[From Index to the Calvin Coolidge Papers (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1965), pp.v-vi]

The Calvin Coolidge Papers in the Library of Congress consist largely of correspondence files remaining in the White House when the President left office on March 4, 1929. Following an exchange of letters between Mr. Coolidge and J. Franklin Jameson, [1] then Chief of the Manuscript Division in the Library, the collection, now estimated to number 175,000 pieces, was transferred to the Library of Congress as a deposit. Thereafter scholars were permitted to use the papers with the assent of Mr. Coolidge or, following his death in 1933, with that of his widow. Mrs. Coolidge formally gave the papers to the Library in 1953. [2] Since her death in 1957 access has been unrestricted. To this large group of papers, constituting series 1 in the microfilm edition and in this index, a few other Coolidge items acquired over the years have been added to form a much smaller series 2. Series 3 comprises three substantial volumes of names and addresses of guests at formal White House social functions.

It might be assumed that so large a number of manuscripts would provide enough material for a thorough study of Coolidge's long career of public service which began in Northampton, Mass., in 1899 and culminated in the Presidency, or at least that the 6 years Coolidge spent as Chief Executive would be rather completely documented. Such unfortunately, is not the case. The scholar must look elsewhere for the record of Coolidge's career before his becoming President, for the correspondence files for 1923-29, bulky as they are, reveal very little significant events of this period. These thousands of letters are mostly those from private citizens along with carbon copies of routine replies. They include only a small quantity of correspondence with political or governmental figures.

Although the “disappointingly thin” [3] character of the Coolidge Papers was long apparent, explanations could only be surmised until 1962 when the Edward T. Clark Papers were opened in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress. [4] Clark, a fellow Amherst College alumnus, had served as private secretary to Coolidge during the latter's tenure as Vice President and as President. In a letter to Harry E. Ross, Coolidge's last secretary, written shortly after the former President's death in 1933, Clark related that “Mr. Coolidge's desire was to destroy everything in the so-called personal files and there would have been nothing preserved if I had not taken some things out on my own responsibility.” [5] Five years later in a conversation with St. George L. Sioussat, then Chief of the Manuscript Division, Mrs. Coolidge stated that the late President had “destroyed all his ‘personal’ papers.” [6] The evidence is thus quite strong that Coolidge eliminated, if not quite all, at least a large part of his personal papers. The remainder, comprising the Calvin Coolidge Papers in the Library of Congress indexed in the present work and the smaller collection of Coolidge material at the Forbes Library in Northampton, is therefore of considerably less importance than its size or the career of its subject might suggest.

The right of each President to dispose of his personal papers in any way he might choose has been assumed throughout the history of the office, and Coolidge is not the first Chief Executive to destroy portions of his files. Martin Van Buren, Franklin Pierce, Chester A. Arthur, and William McKinley all destroyed parts of their personal papers from one motive or another. [7] In the case of Coolidge, the reason for such destruction very likely lies in his personality. His reserve is legendary. A shy and taciturn man, even by Yankee standards, he did not change the habits of a lifetime when he entered the White House. William Allen White, a critical though not unsympathetic biographer, recalled spending several days with Coolidge in 1924. “What I wanted,” he wrote, “was his slant on things, his point of view, the light that glowed in the inner chambers of his heart.” But, White added, “he kept it hooded.” [8] Claude M. Fuess, a quite sympathetic biographer, also lamented Coolidge's silences, noting that “his secretiveness is almost unparalleled among American statesmen.” [9] Finally, Edward T. Clark, who knew something of the contents of the destroyed papers and who was probably privy to as many secrets as anyone around Coolidge, in another letter commenting on the papers' destruction noted that “this would not involve the loss which you might at first imagine because as President, Mr. Coolidge did not follow the practice of other Presidents in trying to explain his Administration through letters to friends.” Hoover and Wilson, he continued, had deliberately tried to supply posterity with a record through memoranda or letters on public affairs. “Mr. Coolidge, however, strictly avoided this and the files, therefore, consisted of the huge number of letters to him which might be of interest but with replies which reveal little or nothing.” [10] Although this explanation may be small consolation to the student of 20th-century American politics, it is in keeping with Coolidge's personality. If he did not actually say “I have never been hurt by what I have not said,” [11] the statement epitomizes both Coolidge's attitude and the letters that have survived. The destruction of part of his own papers may have been but an extension of this philosophy.

It is against this background that the present work must be reviewed. The character of the surviving Coolidge Papers is such that it was decided that the most useful as well as most economical index would be one organized around the “case” files and subject titles of the collection's contents, together with cross- references. In consequence, this index is much smaller than would be one which indexed every correspondent and every letter.

Coolidge material, of course, survives in other collections. The Edward T. Clark Papers, already referred to, contain a number of Coolidge letters and other material about him, as do the papers of his confidant and adviser Frank Waterman Stearns at Holy Cross College, Worcester, Mass. The Everett Sanders Papers in the Library of Congress contain reading copies of Coolidge speeches. At the Forbes Library in Northampton, Massachusetts, there is a significant collection of Coolidge material. There, in the Calvin Coolidge Memorial Room, are to be found letters received and copies of letters sent while Coolidge was Governor of Massachusetts, along with clippings, copies of speeches, and memorabilia.

1. Jameson to Coolidge, May 6, 1929; Coolidge to Jameson, May 9, 1929; Manuscript Division files.

2. Instrument of gift, March 24, 1953. Exchange and Gift Division files.

3. Allan Nevins in Dictionary of American Biography, XXI (New York, 1944), p.198.

4. The Clark Papers were given to the Library in 1942 by Charles Kohen with the provision that they be sealed for 20 years. They are now available for use.

5. Clark to Ross, March 31, 1933. Edward T. Clark Papers.

6. Memorandum, March 3, 1959. Manuscript Division files.

7. See Robert V. Remini, Martin Van Buren and the Making of the Democratic Party (New York, 1959), p. 13; and the Library of Congress: Calendar of the Papers of Martin Van Buren (Washington, 1910), p, 5; Index to the Franklin Pierce Papers (Washington, 1962), p. v; Index to the Chester A. Arthur Papers (Washington, 1961), p. v; and Index to the William McKinley Papers (Washington, 1963) p. vi

8. A Puritan in Babylon, the Story of Calvin Coolidge (New York, 1938), p. vii.

9. Calvin Coolidge, the Man from Vermont (Boston, 1940), p. 469

10. Clark to Harry E. Ross, January 28, 1933. Edward T. Clark Papers.

11. Quoted in John H. McKee, compiler, Coolidge Wit and Wisdom (New York, 1933), p. 121