President Coolidge: “Mr. Strother, who had something to do about arranging and compiling in conjunction with Mr. Slemp that book that Mr. Slemp issued, was in this morning and brought me in a presentation copy of it. Glancing at it I see that it is very well indexed and there is topically arranged in the book things that I have said in relation to a great many subjects. I think your offices ought to provide each one of you with a copy of that book.”

Press: “Would you autograph each copy?”

President Coolidge: “Yes, I would be glad to, and whenever you want to know what my position is on any subject, if you will just glance at that index it will very quickly refer you to a place in the book where you can learn what I have said in relation to a very great many different subjects” — Press Conference on March 12, 1926.

Another conference on May 31, 1927, revealed this witty exchange,

President Coolidge: “Here are two or three questions that perhaps could be answered more desirably by reference to Mr. Slemp’s book–what is the title of that?”

Press: “The Mind of the President.”

Coolidge: “The Class is perfect.”

What elected official today would gladly refer you to something they already said that had been set in printed form going back as many as four years?

“An extremely interesting study is the relation of President Coolidge to the Presidency itself. He has reversed a recent tradition of the Presidential office. For a quarter of a century our Presidents have professed democracy and have practised benevolent autocracy. They believed that they could advance the welfare of the nation better than the people could advance it. They announced what they declared to be progressive policies and tried to convert the people to these policies. They tried to improve government from the top.

“Calvin Coolidge believes that progress comes direct from the people. He believes that the people, out of their local problems, out of their individual consciousness of national problems, sense the great issues of the day and reach the right conclusion regarding them. As President Coolidge sees it, the task of a great national leader is not to try to go ahead of this majestic army of human thought and aspiration, blazing new and strange paths. His function is rather to become the sensitized personal embodiment of their thoughts and aspirations, and the instrument through which they reach public expression. In this respect his chief forerunners in the Presidential office are none other than Andrew Jackson, the founder of the Democratic Party, and Abraham Lincoln, founder of the Republican Party and its first President, both exponents of the theory that the people are the seat of political wisdom as well as political power. President Coolidge’s view of these matters is an absolute reversal of the theory of the President’s function as practised in recent years. It is a restoration of the old conception of democracy. I must leave to philosophical students of history the question as to whether it is the better conception…

“It is worthy of note here that President Coolidge has appointed more committees of private citizens to investigate and report upon current problems for his guidance than any other President. He thus utilizes the resources of political wisdom embodied in the citizenry.

“In following this habit of direct reliance upon the mass of the people the radio has fitted into the situation perfectly. It seemed to have been invented for him. It came just as he did. His voice is perfectly adapted to its use in an enunciation clear and distinct. The invisible audience without the dramatic appearance of the speaker must listen, if at all, to the thought of the speaker. In this role the President shines. It has thus placed him in direct communication with the people. It is estimated that thirty million listeners heard his speech the night before the last national election and as many more during the campaign. Repeatedly he has utilized this instrumentality to give the people his views simultaneously in all parts of the country. It may, in part, account for the unanimity of sentiment now prevailing on public issues” — C. Bascom Slemp, An Analysis and an Interpretation to The Mind of the President, 1926, pp.4-6, 8-11.

The President, First Lady and Mr. Slemp outside the White House, February 1924.

“It would not be just to conclude that President Coolidge is obstinate or opinionated because of this exhibition of consistency as to principles and policies of government. These are fundamentals. He has no egotistical belief that he can immediately solve a perplexing national problem, without study and without reflection. The public is protected from hasty action later to be regretted, yet when the Senate demanded the resignation of a member of his Cabinet and an immediate answer was necessary, it came like a flash of lightning. He knows, however, that by intense mental application there is every probability that he can always secure the right solution to any problem. He begins an important inquiry with all the zest of his spirit. He takes counsel. He seeks advice. His methods are those of a trained research worker. He sends for wise and informed men, and for books and document–but especially for men. He loves to listen.

“Patiently and thoroughly he continues this process until he gets the principal facts and the various points of view pertaining to his subject. The President then weighs the evidence in his own mind and reaches his conclusion. He acts from logic rather than from inspiration. He concentrates more intensely and more continuously than any man I have ever known. Morning, noon, and night he keeps thinking, thinking. He indulges in no distracting pleasures. He has no recreation, even, beyond daily walks and occasional week-end trips on the Mayflower. All his working hours, except those involved in the inescapable routine of his office, are devoted to intense, concentrated mental labour upon his duties and problems. It is not surprising that in the expression of his thoughts he has won the admiration of mankind, for he is a student of history, trained in the science of logical analysis, and disciplined to work steadfastly and hard. Most important of all, his mind is fortified by his character. He is honest–morally honest and intellectually honest. He wants to reach the right conclusion, not only because it is an intellectual pleasure to have the right answer, but because he simply cannot tolerate anything wrong in himself. His decisions are guided by conscience as well as by knowledge, reason, and proper political consideration.

“The Presidency is a test of character as well as a test of wisdom. In reading this book the reader will miss half of its significance if he does not weigh the President’s words for what they tell of his character as well as for what they tell of his mind…

“In dealing with public or political questions President Coolidge has political intuition almost psychic. One cannot see, tough, or hear a political tide, but it can be felt. The man in public life who fails to create a tide or sense an adverse tide will soon be politically lost. Coolidge, with the single exception of [Theodore] Roosevelt, has possessed this intuition in the most marked degree of all our recent Presidents–Taft, perhaps, the least. Wilson developed it; Harrison was cold intellect; Cleveland, rugged force. Neither had this psychic sense. All were great Presidents. No one in his lifetime, of course, should be compared with Lincoln, preserved for all the ages in the shroud of immortality, but I think of President Coolidge as like Lincoln in this respect” — C. Bascom Slemp, “An Analysis and an Interpretation” to The Mind of the President, 1926.

The President and one of the men who worked more closely with him than most ever did, C. Bascom Slemp.

James Lucey in his Northampton shoe shop as he looks up to a portrait of his dear, late friend, January 7, 1933.

Three days after edging out Democrat opponent Harry E. Bicknell for mayor of Northampton, Coolidge recounted the outcome to his father in a letter, writing, “I did not have to reply to the [Northampton Daily] Herald attack for every body knew it was not true. Folks know I do not go in saloons and I never bought a drink during the campaign…The nearer I got to my house or office the better I ran and it was the opposite way with the other fellow. At least 400 democrats voted for me. Their leaders cant see why they did it. I know why. They knew I had done things for them, bless their honest Irish hearts.”

It had been an especially rotten campaign against Coolidge, painting him as buying votes with alcohol, indulging people’s vices in exchange for public office and influence. Most knew the truth. It was typical for the losing side to insult the voter base but the Daily Hampshire Gazette had stood by Cal, explaining how he campaigned, “[H]e does not say anything about the other candidate. At the Democratic rallies they keep telling what a poor man Coolidge is, how little he ever did that was good and how much he has done that was bad…” Instead, Mr. Coolidge ran on his own merits, his own record and let the other side exhaust itself in overplayed rhetoric. The Gazette explained later: “[H]e made his appeal for election solely to the enfranchised American citizens who put citizenship above party, and it is to them alone he attributes the result…” It was the character of the man they knew firsthand, not party affiliation, that held greater weight before voters.

Coolidge appealed to voters not through political patronage and austere planning but out of a genuine love for people. He felt most at home among the local tradesmen, shop-keepers and laborers, the men who reminded him of his neighbors up in Vermont around old Plymouth Notch. He had represented some of them and knew virtually all of them in Northampton. The wise counsel of cobbler James Lucey melted Cal’s initial reserve and they would remain fast friends to the end. He was among the few actually included in family dinners at the Homestead and even at the White House. Once, when delayed by late Mass, Lucey arrived apologetic. The Coolidges had simply waited on their dear friend to arrive. No apologies were warranted and Cal welcomed him to begin their meal together.

The list could go on, men like Richard Rahar whose restaurant Cal, and in years to come Grace and their boys, would patronize often. It was through Coolidge’s representation of the Springfield Breweries, which Mr. Rahar served as vice president, that the false accusations flowed so freely against him regarding alcohol used during the campaign. Yet, even with James M. Curley presiding over the company, Coolidge would not have obtained this special trust without an already proven faithfulness in his work. Even Curley would have to pay a back-handed compliment to Cal in later years, when once introducing him as “our President that has been and, if he so desires, may again be” (Beatty, The Rascal King: The Life and Times of James Michael Curley 285). David Scates, the conscientious treasurer of that same chain of breweries, was another Irishman won to Coolidge’s worth.

Jim Maloney was another, whose bakery became fixed in the memories of many a youngster growing up in Northampton, as native Richard C. Garvey has noted (“Coolidge and the Northampton Irish: A Strange Alliance,” New England Journal of History 55.1, Fall 1998, pp.71-2). Each would likewise persuade their families and neighbors of Coolidge’s integrity and reliability. The list could go from there to his future tenure in the Massachusetts Senate, as fellow senator and Democrat leader of Roxbury, Jim Timilty, would declare, “Calvin Coolidge can have anything he wants from me…Cal’s my kind of guy.” (Sobel, Coolidge: An American Enigma 137).

John Kennedy, the only man to defeat Coolidge — in the 1905 school board race, was one of many with whom Cal shared respect as a competent and qualified public officer. He even so publicly, complimenting Mr. Kennedy and supporting him upon reelection. This was not some politician’s concession, Coolidge through his range of acquaintances confirmed Mr. Kennedy’s able service on the Board from a fellow Board member. Making a point of writing his opponents with gracious thoughts for their well-being, in victory or defeat, Coolidge likewise secured friends when bitterness could have burned bridges and needlessly made enemies. These were men not easily convinced by mere schmoozing yet something they saw in Coolidge resonated more profoundly than party fellowship. To these men, moral character was the kindred bond that transcended political identity.

The list could continue with Father Joseph G. Daley of St. Mary’s Church in Haydenville, who would later introduce Vice President Coolidge at the sesquicentennial of Williamsburg, Massachusetts. On the occasion of Father Daley’s silver jubilee as priest, guess whose efforts behind the scenes are recognized with one simple line in a quarter-page ad of the printed program that day, “Compliments and good wishes of Calvin Coolidge.”

It was Democrat Michael FitzGerald who followed Cal in his old Ward 2 council seat, and, once Coolidge was elected to the state Senate, they commuted regularly between Northampton and Boston. In fact, FitzGerald lavished high praise on Coolidge when notification of his nomination to the Republican ticket as Vice President was presented and Cal would support this good and decent man over the Republican candidate, a prickly attorney named William Feiker. When FitzGerald won the mayoral contest and Feiker lost in his attempt to comeback politically, Feiker (true to form) called a press conference and demanded Coolidge (then Vice-President-elect) be called out and censured as a “traitor to the Republican Party.” Of course, nothing came of it and Cal never dignified the man’s public tantrum with a single comment. However, at the family dinner on the eve of his Vice-Presidential inauguration, among his honored guests and close friends at their room in the Willard Hotel was none other than new Mayor Michael FitzGerald, alongside Mr. and Mrs. Stearns.

As Cal put it, “Bless their honest Irish hearts.” Happy St. Patrick’s Day, friends!

Former President Coolidge at the Boston Tercentenary celebration, July 1930.