The Presidency by Hugh Sidey: Old Cal Makes a Comeback

The Presidency

The first annual President Calvin Coolidge Week is now a warm glow both in Northampton, Mass., where Coolidge lived before and after his presidency, and in the White House, whose current occupant is his most powerful admirer.

It has been 60 years since Coolidge became President at the death of Warren Harding, 56 years since he issued one of the most famous and briefest political statements in history—”I do not choose to run”—and 50 years since his death. If the celebration works out as planned, Coolidge Week will end on Sunday when John Coolidge, 76, the President’s only living son, will drive down from Plymouth Notch, Vt., the family’s old home town in the Green Mountains, to Northampton. On the courthouse lawn there, John Coolidge will unveil a new gray granite bust of his father, the tardy fulfillment of a memorial first promised in 1934. The sculptor is Frank Gaylord II of Barre, Vt., whose pantheon includes William Penn, John Kennedy, Arthur Fiedler and Martin Luther King.

The script also called for Congressman Silvio Conte to get a phone call from Ronald Reagan, the admirer who had a portrait of the parsimonious Coolidge moved into the Cabinet Room 2½ years ago. The chat between John Coolidge and Reagan will be beamed out over the lawn. John thought he might tell the story of his father’s taking his two boys to stand in front of a bank. “See if you can hear anything,” Coolidge admonished. They could not and so reported. “I thought if you listened carefully you might hear your money working for you,” the elder Calvin explained to his sons.

The stories told about Coolidge last week were tinged with true affection, something the larger view of history often denies the 30th President. Richard Garvey, now editor of the Springfield Daily News and once a small boy in Coolidge’s Northampton neighborhood, recalled being instructed by his parents never to jaywalk and then seeing President Coolidge do that very thing. To young Garvey, it was as if one man had the power to defy the gods. He has studied Coolidge ever since. Last week Garvey published the story of how Coolidge, while living in the New Willard Hotel waiting for Mrs. Harding to leave the White House, woke up and found a cat burglar rifling his clothes. Coolidge talked the young man out of the crime, lent him $32 for a meal and transportation home, and sneaked him out the window so the Secret Service would not nab him.

Lawrence Wikander, a retired librarian of Williams College, fascinated an audience with comparisons between Reagan and Coolidge. Both had trouble with Nicaragua (Coolidge sent Marines to keep the peace in 1926 at the request of the Nicaraguan President); both were harder workers than is commonly believed; Reagan was an instant Eureka College campus leader while Coolidge bloomed late at Amherst. Even Amherst’s crusty historian, Henry Steele Commager, an ardent fan of F.D.R.’s, had a kind word: “Coolidge’s virtues were chiefly negative ones, but then, negative virtues are always preferable to positive vices.”

Northampton rededicated Coolidge Memorial Bridge and the Coolidge Room in the public library. There was a parade, an antique fire-equipment demonstration, a Roaring Twenties dance, an ice-cream social, a fishing derby, and an “I do not choose to run” foot race.

There was one serious hitch in the celebration. On an afternoon outing on the Connecticut River, Northampton holidayers, including Mayor David Musante, were listening to Coolidge readings when Massachusetts state police boarded the charter boat and ordered it back to shore for allegedly not having a license to sell liquor or operate as an excursion boat. So far no charges have been filed, but some 80 gallons of spirits were confiscated. When Editor Garvey heard about the incident, he was amused. Coolidge loved a wry twist, explained Garvey, so perchance Cal was back in town for the good times and friendly words.