The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1919-09-22
VERMONT boy
AS governor.
New York World Tells of
the Career Of Calvin
Coolidge n n sIss,1
kkafssF''.5s ~sssrs se y m - !. y z
------ &
WAS VERY RETICENT
/ IN COLLEGE LIFE
No One Thought Him a Promising Cit
izen-Showed His Power First In
State Senate-Raised In Plymouth
Union.

(F'rom the New York Worldly
That able-minded citizen. Calvin Cool
idge, governor of the commonwealth of
Massachusetts,, is one of Vermont IS
many gifts of manhood to her sister
state. The executive, whose latest ex-
hibition of backbone has been made in
the Boston police strike, was born and
brought up in a white farm house bed
ed in the Green Mountains five or six
miles from a railroad station.
The station is Ludlow, midway be-
tween Rutland and Bellows Falls and
near the top of the Green Mountain
ridge, while the exact locale of the fu-
ture governor s upbringing is "a valley
called, for no known reason. Plymouth
Union. Here Calvin Coolidge, the only
son of a comfortable, prosperous, God
fearing, but not wealthy family per-
formed the usual duties of a farmer 8
son, from driving the cows home from
their upland pastures to milking them
and tossing hay when the years had
promoted him to those dignities.
Companionship, SO far as fellow be-
ings are concerned, is scarce in Ply
mouth Union This may account in a
measure for the fact that when he en-
tered Amherst college and during the
four years he spent there he was distin-
guished principally for self -effacing
reticenee which remained with him I'M
til graduation.
He was a fair scholar, made few
friends-made none, in fact, for the ad-
vances always came from the other fell
low-and moved through the curious
academic duties obscurely. He was not
an athlete, not literary Star, not a
secret society leader, not a "plunger.'
Of all the men in his class he was
perhaps the last who would have been
j selected as probability for political
preferment. A fellow student was vut
ed by his class at graduation the one
| most likely to makes his mark !. in the
world, and the remarkable thfngais that
| the vote proved prophetic. But the
whole college career of Dwight w. Nor
| row, now partner in the firm of J. P.
/ Morgan 4 Co, revealed his brilhancv
while it is safe to say that half of
| Coolidge's fellow students, outside OF
his own class, are unaware today that
| the pale sandy-haired youth they
| brushed elbows with in the old chapel
on the Hill is the Massachusetts govern
| or who has shown his backbone in the
| first police strike an American city OF
. any size has known.
/ Yet Amherst in Coolidge's day was a
| college of not more than $50 students
1t hash t more than GOO now.
i Just as inconspieuously as he ha6
walked through his college career Cool
idge went through his law schoo
classes. He picked Northampton. sew.
en- miles from Amherst and the seat OF
/ Smith college, as the place in which Il
practise. Any one who knew him al
that time would have predicted a life
of quiet Office work, with an avoidance
OF court appearances, and ten-lint
obituary in the local papers at its close
HIS chance came when he was elected
to the Massachusetts senate 1t becam,
evident then that he had struck hi,
pace. He was no longer the colorles.
person without individuality he hat
seemed in college, but man of con
vietions and purpose, and he took +,
politics like a duck to water.
He was young--he can hardly b,
more than forty-six today--but befor,
the close of his first session experienced
graybeards in the Legislature were wait
ing to hear how he stood before they
east their own votes, for they hat
learned that he always had good rea
sons for his decisions and WASH t afrai,
to state them.
His experience at the House of TIL,
Golden Goldfish won him the Republican
nY1aI gfi e., Al
ernorship, and with Samuel w. Mccall
at the, head of the ticket he went il
flying. Then Mccall decided to run 70
the united States senate-and wa
beaten-and Coolidge became govern
or. Tba Office of oh;af