Perhaps the biggest surprise in Coolidge’s life was being nominated as Vice President in 1920. 

The Vice Presidency

If the selection of little-known Warren G. Harding as the Republican candidate for president in 1920 was a surprise to the country, the choice of even less-known Calvin Coolidge for the second spot boggled the imagination. Mostly his. 

Coolidge had been a middling attorney from the western (i.e. unimportant) part of Massachusetts, but hardly more than mediocre in reputation or purse. In his younger days, to augment his income, he became active in politics, serving in the state legislature – and even served a term as Mayor of his hometown – Northampton. He worked his way up the legislative ladder, and finally served as Governor of Massachusetts toward the end of the 19-teens. 

After ducking and waffling on the most pressing issue in Massachusetts, a strike called by the Boston police force, Governor Coolidge finally interceded, saying “There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, anytime.” It made headlines. It also made Coolidge a person of interest.

More surprises were in store for him.

The Popular VEEP

While Calvin Coolidge has some fine qualities, “imagination” is not on the list. He was a bland fellow, conservative in demeanor and politics, more inclined to avoid problems than to solve them. The height of his wildest dreams had been his election as Governor. His original thought was that being a “former” Governor might help his law practice. 

But the national election of 1920 was a culmination of second and/or third raters on both tickets. Mostly because of women’s votes, an electorate exhausted by the Great War, and a good looking candidate for POTUS, who pushed for a national reboot, i.e. “back to normalcy,” the Republicans won – and won big!

The Vice Presidency as an office itself had been an add-on since the Constitutional convention, and had mostly been filled with bland, malleable fellows to balance geopolitical needs. It was an empty office, charged only with presiding over the Senate, and anything else the President asked him to do. It became a ceremonial flurry of cornerstone laying, beauty queen crowning, and as one VP quipped, “the chief funeral goer.” And dining out.

Coolidge and his missus, the stylish and personable Grace née Goodhue, were on every A-list of dinner parties as guest of honor. In uber-cosmopolitan Washington, the plain New Englanders had become wildly popular, another occurrence that boggled the Coolidge imagination. Mrs. C. was outgoing, educated and good natured. He, on the other hand, was introverted and reticent. But he had a wickedly wry sense of humor, which coupled with his dead-panned delivery, delighted all of social Washington. 

Then Harding died in August 1923. 

That was another surprise to Coolidge. The VP and his POTUS were only superficially acquainted. They did not care for each other; their personalities were totally different. 

The Election of 1924

In early summer of 1924, politicians on all sides began their quadrennial jockeying for office.

Coolidge was unbelievably lucky. First and foremost, his distance from Harding’s administration worked very well in his favor as scandal after scandal trickled into a torrent of allegations, disreputable conduct, and out and out criminal behavior – by top officials. Coolidge was not tainted in any way.

Then two, the country was at peace. 

Then three, despite pockets of whatever issues cropped up in various places, the economy was doing well. In fact, these were boom times! 

Nothing succeeds like success. So with only nine months as VP-turned-POTUS, Calvin Coolidge was the easy top-choice for the Republicans. 

The Problems With the Democrats

The leading candidates for the Democratic ticket couldn’t stand each other, making any coalition or cohesive efforts impossible. 

Needing to find the “negatives” to the Republican “positives,” the Dems focused their attentions and platforms on a) the “new” Ku Klux Klan, which presented its rejuvenation as a patriotic organization and was riding an all-time high, with chapters in every state, and a membership of more than a million; and b) Prohibition – the recent law of the land that everybody (except the overly pious) hated. 

The two front runners were poles apart. 

William McAdoo, (CA) former secretary of the Treasury and Woodrow Wilson’s son-in-law, was more sympathetic than not toward the Klan, and supported Prohibition, the Volstead Act, and deplored the crime wave that it spawned.

Alfred E. Smith was the popular Governor of NY, whose lack of formal education and “dese, dems and dose”, raised the hackles of the intelligentsia. But Al was a street kid from the Lower East Side”s immigrants-of-all-kinds. The Klan was un-American to Al. And he also liked his beer or a shot of whiskey and said so.

(As an aside, Coolidge totally rejected the Klan and everything xenophobic it represented. He also distanced himself from Prohibition, believing that it’s a bad law if it makes law abiding citizens disrespect the law.)

103 Ballots!!!

Hard to believe, but the Democratic Convention of 1924 lasted for more than two weeks. Some New Yorkers quipped they were happy to invite the delegates to visit NYC, but not to take up residency. 

More than 100 ballots seesawed between McAdoo and Smith, with no one claiming the required number of votes, and everybody becoming very testy and irritable. 

Almost in desperation, the delegates finally converged on John W. Davis of West Virginia, a former modest legislator and recent ambassador. Barely known today, he is the losing-est presidential candidate of any major political party. 

The only thing people tend to remember about that Convention was the heroic (and painful) speech nominating Al Smith, “The Happy Warrior,” given by a polio-crippled Franklin Delano Roosevelt. 

And Republican Calvin Coolidge skated to an easy, easy victory! Not a surprise.

Sources:

Cohen, Jared – Accidental Presidents: Eight Men Who Changed America – Simon & Schuster – 2019 

Murray, Robert K. – The 103rd Ballot: Democrats and the Disaster in Madison Square Garden – Harper and Row, 1976

https://www.britannica.com/event/United-States-presidential-election-of-1924

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2206152