Coolidge (49 page)

“All my energies,” though, meant that at that very moment, he needed to show he was not giving up. Family would have to wait again. Congress might override his veto, but that would not stop him from vetoing—within days, to make clear he meant it, he vetoed a postal salary increase bill. The sale of Muscle Shoals had stalled, and Ford was not even sure he wanted the plant on the river anymore. But the principle of making the federal budget smaller by separating parts of it to run on their own was still worthy; the post office took in so much revenue that independence was possible. “The postal service rendered the public is good,” he acknowledged. He warned, however, that the precedent of an increase for the post office staff was itself troubling: “an organized effort by a great body of public employees to secure an indiscriminate increase in compensation should have the most searching scrutiny.” Congress could override some vetoes, but in the future, Coolidge might emulate Grover Cleveland and use the pocket veto, which was technically more difficult but impossible to reverse.

In addition to the postal veto, another waterpower project awaited evaluation: Congress had authorized a dam across the Gila River in Arizona as part of the San Carlos Irrigation Project; the public effort was in part justified in that the dam served Indian lands. Coolidge was inclined to sign the authorization, but only if it was not a breach of federalism; study required days. The day after Coolidge signed it, Grace headed to Mercersburg to attend John’s graduation. Mrs. Stearns and Dr. Boone also went. A portrait of Dr. Boone was unveiled during the celebrations, and John received a prize for his essays. Coolidge was not there.

Coolidge and colleagues were mired in the final planning for the GOP convention, which fell early, in June. La Follette of Wisconsin was making noises about a third-party run. Coolidge’s only true opponent for the presidential nomination within the Grand Old Party was Hiram Johnson, a California progressive. Hoover, however, fought down Johnson on Coolidge’s behalf, and Coolidge won the California primary, securing the nomination.

Still, the convention, so different from that of 1920, constituted a tribute. The president again absented himself, but this time the GOP leadership would run the event on his behalf. Lodge, who had ruled in Chicago, would be scarcely in evidence in Cleveland. The
Hampshire Gazette
was practically gleeful at the victory of western Massachusetts over Boston: “The plan is to keep Lodge out of positions of power at Cleveland. The reason is obvious. The Senate leader, representing Coolidge’s home state in the Senate, has been opposing the President.” In Cleveland, western Massachusetts men and Vermonters were everywhere. Mr. Lucey, the cobbler, attended, as did dozens of Vermonters wearing brown farm smocks, a tribute to the Coolidge garb, and carrying walking canes made of wood from the Coolidge farm.

In Vermont, Colonel Coolidge was able to hear his son’s nomination by radio. It was a convention so confident and confident in Coolidge that it at first seemed sleepy, the result a foregone conclusion; the crowds did not show up. The boys were still at school taking some tutoring though graduation was over. Calvin, Jr., suddenly wished himself home, as his father had so often when he was at boarding school. Dr. Irvine, as strict a disciplinarian as General Lord, did not approve of homesickness. Calvin took a different view: “Some boys leave because they get homesick when they come here. Doctor Irvine says that kind of boys will run all the rest of their lives, but I think he is somewhat too broad in this statement.”

Picking Coolidge was easy, but the Republicans were having a hard time settling on a vice presidential candidate. The party first offered the vice presidential slot to Frank Lowden of Illinois. Lowden turned it down, as did Senator Borah, who was woken up in the middle of the night to be felt out in regard to his interest in the Republican ticket. “For which position?” was all Borah would ask. His “no” was another way the Senate was talking back to Coolidge. Finally the party settled on Charles Dawes. The Illinois man was a strong choice, an action man to pair with the reserved Coolidge. Dawes had made his first fortune in utilities in the Midwest; he was a gifted musician and had composed a tune, “Melody in A Major,” that would later be heard in a popular song. Dawes also boasted a distinguished career as a banker. It was Dawes’s brother Henry, the comptroller of the currency, who was showing why the little western banks were so vulnerable; isolated in their towns, prevented from having branches by states’ law, they rose and fell with the price of wheat or corn. In the war Dawes, like Hoover, had distinguished himself by rationalizing supply and distribution. Dawes, the first budget director, was the human symbol of the budgeting program; he had even published a book about the budget. As if this were not enough, Dawes had also worked in Europe on a plan to help Germany repay its debts. For a tax-and-budget candidate, Dawes made a good partner.

It was also gratifying to Coolidge that Dawes appreciated the invitation. Dawes heard the news while in his birthplace of Marietta, Ohio; the next day a crowd surrounded his house and the church rang its bells. Other people might have mocked the vice presidency, but Dawes was overjoyed; he saw this as a chance for leadership: “Just then it seemed to me the greatest office in the world.” On June 7, even as the Republican Party was selecting its vice president, came the news that the German Reichstag had voted to support the Dawes Plan; it was another coup for Dawes and sealed Dawes’s candidacy. Mellon had a plan to give the vice president greater powers, including supervision of some bureaus and agencies, so that the executive need cover less. This appealed to Dawes.

To find resolve, Coolidge now turned to his family. Toward the end of June, when the boys were finally coming to the White House, Coolidge tried again with his father, inviting him down for his own birthday, July 4. The Central Vermont had a new train he wanted to try that ran from Montreal to Washington: the Washingtonian. If his father could get to White River Junction, he could take the train direct to Washington, bypassing the onerous transfer in New York. His father would have to leave in the middle of the night but would arrive in Washington at 2:15
P.M.
As for clothing, Coolidge promised he would take care of that when his father arrived. From Mercersburg, the boys came, after spending some days studying. Calvin was thin—he had grown again and was taller than them all. John was heading to Amherst in the fall.

The week the boys arrived, the Democratic National Convention began in Madison Square Garden in New York City. The Republicans’ convention of 1920 looked tame by comparison. The great glooming presence that overshadowed the conference was the Ku Klux Klan: some Democrats wanted condemnation of the murderous group written into the party platform, but others were blocking it; in New Jersey, across the river, Democratic Klansmen held a rival rally. The Klan hung like a cancer on the party’s future. That year, the convention and its shadow were nicknamed a “Klanbake.” On the floor of the convention itself, there were fistfights over the Klan. Senator Walsh, the leader of the Teapot Dome Investigation, served as the convention chairman, and the challenge was proving tougher than investigations of Harding’s cronies. Walsh “whacked vigorously and consistently” with his gavel, the reporters noted admiringly, but his delegates still raged wild. Governor Al Smith enjoyed the home field advantage. Smith’s fellow New Yorker, Franklin Roosevelt, joined Smith under the lights, bravely reentering politics after his bout with polio. This was Roosevelt’s perseverance. Roosevelt came forward to the podium and nominated Smith as the party’s “Happy Warrior.” The Smith supporters howled with joy, calling out so loudly that the papers wrote headlines such as “Pandemonium Breaks Loose.” At one point Walsh pounded so hard that the head of his gavel flew off the base into the air; the projectile hit a man and gave him a concussion. At first McAdoo, Wilson’s son-in-law, whom the Klansmen supported, seemed the most likely winner. John W. Davis, one of Dwight Morrow’s partners at J. P. Morgan, was considered likely for the second spot.

On June 28, the Coolidge family marked the progress of the past year with yet another short sail on the
Mayflower
; a new radio installed on the craft would enable them to listen to the Democrats’ convention. Coolidge had a speech to write for the National Education Association, and, more important, the semiannual budget meeting of the government was coming up. The Teapot Dome investigations continued: the federal grand jury indicted Albert Fall, Sinclair, and Doheny. The Coolidges now seemed removed from the investigations in both their own minds and those of the people. On June 30, John and Calvin played tennis with Dr. Boone and Dr. James Coupal. The boys played several sets. The family donned business clothes for photographers; they posed with Charles Dawes, the new vice presidential nominee, and then alone, as a family. The photos showed John, now a high school graduate, looking straight into the camera, or frowning; Calvin, Jr., smiled or peered into the distance past the camera.

Later that day came Coolidge’s last chance before the summer to frame his achievements and plans, the semiannual budget meeting of the government at Memorial Continental Hall. Grace had a box there; Calvin, Jr., sat behind her. By now the president and his budget director had become an act; they marched through a show before two thousand government employees, an event that was a mixture of sermon, circus, and pep rally.

“We are often told that we are a rich country, and we are,” Coolidge told the crowd. But as in the Gospel of Luke, “where more is given, more is required.” The president laid down the law for those departments that would not cut. “I regret that there are still some officials who apparently feel that the estimates transmitted to the Bureau of the Budget are the estimates which they are authorized to advocate before the committees.” The only lawful estimates were the president’s. Finally Coolidge again stressed his theme: “I am for economy. After that I am for more economy. At this time, and under present circumstances, that is my conception of serving the people.’’

Many in the audience knew General Lord well, not only for his demands upon their department but also for his writings. The newspaperman crafted his reports, especially the one for that summer, to market the concept of savings. A Budget Bureau report told, for example, of the federal government’s pencil policy: only one pencil at a time was now issued to government workers. Those who did not use their pencils to the end were expected to return the stub. The economy measure had worked. “Our item of expense for pencils is materially less,” Lord’s report boasted.

Like Will Rogers at the Ziegfeld Follies or a carnival barker out of Mark Twain, he moved about the stages, telling little stories to convey the scale of the budgeting achievement. Congress did not understand the achievement of saving $2 billion, Lord complained theatrically. The lawmakers were perfunctory, that was all. His own position reminded him, he said, of a schoolboy who had been asked by a demanding master to calculate two times thirteen. When the boy said, “Twenty-six,” the teacher replied, “Very good.” The boy was miffed. “Very good! Gee, it’s perfect!” The same, General Lord told his officials, held for the executive branch’s work. That was his way of flattering himself and also the departments. In the box, Calvin, Jr., smiled, appreciating General Lord’s theatrics. The national debt was down to $21.25 billion from the $22.35 billion of the year before. The budget was in surplus. That very week Ford had announced that it had just made its ten millionth car.

In the back of all the Coolidges’ minds, as they posed for photos or watched Lord, was the Democratic National Convention in New York. Each ballot that went by without a candidate for the Democrats was good for Coolidge; their indecision showed the GOP was not the only party to be divided. The Democrats had already reached a fifteenth ballot without outcome by that night, when the Coolidges got home. McAdoo came in first with 479 votes, and Al Smith came in second. The field was still wide open, and ballot after ballot was announced over the White House radio. It was Calvin, Jr., especially, who paid attention, lounging on the great sofas as he listened to the convention. Calvin seemed tired, Grace and the staff noticed.

On Wednesday July 2, the Democrats voted again and again, without reaching the two-thirds necessary to declare a candidate. By evening the party had completed its forty-second ballot with McAdoo, Wilson’s Treasury secretary, leading with 503 and then 505 votes to Al Smith’s 318. “Mac, Mac, Mac U Do!” the crowd shouted. John Davis, the Wall Street lawyer, was pulling up from behind. Meanwhile, in Cleveland, La Follette held his own separate convention, of the new Independent Progressive Party, in preparation for a third-party run. The Progressives’ platform would include public ownership of railroads, higher taxes for the rich, and the abolition of injunctions in labor disputes of the kind Harding had used. The town of Northampton was preparing a birthday card for Coolidge; 500 citizens signed it. The state of Massachusetts went one better and sent a mammoth card with 20,000 signatures, topped by that of Governor Channing Cox. July 2, a Wednesday, also brought news that Coolidge, Lord, and Mellon had been too modest in their estimates; the federal surplus was a full $500 million, not $498 million, as he had said recently, or $300 million, as they had claimed even earlier.

At the White House, Mrs. Jaffray noticed that the boy Calvin was limping about. “What in the world is the matter, Calvin?” she asked. Just a blister, he told her. Tennis. The same day Dr. Boone materialized again to play; there was to be a foursome with the boys and Jim Haley. But when Boone arrived, Jim and John were playing singles; Calvin, Jr., was not there, and they said he was not feeling well. Boone ascended the stairs to the second-floor apartment. When he arrived, he found him in one of the twin beds; Grace had moved a piano in and was playing for him. Boone asked him whether he had any injuries. “Yup,” he replied. Where? “On a toe.” Boone made a note: “I found a blister, almost the size of my thumbnail on the third toe, just behind the second joint on the anterior surface.” Calvin, Jr., also had a fever of 102 degrees.