The Night the President Met the Burglar

Richard C. Gurvey

The author uses narration to recount a news story that was suppressed for over fifty years. The story is now noteworthy more from a human interest than from a news standpoint. The author uses both direct and reported speech in the article. Although character development is not extensive, Garvey includes sufficient details to explain the actions of the President, Mrs. Coolidge, and the burglar so that we understand the reasons for their behavior.

A cat burglar invaded the bedroom of the President of the United States, who confronted him, struck a deal with him and helped him escape. The President and First Lady—she slept through the encounter—never notified the Secret Service and he enjoined a journalist friend not to print the story.

The journalist kept his word, and this is the first time the incident has been reported.

The event occurred in the early morning hours in one of the first days of the presidency of Calvin Coolidge, late in August, 1923. He and his family were living in the same third-floor suite at the Willard Hotel in Washington that they had occupied during his vice presidency. President Warren G. Harding’s widow still was living in the White House.

Coolidge awoke to see an intruder go through his clothes, remove a wallet and unhook a watch chain.

Coolidge spoke: «I wish you wouldn't take that.»

The intruder, gaining his voice, said: «Why?»

«I don't mean the watch and chain, only the charm. Take it near the window and read what is engraved on the back of it,» the President said.

The burglar read: «Presented to Calvin Coolidge,Speaker of the House,by the Massachusetts General Court.»

«Are you President Coolidge?» he asked.

The President answered, «Yes, and the Legislature gave me that watch charm. . . . I'm fond of it. It would do you no good. You want money. Let’s talk this over.»

Holding up the wallet, the intruder bargained: «I’ll take this and leave everything else.»

Coolidge, knowing there was $80 in the billfold, persuaded the intruder to sit down and talk. The young man said he and his college roommate had overspent during their vacation and did not have enough money to pay their hotel bill.

Coolidge added up the room rate and two rail tickets back to the campus. Then he counted out $32 and said it was a loan.

He then told the intruder that there probably would be a Secret Service agent patrolling the hotel corridor and asked if an escape could be made by going back along the hotelledge. The man left through the same window he had entered.

The President told his wife, Grace, about the event. Later, he confided in two friends, Judge Walter L. Stevens, the family lawyer, and Frank MacCarthy, a free-lance writer and photographer.

The President held MacCarthy to silence and never told him the intruder’s name. As the 25th anniversary of the event approached, 15 years after Coolidge’s death, MacCarthy, by then working for the Springfield Union, asked Mrs. Coolidge to let him use the story.

She declined, saying, «There is already too much publicity given to acts of vandalism and violence.»

MacCarthy honored her request, asking only that she review the story for accuracy and allow him to use it after her death.

Mrs. Coolidge died July 8, 1957, and MacCarthy died less than four months later without publishing his article.

MacCarthy had shared the story with me when we worked together. Because all reasons for secrecy have vanished, this report has been reconstructed from MacCarthy’s own article.

I have called the young man a burglar because MacCarthy’s article so identifies him, but his notes show that Coolidge said the young man repaid the $32 loan in full.

Comprehension Questions

1. When did the President meet the burglar? Where? How did the intruder get in? Why wasn’t the President living in the White House?

2. Which of his possessions was Mr. Coolidge most worried about losing? Why?

3. Why did the young man commit the robbery?

4. How did the President handle the situation? What kind of deal did he make with the thief?

5. How did he help the burglar escape?

6. Whom did Mr. Coolidge tell about the incident?

7. What reason did Mrs. Coolidge give for refusing to allow publication of the story fifteen years after her husband’s death?

8. How did the author learn about the story, and why was he able to publish it?

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