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August 1, 2022 3:00 am
On this episode of Our American Stories, Roger Brucker shares the story of radio pioneer, "Skeets" Miller, and the surprising story of the first time a parachute jump was broadcast on live radio. Matthew Denhart and Tracy Messer of the Coolidge Foundation tell the story of America's 30th President, a man molded by his rural hometown of Plymouth Notch, Vermont.Â
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Time Codes:
00:00 - The First Radio Broadcast of a Parachute Jump
10:00 - From The Farm House to the White House: The Story of Calvin CoolidgeÂ
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This is Mrs. our American stories assure were Americans the store and the American people search for the our American stories podcast go to the iHeartRadio F forever you get your pump test in the 1930s radio was cutting edge technology corporations vied for listeners in an arms race renovation Dietz Miller was a pioneer in on location reporting Roger Brecher first met him in a cave expedition in 1954 two became fast friend Roger Brecher tells them stories about the ever adventurous radio pioneer William Burke Dietz Miller Burke Miller at the time of the five dollars rescue is about 22 years old. I first met him in 1954 when he was about 30 years old. He was an executive vice president of NBC and had agreed to come along on this expedition because of his prior association with Floyd and because he was still interested in on the spot reporting, I should point out that after the Floyd Collins affair. He won the Pulitzer Prize for journalism for that interview with Lloyd Collins and he went on to New York and became the father of on the spot radio reported that how tell you a funny story that any rate was known or reported from submarines for the tops of mountains from all kinds of remote places where radio just go ahead now days we just take on the spot reporting is normal. The funny story is that the one he got to New York. He was an art station their hair up in a skyscraper that overlooked the East River and Brooklyn. There was a flying field there and he thought, you know, why don't we rig up a small radio and give it to a parachutist and have the parachutist describe what it's like to jump out of the plane was like to float down and that it would be a sensational on the spot report so they said okay so the engineer of the radio station put together sort of a fishing tackle box full of radio and microphone and so on.
They got the parachutist ready and he went out to the airfield and he no wire. The guy up as the plane was about to take off. The guy said well what am I supposed to say I don't have any idea suitable got sick.
He said so he scribbled on 3 x 5 card. You know what you see what you feel are you concerned about where you land. How windy is it you see the suburbs just had a few bullet points like that said, you jump out just cover these topics that I said okay, so the plane winds its way up to altitude. He sees the door open.
The parachute flutter out the guys dropping Dennis dead air and meanwhile, back in the studio, then the youngest standing by.
So the pianist breaks it with piano music and that this guy never says a word.
So Miller drives over to where the sky lands is what the hell happened. Well when I jumped out of the plane.
The card blew away the silent parachute.that's how I knew him a course I was the person chosen to hold his hand during the week that he stayed underground crystal cave in 1954, so I got to know him pretty well.
He was full of stories of how he was apparently attached to Patton's army or something.
World War II and he got to some town in the town talked about wanting to get the orchestra started again. Apparently all the orchestra players had been dispersed to some of them were killed in bombings and so on. His men discovered that under the wallpaper in the place they had appropriated for the headquarters of his unit were rice marks money wallpapered to the wall under the wallpaper so they gathered all this and gave it to the orchestra people so they can put their orchestra back to again.
Well, that's of interest, but is so typical of speech. Miller and I went up to New England to interview him. Turns out he was married to a woman that when I was five or six years old I heard on the radio as the singing lady in the singing lady would tell stories and sing songs that would incorporate stories and I thought that was a wonderful program at age 5 or six well and he married that person and that she had the same kind of lilting voice and she was younger than he was. He was an attractive person that he could attract the singing lady who was my ideal woman for a long time in my life and a terrific job in the storytelling and production 900 McNish. Special thanks to Roger Brecher sharing his story that's finally, there was a time when mother was with live radio and imagine what that was like that is the equivalent of let's say putting a goat row camera on someone's head jumping out of an airplane to hear what happens. Why do we call these readings in our business and their tricks to get people to tune in line to see what they When it's pulled off. It's great when it's a failure it's even more interesting, and that's the joy of this old technology. By the way, that is still fighting many listening to the show. Still on radio a story about many things Roger Brecher story of skeets Miller you in our American story books.
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Simply go to Geico.com or contact your local agent today and we returned to our American stories up next story on North 30th Pres. Calvin cool you to tell the story of this remarkable figure is Matthew Denhardt of the Coolidge foundation also presenting in this story is a Calvin Coolidge impersonator Tracy Messer. He's reading from coaches remarkable autobiography. Let's get into the store. Calvin Coolidge was born July 4, 1872, was born in his parents, small house back in his parents bedroom on the very bad… Left in the small village of Plymouth, not mine. Village of Plymouth knots was tiny but very beautiful mountains around the knots as they call it very picturesque maple trees around on the mountain so meddling in the spring was a popular and necessary activity with said that Calvin was able to get more maple sap out of a tree than most of the other youngsters in Plymouth knots when he was growing up there would've been only a few dozen residents that is to say a number of families and and no more.
It was rather isolated the people there were primarily farmers in some small merchants.
Here's Calvin Coolidge on Plymouth Notch neighborhood around the notch was made up of people of exemplary had speech was clean and their lives were above reproach. They had no mortgages on their farm. Any debts were contracted. They were promptly paid credit was good money in the savings bank break of day saw him staring industry continued until Twyla was his own father is probably good example of the kind of work that was done employment. He ran the village store.
He also was a farmer himself and his father also was very skilled with his hands.
He was a blacksmith. He was also the town tax collector. He was a constable just as the peace really is a model citizen if you will. Here's Calvin Coolidge on his father, Col. John Coolidge IFAD John Calvin Coolidge ran the country still was successful annual rent of the whole place was $40.
I heard him say that his merchandise bills were about 10,000 year had no other expenses is profits were about $100 per month on the average, we must've sold on a very close match trusted nearly everybody lost a surprisingly small amount. He was a good businessman and a very hard worker and did not like to see things wasted The store about 13 years and sold it to my mother's brother became a prosperous merchant.
In addition to his business ability. My father was very skillful with his hand best buggy he had for 20 years was the one who made himself. He had a complete set of tools to do all kinds of building and carpentry work knew how to lay bricks and was an excellent stonemason.
He kept tools for mending shoes and harness and repairing for water pipes and can knew how to perform all kinds of delicate operations on domestic animals lines he laid out with Truman straight curves, regular work he did and do there was any physical requirement of country life.
She could not perform. I do not know what it was watching him and assisting him.
I gained an intimate knowledge of all this kind of work. Calvin Coolidge's mother, Victoria Josephine Coolidge was named for two entrances.
She was important to Calvin C was devoted wife of wonderful mother. She tragically died when Coolidge was only 12 years old. It brought him great grief. Here's Coolidge writing about her death seems impossible that any man could adequately describe his mother.
I cannot describe. She was practically an invalid ever after. I could remember what strength she had lavish care on me and my sister was three years younger. It was a touch of mysticism and poetry in her nature made him love to gaze at the purple sunsets and watch the evening staff have.
It was grand and beautiful attracted seems as though the rich green tints of the foliage blossoms. The flowers came for her in the spring and autumn was for her mountainsides were struck crimson and gold when she knew that her and was she called us children to a bedside where we knelt down to receive her final packing list in our she was gone. It was her 39th birthday. I was 12 years old. We made her way in the blustering snows of matter greatest grief that can come to a boy came to me life to seeing the same Coolidge time so much observing the other adults around him as he was growing up, implement knots. These were hearty New Englanders. People who believe strongly in service citizenship. He noted that they carry themselves with dignity. Everything they did was honest and believed in community and they had strong faith there.
Especially modest Coolidge learn from the people in Plymouth knots that you don't judge your fellow man or woman other citizens by their well by what they have, but instead by their character. Here's Coolidge on the people Plymouth knots and how they view wealth and class distinctions held strongly to the doctrine of the quality whenever the highest man of the Hyatt. Gail wanted to go anyway.
They were always understood to be entitled to my place in the wagon which case I remained. This gave me a very early train democratic ideas impressed upon me very forcibly, the dignity and power, if not the superiority of labor was all a fine atmosphere in which to raise and lower the also often reflected back on his childhood and he didn't believe that he lost out on anything having grown up in a rural small place. In fact, he thought that Plymouth Notch imbued in him the kind of values and traits that were necessary to succeed later in life. Here's Coolidge writing about the benefits of growing up in the country. We felt the cold in the winter had many inconveniences we did not mind because we supposed they were the inevitable burdens of existing hard to imagine better surroundings for the development of a boy and those which I had while a wide breadth of training and knowledge could have been presented to me. Mind was given sufficient opportunity thoroughly to digest all that came to country life does not always have rats, but it has its neither artificial nor superficial is kept close to the reality did not afford me the best. There was talk abundantly provided me best was for me and you're listening to the story of Calvin Coolidge when we return more of this remarkable life this country life you on our Americans back with our American stories and the story of our 30th resident Calvin Coolidge is told by Matthew Denhardt and also Coolidge impersonator Tracy Messer. Let's continue with the story. He felt prepared for college since his father was supportive of Calvin attending college, even in a time when most young people do not go on to earn a bachelor's degree. Calvin set his sights high. He wanted to get Amherst College in important liberal arts school in Amherst, Massachusetts. However, he fell ill.
Perhaps seven nerves and performed very poorly on the entrance exam humiliated, he returned home to Plymouth Notch and spent months helping his father rebuild the countertops in the general store. However, he remained determined to pursue a college education, especially Amherst. He learned that he could pursue a remedial term St. John's berry Academy high school in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont and through a special program is able to gain admittance to Amherst showcasing his persistence even at a young age.
There were two professors who are particularly important to Calvin Coolidge in Amherst. The first was Anson Morse. Morse was a historian and a professor of government from Morse Coolidge learn about the proper role of government. The nature of our Constitution and the relationship as it should be between the government and its citizens. Here's Coolidge writing about Prof. Anson Morse placed particular emphasis on the era when institutions had their beginning. Washington was treated with the greatest reference high estimate was placed on the statesmanlike qualities.
Financial capacity of Hamilton and Jefferson was not neglected in spite of his many big guarantees. It was shown that conceiving the nation from the danger of falling under the dominion of an oligarchy and in establishing a firm rule of the people, which was forever to remain.
He vindicated the soundness of our political institutions. The whole course was a thesis on good citizenship and good government. Those who took it came to a clearer comprehension not only of their rights and liberties but of their duties and responsibilities after Amherst College.
Coolidge prepared himself to become a lawyer. However, rather than going to law school instead read the law reading the law meant that he was a clerk actual law firm.
That firm is handling field in Northampton Massachusetts he learned from the older lawyers. Almost as an apprentice would he read his law books at night. The public library and prepared himself to pass the bar exam by reading law. Coolidge was following in the footsteps of another great American president Abraham Lincoln Lincoln.
Of course, was one of America's greatest players of all time. He never went to law school. Coolidge was a young lawyer, Northampton, Massachusetts when he met the love of his life. Grace and I get you the story goes that Coolidge was shaving in his first floor apartment.
Grace was outside the window and chuckled to herself. Seeing this young man struggling to shape the later would exchange letters in court for a time for unmarried. Here's Coolidge nearly 25 years later, reflecting on his years of marriage to love in his life.
Grace from our being together. We seem naturally to come to care for each other became engaged early summer of 1905, were married at her home in Burlington, Vermont on October 4. I have seen so much fiction written on this subject that I may be patent formulated plain fact we thought we would made for each other almost quarter of the century is born with my infirmity. I rejoiced Grace's clothes would quickly get involved in politics that he served in almost every office imaginable and eventually was elected governor of Massachusetts there was a good deal of labor unrest around the country and indeed around the world is Coolidge on the growing spirit of radicalism in America, 1919. It appeared to me in January 1914 the spirit of radicalism prevailed, which last checked, was likely to prove very destructive been encouraged by the opposition and large faction of my own pack. It consisted of the claimant general that in some way the government was to be blamed because everybody was not prosperous because it was necessary to work for a living and because our written constitutions, the legislatures and the courts protected the rights of private owners, especially in relation to large aggregations of property. The previous session had been overwhelmed with a record number of bills introduced many of them in an attempt to help the employee by impairing the property of the employer, anxious to improve the condition of wage earners. I believe this doctrine would soon destroy business and deprive them of the life called his first great test is a public leader came in 1919 in Boston. The police believed that their pay and conditions were inadequate. The police walked out on strike panic and soon there were riots in the city evil died. Coolidge took a hard-line Coolidge said there is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody anytime anywhere for that. He signaled that he would not hire this writing policeman back that they would lose their jobs. In fact, he said that they had abandoned the contract to protect the city he would help them find new jobs, but he believed that the rule of law was of the utmost importance the political ramifications of Coolidge's actions. The Boston police strike had the opposite effect from what he had feared rather than spelling doomed to his political futures propelled him to the national stage. He was praised by politicians around the country, including Pres. Woodrow Wilson that made Coolidge somewhat of a household name in the coming presidential election. Coolidge was not selected as a Republican candidate for president in 1920. However, having The nation's attention. Coolidge was named to the vice presidential slot on the 1920 ticket running alongside Warren G. Harding on August 2, 1923, while on a trip out West Pres. Warren Harding tragically died, Calvin Coolidge, VP was with grace and Plymouth Notch Vermont visiting his father in his boyhood home. Even in those days hundred knots did not have telephone service. Electricity word had to be sent by telegram.
It was first received, the next village down complainant, the town of Bridgewater. The dispatcher received the telegram and he himself drove the news in the middle of the night the Plymouth Notch. He arrived around midnight. It was pitch black. He knocked on the family store and gave the news to Calvin's father, Col. John Coolidge and you been listening to Matthew Danner Coolidge foundation telling the story of Calvin Coolidge and also Coolidge impersonator Tracy Messer reading periodically from Coolidge's remarkable autobiographical memory. When we come back more of this remarkable life story little Plymouth Notch the white Calvin Coolidge's life story continues here on our American story and were back without American stories in the final portion of our story on Calvin Coolidge.
When we last left off. Pres. Warren G. Harding died.
Coolidge was in Plymouth Notch with his father and family and again this is a time when there was no telephone message or been dispatched from a neighboring town to go to the Coolidge household. Let's pick up we last left off the arrived around midnight. It was pitch black and knocked on the family store and gave the news to Calvin's father, Col. John Coolidge is Calvin Coolidge in his memoir writing about how he learned that he was president of the United States of America on the night of August 2, 1923 I was awakened by my Fatah coming up the stairs: my name, I noticed that his voice trembled as the only times I had ever observed that before when death had visited our family. I knew that something of the gravest nature had occurred is a motion was partly due to the knowledge man whom he had met and liked was gone, partly to the feeling that must possess all of our citizens.
When the life of the president is taken from Coolidge was now president and he needed to take the oath of office rather than have a grand inauguration.
Coolidge said what was practical together grace and his father and a few others were visiting bring them to the family setting. Col. John Coolidge was a Notary Public, giving him the authority to administer the oath of office to his son standing in the family sitting room with the family Bible on the table. Coolidge raised his right hand for the light of kerosene lamp took the oath of office, becoming America's 30th president asked later why he thought he had the authority to administer the oath.
Col. John Coolidge said well, nobody told me I couldn't.
The next morning, Coolidge visited his mother's grave for inspiration and then took the train down to Washington, Coolidge believe the proper course for policy was to follow the policies set forth by Pres. Harding that meant a return to normalcy balancing the government's budget cutting taxes and letting Americans get back to the normal lives after disruptive progressive.
In world war, Coolidge started only by getting back to basics when America prosper, which was my desire to maintain about the White House as far as possible an attitude of simplicity and not to engage in anything that had an air of pretentious display that was my conception of the great office carry sufficient power within itself so that it does not require any of the outward trappings of pomp and splendor, for the purpose of creating an impression as a dignity of its own which makes it self-sufficient because there should be proper formality and personal relation should be conducted at all times with the car amended and in accordance with the best traditions of polite society, but there is no need of theatrical's goodly first in constructive economy that meant taking the utmost care with the public's money. He was a ferocious budget or the balance the budget of the federal government every year will president who thought the top marginal tax rate on income tax on the way down to 25%. Wealth comes from industry and from the hard experience of human toil dissipated in waste and extravagance is disloyalty to humanity.
This is by no means a doctrine of passion. Both men and nations should live in accordance with their means.
Both their substance not only to productive industry.
The creation of the various forms of beauty and pursuit of culture which give adornments to the active life when I became president.
It was perfectly apparent key by which the weight could be open national progress was constructive economy only by the use of that policy. The high rates of taxation were retired and on development and prosperity be diminished, and the enormous burden public debt be reduced. The results were astounding. We hear about the roaring 20s today and they did more. It was in the 1920s, when most American households receive electricity was in the 1920s when indoor plumbing finally arrived even implement not was also in the 1920s, when Americans became so productive they were able to finally have a day of leisure that they became known as Saturday, a day off automobiles became much more widespread is the era of Henry Ford's assembly line. This is the heir of Thomas Edison and mentioned race relations improved considerably beginning of the decade the Ku Klux Klan was on the march. By the end was greatly in decline tragedy would visit Pres. Coolidge again.
It was the summer of 1924, his sons, John Coolidge and Calvin Junior visiting the White House. They went out back to the White House tennis court to play game.
Calvin Junior was not wearing socks.
He developed a blister seemed harmless at first, but soon became infected infection would take over his body.
Although Calvin Junior had the best medical care available at the time, not even those doctors could save and writing in his memoir Calvin Coolidge says in his suffering. He was asking me to make him well. I could not. When he went the power and the glory of the presidency went with with Coolidge's first term nearing an end, he was a showing to be reelected.
Americans were very happy with the job Calvin Coolidge is doing as president. Dr. roaring 20s were often referred to as Coolidge prosperity. The party leaders always demanding the Coolidge run.
They wanted an answer.
The press of course were also very interested. It was the summer of 1927 and Coolidge and Grace were in South Dakota summer White House escaping heat Washington DC Coolidge call the small press conference together rather than deliver a major address instead handed the newspapermen a small slip of paper upon it. He had earlier written just a few words, those words read. I do not choose to run for president in 1928 without Coolidge made his intentions clear he would do the almost unthinkable step away from power the grandest office in the world and return to life is a private citizen, the country was shocked people wondered what did he mean by I do not choose to run for president.
Was it that he wanted to be convinced. Well a few years later, Coolidge would reflect on what he meant by these words in his memoir is Coolidge explaining his decision not to run again. Perhaps I have already indicated some of the reasons why I did not desire to be a candidate to succeed myself presidential office takes a heavy toll on those who occupy it. Those who are dear to why we should not refuse to spend and be spent in the service of our country's past is to attempt field is beyond our strength to occult in his memoir: said we draw our presidents from the people is a wholesome thing for them to return to the people Coolidge retired quietly from the presidency in 1929. Moving back home to be with the people in his adopted hometown of Northampton, Massachusetts. He and Grace moved back into the half of the duplex home on Massasoit Street where they had spent so many years. The crowds did overwhelm them coming to visit, so they eventually moved to a slightly larger house not long after completing his memoir Calvin Coolidge died in his New England home January 5, 1933 for president was only 60 years old. Coolidge at once said, be brief, above all things, be brief, treated that his funeral was a mere 22 minutes. He was buried in the Hillside Cemetery implement notch alongside generations of his family before you might expect, the headstone of a former president to be grand. Coolidge's is in good headstone, a simple engraved in the granite is only his name Calvin Coolidge in the years of his birth and death.
You could be forgiven for not knowing that this is the headstone of a former president, after all, the only medication is the presidential seal engraved quietly at the top of the headstone and a great job on the production by Monty Montgomery and a special thanks to Matthew Denhardt and a special thanks also to the Coolidge impersonator Tracy Messer was doing dramatic readings from Coolidge's remarkable memoir which waited a mere 246 pages story of Calvin Coolidge dear on our American story