Calvin Coolidge (No. 30) – Plymouth
Notch, VT
October 6, 2018
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| Silent Cal (source: wikipedia) |
However, the area was beautiful with the
hills covered in autumn reds, yellows, browns and greens. Another plus: It was the weekend of the
Plymouth Notch Antique Apple Fest, which meant a day full of extra activities
and tasty treats. We got to sample pies, apples and cheeses, and saw some
demonstrations scheduled especially for the event.
We found it appropriate that we had no
cell phone service anywhere in or around Plymouth Notch. While cities all over the country had
installed newfangled amenities such as indoor plumbing and electricity by the
1920s, the village had not. When Coolidge became vice president, the village had
to string a temporary telephone wire from the general store to the Coolidge
house so Coolidge could stay in touch with Washington, DC.
* * *
Coolidge was the polar opposite of his
predecessor, Warren Harding. While
Harding was handsome and sonorous, a contemporary journalist, called Coolidge
“an inconspicuous, sour-faced man with a reputation for saying as little as
possible and never jeopardizing his political position by being betrayed into a
false move .“ (Lewis, 1931). Lewis also called Coolidge a “pale and
diffident Vermonter with a hatchet face, sandy hair, tight lips. And to top it off, Coolidge had a high-pitched,
nasal voice.
Harding was gregarious, while Coolidge
was introverted. At a dinner party, a
woman seated next to Coolidge made a bet that she could get him to say more
than two words. Coolidge replied, “You
lose.” And that was the end of
that. Coolidge was so silent, he earned
the nickname, “Silent Cal.” His stingy
use of words made people kind of crazy
and they tended to avoid social situations with him. Edward Lowry, a journalist, called Coolidge
“a politician who does not, who will not, who seemingly cannot talk.” (Shales,
2013).
While Harding liked to drink (he had
big stash of alcohol in the White House), Coolidge respected Prohibition and
avoided alcohol.
While Harding’s administration was
astoundingly corrupt, Coolidge’s was honest—once he cleaned up the bad actors
from the Teapot Dome and other scandals.
Coolidge believed that power corrupted and he never accepted
inappropriate gifts. In fact, money was
of little interest to Coolidge. He was
“thrifty to the point of harshness.” (Shales, 2013).
And while Harding liked to live big, Coolidge
believed in hard work and frugal living. Coolidge’s presidential staff was
issued one pencil at a time and was expected to use it all the way to the
nub. According to Shales ( 2013 ), “Those who did not use their pencils to
the end were expected to return the stub.” He also cut the number of federal
workers by about 100,000.
Coolidge got his frugality from his
father, Col. John Coolidge. That meant that the family used a “two-hole
privy”
even though flush toilets were being used by then. (Even President Rutherford
B. Hayes had indoor plumbing in his house by 1880!.) The Colonel also did not believe in modern
day contraptions. As we
mentioned, Plymouth Notch had to string a temporary phone wire so that
Coolidge could be in touch with Washington when he visited. The new phone sat on a chair in the “Oath of
Office” room at the Coolidge homestead, and the Colonel promptly removed it to
the porch once his son headed south to the nation’s capital.
 |
| Two hole privy in the Coolidge home. |
Plymouth Notch was one of 17 tiny
communities surrounding the town of Plymouth. The population of the area,
including those communities, totaled 1,200. Three still exist — Plymouth Notch,
Plymouth Union and Tyson — with a total population of 600. In the 1920s, Plymouth Notch consisted of
five families.
 |
| Plymouth Notch, VT |
The village consists basically of two
small roads and fewer than two dozen buildings. In the 1920’s, Plymouth Notch
was self-sufficient and was home to the five families, a church, one-room
schoolhouse, barns, cheese factory, a tavern / stagecoach depot, and a general
store, which doubled as a post office.
The historic site’s visitors center is
only about five years old. It is fairly big, with an open area full of seating
— rocking chairs and comfy couches. We
watched a 14-minute video about Coolidge and the town.
Besides the main open area, the
visitor’s center houses two big rooms full of memorabilia. One room features
information about Coolidge’s Summer White Houses, while the other is about his
presidency. It also has
several interactive exhibits, including one where
visitors stand at a lectern and ask the president questions (from a list), with
a video of Coolidge answering. Cathy asked him what his biggest accomplishments
were. He said it was keeping the country at peace, prosperity, and lack of
turmoil.
 |
| Cathy questions Coolidge at the vistiors center. |
We learned that Coolidge was the first
president to light the national Christmas tree and appropriately, the tree was
a Vermont fir fitted with electric lights.
 |
| The Coolidge family. Calvin Jr. is on the left. (no copyright infringement intended) |
And we learned about “Thunderbolt.” Thunderbolt was Coolidge’s 475 pound mahogany
electric horse that he kept in the White House bedroom and rode for exercise. (He
didn’t talk about Thunderbolt much.)
Coolidge had once been a progressive. In 1915, while he was lieutenant governor of
Massachusetts, he cast the deciding vote against showing the racist film “Birth
of a Nation” in Boston. But he changed
once he became governor of Vermont.
When faced with a police strike in
Boston in 1919, he called the state guard
to replace them, effectively firing the police. “The action of the
police in leaving their posts of duty is not a strike. It is a desertion,” he said. He sent a telegram to Samuel Gompers,
president of the American Federation of Labor, that read, “There is no right to
strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time.” And the public supported Coolidge.
Once in the White House, Coolidge was
determined to follow Harding’s path of “normalcy,” a term denoting that the
country should get back to business after the calamitous Great War. This meant low taxes, tariffs and less
government. Regarding tariffs, Coolidge
said, “My observation of protection is that it has been successful in
practice.”
He also worked hard on reducing the nation’s
lingering Great War debt; after the war the debt rose nine times to $27 billion. Coolidge managed to cut the debt to $18
billion by the time he left office in 1929.
He had a surplus budget every year he was in office. “I regard a good
budget as among the noblest monuments of virtue,” he said.
He also pushed for a smaller government
and vetoed 50 bills while in office including the Bonus Bill that would have given
money to veterans. He also vetoed a
farm subsidy bill that would have aided farmers hurt by tariffs. “It is impossible to provide by law an assured
success for those who engage in farming, he said. (But Congress did end up providing a credit
to the farmers.)
Coolidge continued Harding’s
restrictions on immigration and signed a bill restricting immigration—including
the exclusion of Japanese. He did
support immigration for those who would easily assimilate into the
country. Immigrants had to learn English
and become familiar with American life.
Coolidge was also able to achieve
something that Woodrow Wilson had not.
He got Congress to ratify the Kellogg-Briand Treaty, a Great War-ending
treaty that renounced “war as an instrument of national policy” (Lewis,
1931). Congress ratified the treaty
85-1.
Coolidge was a progressive on race
relations. “During the war 500,000 colored men and boys were called up under
the draft, not one of whom sought to evade it,“ he noted. He also wanted Congress to act against the
lynchings that were rampant in the South (Shales, 2013).
And Coolidge was kind. While staying at the Willard Hotel as vice
president, he once woke in the middle of
the night to find a burglar in his room going through his belongings. He gave the burglar a $32 loan and helped him
escape the Willard and avoid the Secret Service agents guarding him.
It was Coolidge who appointed John
Edgar Hoover (a.k.a. J Edgar Hoover) as chief of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation. Hoover would stay in
office until he died in 1972.
Coolidge’s Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon—the third richest person in the United States—came up with the concept of “Scientific Taxation,” lowering tax rates to stimulate more economic activity and more revenue. “Taxes…force everyone to work for a certain part of his time for the government,” Coolidge said. “I want the people of America to be able to work less for the government and more for themselves.” He said that “the chief business of the American people is business.” He worked with Congress to cut the top individual tax rate by 25 percent.
And it seemed to work. The unemployment rate went down to 3.5%. And the stock market eventually rose to the
sky. The Federal Reserve lowered the discount
rate from 4 to 3.5 percent and added fuel to the fiery mania. Mining output soared almost 250 percent. Railway services also rose nearly 200
percent. (It should be noted that both
Mellon and Coolidge had some conflicts.
Mellon was said to still be very involved with Wall Street and Coolidge
bought stocks while president.)
* * *
We were famished after our two-hour drive from the Albany airport, so we headed to the Wilder House. This is an1830s era building that served as a tavern and stagecoach stop. We ate modest but tasty turkey sandwiches and some hot tea in a room with a fireplace and about 16 wooden tables.
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| Coolidge family home. |
She told us that Coolidge’s father, or
Col. John, as he is known, wore many hats in town and was self-sufficient. He
made his own tools, farmed his own land, and opened a cheese factory. If he
needed a carriage, he built a carriage. When the family moved from the back of
the General Store to a new house, he needed a barn. So he built one.
The Colonel taught young Calvin this
self-sufficiency and hard work, traits that continued throughout the
president’s life. As a boy, Calvin was up at 4 a.m. cutting wood for the fire.
He needed a sap yoke for gathering maple sap, so he made one, Ms. Jacob
explained.
We explored the first floor of the house, where all the rooms were protected behind glass. The highlight of the tour is the Oath of Office room.
Harding died on Aug. 2, 1923 at 7:30
p.m. in California, which was 10:30 p.m. on the East Coast. A call was made to the Colonel’s home but
nobody answered the phone. It took until
the dark hours of the morning for someone to drive from Bridgewater, six or
seven miles away, to alert Coolidge that he was now the president.
 |
| Oath of office room at the Coolidge family home. |
We later asked Ms. Jacob what she
thought of Coolidge. She called him a
“very ethical man.” She pointed out that he was also frugal in life and
balanced the federal budget. She also
noted that Coolidge cleaned up corruption in the Harding administration and
fired the bad actors.
* * *
In 1924, Coolidge ran for his own term. The Republicans Party came up with mottos such as “Brass tacks and common sense.” They also printed up cards that showed an electric fan and read “Keep cool with Coolidge.”
Coolidge ran against John Davis, the
Democratic candidate as well as Independent Progressive Party candidate, Robert
La Follette. La Follette was legendary
in Tom’s home state of Wisconsin, where he was known as “Fighting Bob La
Follett.” He ran on a platform of high
taxes on the wealthy as well as public ownership of railroads. But Coolidge beat them both. He won 382 electoral votes while Davis won
136. La Follette carried only Wisconsin.
Coolidge’s first full term was known
for “Coolidge Prosperity” and the “Roaring 20s”. Everyone wanted to be modern. Car ownership grew from 6.7 million in 1919
to 23.1 million in 1929. And there was a
radio in every third home.
Tests of endurance were common. The most well-known was Charles Lindbergh’s
flight across the Atlantic in a single propeller plane, the Spirit of St. Louis. He flew for 33 straight hours without
sleep. The dance marathon craze also
began in the 20s, with couples dancing for days to win prize money.
The modern look for women was thin. “Flappers” would wear long-waisted dresses,
with short or no sleeves. She had short
hair and some makeup. She held a
cigarette in one hand (cigarette consumption doubled between 1919 and
1930) and a drink in the other (Lewis,
1931).
The bull market kept rising—and
everyone wanted in. By 1927, margin
accounts had risen to $3.6 billion and securities had gotten complicated. According to Lewis (1931),“supersalesmen of
securities were selling…shares of investment trusts which held stock in holding
companies which owned the stock of banks which had affiliates which in turn
controlled holding companies…”
And, even though Prohibition was in full
swing, the liquor continued to flow.
Essentially Prohibition meant that people could consume alcohol but they
were prohibited from making it or selling it.
Eight-five percent of sitting Congressmen drank (Tagatz, 2018).
People drank in “speakeasies” most of
which were not as interesting as in the movies. People would go in, buy a drink
and get out fast (Tagatz, 2018).
Eighty-five percent of the liquor came
across Canadian border, mostly in Detroit. Smugglers used fast cars and
speedboats to bring in the liquor. As
the Feds got wiser, so did the smugglers.
They put false gas tanks in cars and filled them with alcohol. They even used hearses to bring liquor over
in caskets—with and without bodies. When
the Feds started checking for bodies, the smugglers included bottles in the
caskets along with the bodies. Three
funeral homes rented bodies. (Tagatz, 2018)
There were not nearly enough
prohibition agents to control the liquor, with a little over 2,800 by
1930. And these agents were not
adequately trained and were susceptible to corruption. The government estimated that they were only
stopping five percent of the liquor.
People branched out into other forms of
alcohol. They got doctors to prescribe
medicines with alcohol. Walgreen’s had
20 pharmacies in 1917 and by the end of Prohibition, it had 500. And people created forms of alcohol that were
not safe; 10,000 people died from
alcohol poisoning (Tagatz, 2018).
One reason for Prohibition was to
reduce crime but instead it “exploded.” Chicago
had 91 gangs alone. Al Capone, the king of the gangsters, got most of his money
from smuggling beer and liquor. The weapons
of choice were machine guns and bombs, with 157 bombs exploding in Chicago alone
1927 and 1929 (Tagatz, 2018).
* * *
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| The Union Christian Church. The Coolidges sat in the first pew on the left. |
After the Coolidge homestead, we visited the Union Christian Church, where we discovered pies. Back in the 20s, Coolidge and his family walked across the road to the wooden church. They sat in the second row on the left side. (An American flag on the left marks the row.)
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| The tasty pies. |
* * *
By the end of his last term, Coolidge was overwhelmed by events including the twin floods of 1927. The first in the spring, was the largest Mississippi River flood in recorded history. More than 200 people died, and hundreds of thousands of mostly African American citizens lost their homes. But Coolidge didn’t see a role for the Federal government. He said that “The federal departments have no funds for relief” (Shales, 2013). Coolidge didn’t even visit the devastated area. Ironically, in November of that year, massive floods hit his home state and dozens of people perished. Again, he resisted federal intervention. But he was pressed to provide funding both by Vice President Herbert Hoover and by Congress. He eventually did sign the Flood Control Act of 1928 giving the Corps of Engineers the authority and funds to try to tame the mighty Mississippi River. It was the biggest expenditure since the Great War, and deficit cutting was over.
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| Constructing Mount Rushmore. (no copyright infringement intended) |
On August 2, 1928 he called reporters
together in Rapid City, SD. He handed
slips of papers to reporters that stated:
“I do not choose to run for President in nineteen twenty eight.” He made no speech and would not comment.
The public was shocked.
* * *
We also visited some sheep, including one forlorn sheep on display that had just donated a coat full of wool. Wow, they are furry creatures. You have no idea how much wool one sheep can produce until you see the pile
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| Cathy offers sympathy to shorn sheep. |
The General Store also operates as the
post office, and Coolidge’s Summer White House was created in the dance hall
above it. It’s a big, open area, perfect for dancing, and includes four desks.
It was serviceable, since it could hold many staffers, but isn’t exactly the
Oval Office.
We can thank the town’s residents for the preservation of Plymouth Notch. They realized the need in the summer of 1924, when Coolidge visited for a 12-day vacation and established the Summer White House there. Swarming the town were thousands of reporters, 18 Secret Service agents and gawkers, all of who discussed the very small-town nature of the community. (The village was so busy for those 12 days that the postmaster, who averaged $50 a summer, earned $1,500 during the period, since she was paid based on postage sold.)
We can thank the town’s residents for the preservation of Plymouth Notch. They realized the need in the summer of 1924, when Coolidge visited for a 12-day vacation and established the Summer White House there. Swarming the town were thousands of reporters, 18 Secret Service agents and gawkers, all of who discussed the very small-town nature of the community. (The village was so busy for those 12 days that the postmaster, who averaged $50 a summer, earned $1,500 during the period, since she was paid based on postage sold.)
Interestingly, the church was not
originally preserved by the state with the rest of the village, because it was
still operating as a church and state officials abided by the Constitution’s
separation of church and state. Even now, the church is owned by the Coolidge
Foundation, while the rest of the village is run by the state.
* * *
Coolidge left office in 1929 and
retired to Plymouth Notch with his beloved wife, Grace He spent his
final days working on his property, walking the hills, and writing his autobiography and newspaper articles.
As he lived his life, he died his
death. A heart attack claimed him on
January 5, 1933. At his request, he had
a short funeral with no eulogy and a service that lasted only 22 minutes.
He rests in the cemetery of Plymouth
Notch in his beloved state of Vermont.
He once said: “Vermont is the state I love. I could not look upon the
peaks of Ascutney, Killington, Mansfield and Equinox without being moved. It
was here that I saw the first light of day; here that I received my bride. Here my dead lie buried, pillowed among the
everlasting hills. I love Vermont
because of her hills and valleys, her scenery and invigorating climate.”
* * *
When we left for the day, Tom
asked the woman manning the visitor’s desk what she thought of Coolidge. She replied, “I’m so busy at this point that
I don’t have time to think about Calvin
Coolidge.” A terse, candid answer that
he would have appreciated.
Directions
Plymouth Notch is located
approximately two-hours from either Albany, NY or Manchester, VT. Admission is $10 for adults and $2 for
children. The grounds are open from May
until the end of October.
References
Allen, Frederick Lewis. 1931. Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the
1920s. Harper Perennial Modern
Classics.
Shales, Amity. 2013. Coolidge. Harper Perennial. New York, NY.
Tagatz, Robert. 2018.
Resident historian lecture at Grand Hotel, Mackinaw Island, MI. July 9, 2018
Videos
History Channel. 2005. The Presidents: The Lives and Legacies of the 43 Leaders of
the United States.
https://millercenter.org/president/coolidge/life-after-the-presidency
