CHAPTER XVIII
FIRST ADMINISTRATION OF CALVIN
COOLIDGE
August 3, 1923, to March 4, 1925
THE death of President Harding in San Francisco, coming so swiftly and unexpectedly on the evening of August 2, 1923, at 7:30, stunned all of his immediate party, none more so than his friend and secretary George Christian, who immediately flashed the news of the national calamity to Vice President Coolidge, vacationing in a little Vermont house, the home of his father, John C. Coolidge.
Just at midnight a messenger arrived and roused the elder Coolidge, and to this gray-haired father was given the duty of awakening his son to apprize him of the fact that fate had ordained him to assume the reins of government just fallen from the lifeless hands of his friend and chief.
By the time Vice President and Mrs. Coolidge had dressed and gotten downstairs, the newspaper men were arriving, and, shortly after, Mr. Coolidge’s secretary came. Within an hour, a telephone had been installed, the house adjoining secured for use, connection with the White House established to get the exact phraseology of the presidential oath of office, and a message of condolence sent to Mrs. Harding.
At 2:47 A. M., August 3d, the simplest inaugural in American history was enacted. In the dim lamplight, with scarce half a dozen witnesses, Calvin Coolidge was sworn in as President by his father, a notary public, taking the oath on the old, well-worn family Bible.
History was in the making by the minute in the eventful twenty-four hours that spanned August 2d and 3d. Without an instant’s warning the life record of Warren Harding had been marked “Finis,” and Calvin Coolidge, tossing hay and farming until bedtime in a smock made twenty years before by his grandmother, had scarce gotten well into his first sleep before he was summoned to pick up the mantle of his chief, step from a salary of twelve thousand to one of seventy-five thousand, move at once from a tiny lamplit farmhouse into the Executive Mansion, and from the paths of peace and serenity into a seething maelstrom of duties, to be buffeted between the rocks of the political torrent and the shoals of social quicksands.
The movements of President Coolidge in taking up his new prodigious burden were characteristic of the typical New England gentleman. Without haste and without displaying in the least degree the intense emotion that must have been surging through him, he made his brief inaugural address to be sent broadcast to a sorrowing, anxious nation:
“Reports have reached me, which I fear are correct, that President Harding is gone. The world has lost a good man. I mourn his loss. He was my chief and my friend.
“It will be my purpose to carry out the policies which he had begun, for the service of the American people and for the meeting of their responsibilities wherever they may arise.
“For this purpose I shall seek the coöperation of all those who have been associated with the President during his term of office.
“Those who have given their efforts to assist him, I wish to remain in office that they may assist me.
“I have faith that God will direct the destinies of our nation.”
In the early morning, an automobile rushed him and the new First Lady to Rutland, Vt., where they started their journey to Washington.
Calvin Coolidge, thirtieth President of the United States, born on Independence Day, 1872, on a farm near Plymouth, Vt., a sparsely settled mountain village twelve miles from a railroad, less than a month after his fifty-first birthday was filling the office of Chief Magistrate.
Upon reaching Washington, the President turned to the tasks already piling up, giving first thought to the funeral arrangements and honours for President Harding, and to the comfort and aid he might render to the bereft widow. The message from the new President and his wife, impressing upon her their desire that she should not tax herself with haste in leaving the White House, “It is yours as long as it is ours,” must have sent a warm glow of comfort to Mrs. Harding in her sorrowful vigil.
Four or five days after Mrs. Harding had left the mansion to visit with friends before starting for Marion with her belongings, President and Mrs. Coolidge took possession. Then President Coolidge’s great task began in earnest to jog itself down into the regular routine. His days were so strenuous that he was early forced to see the necessity of regular amusement and exercise. His relaxations, though encompassed with every possible facility, were just as modest and simple as in Northampton. They consisted chiefly of an early morning walk. When his fondness for that was discovered, several prominent officials also decided such exercise was good for them, and a small walking club came into existence, which bid fair to take the place of the tennis and golf Cabinets of past administrations. In this way, he freshened up for breakfast and the day. An afternoon horseback ride offered the freshening process for dinner. This sport, too, became quite popular after the President decided to make use of The General—the horse that Mr. Harding had used occasionally. Week-end trips on the presidential yacht Mayflower were frequently taken. Between these oases of rest, the government machine ground on its heavy treadmill.
President Coolidge made no snap decisions. He was the best-equipped man who ever stepped into the position, for he had not only taken his vice presidential duties seriously and informed himself extensively on matters pertaining to the Senate, but he had had the unusual advantage of attending the Cabinet meetings during President Harding’s régime.
While still at Marion, Senator Harding asked Governor Coolidge, as Vice President, to sit with the Cabinet. They discussed this signal departure from all precedent and agreed upon it. In referring to it, President Harding said:
“The sort of government I have in mind ought to take advantage of the capacity and experience of a man like Governor Coolidge, by bringing him into the councils. It would be a fine thing and I don’t see why it has not been done before. Governor Coolidge is an eminent American and has had experience as an executive and should be helpful. I think the Vice President can be the most effective agency in keeping the executive offices in touch with the legislative branch of the government.”
A study of the men who have been called to the Presidency makes President Coolidge stand out from them all. For he is a new kind of public man. He is called “Silent Cal,” the inscrutable; he is an unguessable quantity, the shrewdest politician the White House has ever known, though on the surface he lacks all set and prescribed qualities of the successful man of politics.
He is spare in figure, auburn-haired, gray-eyed with rather thin lips and nose, in vigorous health and possessed of a dignity and reserve that have already become a national tradition.
He is a typical New Englander all of whose physical features proclaim his Pilgrim ancestry. The climate and conditions under which the early settlers of his section of the country and their descendants have battled to wrest from the rocky soil of coast line and mountain valleys the means of a livelihood, have moulded physiques and mentalities to meet force with wit and batter down obstacles with the power of brain as much as by brawn.
He is the son of the late John C. Coolidge and Victoria J. Moor Coolidge, one of the descendants of John and Mary Coolidge, early Pilgrims that settled in Watertown, Mass., about 1630. His ancestry runs through a long line of farmers of Massachusetts until his great-great-grandfather moved into Vermont, and he and his descendants tilled the soil, raised stock, tapped the trees for maple sugar, and were known and respected as substantial citizens of their community.
His mother died when he was but thirteen, and before he reached manhood his only sister passed away; these bereavements evidently drew father and son closer together.
In college—he attended Amherst—he was not a brilliant student, and the course was half over before his mates were really acquainted with him.
An analysis of all of the jumble and hodge-podge of tales that pour forth to fasten upon any man who rises to high places in his case leave beneath the froth an interesting picture that offers worth-while reading for the American boy of to-day. It paints for us a shy country lad of extreme slenderness with a mop of reddish hair and a heavier crop of awkwardness emphasized by unusual reticence and shyness. Considered “countrified,” he kept out of the way of the sophisticated city freshman, being embarrassed to a painful degree if he did happen to draw attention. But all the while that he battled within himself, the impressions gathered daily; his reserve created the habit of clear sharp thinking that found expression in a paucity of words, direct, clean-cut, and tinged with a dry wit that made his hearers smile at the humour while they remembered the common sense. In his senior year, he won the first prize, a gold medal, for the best essay on the Principles of the War for American Independence. The competition was open to all undergraduates of American colleges. By this feat he won the esteem of his college and disclosed a comprehensive and significant knowledge of his own country.
From all accounts, during college life, he was different from many lads in that he attended strictly to the business for which he had come. In all of the stories told of this phase of his career, the mention of girls is conspicuous by its absence. If he had the usual run of college love affairs and romances, no one else knew about them, and they have not come to light. All the reminiscent tales breaking forth from his classmates of thirty years ago show a deep and abiding regard for “Cooley,” as they called him, even though they poked fun at his reticence and lack of loquacity.
This very introspection provided him with a reserve fund of assurance that developed the self-confidence and poise to come through the graduation with high honours, a prize winner and orator of the class.
Not being in a financial position to take a course in law school, he studied law in the office of Judge Hammond of Northampton, Mass., and in less than two years was admitted to the bar and began his law practice there.
Almost immediately, the young lawyer got into civic and political activities. He soon was president of the Nantucket Bank, and, in 1899, was elected to the City Council of Northampton, and the next year was chosen city solicitor. He became clerk of the county court in 1904. In 1905, his romance with Miss Grace A. Goodhue, of Burlington, Vt., culminated in their marriage.
Gossip has put forth various versions of the romance of President Coolidge and his wife. One of the stories given much repetition tells that, when Mr. Coolidge called upon one occasion, he found Miss Grace away from home. As her return was expected momentarily, he decided to wait. In the course of his conversation with her father the young man announced that he dropped in to say that he had concluded that Grace and he were going to be married. When her father inquired what Grace thought about it, Mr. Coolidge is reported to have replied that he “had not spoken to her about it yet.”
Mr. Coolidge was twice mayor of Northampton, and in 1907 was a member of the Massachusetts Legislature, going to the State Senate in 1912 and serving until 1915, including two terms as president of that body. The lieutenant governorship of the state came to him in 1916, and in 1918 he found himself elected Governor.
When he called the Massachusetts Senate to order in 1914, he made the shortest speech of acceptance on record in the annals of that body. It contained forty-two words and received state-wide attention and stamped him as timber for further political service. This speech has been regarded as a classic in Massachusetts statecraft, for it embodies the Coolidge Creed—“Do the Day’s Work” and “Be Brief.”
In 1917, he was elected to the governorship by a majority of seventeen thousand, but after the great Boston police strike, which gave him national recognition, and out of which grew the slogan, “law and order,” he was reëlected in 1919 by more than one hundred and twenty-five thousand majority, the largest vote ever given a candidate for that office in that state.
The gist of his platform in his gubernatorial race, in which he won such a sweeping victory, was as follows:
“Do the day’s work. If it be to protect the rights of the weak, whoever objects, do it. If it be to help a powerful corporation, do that. Expect to be called a stand-patter, but don’t be a stand-patter. Expect to be called a demagogue, but don’t be a demagogue. Don’t hesitate to be as revolutionary as science. Don’t hesitate to be as reactionary as the multiplication table. Don’t expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong. Don’t hurry to legislate. Give administration a chance to catch up with legislation.”
People who insist that the President is cold, taciturn, devoid of feeling and sentiment, have never seen him take from his pocket a slim little silver case, which he always carries, and open it to gaze upon the face of the mother who left him years ago.
The President and his wife are both of the Congregational faith and regular attendants of the First Church in Washington.
Mrs. Coolidge, from the first moment she appeared in Washington as wife of the Vice President, made friends, and her popularity has never ceased increasing. She is so youthful looking that it is hard to credit her with being the mother of the tall son, John, to whom she now has to look up, for he is rapidly topping his father in height.
No factor has contributed so largely to her continually mounting host of friends and admirers in the Capital City and the country at large as her modesty and simplicity, which have kept her natural and wholesome.
Mrs. Coolidge was born about a hundred miles from the home of her husband, and, like him, she comes of an old New England family. She is a native of Burlington, Vt., where her mother, Mrs. Lamira Goodhue, resides. Her father died after she came to Washington.
After a childhood and girlhood practically like that of the generality of girls born into good families of moderate means, she went to college at the University of Vermont. In her freshman year she became one of the founders of the Vermont Beta Chapter of the Pi Beta Phi Sorority, which, years after, presented a portrait of her to the White House. She took her A.B. degree, and after that followed the custom of New England girls in seeking a vocation. In her case, it was teaching, the less usual branch of teaching mutes. After three months’ training for teaching the deaf at the Clark School in Northampton, she was given a class of beginners. The difficulties of this work may be imagined when it is remembered that she had not only to teach her pupils to read, write, and cipher, but also to speak. One only need hear the vivacious lady tell of her class of youngsters set apart from others by reason of their defective senses to realize the enthusiasm she must have put into this work of helping them acquire the art of spoken communication.
Her teaching was limited to three years, for at the end of that time Mr. Coolidge persuaded her to give up a career and devote herself to making a home for him.
With the advent of her own children, Mrs. Coolidge made a thorough study of motherhood and child education. She always worked and played with her boys and thus became really acquainted with their virtues and their faults, and through this comradeship found herself able to encourage and help them best. She studied educational problems with minuteness, visiting all sorts of institutions of learning. She believes in a close personal relation between the parent, the school, and the child as a solution for many difficulties that beset both pupils and instructors.
Mrs. Coolidge is a home-maker, first, last, and always. Her conception of home-making is not bound by a perpetual routine of the mechanical phases of housekeeping, as so often has been claimed, and over which she has laughed merrily, but home-making, according to her code, means first of all providing the family with all comforts possible to the income and the luxury of genial, happy companionship: she served as a buffer, firm and gracious, for a weary Vice President husband from the importunities of the hotel telephone, and, despite the limitations of a hotel suite, manipulated a chafing dish, hot-plate, and all of the accessories for a daily popcorn feast, or a fudge party for vacationing boys pining for a bit of their home treats.
She believes that it is a woman’s first duty to provide her husband with all of the cheer and pleasure and creature comforts her surroundings will permit, and send him forth to his battle with the world, secure that at the end of a heavy day of toil he will find her waiting for him ready to share his troubles or pleasures.
All of the world looked on with approval at the simple, dignified, and wholly American good sense which controlled the movements of the Coolidge boys when their father became Vice President of the United States.
Mrs. Coolidge came to Washington with a half-formed plan for installing her family in a house and sending her boys to the public schools of the city. She had been there but a few hours, however, when she learned the futility of such an idea, for she found out, as Vice President and Mrs. Marshall had done when they came, that the vice-presidential salary would be inadequate to meet such a plan. It simply would not cover the rental of an appropriate house and the necessary upkeep, with the added burden of food and clothing. Mrs. Coolidge decided to follow the example of the Marshalls and do her official entertaining in a hotel. She further concluded to take over the hotel suite of her predecessor. As the duty of the Vice President, outside of presiding over the Senate, is to represent the President, who entertains, but is rarely entertained himself, Mrs. Coolidge rapidly became convinced that there would be but little time or opportunity for any family home life with her sons in Washington, and after they had seen their father inducted into office, she sent them home with their Grandfather Coolidge, with whom they had come to the city, and had them finish their school term at home.
Vice President Marshall called himself “the official diner out,” and the appropriateness of the term may be gathered from the fact that the Vice President and his wife are expected to attend all of the White House official dinners and receptions, all of the ten Cabinet dinners to the President, and also that of the Speaker of the House, all of which are fixed affairs. In addition, it is the duty of the Vice President and his wife to appear everywhere. Throughout the season, they are the guests of honour at dinners with such regularity that they have about one evening a month when they have the opportunity to remain at home.
Mrs. Coolidge was in constant demand for teas, luncheons, receptions, and, in fact, for every form of social gathering.
When the Coolidges found themselves in the White House, they considered it advisable to follow a schedule for their sons similar to that which had prevailed before. They selected Mercersburg, Pennsylvania Academy, with Amherst, their father’s alma mater, in the offing, as the educational programme for these lads. The boys made visits to the White House on holidays, and their mother managed to slip away occasionally to see them. In the summer, they went to their grandfather’s farm and to visit their Grandmother Goodhue at the Coolidge home in Northampton. John put in time at the Camp Devens Military Camp. Neither went to Washington when President Harding died.
In the summer of 1924, both boys went to the White House to visit their parents before leaving for vacation activities. Both of them had planned to go to Camp Devens first and then to their grandfather’s farm. While playing tennis, Calvin, Jr., got a blister on his heel, an injury so slight that he paid no attention to it until a fever developed a few days later. Examination by Dr. Boone, the White House physician, revealed the first symptoms of the blood poisoning which caused his death in Walter Reed Hospital within a week.
All of the nation grieved with the father and the mother; the hearts of all parents ached for them in the loss that nothing, not even time, can fill. They planned simple and beautiful ceremonies for their boy at Plymouth, where he was laid to rest with four generations of his forbears.
Following her great bereavement, Mrs. Coolidge spent many hours in the gardens south of the mansion knitting. Only mothers who have experienced a similar sorrow know of the heartaches and the poignant memories represented in the exquisite stitches of the silken socks, the dainty ties, and little bags, fashioned by her expert fingers, while John, all desire for the camp gone with the death of his loved younger brother, stayed around to help her get through the first lonely weeks. The pets, Paul Pry and Rob Roy, the handsome white collies; the cats (the roaming Tige would not stay home and had to be locked up to keep him from killing the birds, instead of devoting himself to his catly duty in the basement); the birds which Mrs. Coolidge has in her sitting room—all helped in a way to fill the round of duties that occupied her time.
Although carrying a heavy heart, the First Lady did not obtrude her personal sorrow into her official position. Instead of the sombre black which was more in keeping with her feelings, she resolutely kept to colours, but the vivid tones and bright tints worn previously were laid aside for the softer grays, orchid, and much white.
Mrs. Coolidge’s frankness and lack of pretense have endeared her to everyone, and many stories are related of her little kindly actions. As the Vice President’s wife, she frankly discussed the futility of trying to establish and maintain a suitable establishment equipped for entertaining on the inadequate vice-presidential salary. She frankly admitted she wore ready-made gowns and liked them because she could slip into them and get the finished effect without the waste of precious time and effort in endless sessions of fittings and tiresome searches for trimmings.
She dresses in most becoming style. Her taste is quiet and refined, and she has the knack of wearing her clothes well. She always presents a chic finish and smartness that is good to look at, and her old-fashioned upbringing is apparent in that, once dressed, she never gives her clothes another thought.
One of the prettiest stories of her many thoughtful kindnesses is of the gift of huge boxes of lovely White House roses to fifty shop girls of the city who worked as seamstresses in the big establishment where her gowns were made for the first season. Best of all, when the messenger carried the great box into the establishment, he carried along a large White House monogrammed envelope to the forewoman, and within, in her own handwriting, was the First Lady’s gracious expression of her appreciation of the care and work they put on her “White House trousseau.” Further joy descended upon that establishment when the dressmaker was invited to the next White House reception to see how the gown looked and get ideas for her own future use.
From the time of her arrival in the Capital City, Mrs. Coolidge has manifested an interest in every civic enterprise of welfare. She has distributed the Salvation Army Christmas baskets to the poor at the headquarters of that organization. She and the President have given encouragement to the community Christmas trees by attending, and the President by officially lighting them. They have encouraged and participated in the Christmas carols sung in front of the White House, and they have rivalled each other in the number of memorial trees they have planted and the corner stones they have laid.
Mrs. Coolidge does not like to talk about herself. She insists that the wives of public men best aid their husbands’ careers by being seen as little as necessary and heard even less, and she puts this theory into practice.
While she does not talk politics at any time, the impression that she is not interested in politics is wrong. She holds that women have a very definite obligation and responsibility as citizens, and it is their duty and privilege to do serious and effective work toward an intelligent discharge of public duties.
In a published letter to Mrs. George Horace Lorimer, President of the Republican Women of Pennsylvania, she set forth her views most clearly:
“I have been pleased to learn of the general movement to organize the Republican women of Pennsylvania with a view to developing the widest interest in and understanding of the public questions before the country.
“It is always gratifying to know of such organized movements for more efficient citizenship, whether among men or women, and whether of one party or the other.
“In the case of your own organization, it is an occasion of special congratulation that so broad a programme of activity is afoot, because of the special qualifications and equipment you have for making it a worth-while movement.
“The women have lately come into new and, to most of them, rather unexpected responsibilities in their relations as citizens. It is altogether desirable that these be taken seriously, and effective work is undoubtedly needed among them; precisely as is also needed among a great section of the male voters whose preoccupation with other interests too often interferes with the most intelligent discharge of public duties.”
One of the interesting and highly significant tributes to Mrs. Coolidge came in the ceremony at Boston University on December 12, 1924, when President Lemuel H. Murlin conferred upon her the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws. This was done upon the occasion of the installation of Mrs. Lucy Jenkins Franklin, the first dean of women of this university.
As President Murfin conferred upon her the purple hood with its trimmings of red and white, and the mortarboard hat with its gold tassel, he spoke of her as—
“Grace Goodhue Coolidge, student, university graduate, teacher, daughter, wife, mother, whose fine qualities of mind and heart have gained the confidence, admiration, and love of the American people.”
Mrs. Coolidge has so many charming qualities that all who meet her become enthusiastic in discussing her. First of all, she is good-looking; she has, in fact, just missed being a beauty, has a slight girlish figure, sparkling eyes, and a smile that is already famous.
She is youth personified. She has a buoyancy of spirit, a joy of life that will keep her young past three score and ten. She radiates cheeriness and enthusiasm. She loves people, is willing to meet everyone halfway, and enjoys her social obligations. She is perfectly fitted to fill her rôle. Health, temperament, and age, all combine to aid her. To Mrs. Harding’s cordiality and suavity she adds the vigour and lightness of youth and health. She calls people her best books, loves being in the heart of history in the making, loves the contacts she gets with the celebrities of the world and the interesting people of our own land.
At the White House she is at her best. She makes no false moves. One of her first innovations was evolving an original response to appeals from organizations seeking donations from the Mistress of the White House for every conceivable project. An autographed steel engraving of the White House now goes in place of the dainty embroidered handkerchiefs which Mrs. Harding used to send.
Mrs. Coolidge’s New England conscience and training have given her a perspective, a set of standards, an appreciation of values, and a tact that keep her anchored to the conventional neutrality zone. She has brought to the White House an all-around efficiency of the New England housewife, the modern vision of the college woman, the broad understanding of the trained educator, without the limitations of the pedagogue, and the clearly marked responsibility of the citizen and voter and co-partner with her husband in his political obligations to his party and to his country.
As the time for the inauguration of Calvin Coolidge approached, he was much better equipped even than when he inherited the office through the accident of death. Nor had he exhausted his strength or lost his calm understanding of what would be expected of him.
President Coolidge possesses a genius for work. Contrary to the popular belief developed in the past few years, that the presidential job is too much for the vitality of any man, President Coolidge has thrived upon its manifold exactions. He has gained weight and found enjoyment, not hardship, in his office and the opportunities opened thereby. Without doubt, the electrical steed which the President had installed and which caused such a whirlwind of comment, none of which retarded its use, has had much to do in keeping him fit. However it is, both he and Mrs. Coolidge approached the time of their installation as the choice of the American people, in good health and happy spirits.
Just before the Inauguration, there was a great deal of discussion and adverse comment on the custom of shaking hands. The fact that, although in the White House but about twenty months, President Coolidge had shaken hands with ninety thousand people brought forth argument against the practice on the part of some of his close friends. A committee was appointed to attempt to relieve him of some of his routine duties. When the solicitous group had expounded to him their views upon the matter and expressed their desires and intentions, expecting him to acquiesce with pleasure and possibly with praise for their thoughtfulness of him, he electrified them and disposed of the entire matter in his characteristic fashion—“BUT I LIKE IT!”
The quirky lines about the President’s mouth and eyes, a certain twinkle that insists upon showing itself, are evidences of his sense of humour, and emphasize the fact that he is a reserved New Englander, whose reserve is just the outer crust of dignity, a sort of public armour, shield, and buckler against the too intrusive, which must melt away into genial friendliness. He has a dry wit, keen-edged, that is infectious with its quiet drollery.
At one of the informal gatherings, a woman, desiring to impress herself upon his mind, remarked airily, “Mr. President, I’m from Boston!” With that twinkle that is so ready to show itself, he remarked instantly, “You’ll never get over it!”
In accordance with his wish, the ceremonies for March 4, 1925, were made as simple and free from display as possible. Fifty thousand visitors supplied in enthusiasm what was lacking in brilliant display, and many were the regrets that so momentous an event in the nation’s life should be accompanied by so little of the pageantry of pomp and power. All of the enthusiasm of former days possessed the throngs of pedestrians along the route to and from the Capitol.
Preceded by a troop of cavalry and a troop of mounted police, the presidential automobile, containing President Coolidge and Mrs. Coolidge and Senator Curtis, of Kansas, left the White House at the usual time, for the Capitol. Next came Vice President-elect General Charles G. Dawes and Mrs. Dawes, with Representative Griest, of Pennsylvania. Other members of the congressional and the inaugural committees followed. The usual programme in the Senate chamber was carried out and much enlivened by the address of Vice President Dawes, who criticized the rules of that body.
On the East Portico, the oath of office was administered by Chief Justice Taft, the only ex-president to become Chief Justice of the United States. For the first time, the President’s address was broadcast to the entire country by radio.
The ovation he received was all that could be desired. The ride back to the White House for luncheon was made as quickly as possible. There was a full programme for the afternoon and evening, including a reception to visiting governors, among whom was Mrs. Nellie Ross, one of the first of the woman governors.
After the luncheon, the entire party assembled in the reviewing stand, this time not requiring the protection of the glass windows. The parade started. As the famous Richmond Blues swung around Fifteenth Street, a man on the presidential stands several rows in the rear of the presidential box, with lifted hat, said most earnestly and fervently, “GOD BLESS THE COOLIDGES!”
Mrs. Coolidge turned, her eyes shining with the uplift of the hour, and smilingly answered with an earnestness and fervency that matched his remark—
“HE HAS!”
THE END