Coolidge (85 page)

325   “Whatever is decided on”: Charles G. Dawes to Calvin Coolidge, February 14, 1925, Series 1, Box 6:33, Charles G. Dawes Papers, Special Collections, Northwestern University Library, Evanston, Illinois.

325   “For both of them”: Starling,
Starling of the White House
, 210.

326   “The main thing I want”: Calvin Coolidge to John Calvin Coolidge, Sr., February 12, 1925, 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), 199.

327   Instead of rising: The length of Dawes’s speech differs slightly depending on the source; this count comes from “Vice President Causes a Stir,”
The New York Times
(March 5 1924).

328   “Well, you’re such a great”: Starling,
Starling of the White House,
229.

329   “The great senatorial”: Robert C. Byrd,
The Senate, 1789–1989
, ed. Mary Sharon Hall (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1988), vol. 1, 443.

330   “Economy reaches everywhere”: “Full Text of President Coolidge’s Message,”
The Boston Globe
, December 3, 1924.

330   On April 24, 1925: “Tax Receipts Gain,”
The New York Times
, April 24, 1925.

330   “cheeseparing”: Coolidge frequently referred to cheese; one mention of “cheeseparing” appears, for example, in President Calvin Coolidge’s Unpublished Press Conferences, November 19, 1926, vol. 7, p. 01159, Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum, Forbes Library, Northampton, Mass.

331   “seven barrels of spoiled”:
Addresses of the President of the United States and the Director of the Bureau of the Budget at the Ninth Regular Meeting of the Business Organization of the Government at Memorial Continental Hall, June 22, 1925
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1925), 16.

332   The new recess appointee: Claude M. Fuess,
Joseph B. Eastman: Servant of the People
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1952), 161.

333   “I want my son John”: Calvin Coolidge to William Jesse Newlin, May 27, 1925, Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum, Forbes Library, Northampton, Mass.

333   “Your letter went to Washington”: The letters from this period, the harshest in Coolidge’s relationship with John, are housed in the Coolidge Family Papers, Vermont Historical Society, Barre, Vt.

334   “Some bull!”: Quoted in Starling,
Starling of the White House
, 234. Coolidge’s visit with Barron is also detailed there.

335   “My Dear Mr. Morrow”: Quoted in Harold Nicolson,
Dwight Morrow
(London: Constable & Co, 1935), 297.

336   “Whether one traces”: The text of Coolidge’s American Legion Speech of October 6, 1925, is at www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=438#axzz1zz7FM400.

336   the papers noted: The Coolidge anniversary is noted, for example, in “Coolidge Is on Way,”
Greensboro Record
, October 5, 1925, p. 2.

336   “Particularly do we want”: “Colored Congregationalists Thank Coolidge,”
Kansas City Advocate
, November 6, 1925, p. 1.

336   “Two years afterward”: “Silence,”
The Afro-American
, October 17, 1925, p. 9.

336   When the framers: Calvin Coolidge, “Government and Business,” in
Foundations of the Republic
, 318.

336   The president and his cabinet secretary: Their plan included $193,575,000 in income tax cuts, $20 million in estate tax cuts, $12 million in cuts on cigars, and $9 million in cuts on auto taxes.
The New York Times
, “Tax Bill Is Finished,” November 24 1925.

337   Mellon and Hoover both: “Coolidge Lights Up Tree to Inaugurate: Cabinet Members See Ceremony Marking Most Prosperous Yuletide,”
The New York Times
, December 25, 1925.

338   “I would like to have”: Calvin Coolidge to John Calvin Coolidge, Sr., January 20, 1926, in Lathem, ed.,
Your Son, Calvin Coolidge
, 222.

338   “Pay your debts”: Quoted in “Puts New Tax Cuts Up to $338,000,000,”
The New York Times
, January 3, 1926.

340   “I note you are still”: William Allen White to Calvin Coolidge, received April 9, 1926, Calvin Coolidge Personal Presidential Files, Forbes Library, Northampton, Mass.

340   it would always made him nervous: After signing the law, Coolidge warned that there would be no more tax cuts. “The Week Reviewed,”
Barron’s
, March 1, 1926.

Chapter 12: The Flood and the Flier

341   One of the first visitors: “New York–London Line of Dirigibles Planned,”
The New York Times
, September 22, 1926.

342   Mack Trucks preferred stock: Coolidge’s purchase of Mack Trucks shares and some of the documents for other investments can be found in Coolidge Family Papers, doc. 392, Vermont Historical Society, Barre, Vt.

343   and then to sleighs: Edmund Starling gives a detailed account of the trip to Plymouth and John Coolidge’s death in Edmund W. Starling with Thomas Sugrue,
Starling of the White House: The Story of the Man Whose Secret Service Detail Guarded Five Presidents from Woodrow Wilson to Franklin D. Roosevelt
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1946), 238.

343   “nearly perpendicular”: “The last mile of the journey is nearly perpendicular.” “Roads for President: Woodstock to Plymouth Rote Broken Out—Col. Coolidge Sinks into State of Coma,”
The Boston Globe
, March 18, 1926.

343   adding up to $43,601.35: William W. Stickney wrote to Coolidge on March 22, just days after John Coolidge’s death, with this report. Coolidge Family Papers, doc. 392, Vermont Historical Society, Barre, Vt.

343   Ellen Riley of Ipswich: “Interview with William Jenney of the Calvin Coolidge Homestead Site,”
The Day
, May 17, 1995. Also, “To Keep House for Coolidges: Miss Ellen Riley of Ipswich Given Post,”
Boston Herald
, July 2, 1926.

343   “because of her wide knowledge”: St. Petersburg, Florida,
Evening Independent
, July 2, 1926.

344   demand for costly programs: Herbert Hoover,
The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover: The Cabinet and the Presidency, 1920–1933
(New York: Macmillan, 1952), 114–115. Hoover wrote that “President Coolidge was not very enthusiastic over some of these ideas [about water development projects], because they would be costly.”

345   bob quail: “The Presidency,”
Time,
October 25, 1926, reported the tariff reduction on paintbrushes and live bob quail.

345   yet other roses: “The Presidency,”
Time
, October 25, 1926.

347   There was also space: White says he was told of the bedspread by Frank Buxton, the
Boston Herald
journalist who won the Pulitzer Prize for “Who Made Coolidge?” William Allen White,
A Puritan in Babylon: The Story of Calvin Coolidge
(New York: Macmillan Company, 1938).

347   “Did you ever eat”: Ellen Riley White House Papers, MSA 632, Vermont Historical Society, Barre, Vt.

348   “I have used some”: Calvin Coolidge to Lynn Cady, April 19, 1926, Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum, Forbes Library, Northampton, Mass.

348   “The sirup producer”: The reporter Louis M. Lyons wrote of the transport problems of the syrup and milk men: “He has the most sought after delicacies, sweet sirup, sweet cream. But his difficulties and limitations for merchandising are such that it is hard to figure his profits.” “Sugaring Off,”
The Boston Globe
, March 28, 1926.

348   Coolidge could continue:
Presidential Vetoes, 1789–1988
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1992), 231. Coolidge pocket-vetoed two pieces of legislation in the spring of 1927.

349   “With the experience”: “Text of the President’s Budget Message,”
The New York Times
, December 9, 1926.

349   “under leaden skies”: “Coolidge Lights Great Yule Tree,”
The New York Times
, December 25, 1926.

351   “We are waiting [for] a test”:
Addresses of the President of the United States and the Director of the Bureau of the Budget at the Twelfth Regular Meeting of the Business Organization of the Government at Memorial Continental Hall, January 29, 1927
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1927), 7.

351   The radial air-cooled engine: Charles Lindbergh,
We
(New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1927), 198.

351   “I don’t think”: “Senate Committee Flouts President,”
The New York Times
, January 18, 1927.

351   “If you have”: Calvin Coolidge to Lynn Cady, February 16, 1927, Personal Presidential Files (microfiche), Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum, Forbes Library, Northampton, Mass.

351   “If you should leave”: Ibid.

352   Miss Riley was able: “Ordered for dinner for President of Cuba and Unable to Cancel or Return,” February 25, 1927, Ellen Riley White House Papers, MSA 632, Vermont Historical Society, Barre, Vt.

352   “will be the political finish”: The
Times
wrote, “Farm bloc adherents insist that if a veto comes from the White House it will be the political finish of President Coolidge and put an end to all talk of another term for him.” “Veto by the President Generally Expected,”
The New York Times
, February 18, 1927.

353   “You could have gotten”: Rex Alan Smith,
The Carving of Mount Rushmore
(New York: Abbeville Press, 1985), 173. Smith’s account of the Rushmore story is colorful and readable.

354   “The chief objection”: Coolidge’s veto response to the 1927 McNary-Haugen legislation is reported in “Fears for All Industry: President Says Measure Threatens the Basis of Prosperity, Price Fixing Is Condemned,”
The New York Times
, February 26, 1927.

354   The president also signed: “Coolidge Signs Branch Bank Bill,”
The New York Times
, February 26, 1927.

356   The idea of walking: Ishbel Ross,
Grace Coolidge and Her Era: the Story of a President’s Wife
(Plymouth, Vt.: Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation, 1988), 217.

356   Hoover put forward: “Mr. Hoover has been spoken of frequently as a probability for the office of secretary of state,” a columnist noted. “Capital Mystified on Hoover’s Status with the President,”
The New York Times
, April 17, 1927.

357   “considered that it was”: President Calvin Coolidge’s Unpublished Press Conferences, April 15, 1927, vol. 8, p. 01208, Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum, Forbes Library, Northampton, Mass.

359   “A vast sheet of water”: Frederick Simplich, “The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927,”
National Geographic
52, no. 3 (September 1927): 268.

362   the spars were made of spruce: Charles A. Lindbergh,
The Spirit of St. Louis
(New York: Scribner, 2003), 536.

362   “The more we learn”: President Calvin Coolidge’s Unpublished Press Conferences, May 24, 1927, vol. 8, p. 01351, Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum, Forbes Library, Northampton, Mass.

363   Once she was settled: Irwin Hood Hoover,
Forty-two Years in the White House
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1934), 158.

363   Indeed, Coolidge predicted:
Addresses of the President of the United States and the Director of the Bureau of the Budget at the Thirteenth Regular Meeting of the Business Organization of the Government at Memorial Continental Hall, June 10, 1927, Washington, D.C.
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1927), 2.

363   “He knew illuminum was light”: This line about James Couzens appeared in “Rogers Tells City,”
Omaha News World
, January 30, 1927.

364   The spread between: Evidence that taxes mattered more than patriotism for bond buyers can be found in Sung Won Kang and Hugh Rockoff, “Capitalizing Patriotism: The Liberty Loans of World War I,” National Bureau of Economic Research, 2006 Working Paper.

364   The era of “tax tuberculosis”: “Tax Tuberculosis,”
The New York Times
, January 30, 1921, p. 22.

365   “modest, congenial”: A wonderful audio clip of this speech and Lindbergh’s response can be found at http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5133/.

366   “Same
Mayflower,
same Potomac”: William J. Miller,
Henry Cabot Lodge
(New York: Heinemann, 1967), 75. This biography of the senator’s grandson contains several Coolidge anecdotes.

366   Lindbergh owed $1,233.75: “Lindbergh’s Prizes Taxed,”
The New York Times
, May 23, 1927. National newspapers such as
The New York Times
,
The Washington Post
, and
The Wall Street Journal
covered Lindbergh and other aviators extensively and are therefore useful sources on the subject.

367   Coolidge wanted him: Calvin Coolidge to John Coolidge, June 27, 1927, Box 392:17, Coolidge Family Papers, Vermont Historical Society, Barre, Vt.

368   “We knew that he”: William J. Bulow, “In the Black Hills,” in
Meet Calvin Coolidge: The Man Behind the Myth
, ed. Edward Connery Lathem (Brattleboro, Vt.: Stephen Greene Press, 1960), 120.

Chapter 13: Decision at Rushmore

371   “Never so far off”: “Summer White House Was Never So Far Off,”
The New York Times
, June 5, 1927.

371   “Pretty well”: William J. Bulow, “In the Black Hills,” in 
Meet Calvin Coolidge: The Man Behind the Myth
, ed. Edward Connery Lathem (Brattleboro, Vt.: Stephen Greene Press, 1960), 118.

373   Coolidge patronized the local tobacco shop: President Coolidge Number,
Black Hills Engineer
15, no. 4 (November 1927), endpapers.

373   Miss Riley placed her orders: Ellen Riley White House Papers, MSA 632, Vermont Historical Society, Barre, Vt.

374   “Boy, when you get”: Quoted in Bulow, “In the Black Hills,” 119.