Little Things

"Calvin's Campaign" for the Republican nomination in 1924 marches on at a surprisingly steady and sure-footed gait--so steady, so surefooted that politicians and public alike are moved to wonder and to examine its propelling powers.

First South Dakota gave Coolidge the "first choice" place on its primary ballot (TIME, Dec. 17). Then Henry Ford came out for Coolidge (TIME, Dec. 31). A fortnight ago the Non-Partisan Leaguers of North Dakota, led by their two insurgent Senators, Ladd and Frazier, technically Republicans, indicated a preference for Coolidge. Last week Senator James Watson, who long wanted to pose as a favorite son of Indiana, renounced his aspirations in favor of Coolidge.

Governor Pinchot of Pennsylvania, whose boom for the nomination swelled only a few months ago, seems to have shrunken into little more than a candidate for Pennsylvania delegate-at-large to the Republican Convention. All the formidable rivals of Coolidge seem to have withered in the bud, excepting only Senator Hiram Johnson of California. There are some who see Senator Johnson's boom as already suffering from a drought of public support.

Whence come these things? How has the Coolidge boom attained such results? Where is the usual noisy bandwagon of a Presidential candidate parading the streets for Calvin Coolidge? The answer of observers is that "Calvin's Campaign" is unique, that it treads unostentatiously, that it advances itself by little things: unexpected invitations to call on the Chief Executive; White House answers to the letters of Tom, Dick and Harry, written with flattering conscientiousness; broad-minded patronage; a keen little slogan, "Keep Coolidge"; the personal touch from the finger that starts so many things by pressing a little button.

Here are the apparently trivial explanations of two of the country's ablest political correspondents*: "You go into the headquarters of the Calvin Coolidge campaign, in the Willard Hotel. There sit William M.

Butler of Massachusetts, Frank W.

Stearns of Massachusetts . . . and several hirelings. As soons as the secretary gets your name, he says: 'Have a cigar.' You meet Mr.

Stearns; he says: 'Have a cigar.' Ultimately you reach Mr. Butler, and he says: 'Have a cigar.' They do not talk much, Mr. Stearns and Mr.

Butler favoring Mr. Coolidge in the matter of silence. 'Have a cigar' serves in place of conversation. 'I collected,' said a man who was in there the other day, 'three cigars in three minutes and they were all Corona Coronas.' The only thing new about all this is the quality of the cigars. . . . Mr. Butler is a shrewd, hard-headed man. You feel that the Corona Coronas are not an accident. Like Alexander Hamilton, he can touch the rock of political resources and abundant streams of revenue will burst forth. But Mr.

Butler has been too busy making money himself to know political conditions through the country, or politicians. . . .

C. Bascom Slemp, the President's private secretary, knows men and politics, but the kind of politics he knows is machine politics and machine politics is not what is putting Mr. Coolidge over.

... He (the President) thinks more politics and to better effect than any one who has been in the White House since Roosevelt. 'Cal's luck' is that he was born that way. He has the infinite capacity for taking pains politically. The personnel of his campaign, and the Corona Coronas do not explain it. Cal himself does." "These Mayflower parties of the Coolidge Administration are not confined to a few personal friends of the President as were those during the Harding regime. Under Mr. Harding there were a good many of these parties, but the guests were always the same--Harry New, Harry Daugherty, Edward B. McLean, 'Jim' Watson, Frank B. Kellogg and very often Speaker Gillett.

"Under Mr. Coolidge they are always different. His friend, Frank Stearns, is regularly on board and generally William M. Butler, of Massachusetts, who is the real manager of his campaign, but aside from these two the list of guests is a new one each trip. It is carefully compiled and is largely made up of members of the Senate and House, with a Cabinet officer--usually Hoover--now and then.

"One of those who has been taken twice is Senator Borah, of Idaho.

During the whole of the Harding regime Senator Borah was never on the Mayflower. . . . The Mayflower is being used to bring the President into personal contact with some of the extreme radicals of the House and Senate. For instance, last Saturday Senator Frazier of North Dakota was a member of the Presidential party. . . . About the last place in the world you would expect to find him would be on the Presidential yacht. Yet there he was--and with his wife, and the very next day his colleague from North Dakota, Senator Ladd, another Non-Partisan Leaguer, simply told the world that Mr. Coolidge could carry North Dakota against any other candidate mentioned, excepting only La Follette, and La Follette is 68 years old and sick. . . .

" 'How,' asked a cynical old Senator here today, 'with these White House luncheons, these Mayflower picnics and a Slemp-distributed patronage are they going to beat this bird anyway?'"

*Clinton W. Gilbert of the Philadelphia Public Ledger; Frank R. Kent of The Sun, Baltimore.