured. Nevertheless I felt it was
not best for the country that I should succeed myself. It was therefore my
privilege, after seeing my administration so strongly endorsed by the country,
to retire voluntarily from the greatest experience that can come to mortal man.
In that way I believe I can best serve the people who have honored me and the
country which I love."
The account of his
reasons for declining a third term, as he presented them in a magazine article
in May, 1929, is regarded as a much better revelation of his character than the
conventionalized autobiography which he also published.
"Irrespective of
the third-term policy," he wrote, "the Presidential office is of such a nature
that it is difficult to conceive how one man can successfully serve the country
for a term of more than eight years.
Views on a Third Term
"While I am in
favor of continuing the long-established custom of the country in relation to a
third term for a President, yet I do not think that the practice applies to one
who has succeeded to part of a term as Vice President. Others might argue that
it does, but I doubt if the country would so consider it.
"Although my own
health has been practically perfect, yet the duties are very great and ten years
would be a very heavy strain. It would be especially long for the mistress of
the White House. Mrs. Coolidge has been in more than usual good health, but I
doubt if she could have stayed there for ten years without some danger of
impairment of her strength.
"A President
should not only not be selfish but he ought to avoid the appearance of
selfishness. The people would not have confidence in a man that appeared to be
grasping for office.
"It is difficult
for men in high office to avoid the malady of self-delusion. They are always
surrounded by worshipers. They are constantly and for the most part sincerely
assured of their greatness. They live in an artificial atmosphere of adulation
and exaltation which sooner or later impairs their judgment. They are in grave
danger of becoming careless and arrogant.
"The chances of
having wise and faithful public service are increased by a change in the
Presidential office after a moderate length of time.
"It is necessary
for the head of the nation to differ with many people who are honest in their
opinions. As his term progresses, the number who are disappointed accumulates.
Finally there is so large a body who have lost confidence in him that he meets a
rising opposition which makes his efforts less effective.
"An examination of
the records of those Presidents who have served eight years will disclose that
in almost every instance the latter part of their term has shown very little in
the way of constructive accomplishment. They have often been clouded with grave
disappointments.
"While I had a
desire to be relieved of the pretensions and delusions of public life, it was
not because of any attraction of pleasure or idleness. We draw our Presidents
from the people. It is a wholesome thing for them to return to the people. I
came from them. I wish to be one of them."
Regarded Office as Stewardship
In his
administration of six years, President Coolidge was an outstanding example of a
President who regarded his office, the most powerful in the world, as a
stewardship--rather than as an opportunity to remake civilization. He proceeded
from practical considerations of government, politics and popularity, applying
his life-long experience as an elected office-holder. His decisions were usually
compromises, made after long consideration of the conflicting interests
involved. He announced them in as few words as possible and committed himself
only so far ahead as might be necessary. During his administration the advance
of the United States into the future was distinctly experimental--always in
search of the sound course.
In a world where
economics after the war had more influence than popular politics in developing
animosities, he had to deal with the American attitude toward the League of
Nations, the World Court, the tariff, farm relief, taxation, national defense
and armament limitation.
He believed that
the American people saw in the covenant of the League, whether intended or not,
a diminution of its independence, and in its provisions the final recourse not
to conscience but to force. In his first address to Congress after President
Harding's death President Coolidge set down these beliefs.
His Views on the League
"Our country has
definitely refused to adopt and ratify the covenant of the League of Nations,"
he said. "We have not felt warranted in assuming the responsibilities which its
members have assumed. I am not proposing any change in this policy; neither is
the Senate. The incident, so far as we are concerned, is closed. The League
exists as a foreign agency. We hope that it will be helpful. But the United
States sees no reason to limit its own freedom and independence of action by
joining it. We shall do well to recognize this basic fact in all international
affairs and govern ourselves accordingly."
"Our country has
one cardinal principle to maintain in its foreign policy," he wrote further. "It
is an American principle. It must be an American policy. We attend to our own
affairs, conserve our own strength and protect the interests of our own
citizens; but we recognize thoroughly our obligations to help others, reserving
to the decision of our own judgment the time, the place and the method. We
realize the common bond of humanity. We know the inescapable law of service.
That principle lay at the bottom of all Washington's statesmanship. It was this
truly American view which not only saved the Revolution but after its conclusion
saved all it had won."
President Coolidge
distrusted the League of Nations on the practical ground that it was difficult
enough to keep conflicting interests in balance in a government as large as the
United States; and it would be virtually impossible in a League of Nations to
maintain a world balance which would command sufficient prestige to deal with a
crisis. He favored the World Court of International Justice, however, as a means
of establishing international law on an enduring basis and preserving peace by
assuring the judicial settlement of international controversies.
He was not able to
obtain an adherence to the World Court, however, before his administration came
to an end. Meanwhile, he advocated a strong system of national defense while
furthering the cause of armament reduction and the elimination of war in
international relations.
One of the last
accomplishments of his administration, and one which gave him the greatest
satisfaction, was the international ratification of the Kellogg-Briand pact
whereby the great nations of the world pledged themselves never again to have
recourse to war as an instrument of national policy.
Favored a High Tariff
He maintained the
traditional high tariff of the Republican party, regarding it as essential to
keep the United States as self-contained as possible in a world where the recent
experience of the German Empire had demonstrated the difficulties of isolation.
When he took
office, however, after the death of President Harding, his attitude on all these
questions was unknown. All that the people knew of him was that he had made a
declaration which disposed of the Boston police strike in 1919 and brought him
dramatically to the attention of the nation; and that he had spent his life in
elective offices of increasing importance and that he was 51 years of age when
he became President of the United States.
His record then
was: Born on July 4, 1872, at Plymouth, Vt., where he received his preliminary
education in an ungraded school; secondary education at Black River Academy at
Ludlow and St. Johnsbury Academy; was graduated at Amherst College, 1895;
thereafter studied law in the office of Hammond & Field at Northampton, Mass.,
for two years until admitted to the bar. Offices: 1899, City Councilman; 1900,
City Solicitor; 1906, State Representative; 1907, re-elected; 1909, Mayor; 1910,
re-elected; 1911, State Senator; 1912, re-elected; 1913, re-elected and chosen
President of the Massachusetts Senate; 1915, Lieutenant Governor; 1916,
re-elected; 1918, Governor; 1919, re- elected; 1920, Vice President of the
United States, succeeding President Harding in 1923; 1924, elected President of
the United States.
Holding Office His Hobby
"What is your
hobby?" a woman asked him at a Washington dinner party.
"Holding office,"
he said seriously.
Fifteen times he
was nominated for public office and never failed of election. After he retired
from the Presidency, he wrote of his career: "There is only one form of
political strategy in which I have any confidence, and that is to try to do the
right thing."
He gave his first
resounding illustration of this principle in August, 1919, when strikes and
radicalism were indistinguishably confounded in the uneasy period after the war
and when the Boston police force, in opposition to the orders of the Police
Commissioner, formed a union and obtained a charter from the American Federation
of Labor.
The Police
Commissioner, the late Edward U. Curtis, suspended nineteen policemen who were
officials of the police union and a strike threatened. Mayor Andrew J. Peters
appointed a citizens' committee to adjust the controversy and this committee
proposed to recognize the right of the policemen to organize for better wages
and working conditions, but recommended that they remain independent of the
American Federation of Labor, lest they be involved in sympathetic strikes and
in partisanship in policing strikes.
Police
Commissioner Curtis, however, took the position that his order forbidding the
formation of the union had been deliberately disobeyed and that it was now a
matter of discipline and not of negotiation. The citizens' committee appealed to
Governor Calvin Coolidge, who, under the laws of Massachusetts, had a right
which had never been exercised, to remove the Police Commissioner of Boston.
Governor Coolidge refused to interfere with the conduct of the Police
Department.
A committee
representing more than 1,000 of the unionized policemen called on him and
complained about Commissioner Curtis's concept of discipline and about their
wages and living conditions. Governor Coolidge's position was that he could not
interfere in municipal police discipline; and that, as to wages and living
conditions, the policemen were proceeding by a wrong method. They told him they
intended to strike. "Law and order will be maintained in the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts," he said.
Police Strike Impresses Nation
On Sept. 9, 1919,
at 5 o'clock in the afternoon the police left their posts. The country, which
had paid little attention to the development of the controversy, was electrified
by the news that the police of old, conservative Boston had struck, leaving the
city at the mercy of the lawless. Bulletin followed bulletin across the country.
A boy threw a brick through the plate-glass window of a Boston department store,
and rioting and looting started. Hoodlums played crap on Boston Common and
bullied citizens. Boston was reported in a state of anarchy.
Next day Mayor
Peters asked for troops and Governor Coolidge, who had ordered them held in
readiness, supplied them forthwith. During the disturbance that day in the
restoration of order there were at least one fatal shooting and a number of
serious injuries. Public opinion, which had been divided as to the right of the
Boston police to have some sort of organization, turned violently against the
strikers.
By the morning of
Aug. 11, thirty-six hours after the walkout, the State troops had completely re-
established security in Boston. Next morning Samuel Gompers, president of the
American Federation of Labor, telegraphed to the striking members of the police
union to return to work. Police Commissioner Curtis, however, declared their
posts vacant and began to recruit an entirely new police force for Boston,
principally among returned war veterans. Mr. Gompers appealed to Coolidge for a
recognition of the policemen's rights, and it was then that Calvin Coolidge
wrote out his momentous reply:
"There is no right
to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time."
His friends told
him this declaration would end his political career.
"Very likely," he
said; and signed it.
Country Stirred by Declaration
Throughout the
country, however, it had a galvanic effect. Its directness seemed to reduce what
had been a hotly disputed question to a single indisputable point. To the rest
of the United States the issue was definite. Either you stood for public safety
or you stood against it. Coolidge became the hero of Americanism.
Three months
later, when Calvin Coolidge ran for Governor of Massachusetts again, his
plurality, which had been 17,000 the previous year, rose to 125,000. At the
Republican National Convention of 1920 he was boomed for the Presidency, but
with the field occupied in force and funds by Wood, Lowden and others, Calvin
Coolidge refused to allow himself to be entered as a candidate for the
nomination. After Warren G. Harding had finally been selected for the
Presidential nomination Senator Lenroot was slated for the Vice Presidency, and
all that remained was for the convention to go through the motions of naming
him.
Suddenly through
the great hall a lone voice, not from Vermont or Massachusetts, but from Oregon,
where the State had fought a bitter fight against radicalism, bellowed
"Coolidge! Coolidge!"
The convention
awoke to a demonstration. Leaders and politics were forgotten among the
delegates on the floor and the visitors in the gallery. They knew why they were
shouting. In a burst of enthusiasm for the hero of Americanism, the Vice
Presidency went to Calvin Coolidge.
When he succeeded
to the Presidency, in August, 1923, on the death of President Harding, President
Coolidge had the advantage of having sat in the Cabinet meetings regularly since
the inauguration. It was one of President Harding's innovations, which left his
successor thoroughly familiar with all the circumstances attending the policies
which he now declared his intention of carrying on.
Early Days as President
President
Coolidge's sureness and coolness from the outset impressed those who came in
contact with the new President. Within a few months after his accession he found
himself in the most trying situation that had ever faced a President. Under a
drive by the Senate that was perhaps without precedent, revelations of scandal
in high places rocked the nation. First were the disclosures as to the conduct
of the Veterans Bureau, followed quickly by a series of sensations in the
investigation of the naval oil leases and the administration of the Department
of Justice and the office of the Alien Property Custodian.
Refusing to be
stampeded even by his own political advisers, President Coolidge met each
situation with deliberation, taking such action as he considered best in the
public interest. He ordered prosecutions, retired Cabinet members, but passed no
judgments.
The President's
enemies insisted that his hand was forced in every action that he took in
connection with the Senate's revelations and that the thought of his own
political future dominated. On the other hand, his friends were equally positive
that he met these situations with the same courage that he showed in the Boston
police strike.
President Coolidge
emerged from the welter of investigations strongly entrenched in popular regard.
The conviction became general that he was a man of high integrity, insisting on
honesty in government, and that the scandals which had been ventilated could
reflect no discredit on his administration, since they had happened before his
accession to the Presidency.
He faced from the
outset, however, a Congress plainly hostile, in which he encountered the most
serious difficulties in putting through any of the major proposals on his
legislative program. Republican insurgents wielded the balance of power by
lining up repeatedly with the Democrats in direct opposition to the President.
He received little
material support, moreover, from the constituted leaders of his party in the two
houses during his first term. He was therefore obliged to look elsewhere for
champions of his re- nomination. The result was that, at the Republican National
Convention in Cleveland in 1924, the Congressional leaders who had dominated
party affairs for so many years became mere cogs in the party machinery. Calvin
Coolidge was nominated for the Presidency on the first ballot, with Charles G.
Dawes.
By that time the
country had taken his measure. His major interest was honesty and economy in
government, and on that he went to the country. He had vetoed a soldiers' bonus
bill. He had vetoed the McNary-Haugen farm-relief bill with the equalization
fee, which he characterized as "economic folly." He advocated reducing surtaxes
on the high income brackets, for the reason that a less confiscatory tax rate
would in the long run be more productive of revenue. His policy as to
prohibition was to enforce the law as long as it was on the statute books.
Opposed in the
campaign by John W. Davis as Democratic nominee and by the insurgent Senator
Robert M. La Follette as an independent candidate, Mr. Coolidge was swept back
into office with Mr. Dawes by a popular vote of 15,000,000--nearly twice that
given the Democratic nominee and more than three times as great as Senator La
Follette's total.
During his term of
office from 1925 to 1929 President Coolidge achieved more of his program. He was
imperturbable under criticism of his administration, for he had usually foreseen
the criticism and it was part of his calculations. He was somewhat disturbed,
however, by the legend which had grown up about the silence--that he was a cold,
inhuman political machine.
He attempted to be
more friendly, but his attempts were awkward with all but his most intimate
associates. His natural taciturnity, his distaste for emotionalism, the
disciplined life he had led, and finally the dignity of his high office, all
combined to keep him so apart from the rest of mankind that there was little
outer manifestation of any inner stir.
Not Prominent at College
He was so when he
arrived at Amherst to go to college, a raw country boy with his pants tucked
into his boot-tops and the marks of rural Vermont plain upon him. To the
majority at college he remained unknown throughout the four years; and with the
exception of certain scholastic honors, attained no prominence. Only a few of
the more thoughtful men remembered later that they saw in him something unusual.
He made no effort
whatever to be popular; often hardly a word would pass his lips for a day at a
time, except such as were absolutely necessary to keep him supplied with food
and to report his presence in the classroom. So much silence, such concentrated
silence, might savor of a pose, but Calvin Coolidge came by it naturally enough.
His grandfather
was a notorious hoarder of words; and his father, whose common sense and
straight thinking made his neighbors turn to him as a sort of unofficial
magistrate in matters of neighborhood policy or dispute, managed life with a
mere fraction of the ordinary allotment of conversation.
Silent and
unobtrusive as young Coolidge was at college, he was graduated with highest
honors and, in his senior year, in competition with the undergraduates of all
American colleges, he won first prize, a gold medal offered by the Sons of the
Revolution, for the best essay on "The Principles of the War for American
Independence."
The Coolidge Romance
Six years after
his graduation he decided to marry Grace Goodhue as soon as he had earned enough
money. That was in 1901. He said nothing to her about it until he was ready, in
1905. She was a teacher in the deaf and dumb school at Northampton. In the
Summer of 1905 she went to Burlington, Vt., for her annual vacation. The next
day Calvin Coolidge arrived. Her parents imagined his law business had brought
him there. When several days passed and Calvin the Silent appeared to be
untrammeled by business, inquiry revealed that he had no affairs in Burlington.
"Just came over to
be married to Grace," he told Mr. Goodhue.
"Have you spoken
to Grace yet?" the astonished father asked.
"No," he said,
"but I think I will in a couple of days."
He returned to
Northampton that week with Grace Goodhue his wife. They lived in half of a two-
story house at 21 Massasoit Street, Northampton, where their sons John and
Calvin Jr. were born, until they went to Washington after his election to the
Vice Presidency. Calvin Coolidge had managed, by limiting his wants strictly, to
stay in public life twenty years with only a private law practice that never
amounted to more than a few thousand dollars a year.
Paid Dollar a Day for Room
As Lieutenant
Governor of Massachusetts he lived in a room at the Adams House that cost him a
dollar a day. After his election as Governor his friends waited upon him with a
suggestion: "You ought to take a furnished house on Beacon Hill, where you can
entertain influential men and live like a Governor."
He listened
without comment, but the only change he made was to take one more room at the
Adams House. The old white paint on the two-family house in Northampton
blistered and peeled, but when a well-to-do Boston friend asked him why he
didn't ask his landlord to paint the place, he replied: "Might raise the rent on
me."
The rise of Calvin
Coolidge has never ceased to puzzle politicians, showmen and other practitioners
of the art of self-exploitation. His methods seemed doomed to failure. He was
not a mixer or a joiner of societies. He never slapped a man on the back in his
life. He was not an orator. His accent was pronounced by Boston as "impossible."
His expression of face was most often described as vinegary. Neighbors who lived
in the same street at Northampton for more than twenty years never pretended to
know him "except by sight."
"I didn't vote for
you," said one of them in exasperation, one day.
"Some did," he
replied and passed on.
Calvin Coolidge's
only analysis of his success on record after his retirement was: "Fate bestows
its rewards on those who put themselves in proper attitude to receive them."
In one of his
articles, in 1929, Mr. Coolidge told of "the price which Providence exacted for
occupying the White House."
Tragedy of His Son's Death
"We do not know
what might have happened to my son Calvin Jr. under other circumstances, but if
I had not been President he would not have raised a blister on his toe, which
resulted in blood poisoning, playing lawn tennis in the south grounds. In his
suffering he was asking me to make him well. I could not. When he went, the
power and glory of the Presidency went with him.
"The ways of
Providence are often beyond our understanding. It seemed to me that the world
had need of the work that it was probable he could do. I do not know why such a
price was exacted for occupying the White House.
"Sustained by the
great outpouring of sympathy from all over the nation, my wife and I bowed to
the Supreme Will, and with such courage as we had went on in the discharge of
our duties.
"In less than two
years my father followed him.
"At his advanced
age he had overtaxed his strength receiving the thousands of visitors who went
to my old home at Plymouth. It was all a great satisfaction to him, and he would
not have had it otherwise.
"When I was there
and visitors were kept from the house for a short period, he would be really
distressed in the thought that they could not see all they wished, and he would
go out where they were himself and mingle among them.
"I knew for some
weeks that he was passing his last days. I sent to bring him to Washington, but
he clung to his old house.
"It was a sore
trial not to be able to be with him, but I had to leave him where he most wished
to be. When his doctors advised me that he could survive only a short time, I
started to visit him, but he sank to rest while I was on my way.
"For my personal
contact with him during his last months I had to resort to the poor substitute
of the telephone.
"It costs a great
deal to be President."
Crowds Forced Him From Home
When he attempted
to return to private life, former President Coolidge found the cost of the
Presidency still pursued him. He moved back into the two-family house in
Northampton and resumed his favorite relaxation of porch sitting, but found the
streets jammed with tourists who came to stare at him. In self-protection he was
forced to buy a house and eight acres in another part of Northampton for
$40,000.
There he wrote his
first articles for publication, telling what it meant to be President and what
sort of life he had led. For a time, he supplied a daily comment of 200 words to
a syndicate of papers. It was widely followed by a public which apparently found
satisfaction in his presentation of the common verities.
He wrote in one of
them about the pleasantness of Springtime: "the open country, the unhurried
silence, the refreshing leisure are a stimulation to the body and a benediction
to the soul."
He also improved
the ancestral Coolidge farm and homestead at Plymouth, where his father
administered to him the oath of office on the death of President Harding. Here
Mr. Coolidge was a frequent visitor after his retirement from the White House,
strolling about the farm or going off into the woods with a gun to shoot
partridges. The farm attracted at one time as many as 300 visitors a day, even
when Mr. and Mrs. Coolidge were absent. These were shown about the place by a
guide reported to be as economical of words as Mr. Coolidge himself.
While writing
frequent articles for magazines, which he continued to do until a few months
before his death, Mr. Coolidge was mentioned often for important business and
educational posts. On Oct. 27, 1932, upon publication of reports that he was
considered for the chancellorship of New York University to succeed Elmer
Ellsworth Brown, Mr. Coolidge was finally compelled to write a statement
advising newspapers to discount as untrue any reports mentioning him for some
position.
Became Director of New York Life
Posts which he
accepted after retirement from the Presidency were those of president of the
American Antiquarian Society, to which he was re-elected in October, 1932; a
directorship on the board of the New York Life Insurance Company, to which he
was elected on April 10, 1929, and the chairmanship of the National
Transportation Committee, formed by a group of banks, insurance companies and
other organizations interested in railway securities, for the purpose of
studying the situation of the railroads and presenting for public approval
recommendations as to what steps were desirable to improve their position.
Announcement of
the formation of this committee was made on Sept. 27, 1932. Serving with Mr.
Coolidge were Bernard M. Baruch, Alfred E. Smith, Clark Howell Sr., publisher of
The Atlanta Constitution, and Alexander Legge, president of the International
Harvester Company and former chairman of the Farm Board. Mr. Coolidge was also a
trustee of the Conrad Hubert Foundation of Chicago.
Mr. Coolidge's
duties as a director of the New York Life Insurance Company and chairman of the
National Transportation Committee brought him to New York from Northampton at
various times. These visits were always quiet and unobtrusive. His last visit to
New York was in connection with a meeting of the transportation committee in
December.
Campaign Speeches for Hoover
Last Oct. 2, Mr.
Coolidge made his first public address in four years, when he appeared in
Madison Square Garden at a Republican campaign rally. He assailed Governor
Roosevelt and the Democratic party and argued for the re-election of President
Hoover. His last speech was on the evening of Nov. 7, another appeal for the
President's re-election, delivered in a radio broadcast from Northampton.
During the months
preceding the renomination of President Hoover, many Republicans looked again
toward Mr. Coolidge as a candidate, but he turned a deaf ear to any suggestions
of a return to politics. Nevertheless, he was regarded in some circles as the
Republican hope for 1936.
Mr. Coolidge's
last message to the American people was voiced in a New Year's symposium
broadcast from Station WINS in New York on Jan. 1, in which he said:
"For the year 1933
it seems to me that we need cooperation and charity. The resources of our
country are sufficient to meet our requirements if we use them to help each
other. We should cooperate to promote all kinds of business activity. We should
do what we can in the way of charity. If all that is implied in these two words
could be put into operation, not only would our economic condition begin
steadily to improve but our destitute would secure ample relief. I can think of
no better resolution for the new year than to work in these directions."
Mr. and Mrs.
Coolidge spent New Year's and Christmas quietly at their home in Northampton. On
Christmas Day they attended morning services at the Edwards Congregational
Church.
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