JULY 5, 1926: CALVIN COOLIDGE OPENS THE SESQUI-CENTENNIAL WORLD'S FAIR
On Monday, July 5, 1926, President Calvin Coolidge and First Lady Grace Coolidge traveled to Philadelphia to officially dedicate the Sesqui-Centennial International Exposition, Philadelphia’s second world’s fair. Coolidge waited until July 5 to visit because 1) July 4 was his birthday, and 2) July 4 was a Sunday. Many Sabbatarians – conservative Christians who thought that the Sabbath should be observed with worship and rest – were furious that the Sesqui was going to open on Sundays, starting with Independence Day. Thousands of Sabbatarians had already petitioned Pennsylvania Governor Gifford Pinchot to bring legal action against the Philadelphia fair. They were delighted when a violent thunderstorm wrecked the Sesqui on July 4, washing away roads and landscaping and damaging buildings.
At 11 a.m. on July 5, the special express from Washington pulled into Philadelphia’s Broad Street Station. A crowd of several thousand spectators cheered as the Coolidges detrained, the president dapper in silk hat and morning dress, the first lady chic in a white suit and feathered bonnet. The Coolidges were greeted by Mayor W. Freeland Kendrick, and hurried into a waiting limousine. Philadelphia had the President and First Lady for only five hours, and every minute counted.
If Philadelphians felt slighted by the brevity of the Coolidges’ visit, they hid it well. Over 200,000 spectators lined Broad Street from City Hall to the fairgrounds in South Philadelphia, while thousands more cheered from nearby windows and rooftops. As the procession reached the fairgrounds, the Coolidges were greeted with a 21-gun salute from a battery of 75mm tank guns. A crowd of 35,000 roared with applause when the Coolidges’ limousine entered the Sesqui Stadium.
The presidential couple made a brief tour of the exposition grounds, remaining in their car while Kendrick pointed out key attractions. By now it was raining heavily, but a crowd of 35,000 spectators cheered when the Coolidges entered the Sesqui Stadium. A pandemonium of activity greeted their arrival: cannon at the Navy Yard boomed out another salute, airplanes spun in trick maneuvers overhead, and the Navy Band struck up “The Star-Spangled Banner.” An army of cameramen and photographers captured the presidential party as they mounted a covered platform. Mayor Kendrick stepped before the battery of radio microphones that was carrying the program to over 100 million people nationwide and introduced the president.
For the first time, the whirlwind of activity that had characterized the presidential visit ground to a halt as Coolidge stepped forward and began his forty-minute speech. The scholarly address seemed better suited to a college classroom than to a huge public celebration. It appeared calculated to defy those members of the intelligentsia who had dismissed the Amherst graduate as a “frugal little man” whose ideal day was one “on which nothing whatever happens.” The New York Times would later call it “the most notable speech on a patriotic theme [Coolidge] has made in his Administration.”
In it, Coolidge laid a spiritual and philosophical basis for political and social conservatism. Tracing the heritage of the Declaration of Independence, the Vermont native attributed its genesis not to Thomas Jefferson and French philosophers but to New England preachers like John Wise. These Puritans were inspired in turn by the 17th-century German political scientists von Chemnitz and Pufendorf, who challenged the divine power of the Holy Roman Empire and the Habsburgs.
By redirecting the lineage of the Declaration, Coolidge could posit that its principles were “the result of religious teachings,” rather than deriving from Jefferson’s unorthodox deist philosophy. Quoting Wise, Coolidge stated that “Democracy is Christ’s government in Church and State.” It was natural, then, that the Declaration of Independence should open with a reference to God, and close with an appeal to “the Supreme Judge of the world and an assertion of a firm reliance on Divine Providence.” Coolidge stated that “unless the faith of the American people in these religious convictions is to endure, the principles of our Declaration will perish.”
Coolidge warned of the dangers not only of disobeying the law, but of trying to improve on basic governmental institutions. “It is not the enactment, but the observance of laws,” he stated, “that creates the character of a nation. About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful.” Concluding, Coolidge noted the increasing prosperity of the current age with approval. But he warned against sinking into a “pagan materialism” without the spirituality and piety that inspired American forefathers to create the Declaration:
“We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create our Declaration. Our Declaration created them. The things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to that, all our material prosperity, overwhelming though it may appear, will turn to a barren scepter in our grasp.”
Before the applause had died down, the presidential party was speeding back to Center City for a hurried luncheon at the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel and a flying tour of Independence Hall and Christ Church. The presidential motorcade then raced across the newly opened Delaware River Bridge to Camden, where Coolidge officially opened the South Jersey Exposition, Camden’s challenge to Philadelphia’s Sesqui-Centennial.
The presidential party sped back across the bridge and up Market Street to the Broad Street Station. At 4:14 p.m., President and Mrs. Coolidge boarded the train that would return them to Washington, D.C. Before getting on, the president shook hands with Mayor Kendrick and told him, “I’ve had a fine time. Enjoyed it very much.” As if to compensate for her husband’s reticence, Mrs. Coolidge tore off her hat as the train pulled away, waving it frantically at the farewell party on the platform. And then the Coolidges were gone.
Excerpted from Sesqui! Greed, Graft, and the Forgotten World’s Fair of 1926 by Thomas H. Keels. Available from Amazon.com. For more information, visit my web site at www.thomaskeels.com.