Family

(See front cover)

It is not easy to be married to a national cynosure. Persons who watched Mrs. Coolidge preparing to return from secluded Brule for another autumn and winter in busy, coming-and-going official Washington, guessed that she did so with a certain conscious gathering of her forces.

She had the comfort of knowing that it would soon be over now. Even if Mr. Hoover should be elected and appoint Calvin Coolidge to the Supreme Court or something, or if it were decided to continue living in Washington anyway, the strain of being First Lady would definitely cease before next spring.

Not that Mrs. Coolidge had not enjoyed the White House. "They all do," says a perennial White House servant who has seen four First Ladies come and go. But the sheer physical tax is tremendous--long formal receptions; bi-weekly informal receptions (instituted by Mrs. Coolidge); luncheons with the Ladies of the Senate (a carry-over from Second Lady days); posing for photographs; laying cornerstones, visiting hospitals, remembering to send flowers, answering mail. Mrs. Coolidge's mother was sick all last winter, too (and is still abed). The journeys from Washington to Northampton, Mass., were wearing. When she reached Brule in June, Mrs. Coolidge was in a run-down state for which three months of fresh air and rest were a not superfluous dose of tonic.

Besides her own welfare, Mrs. Coolidge had her son John's to think about. He was leaving her again, going East for his first job. Inquiries and arrangements had been made with the New York, New Haven & Hartford R. R. after John and his father had decided that railroading would be a good thing to learn, from the bottom up. Mrs. Coolidge spent Labor Day getting John's things packed up and sitting with him on the porch. His mother and father knew how hard on John the Publicity thing could be. Secret Service Man Russell Wood, the boy's constant companion, had orders to guard against and censor all importune press photographs.*

Mrs. Coolidge and her husband-smiled when they heard how, in the 'Chicago station, John set his lips and doggedly repeated to the newspapermen: "I have nothing to say. I have nothing to say."

It showed how far the Publicity thing could be carried when, as John passed through Manhattan, a newsgatherer noticed and reported even the two battered old felt hats strapped on the outside of one of John's two hat boxes.

John went on to Northampton, to the famed two-family house at 21 Massasoit St. The Coolidge housekeeper, Mrs. Alice Reckahn, had his dinner ready for him and sat with him while he ate. She told him how his Grandmother Goodhue was doing. After dinner he went along Massasoit Street to see the Hillses. Mrs. Hills is one of Mrs. Coolidge's few really intimate friends. Jack Hills was with John Coolidge at Amherst.

Next evening, John dined around in Elm Street at Dr. Brown's house. Stephen ("Steve") Brown was John's roommate at Amherst.

The next day was John's 22nd birthday; love reached him from Brule. Mrs. Hills gave him a birthday party.

"Thousands of questions by hundreds of reporters" (his own phrase) followed the President's son wherever he went. They kept asking about Florence Trumbull and an engagement. . . . The S. S. Lapland docked in Manhattan but John did not go to meet it. His absence from the pier won $1.50 in bets for Miss Trumbull. Debarking, she said, she and John had "our own understanding." They would not be married before Christmas--a White House wedding would be "thrilling"--"but there isn't much chance of that."

What the Parents Coolidge would do after this winter seemed contingent in some degree on how John's work works out. But whether or not it goes well and whether or not there is a White House wedding before March, the Coolidge family seemed to have been reduced pretty permanently to two. What Washington wondered was: where will they go, now that he has but to beckon for a lordly income, now that she has grown accustomed to spaciousness? Architects were anxious. Before the White House, the Coolidges were content to live in hotels. Before that it was the two-family house ($32.50 per month) on Massasoit Street. Believers in the Grand Manner almost wished that there was a law providing that an outgoing President and First Lady should be established, by the People they have served, in a setting of suitable richness and proportions for the rest of their days. In the present case, the President will be remembered as the taciturn little man whose Administration was accompanied by unprecedented Prosperity and wry anecdotes such as the following:

Mrs. Coolidge--"What was the sermon about?"

The President--"Sin."

Mrs. Coolidge--"What did he say?"

The President--"He was against it."

The First Lady of the present case will be remembered as the cheerful, tactful, tasteful college woman who compensated for the President's solemnity by her own sparkle, spontaneity, friendliness. While he was nasal in his office, she was melodious at the East Room piano. While he made a name by the negative means of vetoes and economies, she knitted the name into a quilt which will be at the White House when the Coolidge Era is ancient history. Her quilt, finished long before "I do not choose" was written, says:

"Lincoln 1861-1865 Calvin Coolidge 1923-1929"

*Sons of public men nowadays are seldom permitted to participate in their parent's official experiences. The usual feeling is that they should be shielded from fame rather than educated by means of it. A century ago the attitude was different. For example, 16-year-old James Gallatin, son of famed Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin, was taken to Europe as private secretary on the father's diplomatic mission which resulted in the Treaty of Ghent (1814).

Press photographers were, of course, not then extant. In contrast with today, the young Gallatin, a pretty lad, was sought after as a model by famed Artist Jacques Louis David in Paris. Gallatin Sr. consented. The picture was "Cupid and Psyche" and "Cupidon" Gallatin (as Mine, de Stael called him) posed nude. The reclining Psyche was nude also. In his diary "Cupidon" wrote: "I don't think Father will approve of my picture. ... I have not seen the model but would like to. She must be very pretty, only 17. We are not to pose together. .