This volume--widely advertised both outside and inside the covers as Coolidge's first biography--aspires to give a picture of the President as the "personal friend that he is" and to drive at "quality not quantity". Mr. Washburn, the biographer, has succeeded in one thing. He has written the first biography of Calvin Coolidge. I can't think of anything else in the book to call successful.

Throughout the history of American politics one hears of great men being ruined by their friends. This is how it is done. Mr. Washburn has written a campaign book and has written it badly. President Coolidge is a silent and reserved gentleman. His life has in it little of the dramatic, his character makes no popular appeal. But he has inspired the country with confidence in his abilities. Mr. Washburn attempts to supply from his own genius what qualities may be lacking in his subject. His loud garrulity makes one realize why Coolidge prefers to keep silent; he supplements for dramatic interest an abundance of cheap farce; he writes of the President of the United States as if he were a hole-and-corner politician. The book drips with New England but from beginning to end there is hardly mention of any other states in the Union. Frankly booming the President, he overstates his case. Coolidge was a great governor, he has so far acted as a dignified chief executive. But not on these counts is the country likely to hall as the "greatest man since Abraham Lincoln" one who has gained the Presidency through a tragic accident.

But lest it be thought that I am underestimating Mr. Washburn's work let me quote at random. "This is another story of the Log Cabin to the White House." "Cal first went to school in the little red schoolhouse." "He early became an adept in divorcing the lowing herd which winds slowly o'er the lea from the raw material which makes for butter and cheese." "He is as much himself at work in smock-frock and boots as the sometimes effete children of Beacon Street, when they loll in dinner jackets, or decollate and lapis lazuli." "Cal he was, Cal he is." "Fate pointed the path and the country lost a Chief-Justice but found a President." When proposing to Miss Goodhue "he gently spread a kerchief upon the carpeted floor on Maple Street. With characteristic foresight even then he sought to protect his right pant, for trousers were not in those days worn in Burlington, as he knelt before his "ideal." "The family might with some reason adopt as its crest the Cal-la Lily." (This is one of the many "wise cracks" after the manner of Will Rogers that Mr. Washburn thought good enough to center in italics in the middle of his pages. Will Rogers still sleeps soundly.) "Had the League of Nations become the power it was planned he would not have dallied with the Presidency but he would have stepped immediately to the head of that great association." "He is vulnerable in the raiment about the base of his head where it meets the body, or in easy English, his neck: Here it must be confessed the points of his collar shun each other and the tie droops." "He now holds the highest office on earth by virtue of a title greater than that of any electorate. God made him President."

Something too much of this perhaps. But should you choose to read the book you will find five times more than too much of it. Mr. Washburn has overstated his case and lost his effect. He has tried to slap Coolidge on the back and Boston in the face at the same time, and has succeeded only in being ridiculous. He has also incidentally murdered the English language.

There are, however, some good points in the book--the quotations. What other people have said about Coolidge is often of a revealing nature and as often interesting. But best of all is what Coolidge has said--about anything. If you must read Mr. Washburn's book you must, and nothing can stop you. But if you are determined, only make a point of reading first the President's "Have Faith in Massachusetts". From this collection of his speeches you can gain an impression and appreciation of Coolidge's character which even the vulgarism efforts of Massachusetts effusions can cheapen.