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Prosperity and Thrift: The Coolidge Era and the Consumer Economy, 1921-1929

Boone Papers. Chapter on President Coolidge from the Memoirs of His Physician, Joel T. Boone.

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(Taped
12OCT64)

Trip on the MAYFLOWER TO to Quincy was very pleasant, except that I was very depressed about the death of my mother-in-law. I had the great desire to be with my wife and her father at this very sad time in their lives. I knew where my post of duty was and that was with the President and the First Lady. President and Mrs. Coolidge and our party inspected the homes of John Adams , and and John Quincy Adams, Quincy.

Before me as I write, newspaper photograph coming out of one of these historic homes, great crowds all around them. Mrs. Coolidge had been wearing white, rather than black, as her mourning attire ever since Calvin died. I was gratified that she did not wear black. White was particularly becoming to her. She felt by wearing black the public would always be conscious of the sorrow that had come to the Coolidges and they wanted to bear their grief by themselves and not feel that the nation must continue to mourn with them.

Besides the birthplaces of John Adams and John Quincy Adams, we visited the burial grounds of these former Presidents of the United States.

I have another newspaper photograph of President and Mrs. Coolidge aboard the MAYFLOWER and the Marine Guard standing up at attention and Lieutenant Edgar Allen Poe, their commanding officer, standing right close to Mrs. Coolidge as she and the President passed by and with their two Naval and Army senior aides, Captain Andrews and

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Colonel Cheney respectively. Colonel {begin inserted text}(shao?){end inserted text} Chency was a very charming and attractive man and a delightful associate in our White House relationships.

As soon as the MAYFLOWER arrived at Marblehead and the President and Mrs. Coolidge had left the ship to go to White Court, I hurried to catch my train at Lynn, Massachusetts, to proceed to Pottsville, Pennsylvania, but on the way to the station I wisely stopped at White Court to confer with Coupal, but much to my amazement and keen disappointment I found that he had not returned from Vermont. Secretary to the President Sanders telephoned Coupal and found that he had not even left Ludlow. The President was very much put out that Coupal had not carried out his orders to return "at once" yesterday, that is, the 14th of July when it was learned that my mother-in-law had died. The President had granted me permission to proceed immediately to join my wife in Pottsville. Sanders was very relieved when i told him, even how much disappointed I was, that I would certainly not leave the area until Coupal had returned. I certainly would not leave President and Mrs. Coolidge without medical attendance. Mrs. C. said that I was "dead right" and if anything a happened my principal patients, President and Mrs. Coolidge, when they were left without medical attendants, I, who, as it were, was sitting on the lid, would be condemned for life. Of course, my conscience would not permit me to leave if there were not another physician there to care for the needs of President and Mrs. Coolidge. Sanders learned that Coupal delayed his return for Swampscott awaiting

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awaiting for his wife to join him at Ludlow. The President felt that was no excuse at all, that his post of duty was to be in the vicinity of White H Court, the President feeling that I had an obligation to go to my wife and attend my mother-in-law's funeral.

The next day, July 16, after waiting all morning for Coupal to return, which he did not do until 12:30 in the early afternoon, my departure for Pottsville was further delayed. The President was very much displeased about Coupal's delay and voiced it in no uncertain terms. As soon as I conferred with Coupal upon his return, I left immediately for Pottsville.

Under date of July 15, 1925, Mrs. Coolidge wrote the following letter on White House stationery:

"Dear Helen Boone:

"As I was thinking of your mother and you, last night, there suddenly ran through my mind that old anthem so familiar to us all: 'How Beautiful Upon The Mountain Are The Feet Of Them That Bring Us (sometimes publish) Good Tidings'.

"I like to think of those who have gone on before us as having reached the mountain tops where all lies clear before them and from whose heights they send us glad tidings of great joy. Your mother would be the first to send 'glad tidings', I know, and I can almost hear her soft, gentle voice, as you knew it, saying, 'Oh, Helen, it is so beautiful!'

"Please give my most tender greetings to your father. He is the one who will miss her presence most but because of his need is

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greatest, most strength will be given to him to 'carry on'.

"I began this letter at my desk at White Court and I am finishing it on board the U. S.S. MAYFLOWER with Joel's pencil. I want to send it by a good messenger, you see. I shall be glad to see you when you come.

"Lots and lots of love,

"Grace Coolidge"

I carried that letter with me from White Court to Pottsville to deliver to my sweet wife, and naturally it comforted her and her father greatly.

July 17th, which was my wife's 36th birthday, I arrived in Pottsville at 2:30 a. m., leaving that same day at 7:30 after attending Mother Koch's funeral. All arrangements were well made and carried out, which {begin inserted text}aid{end inserted text} some comfort in our sorrow. Mother Koch was the recipient of masses of beautiful flowers. She was certainly highly respected and much beloved. My father-in-law, Judge Koch, looked very badly and thin for him. Each time, it seems, that I see him, he showed that he was aging and failing. He told me while I was there with him at the time of the funeral that he planned to dispose of his sizable house on West Market Street. The house had bee e n built by my great-uncle, Milton Boone, many years before. ... divide equally the sale price to his children.

I returned at 9 o'clock in the morning of the 18th from Pottsville. Went to call at White Court on the President for a few minutes and then had a nice chat with Mrs. Coolidge.

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One of the officers I particularly regretted seeing {begin inserted text}being{end inserted text} detached from the MAYFLOWER was Lieutenant Wiltse, one of the finest shipmates I hadon the MAYFLOWER and ever have had. He was ordered to go to China as the flag lieutenant for Admiral Huff Hough who was ordered to command the Yangtze patrol. Wiltse, Helen, and I became fast friends for the rest of our lives to the present time.

One day I noted some reporters were trying to get very close on the beaches to watch Mrs. Coolidge in bathing. Charlie Michaels of the NEW YORK TIMES took a woman reporter about the grounds supp surreptitiously to observe Mrs. Coolidge bathing and write up some article, I presume. Charlie Michaels years later during th in the campaign of 1928 wrote scurrilous articles about President-elect Hoover to injure him just as much as he could. Was paid a high sum, I was told, by Mr. {begin inserted text}(Rascob?){end inserted text} DuPont officials, was then the chairman of the Democratic Committee, paid Michaels very heavily .. smear the campaign of Mr s . Hoover, so the story went. I heard some years later before Michaels died, he deeply regretted his reprehensible act. Had traveled with the Presidential trips many occasions with us long before Mr. Hoover aspired to the Presidency and nominee of his party.

27 July my wife Helen arrived with our daughter Suzanne Boston. Mr. Paine loaned his car to meet them and transport them across the city. Both Helen and Suzanne looked thin and seemed nervous. No doubt, they were very tired. Helen had been under a great strain. Before we arrived at the inn where we were to stay we drove

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by, quite a chat with us and seemed very, very pleased to see Helen and Suzanne.

That day a Presidential trip to Hull on Nantucket Bay. Very stormy and windy trip which always made the President feel seasick. He disliked it when the weather was putting on that kind of a show while he was aboard the MAYFLOWER. The occasion was that Mr. Liggett of drugstore fame was entertaining Rexall agents in a convention assembled at Nantucket Bay.

I remember John Coolidge was wearing a straw hat that his father gave him and which John did not like a bit. "I wish to goodness," he stated, "it would blow overboard."

Mrs. Coolidge and John told me that day they would like very much to have a dance at White Court. They raised the question: "What to do with Father?"

About this time I had quite a discussion with Captain Andrews as to hospital corpsmen attached to the ship cleaning brightwork on the deck. He disapproved my request that they be excused from such work, but he conceded that I would be justified in my protestations that {begin inserted text}if{end inserted text} they were required to do it aboard another Naval vessel than the President's yacht.

The second day after Helen and Suzanne's arrival at Deer Cove at Swampscott I took them to White Court to call on President and Mrs. Coolidge. The President was very affable and asked Suzanne if she remembered asking him for "chewing gum" when she spent a night

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as a guest at the White House. Every now and then he would make presentations of chewing gum to her. One time he gave not only a few packages, but a whole box of packages of chewing gum and always looked at her with a twinkle in his eye and a pleasant smile. I felt sure he had a great deal of love for her.

In talking with President and Mrs. Coolidge one day in mid-July, President Wilson's name was touched upon. President Coolidge said, as far as he knew, everyone disagreed and fell out with Wilson, at least all his old friends seemed to have done so.

From time to time I would have hurried calls to see Mrs. Stearns, either at her home in Boston or on Little's Point at Swampscott. She was always a very wonderful patient. I felt complimented that she and Mr. Stearns would seek my professional care of them.

By the end of July John Coolidge expressed himself plainly that he was sick of French and would be glad when Saturday came and he could go back to Camp Devin, civilian military training camp in Massachusetts. That day he was bemoaning the fact that he was not able to play tennis. He said that he "might as well be in the penitentiary as White Court" chafing under too parental supervision, being restricted too narrowly in his social activities.

{begin inserted text}When{end inserted text} He left on August 1st for Camp Devin, he said he was "damn glad to go." I felt very sorry for him. I knew how much he missed Calvin. Naturally, his father wanted him close by him as much as possible and when John was home from camp. This chafed n John, not that he didn't want to be with his father, but he wanted more latitude to

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play tennis and swim, keep fit, more in social circulation. He liked the officers aboard the ship--MAYFLOWER--and came out whenever he could. The officers liked him very much.

Early in August I made my first flight in a hydroplane. It was with the executive officer, my good friend, Lieutenant Commander John Meigs. Flew over Swampscott and Marblehead and up to Manchester. A few days later the President told me in no uncertain terms to stay out of hydroplanes.

Mr. Carter Field, representative of the NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE in the Presidential party at Swampscott, said that Melville Stone told the newsboys when asked,while Stone was a visitor at White Court, of his opinion of President Coolidge from a close observation, said: "He (the President) is the keenest, shrewdest man at concealing his ignorance" that he had ever seen and that "he is ignorant on many things". If Melville Stone said this, I cannot subscribe to it. I found long and close observation of President Coolidge that he was a very keen man and he had a great wealth of information. Never did I note that he showed ignorance, but he had a canny way of keeping to himself what he did not wish to comment upon.

Attorney General Sargent visited White Court August 7th for a few days. I found he was a very substantial, splendid man. I enjoyed talking to him. He surely was down to earth in all his observations and, no doubt, he had been a keen observer of humanity.

Captain Andrews was disturbed indeed that he was unable to ascertain where President Coolidge intended to go tomorrow on the MAYFLOWER. Even though Captain Andrews had inquired from the President at least

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three times, the President, no doubt, was not ready to disclose where he was going or what he was going to do, and sometimes he took this method of so-called teasing. Some of his teasing, as observed, was quite sharp, not always considerate of the person whom he was reading. Captain Andrews thought the President's not telling him in advance where he planned to go and use the MAYFLOWER was not considerate for the captain had the responsibility of the ship and the security and the safety of the President whenever he came aboard; therefore, he needed to plan to have the ship always in readiness and to know where he intended to cruise and to what points he was going if he intended to land anyplace, so that proper precautions and protection of the President could be arranged in advance. It may have kept Captain Andrews and the ship's company on the alert and always at the ready, as we would d say, but the commanding officer of the ship should have had as much advance notice as humanly possible to impart to him by the President. This particular occasion I had planned a trip aboard the beautiful sailing ship called the Bar Harbor for a sailing race with a Mr. Finley, but I had to cancel it when I learned that the MAYFLOWER was sailing at 2 o'clock for Boston Navy Yard, which it did with guests of President and Mrs. Coolidge being the Secretary of the President, Everett Sanders, and Secretary of Commerce Hoover.

When the Boston Navy Yard was reached, the party all went aboard the CONSTITUTION or "Old Ironsides". It was a very interesting {begin inserted text}(survey?){end inserted text} of that ship and we were expertly guided and a great deal of information was imparted to us.

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Mrs. Coolidge, in talking with Mr. Sanders and me when we were cruising on the MAYFLOWER to Boston Nayy Yard, said if she had her own way she would prefer to use the "barge" to make trips along the coast so that they could stop here and there readily and go ashore. She also said that she would like to have a lot of young people aboard to entertain them with music and dancing and movies, would parties of some sort, but the President when she had {begin inserted text}would{end inserted text} propos ed this would say: "What for? to spoil them?"

Then Mrs. Coolidge said to Mr. Sanders and me her desires in this regard of entertaining young people, "I find that my style is certainly cramped."

There was great turmoil in Marblehead harbor {begin inserted text}{begin handwritten}the{end handwritten}{end inserted text} day when boat race, of the yacht clubs was underway and the MAYFLOWER up-anchored and steamed through the contestants' yachts. The yachtsmen and their friends {begin inserted text}{begin handwritten}considered{end handwritten}{end inserted text} this bespoke of an insult and practically a desecration {begin inserted text}{begin handwritten}of{end handwritten}{end inserted text} sportsmen's prerogatives. Great criticism among the yachtsmen and their friends that Captain Andrews would take the MAYFLOWER out of the harbor and through the array of racing yachts. T Really, the fur flew. The conversations and criticisms were very heated for some time. Newspapers picked up the criticism and added to it. It was incomprehensible to the writers and to the critics, yacht clubs ashore that any Naval officer would so conduct himself. Captain Andrews had an order to sail by the President of the United States and he felt, irrespective of the circumstances, that he should execute his commander-in-chief's orders. I know that Captain Andrews

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sailed the MAYFLOWER out very cautiously and did no damage to any of the yachts, except probably stirred, churned up the waters and made the sailing more difficult, did interfere at some points of the course with the races. Very hard situation for us aboard the MAYFLOWER to live with for a bit, because wherever we went out socially we would have repetitious conversations and criticism about {begin inserted text}after{end inserted text} this event. We did not like to have us Naval officers attached to the MAYFLOWER have our commanding officer so castigated and considered him not a gentleman, discourteous, and a bad sportsman. He was really none of these. Captain Andrews was very {begin inserted text}(great placed?){end inserted text} about social amenities, proper deportment, and conduct at all times on the part of other Naval officers. I did not know whether, if the situation had been explained by the commanding officer to the President, if the commanding officer had been fully informed about the yacht races, when they were to depart from their moorings, form for the races, that the President would be dissuaded from taking the ship out the harbor, is an unanswered ponderment.

There is a descriptive article with pictures of the MAYFLOWER and President Coolidge and Captain Andrews on the deck of the MAYFLOWER, published in the BOSTON HERALD on Sunday, August 9, 1925, which gave quite an extensive description of the MAYFLOWER, inside and out, and of her history, much of which to be referred to in quotations at this point would be repetitious, because of other writings I have made and will make referable to the Presidential yacht MAYFLOWER.

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Certainty, when it was announced that the MAYFLOWER was to visit Marblehead and spend the summer in the waters of the Massachusetts north shore, there was general acclaim for the President's decision to bring his Presidential yacht up to New England and Marblehead felt proud to have her berths in its harbor. The MAYFLOWER attracted a grea d {begin inserted text}t{end inserted text} deal of attention. It stimulated, I think, that season a lot of interest in [???]ing, boating of all sorts. Brought quite a large number of visitors to the Marblehead-Salem-Swampscott areas. I am sure New Englanders over-all were proud to have this beautiful historic ship spend a summer at Marblehead. The unpleasant incident of the interference with the yachting race on a certain day gradually blew over, much to the relief of us who were attached to the MAYFLOWER. We were embarrassed by the conversations we heard. Many times we were embittered, but kept quiet in refutation of the incident, but we never once failed to defend the President of the United States, our commander-in-chief, and the prerogatives which were his. I am confident that the incident was not a premeditated action on his part. It just was an unfortunate circumstance which might or might not have been avoided. Frankly, I wish that it had been avoided. It was the only fly in the ointment of a most wonderful summer those of us attached to the MAYFLOWER and in attendance on the President and the First Lady of the land in one of the most beautiful coastal spots in the United States. It was the one and only time that President Coolidge in his almost six years in office had the MAYFLOWER in New England waters while he was living ashore nearby.

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I am sure he was proud to have his Presidential yacht there, but he was not a sailor, as I said, when the seas were ever rough he did not want to venture forth. Had he been more of a sailors I am sure that the MAYFLOWER would have been underway infinitely more times tha t n it was that summer and she would have visited a number of harbors along the New England coast and would have been able to provide a great deal of enjoyment and entertainment, had the President also bee e n more socially inclined and given to wishing to give parties, as would his wife, to a host of people for many miles beyond the Ma b {begin inserted text}r{end inserted text} blehead area.

I have reason to believe that the MAYFLOWER was the largest so-called yacht that had entered and remained at anchor for some time a good part of the summer in Marblehead harbor. She, in comparison, may well look like a transoceanic liner, the other yachts, with one or two exceptions that frequented and anchored in Marblehead harbor or plied in and out of that harbor. She was 321 feet long and, I believe, about 36 beam. Well to understand that she would look comparably huge lying at anchor in that harbor with the other craft therein. She had. . . .

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