Evening star., 1933-01-06

| Calvin Coolidge's flve-and-a- -half
years in the White House constituted
more than an administration. They
marked an epoch. 1nvtncibly unemo-
tional and unspectacular, the Vermonter
nevertheless left upon the presidency
| the impress of personality unique
and indelible. It is difficult to think OF
him as having succumbed even to heart
! failure. He was a paragon OF good
health in Washington, though he did
not go in for play like golf or the other
habits, except walking, supposedly
requisite to physical well being In
middle life. One can hardly ever re-
member a sick bulletin from the White
| House, as far as the President himself
was concerned He lived nationally,
refused to worry. and specialized In
confining himself strictly to what he
considered to be his own business, otfi-
cial and private. Yet beneath his I'M
pervious exterior and SphinxHke de-
meanor Calvin Coolidge took things
seriously 1t may well be that the
responsibilities he had to shoulder in
Washington weighed upon him to a
degree unrecognized even by his medical
advisers, and undermined constitution
that seemed to be shockproof and to In
sure its possessor an uncommonly long
lease Of life.
Posterity may not acclaim Mr.. Cool
idge as one of the great" Presidents
of the United States. But the history
of the Republican party. If 1t be faith
| fully written, cannot fail to honor him
as its savior at one of the most critical
points in its existence. When Coolidge
ran for President in his own right in
1924. the G. o. P, reeling under the
shock of Nationwide revulsion In con-
nection with the oil scandals Of the
Harding administration, had every right
and reason to expect rebuke at the
polls Nothing but the countrys un-
Shatterable confidence in the probity OF
the Republican nominee preserved the
party from defeat. No truer word on
the subject was ever uttered than the
alliterative aphorism of Senator Moses
that the Republicans sole asset that
year was ''the calm and cautious Chris
tian character of Calvin Coolidge"
X X X
Men sprung from the loins that gave
the Ccolidges birth are not accustomed
to wear their hearts on their sleeves.
But all who had intimate contact with
the President during those sad times
knew that he suffered two blows from
which he never entirely recoverd-one
was the loss of Little Calvin" at the
outset of the 1924 campaign, and the
other was the death of Father Cool
idge." Calvin, jr., was the tempera-
mental image Of the President, as well
as very much his physical counterpart.
There was beautiful devotion between
them, and ties of no less affection be-
tween the President and his own father.
A story of which this observer has
knowledge is to the effect that while
his heart was still bowed down with
grief over the passing Of Little Calvin,
Mr. Coolidge said he would far rather
have lost the presidency than his boy.
As sure as anything in American pol
itics has ever been Calvin Coolidge put
away the crown of second term in
the presidency. Until the hour of his
immortal decree from the Black Hills
in August, 1927 do not choose to
run for President in 1928"-no Re-
publican in the country had a chance
for the prize. Before that act of self
denial the nomination was indisputably
within his grasp. Unless it some day
may be revealed in an authorized
quarter, it will remain wholly a matter
of surmise as to whether, with that
canniness which so distinguished him,
Coolidge saw what was coming and
determined to be no part of it. He
in consequence deserted the political
scene with the legend Of Coolidge
prosperity" untarnished. The legend
persisted through the depression, and
many an authority was convinced that
Calvin Coolidge might have led the
Republican hosts to triumph even in
1882. His hold on the popular imagi-
so far as to- suggest that. despite the
age of GA, which Mr.. Coolidge would
have attained by 1896, he alone per-
haps could have brought victory three
years hence to the party so recently
devastated at the polls, and particularly