Early one afternoon last week Senator Carter Glass was warmly expounding his bank reform bill on the Senate Floor when Senator Swanson, his Virginia Colleague, nudged him, whispered something. For a moment Senator Glass looked dumfounded. Then in a quavering voice he announced: "Mr. President, I have just been apprised of a fact very, very distressing to the nation generally and to me particularly. Former President Coolidge has just dropped dead. I think the Senate should immediately adjourn." Numb with shock, the Senate adjourned.
At the White House President Hoover was lunching with Secretary of State Stimson. Chief Usher Irwin Hood ("Ike") Hoover tiptoed into the dining room. Into the President's ear he whispered the news: "Mr. Coolidge has just died of heart failure." After a stunned moment, the President pushed back his chair, laid down his napkin, strode to his office. There he hastily dispatched a special message to Congress, issued a proclamation for 30 days of public mourning. Within five minutes, down to half-staff came the White House flag. Down came the flags of Washington, of the nation.
The House, after it had heard the news by word of mouth, continued in session an hour to receive the President's message. It read: "It is my painful duty to inform you of the death today of Calvin Coolidge. . . . There is no occasion for me to recount his eminent services. . . . His entire lifetime has been one of single devotion to our country. . . ." Then the House, too, adjourned.
At Plymouth, Vt. Miss Aurora Pierce, longtime Coolidge housekeeper, heard a tap on the homestead window. Allen Brown, a neighbor, was outside. She raised the sash to hear him say: "Calvin's dead, Aurora." She sat down in the room in which the 30th President of the U. S. had taken the oath from his father at 2:47 a. m., Aug. 3, 1923, and let her tears run in silent grief.
In New York President-elect Roosevelt got word by telephone from a press association in the study of his home. He was "inexpressibly shocked" at the death of the man who had defeated him for the Vice-Presidency in 1920.
On the New York Stock Exchange, hundreds of brokers got the news simultaneously from their office tickers. They stared blankly, incredulously at each other. Trading slacked off uncertainly with falling prices. The day closed with a brief little rally—a farewell salute to the man whose name has been given to the greatest bull market in history.
Frank Billings Kellogg, his Secretary of State, heard about it at Des Moines on his way to California. Andrew William Mellon, his Secretary of the Treasury, found it hard to believe the news as the S. S. Majestic carried him back to his Ambassadorial post at London. Dwight Filley Davis, his Secretary of War, was at Tallahassee. John Garibaldi Sargent, his Attorney General, was recovering from influenza at his Ludlow, Vt. home. Frank Stearns, his closest personal friend, the man who picked him for President long before the Boston police strike, was so overcome with grief in Boston that he could say nothing for hours.