National Affairs: Shock

The country, and especially its Republican politicians, spent the week recovering from what Pat McKenna, White House doorman since before Calvin Coolidge was even married, described as the greatest shock in all the 24 years of his official life. The shock had come gently to Mr. McKenna at that. Before he broke his rule of a quarter-century and stuck his head into the President’s office to see what went on, he had been forewarned of some portentous happening by a sharp burst of ejaculations from within. Mr. Mc-Kenna’s head entered the President’s office just as the President answered, “None,” to a news correspondent who asked if he would add anything to the sentence, “I do not choose to run for President in nineteen twenty-eight.”—

Sequelae. ‘Doorman McKenna was obliged at once to stand aside and let 15 frantic newsgatherers go tearing and tumbling down the corridors of the high school to transmit the twelve-word shock to an unsuspecting world.

Senators Arthur Capper of Kansas and Peter Narbeck of South Dakota were understanding near Doorman McKenna when the newsgatherers charged by. The President was expecting them. They entered.

“What a piece of news! I am surprised!” cried Senator Norbeck.

Senator Capper blurted, “It cannot be true!” Then, seeing it was true; he said, “Your statement appears to have caused quite a commotion.” President Coolidge commotion.

President Coolidge answered in an easy monotone, “Yes, so it seems..”

Later, to another caller, the President was said to have said, “There are plenty of other men in the country for the job. This is not a one man country. Ten years is a long time to be President.”

Translations. “What did choose mean?” people asked. Reliable Vermonters were found who said it was a cautious colloquialism for “want.” Funnyman Will Rogers and others declared it as foxy a word as an adroit politician ever selected. Columnist Heywood Broun thought it had “magnificent swank.” Senator Bruce of Maryland, with Democratic irony, quoted Macbeth: “If chance will have me King, why, chance may crown me.”

Statements. Less analytical people confined themselves to flat statements. Onetime-Governor Edward C. Stokes of New Jersey was first into print with the classical “. . . as Cincinnatus was called from the plow.”

The oldest Senator, Francis E. Warren of Wyoming, aged 83, Republican, said, “I believe Calvin Coolidge will be nominated and elected in 1928, notwithstanding today’s announcement.”

Other commentators took greater care to avoid suggesting that the President had not stated an irrevocable decision, or that he might be even momentarily suspected of veiled deception, wilful obscurity.

The Paris Temvs said it most roundly: “No one has any right to question his sincerity.”

Homelier, Thomas A. Edison said: “He is getting sick of his job.”

The Daily News (London): “President Coolidge is fed up, as Mr. Baldwin, a man very like him, notoriously is fed up and M. Briand in Prance, a man very unlike him, also is fed up.”

The largest U. S. holder of rail-road stocks, Arthur Curtiss James of Manhattan, said: “I know that everyone. . . will be sorry to hear the news.”

Mrs. Elmira Goodhue, the President’s mother-in-law, said: ” I know nothing of the President’s policies except what I read in the newspapers.”

Wall Street, The news reached the New York Stock Exchange after closing hours. Next morning bedlam reigned—a bedlam of selling. It looked as though Wall Street’s interpretation was that the “Coolidge Bull Market” had ended. But by luncheon time, the shrewd were profiting by the haste of the nervous. A buying reaction set in that expressed Wall Street’s more considered faith in the availability of Mr. Coolidge if needed and the stability of the G. O. P. if he is not needed. The net decline of 50 representative stocks on the day of “panic” was only 1 2/4 points.

Precedent. In 1915, having completed a pro tempore term as president of the Massachusetts Senate, Calvin Coolidge abruptly handed a slip of paper to his good friend, Frank W. Stearns, of Boston. _ The slip read: “I am a candidate for Lieutenant Governor.”

Facts. Mrs. Coolidge has been more than hoping that her husband would not subject himself to the physical strain of another four years as chief executive.

President Coolidge has himself remarked that only one onetime President—William Howard Taft— is still alive.

Letters containing threats made it seem wise last year to send a detective about at the heels of John Coolidge, Amherst student. Letters of this sort have kept on coming.

The Springfield (Mass.) Republican, which the President reads with attentive respect, last fort night published an editorial entitled, “A Sullenly Accepted Administration” (see p. 20).

The President had for six weeks been much alone, away from his party managers.

The day of his announcement was the eve of the fourth anniversary of his taking the oath of presidential office.

Vice Chairman Charles D. Hilles of the Republican National Committee and his colleagues had no advance inkling of the President’s intentions. Mr. Hilles said, “I regret his action. He is a singularly self-reliant man.”

The Future. At their second meeting last week, newsgatherers at Rapid City, S. Dak., asked the President if he would press for a continuation, next year or in 1929, of the ineffectual disarmament conference just closing at Geneva (see p. 10). He emphatically reminded the newsgatherers that he would not be in the White House after March 4, 1929.

The first steps that the President must take to see that this prediction comes true will be to notify campaign managers in New Hampshire and North Dakota that his name is not to appear in the primary elections those states will hold next March.*

But not until the Republican National Convention has taken a decisive roll call next summer will the Coolidge “choice” be irrevocable unless it is so already in the laconic mind that made it.

The G. O. P. The Republican party was genuinely “stunned” but it soon recovered poise. Mark Sullivan, dean of Washington observers, pictured the G. O. P. proper as a body of hard-working politicians like Senators Smoot, Willis and David A. Reed, Secretary Mellon, Vice President Dawes, Frank O. Lowden, Nicholas Longworth — men among whom Calvin Coolidge is, by temperament and tradition, a virtual stranger. These men, thought Mr. Sullivan, would be sorry to lose so good a vote-getter as Calvin Coolidge but — personal ambitions quite aside — they would not seek to nominate him now because that would be “the sort of thing that ‘is not done’. It would be sensational, spectacular, emotional. The Republicans like to think of them selves as a little too orderly to do that sort of thing.”

Nevertheless, the New York Herald Tribune, leading G. O. P. organ in the East, published a distinctly emotional editorial called “A Nationwide Mandate,” in which it told that 30 of 42 Republican National Committeemen from whom it had elicited expressions refused to believe that President Coolidge would ignore a party call. Governor Fuller of Massachusetts led a New England chorus of even stronger effect: Calvin Coolidge would be wanted again and he would have to respond. The President’s closest political friend of all, Chairman William M. Butler of the Republican National Committee, steadfastly refused to be convinced that all was said and done. New Jersey Republicans actually formed a Coolidge Draft Club, sayng: “We draft soldiers in time of war; why should we not draft public officials in time of peace?”

As days passed, less was heard about draft, more about miscellaneous candidacies. Thus, U. S. Senator Frederick H. Gillette, a Republican, of the inner Massachusetts set, pointed to Charles Evans Hughes as his first choice, to Herbert Hoover as his second.

Draft or no draft, Republicans felt that the President’s announcement would greatly aid the party in resolving a major situation which an Iowa newspaper described as follows: “The Republican East is in the saddle and the Republican West is in arms.”

Democrats, not knowing what to say, said little. Governor-Candidate Alfred E. Smith of New York said nothing. George E. Brennan, boss Democrat of Illinois, said he could discover no effect on Democratic chances. The loudest gloater, oddly enough, was the majestic New York Times, which said: “When will our dazed friends, the Republican politicians, quit sobbing and sputtering like a child whose china lamb has just been smashed? Their chagrin at the wreck of their plans is intelligible, if somewhat amusing. The pins were all set up, and now they are all knocked down.”

Second Fiddles. The scrape of the second fiddle grew loud in the land as a score of the G. O. P.’s ablest performers suddenly learned that the big solo part might have to be reassigned. While the performers tuned up and decided what to play, their friends bowed to the audience to make preliminary introductions. Henry Ford bowed for Herbert C. Hoover. William Randolph Hearst bowed for Andrew W. Mellon. Frank 0. Lowden rushed home to Illinois from the Thousand Islands and repeated his favorite cryptogram about no man ever running away from the presidency. Vice President Dawes clenched his pipe in a grin and said he would “saw wood.”

Friends bowed, more and less impressively, for Charles Evans Hughes, Nicholas Longworth,— Simeon D. Fess, Arthur Capper, William Edgar Borah, George William Norris, Herbert Spencer Hadley, James E. Watson, Hiram Warren Johnson, Frank Bartlette Willis and many another.

*In 1796, George Washington used the sentence (after 66 words of preliminary phrasing) : “… I should now apprise you of the resolution I have formed to decline to be considered among the number of those out of whom a choice is to be made.”

In 1808, Thomas Jefferson’s sentence (with 38 words of preliminary phrasing) was: “… I should unwillingly be the person who, disregarding the sound precedent set by an illustrious predecessor, should furnish the first example of prolongation beyond the second term of office.”

In 1875, Ulysses S. Grant said: “I am not nor have I ever been a candidate for renomination. I would not accept a nomination if it were tendered, unless it should come under such circumstances as to make it an imperative duty—circumstances not likely to arise.”

In 1904, Theodore Roosevelt said: “The wise custom which limits the President to two terms regards the substance and not the form, and under no circumstances will I be a candidate for or accept another nomination.”

*Thereafter the 15 other states whose delegates to presidential nominating conventions are chosen by direct primary, would either take their cues or have to be notified. The states: Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Ohio (primaries in April) ; California, Maryland, Indiana, New Jersey, Oregon, West Virginia, South Dakota (primaries in May); Florida (primary in June).