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Page:The Autobiography Of Calvin Coolidge.djvu/136

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CALVIN COOLIDGE

of work but most fascinating, I remember that Warren G. Harding and Nicholas Longworth came into the state to promote our election and spoke with us at a large meeting one night at Lowell.

I did not refer to my own candidacy, but spent all my time advocating the election of Mr. McCall. He was a character that fitted into the situation most admirably. He was liberal without being visionary and conservative without being reactionary. The twenty-five years he had spent in public life gave him a remarkable equipment for discussing the issues of a campaign. Whatever information was needed concerning the state government I was in a position to supply. Much emphasis was placed by me on the urgent necessity of preventing further increases in state and national expense and of a drastic reduction wherever possible. The state was ready for that kind of a message.

When the election of 1915 came, Mr. McCall won by 6,313 votes and my plurality was 52,204. After having been held five years by Democrats, the Governorship of Massachusetts was restored to the Republican party, where it was to remain for the

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