THE U.S.A. PRESIDENT.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4780, 24 November 1924, Page 3

THE U.S.A. PRESIDENT.

MB. CALVIN COOLIDGE. MAN OF SIMPLE HABITS. Air Calvin Coolidge, wno, by me rule of American succession, became President of the United States on the death of President Harding on August 3, 1923 and has just been re-elected, is fifty-two years of age. He was born at Plymouth, Vermont, on the most appropriate day of the year, July 4. He graduated at Ambenst College, Massachusetts, in 1895, won a law scholarship, and settled down as a member of a legal firm in Northampton.

Alter some ten years as a busy small-town lawyer he began his political career as a Republican member of the Massachusetts Legislature, thereafter (1909-10) was Mayor of Northampton, and in 1912 was elected to the State Senate. For two years he was Lieutenant-Governor, and in November, 1918, in the election that was fatal to President Wilson in the country, he was elected Governor of Massachusetts.

So far the name of Calvin Coolidge was ol local celebrity only. In his own State he quickly earned the confidence of the Republican Party leaders, being an immovable party man. By the men controlling the great political and financial interests of New England he was considered a valuable ally. A lawyer of the type they know and trust, he was no less diligent and exact in his political and administrative work than in his profession. Moreover, it was not a drawback, but a decided advantage, .that Mr Coolidge had no showy qualities. He cared nothing whatever for display, or even for society. He continued to live in the half of a two-family house at Northampton, the college town of Western Massachusetts in which all his personal interests were centred.

A Boston event carried his name in a day from end to end of the United States. This was the Boston police strike of September, 1919, an incident from which many consequences followed. The strike was accompanieJ by various sensational circumstances, and there can be no doubt that the situation was greatly complicated by political feeling naturally arising at such a time between the Democratic Mayor of the city and the Republican Governor of the State. The affair was clouded in controversy, but it was the method and results associated with Mr Coolidge that gave the affair its national significance. The Governor took the line that the police, by striking, were guilty of a crime against the State. The National Guard was called out. The policemen were discharged without hope of reinstatement. The Press gave Governor Coolidge enormous, publicity, and a sentence into which he condensed his philosophy of the strike was treated as a new test of constitutional holy writ: “There ip no right to strike against the public safety by anybody anywhere any time.” The impression made upon the nation by this affair was almost without parallel. There was a special reason for this. Public sentiment was profoundly disturbed by post-war events. There was a prevalent fear of the “Reds,” and any man in authority who gave evidence of a readiness to act sharply in behalf of the public safety was certain of national recognition, It came to Governor Coolidge in overflowing measure and from almost every quarter, including President Wilson. Two months afterwards Mr Coolidge was re-elected in ,a fervour of enthusiasm, and it was not surprising .that the Republicans of New England began thinking of his as their most promising candidate for the Presidency. The conservative temper and . method which he was believed to embody were everywhere in evidence in America at that time, and there was at least a fair chance that the Republican Convention of 1920 would make Governor Coolidge its nominee. But no man from New England has come near the Presidency since the Civil War—hence the Vice-Presidency was offered to him and accepted in the spirit of a loyal Republican. The Vice-President has only one serious duty to fulfil; he occupies the chair of the Senate. But President Harding, in response to a widely expressed public wish, took the interesting step of giving Mr Coolidge the right to be present at all meetings of the Cabinet. In striking contrast to most of his predecessors, Mr Coolidge has noagift of eloquence, but his writings contain sentences with a ring of familiar epigram. He always s.ays in quotable words what the average man rejoices to hear. President Coolidge declares himself proud to be of the common folk, and both he and his wife (who was Miss Grace Goodhue, a school teacher, of Burlington, Vermont, are of the simplest society in New England. Physically, the President Is of the lean variety, and in bulk makes scarcely half that of his predecessor, the late President Harding. The President, when he succeeded the late Mr Harding, had two sons— John, aged 17, and Calvin, aged 16. The younger boy, however, died bn July 7 of this year, after having developed blood-poisoning as the result of a poisoned heel sustained while playing tennis.