The incredible teams at WEAF and WJZ had been making history in an already historic year in 1927. They would make it again with their idea to wire and broadcast directly from the White House Study (which had been the old Cabinet Room) the President’s annual Thanksgiving Proclamation. It would reach much of the Eastern seaboard with both stations but to top that, another twenty station partners across the country could bring that message to many more millions. Scheduled for 8:15pm, after the news of Washington at 7:45, despite sharing timeslots with a range of operatic singers and instrumental performances, the President’s crisp voice took the air at the expected moment. His distinctive cords — which Washington’s top announcer John B. Daniel considered “made for radio” — amused Coolidge himself (for their timely coincidence with the expansion of the technology).

Nearing completion of his extensive Annual Message to Congress, the President would issue a long list of internal improvements and other spending initiatives that would surprise more than one observer in two days’ time. Correspondents would cover that story as Americans, recovering from their holiday meals, would pick up the newspaper or gather increasingly around that upstart source of information on which the President had become a regular presence: the radio.

From the White House study that evening, November 23, Coolidge broke the brief silence:

Under the guidance and watchful care of a Divine and beneficent Providence this country has been carried safely through another year. Almighty God has continued to bestow upon us the light of His countenance, and we have prospered. Not alone have we enjoyed material success, but we have advanced in wisdom and in spiritual understanding. The products of our fields and our factories and of our manifold activities have been maintained on a high level. We have gained in knowledge of the higher values of life. There has been advancement in our physical well-being. We have increased our desire for the things that minister to the mind and to the soul. We have raised the mental and moral standards of life.

     We have had the blessings of peace and of honorable and friendly relations with our sister nations throughout the world. Disasters visiting certain of our States have touched the heart of a sympathetic nation, which has responded generously out of its abundance. In continuing to remember those in affliction we should rejoice in our ability to give them relief.

    Now that these twelve months are drawing to a close, it is fitting that, as a nation, and as individuals, in accordance with time-honored and sacred custom, we should consider the manifold blessings granted to us. While in gratitude we rejoice, we should humbly pray that we may be worthy of a continuation of Divine favor.

     Wherefore, I, Calvin Coolidge, President of the United States, do hereby set apart and designate Thursday, the twenty-fourth day of November, next, as a day of thanksgiving and prayer, and recommend and urge that on that day our people lay aside their usual tasks, and by the family fireside and in their accustomed places of public worship give thanks to Him who holds us all in the hollow of His hand.

Thanksgiving Day itself, for the Coolidges, would see no surprising donations like Rebecca, the previous year. They would be given the choice of three donated turkeys (one from the North Platte Valley Co-operative Poultry Association of Nebraska, another from the Chamber of Commerce in Brady, Texas, and the third, kept anonymous, from a close friend of the Coolidges). It remained a quiet day with the Stearnses. Son John, unable to join them, would stay close to school. After special church services at Keith’s Theater in Washington on Thanksgiving Day, they would observe another tradition that Saturday, though unable to attend in person, tuning into the annual match between the Army Cadets and Navy Midshipmen. Played on the renowned polo grounds in Manhattan, Army (8-1) would vanquish Navy (6-2), 14-9.

Americans would continue to see in Coolidge a leader worthy of the name. That, too, was a reason to be thankful.