Vice President Dawes on the Vice Presidency

Happy birthday to Joe Biden (Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.), 47th Vice President of the United States, and current holder of that not-always-well regarded office. He turns 69.

Back in 1935, former Vice President Charles G. Dawes published a book called Notes as Vice President, 1928-29, which was essentially a version of a diary he kept during the last year of his term. In as much as Dawes' vice presidency is remembered now, his rocky relationship with President Coolidge is usually mentioned. At one low point, the vice president missed being in the Senate to cast a tie-breaking vote in the administration's favor, infuriating the president.

In any case, Dawes puts the best face on the vice presidency in the first few paragraphs of the book. "My experiences in this office I have found far from uninteresting and unimportant," he wrote. "The superficial attitude of indifference which many public men assume toward the office of Vice President of the United States is easily explained. It is the office for which one cannot hope to be a candidate with sufficient prospects for success to justify the effort involved in a long campaign...

"The office is largely what the man it in makes it -- which applies to all public offices... For his prestige as a presiding officer, it is to his advantage that he neither votes nor speaks in the Senate Chamber. Outside the Senate Chamber, his position as Vice President gives him a hearing by the general public as wide as any Senator, other things being equal. If he lacks initiative, courage, or ideas, he of course will be submerged; but that is true also of a Senator or any other parliamentary member."

Woodrow Wilson Says No Smoking in Bed

National Fire Prevention Week, which is always in early October, had its origins in commemorations of the 40th anniversary of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 (and the larger Peshtigo Fire in Wisconsin on the same day). In the waning days of his administration in 1920, President Wilson got involved, proclaiming National Fire Prevention Day.

Whereas, the destruction by fires in the United States involves an annual loss of life of 15,000 men, women and children and over $230,000,000 in buildings, foodstuffs and other created resources; and

Whereas the need of the civilized world for American products to replace the ravages of the great war is especially great at this time; and

Whereas, the present serious shortage of home and business structures makes the daily destruction of buildings by fire an especially serious matter; and

Whereas, a large percentage of the fires causing the annual American fire waste may be easily prevented by increased care and vigilance on the part of its citizens;

Therefore, I, Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States of America, do urge upon the governors of the various states to designate and set apart Saturday, October 9, 1920, as Fire Prevention Day, and to request the citizens of their states to plan for that day such instructive and educational exercises as shall bring before the people the serious and unhappy effects of the present unnecessary fire waste and the need of their individual and collective efforts in conserving the natural and created resources of America.

In 1925, President Coolidge expanded the event to a week, the seven days from Sunday to Saturday encompassing October 9th. Every president down to the present day as issued similar proclamations each year.

July 8, 1957:Grace Coolidge Dies

Grace Coolidge, nee Goodhue, died 50 years ago today, unless reports that she died a little before midnight on July 7, the anniversary of one of her son's death, are correct. She married future president Calvin Coolidge in 1905 and survived him by nearly a quarter-century.

She among the most enthusiastic baseball fans ever to live in the White House, according to baseball writer David Pietrusza. "...during the Roaring Twenties, the First Lady could be regularly seen at Washington's Griffith Stadium, often chatting with Senators players (the Coolidges attended the wedding of Senators 'Boy Wonder' manager Bucky Harris in October, 1926 -- of course, Harris had married the daughter of an administration official, Alien Property Custodian Howard Sutherland) and keeping hubby Calvin from bolting the park after perfunctorily performing his duties as ceremonial first-ball tosser," writes Pietrusza in "Grace Coolidge, First Lady of Baseball."

" 'She used to come to games,' Harris recalled, 'and sit right by the Senators' dugout. She came to the games with Cal and stayed there when the President would leave early. and then she'd come to other games alone.

" 'All the Washington players knew her and spoke to her. she was the most rabid fan I ever knew in the White House.'

"During the first game of the 1924 World Series which featured the local Senators versus John McGraw's New York Giants, the president, never one to idle time on entertainments, suddenly stood up to leave. Washington had never been in a World Series before. The immortal Walter Johnson was on the mound. It was the ninth inning, the score knotted at 2-2. Grace Coolidge sputtered, 'Where do you think you're going? You sit down,' as she grabbed his coat tails.

"The chief executive sat right back down."

Also, Nelson A. Rockefeller, 41st Vice President of the United States, would have been 99 today. He never realized his dream of capturing the presidency, and never in fact was nominated for that position or the vice presidency by the Republican Party. He remains only one of two people appointed the job under rules specified by the 25th Amendment to the US Constitution.

Curiously, Nelson A. shared a birthday with his grandfather, patriarch John D. Rockefeller Sr., born July 8, 1839. The elder Rockefeller lived to be nearly 98, and presumably didn't die in the company of a young mistress.

January 5, 1933: Calvin Coolidge Dies

The man at the tiller during much of the Roaring ’20s was President Calvin Coolidge, even though he didn’t roar. “Silent Cal” died 74 years ago today at his home in Northampton, Mass., of coronary thrombosis at a relatively young 60. He had lived long enough, however, to see Herbert Hoover complete almost all of his term, the deepening of the Great Depression, and the landslide victory of FDR in the election of 1932.

Coolidge is receding from living memory at a fair clip now, toward the realm of obscure presidents. That’s too bad, because you have to like anyone about whom such entertaining anecdotes are told, though most of them are probably apocryphal. No point in repeating them here, since many web sites or articles or books dealing with President Coolidge are going to cite the usual-suspect bon mots of Dorothy Parker and all the rest (Wikipedia is as good a source for these as any, see "Slient Cal.")

History has a way of being revised and rethought, and so it is for Calvin Coolidge, at least for those few who pay him any mind. In a sympathetic and touching article originally published in Yankee magazine in 1996, presidential historian Richard Norton Smith posits that Coolidge struggled with deep depression after the death of his beloved second son, Calvin Jr., in 1924. He was able to mask it well, however, and so his suffering never entered the popular or even scholarly imagination about the president. (Besides, it’s more fun to quote Dorothy Parker.)

In another vein, columnist Robert Novak speculates that the nation and the world were worse for Coolidge’s decision not to run in 1928, an election he would have certainly won. Would he have done things differently than Hoover, even ameliorating the Depression with better decisions? Maybe. In any case, Coolidge offers a good deal more to think about than the taciturn New Englander stereotype that he’s been stuck with.

Two more things: songs that mention Coolidge. Who would have thought? Mentioned in passing, but he’s still in them. (There’s also the mention of “the Coolidge dollar” in “You’re the Top,” by Cole Porter, but that’s not exactly about the president.)

“Crazy Words, Crazy Tune," by Irving Aaronson and His Commanders, recorded when Coolidge was in office (Febraury 4, 1927).

“When Lindy Comes to Town,” by Al Stewart, released in 1995 on his Between the Wars album.