One-Night Stands with American History

by Richard Shenkman

  • Walt Disney’s first cartoon, Plane Crazy, appeared in 1928.

  • Charles Loeb, an aspiring actor determined to become a movie star, mailed himself in 1929 from Chicago to a film studio in Culver City, California, in a box labeled, “Statue—handle with care.” He arrived almost dead but told police he was happy because he had finally made it through the gates of a major studio.

  • In 1929, Bing Crosby was arrested for drinking. When the judge asked him, “Don’t you know about the prohibition law?” Crosby responded, “Nobody pays much attention to that.” To which the judge replied, “Sixty days in jail. Next case.”

  • A major argument about fashion in 1939 was whether women tennis players should wear white stockings or nothing at all on their legs.

  • The only nonwhite to be elected vice president of the United States was Charles Curtis, a Kaw Indian, who served under Herbert Hoover.

  • In 1929 a government committee appointed in 1921 to study the problem of unemployment finally made its first report. Its conclusion? Unemployment was no longer a problem. The first chairman of the committee was Herbert Hoover.

  • New York mayor Jimmy Walker once remarked: “A reformer is a guy who rides through a sewer in a glass-bottomed boat.”

  FDR’S IRONIC CHOICE FOR PRESIDENT IN 1920

  At the end of World War I, Franklin Roosevelt launched a campaign to win the Democratic presidential nomination of 1920 for a friend. The friend was a prominent and popular member of the Wilson administration and seemed to Roosevelt to have a good chance of becoming president. Roosevelt himself was a rising star in the Democratic party. He carried a famous name, was heir to a modest fortune, and had distinguished himself during the ten short years he had been in politics. But he was only thirty-six years old, too young to be considered for the national ticket. So he put his talents to work for the benefit of a forty-five-year-old man with whom he had become friends. The two had met at the home of the secretary of the interior, where they frequently had Sunday dinners.

  Unfortunately, Roosevelt was not sure if his friend was a Democrat or a Republican. At a dinner party one night he learned from the daughter of Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Wilson’s old foe, that his friend was a Republican.

  This ended Roosevelt’s efforts to make his friend president of the United States. The name of his friend was Herbert Hoover.

  Footnote: The Republican Hoover did not find a place on the national ticket in 1920, but Franklin Roosevelt did, his youth notwithstanding. When Roosevelt was nominated for vice president by the Democrats, Hoover wrote him a warm letter, saying that FDR was a great public servant.

  SOURCE: Gene Smith, The Shattered Dream (New York: William Morrow, 1970), pp. 85–86.

  THE MAN WHO ALMOST BECAME VICE PRESIDENT

  “A legend about the Vice Presidential nomination that arose during the [1920 Republican] convention was for years afterward told by word of mouth and in print. It said that when Senator Knox of Pennsylvania was under consideration for the Presidential nomination, backers of him suggested an ingenious yet convincing pairing: Knox for President and Hiram Johnson for Vice President. The combination was geographically appealing. Pennsylvania on the Atlantic Coast, California on the Pacific—for that and other reasons it could have commanded, on paper, enough delegates to win. The proposers of the idea, hot with the fervor of invention, hurried to Johnson. As an allurement, they told him, in strict confidence, that Knox had heart disease and, if nominated and elected, would probably not live out the four-year term. Johnson blew up, emitted an indignant sentence: ‘You would put a heart-beat between me and the White House!’ He was, he told them sternly, a candidate for the Presidential nomination, and would take no less.

  “Later, when the nomination of Harding was assured, his backers—so the legend said—seeking a running-mate, approached Johnson, as one who would help carry the West, and the progressive part of the Republican party. Again Johnson blew up. Again he declared that if he could not have first place, he would take nothing.

  “Within four years, both Knox and Harding died. Had Johnson either made the arrangement that Knox’s friends suggested, or consented to be the running-mate of Harding, he would have become President, would have stepped into the shoes that actually were filled by Calvin Coolidge.”

  SOURCE: Mark Sullivan, Our Times (New York: Scribner’s, 1930–36), VI, 77n. Reprinted by permission of Charles Scribner’s Sons.

  HARDING COLLAGE

  • Warren Harding’s announcement that he had become engaged to Florence Kling DeWolf did not please everyone in Marion, Ohio, his hometown. When Florence’s father heard of the engagement, he addressed the young suitor as “you God damned nigger,” and promised personally to blow Harding’s head off if he ever trespassed on the Kling premises.

  • Mrs. Alice Roosevelt Longworth, daughter of T.R., once remarked that “Harding was not a bad man. He was just a slob.”

  • e. e. cummings described Harding in a poem as:

  The only man, woman or child

  who wrote a simple declarative sentence

  with seven grammatical errors.

  • Harding was once heard to remark: “Oftentimes . . . I don’t seem to grasp that I am President.”

  • Harding accomplished little during his term of office, but he did have one claim to fame: he was the first president to know how to drive an automobile.

  • Norman Thomas was the leader of the American Socialist party and six times a candidate for president. He also happened to be a friend of Warren Harding, having worked for Harding as a newsboy on the Marion Star.

  • Harding’s sudden death shocked the nation but not Dr. Emmanuel Libman, a heart specialist. Eight months before Harding died, Libman observed the President at a party and predicted to a friend that Harding would suffer a fatal coronary within six months.

  HARDING AND THE PRESS CONFERENCE

  Every president strives for good relations with the press. Warren G. Harding, a newspaper publisher for thirty-five years before coming to Washington, was no exception. Harding’s plan was simple. As a former newspaperman, the new president thought he could speak to reporters in their own lingo, frankly and openly. Press conferences were to have a casual, off-the-cuff atmosphere, in which a correspondent could ask the chief executive virtually any question on any subject. The President would then respond in a free and easy manner.

  In one of his first press encounters, Harding discovered that government policies were very complex, especially without the benefit of briefings on special questions. The Washington Conference on Naval Disarmament was then in session. Eventually, the conference would hammer out the Four Power Treaty which would set ratios on the possession and production of large warships among the world’s seagoing powers. A correspondent asked Harding if Japan, for the purposes of the ratios, was considered a Pacific island or a part of the Asian mainland. Harding did not know, but rather than appear ignorant on a subject of current importance, he guessed.

  Unfortunately, he guessed wrongly. Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes corrected the embarrassing presidential blunder as diplomatically as possible, while Harding himself accepted full blame for his political faux pas. Hughes made one strong suggestion—that the President abandon his informal approach to the press. From that time on, all questions were required in writing in advance. Harding’s press relations, even with the new rule, were superb. It was perhaps the most successful aspect of his administration.

  SOURCE: James E. Pollard, The Presidents and the Press (New York: Macmillan, 1947), p. 705.

  A SILK PURSE FROM A SOW’S EAR

  The proverb says, “You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear,” but in 1921 the founder of one of America’s leading research companies proved that you can. Arthur D. Little began by ordering from a Chicago meat-packing company ten pounds of gelatin “manufactured wholly from sow’s ears.” Then, using synthetic processes, he spun the gelatin into an artificial silk thread. From this he had a purse wov
en, “of the sort which ladies of great estate carried in medieval days—their gold coin in one end and their silver coin in the other. It is one of which both Her Serene and Royal Highness the Queen of the Burgundians in her palace, and the lowly Sukie in her sty, might well have been proud.” Little put the purse on public display and issued a pamphlet describing how the miracle was accomplished.

  SOURCE: Daniel Boorstin, The Americans: The Democratic Experience (New York: Random House, 1973), pp. 545–46.

  CIGARETTE SMOKING IS GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH

  An advertisement for Lucky Strikes used in the 1920s:

  “Instead of eating between meals . . . instead of fattening sweets . . . beautiful women keep youthful slenderness these days by smoking Luckies. . . . Lucky Strike is a delightful blend of the world’s finest tobaccos. These tobaccos are toasted—a costly process which develops and improves the flavor. That’s why Luckies are a delightful alternative for fattening sweets. That’s why there’s real health in Lucky Strikes. For years this has been no secret to those who keep fit and trim. They know that Luckies steady their nerves and do not hurt their physical condition. They know that Lucky Strikes are the favorite cigarette of many prominent athletes who must keep in good shape. They respect the opinions of 20,679 physicians who maintain that Luckies are less irritating to the throat than other cigarettes.”

  SOURCE: James Wood, The Story of Advertising (New York: Ronald Press, 1958), p. 378.

  NEW YORK PRESS UNITES

  The newspaper business in the early part of the twentieth century was fiercely competitive. But in September 1923 a printers’ strike in New York City caused the morning newspapers to unite. The union of the papers resulted in one of the strangest and most impressive mastheads of all time:

  SOURCE: Mark Sullivan, Our Times (New York: Scribner’s, 1930–36), VI, 602. Reprinted by permission of Charles Scribner’s Sons.

  QUIPS FROM H. L. MENCKEN

  • “Men have a much better time of it than women. For one thing, they marry later. For another thing, they die earlier.”

  • “Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them.”

  • “Conscience: the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.”

  COOLIDGE COLLAGE

  • In 1924, Coolidge’s son died after getting a blister on his toe while playing lawn tennis.

  • Coolidge often displayed sadistic tendencies. Once he asked a Secret Service agent to bait his fishhook. Just as the man was hooking the worm, Coolidge jerked the line and drew blood from the agent’s fingers.

  • Coolidge loved having his head rubbed with Vaseline while he ate breakfast in bed.

  • Coolidge was an exceedingly stingy man. At the White House he demanded change from servants whom he had given money to for newspapers. When the servants kept the change, Coolidge would wander around the mansion saying, “Somebody owes me seven cents.”

  • When Hoover was elected president, Coolidge gave him just one bit of advice: “If you don’t say anything, you won’t be called on to repeat it.”

  • Coolidge’s modest ways were revealed by his choice of residence. Both before and after his term of office, he lived in Northampton, Massachusetts, in one half of a rented two-family house.

  • After Coolidge left the White House, he became a daily columnist, receiving one dollar for every word he wrote, or about $200,000 a year—over three times his salary as president. His skill as a columnist was revealed in his famous explanation of unemployment: “When more and more people are thrown out of work, unemployment results.”

  • When Coolidge died, Dorothy Parker asked, “How can they tell?”

  COOLIDGE WON’T GO TO HELL

  “A [Massachusetts state] legislative session was nearing its close, and, as was the usual practice, the two leaders [the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Calvin Coolidge, the president of the Senate] were conferring to determine what matters would be given precedence for action prior to the adjournment. Present also was a Senator from Boston who was vigorously determined that a bill that directly affected his district should be taken up immediately and not be carried over at a later date. In opposition to this insistence, Mr. Coolidge kept saying, ‘Senator, I don’t think that’s important enough in this rush hour.’—‘Senator, I don’t think we can do it.’

  “Finally, indignant and angry, the legislator snapped at the Senate’s presiding officer, ‘You can go to hell.’

  “‘Senator,’ Mr. Coolidge shot back, ‘I’ve looked up the law and I find I don’t have to.’”

  SOURCE: Edward Lathem, Meet Calvin Coolidge (Brattleboro, Vt.: Stephen Greene Press, 1960), p. 149.

  CALVIN COOLIDGE A WIT IN HIS OWN WAY

  Calvin Coolidge possessed the wry sense of humor characteristic of his native Vermont. Examples from his press conferences:

  President: I haven’t had any report from the Tariff Commission on butter, or straw hats, or gold leaf. I have a report on cotton gloves.

  President: I think the press already knows that I am expecting to attend the Fair—tomorrow, isn’t it, Mr. Sanders?

  Mr. Sanders: Yes, tomorrow afternoon about 2:00 o’clock.

  Reporter: It isn’t likely you will say anything tomorrow at the Fair?

  President: No. I am just going as an exhibit.

  SOURCE: Howard Quint and Robert Ferrell, eds., The Talkative President (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1964), pp. 18, 19.

  COOLIDGE PUSHES THE BUTTON

  President Coolidge was a practical joker. One prank grew out of his discovery, after an early-morning walk, of an alarm button on the front porch of the White House. “Feigning he was tired,” his Secret Service agent recalled, “he leaned against the button and pressed it. His solemn, immobile expression unchanged, he walked hurriedly into the house and from behind the safety of the living-room curtains peeked out and saw two policemen come tearing across the lawn, survey the scene, and, finding no one, return to the guard house. He pushed the button two more times and each time he would, without change of expression, watch the excitement that resulted.”

  SOURCE: Edward Latham, Meet Calvin Coolidge (Brattleboro, Vt.: Stephen Greene Press, 1960), p. 158.

  COOLIDGE PUTS HAIR ON JOHN ADAMS’S HEAD

  Calvin Coolidge did not like the oil painting of John Adams that hung in the Red Room, which he saw frequently from his table in the State Dining Room. He particularly disliked Adams’s bald head. But instead of having the portrait removed, he had the chief usher of the White House, Ike Hoover, put some hair on Adams’s head. Hoover obeyed and had an artist smear some turpentine on the bald pate to take off the shine and give it the appearance of a little hair. Coolidge later remarked to Hoover that Adams seemed to have grown some hair.

  SOURCE: Irwin Hood Hoover, Forty-two Years in the White House (Boston: Riverside Press, 1934), pp. 128–29.

  COOLIDGE WITHOUT RECOURSE

  A story about Silent Cal by William V. Hodges, treasurer of the Republican party during Coolidge’s administration:

  “I was lunching with President Coolidge one day when we were joined by an author who, of his volition and without approach to Mr. Coolidge, had written and published a biography of Calvin Coolidge. He wanted to present a copy of his book to the President. Mr. Coolidge was gracious enough to accept the book. Taking another copy of his work from under his arm, the author told the President that he would deem it a great honor if the President would write his name in the volume. The President did so. This is what he wrote: ‘Without recourse, Calvin Coolidge.’”

  SOURCE: Richard Peete, Anecdotes of the Jealous Mistress (Denver: University of Colorado Law Review, 1959), p. 4.

  WHY CALVIN COOLIDGE CHOSE NOT TO RUN

  One of the most famous and mysterious announcements ever made by a president was Calvin Coolidge’s 1927 statement, “I do not choose to run for president in 1928.” The statement was characteristically ters
e, but seemingly unclear. Coolidge had been expected to run again, and in the absence of an explanation his declaration seemed suspicious. Did he choose not to run because he wanted to be drafted? Pundits went wild with speculation and examined closely the import of every word.

  They need not have bothered. The announcement meant exactly what it seemed to mean. Why then did Coolidge not explain his decision and end the dark guesses about his motives? He didn’t want to reveal that he was physically unable to serve another term. A short time before, he had suffered a heart attack. Not until recently was this known.

  SOURCE: “The Reminiscences of Claude Moore Fuess” (1962), pp. 78–79 in the Oral History Collection of Columbia University.

  MORE ON COOLIDGE

  Will Rogers, the famous humorist, once asked Calvin Coolidge how he kept fit in a job that had broken the health of Woodrow Wilson. “By avoiding the big problems,” Coolidge replied in all seriousness.

  The president further eased the burdens of his office by confining himself to four hours of work a day and by taking a nap every afternoon.

  SOURCE: Isabel Leighton, ed., The Aspirin Age (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1949), p. 145.

  AL SMITH HOPES HE’S RIGHT

  “It seems that one day in Albany, in the midst of an important political convention, but not forgetful of high jinks, Herbert Lehman, Al Smith, Jimmy Walker, and many others of the old timers, had a big night of it. The next day was a Catholic holy day. Al Smith and Walker and the other Catholic members of the group decided that they had to make the early mass. They all occupied the same suite of rooms. As they tiptoed, groggy-eyed, through the rooms and looked at Lehman and others of the Jewish faith sleeping so quietly and beautifully, Al Smith turned to Walker and said, ‘Gee, I hope we’re right!’”

  SOURCE: B. A. Botkin, ed., A Treasury of American Anecdotes (New York: Random House, 1957), p. 41.