Calvin Coolidge to work jointly with Edward T. Clark, a Massachusetts Republican organizer whom he retained from his vice-presidential staff, as Secretaries to the President (a position equivalent to the modern White House Chief of Staff). Perhaps the most powerful person in Coolidge's Cabinet was Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon, who controlled the administration's financial policies and was regarded by many, including House Minority Leader John Nance Garner, as more powerful than Coolidge himself. Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover also held a prominent place in Coolidge's Cabinet, in part because Coolidge found value in Hoover's ability to win positive publicity with
The Man Who Knew Coolidge digressions how he came to know the then-President of the United States, Calvin Coolidge. He describes a visit to the White House, undertaken to look in on "Cal". Early in the narrative, Schmaltz's character acknowledges what will be a key characteristic of the remaining five sections of the novel when he states: "I'm afraid I'm getting a little off the subject of Coolidge, and if there's anything I hate it's a fellow that if he starts to talk about a subject he can't stick to it" (p. 17). Schmaltz recounts his youth in Fall River, Massachusetts, where his father, according