Presentation of the third Calvin Coolidge Notary Award to
Cynthia J. Dokmo, NH State Representative
By Cyndy Bittinger, Executive Director, CCMF
December 6, 2005

Click here for more information and photos about the event
as reported by the National Notary Association.

I bring you greetings from Plymouth, Vermont where over a million Americans since 1923 have come to see the house where Vice President Calvin Coolidge took the oath of office to become the President of the United States. The Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation has as its mission to inspire the public to appreciate and study the legacy of President Coolidge to forge a stronger society for the future.

To set the scene for the homestead inaugural in 1923, I should describe the notary public who qualified the oath of office. John Coolidge was born in 1845 and was 78 years old when he came to fame as a notary. He had owned the village store for over 15 years and was a town leader in Plymouth. He also represented the town in the state legislature as a state senator. His family had been among the original settlers of the town after the Revolutionary War and to most of the town, he represented THE LAW. He was a gentleman farmer and skilled mason who relaxed by tapping maple trees!

His son was Calvin Coolidge, born in 1872 in Plymouth, Vermont in a building attached to the store his father ran. After attending the town’s one room schoolhouse, he went on to the local academy where he was encouraged to go to college, the first one in his family to attend. He traveled to Massachusetts and was AN AMHERST COLLEGE MAN. From there he read the law in Northampton, MA where he joined the Republican party. Soon he was running for offices and winning! He progressed from state representative to state senator, lt. governor and governor. He achieved national fame with his handling of the Boston Police Strike of 1919. Remember he was the governor to say, “There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time.” His political backers went to the national Republican convention of 1920 waving books entitled Law and Order quoting Calvin’s speeches. When the party bosses chose Warren Harding to head the ticket, the unruly delegates rebelled and insisted on Coolidge as the candidate for Vice President. When placing the name of Coolidge in nomination at the Chicago convention, the Speaker of the House described the Coolidge character, “A boyhood on a lonely farm in Vermont bred in him frugality and self-reliance. The granite hills seem to have molded his great indomitable character…The limelight attracts him less than the midnight oil. He is patient as Lincoln, silent as Grant, diplomatic as McKinley, with the political instinct of Theodore Roosevelt…His character is as firm as the mountains of his native state…”

The ticket won and the Coolidges settled into a role as the “second” couple, ready to fill in for the President and First Lady on a moment’s notice. When the Hardings left for the West Coast, in 1923, the Coolidges went to Vermont to visit Calvin’s father. Little did they know that the President Harding’s heart problems would become serious and he would die in office.

Let me read from the Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge to describe the oath of office event: (Pages 173-177)
When Calvin’s father was later asked, “How did you know you could administer the presidential oath to your own son?” He replied, “I didn’t know that I couldn’t.”
There were three copies of this oath of office. None survive. One of the challenges I suggest to you is to help us find a copy. This is a mystery. Where were the oaths filed? Were they taken back to Washington? Sent to Vermont’s capital, Montpelier? Further research is needed.

In conclusion, I wish to thank Tim Reiniger for inviting me here to Manchester and I am thrilled that the third Calvin Coolidge Notary award is being presented today.