The first inauguration of Calvin Coolidge as the 30th President of the United States occurred following the death of his predecessor, Warren G. Harding. On August 2, 1923, President Warren G. Harding died while on a speaking tour in California. Vice President Calvin Coolidge was visiting his family home, which did not have electricity or a telephone, in Vermont when he received word by messenger of Harding's death. The Vice President dressed, said a prayer, and came downstairs to greet the reporters who had assembled. His father, John Calvin Coolidge, Sr., a notary public, administered the oath of office in the family's parlor by the light of a kerosene lamp at 2:47 a.m. on August 3, 1923; the new President Coolidge then went back to bed. Coolidge returned to Washington the next day, and was re-sworn by Justice Adolph A. Hoehling, Jr. of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, as there was some confusion over whether a state notary public had the authority to administer the presidential oath.
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“Honorable Senators: My sincerest thanks I offer you. Conserve the firm foundations of our institutions. Do your work with the spirit of a soldier in the public service. Be loyal to the Commonwealth and to yourselves and be brief; above all be brief.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“Public administrators would get along better if they would restrain the impulse to butt in or be dragged into trouble. They should remain silent until an issue is reduced to its lowest terms, until it boils down into something like a moral issue.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)