Vice President Coolidge took the oath of office as President of the United States at 2 o’clock this morning at his home in Plymouth, Vermont, and is now on his way to Washington.
Thousands of people in the United States could no doubt not remember this morning who the Vice President of the United States was. Yet in the twinkling of an eye, this man is shot from the obscurity of the vice presidency, which is the most powerful and conspicuous position in the world today.
Calvin Coolidge, now president of the United States, was born at Plymouth, Vermont, July 4, 1872. He was twice governor of Massachusetts and was the fourth from that State to be elected to the vice presidency. He has been an office holder ever since reaching his majority.
Running in his veins by direct lineage is the blood of the Mayflower pilgrims. From them he inherited a predominate Puritan respect for law and order such as characterized his conduct as governor of Massachusetts, refusing to temporize with leaders of the Boston police strike.
Silent, reserved, uncommunicative almost to the point of brusqueness, he rose to national political ascendency in 1919 when he was mentioned for the republican nomination for President.
When the nomination went to Harding, Coolidge was first and there was no second in the contest for vice president.
Political Victor
During his political life, Coolidge ran for various offices, state and municipal, a total of 17 times. He won every race, and only once was the fight close, that occasion being in his second contest for the Massachusetts state legislature, when he received a plurality of only 63 votes.
Born to a life on the farm, during his boyhood Coolidge occupied himself doing chores and helping out in his father’s general store.
He attended the little red schoolhouse at Plymouth. From there he went to the old Black Rock River academy at Ludlow, Va., to prepare himself to enter college. He had vague hopes of reaching so high, for the family farm and store were not over-productive and money in the Coolidge family was scarce.
In 1891, however, though considerable older than the average freshman because scanty means had prevented him from leaving home, he entered Amherst.
Prize Winner
There in his senior year, he won a gold medal offered for the best essay on the principles of the Revolutionary war, the competition being open to the undergraduates of all American colleges. In 1895 he was graduated with high honors.
In 1897 he was admitted to the Massachusetts bar and began the practice of law at Northampton. Following two terms as mayor of that city, two as city solicitor, two in the state legislature, four in the senate, three as lieutenant governor and two as governor, his political star shot into the national constellation.
In person, Coolidge typifies the New England gentleman. He has probably never slapped a man on the back. He is quiet to the point of taciturnity in his speech and possesses a twinkling eye and a mouth and chin that, with all his kindly smile, are as firm and inflexible as Plymouth Rock itself.
In 1906 he married Miss Grace Goodhue, then a teacher in the Clarke school, Northampton. Two sons have been born to them. At the time of his election as vice-president, the couple lived in a modest home at Northampton for which they paid $32 a month rent.
He is said to own no real estate and has never owned an automobile.
From the front page of The Monroe Journal, Friday, August 3, 1923
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