So, this is a bizarre one that I came across on Shorpy … a large group of midgets arrive in Washington to support President Calvin Coolidge.
I’m not making this up. It was reported in the Washington Post on January 20th, 1924.
The first organizing touring Coolidge Marching club to work for the nomination of the president, comes to Washington Sunday morning. It is composed of 23 European midgets, men and women artists, headed by I. S. Rose, New Englander and impresario.
The midgets wear buttons and ribbons on which is inscribed “Coolidge 1925.” Upon its arrival at the Washington Union station this morning, the club will execute a few simple evolutions before taking motors for its quarters in the northeast section.
The Rose midgets will wear their Coolidge emblems throughout their tour of thirty weeks. Henri Glauer, age 32, height 31 inches, explains it thusly: “If the President is good, he should serve for life. I shall tell him to insist upon it.”
The following day, there was another article about the group visiting Teddy Roosevelt, Jr., the Assistant Secretary of the Navy.
Among 25 tiny visitors, men and women midgets of the Royal Rose troupe, playing a local theater this week, who arrived in Washington yesterday, are three who met Theodore Roosevelt in the Berlin winter garden in 1911. They are Henry and Adolph Glauer, height 33 and 34 inches, respectively, and I. S. Rose, impresario of the company. They will call on Theodore Roosevelt, jr.
The midgets were to be seen about the streets Sunday wearing “Coolidge 1925” badges. They are organized into the first touring marching club to boost for the nomination of President Coolidge. The director is an old line Republican and a New Englander.
I come across some oddities quite often, and this is one of those that I felt compelled to share.
