The Vagabonds

by Jeff Guinn

  On Sunday, August 17, Firestone’s son Russell drove to Plymouth, Vermont, where he met with Bascom Slemp, Coolidge’s personal secretary. The entire population of Plymouth Notch numbered just under thirty. There were a few houses, a general store/post office, working farmland, and a cheese-making business. Presidential staff had to spend nights in nearby Plymouth. Coolidge’s Secret Service detail slept in pup tents surrounding the Plymouth Notch house where the president and First Lady stayed. Details of Russell’s conversation with Slemp were never made public, but Russell certainly made the case for a Plymouth Notch visit by the Vagabonds. Slemp, though cognizant of potential media coverage, would have found the president difficult to convince—the Coolidges had withdrawn in part to mourn the death of their son Calvin Jr. Just seven weeks earlier, the sixteen-year-old died in particularly devastating fashion. An apparently trifling blister raised on Calvin Jr.’s foot while playing tennis turned septic; he passed away a few days later.

  Calvin Coolidge was not an especially sociable man. Besides dealing with the terrible grief wracking him and the First Lady, the president spent most of his supposed vacation days in Plymouth Notch meeting with advisors about various matters of national urgency. At the same time that Russell Firestone proposed that he host the Vagabonds, Coolidge was scheduled to discuss with staff potential means of containing the worrisome spread of Ku Klux Klan influence. Where Harding, his predecessor, craved publicity above all else, Coolidge’s sense of it was more measured. He recognized the value of positive media coverage, especially in the months prior to the November 1924 presidential election, but not to the extent that he would gladly sacrifice valuable working and private time for the sake of a few stories and photographs. He already had the hovering press describing his every Plymouth Notch movement and meal—a recent breakfast was “country ham” fried by Grace Coolidge herself, according to the Washington Post.

  Coolidge almost surely would have declined a Vagabonds meeting in Plymouth Notch except for a recent, thoughtful gesture toward the president and First Lady by Thomas Edison. The day after the death of Calvin Jr., the inventor sent a succinct, heartfelt telegram to Coolidge at the White House:

  May I venture to intrude upon you to express my deep sympathy with you in the sorrow that has been laid upon you. Thomas A. Edison.

  It would not have been lost on Coolidge that, while a number of famous, influential Americans expressed sympathy following his namesake son’s death, most did so in letters that they copied to the press or else by sending showy floral arrangements with the names of the senders prominently displayed. Edison’s message of condolence was sent privately, parent to parent. It was the sort of plainspoken sentiment that Coolidge himself might have offered under similar circumstances. The meeting was arranged and announced to the press: The Vagabonds would call on the Coolidges in Plymouth Notch at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, August 19.

  * * *

  On Monday, Edison, Ford, and Harvey and Russell Firestone drove from Sudbury to Ludlow, Vermont, which was a dozen miles from Plymouth Notch. Mina Edison, Clara Ford, and Idabelle Firestone didn’t accompany them—the ladies may have remembered Florence Harding’s 1921 snubbing of them in Maryland and didn’t care to risk a second rebuff from a First Lady. Instead, the women went off to visit scenic New England coastal locales, arranging to meet their husbands in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on Wednesday.

  The men had dinner and spent Monday night in a Ludlow hotel. A few reporters left Plymouth Notch to see what the Vagabonds were up to, which wasn’t much. Ford and Firestone took an evening walk around town. Edison stayed in the hotel lobby, where he smoked a cigar. But on Tuesday morning, the inventor was the first out of bed, banging on the Fords’ and Firestones’ doors, urging them to be up and about. After breakfast they spent some time at Ludlow’s “Home Town Coolidge Club,” visiting with organizers there and purchasing the president’s modestly sized campaign buttons. With these pinned to their suit lapels, they drove on to Plymouth Notch, maneuvering their car through the media horde at the foot of the narrow road leading up to the house where the Coolidges waited to receive them.

  After handshakes all around, the president invited his guests to sit with him and the First Lady on the porch of their summer retreat, which served as the year-round residence of his father, Col. John Coolidge. There weren’t enough chairs on the porch to accommodate everyone, so Grace Coolidge went inside to fetch a few more. Even so, Ford and Coolidge had to perch on a hammock. It was pleasantly informal. Edison, whose deafness usually put him at a disadvantage in casual conversation with new acquaintances, sat next to the First Lady. He was delighted by her ability to easily communicate with him—she had once worked as a teacher for the deaf, and was adept at speaking slowly and clearly. While the others chatted about the local weather (cooler than usual), Edison and Grace Coolidge joshed about Secret Service protection. Edison recalled that during his World War I government service, his every step had been guarded by four agents. Mrs. Coolidge said she had only one agent assigned to her because “one is all I can stand.”

  Down at the foot of the road, the press clamored to come up. Coolidge suggested that he, Grace, and their guests move to a sunlit spot on the lawn where photographers could snap the best pictures. Col. John Coolidge joined the party—everyone picked up their chairs and moved them to the designated place. Two additional chairs were found for Ford and the president. When everyone was seated in an informal semicircle, the media was allowed to gather a few feet away. For the time being, questions were deferred—instead, the press witnessed the giving of a presidential gift. Coolidge had been briefed on Ford’s plans to use the Wayside Inn and its grounds as a means of re-creating the atmosphere of Colonial America. Now he presented the automaker with a family heirloom, a 125-year-old oaken “sugar bucket” used by four generations of Coolidges, including the president himself, during the traditional New England maple tree–tapping process. Ford was thrilled. He turned and remarked to Edison, “I’ve never received anything since I married Mrs. Ford that I appreciated so much.” Edison grinned and nodded. Ford insisted that everyone sign the bucket. Besides his signature, Coolidge added a lengthy inscription: “Made for and used by John Coolidge, one of the original settlers of Plymouth, Vermont. Died 1822. Used also by Calvin Coolidge in sugar lot when he was a boy at home.” Ford noted to the reporters that the bucket symbolized the admirable Colonial work ethic—an implement so well-made that it had lasted more than a century. He promised it would be exhibited in a place of honor at the Wayside Inn.

  The mood was so merry that Edison took over a cinematographer’s camera and filmed the scene himself. Besides the press, some locals had joined the crowd around Coolidge and his guests. Ford spotted nine-year-old George Chalmers and called the boy over. The carmaker dug in his pocket and took out a watch. He gave it to the youngster, saying, “That’s something for you, sonny.” Ford then hurried to pose for more photos with the president. Several reporters asked young George how it felt to receive a gift from such a famous man. He had no comment. Ford darted back to inform the press, “I buy watches by the gross. I like to give them to youngsters. I found that last one in my grip this morning.” Then Ford gave Coolidge a compass for the president’s surviving son, John, who wasn’t present. Ford told the president, “It’s the kind that we always use on our trips about the country.” Coolidge replied that John would certainly appreciate the gift.

  The press was pleased when the president proposed a short stroll—he wanted to show his guests Plymouth Notch’s small cheese factory just up the road. Off the Coolidges and Vagabonds went, with reporters and photographers trailing behind. The visitors were offered samples not only of cheese, but also whey and curd. They ate it all. Col. John Coolidge suggested that they sprinkle salt on some of the fare. The president paused between his own unsalted bites to comment, “I like it just the way it is.” Edison also drank some of the fresh milk brought to the factory earlier in the morning by local farmers. The inventor joked t
hat it was a mistake showing Ford around the facility; the carmaker would think of ways to run the process more efficiently and “first thing you know, he’ll be making cheese himself.”

  One reporter described the cheese factory scene as jolly: “The President’s callers acted like a group of boys out on a lark.” In his memoir, Firestone recalled it differently—or, at least, the aftermath some hours later: Coolidge “explained every process of cheesemaking, and we all tasted cheese in various stages—with the result that Mr. Edison, Mr. Ford and my son Russell nursed stomachaches that night and developed an aversion to cheese factories!”

  When the factory tour was complete, reporters were finally allowed to ask questions of the visitors. The media apparently had been briefed by Coolidge’s aides prior to the Vagabonds’ arrival, because their queries exclusively focused on predictions for the November election. As the president looked on, Ford said that the other candidates—former West Virginia congressman John W. Davis for the Democrats, Wisconsin senator Robert M. La Follette for the third-party Progressives—didn’t matter: “The only issue in this campaign is Calvin Coolidge. There is no other. The people as a whole have implicit confidence in him.” Ford said he personally supported Coolidge because “he stands for law and order and that is what the country needs. There is too much lawlessness and too much disregard for the things that have made America the greatest nation in the world.”

  Edison touted Coolidge as the best person to clean up government corruption: “A great majority . . . know that he is honest. They are convinced that he will not wink at graft in or out of the White House.” The inventor added that it would be wrong to hold Coolidge responsible for Harding’s mistakes: “Whatever others may have done, nobody believes [Coolidge] to be a part of any wrongdoing in Washington.”

  Firestone was even more laudatory: “I regard President Coolidge as the best-fitted candidate for president and I shall do all I can to help elect him. I believe that his election is a foregone conclusion.”

  With that, Coolidge gestured for his guests and the press to exit the factory and walk back toward Plymouth Notch’s few houses and general store. Their mood remained upbeat. Grace Coolidge walked beside Edison, and referred to the watch Ford had given nine-year-old George Chalmers. “I’ve been told that you never get to bed and don’t need a watch,” she teased. “Mr. Coolidge goes to bed early, and gets lots of sleep.” Edison laughed.

  It seemed an exceptionally congenial moment. Ford, Edison, and Firestone were ready for more. Though there wasn’t much else in Plymouth Notch itself to see, the tiny hamlet had additional attractions for them. There was no indoor plumbing or electricity; Edison, if asked, would have sketched out a workable generator on the spot, and brought electric light to Coolidge’s birthplace just as he already had for half of America. Ford would have enjoyed a president-led tour of the surrounding farms, noting with his keen eye where Ford’s tractors might lend themselves to more efficient plowing, planting, and harvesting. Ford might even have pressed a tractor or two upon locals as gifts. And a walk around the fields, perhaps to work up prelunch appetites, could have afforded him an opportunity to remind Coolidge about the abundant benefits awaiting the Tennessee Valley region, if only the president would enthusiastically endorse Ford’s long-delayed purchase offer. Firestone as usual was up for anything. Perhaps he looked forward to a restful hour or two seated on the president’s porch, taking in the spectacular mountains that ringed the tiny town, with a good chance of glimpsing a heavy-antlered moose or two lolling below the treeline. Lunch would no doubt be tasty, and healthy enough to suit Ford and Edison besides—all those farm-fresh vegetables. Then, in the late afternoon or early evening, there might well be an invitation for the guests to stay the night, in rather cramped quarters, perhaps, but cozy ones, a welcome extension of what was already such an enjoyable first meeting.

  But it became apparent, as they all stood outside Col. John Coolidge’s house, kitty-corner from the general store, that the president and First Lady were saying goodbye. Whatever further hospitality Edison, Ford, and Firestone might have anticipated, so far as the Coolidges were concerned, their hosting duties were done. There was nothing rude or abrupt in their manner as they thanked their guests for stopping by and wished them a pleasant journey to their next destination, but there was also no mistaking a certain underlying firmness. The Vagabonds expected a lengthy visit among equals; the president allocated a small portion of his day for a photo opportunity and endorsements of his candidacy by three prominent men. Firestone wrote later that “we talked of nothing in particular—with the motion-picture cameras and the reporters we indeed had little time for talk.” In this instance, as in all things, Calvin Coolidge was precise. They were the president’s guests for exactly one hour.

  There was nothing for the three visitors to do but gamely shake hands, climb into their car, and drive down past the throng of reporters and cinematographers to the main road, where they turned east in the direction of Portsmouth on the New Hampshire coast. No media followed them. The Vagabonds all were hungry—it would be several more hours before the Plymouth Notch cheese worked its evil on their digestive systems—so they stopped at a hotel in Woodstock, Vermont. There was much scrambling among the hotel’s restaurant staff, who hadn’t been expecting a request for lunch from three celebrities. Woodstock was one of the loveliest towns in Vermont, meaning it ranked among the loveliest in the nation, but the travelers were in no mood to linger. They weren’t expected in Portsmouth until the next morning, but the Sialia was scheduled to dock there sometime that night, so they could bunk in comfort on the boat.

  * * *

  The Vagabonds arrived in Portsmouth late Tuesday night and joined their wives aboard the Sialia. Ford emerged early Wednesday morning to greet the local press. The reporters wanted to know about the visit with the president. Ford spoke instead of how impressed he was by the beauty of Portsmouth, and in particular with its profusion of antique shops. Ford stressed that, given his choice, he would have “been greatly pleased” to spend more of his vacation there, but “previous plans interfered . . . I will try to come here again.” Only then did he mention Coolidge, and his praise seemed more directed at the region than the president. The Portsmouth Herald wrote that Ford declared “the greatest need at the present time is to have a man of old New England stock like Calvin Coolidge at the head of the nation for the next four years.”

  The Herald’s headline—“Ford Is Pleased with Portsmouth”—and story emphasized the carmaker’s compliments for the city rather than Coolidge. Virtually every other newspaper around the nation featured stories about the Vagabonds’ Plymouth Notch visit. By an overwhelming majority, their headlines confirmed that Henry Ford was now preeminent among the trio: “Coolidge Is Host to Ford Party” (Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune); “Henry Ford Is Caller on Coolidge” (Santa Ana, California, Register); “Henry Ford Pays Visit to Coolidge” (Dunkirk, New York, Evening Observer). A September 2 editorial in the Arizona Daily Star declared that “of the three, Ford is far the most important. He is a social force, a modifier of society as well as a mechanical genius. The others have invented machines and tires. Ford . . . has invented a new kind of man.”

  Those few newspapers like the Boston Morning Globe (“Coolidge Election Forecast by Edison, Ford and Firestone”) that placed Edison’s name in their headlines ahead of Ford’s (Firestone was rarely included at all, and always third) usually did so because their stories featured a joke the inventor told reporters in Plymouth Notch. Edison wanted to illustrate how voters would prefer taciturn Coolidge over his much more loquacious rivals:

  Politicians who [talk] so much remind me of a story of the reformer who went to Sing Sing to address the inmates. He talked a long time. A colored prisoner interrupted him and otherwise disturbed the meeting. A jailer hit the colored man over the head with a club and he was quiet and senseless for a while. When he came to, he called out to the jailer, “Hit me again, boss. I kin still hear him talking.”


  Around eleven on Wednesday morning, Thomas and Mina Edison drove off from Portsmouth to spend a few more days in Vermont. Harvey and Russell Firestone went home to Akron by train, and the Fords sailed off for Maine in the Sialia, where they joined their son, Edsel, and his wife on a voyage to Montreal and then Detroit. For several weeks, movie theaters around the country showed film clips of the Vagabonds’ visit with the Coolidges, but none of the carmaker, Edison, and Firestone on their 1924 trip in any place other than Plymouth Notch.

  * * *

  As the fall progressed, it became increasingly obvious that Calvin Coolidge would be reelected. Edison refused to take it for granted. He’d pledged his wholehearted support of the president during the Plymouth Rock visit, and felt obligated to follow through. In particular, Edison sent written statements endorsing Coolidge and Charles G. Dawes, his running mate, to the Republican National Committee. These were reprinted in many newspapers. Edison declared that he would “vote for Coolidge and Dawes because I believe both men are practical, will get results and throw a bomb into that enormous expense account we have down in Washington known as the bureaucracy.”

  Ford didn’t withdraw his Plymouth Notch praise of Coolidge, but he didn’t seek out further opportunities to proclaim it. Ford’s energetic backing probably made the difference in Woodrow Wilson’s narrow 1916 reelection, but eight years later his endorsement—and Edison’s, and Firestone’s—was helpful rather than critical for Coolidge, who during his reelection campaign remained notably adverse about allowing even the perception of favoritism toward influential supporters. Without the president speaking out on its behalf, Ford’s Muscle Shoals bid continued languishing in Congress. In October 1924 Ford bowed to the inevitable and withdrew his purchase offer. It was a terrible blow to him—Ford had not been so determined to make a personal vision come true since the time, now decades past, when he pledged to create a car for the great multitudes. The Model T brought about all the benefits Ford promised, and more. But his vision of Muscle Shoals never would bear fruit. Instead, the glory of its benefits to the public would be delivered nine years later by President Franklin D. Roosevelt when he signed the Tennessee Valley Authority Act. This act retained all the Muscle Shoals properties as quasi-public entities, and ultimately led to the Rural Electrification Act of 1936 that proved to be a key component of Roosevelt’s New Deal. Ford had been correct in predicting the potential of Muscle Shoals, but his foresight brought him no joy.