President Calvin Coolidge Writes Thomas Edison On His Last Day in Office

 

Calvin Coolidge and Thomas Edison were symbols of an era of innovation and economic prosperity.  Edison was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. Coolidge was President during the last stage of this innovation and presided over the prosperity and excesses of the Roaring Twenties.  He also gained a reputation as a small government conservative, and as a man who said very little, although having a fair sense of humor.

 

Coolidge and Edison had a friendly history. From 1914 to 1924 Edison, Henry Ford, and Henry Firestone – jokingly referred to as the Vagabonds – embarked on camping trips nearly ever year. On August 19, 1924, the Vagabonds made their pilgrimage to Coolidge’s family farm in Plymouth Notch, Vermont, where the famous photograph of Edison, Ford, Firestone, and the Coolidge clan was taken out in front of the Coolidge family’s clapboard house. The conversation that day was heavy on politics, with the three Vagabonds voicing high praise for Coolidge’s stewardship of the national government. Edison predicted a Coolidge win in November because of the President’s keen “horse sense.” “The people think he has more horse sense than anybody else. He don’t talk too much,” Edison mused.

 

Edison’s prediction was right, and Coolidge won the presidential election in November of that year.  Toward the end of his 2nd term, on May 21, 1928, the House of Representatives voted to approve a bill to award inventor Thomas A. Edison a Congressional Gold Medal. This is the highest civilian award within the purview of Congress. The chairman’s report submitted to the House contained a letter from Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon, who noted the lack of domestic recognition for Edison given the outpouring of international accolades for his inventions. “Wearing in the lapel of his coat the ribbon of the Legion of Honor of France, symbolized and honored by eight other foreign nations, the recipient of degrees from 22 colleges,” Mellon wrote, “Mr. Edison has yet to receive a medal at the hands of the United States.” The House agreed and passed the resolution. President Coolidge signed the legislation on May 29, 1928. Secretary Mellon awarded Edison the medal on October 20, 1928, in his West Orange, New Jersey laboratory.  President Coolidge spoke via a radio link from the White House saying: "[T]here is scarcely an electrical process or instrument of to-day which does not reflect in some way changes wrought by his researches."

 

On March 4, 1929, Coolidge’s last day in office, he received a telegram from Edison wishing him well in this next phase of life.  Coolidge responded immediately, before leaving office, in this Typed Letter Signed, dated March 4, 1929, on White House Stationary, in what is surely one of his last, if not his very last, letter as President: “My dear Mr. and Mrs. Edison:  I want you to know just how deeply I appreciate the cordial and friendly telegram received from you today.  Mrs. Coolidge joins me in thanking you for your expressions of good will and send our best wishes to you for the future.  Very truly yours, Calvin Coolidge.” The original envelope, addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Edison at their home in Fort Myers, Florida, postmarked 7:30pm March 4, 1929 from Washington D.C., with the 2 cent stamp still intact, is included.

 

While warm sentiments between famous men shed light on their personal nature, what makes this letter even more interesting is the direct reference to the telegram. The key to Edison's fortunes was telegraphy. With knowledge gained from years of working as a telegraph operator, he learned the basics of electricity. This allowed him to make his early fortune with the stock ticker, the first electricity-based broadcast system.