By Jerry L. Wallace
The dawn of Election Day on November 4, 1924, found the residents of Plymouth, Vermont, excited. Most prepared to vote for one of their own—Calvin Coolidge—for president of the United States.
Colonel John Coolidge, Calvin’s father, was given the honor of being the first man to vote in Plymouth. He cast his vote at 10:00 a.m. in the general store at Plymouth Union, about a half mile down the hill from the Notch. Many spectators were present to watch him deposit his ballot in a wooden pail (pictured below). Throughout the day, a steady flow of residents came to cast their votes. At 4:00 p.m. the polls closed. Vermont was one of six states where the polls closed early to ensure a quick vote count.
That evening the residents of the Notch, like millions of their fellow citizens, gathered around radios to listen to election returns from around the nation. Journalists had designated this campaign as “the first radio election,” and it can be truly said that elections would never be the same again.
The Impact of Radio
Throughout the election season, the American people had listened to broadcasts of the political conventions, notification ceremonies, and the major addresses of the three presidential candidates: Republican Calvin Coolidge, Democrat John W. Davis, and third-party Progressive Robert M. La Follette. This was made possible by the explosive growth of commercial broadcasting stations starting in 1921. Radio receivers were becoming more common in American homes, having become a favorite Christmas gift. Sales also skyrocketed in 1924, owing in part to interest in the radio campaign.
Radio proved to be a godsend for Calvin Coolidge. He could speak directly to the American people via the radio but still focus on taking care of the public business. There would be no grueling “swing around the circuit” for Coolidge in 1924.
As a result of the radio’s new place in electoral politics, the elderly Colonel Coolidge had been able to listen his son’s major radio addresses in the comfort of his own home. These speeches included Calvin’s Annual Message to Congress (now called the State of the Union Address) in early December 1923 and his election eve address. In the latter, President Coolidge concluded by wishing his father good night up in Vermont. That personal remark, some political pundits opined, was worth a million votes.
In total, Coolidge made ten broadcast speeches during the election season. Only a few were of a strictly political nature, but all were useful for introducing Coolidge and his policies to the voting public.
Receiving the Election Returns Over Radio
The early evening of Election Day found Colonel Coolidge seated in the family parlor, where he had administered the presidential oath to his son fifteen months prior. He used the same kerosene lamp that had illuminated the homestead inauguration. But now he sat before a state-of-the-art five-tube radio set, on which he listened to the election returns from the WEEI station in Boston. This powerful station, operated by the Edison Electric Illuminating Company, had debuted only two months earlier, in September.
Meanwhile at the White House, the president and first lady settled in with their guests to receive returns by radio and a special United Press wire. As they did so, according to a United News story, they “opened a new era.” This would be, it was said, “the first time that a President has ever received election returns over the radio, a far cry from the way that earlier presidents received the news, which sometimes required weeks.”
Later in the evening, Colonel Coolidge joined his neighbors in the hall above Miss Florence Cilley’s store, where a radio receiver had been brought in from Bridgewater. He was dozing away there when a Boston Globe reporter, Corinne Danforth, awakened him with the first official news that his son had been elected president of the United States. He “appeared much gratified,” it was reported, but due to the recent passing of Calvin Jr., he was not in a celebratory mood. To mark his son’s success, however, Colonel Coolidge did enjoy a piece of cake with peach frosting.
The colonel was especially pleased to learn that the Plymouth vote had come out as he had reckoned: 165 for Coolidge (95 percent); 7 for John W. Davis (4 percent); and 1 vote for Robert M. La Follette (less than 1 percent). He was surprised that the vote for La Follette was not larger. Statewide, Coolidge garnered over 10,000 more votes than Warren Harding had in the 1920 landslide.
Coolidge’s victory had been anticipated, although the margin of his victory in the electoral college was higher than expected. For example, David Lawrence, a well-regarded political journalist, estimated that Coolidge would acquire between 333 and 360 electoral college votes. Coolidge, however, carried thirty-five states, giving him 382 electoral votes (72 percent). The radical Progressive La Follette, who had been the central focus of the Republican campaign, won only his home state of Wisconsin, while Davis carried only the “irrevocably Democratic” states of the old Confederacy, failing to take any border states.
Colonel Coolidge found it difficult to make out the radio returns coming in at the community hall. He said they were accompanied by the “sound of wild animals”—that is, static. So he returned home to listen to them on his more technologically advanced receiver.
The folks who had gathered at the hall continued to listen to the returns over WEEI—probably dancing to jazz music during breaks or listening to Wendell Hall sing his “It Ain’t Gwine Ter Rain No Mo’” as they celebrated Calvin Coolidge’s great victory. At midnight, an old-fashioned basket supper was served to the attendees. When Colonel Coolidge retired to bed that night, he did so as the proud father of a president elected in his own right.
The First Radio President
President Calvin Coolidge would serve out his full term, ending in March 1929. Coolidge’s administration presided over a period of nearly unparalleled peace, progress, and prosperity. And during that time, Coolidge made frequent use of the radio, a medium for which he was perfectly suited. He spoke to the American people an estimated seventy times, earning him the title of the nation’s first radio president even though, as he admitted, he rarely listened to it.
Jerry L. Wallace is a Coolidge scholar, whose interest in Calvin Coolidge and the 1920s dates back over sixty-five years. He has been a member of the Coolidge Presidential Foundation since 1972. He has served the Foundation as a trustee and is now a member of its National Advisory Board.
The historical information and photographs in this article can be found in Corinne Danforth’s November 5, 1924 article for the Boston Globe: “Elder Coolidge Not Celebrating,” located on pg. 19.