USA > Massachusetts > Hampshire County > Northampton > The Northampton book; chapters from 300 years in the life of a New England town, 1654-1954 > Part 26
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writers, and adding machines are now commonplace, although the dictograph has not made much headway.
The office secretary up to the present time has been the only successful female invader of the complete masculinity of North- ampton's legal life. Northampton's first woman lawyer was Lucy McCloud, a graduate of Smith College in the class of 1885, who was admitted to the Massachusetts bar in July 1905. Miss Mc- Loud was employed at the Hampshire County Registry of Deeds and did not practice. Since then one or two of her sex have tried unsuccessfully to build up a practice in the community. At the present time Northampton has one woman lawyer, Mrs. Catha- rine B. Sage.
The nature of the lawyer's work has changed considerably over the years. The 19th century lawyer was able to learn basic legal principles with confidence that, once learned, they would serve him for a lifetime. Because of the prevailing belief that the best government was the one with the fewest laws, the law cov- ered a relatively small portion of the area of human activity and there was relatively little change over the years. This is all changed today. New social concepts, income and inheritance tax laws, war and national emergencies, the increased complexity of society, and the current theory of a benevolent government have changed and modified 19th century legal concepts to the point where they can hardly be recognized. Modern law covers every field of human activity and is constantly changing. Every prob- lem requires an examination of the latest legislative action or gov- ernmental regulation and every transaction must be analyzed in the light of the tax laws. This change in the nature of the practice of law has given rise in metropolitan areas to the growth of legal specialists who become expert in one field of the law such as labor relations, taxes, or corporations and devote their whole time to that field. Often the specialists will join together in one large firm handling all sorts of specialized legal problems.
All of Northampton's lawyers, however, are still in "general practice." They act as advisers for all sorts of legal and family problems and usually have a knowledge of their client's affairs and business and family background that the specialist often lacks. There are no large firms; no law office has more than three lawyers in it, and the relationship between lawyer and client has
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retained much more of the personal, friendly quality than is pres- ent in metropolitan areas with their specialists and large firms.
Another difference between the practice of law in metropoli- tan areas and in Northampton lies in the attitude of the members of the bar toward each other. Northampton's lawyers live and work together in a spirit of friendly cooperation unlike the situa- tion in large cities. Each respects the others and each can be re- lied upon to carry out his commitments.
The local lawyers in years past have always been respected members of the community and have often been among its lead- ers. As one of the few educated groups in the community in earlier days they were called upon to serve in all sorts of non-legal activities where their education and judgment would be helpful. Today, with the raising of the educational level among all groups in the community, the lawyers have lost their unique position as a learned group but have retained their position as respected com- munity leaders. An examination of the lists of the officers and directors of the various social, civic, and charitable organizations in the community will disclose that practically all of them include a member of the bar. The influence of the 30 lawyers in North- ampton on local affairs is still far greater than that of any other single group of that number.
Northampton's lawyers have grown with the community and the present members of the legal profession can be proud of the contribution of their predecessors to its development.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Calvin Coolidge
By LAWRENCE E. WIKANDER
N EW ENGLAND has produced but one President since Franklin Pierce and Massachusetts but one since John Quincy Adams.
He was John Calvin Coolidge, born in Plymouth, Vermont, in 1872. He chose his birthday with the same thoughtful care that would mark each upward step in his career: July 4 was a good birthday for a man who would stand many times before the voters. It was said of the family, "No Coolidge ever went west." They could have served as the model from which the Vermont Yankee was made. Frugal, industrious, conscientious, reserved, they kept sentiment well concealed.
Calvin Coolidge was not distinguished in childhood. From the local one room school, to Black River Academy, to St. Johnsbury Academy and Amherst College, his path was that of any other aspiring youth. In the village, school, and home his character was formed. "As I went about with my father when he collected taxes, I know that when taxes were laid someone had to work to earn the money to pay them."
Many another Northampton lawyer has had a more distin- guished career at Amherst, but he was capable in his studies, su- perior in debating. He had some success as a speaker; compulsory chapel services benefited him, "If we did not have the privilege of doing what we wanted to do, we had the much greater benefit of doing what we ought to do." In a small college class he was little known to his contemporaries.
After graduation he decided to study law, and for reasons of economy, he chose to read law in an office rather than attend law school. His application to a Montpelier attorney went unan- swered because the Vermont lawyer was out of town. Before the reply offering the Vermont clerkship came, he had been accepted
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by Northampton's firm of Hammond and Field, both Amherst graduates. Northampton became his home.
In a notebook left to Forbes Library by Clifford Lyman ap- pears this picture of his days in the office: Miss Mary Halpin who was in the office while he studied there, was asked some years later to arrange his desk for a photographer. Mr. Hammond thought it needed some law books and put a pile on it. When the pictures were developed, the photographer noticed that one of the books was dated much later than Coolidge's time in the office. He told Miss Halpin irritably that she should have known better. She an- swered tartly that it was Mr. Hammond's idea to put out the books. She could not remember ever seeing anything on Mr. Coolidge's desk but his feet.
He was admitted to the bar, nonetheless, after a shorter than normal period of study. Some books there must have been, for Attorney Walter L. Stevens began his studies in the office of Hammond and Field just as young Coolidge was finishing his. While he was reading one of Coolidge's law books, he was called on to do some errand and laid the book face down on his desk. "Mr. Coolidge said never a word, but took from the waste basket an old envelope, tore off a piece, placed it in the book, and closed the book. I have never since laid an open book face down," says Mr. Stevens.
Calvin Coolidge applied himself to his profession and early be- gan an active interest in politics. In 1898 he was elected to the City Council from Ward 2. He became chairman of the Republican City Committee, City Solicitor, Clerk of the Courts.
In 1905 Calvin Coolidge got married. Somehow sensing his own social limitations-he was never easy in company-he married a young woman of exceptional personal charm and graciousness. Miss Grace Anna Goodhue was like himself a Vermonter, and she came to Northampton to take the teacher-training course at the Clarke School for the Deaf.
In his autobiography, in a moment of sentiment and self-reve- lation rare in his character, Calvin Coolidge writes of his marriage: "We thought we were made for each other. For almost a quarter of a century she has borne with my infirmities and I have rejoiced in her graces."
In this same year of his happiness he suffered his only defeat in an election. He lost his bid for a place on the school board-
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some said it was because he was a politician, others because he had no children in the schools.
Edgar P. Harris, now of Holyoke but a long-time treasurer of the Republican City Committee here, remembers the days when Calvin Coolidge began his friendship here with Jim Lucey, the Irish shoemaker, Bill Godfrey, Mike Lucey, and Jim Maloney, the bakery-cart man, were among the Democrats who became early Coolidge supporters. To that list Mr. Frederick A. Farrar, who knew Calvin Coolidge well in later years, adds the Gleason family and Dick Rahar, the restaurant man. These men disagreed with the Bay State grinder who snorted, "You never can elect that guy."
In 1907-1908 Coolidge was elected to the General Court, and in 1910 and 1911 he was Mayor of this city. Harry E. Bicknell was his opponent and in the campaign, Mr. Harris says, a Leeds saloon-keeper cautioned the voters to "shout for Bicknell, but vote for Coolidge." Coolidge was elected.
His two terms as Mayor had in them the foretaste of his ad- ministrative methods: he improved and increased the Fire and Police Departments; he raised the pay of the school teachers. The Coolidge part of it was that he simultaneously reduced the debt $90,000 and lowered the tax rate.
He moved slowly and cautiously up the political ladder. From 1912. to 1915 he was in the State Senate; in the last two years he was President of the Senate, his first office of more than local prominence. During this period Frank W. Stearns, wealthy Bos- ton merchant and enthusiastic Amherst alumnus, became inter- ested in bringing the local college into greater prominence in state affairs. Through Coolidge's classmate, Dwight Morrow, the two men met. Stearns became and remained Coolidge's greatest supporter. From then on in his wide circle of acquaintance he was constantly urging that Coolidge was the man to be considered for the next office in the rank of preferment. He was later to distribute on a nation-wide basis, and at his own expense, copies of the col- lection of Calvin Coolidge's speeches, Have Faith in Massachu- setts. It has been said that if there had been no Frank Stearns there would have been no President Coolidge. Coolidge himself wrote, looking back over his career, "It is doubtful if any other public man ever had so valuable and unselfish a friend."
Calvin Coolidge moved on. In 1916, 1917, and 1918 he was
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Lieutenant Governor; in 1919 he was Governor of the Common- wealth.
In 1919 occurred the Boston Police strike. Perhaps in the career of every man who moves to national prominence there is a mo- ment which can be pointed to, a moment when the local figure becomes a national figure. For the career of Calvin Coolidge the moment was the Boston Police strike.
The Boston Police Commissioner was appointed to a five-year term by the Governor; Edwin U. Curtis had been named by Coolidge's predecessor. The Mayor of Boston, Andrew J. Peters, was authorized to call out the militia in the event of grave dis- turbance but had no direct control over the police force. For effi- cient administration the Mayor and Commissioner must work together. Unfortunately, they disagreed both as to the seriousness of the situation and the measures which should be taken.
It was generally agreed that the pay of the Boston Police was too low, and working conditions were poor. They had thought of organizing a year or so previously but had been forbidden by the then Commissioner Stephen O'Meara. (Editor's note: Father of Miss Alice O'Meara and Miss Lucy O'Meara, contributors to the Tercentenary History.) The raise given them in the intervening years was considered insufficient. An organization, affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, was formed. Commissioner Curtis demanded that before any of their grievances be discussed the union be disbanded. They refused. He suspended the 19 leaders. They struck. Two nights of shop looting and hoodlumism ensued.
Much of what occurred in the next few days was behind closed doors and closed faces. The police did not have the right to strike against the law they had taken their oath to uphold. Commissioner Curtis was honest and able, but he was also stubborn and uncon- vinced the police really would strike.
What of Governor Calvin Coolidge? Why did he permit two nights of riot and vandalism before he cracked down? Probably the first answer is that it was his character not to interfere with subordinates who he thought were able. He believed Curtis's as- surances that the situation was under control. A second, more theoretical, reason is that he did not wish to move against the union until it was perfectly clear-to the public and to labor-that
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the police had a special responsibility different from that of other workers: when they walked off their jobs, anarchy resulted.
Once he had decided to act, he hit hard. The State Guard was called out. To Samuel Gompers, head of the AF of L, in answer to his urging that the 19 leaders be re-instated he answered in a phrase that caught the public ear, "There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, anytime."
Far from being politically through as some had thought when he broke the strike, he was made. Letters of praise poured in from all over the country. President Wilson sent him a letter of com- mendation.
After his triumphant re-election, in 1920 there went to the Re- publican National Convention, without any encouragement from him, delegates from Massachusetts pledged to his candidacy for President. Principally because of the lack of support of Massa- chusetts Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Sr., no boom got started.
The 1920 Convention was the epitome of the smoke-filled rooms so often referred to. Deadlocked on the popular candidates a small group of powerful men put through a dark horse, Senator Warren G. Harding. He was railroaded through the convention.
While the master-minds were out planning the details of the closing session, a leather-lunged Oregonian, primed on three copies of Have Faith in Massachusetts sent him by the faithful Frank Stearns, threw the nomination of Calvin Coolidge for Vice President on the floor. Unscheduled spontaneous enthusiasm swept the delegates. No one bothered to check with the higher- ups. Coolidge was nominated on the first ballot.
For Frank Stearns who freely avowed Calvin Coolidge a "sec- ond Abraham Lincoln" and the "greatest American who stands in shoe leather" it was something of a disappointment. For Massa- chusetts which had not had a candidate on a national ticket since Henry Wilson, Vice President under Grant, it was gratifying. For Northampton it was a triumph, and for Coolidge to whom the nomination came "unsought and unexpectedly" it was an "honor and a duty."
More than any other recent political figure Calvin Coolidge lives in the anecdotes and stories told about him. His Yankee character and sharp humor have filled his biographies with tales, real and spurious, showing his old time New England outlook in the 20th century jazz age. In this sketch an attempt is made to
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gather some authentic Coolidge stories which have not before ap- peared in print. Conversations with Walter L. Stevens, Edgar P. Harris, Frederick A. Farrar, and others in the last months have given some hitherto unpublished chapters of the Coolidge legend.
At this time just after the nomination of Calvin Coolidge for Vice President, Fred Farrar was President of the Northampton Chamber of Commerce. He was called to Boston by Frank Stearns. Upon arriving at Governor Coolidge's office he was told that he was to arrange for the official notification ceremonies here.
"That's quite a job, isn't it, Governor?"
"It's your job," came the answer.
Mr. Coolidge told him that he wanted the official lunch for 12 5 to be held at his Massasoit Street home. That Albert Beckmann was to be the caterer was the other instruction. The front steps were to be strengthened and put in safe condition, but, Mr. Farrar was told, they must not look as if they had just been fixed. Was anything to be done about the grounds, Mr. Farrar wanted to know.
After a moment's thought, Governor Coolidge said, "Just keep the mower out there."
There are many stories of Coolidge's silences and taciturnity. One of the best comes from Mr. Stevens:
"When he was lieutenant-governor, I think it was, coming out from luncheon at the Draper Hotel on a Saturday, I met Mr. Coolidge, home for the week-end. We walked together down the street. At the door of my office building, I asked Mr. Coolidge to come up and have a cigar. He accepted. I produced a box of K and M cigars, then made by William L. Gillern at his store on Main Street. Mr. Coolidge took a cigar. I took one. He lighted his. I lighted mine. We sat and smoked them. Not a word was said. When the cigars were finished, Mr. Coolidge rose to go. As he was leaving, he said, 'The K and M is a good cigar.' It was."
The notification ceremonies were held then at Allen Field, the Smith College athletic area; L. Clark Seelye, President-emeritus of the college, presided, but handing out programs at the gate, so placed that he would be the first one to greet Coolidge was Jim Lucey, the shoemaker.
Harding and Coolidge were elected. To Coolidge the next years were valuable. They gave him the opportunity to observe
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activity on the national stage, to know the people and methods of Washington.
In August of 1923 President Harding and Vice-President Cool- idge were on vacation. President Harding had visited Alaska; Vice-President Coolidge was spending a few days at Plymouth, Vermont, with his father. The President became ill, dangerously so, but on August 2nd he seemed to be recovering. In the primi- tive house in Vermont, Calvin Coolidge slept. In the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, Warren G. Harding died.
"I was awakened by my father coming up the stairs calling my name," Calvin Coolidge related in his autobiography, "I noticed that his voice trembled. As the only times I had ever observed that before were when death had visited our family, I knew something of the gravest nature had occurred. . .. He [was] the first to ad- dress me as President of the United States."
The most imaginative dramatist would hesitate to sketch the ensuing scene. By the light of a kerosene lamp, before a handful of onlookers, John C. Coolidge, notary public, administered the oath of office as President of the United States, to his son.
The Coolidges moved into the White House. What were Cool- idge's policies? "We have an enormous debt to pay, and we are paying it. We have the high cost of government to diminish, and we are diminishing it. We have the heavy burden of taxation to reduce, and we are reducing it," he declared in a message to the Congress in 1924. The answer to the nation's problems was "con- structive economy."
Coolidge felt that too much government and too many laws weakened democracy.
"Whenever some people find that abuse needs correction in their neighborhood, instead of applying the remedy themselves, they seek to have a tribunal sent on from Washington to discharge their duties for them, regardless of the fact that in accepting such supervision they are bartering away their freedoms," he told a convention, and in his autobiography he wrote: "The trouble with us is that we talk about Jefferson but do not follow him. In his theory that the people should manage their government and not be managed by it, he was everlastingly right."
As he entered the presidency, ugly scandals were coming to the surface. In the Teapot Dome case Navy oil reserves had been diverted; there were other cases involving high officials. Coolidge
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moved in a characteristic way. For a time, too long it seemed to some, he did nothing. Then he acted and the offenders were re- moved and punished. More important from a political point of view he conducted the affair so that the voters knew that he, and his leadership, could not in any way be considered responsible. He went on to be elected in his own right.
This is not the place for a detailed review of the history of the mid-'20's. Coolidge, reared in a Vermont little changed from Revolutionary times, was something of an anachronism in the jazz age. An odd epigram seems to summarize him: "In a great day of Yes-men, he was a great No-man."
On vacation in the Black Hills of South Dakota, exactly 4 years from the fateful day he had taken the oath in his father's house, he issued the terse statement, "I do not choose to run for President in 1928."
There seems little doubt that he could have been re-elected had he chosen to run. Perhaps, with his keen political sense, he felt that changes were to come. In a magazine article Mrs. Coolidge recalls his saying to a Cabinet member: "I know how to save money. All my training has been in that direction. The country is in a sound financial condition. Perhaps the time has come when we ought to spend money. I do not feel that I am qualified to do that."
Much has been written of the possible actions that President Coolidge might have taken to slacken the wave of stock market speculation in the '20's which precipitated, but hardly caused, the depression. Though Coolidge left the White House only 25 years ago, that was administratively another century. There were few of the government controls on the stock exchanges and their practices which now exist. And Coolidge had no desire to apply those that did exist. Then, as now, economic prophets could be found to counsel almost any course of action.
Coolidge may not have concurred in the extravagant notion that Andrew Mellon was "the greatest Secretary of the Treasury since Alexander Hamilton," but his frugal up-bringing gave him great respect for those who owned and capably handled vast for- tunes. The multi-millionaire banker and industrialist from Pitts- burgh looked upon the stock market and found it good. So did Coolidge.
Thus he left Washington in March of 1929 with his popularity undimmed and returned to Northampton-from the White House
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to the Massasoit Street double house he had rented all these years.
Sitting on the porch, at first it amused him to see the strings of cars and tourists going by. When he overheard one out-of-towner sniff disparagingly, "I don't think much of this place," Coolidge turned to a companion and muttered, "Democrats!"
He subsequently felt the need for greater privacy and bought a home at the end of Munroe Street, known as The Beeches. A story told by Walter L. Stevens, his neighbor there, shows his sharp tongue did not dull:
"After Mr. Coolidge bought The Beeches, he walked, in the summer time, about the neighborhood the same as the rest of us. Dr. Melville L. Eldridge had in his garden a large iron pan set flush in the ground in which he had goldfish and pond lilies, and of which he was rather proud. One day he was pointing out to Mr. Coolidge the beauty of the lilies. Mr. Coolidge listened. When Dr. Eldridge finished talking, Mr. Coolidge turned away with the remark, 'I don't like stagnant water.' "
Eight months after Coolidge left the White House, the stock market crashed. President Herbert Hoover peeped hopefully around the corner for the will-o'-the-wisp of prosperity for three years. In the fall campaign of 1932 Calvin Coolidge lived to see much that he had stood for repudiated. He was visibly weak in a final speech for the Republican party which he made only from a sense of duty and after pressing demands. There seems little doubt that some of the revelations of the stock market collapse and its business effects preyed on his mind.
Suddenly, quietly, on January 4, 1933, he died.
The funeral services in the Edwards Church were attended by the notables of the nation: President Hoover and Chief Justice Hughes headed a delegation from Washington. Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt attended on behalf of the President-elect. The im- mense crowds which gathered were at times almost beyond the control of the police. This was the outside world's farewell to Calvin Coolidge. He lies buried under a simple slab in Plymouth, Vermont.
Northampton's tribute to her most famous citizen was a mov- ing ceremony in John M. Greene Hall on April 30. Walter L. Stevens, fellow-student with Coolidge in the law office of Ham- mond and Field, presided. The College chorus sang. The Rever- end Thomas F. Cummings, then, as now, pastor of St. Mary's
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Roman Catholic Church, voiced the feeling of the community. Stanley King, president of Amherst College, spoke of the relation- ship of Calvin Coolidge and that college, Governor Joseph B. Ely spoke for the State, and Supreme Court Justice Harlan F. Stone, who attended Amherst with Coolidge, reflected the nation's sor- row. From Calvin Coolidge's autobiography Justice Stone quoted, "We draw our Presidents from the people. It is a wholesome thing for them to return to the people. I came from them. I wish to be one of them again."
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