CHAPTER III.
Calvin Coolidge—The Machine Man of the Big Bankers
WHOEVER thinks that Cal Coolidge's rise to the Presidency was really meteoric, has got another guess coming to him.
Our thirtieth president has been in practical politics for almost a quarter of a century. During this period, Coolidge has gone thru the school of political hard knocks and has made the most of his bumps and successes.
The President is a graduate of the well-known school of practical American politics headed by the late Senator Murray Crane, of Massachusetts, who was one of the most skilled political jobbers and horse-dealers Washington has ever seen. This Bay State Senator was a high grade specimen of the ex-Senator Lorimer type of legislator; except that Crane put it over and delivered the goods with such skill as to avoid the fate that befell the Illinois man.
Protege of Murray Crane
It was Senator Crane who projected Coolidge into national politics. The late Senator built up a powerful machine in Massachusetts and was always on the lookout for promising political prospects. Crane picked up Coolidge, polished his rough edges, taught him the tricks of the game and turned him out the finished product that he is today.
Indeed, so finished a product did Coolidge turn out to be that Judge Field, his law partner in Northampton and a first-rate politician himself once said: "Calvin Coolidge is a shrewd politician. He has learned the game of politics from the bottom up."
A Machine Man
President Coolidge is a firm believer in the party machine and party loyalty. In actual every day life, loyalty to the Republican and Democratic Parties means loyalty to the employers and financiers who operate and finance them.
Commenting on the importance of this attitude of Coolidge, a Boston publication. "Practical Politics," sometime ago wrote: "He knows how to hustle for votes and realizes what the party owes to men who give their time and energy to party work."
And while he was governor Coolidge dropped the following significant remark to a prominent New York newspaperman: "We have a government of parties. We must recognize the party. A man ought to be loyal to those who have bee loyal to him."
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