The Boy From Vermont
I
ON Thursday, September 17, 1891, Amherst opened for its seventy-first year; and John Calvin Coolidge, having brought with him a certificate from St. Johnsbury Academy, was excused from entrance examinations and duly registered as a freshman. The two old dormitories, North and South Colleges, dating back to the 1820’s, although not entirely abandoned, had fallen into disrepair, and most undergraduates roomed either in fraternity houses or in lodgings in the village. Coolidge secured a room at ‘Mr. Trott’s ‘ — a comfortable brick building still standing a little back from the road on South Pleasant Street, with peculiar pointed windows which attract the attention of the passing pedestrian or motorist. Seventeen other Vermonters were registered that year in Amherst; indeed the only other student living at Mr. Trott’s was Alfred Turner, from Rutland, only twenty-five miles from Plymouth. But of the eightyfive members of his class recorded in the catalogue, young Coolidge had probably not met a single one before coming to Amherst.
For his room Coolidge paid $60 a year, with twenty-five cents a week for care. He had to furnish his own wood and the oil for his lamp. He engaged his board at a house on Pleasant Street, at a cost of three dollars and a half a week — a sum which seemed exorbitant to the young Vermonter accustomed to country prices. Among those who sat at his table were Dwight W. Morrow — nicknamed speedily ‘Kid’ because of his small stature and youthful appearance — and ‘Charlie’ Andrews, now the Treasurer of Amherst College. One anecdote of this period has survived and has been often related in different versions. A big black cat occasionally prowled around the dining room. On one evening the principal dish was hash, a dish familiar to Coolidge as to all native New Englanders. When Calvin was served, he examined his plate critically for a few seconds and then called to the waiter, a classmate named Albert M. Tibbetts, better known as ‘Bitts.’ As ‘Bitts’ drew near, Coolidge said, ‘Bring me the cat.’ The animal was produced, spitting and clawing, and Coolidge, taking a long look at her, simply murmured, ‘Thank you,’ and then — but not until then — began to eat his hash.
During the busy ‘rushing season’ covering the opening week of the fall term, tired freshmen were led from one fraternity house to another for a half hour in each and then ‘pledged’ if they seemed desirable. But no upperclassmen spent sleepless nights meditating on young Coolidge’s qualifications for Alpha Delta Phi or Delta Kappa Epsilon. When the elections were over, ‘Bert’ Pratt and ‘Gussie’ Post had been taken by ‘Alpha Delt,’ ‘Charlie’ Burnett by ‘Psi U,’ Jay Stocking by ‘Deke,’ ‘Kid’ Morrow and Lucius Eastman by ‘Beta Thet,’ and ‘Charlie’ Andrews by ‘Phi Delt’; but the unsponsored Coolidge was an ‘Ouden,’ a ‘Barbarian,’ a nonfraternity man in a college where fraternity affiliations somewhat determined a man’s status. There is something pathetically reticent in a sentence from a letter which he wrote home, October 15, 1891: ‘I don’t seem to get acquainted very fast.’ On January 6, 1892, after returning from his first Christmas vacation, he wrote, ‘Every time I get home I hate to go away worse than before and I don’t feel so well here now as the first day I came here last fall but suppose I will be all right in a day or two.’ Two days later he wrote again, ‘I feel quite reconciled to being here tonight but felt awful mean yesterday and the day before, I don’t know why, I never was homesick any before.’
During his first two years at Amherst he was, to say the least, an inconspicuous member of the class of 1895. One of his classmates writes me, ‘A drabber, more colorless boy I never knew than Calvin Coolidge when he came to Amherst. He was a perfect enigma to us all. He attended class regularly, but did not show any very great interest.’ Early in the freshman mathematics course Professor Olds, who had sandy hair, looked over the victims in front of him and then called on ‘my red-headed brother in the second row.’ This was Coolidge; and this is also one of the few authentic incidents which can be rescued from the oblivion of his first two years in college.
He did not make a practice of calling on his professors; ho did not sing in the Glee Club or strum the mandolin; he had no ‘girl,’ either in Amherst or in ‘Hamp.’ He did not join the Y.M.C.A. or the college church. He took no part in athletics, although he did in his letters comment on intercollegiate contests. In later life, when reporters tried to enliven the monotony of his past, he confessed that in games he did ‘hold the stakes.’ He did not enter into competition for the editorial board of the Student, the undergraduate newspaper. On January 7, 1892, he wrote his father, ‘I want to do careful work but many men in my class have strength, preparation, inclination, and ability to do much more than myself.’ All of the more explosive manifestations of youthful ebullition had no attraction for him. A few of his acquaintances called him ‘Cooley ‘ or ‘ Cal’ or ‘Red,’ but he was little known to most members of the class.
When he had become President of the United States, several of his college mates recalled in him qualities which they certainly did not perceive when he was a sophomore. The fact is that he displayed few traits which could encourage prophecy. If he had dropped out of Amherst in the spring of 1893, he would hardly have been missed.
‘It has always seemed to me that all our other studies were in the nature of a preparation for the course in philosophy,’ said Coolidge in his Autobiography. This was given by Professor Charles E. Garman, the most famous and mysterious of Amherst teachers, around whose romantic personality legends gathered even during his lifetime. Garman, who had graduated from Amherst in 1872, one year after Morse, had been called back in 1880 to his college, where through what must be called his genius he gradually acquired over his students an influence as enduring as it was impressive. Although he lived in an unpretentious and somewhat secluded dwelling at 10 Gray Street, he understood the value of dramatic appearances. In his conventional black frock coat and bow tie he looked grimly ministerial; but his pale face, piercing coalblack eyes, and gleaming white teeth made him resemble even more a middleaged Hamlet. A confirmed valetudinarian, he shunned physical exercise, was morbidly susceptible to drafts, kept his study and lecture room like a hothouse, and even on warm spring days wrapped his delicate throat in a muffler. A lesser man might have been suspected of posing, but Garman, with all his peculiar habits, was genuine at heart.
Garman’s course, as Coolidge knew it, covered four terms — the spring term of the junior year and the entire senior year — and dealt successively with psychology, philosophy, and ethics. His unusual technique had been developed in the 1880’s and was thereafter little changed. He employed no textbooks, but distributed to his classes thin pamphlets which he and his Negro servant, William Glasgow, printed in his cellar on a small hand press; and, with a mystic ceremony savoring of a secret order, he exacted a pledge that his pupils would return them to him and not show them to anybody outside their own section. At heart and by training a devout and rather orthodox New England Congregationalist, Garman early adopted the Socratic method and a policy of setting up one theory after another, each of which he in turn demolished until he and his listeners had reached the truth. He insisted at each stage that they weigh the evidence and, through reason alone, arrive at a logical and irrefutable conclusion — Christianity.
Garman published almost nothing. He was too busy teaching. But the class of 1908 placed on his tablet in the College Church the words, ‘He chose to write on living men’s hearts.’ Coolidge said of him, ‘We looked upon Garman as a man who walked with God.’
Coolidge’s first collegiate success came when he was more than halfway through his course. Juniors at Amherst had the right to wear a silk hat and frock coat and carry a cane. This attainment of social maturity was celebrated by what was styled the ‘Plug Hat Race,’ the last seven men to cross the line being obligated to provide a supper for the others. Coolidge was one of the losers, but he surprised the others with a witty speech at the ensuing banquet.
At the very close of his college career, principally because of his reputation as an excellent debater, he was elected by his classmates as Grove Orator, with the duty of making the audience laugh. His witty sallies aroused shouts of laughter, and, when the audience demanded the repetition of a clever sentence, he spoke it again in precisely the same words and with the same solemn, almost stern expression. The oration was packed with sarcastic observations on members of the faculty — remarks which, although good-natured in tone and intention, had nevertheless something of a bite.
II
In filling out the questionnaire submitted to each member of his graduating class, Coolidge answered the query, ’What do you plan to do next year? ‘ by writing, ‘Nothing, I reckon. Must rest after these four hard years.’ On January 7, 1895, in a significant letter, he wrote his father: —
I have not decided what I shall do next year, shall probably go into the store or go to a law school at Boston or New York. That is about as far as I can get, and think you will have to decide which I shall do. I do not see as I have much of any preference now but may have later. I expect to sell out the present in terms of the future and am not in any hurry to get rich. I should like to live where I can be of some use to the world and not simply where I should get a few dollars together.
Dr. Jay T. Stocking recalled that Coolidge said to him as they parted, ‘I’m only sure of one thing — that I’m a Republican.’ He had recorded himself among the twelve members of the class who intended to study law, but where and how he was still uncertain.
In early September following his graduation, responding to an invitation from his classmate, Ernest W. Hardy, Coolidge went to Northampton and was escorted by him to Hammond and Field’s office in the old and now demolished First National Bank Building on the corner of Main and King streets. Hardy, who had been known in college as ‘Fat’ or ‘Chipmunk,’ was a jovial, talkative person, the direct opposite of Coolidge in temperament, and his garrulity and easygoing charcteristics frequently got him into difficulties. According to the clear remembrance of Field, the junior partner, Hardy spoke effusively in praise of his college friend, while Coolidge, after an introductory ‘Good morning,’ lapsed into patient silence, merely standing impassive with slightly bowed head and hands crossed in front of him holding his derby hat. Field, just back from Europe, explained that he would have little time to devote to a student but that Coolidge might sit at a desk, read as much as he wished, and learn what he could. The result was noted in the Daily Hampshire Gazette for September 17, 1895: —
J. Calvin Coolidge, of Plymouth, Vt. and a graduate of Amherst, class, ‘95, is to take a position in the law office of Hammond and Field.
Calvin Coolidge could easily have found for himself some legitimate recreation, but his mind was fixed first on the law and second on politics. His days were spent in mastering his profession; in the evenings he was likely to read a little history. Judge Field said that Calvin did not overwork. Often he would turn in his swivel chair at the black walnut desk and stare for long minutes out the window — perhaps thinking. He could not be persuaded even by the members of the firm to go to the football and baseball games at Amherst. He joined the Wishton-Wish Canoe Club, at Hockanum, in Hadley, but seldom made use of its privileges except on Sunday afternoon.
Undoubtedly he craved companionship, but he did not always know how to make himself companionable. He did, however, find jovial company in ‘Dick’ Irwin, Ernest Hardy, and one or two others who lunched regularly at Rahar’s Inn. Those who were acquainted with him say that he did not accept invitations to dinner, that he avoided formal entertainments, and that he seemed quite content to ‘sit around.’ Judge Field once confided to Hammond, ‘I guess we’ve added the Sphinx to our staff.’ Coolidge seemed to have no craving for excitement, no passion for exploration, no wish to break the routine. It was noticed, however, that he seemed to get along well with tradesmen, clerks in the stores, streetcar conductors, and people who liked to talk politics.
With commendable ambition Coolidge devoted himself to qualifying as a lawyer. The only other student in the musty office was Edward A. Shaw; and the two clerks together learned by experience how to prepare writs, deeds, wills, contracts, and the ordinary legal documents. The Superior Court sat in Northampton for three civil and two criminal sessions each year, and Coolidge then observed its procedure and became acquainted with the practical as well as the theoretical aspects of trial work. He and Shaw were soon being called upon to prepare briefs and hunt out evidence. Judge Field never maintained that Coolidge was at his desk earlier or lingered longer than anyone else in the office, but he did not fail in diligence, and, to quote his own words, ‘was soon conversant with contracts, torts, evidence, and real property, with some knowledge of Massachusetts pleading.’
On June 29, 1897, when he had been a student for twenty months, Calvin Coolidge, after having been duly questioned, was admitted to practice in the Massachusetts courts. It was only a few days before his twenty-fifth birthday.
III
By this date Coolidge was recognized as having distinctive qualities which made him different from other young men in Northampton. His scorn of normal exercise and recreation, his regular habits, his devotion to his law books — these made him seem like one of Benjamin Franklin’s industrious apprentices. When he took a vacation, he announced solemnly that he was ‘going up to Plymouth to shoot woodchucks,’ and he was back almost before the news of his departure had spread. Tales were whispered around about him.
In 1896, Orville Prouty, Selectman of Hadley, climbed to the office of Hammond and Field to inquire whether he, in his legal capacity, could move the body of a man who had been killed while rowing on a near-by lake. Mr. Prouty, finding the two partners out, reluctantly explained his quandary to a slender youth who was reading at a small desk. The stranger, after listening intently, said simply, ‘Can move body,’ and returned to his book. Somewhat annoyed at his informant’s abnormal reticence, Mr. Prouty said, ‘Are you sure?’ only to receive again the laconic reply, ‘Yes, can move body.’ On the way downstairs Prouty met Hammond and inquired, ‘Who the devil is that tongue-tied blond you’ve got up there? Doesn’t he ever get excited?’ Hammond answered, ‘That young chap isn’t much on gab, but he’s a hog for work. If he tells you the body can be moved, you can bet your life it can. He’s only been in the office a few months, but I’ve found out that when he says a thing is so, it is.’
In a small community like Northampton, incidents of this kind lose nothing in the reporting. Coolidge’s reputation for discreet silence — one of the most valuable of his political assets — was established during those early months in Hammond and Field’s office. After his admission to the bar Coolidge was uncertain where to hang out his shingle. He considered a possible opening in Great Barrington and even meditated emigrating to Boston. Finally he opened an office of his own, on February 1, 1898, in the Masonic Building on the north side of Main Street. He had two rooms on the second floor, for which he paid a rental of $200 a year. The outer room had but two windows, looking out on Main Street; the inner one had no window, but offered a secluded place, under artificial light, for confidential discussion. He furnished his quarters with some money he had inherited from his Grandfather Moor and was soon equipped fully as well as most of the young attorneys in the city.
His earnings during his first year were slightly over $500. It was not much, but he could live on it; and at last he had the satisfaction of knowing that he was completely self-supporting and need no longer call upon his father for part of his expenses. In 1899, he was appointed counsel for the Nonotuck Savings Bank, of which some years afterwards he became president. His fees for his second year of practice amounted to $1400.
Despite his intermittent excursions into local politics, Coolidge’s primary thought was to improve himself in the profession by which he proposed to earn a livelihood. He built up his balance in the bank, and his credit improved each year. It was important, as he saw it, that he should always be at his desk when he was needed; and there he sat day after day, his feet usually on the shelf of his new oak roll-top desk, sometimes reading or making notes, sometimes just looking out the window at the passers-by. If he had any dreams of greatness, he kept them to himself. In his Autobiography he wrote, ‘I fully expected to become the kind of country lawyer I saw around me, spending my life in the profession, with perhaps a final place on the bench.’
In 1897, Coolidge was placed upon the Republican City Committee for Ward Two and sat among his associates in unassuming fashion, inconspicuous and silent, looking about him and learning. On December 7, 1898, he was elected as one of the three Councilmen from Ward Two, receiving 207 votes to 236 for Allen N. Clark and 206 for Harry W. Kidder. The highest of the three contesting Democrats had only 148 votes. At the first meeting of the Council for the year, Coolidge was placed on three committees — on Claims, on Military Affairs, and on Rules, Orders, and Ordinances.
The position of Councilor paid no salary and was not generally regarded as important, but it did widen Coolidge’s acquaintance and experience. Almost his first act was to move a resolution of respect upon the death of an Irish Democratic colleague — a courtesy which won him the friendly regard of the Democratic group on the Council. All his life Coolidge insisted that a vote captured from Democrats really counted as two, and in his Northampton days he never antagonized unnecessarily any members of the opposition party. During his service on the Council the only matter of significance in his record was his effort to have an armory built for the local military company on its return from the Spanish War.
On November 16, 1899, the Daily Hampshire Gazette published an item under the heading of ‘City Politics’: —
Calvin Coolidge has filed with the City Clerk his declination of the Republican nomination for Councilman from Ward Two.
Coolidge had made up his mind to be a candidate for the office of City Solicitor, which paid a salary of $600 and did not involve very heavy responsibilities. ‘I wanted to be City Solicitor because I believed it would make me a better lawyer,’ he said in his Autobiography. Actually the City Solicitor, who was the legal adviser to the City Council, was elected by that body at one of its early meetings; and Coolidge, already known to most of the members, was chosen by a comfortable margin. This success introduces one of the earliest authentic Coolidge anecdotes — the story of the supporter of a defeated candidate who, after the decision of the Council, said to Coolidge, ‘I don’t know now how you won. I didn’t vote for you’; to which the new City Solicitor replied dryly, ‘Somebody did!’
The close-mouthed young attorney was rapidly mastering the fine art of personal solicitation of voters. He did not draw cigars from his vest pocket, he did not slap men on the back, he did not buttonhole them unctuously on street corners or in hotel lobbies. He seemed to defy all traditions as to the qualities of popular politicians. Although a few intimate friends hailed him as ‘Cal,’ he had no nickname, and no one could have called him a ‘mixer.’ And yet he did get along with people, mainly because he had what Kipling had styled the ‘common touch.’ Something about him inspired confidence. He never promised more than he could perform or let himself be drawn into an overstatement. He was a polite listener, even to Democrats; and when he spoke, he said something. Perhaps the very strangeness of his tactics was appealing to voters who were weary of the customary preëlection flattery.
Among his friends at this period was James Lucey, an Irishman from County Kerry, who kept a cobbler’s shop in a basement room on Gothic Street, a favorite haunt for a group of his Democratic compatriots. Coolidge, who had met him first as a sophomore in Amherst, occasionally dropped in at the shop for a chat and subsequently won the support of the picturesque old gentleman, who advised his cronies to vote for Lawyer Coolidge even though he was a Republican. Newspaper men later found Lucey a colorful source of copy and made the most of his stories. His genius as a philosopher was undoubtedly exaggerated, but he was a self-respecting, loyal, volatile Celt, who exerted some political influence in certain quarters. With persons of this type Calvin Coolidge always got along well, possibly because he understood them.
We have few letters of this period, but one sent to his grandmother at Christmas time is characteristically whimsical in tone: —
I am sending you a little box which was made from sumach wood by a man over ninety years old I believe. It is not good for anything but will come in handy for you to put away and forget about it.
I wish you a very happy Christmas. The first Christmas I can remember I spent at your house and besides the Leslie family and Steve there was also goose to eat. We had a Christmas tree at night, and I got a fine sled with a red top, and green runners striped with white. It was a mighty handsome thing but not very strong and when I left it in the walk at night where father fell over it he used to break it, but Hen Willis could mend it with iron and glue.
I have looked at the Law some but do not yet find that you can get a pension, so do not make any arrangements at present to spend the money.
When he retired as Clerk of Courts, Coolidge was promptly chosen Chairman of the Republican City Committee and found himself much occupied in a Presidential year. The Roosevelt ticket swept the country against the feeble candidacy of the Democratic Alton B. Parker; but locally the Republican candidate for Mayor, running for the fourth time, was defeated by eighty votes. In commenting on the result Coolidge said later: —
We made the mistake of talking too much about the deficiencies of our opponents and not enough about the merits of our own candidates. I have never again fallen into that error.
IV
Calvin Coolidge was now regarded as a rising young man and an eligible bachelor. The comments in Northampton when the supposed misogynist, Lawyer Coolidge, appeared at public functions with the animated and charming Miss Goodhue were amusing, and she was the victim of considerable banter from her friends. Calvin’s first gift to her, the earliest indication that he was a possible suitor, was a porcelain plaque of Mount Tom, which he purchased on a trip with her to its summit. He had taken dancing lessons while he was in Amherst, but Miss Goodhue would not waltz with him, telling him that if he danced as badly as he skated the experience would not be a pleasant one. He was not a romantic wooer, and Miss Goodhue, who was popular in other quarters also, wats in little danger of being swept off her feet by his impetuosity.
Numerous anecdotes about the courtship have appeared in the papers, many of them manufactured, but a few of them authentic. According to one legend, Lucey, the shoemaker, gave the young lawyer some excellent practical advice on how to plead his cause. The intimacy must have been developing, for early in the summer of 1905 Miss Goodhue was invited to Plymouth, where Calvin’s grandmother, ‘Aunt Mede,’ said to him, ‘That’s a likely gal. Why don’t you marry her?’ ‘Mebbe I will, Grandma,’ was the only reply. A few days later, when Grace Goodhue had gone to Burlington on her vacation, Lawyer Coolidge took a few days off and appeared unexpectedly at the Goodhue home. Several versions of what followed have been printed, the most plausible maintaining that, when Mr. Goodhue entered his living room and found Coolidge there reading a magazine, he said, ‘Hello, Calvin, what are you doing in Burlington? Got some business here?’ ‘No,’ was the reply. ‘Came up to marry Grace.’ ‘Why, have you spoken to her yet?’ ‘No, I can wait a few days if it’s any convenience to you.’
Somehow things did get settled, and an understanding was reached. Miss Goodhue then asked Calvin to accompany her on a drive of eight miles to the home of a college friend. He appeared dressed with scrupulous care in a new and well-tailored blue serge suit, a derby hat, and patent-leather shoes with very wide silk shoelaces, and at the last moment placed a whisk broom in the back of the carriage. When they arrived, Coolidge drove the horse into the back yard and hitched him carefully to a ring in the corner of the barn. Then he took out the whisk broom and brushed the dust and horsehairs from his clothing and went very deliberately inside to be introduced. The conversation went along in halting fashion, Coolidge contributing nothing until he could bear the ordeal no longer and, arising, said with a smile, ‘We’ll be going now.’ As he disappeared to get the horse, Miss Goodhue’s friend said, ‘My land, Grace, I’d be afraid of him!’ As they drove homeward, Miss Goodhue protested, ‘Now, why did you act like that? She thinks that you are a perfect stick and said she’d be afraid of you.’ His only reply was, ‘She’ll find I’m human.’
Mrs. Goodhue wished her daughter to resign from teaching and come home for a year before she was married, but Coolidge took the position that he was able to support a wife and there was no reason for postponement. He had his way, and the ceremony was set for October 5, 1905. Coolidge went to Burlington on the previous afternoon with his best man, Dr. A. H. McCormick. The wedding itself was a quiet house affair, with only about fifteen people present, including Colonel and Mrs. John C. Coolidge and Calvin’s aunt, Mrs. Pollard, with her husband. The officiating clergyman was the Reverend Edward Hungerford. The day was rainy, and someone remarked on the bad omen. Calvin replied, ‘I don’t mind the weather if I get the girl.’
Mrs. Coolidge has described gleefully one of her first lessons in domesticity. One afternoon she saw her husband coming home from his office carrying an odd-looking and ancient russet-colored bag. When opened, it was full of men’s socks, fifty-two pairs in all, every one in need of mending. Later she asked him if he had married her to get his stockings darned, and he answered, ‘No, but I find it mighty handy.’
The best-known anecdote of this period, however, is that of the time when Mrs. Coolidge, as a bride, was inveigled by a book salesman into paying eight dollars for Our Family Physician, a volume of medical information. It cost more money than she could afford, and therefore she said nothing to her husband about the matter, but merely left the volume on the parlor table. One day she glanced inside and found on the flyleaf, in a handwriting she knew well, these words: ‘This work suggests no cure for a sucker.’ There was no signature.
Ten years had now passed since Calvin Coolidge had settled in Northampton. In that decade he had established a reputation for probity, industry, thrift, and reticence, for being ‘on the job every day and all day.’ William Allen White has expressed it well by saying, ‘His master passion seemed to be to do the day’s work so well that he might do to-morrow’s work better.’ He was regarded as a serious-minded young fellow, sensible rather than brilliant, and yet just a trifle queer — according to Judge Field, ‘an inscrutable little devil.’ He had been City Councilman, City Solicitor, Clerk of Courts, and Chairman of the Republican City Committee.
Although not rated by his acquaintances as magnetic or eloquent, he had managed to come out well on election day. He had formed the habit of calling on his constituents in their homes and saying simply, ‘I want your vote. I need it. I shall appreciate it.’ He had loyal supporters among persons with some political influence: Cobbler Lucey, in his basement shop on Gothic Street; ‘Phil’ Gleason, the blacksmith, who had converted several Irish Democrats to his cause; Johnny Dewey, the tavern keeper; Ed Lynch, the brickmason; Jim Maloney, the baker; Cliff Lyman, from Bridgman’s bookshop; and numerous small tradesmen and clerks and schoolteachers, the men and women to whom he nodded as he walked to his office each morning. He often gathered with other aspiring young politicians and some veterans in the drugstore of Clark and Parsons to talk over the situation. In Northampton, in 1905, Calvin Coolidge was known as a shrewd politician, a good vote-getter, a chap who might possibly become Mayor or even go to Congress — a good man to watch.