A fascinating entry over at an excellent blog dubbed “Ghosts of DC,” has featured an older Walter “Big Train” Johnson from April 29, 1939, reminiscing over his unique collection of baseballs signed by six Presidents, four of which were thrown out at the start of World Series games. As we recall, it was during Mr. Coolidge’s time in the White House that the Senators won their first and only World Series pennant in 1924 and almost repeated the victory in a 4-3 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1925. The six Presidents were: Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. Some of these Presidents wrote extended messages to the great baseball player; others, like Coolidge, characteristically kept it brief. Notice that President Coolidge’s signature is prominently displayed on the right hand top shelf of this handsome case. Mr. Johnson, the legendary player and manager of the Washington Senators photographed here, would donate this impressive series of gifts to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.
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Continuing in the Steps of Calvin Coolidge
Roads had begun filling for miles around since that morning. Keeping in mind that roads then were not what they are now, which, at that time were principally gravel and dirt trails. Some seventy-five thousand people descended on the area that February 1, 1929, to attend the dedication. Whole towns ran out of food and gas and traffic came to a standstill.
Driving in as close as possible, families trudged through the mud with what food and water they could carry to see Edward Bok’s Singing Tower and hear the bells firsthand. They were especially drawn to this dedication because the President — Calvin Coolidge — would be there to speak. It was going to be one of his last major Presidential addresses as he would be leaving office in just over a month.
The President and Mrs. Coolidge arrived for their first visit to Florida on an Atlantic Coast Railway special out of Washington. Deboarding from the Mountain Lake Station in Lake Wales, they would be escorted the short drive around Mountain Lake to the Tower grounds that afternoon. The Coolidges took their seats in the temporary pine platform specially put up for the dedication on the Tower’s south side and listened as carillonneur Anton Brees played “America” inside the Tower and the six hundred voices of the United Singing Societies of Polk County performed “The Glory of God in Nature” and “Hallelujah” from Handel’s Messiah. Introduced by Mr. Bok, creator of the Tower and its lush gardens, President Coolidge took to the podium to dedicate what the site meant to America and all who were there that day.
The bells, played by Anton Brees, would resume as they chimed out “Onward, Christian Soldier” and other music to the silent amazement of all those present. The largest silk flag in the South up to that time, would be raised near the pinnacle of the Tower as a completion of the day’s events and the President and Mrs. Coolidge would be led around to see more of the grounds and the inside of the Tower. Grace Coolidge would even plant a palm tree beside the trail leading up to the Tower. Mistakenly attributed to the President, it was the First Lady who did the honors. It remains quietly standing there beside the creek with a weathered plaque to commemorate the 1929 dedication. Coolidge would even reappear from the lower balconies on the south and west so that he could be better seen by those who had come so far.
He likely remembered on this occasion the first time he saw a President, when as a teenager he heard Benjamin Harrison address the crowds at Bennington, Vermont. “As I looked on him and realized that he personally represented the glory and dignity of the United States I wondered how it felt to bear so much responsibility and little thought I should ever know” (The Autobiography, p.52). He always made a point of making himself accessible to young people in order to inspire them with a sense of both personal potential and faith in our republican system of government. The President was not some distant, aloof ruler but one of them. Coolidge recognized that any one of those youngsters might themselves be inspired to take up public service as President some day.
Invited to Mr. and Mrs. Bok’s home for that evening’s supper, the Coolidges sat with Governor Carlton and those who served in Florida’s state government at the time. The President and First Lady then boarded the train and returned to Washington that night. The words dedicating this Tower can be found today carved into the coquina and marble below the sundial. It is a fitting tribute not only to the majestic beauty of the site but also to the vision of men like Edward Bok and Calvin Coolidge to imagine great things, put them into being and call us to reflect on God’s work both around and in us.
“I suppose I am booked for exhibition…”
“You’re the top…You’re a Coolidge dollar!” — Cole Porter, lyrics from You’re The Top, referring to the “Coolidge Prosperity” of the 1920’s (Anything Goes, 1934)
As the four new arrivals in the “Presidential $1 Coin Program” this year include Calvin Coolidge, coming in April, it is fitting to look back on a much older, even more distinguished coin from 1926. The coin is, of course, the Sesquicentennial half-dollar commissioned by Congress at the request of the National Sesquicentennial Exhibition Association and struck for special distribution at the Exposition in Philadelphia between June 1 and November 30, 1926, marking the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
It is unique as the first and only coin to be struck on which appears a President not only within his lifetime but also during his term of office. It is extraordinary that Calvin Coolidge was accorded this singular honor, a level of recognition not bestowed on any other President and only three other living individuals. It is unfortunate that the Association insisted on a technique, though popular with numismatists at the time, produced too shallow a relief in the striking that even a mint condition half-dollar looks worn and poorly produced. If only the Association had required a sharper relief of John Frederic Lewis’ striking design. While the Chief Engraver of the Mint, John R. Sinnock, whose designs were turned down, should not have taken credit for the final result, it is also unfortunate that the coin was so under-promoted and poorly struck that it did not sell better than it did — only 140,592 coins selling out of 1,000,528 (the rest going back to the Mint to be melted down for other uses). Unfortunately, Sinnock would incorporate Lewis’ style in the better known Roosevelt dime (1946) and Franklin half-dollar (1948), likewise without proper credit.
Asked about the upcoming Exposition in Philadelphia during one of his press conferences in December 1925, knowing that both he and the coin would be present at so historic an occasion, Coolidge responded with that characteristic twinkle in his eye: “There isn’t anything very definite that I can say about the Sesquicentennial Exposition at Philadelphia. I suppose I am booked for exhibition and that will probably be on the 4th of July” (The Talkative President p.13). His speech marking the anniversary of the Declaration is still one of the most quoted, most eloquent, most insightful and among the greatest speeches ever given by an American President. He would be an exhibit at the Exposition…or did he mean, he would exposit at the exhibits?