Blister: The Day Calvin Coolidge Lost His Favorite Son and His Passion for the Presidency
Early in the day on June 30, 1924, President Calvin Coolidge gathered his family at the White House for a series of photographs. The President and his wife, Grace, stood in the center of one photograph, with Rob Roy, one of their beloved dogs between them. The Coolidge’s oldest son, John, stood closest to Grace. Although he was not quite 18 years old, John looked serious and mature, which is how he acted, as well. Like his father, John Coolidge would grow to be a man of few words, and he was already off to a quiet start.
President Coolidge had assumed the Presidency almost a year earlier. Elected as Warren G. Harding’s Vice President, Calvin Coolidge was visiting his father’s farmhouse in Plymouth, Vermont on August 2, 1923 when a messenger arrived notifying him that President Harding had suddenly died in San Francisco. Coolidge’s father – a notary public – administered the Presidential oath of office to his son. The new President then went back to sleep. When asked how he felt about assuming the Presidency, Coolidge would later say, “I thought I could swing it.“
Coolidge quickly took the reigns of government, cleaned out the corrupt members of Harding’s Cabinet, and was presiding over a stable, prosperous nation. Just two weeks before the photos were taken at the White House, the Republicans had officially made Coolidge their 1924 Presidential nominee. The popular President was happy, healthy, enjoyed his job, and headed to an easy victory in his own right in November.
Standing next to the President was his namesake, Calvin Jr. While John possessed much of his father’s reticence, 16-year-old Calvin Jr. had a lively, effervescent personality similar to their mother’s disposition. Many people didn’t realize that President Coolidge also had a hidden mischievous streak – not a mean-spirited one, but a fun, dry sense of humor that Calvin Jr. clearly inherited. President Coolidge doted on Calvin Jr. Without jealousy or resentment, John Coolidge freely acknowledged that Calvin Jr. was their father’s favorite.
After a few more photographs, the teens were eager to change out of their suits and put on some less formal clothing. Both boys were enjoying their summer vacation from school and on this final day of June, the sunny White House tennis courts looked very appealing for an afternoon match.
While their father returned to his work inside the White House, the Coolidge brothers hit the courts on the South Grounds of the Executive Mansion. John and Calvin Jr. battled through several games of tennis, and we can assume that they spared no effort to defeat each other – teenage boys, especially brothers separated in age by less than two years, know no other way. Calvin Jr.’s foot started bothering him at some point, so they ended their contest and headed back inside the White House.
Calvin Jr. – whether it was from the haste of changing out of his formal clothing for the photographs or the neglect of a 16-year-old more focused on fun than safety – had competed all afternoon in tennis shoes without wearing socks. The constant movement led to a blister on one of his toes, and while teenagers frequently develop blisters in their hectic, athletic adventures, this was different. The blister on the toe of the President’s youngest son quickly became infected and Calvin Jr. spiked a fever.
The next few days were a blur for the President, his family, and an anxious nation. Calvin Jr.’s blister and infection had led to severe blood poisoning. Much like Abraham Lincoln when his favorite son was dying of typhoid fever in the midst of the Civil War, President Coolidge tried to fulfill his duties while worrying about Calvin Jr. As the 16-year-old’s health continued to deteriorate, the President seemed to be in shock, zig-zagging constantly through the White House from his office to Calvin Jr.’s sickbed.
July 4, 1924 was the nation’s 148th birthday and President Coolidge’s 52nd birthday, but nobody was celebrating. A day earlier, Calvin Jr. had been moved to Walter Reed Medical Center as some of the country’s top doctors tried to save the life of the President’s son. Noting that Independence Day was his birthday, President Coolidge wrote a short letter to his father in Vermont. "Calvin is very sick,” the President wrote, “so this is not a happy day for me." Still holding out hope, Coolidge added, "Of course he has all that medical science can give but he may have a long sickness with ulcers, then again he may be better in a few days.”
On July 7, 1924 – just a week after the happy, healthy First Family posed for their photographs at the White House – Calvin Coolidge, Jr. died. He was 16.
Many Americans thought of President Coolidge as the taciturn, expression-less, unemotional caricature in political cartoons and newspaper gossip, but in the day’s after Calvin Jr.’s death, everyone was stunned by the open demonstration of the President’s grief. Coolidge wore a black armband for weeks. Visitors to the Oval Office often found him to be inconsolable. One friend found Coolidge sobbing at his desk while muttering “I just can’t believe it has happened…I just can’t believe it has happened." When he received the bill for Calvin Jr.’s funeral services, the President refused to pay for several months, as if he was unable to come to terms with the fact that his son was gone.
President Coolidge was still in the middle of a Presidential campaign, but he didn’t make any effort to win votes. To many of his friends or colleagues, it seemed as if Coolidge no longer cared. When he easily defeated John W. Davis in November to win election in his own right, Coolidge didn’t celebrate. The First Lady offered strength and support, but everything changed for Coolidge after Calvin Jr. died. His health began to suffer. Grace said that the President "lost his zest for living”. The Coolidge’s surviving song, John, had gone off to college, and that may have compounded the President’s loneliness and depression. In 1992, John Coolidge (who died in 2000 at the age of 93) told Life Magazine “Calvin was my father’s favorite. [His death] hurt him terribly. It hurt us all.”
Despite his popularity with the American people, Coolidge issued a simple 10-word statement on August 2, 1927 (the fourth anniversary of President Harding’s death): “I do not choose to run for President in 1928." The nation was surprised at his announcement, but Coolidge never officially explained his decision. Yet, one simple sentence that Coolidge – "the man of few words” or “Silent Cal” – wrote in his Autobiography seems to sum everything up. Writing about Calvin Jr., the former President wrote, “When he went, the power and the glory of the Presidency went with him.”
Less than four years after leaving office, 60-year-old former President Calvin Coolidge was found dead at his home in Massachusetts after his broken heart finally gave out on him.
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