A view of the Willard Hotel during the 1920s. Note the flag out front identifies that the President is staying there.

“It had been our intention to take a house in Washington, but we found none to our liking. They were too small or too large. It was necessary for me to live within my income, which was little more than my salary and was charged with the cost of sending my boys to school. We therefore took two bedrooms with a dining room, and large reception room at the New Willard where we had every convenience” — Calvin Coolidge, writing of their arrival in Washington in the spring of 1921, The Autobiography, pp.157-8.

Known today as the Willard InterContinental, the hotel which the Coolidges called home from the spring of 1921 through much of August 1923, already enjoyed an illustrious reputation before their arrival. It would continue to function as a central location for several events throughout the Coolidge Era. It had been the host of every president since Franklin Pierce, who staged here before leaving for his inauguration in 1853. It was here that Pinkerton hid President-elect Lincoln, thwarting more than one assassination attempt in the weeks leading up to formal inauguration and subsequent history. Lincoln met leaders in the lobby and carried out business from his room, not unlike what the thirtieth President would do throughout August 1923. It was said that Grant, in his time, frequently sat down in the lobby to enjoy a cigar and drink. Established in 1816, the New Willard had many a story to be told. It would go on to make several occasions in history, such as the place where Martin Luther King composed his “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963, delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial across from the Washington Monument. Yet, some of the hotel’s most dramatic moments happened during the stay of Calvin and Grace Coolidge. The best known of these is the fire that raged on the tenth floor, seven above the Coolidge’s rooms, on April 23, 1922. Incurring over $3.5 million in damage (by 2014 values), the danger was seen too late to avoid demolishing the ballroom on the top floor. Mistaken for the Vice President of the Hotel, Coolidge was first allowed to pass the fire marshal and begin to walk upstairs. Quickly confirming that Cal was the Vice President of the United States, he was kindly told to come back and wait from a safe distance, which he calmly did. The following day, he dispatched a gracious thank you to the officials who handled this unfortunate event so capably.

The ballroom on the top floor, after the fire, April 1922.

As the fire is put out, the Coolidges and some of their fellow guests watch from below. L to R: Miss J. Letley, A.H. Duerno, of Springfield Mass., O.H. Wigley of New York, Mrs. Coolidge and Vice President. Coolidge. Courtesy of Corbis Images.

Another instance, kept from public knowledge for many years, concerned the new President and a burglar, who had sneaked into their room during the night on August 23, 1923. What happened, told by Coolidge to a reporter named Frank MacCarthy who relayed it confidentially years later to Richard C. Garvey, the editor of The Daily News, out of Springfield, Massachusetts, was finally published fifty years later in 1983. MacCarthy would die soon after Mrs. Coolidge in 1957, but not before writing the incident down and passing it on to Mr. Garvey. Garvey brought the incident to light to mark the memory of Coolidge’s passing and remembrance week that year. The account goes like this: Coolidge awoke to see a figure in the room, having climbed through the window, searching through the President’s clothes. Finding his wallet, a watch and a charm, it seemed the thief would obtain what he was seeking with ease. “I wish you wouldn’t take that,” Cal said regarding the charm. Startled, the intruder was told to read the inscription on the piece, “Presented to Calvin Coolidge, Speaker of the House, by the Massachusetts General Court.” “Are you President Coolidge?” the young man asked with astonishment. “Yes…if you want money, let’s talk this over,” the President said coolly. Discovering that the youngster was there to get money for a train fare so that he and his schoolmate could get back to college, the President opened his wallet and gave him a $32 loan, exactly enough to cover the fare. As Garvey recounts, Coolidge called it a loan so that the young man would not have obtained the money by theft. The young man later paid back the amount in full.

The Coolidges, in their reception room at the Willard, August 4, 1923. Courtesy of the Everett Collection.

The Coolidges look through some of the many letters sent to them over the previous two days. Courtesy of Shorpy.

The final instance concerns another night visitor, this time a small bat which flew in through the open window one night, followed quickly by an owl. The bat was “herded” to the bathroom while the owl took up a perch on the mantel. There was no small excitement on the part of Mrs. Coolidge, whose stalwart hero, Cal, took care of their guests without much ado. It certainly brings an interesting element to the 1883 poem placed over their mantel back in Northampton, which read:

“A wise old owl lived in an oak
The more he saw the less he spoke
The less he spoke the more he heard.
Why can’t we all be like that wise old bird?”

President Coolidge filling out his own absentee ballot to vote in his hometown elections, 1924.

“The right action of all of us is made up of the right action of each one of us. Unless each of us is determined to meet the duty that comes to us, we can have no right to expect that others will meet the duties that come to them. Certainly we cannot expect them so to act as to save us from the consequences of having failed to act. The immediate and pressing obligation for tomorrow is that each one of us who is qualified shall vote. That is a function which cannot be delegated, which cannot be postponed. The opportunity will never arise again. If the individual fails to discharge that obligation, the whole nation will suffer a loss from that neglect…

“If the time comes when our citizens fail to respond to their right and duty, individually and collectively, intelligently and effectively at the ballot box on election day, I do not know what form of government will be substituted for that which we at present have the opportunity to enjoy, but I do know it will no longer be a rule of the people, it will no longer be self government. The people of our country are sovereign. If they do not vote they abdicate that sovereignty, and they may be entirely sure that if they relinquish it other forces will seize it, and if they fail to govern themselves some other power will rise up to govern them. The choice is always before them, whether they will be slaves or whether they will be free. The only way to be free is to exercise actively and energetically the privileges, and discharge faithfully the duties which make freedom. It is not to be secured by passive resistance. It is the result of energy and action.

“To live up to the full measure of citizenship in this nation requires not only action, but it requires intelligent action. It is necessary to secure information and to acquire education. The background of our citizenship is the meeting house and the school house, the place of religious worship and the place of intellectual training. But we cannot abandon our education at the school house door. We have to keep it up through life. A political campaign can be justified only on the grounds that it enables the citizens to become informed as to what policies are best for themselves and for their country, in order that they may vote to elect those who from their past record and present professions they know will put such policies into effect. The purpose of a campaign is to send an intelligent and informed voter to the ballot box. All the speeches, all the literature, all the organization, all the effort, all the time and all the money, which are not finally registered on election day, are wasted.

“We are always confronted with the question of whether we wish to be ruled by all the people or a part of the people, by the minority or the majority; whether we wish our elections to be dominated by those who have been misled, through the presentation of half truths, into the formation of hasty, illogical and unsound conclusions; or whether we wish those to determine the course of our Government who have through due deliberation and careful consideration of all the factors involved reached a sound and mature conclusion. We shall always have with us an element of discontent, an element inspired with more zeal than knowledge. They will always be active and energetic, and they seldom fail to vote on election day. But the people at large in this country are not represented by them. They are greatly in the minority. But their number is large enough to be a decisive factor in many elections, unless it is offset by the sober second thought of the people who have something at stake, whether it be earnings from in vestment or from employment, who are considering not only their own welfare, but the welfare of their children and of coming generations. Our institutions never contemplated that the conduct of this country, the direction of its affairs, the adoption of its policies, the maintenance of its principles, should be decided by a minority moved in part by self-interest and prejudice. They were framed on the theory that decisions would be made by the great body of voters inspired by patriotic motives. Faith in the people does not mean faith in a part of the people. It means faith in all the people. Our country is always safe when decisions are made by a majority of those who are entitled to vote. It is always in peril when decisions are made by a minority…

“But the right to vote is conferred upon our citizens not only that they may exercise it for their own benefit, but in order that they may exercise it also for the benefit of others. Persons who have the right to vote are trustees for the benefit of their country and their countrymen. They have no right to say they do not care. They must care! They have no right to say that whatever the result of the election they can get along. They must remember that their country and their countrymen cannot get along, cannot remain sound, cannot preserve its institutions, cannot protect its citizens, cannot maintain its place in the world, unless those who have the right to vote do sustain and do guide the course of public affairs by the thoughtful exercise of that right on election day. They do not hold a mere privilege to be exercised or not, as passing fancy may move them. They are charged with a great trust, one of the most important and most solemn which can be given into the keeping of an American citizen. It should be discharged thoughtfully and seriously, in accordance with its vast importance.

“I therefore urge upon all the voters of our country, without reference to party…that they approach the ballot box in the spirit that they would approach a sacrament, and there, disregarding all appeals to passion and prejudice, dedicating themselves truly and wholly to the welfare of their country, they make their choice of public officers solely in the light of their own conscience. When an election is so held, when a choice is so made, it results in the real rule of the people…” — President Calvin Coolidge, over radio hookup from the White House, November 3, 1924.

The Roosevelt Memorial Association Medal, bronze by renowned sculptor James Earle Fraser, 1920.

Presenting that year’s foremost award of the Roosevelt Memorial Association, the ceremony began in the East Room of the White House. President Coolidge honored the three men chosen by their service in the areas of law, statesmanship and education who most exemplified the tenacious spirit and tireless sense of service embodied by the late Theodore Roosevelt. They were Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Harvard University’s President-Emeritus Charles W. Eliot, and elder statesman-diplomat Elihu Root. President Eliot, unable to attend, was represented by his friend, philanthropist and financier Jerome D. Greene.

The President first turned to Justice Holmes, saying, “In peace and in war, as a soldier and as a jurist, you have won the gratitude of a nation by your uniformly gracious and patriotic devotion of great talent to its service. One can but well feel very confident that President Roosevelt would have been peculiarly gratified to know that this distinction was to be conferred upon you. This medal will be to you as a testimony to the universal recognition of your great public contributions.”

Presenting the next medal to Mr. Greene, President Eliot’s representative, Coolidge reflected on the great educator’s work, “In making its selection the Committee of Awards has but vindicated the judgment that your countrymen everywhere would have pronounced, if as a body they could have been permitted to make this award. Yours has been a true and an especially impressive conception of the great business of living. Premier for many years among educational leaders, you have maintained standards in which in that field we cannot imagine the future will have reason to question or alter. You have been a guide in your time, and a prophet of our future.”

Turning at last to the final recipient of the award, the President spoke to Elihu Root, “Your career of public service has been among the longest, most noted and varied in our American public life. It has made you known as a scholar, lawyer, statesman and a patriot. You have made America more American and humanity more humane. You have made more secure the peace of nations, and more certain justice among men.”

For a man not given to effusive praise, these are high commendations indeed. Coolidge’s words reflect more than just a politician’s pursuit of favor, they rest upon sober observations of men and what makes for authentic greatness. For Coolidge, it rested eternally on the principle of service.

When the ceremony was done, the party stepped outside to mark the occasion with photographs. Here they fill the White House steps as it descends to the President and the three exceptional Americans honored on that day. The late Teddy Roosevelt’s son, also a Theodore, stands second from left in the second row from the bottom.