florida

Harry S. New, chosen to be Postmaster General after Hubert Work was moved to head the Interior Department, served faithfully for the next six years during the final months of the Harding administration and all of the Coolidge era. He always appreciated the humorous anecdote, however, and peppered his Cabinet meeting notes with the witty exchanges of the President and his department heads. He writes, “On a certain occasion, Attorney General Stone and Secretary Hoover had slipped away to the Florida Keys for a week, at the end of which they came back wonderfully tanned but without having had very good luck.

“When the President entered his first query on looking at the two sunburned members was, — ‘Fish bitin’?’

“Hoover said, ‘No, Mr. President, not very well but we were out of touch with the world for a week and that was worth a good deal.’

‘To the world?’ queried Coolidge.”

All good humor contains an element of truth. While President Coolidge’s characteristically dry wit is on display here so is the reminder that Hoover diverged sharply from Coolidge’s worldview and executive approach.

Some “scholars,” having accepted without question the political rhetoric of the 1930s, omit this vast difference in philosophy and attitude. They have overlooked the incessant activity of Mr. Hoover and hold Coolidge responsible for his successor’s mistakes. Coolidge points us back to the virtue of political temperance. In the flurry to pass ever more expansive legislation, implement stricter regulations and, with good intentions in both parties, step in to save people with the premise that “bad legislation is better than no legislation at all,” Coolidge’s principled restraint could not be emulated soon enough.

McMains, Howard F. “Retorts and Ripostes: President Coolidge’s Cabinet Room Humor,” Vermont History 54 (Fall 1986): 229-232.

Two weekends ago my wife and I made the short trek to Howey-in-the-Hills and Mount Dora not only to meet a “former President” but to research a little about the Coolidges’ visit to Florida in January-February 1930. Though the search raised more questions than it answered we met some very fine people, including Mr. Jim Cooke, and discovered traces of where CC and GC had been. It would be their first (and last) major trip across the country. They wanted to travel more if only they could have done so without the crowds and public attention everywhere they went.

At the dedication of the new Terrace Building, Lakeside Inn, Mt Dora, January 15, 1930.

At the same side door of the Terrace Building as the 1930 photo.

Lakeside Inn, Mt Dora

In the lobby of the original building at Lakeside.

Terrace Building, where the Coolidges stayed from January 11-February 13, 1930.

Terrace Building from the side overlooking Lake Dora, the 1930 photo was taken at the door in the middle of this picture.

"The Coolidge Room" #619 (which was rooms 135-137 back then)

“The Coolidge Room” #619 (Rooms 135-137 back then)

The Congregational Church in Mt Dora where the Coolidges attended services each Sunday during their stay.

At the Gate House

At Pine Forest Cemetary in Mt Dora, Archie Hurlburt, CC’s close friend and the manager of Lakeside Inn, was laid to rest in 1950.

CC’s lunch with citrus entrepreneur William J. Howey in Howey-in-the-Hills during his time in Florida, January-February 1930. L to R: John F. Harris of West Palm Beach, architect Fred W. Wentworth, Charles Edgerton, and Archie E. Hurlburt of Mt Dora, CC, William J. Howey, George P. Wentworth of Pensacola, J. Leonard Replogle of West Palm Beach, and famous novelist Opie Read. Also present at the lunch were Henry Bishop of Eustis, G. G. Ware of Leesburg, and Judge Noah Bainum of Tampa.

The Howey Mansion today

It seems that the 1930 photo with CC and Mr. Howey was taken at the southwest corner of the home. Howey did not allow pictures of the home unobstructed since it was a private residence. That is why palms were a convenient blocker in the 1930 picture.