THIS was the world of the summer of 1927, when Calvin Coolidge, fol-
lowed by heralds, news hawks, camera men proclaiming his divine vice-
gerency in the best possible world, with experts, soothsayers and wise men
in his entourage, wended his way in a special train from Washington to
the Black Hills of South Dakota. There he established his summer White
House. The executive offices were set up in the school house at Rapid City,
South Dakota. The executive residence was a ramshackle, pine board,
paper-lined, hotel-like structure, eight or ten miles further up in the hills.
It was surrounded by pine woods. The altitude was around five thousand
feet. Being in the north, it was reasonably cool, save in the heat of the day.
The natives of the western hills were happy about the royal invasion. For-
the most part they were not unlike the President's neighbors in Vermont,
except that their fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers had moved
westward with the generations. They were a kindly, hospitable people as the
Vermonters are, and the President sincerely tried to neighbor with them.
If they brought him a cowboy outfit, including sombrero, leather chaps, a
tight jacket, and a red shirt, by way of being kind--and they did so--to be
appreciative he wore it. He kept on wearing it when the photographers
assembled, and he stood and let them photograph him, looking just as
retching as he felt. He had no notion he was costuming himself as a bold,
bad man in those western movie cowboy togs. He ambled lumberingly
down the steps of his summer house, looking every bit as awkward and
unhappy in his clanking spurs as he was. But he made this holy show of
himself only by way of indicating his appreciation of a bit of neighborly
kindness. When the pictures appeared in the newspapers and when he
clickety-clacked down those steps in spurs and the creaking leather armor

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