The efforts of President Harding to restore the country became familiar to me. I saw the steady increase of the wise leadership of Mr. Hughes and Mr. Mellon in the administration of the government and the passing of some of the veteran figures of the Senate. Chief among these was Senator Knox of Pennsylvania. He was a great power and had a control of the conduct of the business of the Senate, which he exercised in behalf of our party policies, that no one else approached during my service in Washington. In the winter of 1923 President Harding was far from well. At his request I took his place in delivering the address at the Budget Meeting. While he was out again in a few days he never recovered. As Mrs. Coolidge and I were leaving for the long recess on the fourth of March I bade him goodbye. We went to Virginia Hot Springs for a few days and then returned to Massachusetts, where we remained while I filled some speaking engagements, and in July went to Vermont. We left the President and Mrs. Harding in Washington. I do not know what had impaired his health. I do know that the weight of the Presidency is very heavy. Later it was disclosed that he had discovered that some whom he had trusted had betrayed him and he had been forced to call them to account. It is known that this discovery was a very heavy grief to him, perhaps more than he could bear. I never saw him again. In June he started for Alaska and--eternity. ON ENTERING AND LEAVING THE PRESIDENCY _CHAPTER FIVE_ ON ENTERING AND LEAVING THE PRESIDENCY It is a very old saying that you never can tell what you can do until you try. The more I see of life the more I am convinced of the wisdom of that observation. Surprisingly few men are lacking in capacity, but they fail because they are lacking in application. Either they never learn how to work, or, having learned, they are too indolent to apply themselves with the seriousness and the attention that is necessary to solve important problems. Any reward that is worth having only comes to the industrious. The success which is made in any walk of life is measured almost exactly by the amount of hard work that is put into it. It has undoubtedly been the lot of every native boy of the United States to be told that he will some day be President. Nearly every young man who happens to be elected a member of his state legislature is pointed to by his friends and his local newspaper as on the way to the White House. My own experience in this respect did not differ from that of others. But I never took such suggestions seriously, as I was convinced in my own mind that I was not qualified to fill the exalted office of President. I had not changed this opinion after the November elections of 1919, when I was chosen Governor of Massachusetts for a second term by a majority which had only been exceeded in 1896.