Calvin Coolidge

From The Paderewski memoirs, 1938 by Ignace Jan Paderewski and Mary Lawton

Grover Cleveland, for example, was just as 100 per cent American was Theodore Roosevelt. President Wilson was just as much of an American as those two, but their temperaments were absolutely different. Cleveland was a great lawyer and administrator. Roosevelt was a hero and a fighter, and President Wilson was a student and an apostle. President Wilson's knowledge of history was really exceptionally great and lofty, and he is still very much misunderstood in America in France. But in France they had particular reasons for that, because still very beginning, right after the War, they believed in his omnipotence. They thought his presence in Paris meant complete fulfilment of his plan during those crucial weeks of struggle and the birth of the League of nations. The French people did not know that without the approval of your Congress, his hands were tied—he could do nothing. they felt he could do anything he wanted, and the feelings throughout Europe even now concerning Wilson are very mixed. For instance, nations which have been reconstructed, or resurrected, if you like,e through Wilson's appeals (Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and my own country, Poland), still worship him. France, England, and Italy felt that they were deceived, and Germany, of course, is inflamed when speaking of Wilson. They hate him.

But you know, I am of the opinion that if President Wilson had taken with him instead of General Bliss, who was a lovely fellow, and Mr. Henry White—if he had taken to France on that eventful trip of his, Mr. Lodge, who was a bitter opponent of the League of Nations, and Mr. Elihu Root—everything could have been accomplished—everything. But he was too partisan in that respect. Like every important personality, he stood alone. He could not endure any kind of opposition and difference of opinion—that was characteristic of him and was his principal certainly Coolidge was not fond of talking. Though in contradiction to that I have a little story for you that quite refutes it. I once had luncheon with him at the White House and contrary to all reports, and to my great surprise, President Coolidge talked all the time. Of course, there were only the two of us, but even so, he gave me almost no opportunity to say anything. After luncheon he had his cigar and I my cigarette, and then he began to talk and he talked continuously. Ad he had something to say. He ad, I assure you. He was very firm in all his convictions. There was no changing him, I should think, once his mind was made up. Whiteout particularly looking it, he was a very strong man—and staunch, like your New England granite.

However, to go on my tour finished in 1908,   (etc).

London : Collins 1939, pp. 364-5.