Coolidge (78 page)

    9   “Men do not make laws”: This line comes from “Have Faith in Massachusetts,” Coolidge’s inaugural speech as president of the Massachusetts General Court in January 1914. This speech, like many of Coolidge’s, can be found on the Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation website.

  10   “Nobody”: Edward Connery Lathem, ed.,
Meet Calvin Coolidge: The Man Behind the Myth
(Brattleboro, Vt.: Stephen Greene Press, 1960), 148.

  10   “it sometimes seems as if”: Bruce Barton, “Concerning Calvin Coolidge,”
Collier’s
, November 22, 1919, p. 28.

  10   “if they would go along”: Coolidge’s paraphrase of Garman is in Calvin Coolidge,
The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge
(New York: Cosmopolitan Books, 1929), 100.

  10   “I never knew”: Calvin Coolidge to Ada Taintor, Calvin Coolidge to Lynn Cady, January 26, 1920, Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum, Forbes Library, Northampton, Mass.

  10   Late December 1925: Calvin Coolidge to town clerk of Wallingford, December 28, 1925. “My great grandfather lived for a time in Wallingford before going to the West,” he wrote. “I wish you would look at your records and see when he was first taxed there and when last.” Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum, Forbes Library, Northampton, Mass.

  11   She replanted the spruce: Grace Coolidge to Therese Hills, August–September 1924, Hills Collection, box 17, MS 17-6, Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum, Forbes Library, Northampton, Mass.

  11   “nice sugar”: The full text of John Coolidge’s letter to a customer is reprinted in the St. Johnsbury
Caledonian Record
, April 4, 1924, p. 4.

  12   “importance of the obvious”: Amherst man Bruce Barton reports Coolidge declaring this toward the end of his life in Lathem, ed.,
Meet Calvin Coolidge
, 185.

Chapter 1: Snowbound

  13   Each year eight hundred: That was Coolidge’s estimate of the yield of the lot, found in Calvin Coolidge.
The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge
(New York: Cosmopolitan Book Corporation, 1929), 26.

  14   Young Arabian: The poster that C. G. Coolidge produced to advertise Young Arabian is republished in Jane Curtis, Will Curtis, and Frank Lieberman,
Return to These Hills
(Plymouth, Vt.: Curtis-Lieberman Books, 1985), 31.

  14   the 1842 church: The $31 fee paid for the pew in the Plymouth Notch church is reported in Barbara Chiolino, Barbara Mahon, and Eliza Ward,
Recollections and Stories of Plymouth, Vermont
(Plymouth, Vt.: Five Corners Publications, 1992), 82.

  15   Granite too had been found: Albert David Hagar and Elkanah Billings,
Report on the Economical Geography, Physical Geography and Scenery of Vermont
(Claremont, N.H.: Claremont Manufacturing, 1862), 12.

  15   “Scripture Cake”: The recipe for Scripture Cake can be found in document 215, 4, Coolidge Family Papers, Vermont Historical Society, Barre, Vt.

  16   “Snow-Bound”: John Greenleaf Whittier,
Snow-Bound, a Winter Idyl
, 1866. The original title had a hyphen.

  16   They belonged to no one else: This is a paraphrase of some of Coolidge’s own descriptions of Vermonters, uttered at various points. For example, Coolidge said, “They belong to themselves, live within their income and fear no man.” “His Old Neighbors Hail ‘Cal’ Coolidge,”
The New York Times
, July 16, 1920.

  17   “onerous and perplexing”: “Jonas Galusha, The Fifth Governor of Vermont,” address by Reverend Pliny H. White, in
Addresses Delivered Before the Vermont Historical Society, 16 April 1866
(Montpelier, Vt.: E. P. Walton, Printer, 1866), 6.

  17   In the Vermont records: Ibid., 30. Reverend White wrote, “There is still extant in the secretary of State’s office an account of Jonas Galusha against the State, to the amount of £10, 4s. 6d. for executing the sentence of the Supreme Court upon Abel Geer, by cutting off his right ear and branding him upon the forehead with the letter C.”

  17   “more money is spent”: Quoted in Prentiss Cutler Dodge,
Encyclopedia, Vermont Biography
(Burlington, Vt.: Ullery Publishing Company, 1912), 31.

  17   Another Coolidge cousin, Carlos Coolidge: Coolidge was governor from 1848 to 1850. An example of debtor legislation was “An act to establish courts of insolvency and provide for the equal distribution of the effects of insolvent debtors.”
Vermont Phoenix
, December 27, 1850, 11.

  19   Vermont, after all, had been: The constitution of Vermont, adopted in 1777—before Vermont joined the United States as the fourteenth state—says, “No person born in this country, or brought from over sea, ought to be holden by law, to serve any person as a servant, slave or apprentice, after arriving to the age of twenty-one years, unless bound by the person’s own consent, after arriving to such age, or bound by law for the payment of debts, damages, fines, costs, or the like.”

  19   Another John Coolidge: The grave of John T. Coolidge, MD, and his wartime service are documented at www.vermontcivilwar.org.

  20   “I hope you will end”: Victoria Coolidge to John C. Coolidge, October 20 [ca. 1868–1876], box 217, 34, Coolidge Family Papers, Vermont Historical Society, Barre, Vt.

  21   “the use and yeald”: Plymouth Land Records, quoted in
Your Son, Calvin Coolidge: A Selection of Letters from Calvin Coolidge to His Father
, ed. Edward Connery Lathem (Montpelier, Vt.: Vermont Historical Society, 1968), 77
.
The text reads, “Know all men by these presents that we Calvin G Coolidge & Sarah A. Coolidge both of Plymouth in the County of Windsor & State of Vermont for & in consideration of the natural love & affection which we bear & have unto our Grandson John C. Coolidge Jr. have and by these do give grant convey & confirm unto the said John C. Coolidge Jr. the full use & yeald of a certain piece or parcel of land hereinafter described during the full life time of the said John C. Coolidge Jr. to come into possession of said premises at the age of 21 years . . . after the deceas of the said John C. Coolidge Jr. the said premises are to become the absolute property of the children of the said John C. Coolidge Jr. their heirs and assigns forever.”

  21  
The Green Mountain Boys
: President Coolidge recalled his reading list in his autobiography.

  21   Calvin, at age ten: The “Tumbling Blocks” quilt top that Calvin made and the soapstone bed warmer his family used are on display at the President Calvin Coolidge State Historic Site in Plymouth Notch, Vt.

  21   “more sap”: John Coolidge is quoted in Edward Elwell Whiting,
President Coolidge: A Contemporary Estimate
(Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1923), 10.

  21   She stayed home: The diary of Victoria Moor Coolidge, a possession of Christopher Jeter and Jenny Harville, provides the best detail.

  23   “he did not wish”: Coolidge,
Autobiography
, 22.

  23   “Is the school house”: The results of the survey and many other details of Coolidge’s childhood and youth can be found in Hendrik Booraem,
The Provincial: Calvin Coolidge and His World, 1885–1895
(Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell University Press, 1994).

  23   “From scenes like these”: Coolidge slightly misquoted this line from Robert Burns’s poem “The Cotter’s Saturday Night” when he sought to describe life in Plymouth on a later visit; see “His Old Neighbors Hail ‘Cal’ Coolidge.” Burns wrote “grandeur,” Coolidge said “greatness.”

  24   “Many years before”: This story is one of several of Coolidge’s school essays and papers held at the Vermont Historical Society in Box 391, 29 of the Coolidge Family Papers.

  25   The boy put his wages: All these details are outlined in Booraem,
The Provincial
.

  25   “I rec. your letter”: The letters from Calvin in the Black River Academy period can be found at the Vermont Historical Society in Barre, as can his diary, which reports his sister’s death.

  26   “I remember one night”: Quoted in Claude Fuess,
Calvin Coolidge
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1940), 33.

  27   $7.20 a term: The receipt of $7.20 for the fall term of 1888 is in the files of the Coolidge Memorial Site at Plymouth Notch, Vt.

  27   updated with brick and an addition: Information on the jail is available at John Cotton Dana Library and Research Library and Archives, Woodstock History Center, Woodstock, Vt.

  27   among “thieves and ruffians”: This is detailed in Booream,
The Provincial
, 103.

  28   “a Democrat couldn’t”: William Allen White,
A Puritan in Babylon: The Story of Calvin Coolidge
(New York: Macmillan, 1938), 26.

  29   He and the nearby farmers: Booraem,
The Provincial
, covers the story and the farmers; the discussion of the cheese factory is in chapter 8.

Chapter 2: The Ouden

  32   The Fairbanks family: Many of the details of Coolidge’s time in St. Johnsbury are in Richard Beck,
A Proud Tradition, a Bright Future: A Sesquicentennial History of St. Johnsbury Academy
(St. Johnsbury, Vt.: St. Johnsbury Academy, 1992), 33–39. The archive of
The Caledonian
, the local newspaper, also carries some material.

  33   From its beginning: Claude Fuess,
Amherst: The Story of a New England College
(Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1935), 55.

  33   Charles Garman: John Almon Waterhouse,
Calvin Coolidge Meets Charles Edward Garman
(Rutland, Vt.: Academy Books, 1984), 8.

  33   “while I lookt stedfastly”: Wayne A. Wiegand, “The ‘Amherst Method’: The Origins of the Dewey Decimal Classification Scheme,”
Libraries & Culture
33, no. 2 (Spring 1998): 176.

  35   weighed only 119.5 pounds: Physical Education and Hygiene Department Records, Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, Amherst College Library, Amherst, Mass.

  35   the average wage earner: Robert A. Margo, “Hourly and Weekly Earnings in Selected Industries and for Lower Skilled Labor: 1890–1926,” in 
Historical Statistics of the United States, Earliest Times to the Present: Millennial Edition,
 ed. Susan B. Carter, Scott Sigmund Gartner, Michael R. Haines, Alan L. Olmstead, Richard Sutch, and Gavin Wright (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), series Ba4319.

  36   he would receive a salary: Adam R. Nelson,
Education and Democracy: The Meaning of Alexander Meiklejohn, 1872–1964
(Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2001), 33.

  36   “I am in a pleasant place”: Calvin Coolidge to John C. Coolidge, October 15, 1891, in
Your Son, Calvin Coolidge: A Selection of Letters from Calvin Coolidge to His Father
, ed. Edward Connery Lathem (Montpelier, Vt.: Vermont Historical Society, 1968), 25. Coolidge’s letters to his father are dispersed among several archives, but nearly all are to be found together in Lathem’s meticulously edited volume.

  36   “This term is almost done”: Calvin Coolidge to Sarah Almeda Coolidge, November 23, 1891, Miscellaneous Manuscripts Collection, Archives and Special Collections, Amherst College Library, Amherst, Mass.

  37   His stepmother kindly: Calvin Coolidge to Carrie Coolidge, January 10, 1892, in Lathem, ed.,
Your Son, Calvin Coolidge
, 30.

  38   What money Morrow took: Harold Nicolson,
Dwight Morrow
(London: Constable & Co., 1935), 214.

  39   “The class in Greek”: Quoted in Claude M. Fuess,
Calvin Coolidge: The Man from Vermont
(Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1940), 56. Copies of
The Olio
, the Amherst yearbook, can be viewed at the Amherst College Archives and Special Collections.

  40   Cleveland had vetoed: Cleveland vetoed 414 bills, of which 110 were pocket vetoes, in his first term. A chart displaying all the presidential vetoes of Coolidge’s lifetime can be found in
Presidential Vetoes: 1789–1988
, ed. Walter J. Stewart and Gregory Harness, S. Pub. 102-12, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1992.

  41   “[of] the thirty-three professors”: The poll of Amherst professors is reported in “Professors for Cleveland,”
The New York Times
, October 24, 1892.

  42   arrived from County Kerry: The 1900 Census gives James Lucey’s arrival date as 1880 and lists his trade as shoemaker.

  42   The Beta Theta Pi brothers: The explicit rejection of Coolidge by Morrow for the fraternity is documented in a letter from Lucius Eastman to Coolidge’s biographer Claude Fuess: “We decided in junior year that we should add a member to our delegation, selecting a man who had developed and shown ability. We offered a bid to Percy Deering, Coolidge’s roommate. Deering refused the bid unless we could take Coolidge with him. Dwight as well as others, but with much more emphasis absolutely refused this suggestion and we didn’t take Deering in primarily because Dwight and some of the rest of the Delegation were unwilling to take Coolidge.” Lucius Eastman to Claude Fuess, January 27, 1933, Claude Fuess Collection, Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum, Forbes Library, Northampton, Mass.

  45   “New England taught that doctrine”: “Proceedings in Detail,”
The New York Times
, February 2, 1892, 2.

  47   Fairbanks Scales: A good source on Fairbanks Scales is Allen Rice Yale, Jr.,
Ingenious and Enterprising Mechanics: A Case Study of Industrialization in Rural Vermont, 1815–1900
, PhD dissertation, University of Connecticut, 1995.

  50   “fruitless victory”: Anson D. Morse,
Parties and Party Leaders
(Boston: Marshall Jones Company, 1923), 123.

  51   “I understand the trustees”: This letter is quoted in a detailed description of the controversies at Amherst in Hendrik Booraem,
The Provincial: Calvin Coolidge and His World, 1885–1895
(Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell University Press, 1994), 180.

  52  
Tess of the d’Urbervilles
:
Tess
was first published in England in the early 1890s. It sold well but was deemed controversial in the United States.