SS President Coolidge motors ranged from a tenth horsepower to the 13,250 horsepower main motors. The ship had refrigerated cargo space. "President Coolidge" was initially designed for 350 first class, 150 "special" or intermediate class passengers with space for 1,260 passengers of all classes and a crew of 300. The ship was launched on 21 February 1931 after Mrs. Calvin C. Coolidge broke a bottle of water that came from a brook on the Coolidge farm in Vermont on the bow. "President Hoover" and "President Coolidge" ran between San Francisco and Manila via Kobe and Shanghai, and some round the World voyages that
Calvin Coolidge held their convention the next month in New York City. The convention soon deadlocked, and after 103 ballots, the delegates finally agreed on a compromise candidate, John W. Davis, with Charles W. Bryan nominated for vice president. The Democrats' hopes were buoyed when Robert M. La Follette Sr., a Republican senator from Wisconsin, split from the GOP to form a new Progressive Party. Many believed that the split in the Republican party, like the one in 1912, would allow a Democrat to win the presidency. After the conventions and the death of his younger son Calvin, Coolidge became withdrawn; he