August 2, 1927: President Calvin Coolidge announces that he is not running for re-election. It stuns the nation.
He was known as "Silent Cal" for his reticence. Legend has it that 2 women, seeing him at a party, made a bet. So one walked up to him and said, "I made a bet with my friend that I could get you to say 3 words to me." And Coolidge said, "You lose." Similarly, his announcement of withdrawal was short and to the point.
In the Summer of 1927, Coolidge took a vacation, to the Black Hills of South Dakota. This included a visit to Mount Rushmore, which was in the early stages of carving; and a visit to a Sioux reservation, where, as a visiting "chief," he was presented with a feathered headdress, a "war bonnet," and was photographed wearing it. He was unwilling to fake a smile for the photo.
Judging by the hat, it could have been on the same vacation.
But on August 2 -- described by Bill Bryson in his book One Summer: America 1927 as "a cold, wet day in South Dakota" -- the members of the White House press corps were led into a classroom at Rapid City High School, where Coolidge was seated at a teacher's desk. Since it was 4 years to the day since President Warren Harding died, and Coolidge, then the Vice President, became President, they thought he might make a short statement commemorating the anniversary.
Instead, he asked them to form a line. They did. As each of them passed, he handed them a strip of paper, 9 inches long and 2 inches wide. On it were written these words: "I do not choose to run for President in nineteen twenty-eight."
Ten words. Or twelve: While they could all agree that it was brief, they couldn't decide whether "nineteen twenty-eight" counted as one word or three. It is odd that Coolidge wrote the year out in words, instead of just the number, "1928." Typically, Coolidge said nothing else, and got up, and left.
No one but he knew about this decision. Even First Lady Grace Coolidge, who was traveling with him, didn't know. Robert Benchley, writer and member of the Algonquin Round Table, wrote in his newspaper column, "A bolt from the blue would not be too extravagant a term to describe the Coolidge cryptogram."
Some political pundits of the time tried to parse the words. "I do not choose to run" made it sound like he suspected he might be "drafted" by the 1928 Republican Convention. Indeed, since Coolidge, only 2 Presidents eligible to run for another term have declined to do so: Harry Truman in 1952 and Lyndon Johnson in 1968. Truman was ready to retire, few suspected he would run for what would have amounted to a 3rd term, and he had become unpopular, anyway, and would have lost.
But LBJ, for all his troubles, did have a good shot at a 2nd full term. But, in college at the time of Coolidge's announcement and remembering it well, he made it clear in his announcement that he wouldn't be drafted, either: "I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President." Coolidge had left a glimmer of doubt; Truman didn't need to; Johnson did need to, and wiped it all out. (UPDATE: In 2024, Joe Biden was running for re-election, but dropped out.)
The Republicans retained the White House in 1928, as Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, running on the Party's record of economic prosperity at home and peace abroad, won in a landslide. Coolidge had been reluctant to endorse Hoover as his successor: On one occasion he remarked, "For 6 years, that man has given me unsolicited advice, all of it bad." Even so, Coolidge had no desire to split the Party by publicly opposing the nomination of a man nearly as popular as he was.
Surprisingly, given his paucity of words, and of desire to use them, Coolidge wrote an autobiography, saying, "It was my hope to produce a book that would not only have some historical interest, but would be useful for those in public life, in educational work, in preparation for citizenship, and would be especially a book that parents would wish their children to read."
In this book, he explained his decision not to run: "The Presidential office takes a heavy toll of those who occupy it and those who are dear to them. While we should not refuse to spend and be spent in the service of our country, it is hazardous to attempt what we feel is beyond our strength to accomplish."
Had Coolidge run again, he would almost certainly have been elected. On the other hand, the Crash of 1929 would have happened on his watch. He would have done little to ease the Great Depression, possibly even less than Hoover did. He would have been blamed for it all, and he would have gone down in history as one of the worst Presidents ever.
Finally, he died of a blood clot in the heart on January 5, 1933, at the age of 60, 2 months before the next term ran out, so he would have died in office. Whether that would have mitigated opinion of his performance is questionable: Harding's death before the full scope of the Teapot Dome scandal was known hasn't helped him, and, by the end of the 1920s -- even before the Crash -- any sympathy he had engendered had dissipated. It might have been the same for Coolidge.
But Coolidge wasn't President in October 1929, Hoover was, and so, Hoover got the full blame. Coolidge has gone down in history as a good President, Hoover as a bad one. The former is mostly undeserved; the latter, mostly deserved, but it's not entirely his own fault.
Upon hearing that Coolidge had died, writer Dorothy Parker, Benchley's fellow member of the Algonquin Round Table, said, "How can you tell?"
*
August 2, 1927 was a Tuesday. These baseball games were played that day:
* The New York Giants lost to the St. Louis Cardinals, 6-2 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Rogers Hornsby went 0-for-4 for the Giants. Frankie Frisch, whom the Giants traded even-up for Hornsby in the off-season, went 1-for-4 with 2 RBIs for the Cardinals. Grover Cleveland Alexander was the winning pitcher.
* The Brooklyn Robins -- as the Dodgers were known while Wilbert Robinson managed them from 1914 to 1931 -- were swept in a doubleheader by the Cincinnati Reds, 3-1 and 5-4 at Redland Field (later Crosley Field) in Cincinnati.
* A doubleheader was split at Fenway Park in Boston. The St. Louis Browns won the opener, 3-2. The Boston Red Sox won the nightcap, 3-0. Hal Wiltse pitched a 2-hit shutout.
* A doubleheader was split at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. The Chicago White Sox won the 1st game, 7-4. The Philadelphia Athletics won the 2nd game, 6-5. Mickey Cochrane won it with a home run in the bottom of the 12th inning. Ty Cobb, playing out the string with the A's, went 2-for-8 with 2 walks and an RBI over the 2 games.
* The Detroit Tigers beat the Washington Senators, 7-6 at Griffith Stadium in Washington. Walter Johnson, in what turned out to be his last season, ran out of gas in the 9th inning. Tris Speaker, playing out the string with the Senators, went 1-for-4.
* The Boston Braves beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 5-2 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Paul Waner went 2-for-3 with a walk and an RBI, but Lloyd Waner, a rookie at this point, went 0-for-5.
* The Chicago Cubs beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 6-2 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.
* And the New York Yankees and the Cleveland Indians were not scheduled. At this point in the Yankees' season, Lou Gehrig had the most home runs, with 35, to Babe Ruth's 34.
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