Crash!

An automobile moved swiftly down Livingston St., New Haven, Conn., one morning last week, crashed into and wrecked another automobile which had appeared suddenly out of a side street. Two men got out of the first car. Came a policeman, who was surprised when one of the men handed him a driver's license reading: "John Coolidge, age 21, height 6 ft., residence 21 Massasoit St., Northampton, Mass." The other man was William Cunningham, chauffeur of Governor Trumbull of Connecticut. But John Coolidge, returning from a visit to his mother and the Governor in Plainville, Conn., had been driving the Governor's car when it crashed. In the wrecked car were Wilfred Veno, professional hockey player, with a fractured skull and a slash across his neck from a broken windshield, and his mother, Mrs. Mary Veno, less seriously injured. They were taken to a hospital. On their car was a placard which read: "Al Smith for President."

John Coolidge answered police questions, then went to his work as clerk at the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad. When news of the accident reached Washington, D. C., President Coolidge despatched his personal physician, Major James F. Coupal, to New Haven to attend the Venos. Also to New Haven went Col. Edward W. Starling of the Secret Service to watch over John Coolidge. Only a week before, for the first time in three years, John Coolidge had been allowed to go about without a Secret Service man.

But the President's son has been under watchful eyes in New Haven. He is living at the home of Professor Benjamin Wisner Bacon, 68, staunch Congregationalist, who has recently retired from the faculty of the Yale Divinity School. Host Bacon is an authority on the New Testament. He has written a good-sized shelf of books on the subject.* Big of frame, he used to play football and the violin, equally well, as a Yale undergraduate. John Coolidge has been invited to stay under the Bacon roof (No. 244 Edwards St.) as long as he desires. It is 20 minutes by trolley from John Coolidge's office. It is less than a block from the scene of last week's automobile accident.

The police finally declared the accident "unavoidable," pressed no charges against John Coolidge.

*Jesus the Son of God, Is Mark a Roman Gospel? Jesus and Paul, The Apostolic Message, etc.