What I always felt was the greatest compliment ever paid to my professional ability came in 1903. In the late spring of that year William H. Clapp, who had been for many years the Clerk of the Courts for Hampshire County died. His ability, learning and painstaking industry made him rank very high as a lawyer. The position he held was of the first importance, for it involved keeping all the civil and criminal records of the Superior Court and the Supreme Judicial Court for the County. The Justices of the Supreme Judicial Court appointed me to fill the vacancy. I always felt this was a judgment by the highest Court in the Commonwealth on my professional qualifications. Had I been willing to accept the place permanently I should have been elected to it in the following November. The salary was then $2,300, and the position was one of great dignity, but I preferred to remain at the Bar, which might be more precarious, but also had more possibilities. Later events now known enable any one to pass judgment on my decision. Had I decided otherwise I could have had much more peace of mind in the last twenty-five years. As the Clerk of the Courts I learned much relating to Massachusetts practice, so that ever after I [Illustration: Underwood & Underwood CALVIN COOLIDGE _At the age of seven_] knew what to do with all the documents in a trial, which would have been of much value to me if I had not been called on to give so much time to political affairs. These took up a large amount of my attention in 1904 after I went back to my office, so that my income diminished during that year. I had been chosen Chairman of the Republican City Committee. It was a time of perpetual motion in Massachusetts politics. The state elections came yearly in November, and the city elections followed in December. This was presidential year. While I elected the Representatives to the General Court by a comfortable margin at the state election I was not so successful in the city campaign. Our Mayor had served three terms, which had always been the extreme limit in Northampton, but he was nominated for a fourth time. He was defeated by about eighty votes. We made the mistake of talking too much about the deficiencies of our opponents and not enough about the merits of our own candidates. I have never again fallen into that error. Feeling one year was all I could give to the chairmanship I did not accept a reelection but still remained on the committee.