Calvin Coolidge[1] (born John Calvin Coolidge Jr.; /ˈkuːlɪdʒ/; July 4, 1872 – January 5, 1933) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 30th president of the United States from 1923 to 1929. A Republican lawyer from New England, born in Vermont, Coolidge worked his way up the ladder of Massachusetts state politics, eventually becoming governor of Massachusetts. His response to the Boston Police Strike of 1919 thrust him into the national spotlight and gave him a reputation as a man of decisive action. The next year, he was elected the 29th vice president of the United States, and he succeeded to the presidency upon the sudden death of Warren G. Harding in 1923. Elected in his own right in 1924, he gained a reputation as a small-government conservative and also as a man who said very little and had a rather dry sense of humor.[2][3]
Coolidge restored public confidence in the White House after the scandals of his predecessor's administration, and left office with considerable popularity.[4] As a Coolidge biographer wrote: "He embodied the spirit and hopes of the middle class, could interpret their longings and express their opinions. That he did represent the genius of the average is the most convincing proof of his strength."[5]
Scholars have ranked Coolidge in the lower half of those presidents that they have assessed. He is praised by advocates of smaller government and laissez-faire economics, while supporters of an active central government generally view him less favorably, although most praise his stalwart support of racial equality.[6]
Contents
1 Early life and family history
2 Early career and marriage
2.1 Education and law practice
2.2 Marriage and family
3 Local political office (1898−1915)
3.1 City offices
3.2 Massachusetts state legislator and mayor
4 Lieutenant Governor and Governor of Massachusetts (1916−1921)
4.1 1918 election
4.2 Boston Police Strike
4.3 1919 election
4.4 Legislation and vetoes as governor
5 Vice presidency (1921−1923)
5.1 1920 election
5.2 "Silent Cal"
6 Presidency (1923−1929)
6.1 1924 election
6.2 Industry and trade
6.3 Taxation and government spending
6.4 Opposition to farm subsidies
6.5 Flood control
6.6 Civil rights
6.7 Foreign policy
6.8 Cabinet
6.9 Judicial appointments
6.10 1928 election
7 Retirement and death (1929–1933)
8 Radio, film, and commemorations
9 See also
10 Notes
11 References
12 Works cited
12.1 About Coolidge and his era
12.2 By Coolidge
13 Further reading
14 External links
Early life and family history
John Calvin Coolidge Jr. was born on July 4, 1872, in Plymouth Notch, Vermont, the only U.S. president to be born on Independence Day. He was the elder of the two children of John Calvin Coolidge Sr. (1845–1926) and Victoria Josephine Moor (1846–1885). Although named for his father, John, from early childhood Coolidge was addressed by his middle name, Calvin. His middle name was selected in honor of John Calvin, considered a founder of the Congregational church in which Coolidge was raised and remained active throughout his life.[7]
Coolidge Senior engaged in many occupations and developed a statewide reputation as a prosperous farmer, storekeeper, and public servant. He held various local offices, including justice of the peace and tax collector and served in the Vermont House of Representatives as well as the Vermont Senate.[8] Coolidge's mother was the daughter of Hiram Dunlap Moor, a Plymouth Notch farmer and Abigail Franklin.[9] She was chronically ill and died at the age of 39, perhaps from tuberculosis, when Coolidge was twelve years old. His younger sister, Abigail Grace Coolidge (1875–1890), died at the age of 15, probably of appendicitis, when Coolidge was 18. Coolidge's father married a Plymouth schoolteacher in 1891, and lived to the age of 80.[10]
Coolidge's family had deep roots in New England; his earliest American ancestor, John Coolidge, emigrated from Cottenham, Cambridgeshire, England, around 1630 and settled in Watertown, Massachusetts.[11] Coolidge's great-great-grandfather, also named John Coolidge, was an American military officer in the Revolutionary War and one of the first selectmen of the town of Plymouth.[12] His grandfather Calvin Galusha Coolidge served in the Vermont House of Representatives.[13] Coolidge was also a descendant of Samuel Appleton, who settled in Ipswich and led the Massachusetts Bay Colony during King Philip's War.[14]
The Coolidge Homestead in Plymouth Notch, Vermont
Coolidge as an Amherst College undergraduate
Early career and marriage
Education and law practice
Professor Charles Edward Garman
Coolidge attended Black River Academy and then St. Johnsbury Academy, before enrolling at Amherst College, where he distinguished himself in the debating class. As a senior, he joined the fraternity Phi Gamma Delta and graduated cum laude. While at Amherst, Coolidge was profoundly influenced by philosophy professor Charles Edward Garman, a Congregational mystic, with a neo-Hegelian philosophy.
Coolidge explained Garman's ethics forty years later:
[T]here is a standard of righteousness that might does not make right, that the end does not justify the means, and that expediency as a working principle is bound to fail. The only hope of perfecting human relationships is in accordance with the law of service under which men are not so solicitous about what they shall get as they are about what they shall give. Yet people are entitled to the rewards of their industry. What they earn is theirs, no matter how small or how great. But the possession of property carries the obligation to use it in a larger service...[15]
At his father's urging after graduation, Coolidge moved to Northampton, Massachusetts to become a lawyer. To avoid the cost of law school, Coolidge followed the common practice of apprenticing with a local law firm, Hammond & Field, and reading law with them. John C. Hammond and Henry P. Field, both Amherst graduates, introduced Coolidge to law practice in the county seat of Hampshire County, Massachusetts. In 1897, Coolidge was admitted to the Massachusetts bar, becoming a country lawyer.[16] With his savings and a small inheritance from his grandfather, Coolidge opened his own law office in Northampton in 1898. He practiced commercial law, believing that he served his clients best by staying out of court. As his reputation as a hard-working and diligent attorney grew, local banks and other businesses began to retain his services.[17]
Marriage and family
Grace Coolidge
In 1903, Coolidge met Grace Goodhue, a University of Vermont graduate and teacher at Northampton's Clarke School for the Deaf. They married on October 4, 1905 at 2:30 p.m. in a small ceremony which took place in the parlor of Grace's family's house, having overcome her mother's objections to the marriage.[18] The newlyweds went on a honeymoon trip to Montreal, originally planned for two weeks but cut short by a week at Coolidge's request. After 25 years he wrote of Grace, "for almost a quarter of a century she has borne with my infirmities and I have rejoiced in her graces".[19]
The Coolidges had two sons: John (September 7, 1906 – May 31, 2000) and Calvin Jr. (April 13, 1908 – July 7, 1924). Calvin Jr. died at age 16 from blood poisoning. On June 30, 1924 Calvin Jr. had played tennis with his brother on the White House tennis courts without putting on socks and developed a blister on one of his toes. The blister subsequently degenerated into sepsis and Calvin Jr. died a little over a week later.[20] The President never forgave himself for Calvin Jr's death.[21] His eldest John said it "hurt [Coolidge] terribly." John became a railroad executive, helped to start the Coolidge Foundation, and was instrumental in creating the President Calvin Coolidge State Historic Site.[22]
Coolidge was frugal, and when it came to securing a home, he insisted upon renting. He and his wife attended Northampton's Edwards Congregational Church before and after his presidency.[23][24]
Local political office (1898−1915)
City offices
The Republican Party was dominant in New England at the time, and Coolidge followed the example of Hammond and Field by becoming active in local politics.[25] In 1896, Coolidge campaigned for Republican presidential candidate William McKinley, and the next year he was selected to be a member of the Republican City Committee.[26] In 1898, he won election to the City Council of Northampton, placing second in a ward where the top three candidates were elected.[25] The position offered no salary but provided Coolidge invaluable political experience.[27] In 1899, he declined renomination, running instead for City Solicitor, a position elected by the City Council. He was elected for a one-year term in 1900, and reelected in 1901.[28] This position gave Coolidge more experience as a lawyer and paid a salary of $600 (equivalent to $18,665 in 2020).[28] In 1902, the city council selected a Democrat for city solicitor, and Coolidge returned to private practice.[29] Soon thereafter, however, the clerk of courts for the county died, and Coolidge was chosen to replace him. The position paid well, but it barred him from practicing law, so he remained at the job for only one-year.[29] In 1904, Coolidge suffered his sole defeat at the ballot box, losing an election to the Northampton school board. When told that some of his neighbors voted against him because he had no children in the schools he would govern, the recently married Coolidge replied, "Might give me time!"[29]
Massachusetts state legislator and mayor
Coolidge as a State Representative in 1908
Coolidge's home (1906−1930) in Northampton, Massachusetts
See also: 134th Massachusetts General Court (1913), 135th Massachusetts General Court (1914), and 136th Massachusetts General Court (1915)
In 1906, the local Republican committee nominated Coolidge for election to the Massachusetts House of Representatives. He won a close victory over the incumbent Democrat, and reported to Boston for the 1907 session of the Massachusetts General Court.[30] In his freshman term, Coolidge served on minor committees and, although he usually voted with the party, was known as a Progressive Republican, voting in favor of such measures as women's suffrage and the direct election of Senators.[31] While in Boston, Coolidge became an ally, and then a liegeman, of then U.S. Senator Winthrop Murray Crane who controlled the western faction of the Massachusetts Republican Party; Crane's party rival in the east of the commonwealth was U.S. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge.[32] Coolidge forged another key strategic alliance with Guy Currier, who had served in both state houses and had the social distinction, wealth, personal charm and broad circle of friends which Coolidge lacked, and which would have a lasting impact on his political career.[33] In 1907, he was elected to a second term, and in the 1908 session Coolidge was more outspoken, though not in a leadership position.[34]
Instead of vying for another term in the State House, Coolidge returned home to his growing family and ran for mayor of Northampton when the incumbent Democrat retired. He was well liked in the town, and defeated his challenger by a vote of 1,597 to 1,409.[35] During his first term (1910 to 1911), he increased teachers' salaries and retired some of the city's debt while still managing to effect a slight tax decrease.[36] He was renominated in 1911, and defeated the same opponent by a slightly larger margin.[37]
In 1911, the State Senator for the Hampshire County area retired and successfully encouraged Coolidge to run for his seat for the 1912 session; Coolidge defeated his Democratic opponent by a large margin.[38] At the start of that term, he became chairman of a committee to arbitrate the "Bread and Roses" strike by the workers of the American Woolen Company in Lawrence, Massachusetts.[b] After two tense months, the company agreed to the workers' demands, in a settlement proposed by the committee.[39] A major issue affecting Massachusetts Republicans that year was the party split between the progressive wing, which favored Theodore Roosevelt, and the conservative wing, which favored William Howard Taft. Although he favored some progressive measures, Coolidge refused to leave the Republican party.[40] When the new Progressive Party declined to run a candidate in his state senate district, Coolidge won reelection against his Democratic opponent by an increased margin.[40]
"Do the day's work. If it is to protect the rights of the weak, whoever objects, do it. If it is to help a powerful corporation better to serve the people, whatever the opposition, do that. Expect to be called a stand-patter, but don't be a stand-patter. Expect to be called a demagogue, but don't be a demagogue. Don't hesitate to be as revolutionary as science. Don't hesitate to be as reactionary as the multiplication table. Don't expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong. Don't hurry to legislate. Give the administration a chance to catch up with legislation."
"Have Faith in Massachusetts" as delivered by Calvin Coolidge to the Massachusetts State Senate, 1914[41]
In the 1913 session, Coolidge enjoyed renowned success in arduously navigating to passage the Western Trolley Act, which connected Northampton with a dozen similar industrial communities in western Massachusetts.[42] Coolidge intended to retire after his second term as was the custom, but when the president of the state senate, Levi H. Greenwood, considered running for lieutenant governor, Coolidge decided to run again for the Senate in the hopes of being elected as its presiding officer.[43] Although Greenwood later decided to run for reelection to the Senate, he was defeated primarily due to his opposition to women's suffrage; Coolidge was in favor of the women's vote, won his own re-election and with Crane's help, assumed the presidency of a closely divided Senate.[44] After his election in January 1914, Coolidge delivered a published and frequently quoted speech entitled Have Faith in Massachusetts, which summarized his philosophy of government.[41]
Coolidge's speech was well received, and he attracted some admirers on its account;[45] towards the end of the term, many of them were proposing his name for nomination to lieutenant governor. After winning reelection to the Senate by an increased margin in the 1914 elections, Coolidge was reelected unanimously to be President of the Senate.[46] Coolidge's supporters, led by fellow Amherst alumnus Frank Stearns, encouraged him again to run for lieutenant governor.[47] Stearns, an executive with the Boston department store R. H. Stearns, became another key ally, and began a publicity campaign on Coolidge's behalf before he announced his candidacy at the end of the 1915 legislative session.[48]
Lieutenant Governor and Governor of Massachusetts (1916−1921)
Coolidge with his family
Coolidge entered the primary election for lieutenant governor and was nominated to run alongside gubernatorial candidate Samuel W. McCall. Coolidge was the leading vote-getter in the Republican primary, and balanced the Republican ticket by adding a western presence to McCall's eastern base of support.[49] McCall and Coolidge won the 1915 election to their respective one-year terms, with Coolidge defeating his opponent by more than 50,000 votes.[50]
In Massachusetts, the lieutenant governor does not preside over the state Senate, as is the case in many other states; nevertheless, as lieutenant governor, Coolidge was a deputy governor functioning as administrative inspector and was a member of the governor's council. He was also chairman of the finance committee and the pardons committee.[51] As a full-time elected official, Coolidge discontinued his law practice in 1916, though his family continued to live in Northampton.[52] McCall and Coolidge were both reelected in 1916 and again in 1917. When McCall decided that he would not stand for a fourth term, Coolidge announced his intention to run for governor.[53]
1918 election
Coolidge was unopposed for the Republican nomination for Governor of Massachusetts in 1918. He and his running mate, Channing Cox, a Boston lawyer and Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, ran on the previous administration's record: fiscal conservatism, a vague opposition to Prohibition, support for women's suffrage, and support for American involvement in World War I.[54] The issue of the war proved divisive, especially among Irish and German Americans.[55] Coolidge was elected by a margin of 16,773 votes over his opponent, Richard H. Long, in the smallest margin of victory of any of his statewide campaigns.[56]
Boston Police Strike
Main article: Boston Police Strike
In 1919, in reaction to a plan of the policemen of the Boston Police Department to register with a union, Police Commissioner Edwin U. Curtis announced that such an act would not be tolerated. In August of that year, the American Federation of Labor issued a charter to the Boston Police Union.[57] Curtis declared the union's leaders were guilty of insubordination and would be relieved of duty, but indicated he would cancel their suspension if the union was dissolved by September 4.[58] The mayor of Boston, Andrew Peters, convinced Curtis to delay his action for a few days, but with no results, and Curtis suspended the union leaders on September 8.[59] The following day, about three-quarters of the policemen in Boston went on strike.[60][c] Coolidge, tacitly but fully in support of Curtis' position, closely monitored the situation but initially deferred to the local authorities. He anticipated that only a resulting measure of lawlessness could sufficiently prompt the public to understand and appreciate the controlling principle – that a policeman does not strike. That night and the next, there was sporadic violence and rioting in the unruly city.[61] Peters, concerned about sympathy strikes by the firemen and others, called up some units of the Massachusetts National Guard stationed in the Boston area pursuant to an old and obscure legal authority, and relieved Curtis of duty.[62]
"Your assertion that the Commissioner was wrong cannot justify the wrong of leaving the city unguarded. That furnished the opportunity; the criminal element furnished the action. There is no right to strike against the public safety by anyone, anywhere, any time. ... I am equally determined to defend the sovereignty of Massachusetts and to maintain the authority and jurisdiction over her public officers where it has been placed by the Constitution and laws of her people."
"Telegram from Governor Calvin Coolidge to Samuel Gompers", September 14, 1919[63]
Coolidge, sensing the severity of circumstances were then in need of his intervention, conferred with Crane's operative, William Butler, and then acted.[64] He called up more units of the National Guard, restored Curtis to office, and took personal control of the police force.[65] Curtis proclaimed that all of the strikers were fired from their jobs, and Coolidge called for a new police force to be recruited.[66] That night Coolidge received a telegram from AFL leader Samuel Gompers. "Whatever disorder has occurred", Gompers wrote, "is due to Curtis's order in which the right of the policemen has been denied…"[67] Coolidge publicly answered Gompers's telegram, denying any justification whatsoever for the strike – and his response launched him into the national consciousness.[67] Newspapers across the nation picked up on Coolidge's statement and he became the newest hero to opponents of the strike. In the midst of the First Red Scare, many Americans were terrified of the spread of communist revolution, like those that had taken place in Russia, Hungary, and Germany. While Coolidge had lost some friends among organized labor, conservatives across the nation had seen a rising star.[68] Although he usually acted with deliberation, the Boston police strike gave him a national reputation as a decisive leader, and as a strict enforcer of law and order.
1919 election
Coolidge inspects militia in Boston police strike
Coolidge and Cox were renominated for their respective offices in 1919. By this time Coolidge's supporters (especially Stearns) had publicized his actions in the Police Strike around the state and the nation and some of Coolidge's speeches were published in book form.[41] He faced the same opponent as in 1918, Richard Long, but this time Coolidge defeated him by 125,101 votes, more than seven times his margin of victory from a year earlier.[d] His actions in the police strike, combined with the massive electoral victory, led to suggestions that Coolidge run for president in 1920.[70]
Legislation and vetoes as governor
By the time Coolidge was inaugurated on January 2, 1919, the First World War had ended, and Coolidge pushed the legislature to give a $100 bonus (equivalent to $1,493 in 2020) to Massachusetts veterans. He also signed a bill reducing the work week for women and children from fifty-four hours to forty-eight, saying, "We must humanize the industry, or the system will break down."[71] He signed into law a budget that kept the tax rates the same, while trimming $4 million from expenditures, thus allowing the state to retire some of its debt.[72]
Coolidge also wielded the veto pen as governor. His most publicized veto prevented an increase in legislators' pay by 50%.[73] Although Coolidge was personally opposed to Prohibition, he vetoed a bill in May 1920 that would have allowed the sale of beer or wine of 2.75% alcohol or less, in Massachusetts in violation of the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. "Opinions and instructions do not outmatch the Constitution," he said in his veto message. "Against it, they are void."[74]
Vice presidency (1921−1923)
1920 election
Main article: 1920 United States presidential election
At the 1920 Republican National Convention, most of the delegates were selected by state party caucuses, not primaries. As such, the field was divided among many local favorites.[75] Coolidge was one such candidate, and while he placed as high as sixth in the voting, the powerful party bosses running the convention, primarily the party's U.S. Senators, never considered him seriously.[76] After ten ballots, the bosses and then the delegates settled on Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio as their nominee for president.[77] When the time came to select a vice presidential nominee, the bosses also made and announced their decision on whom they wanted – Sen. Irvine Lenroot of Wisconsin – and then prematurely departed after his name was put forth, relying on the rank and file to confirm their decision. A delegate from Oregon, Wallace McCamant, having read Have Faith in Massachusetts, proposed Coolidge for vice president instead. The suggestion caught on quickly with the masses starving for an act of independence from the absent bosses, and Coolidge was unexpectedly nominated.[78]
The Democrats nominated another Ohioan, James M. Cox, for president and the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, for vice president. The question of the United States joining the League of Nations was a major issue in the campaign, as was the unfinished legacy of Progressivism.[79] Harding ran a "front-porch" campaign from his home in Marion, Ohio, but Coolidge took to the campaign trail in the Upper South, New York, and New England – his audiences carefully limited to those familiar with Coolidge and those placing a premium upon concise and short speeches.[80] On November 2, 1920, Harding and Coolidge were victorious in a landslide, winning more than 60 percent of the popular vote, including every state outside the South.[79] They also won in Tennessee, the first time a Republican ticket had won a Southern state since Reconstruction.[79]
"Silent Cal"
President Harding and Vice President Coolidge with their wives
The U.S. vice-presidency did not carry many official duties, but Coolidge was invited by President Harding to attend cabinet meetings, making him the first vice president to do so.[81] He gave a number of unremarkable speeches around the country.[82]
As vice president, Coolidge and his vivacious wife Grace were invited to quite a few parties, where the legend of "Silent Cal" was born. It is from this time that most of the jokes and anecdotes involving Coolidge originate, such as Coolidge being "silent in five languages".[83] Although Coolidge was known to be a skilled and effective public speaker, in private he was a man of few words and was commonly referred to as "Silent Cal". An apocryphal story has it that a person seated next to him at a dinner, said to him, "I made a bet today that I could get more than two words out of you." He replied, "You lose."[84] However, on April 22, 1923, Coolidge himself said that the "You lose" quotation never occurred. The story about it was related by Frank B. Noyes, President of the Associated Press, to their membership at their annual luncheon at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, when toasting and introducing Coolidge, who was the invited speaker. After the introduction and before his prepared remarks, Coolidge said to the membership, "Your President [referring to Noyes] has given you a perfect example of one of those rumors now current in Washington which is without any foundation."[85] Dorothy Parker, upon learning that Coolidge had died, reportedly remarked, "How can they tell?"[86] Coolidge often seemed uncomfortable among fashionable Washington society; when asked why he continued to attend so many of their dinner parties, he replied, "Got to eat somewhere."[87] Alice Roosevelt Longworth, a leading Republican wit, underscored Coolidge's silence and his dour personality: "When he wished he were elsewhere, he pursed his lips, folded his arms, and said nothing. He looked then precisely as though he had been weaned on a pickle."[88]
As president, Coolidge's reputation as a quiet man continued. "The words of a President have an enormous weight," he would later write, "and ought not to be used indiscriminately."[89] Coolidge was aware of his stiff reputation; indeed, he cultivated it. "I think the American people want a solemn ass as a President," he once told Ethel Barrymore, "and I think I will go along with them."[90] Some historians suggest that Coolidge's image was created deliberately as a campaign tactic,[91] while others believe his withdrawn and quiet behavior to be natural, deepening after the death of his son in 1924.[92]
Presidency (1923−1929)
Main article: Presidency of Calvin Coolidge
For a chronological guide to this subject, see Timeline of the Calvin Coolidge presidency.
On August 2, 1923, President Harding died unexpectedly from a heart attack in San Francisco while on a speaking tour of the western United States. Vice President Coolidge was in Vermont visiting his family home, which had neither electricity nor a telephone, when he received word by messenger of Harding's death.[93] The new president dressed, said a prayer, and came downstairs to greet the reporters who had assembled.[93] His father, a notary public and justice of the peace, administered the oath of office in the family's parlor by the light of a kerosene lamp at 2:47 a.m. on August 3, 1923; and Coolidge then returned to bed as president.
Coolidge returned to Washington the next day, and was sworn in again by Justice Adolph A. Hoehling Jr. of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, to forestall any questions about the authority of a state official to administer a federal oath.[94] This second oath-taking remained a secret until it was revealed by Harry M. Daugherty in 1932, and confirmed by Hoehling.[95] When Hoehling confirmed Daugherty's story, he indicated that Daugherty, then serving as United States Attorney General, asked him to administer the oath without fanfare at the Willard Hotel.[95] According to Hoehling, he did not question Daugherty's reason for requesting a second oath-taking but assumed it was to resolve any doubt about whether the first swearing-in was valid.[95]
President Coolidge signing appropriation bills for the Veterans Bureau on the South Lawn during the garden party for wounded veterans, June 5, 1924. General John J. Pershing is at left. The man at right, looking on, appears to be Veterans Bureau Director Frank T. Hines.
The nation initially did not know what to make of Coolidge, who had maintained a low profile in the Harding administration; many had even expected him to be replaced on the ballot in 1924.[96] Coolidge believed that those of Harding's men under suspicion were entitled to every presumption of innocence, taking a methodical approach to the scandals, principally the Teapot Dome scandal, while others clamored for rapid punishment of those they presumed guilty.[97] Coolidge thought the Senate investigations of the scandals would suffice; this was affirmed by the resulting resignations of those involved. He personally intervened in demanding the resignation of Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty after he refused to cooperate with the congressional probe. He then set about to confirm that no loose ends remained in the administration, arranging for a full briefing on the wrongdoing. Harry A. Slattery reviewed the facts with him, Harlan F. Stone analyzed the legal aspects for him and Senator William E. Borah assessed and presented the political factors.[98]
Coolidge addressed Congress when it reconvened on December 6, 1923, giving a speech that supported many of Harding's policies, including Harding's formal budgeting process, the enforcement of immigration restrictions and arbitration of coal strikes ongoing in Pennsylvania.[99] Coolidge's speech was the first presidential speech to be broadcast over the radio.[100] The Washington Naval Treaty was proclaimed just one month into Coolidge's term, and was generally well received in the country.[101] In May 1924, the World War I veterans' World War Adjusted Compensation Act or "Bonus Bill" was passed over his veto.[102] Coolidge signed the Immigration Act later that year, which was aimed at restricting southern and eastern European immigration, but appended a signing statement expressing his unhappiness with the bill's specific exclusion of Japanese immigrants.[103] Just before the Republican Convention began, Coolidge signed into law the Revenue Act of 1924, which reduced the top marginal tax rate from 58% to 46%, as well as personal income tax rates across the board, increased the estate tax and bolstered it with a new gift tax.[104]
On June 2, 1924, Coolidge signed the act granting citizenship to all Native Americans born in the United States. By that time, two-thirds of the people were already citizens, having gained it through marriage, military service (veterans of World War I were granted citizenship in 1919), or the land allotments that had earlier taken place.[105][106][107]
1924 election
Main article: 1924 United States presidential election
1924 electoral vote results
The Republican Convention was held on June 10–12, 1924, in Cleveland, Ohio; Coolidge was nominated on the first ballot.[108] The convention nominated Frank Lowden of Illinois for vice president on the second ballot, but he declined; former Brigadier General Charles G. Dawes was nominated on the third ballot and accepted.[108]
The Democrats 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, 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.[109]
After the conventions and the death of his younger son Calvin, Coolidge became withdrawn; he later said that "when he [the son] died, the power and glory of the Presidency went with him."[110] Even as he mourned, Coolidge ran his standard campaign, not mentioning his opponents by name or maligning them, and delivering speeches on his theory of government, including several that were broadcast over the radio.[111] It was the most subdued campaign since 1896, partly because of Coolidge's grief, but also because of his naturally non-confrontational style.[112] The other candidates campaigned in a more modern fashion, but despite the split in the Republican party, the results were similar to those of 1920. Coolidge and Dawes won every state outside the South except Wisconsin, La Follette's home state. Coolidge won the election with 382 electoral votes and the popular vote by 2.5 million over his opponents' combined total.[113]
Industry and trade
"[I]t is probable that a press which maintains an intimate touch with the business currents of the nation is likely to be more reliable than it would be if it were a stranger to these influences. After all, the chief business of the American people is business. They are profoundly concerned with buying, selling, investing and prospering in the world." [emphasis added]
"President Calvin Coolidge's address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors", Washington D.C., January 25, 1925[114]
During Coolidge's presidency, the United States experienced a period of rapid economic growth known as the "Roaring Twenties". He left the administration's industrial policy in the hands of his activist Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover, who energetically used government auspices to promote business efficiency and develop airlines and radio.[115] Coolidge disdained regulation and demonstrated this by appointing commissioners to the Federal Trade Commission and the Interstate Commerce Commission who did little to restrict the activities of businesses under their jurisdiction.[116] The regulatory state under Coolidge was, as one biographer described it, "thin to the point of invisibility".[117]
Historian Robert Sobel offers some context of Coolidge's laissez-faire ideology, based on the prevailing understanding of federalism during his presidency: "As Governor of Massachusetts, Coolidge supported wages and hours legislation, opposed child labor, imposed economic controls during World War I, favored safety measures in factories, and even worker representation on corporate boards. Did he support these measures while president? No, because in the 1920s, such matters were considered the responsibilities of state and local governments."[118][119]
Taxation and government spending
Coolidge adopted the taxation policies of his Secretary of the Treasury, Andrew Mellon, who advocated "scientific taxation" — the notion that lowering taxes will increase, rather than decrease, government receipts.[120] Congress agreed, and tax rates were reduced in Coolidge's term.[120] In addition to federal tax cuts, Coolidge proposed reductions in federal expenditures and retiring of the federal debt.[121] Coolidge's ideas were shared by the Republicans in Congress, and in 1924, Congress passed the Revenue Act of 1924, which reduced income tax rates and eliminated all income taxation for some two million people.[121] They reduced taxes again by passing the Revenue Acts of 1926 and 1928, all the while continuing to keep spending down so as to reduce the overall federal debt.[122] By 1927, only the wealthiest 2% of taxpayers paid any federal income tax.[122] Federal spending remained flat during Coolidge's administration, allowing one-fourth of the federal debt to be retired in total. State and local governments saw considerable growth, however, surpassing the federal budget in 1927.[123] By 1929, after Coolidge's series of tax rate reductions had cut the tax rate to 24 percent on those making over $100,000, the federal government collected more than a billion dollars in income taxes, of which 65 percent was collected from those making over $100,000. In 1921, when the tax rate on people making over $100,000 a year was 73 percent, the federal government collected a little over $700 million in income taxes, of which 30 percent was paid by those making over $100,000.[124]
Opposition to farm subsidies
Coolidge with his vice president, Charles G. Dawes
Perhaps the most contentious issue of Coolidge's presidency was relief for farmers. Some in Congress proposed a bill designed to fight falling agricultural prices by allowing the federal government to purchase crops to sell abroad at lower prices.[125] Agriculture Secretary Henry C. Wallace and other administration officials favored the bill when it was introduced in 1924, but rising prices convinced many in Congress that the bill was unnecessary, and it was defeated just before the elections that year.[126] In 1926, with farm prices falling once more, Senator Charles L. McNary and Representative Gilbert N. Haugen—both Republicans—proposed the McNary–Haugen Farm Relief Bill. The bill proposed a federal farm board that would purchase surplus production in high-yield years and hold it (when feasible) for later sale or sell it abroad.[127] Coolidge opposed McNary-Haugen, declaring that agriculture must stand "on an independent business basis", and said that "government control cannot be divorced from political control."[127] Instead of manipulating prices, he favored instead Herbert Hoover's proposal to increase profitability by modernizing agriculture. Secretary Mellon wrote a letter denouncing the McNary-Haugen measure as unsound and likely to cause inflation, and it was defeated.[128]
After McNary-Haugen's defeat, Coolidge supported a less radical measure, the Curtis-Crisp Act, which would have created a federal board to lend money to farm co-operatives in times of surplus; the bill did not pass.[128] In February 1927, Congress took up the McNary-Haugen bill again, this time narrowly passing it, and Coolidge vetoed it.[129] In his veto message, he expressed the belief that the bill would do nothing to help farmers, benefiting only exporters and expanding the federal bureaucracy.[130] Congress did not override the veto, but it passed the bill again in May 1928 by an increased majority; again, Coolidge vetoed it.[129] "Farmers never have made much money," said Coolidge, the Vermont farmer's son. "I do not believe we can do much about it."[131]
Flood control
Coolidge has often been criticized for his actions during the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, the worst natural disaster to hit the Gulf Coast until Hurricane Katrina in 2005.[132] Although he did eventually name Secretary Hoover to a commission in charge of flood relief, scholars argue that Coolidge overall showed a lack of interest in federal flood control.[132] Coolidge did not believe that personally visiting the region after the floods would accomplish anything, and that it would be seen as mere political grandstanding. He also did not want to incur the federal spending that flood control would require; he believed property owners should bear much of the cost.[133] On the other hand, Congress wanted a bill that would place the federal government completely in charge of flood mitigation.[134] When Congress passed a compromise measure in 1928, Coolidge declined to take credit for it and signed the bill in private on May 15.[135]
Civil rights
Osage men with Coolidge after he signed the bill granting Native Americans U.S. citizenship
According to one biographer, Coolidge was "devoid of racial prejudice", but rarely took the lead on civil rights. Coolidge disliked the Ku Klux Klan and no Klansman is known to have received an appointment from him. In the 1924 presidential election his opponents (Robert La Follette and John Davis), and his running mate Charles Dawes, often attacked the Klan but Coolidge avoided the subject.[136]
Coolidge spoke in favor of the civil rights of African-Americans, saying in his first State of the Union address that their rights were "just as sacred as those of any other citizen" under the U.S. Constitution and that it was a "public and a private duty to protect those rights."[137][138]
Coolidge repeatedly called for laws to make lynching a federal crime (it was already a state crime, though not always enforced). Congress refused to pass any such legislation. On June 2, 1924, Coolidge signed the Indian Citizenship Act, which granted U.S. citizenship to all American Indians living on reservations. (Those off reservations had long been citizens.) [139] On June 6, 1924, Coolidge delivered a commencement address at historically black, non-segregated Howard University, in which he thanked and commended African-Americans for their rapid advances in education and their contributions to U.S. society over the years, as well as their eagerness to render their services as soldiers in the World War, all while being faced with discrimination and prejudices at home.[140]
In a speech in October 1924, Coolidge stressed tolerance of differences as an American value and thanked immigrants for their contributions to U.S. society, saying that they have "contributed much to making our country what it is." He stated that although the diversity of peoples was a detrimental source of conflict and tension in Europe, it was peculiar for the United States that it was a "harmonious" benefit for the country. Coolidge further stated the United States should assist and help immigrants who come to the country and urged immigrants to reject "race hatreds" and "prejudices".[141]
Foreign policy
Official portrait of Calvin Coolidge
Coolidge was neither well versed in nor very interested in world affairs.[142] His focus was directed mainly at American business, especially pertaining to trade, and "Maintaining the Status Quo". Although not an isolationist, he was reluctant to enter into foreign alliances.[143] While Coolidge believed strongly in a non-interventionist foreign policy, he did believe that America was exceptional.[144]
Coolidge considered the 1920 Republican victory as a rejection of the Wilsonian position that the United States should join the League of Nations.[145] While not completely opposed to the idea, Coolidge believed the League, as then constituted, did not serve American interests, and he did not advocate U.S. membership.[145] He spoke in favor of the United States joining the Permanent Court of International Justice (World Court), provided that the nation would not be bound by advisory decisions.[146] In 1926, the Senate eventually approved joining the Court (with reservations).[147] The League of Nations accepted the reservations, but it suggested some modifications of its own.[148] The Senate failed to act and so the United States did not join the World Court.[148]
Coolidge authorized the Dawes Plan, a financial plan by Charles Dawes, to provide Germany partial relief from its reparations obligations from World War I. The plan initially provided stimulus for the German economy.[149] Additionally, Coolidge attempted to pursue further curbs on naval strength following the early successes of Harding's Washington Naval Conference by sponsoring the Geneva Naval Conference in 1927, which failed owing to a French and Italian boycott and ultimate failure of Great Britain and the United States to agree on cruiser tonnages. As a result, the conference was a failure and Congress eventually authorized for increased American naval spending in 1928.[150] The Kellogg–Briand Pact of 1928, named for Coolidge's Secretary of State, Frank B. Kellogg, and French foreign minister Aristide Briand, was also a key peacekeeping initiative. The treaty, ratified in 1929, committed signatories—the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan—to "renounce war, as an instrument of national policy in their relations with one another".[151] The treaty did not achieve its intended result—the outlawry of war—but it did provide the founding principle for international law after World War II.[152] Coolidge also continued the previous administration's policy of withholding recognition of the Soviet Union.[153]
Efforts were made to normalize ties with post-Revolution Mexico. Coolidge recognized Mexico's new governments under Álvaro Obregón and Plutarco Elías Calles, and continued American support for the elected Mexican government against the National League for the Defense of Religious Liberty during the Cristero War, lifting the arms embargo on that country; he also appointed Dwight Morrow as Ambassador to Mexico with the successful objective to avoid further American conflict with Mexico.[154][155][156]
Coolidge's administration would see continuity in the occupation of Nicaragua and Haiti, and an end to the occupation of the Dominican Republic in 1924 as a result of withdrawal agreements finalized during Harding's administration.[157] In 1925, Coolidge ordered the withdrawal of Marines stationed in Nicaragua following perceived stability after the 1924 Nicaraguan general election, but redeployed them there in January 1927 following failed attempts to peacefully resolve the rapid deterioration of political stability and avert the ensuing Constitutionalist War; Henry L. Stimson was later sent by Coolidge to mediate a peace deal that would end the civil war and extend American military presence in Nicaragua beyond Coolidge's term in office.[154]
To extend an olive branch to Latin American leaders embittered over America's interventionist policies in Central America and the Caribbean,[158] Coolidge led the U.S. delegation to the Sixth International Conference of American States, January 15–17, 1928, in Havana, Cuba, the only international trip Coolidge made during his presidency.[159] He would be the last sitting American president to visit Cuba until Barack Obama in 2016.[160]
For Canada, Coolidge authorized the St. Lawrence Seaway, a system of locks and canals that would provide large vessels passage between the Atlantic Ocean and the Great Lakes.[161][154]
Cabinet
Coolidge's cabinet in 1924, outside the White House.
Front row, left to right: Harry Stewart New, John W. Weeks, Charles Evans Hughes, Coolidge, Andrew Mellon, Harlan F. Stone, Curtis D. Wilbur.
Back row, left to right: James J. Davis, Henry C. Wallace, Herbert Hoover, Hubert Work.
Although a few of Harding's cabinet appointees were scandal-tarred, Coolidge initially retained all of them, out of an ardent conviction that as successor to a deceased elected president he was obligated to retain Harding's counselors and policies until the next election. He kept Harding's able speechwriter Judson T. Welliver; Stuart Crawford replaced Welliver in November 1925.[162] Coolidge appointed C. Bascom Slemp, a Virginia Congressman and experienced federal politician, to work jointly with Edward T. Clark, a Massachusetts Republican organizer whom he retained from his vice-presidential staff, as Secretaries to the President (a position equivalent to the modern White House Chief of Staff).[101]
Perhaps the most powerful person in Coolidge's Cabinet was Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon, who controlled the administration's financial policies and was regarded by many, including House Minority Leader John Nance Garner, as more powerful than Coolidge himself.[163] Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover also held a prominent place in Coolidge's Cabinet, in part because Coolidge found value in Hoover's ability to win positive publicity with his pro-business proposals.[164] Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes directed Coolidge's foreign policy until he resigned in 1925 following Coolidge's re-election. He was replaced by Frank B. Kellogg, who had previously served as a Senator and as the ambassador to Great Britain. Coolidge made two other appointments following his re-election, with William M. Jardine taking the position of Secretary of Agriculture and John G. Sargent becoming Attorney General.[165] Coolidge did not have a vice president during his first term, but Charles Dawes became vice president during Coolidge's second term, and Dawes and Coolidge clashed over farm policy and other issues.[166]
Judicial appointments
Main article: List of federal judges appointed by Calvin Coolidge
Coolidge appointed Harlan F. Stone first as Attorney General and then as a Supreme Court Justice.
Coolidge appointed one justice to the Supreme Court of the United States, Harlan F. Stone in 1925. Stone was Coolidge's fellow Amherst alumnus, a Wall Street lawyer and conservative Republican. Stone was serving as dean of Columbia Law School when Coolidge appointed him to be attorney general in 1924 to restore the reputation tarnished by Harding's Attorney General, Harry M. Daugherty.[167] It does not appear that Coolidge considered appointing anyone other than Stone, although Stone himself had urged Coolidge to appoint Benjamin N. Cardozo.[168] Stone proved to be a firm believer in judicial restraint and was regarded as one of the court's three liberal justices who would often vote to uphold New Deal legislation.[169] President Franklin D. Roosevelt later appointed Stone to be chief justice.
Coolidge nominated 17 judges to the United States Courts of Appeals and 61 judges to the United States district courts. He appointed judges to various specialty courts as well, including Genevieve R. Cline, who became the first woman named to the federal judiciary when Coolidge placed her on the United States Customs Court in 1928.[170] Coolidge also signed the Judiciary Act of 1925 into law, allowing the Supreme Court more discretion over its workload.
1928 election
Main article: 1928 United States presidential election
File:Calvin Coolidge video montage.ogv
Collection of video clips of President Coolidge
In the summer of 1927, Coolidge vacationed in the Black Hills of South Dakota, where he engaged in horseback riding and fly fishing and attended rodeos. He made Custer State Park his "summer White House". While on vacation, Coolidge surprisingly issued a terse statement that he would not seek a second full term as president: "I do not choose to run for President in 1928."[171] After allowing the reporters to take that in, Coolidge elaborated. "If I take another term, I will be in the White House till 1933 … Ten years in Washington is longer than any other man has had it—too long!"[172] In his memoirs, Coolidge explained his decision not to run: "The Presidential office takes a heavy toll of those who occupy it and those who are dear to them. While we should not refuse to spend and be spent in the service of our country, it is hazardous to attempt what we feel is beyond our strength to accomplish."[173] After leaving office, he and Grace returned to Northampton, where he wrote his memoirs. The Republicans retained the White House in 1928 with a landslide by Herbert Hoover. Coolidge had been reluctant to endorse Hoover as his successor; on one occasion he remarked that "for six years that man has given me unsolicited advice—all of it bad."[174] Even so, Coolidge had no desire to split the party by publicly opposing the nomination of the popular commerce secretary.[175]
Retirement and death (1929–1933)
Coolidge addressing a crowd at Arlington National Cemetery's Roman-style Memorial Amphitheater in 1924
After his presidency, Coolidge retired to a modest rented house on residential Massasoit Street in Northampton before moving to a more spacious home, "The Beeches".[176] He kept a Hacker runabout boat on the Connecticut River and was often observed on the water by local boating enthusiasts. During this period, he also served as chairman of the Non-Partisan Railroad Commission, an entity created by several banks and corporations to survey the country's long-term transportation needs and make recommendations for improvements. He was an honorary president of the American Foundation for the Blind, a director of New York Life Insurance Company, president of the American Antiquarian Society, and a trustee of Amherst College.[177]
Coolidge published his autobiography in 1929 and wrote a syndicated newspaper column, "Calvin Coolidge Says", from 1930 to 1931.[178] Faced with looming defeat in the 1932 presidential election, some Republicans spoke of rejecting Herbert Hoover as their party's nominee, and instead drafting Coolidge to run, but the former president made it clear that he was not interested in running again, and that he would publicly repudiate any effort to draft him, should it come about.[179] Hoover was renominated, and Coolidge made several radio addresses in support of him. Hoover then lost the general election to Coolidge's 1920 vice presidential Democratic opponent Franklin D. Roosevelt in a landslide.[180]
Coolidge died suddenly from coronary thrombosis at "The Beeches", at 12:45 p.m., January 5, 1933.[181] Shortly before his death, Coolidge confided to an old friend: "I feel I no longer fit in with these times."[182] Coolidge is buried in Plymouth Notch Cemetery, Plymouth Notch, Vermont. The nearby family home is maintained as one of the original buildings on the Calvin Coolidge Homestead District site. The State of Vermont dedicated a new visitors' center nearby to mark Coolidge's 100th birthday on July 4, 1972.
Radio, film, and commemorations
Coolidge with reporters and cameramen
Despite his reputation as a quiet and even reclusive politician, Coolidge made use of the new medium of radio and made radio history several times while president. He made himself available to reporters, giving 520 press conferences, meeting with reporters more regularly than any president before or since.[183] Coolidge's second inauguration was the first presidential inauguration broadcast on radio. On December 6, 1923, his speech to Congress was broadcast on radio,[184] the first presidential radio address.[185] Coolidge signed the Radio Act of 1927, which assigned regulation of radio to the newly created Federal Radio Commission. On August 11, 1924, Theodore W. Case, using the Phonofilm sound-on-film process he developed for Lee de Forest, filmed Coolidge on the White House lawn, making "Silent Cal" the first president to appear in a sound film. The title of the DeForest film was President Coolidge, Taken on the White House Grounds.[186][187] When Charles Lindbergh arrived in Washington on a U.S. Navy ship after his celebrated 1927 trans-Atlantic flight, President Coolidge welcomed him back to the U.S. and presented him with the Medal of Honor;[188] the event was captured on film.[189]
Coolidge was the only president to have his portrait on a coin during his lifetime: the Sesquicentennial of American Independence Half Dollar, minted in 1926.
Coolidge on a 1938 postage stamp
As America’s 30th President (1923-1929), Calvin Coolidge demonstrated his determination to preserve the old moral and economic precepts of frugality amid the material prosperity which many Americans were enjoying during the 1920s era.
At 2:30 on the morning of August 3, 1923, while visiting in Vermont, Calvin Coolidge received word that he was President. By the light of a kerosene lamp, his father, who was a notary public, administered the oath of office as Coolidge placed his hand on the family Bible.
Coolidge was “distinguished for character more than for heroic achievement,” wrote a Democratic admirer, Alfred E. Smith. “His great task was to restore the dignity and prestige of the Presidency when it had reached the lowest ebb in our history … in a time of extravagance and waste….”
Born in Plymouth, Vermont, on July 4, 1872, Coolidge was the son of a village storekeeper. He was graduated from Amherst College with honors, and entered law and politics in Northampton, Massachusetts. Slowly, methodically, he went up the political ladder from councilman in Northampton to Governor of Massachusetts, as a Republican. En route he became thoroughly conservative.
As President, Coolidge demonstrated his determination to preserve the old moral and economic precepts amid the material prosperity which many Americans were enjoying. He refused to use Federal economic power to check the growing boom or to ameliorate the depressed condition of agriculture and certain industries. His first message to Congress in December 1923 called for isolation in foreign policy, and for tax cuts, economy, and limited aid to farmers.
He rapidly became popular. In 1924, as the beneficiary of what was becoming known as “Coolidge prosperity,” he polled more than 54 percent of the popular vote.
In his Inaugural he asserted that the country had achieved “a state of contentment seldom before seen,” and pledged himself to maintain the status quo. In subsequent years he twice vetoed farm relief bills, and killed a plan to produce cheap Federal electric power on the Tennessee River.
The political genius of President Coolidge, Walter Lippmann pointed out in 1926, was his talent for effectively doing nothing: “This active inactivity suits the mood and certain of the needs of the country admirably. It suits all the business interests which want to be let alone…. And it suits all those who have become convinced that government in this country has become dangerously complicated and top-heavy….”
Coolidge was both the most negative and remote of Presidents, and the most accessible. He once explained to Bernard Baruch why he often sat silently through interviews: “Well, Baruch, many times I say only ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to people. Even that is too much. It winds them up for twenty minutes more.”
But no President was kinder in permitting himself to be photographed in Indian war bonnets or cowboy dress, and in greeting a variety of delegations to the White House.
Both his dry Yankee wit and his frugality with words became legendary. His wife, Grace Goodhue Coolidge, recounted that a young woman sitting next to Coolidge at a dinner party confided to him she had bet she could get at least three words of conversation from him. Without looking at her he quietly retorted, “You lose.” And in 1928, while vacationing in the Black Hills of South Dakota, he issued the most famous of his laconic statements, “I do not choose to run for President in 1928.”
By the time the disaster of the Great Depression hit the country, Coolidge was in retirement. Before his death in January 1933, he confided to an old friend, “. . . I feel I no longer fit in with these times.”
John Calvin Coolidge was born in 1872 on the Fourth of July and in the 96th year of American Independence. The child was named for his father, but the family dropped the John, calling him Calvin or Cal.
His birthplace was Plymouth Notch, a small hamlet tucked away in the Green Mountains of Vermont. His ancestors were among the earliest settlers in the area. The Notch was a place he would always hold dear and to which he would frequently return for renewal. As president, he became closely associated with it. And, after his death, Coolidge’s friends decided that the Plymouth Notch homestead and environs should be preserved as his memorial.[i]
Coolidge’s father was a man of ability and high character. Coolidge would always admire and respect him and ever sought to please him through his achievements in life. Interestingly, through his father’s line, Coolidge inherited a few drops of Indian blood, something he liked to note. As president, Coolidge would sign legislation granting all Native Americans U.S. citizenship. While not rich, his father was a man of substance for that time and place. He engaged in farming and various business pursuits, including operating the local store and serving as postmaster. His fellow citizens respected and trusted him. Over many years, he played a prominent part in community affairs, serving in local and state offices. As a result of serving on Governor Stickney’s military staff, the title of “Colonel” was bestowed upon him in 1900, and thereafter, he was addressed as such.
His mother was Victoria Josephine Moor Coolidge, a beautiful lady, we are told, bearing the name of two empresses. She and her husband John grew up together in the Notch and were married there on May 6, 1868. She was a frail individual, having, Coolidge wrote, “a touch of mysticism and poetry in her nature which made her love to gaze at the purple sunsets and watch the evening stars.”[ii]
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Coolidge’s boyhood in Plymouth Notch was an ordinary one. He wrote of it, “Country life does not always have breadth, but it has depth. It is neither artificial nor superficial, but is kept close to the realities.”[iii Beginning in September of 1877, he went to school up the road from the Coolidge homestead. His grades were good but unexceptional. There was nothing to set him apart, other than, perhaps, his shyness and frailty. He did performed chores faithfully; the wood box was always full. He worked on the farm, helping with haying, bringing in the grain, and husking the corn. He also hunted and fished and liked to ride. He attended dances in the room over the country store, but he himself did not take to the floor. One of his favorite times of the year was the maple sugar season. Cal, his father said, could get more sap out of a tree than anyone else.
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Tragedy came early into Coolidge’s life. In March of 1885, when he was but 12 years old, death took his mother away. His father and grandmother Coolidge did their best to make up for the loss. He lamented, “The greatest grief that can come to a boy came to me. Life was never to seem the same again.”[iv] As with many nineteenth century men, he was devoted to the memory of his mother. His deep and abiding love for her is revealed in his Autobiography. He would carry with him a locket containing her portrait until he went to join her. Five years after his mother’s passing, he would suffer another heavy blow with the death of beloved sister, Abigail, or Abbie as he called her. Something of her personality comes through in her favorite quotation: “Count the day lost / Whose low descending sun / Sees from they hand / No worthy action done.”[v]
In September of 1891, Coolidge’s father would marry a neighboring woman, a school teacher, Caroline Athelia Brown. Coolidge had known Carrie, as she was called, all his life. She was a good, caring woman who treated him as if he were her own son. “For thirty years,” he wrote in his Autobiography, “she watched over me and loved me…” [vi]
Black River Academy
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In February of 1886, at 13 years, Calvin Coolidge broke with the past when he entered the Black River Academy—an institution similar to a high school—at Ludlow. It was, he said, his first great adventure. “I was perfectly certain,” he later wrote, “that I was traveling out of the darkness into the light.”[vii] The academy, with a Baptist affiliation, had a student body of around 125 students and had just celebrated its 50th anniversary. Coolidge’s father, mother, and grandmother had attended the school for a few terms.
To prepare for future college work, Coolidge took the classical course, with its focus on Latin, Greek, history, and mathematics. Such course work, he would later observe, provided the ideals necessary to give direction to a person’s life. During his first term, he began his lifelong study of the Constitution of the United States. Years later he would praise that great charter, writing that “no other document devised by the hand of man ever brought so much progress and happiness to humanity.”[viii] His tuition was about $7.00 a term, and his room and board ran no more than $3.00 per week.
Coolidge graduated from the Black River Academy on the 23rd of May 1890. His class consisted of five boys and four girls. At the ceremony in Hammon Hall, he spoke on “Oratory in History,” in which he assessed the degree to which public speaking had influenced the course of world history. This presentation was Coolidge’s first noted public address.[ix] He had intended to enter Amherst that fall but following an illness, decided instead to take preparatory work during the spring term at St. Johnsbury Academy.
In August of 1891, Coolidge beheld his first president, Benjamin Harrison, when he attended with his father the dedication of the Bennington Battle Monument. “As I looked on him and realized that he personally represented the glory and dignity of the United States,” he wrote, “I wondered how it felt to bear so much responsibility and little thought I should ever know.”[x]
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Amherst College
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On September 17, 1891, the 19-year-old Coolidge entered Amherst College. His years there were critical to his intellectual, personal, and career development. Later in life, philosophizing on the purpose of education, he would say, “Education is to teach men not what to think but how to think.”[i] He studied under several fine professors, who, he found, were more than simply teachers but were “men of character,” whose words had an especially profound and lasting impact upon him.[ii] Notably, this was true of Charles E. Garman, who taught philosophy. Garman re-enforced in Coolidge his beliefs in the common man and in the value of work and gave him a broader outlook on life, one that would allow him to grow as a person over time. Most importantly, Coolidge learned from Garman “the law of service, under which men are not so solicitous about what they shall get as they are about what they shall give.”[iii] Coolidge would follow its dictates all his life. It would form the basis for his long career of public service.[iv]
Coolidge enjoyed the social life of the college, although, because of his shyness, he remained in the background. Yet he made acquaintances, men such as Dwight Morrow, a future financier. These men, along with other Amherst alumni, such as Frank W. Stearns, a wealthy Boston merchant, would later play a significant role in urging and cheering him on in his political career. Stearns, in particular, would become his friend and principal backer.
He joined the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity, in which he would take a lifelong interest. Recognizing his oratorical skills, at commencement time, his classmates honored him by choosing him to be Grove Orator. In this role, he was charged with making his audience laugh, and laugh they did. On the 26th day of June 1895, Calvin Coolidge graduated A.B., cum laude.
While at Amherst, Coolidge entered an essay contest on “The Principles Fought for in the American Revolution,” sponsored by the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. The contest was opened to all seniors at American colleges and universities. His paper won the silver medal at Amherst and then went on to be awarded first prize—a gold medal (about 7.5 ozs)—from among all the papers submitted nationally. This was quite an academic honor for the young Coolidge. It demonstrated his scholarly abilities and writing skills, which would later reappear in his public papers. Coolidge’s pride in his essay was such that years later, he included it in The Price of Freedom (1924), a volume of his addresses and writings.
After graduation, Coolidge returned to Plymouth Notch to work on his father’s farm for the summer. Coolidge had decided upon a career in law and wished to attend law school. His father, however, thought it best that he read the law at an established law firm—an old-fashion but practical and inexpensive way of learning the law.[v] Fortune smiled on Coolidge: He secured a place in the offices of John C. Hammond and Henry P. Field, both Amherst graduates, located in Northampton, Massachusetts, a city then of about 15,000 souls. In a sense, Coolidge was returning to his ancestral home, for his ancestors had lived in Massachusetts for 150 years before migrating to Vermont.
While still in college, in thinking of his future home, Coolidge had written his father in a Garman-like fashion, “I should like to live where I can be of some use to the world and not simply where I should get a few dollars together.”[vi] His wish was granted: His new hometown and state would welcome him and lay before him numerous opportunities for public service in the years ahead.
On His Own
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It was on September 23, 1895, that Coolidge began his lawyer apprenticeship. Hammond and Field, both fine attorneys, took the young man under their wing. As always with Coolidge, he applied himself fully and in time, became proficient at his new profession. Just two days before his 25th birthday in 1897, Coolidge was admitted to the Massachusetts bar. The following year, on February 1, 1898, he opened his own law office on the second floor of the Masonic block on Main Street. Inspiring confidence and trust, he built a solid reputation for himself and slowly his practice grew. Over time, he would become an attorney for the Springfield Brewery and counsel for the Nonotuck Savings Bank, the largest savings institution in Northampton. He was noted for settling his clients’ cases out of court, if possible, saving them time and money. He willingly helped all, including the poor, who came to him for assistance. His fees were so low that his colleagues in the law upbraided him for not charging more.
Marriage
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By the turn of the century, Coolidge had become an established lawyer and was active in civic affairs. All that was missing from his life was a wife. This problem was remedied when he met the beautiful and charming, Grace Anna Goodhue, a teacher at the Clarke School for the Deaf. Love bloomed at first sight. His wooing of her was successful, and overcoming his future mother-in-law’s objections, they were married on the 4th of October 1905, at Grace’s parents’ home in Burlington, Vermont.
Grace was truly the love of his life. “A man,” Coolidge wrote, “who has the companionship of a lovely and gracious woman enjoys the supreme blessing that life can give. And no citizen of the United States knows the truth of this statement more than I.”[vii] He would always want Grace by his side. As a companion, with her friendly, outgoing personality, she compensated for his silent reserve. “We thought we were made for each other,” he observed. “For almost a quarter of a century she has borne with my infirmities, and I have rejoiced in her graces.”[viii] The family made their home in a rented duplex at 21 Massasoit Street.
Their first child, who they called John, arrived on September 7, 1906. He would live a long and productive life, dying in May of 2000. A second child, Calvin, Jr., came on April 13, 1908. This child, who resembled his father both in looks and in his ways, would die tragically in July of 1924 at the beginning of the presidential election campaign. His death, as only a child’s death can, took a heavy toll on Coolidge, and for a time, Melancholy marked him for her own. “When he went,” he sadly wrote, “the power and the glory of the Presidency went with him.”[ix] Less than two years later, he lost his elderly father as well.
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Politics and Office Holding
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Calvin Coolidge was born into politics. Indeed, his father was first elected to the Vermont legislature a month after Coolidge’s birth. As a young child, Coolidge would visit him at the Capitol at Montpelier and while there, he sat in the Governor’s chair. Later, he would attend town meetings with his father and observe how he handled himself and dealt with issues facing the community. When Coolidge became president, he wrote his father, “I am sure I came to it [i.e., the presidency] largely by your bringing up and your example.”[i] He also experienced democracy at first hand, and in doing so, he gain a lasting respect for the average citizen and the electoral process. He would later say, “There is something in every town meeting, in every election, that approaches very near to the sublime.”[ii] For Coolidge, local government and local responsibility were at the heart of the American democracy. His faith in the people was absolute. “In time of crisis,” Coolidge wrote in his Autobiography, “my belief that people can know the truth, that when it is presented to them they must accept it, has saved me from many of the counsels of expediency.”[iii]
The importance of elections was brought home to Coolidge in the Garfield-Hancock presidential campaign of 1880, when he was eight years old. He asked his father for a penny to buy a stick of horehound candy. His father replied that it was best to wait, for an election was underway and if the Democrat Hancock was successful at the polls, hard times were sure to follow. Garfield triumphed, however, and Coolidge got his candy.
In the fall of 1888, while at the Black River Academy, Coolidge experienced his first presidential campaign. It was between Cleveland and Harrison, and he joined in celebrating the latter’s victory for two nights. He was 16 at the time. In the presidential election of 1892, he joined the Amherst Republican Club and participated in torchlight parades. This time, however, his candidate failed and he learned the sorrow of political defeat. In 1893, at the request of his Plymouth neighbors, the budding politician gave his first of what would be many Fourth of July speeches. “While that flag floats,” he exclaimed, pointing to the Stars-and-Strips, “our rights shall be preserved.”[iv]
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When Coolidge left Amherst, he commented to a friend, “I’m only sure of one thing—that I’m a Republican.”[v]
His Republicanism was based firmly in a belief in the party’s ideals and in the correctness of its fundamental policies on the great issues of the day, such as the protective tariff that was designed to nurture American manufacturing. Coolidge would be a consistent and an unwavering party man till the end, but never was he an extreme partisan.[vi] He had many friends among his opponents; indeed, at his death, Al Smith, the 1928 Democrat presidential candidate, would compose one of the more insightful Coolidge obituaries, entitled “A Shining Public Example.”[vii] As for parties themselves, he believed that by providing a point of responsibility, they were essential to the functioning of the American political system.
Hammond and Field encouraged Coolidge to involve himself in Northampton politics. Although reserved, he had a genuine common touch and enjoyed talking politics with average citizens, such as James Lucey, a cobbler and active Democrat, with whom Coolidge had become acquainted while in college. Lucey liked the young man, becoming his friend and advisor and helping him in local politics. There is some irony in that the Republican Coolidge’s first letter from the White House was to the Democrat Lucey. Coolidge wrote him, “…I want you to know that, if it were not for you, I should not be here…”[viii] Like a true politician, Coolidge never forgot his friends who helped him along the way.
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Coolidge began his involvement in Northampton politics in the fall of 1895 when he helped Henry P. Field in his race for mayor. The following year, 1896, Coolidge participated in one of the most exciting and important presidential election in our history: the great battle between Bryan and McKinley. Coolidge, who was able to vote for the first time in this election, did his part by writing an article for a local newspaper attacking Bryan. While vacationing at Plymouth Notch that summer, he defended the gold standard in debate, which pleased his father. It was also at this time that he received his first political assignment, serving as an alternative delegate to a local party convention to nominate a state senator. He was finding his calling in life; he was becoming a politician.
Up the Political Ladder
Coolidge was once asked if he had hobby. He replied, “Holding office.”[ix] Over the years, Calvin Coolidge would run for public office 17 times (excluding primaries). This number is high because in Coolidge’s day, elections in Massachusetts were held annually. Coolidge probably put himself before the people’s judgment more than any of our other presidents.
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He was a first rate politician and a consistent vote getter, especially good at attracting Irish Democrat voters, many of whom were enthusiastic for him. He managed all his early campaigns on his own, and he won each race but one, a seat on the Northampton school committee in 1905. He always ran positive campaigns focusing on the issues.
Voters came to see Coolidge as a man of character who knew his business and could be trusted to do the day’s work. Moreover, there was never a hint of scandal, personal or political, attached to his name. Having the people’s confidence served Coolidge well as a public figure when, for instance, he had to resolve the messy scandals left him by the Harding Administration after assuming the presidency. His great success as a politician was due to his listening to the people and doing what they wanted done. For example, as president, coming into office after the Great War, this would involve restoring the United States to a peacetime basis or, as Warren G. Harding so well put it, returning country to “normalcy.”[x]
His grounding in politics, legislating, and public administration was thorough. He started at the bottom of the political ladder and worked his way to the top. He held both legislative and administrative positions—excelling at both, a rare combination in a politician. In his 23 years in elective office, the following are the eight positions he held by gift of the people, along with his dates of service.
Northampton City Councilman, 1899 (one term)
Representative to the General Court, 1907-08 (two terms)
Mayor of Northampton, 1910-11 (two terms)
State Senator, 1912-15 (four terms), serving as President of the Senate, 1914-15
Lieutenant Governor, 1916-18 (three terms)
Governor of the Commonwealth, 1919-20 (two terms)
Vice President of the United States, Mar. 4, 1921, to Aug. 2, 1923, when he was called to the presidency upon the death of President Warren Gamaliel Harding. Partial term: 2 years and 5 months.
President of the United States, Aug. 2, 1923 to Mar. 4, 1929, elected in his own right on Nov. 4, 1924. Partial and one full term: 5 years and 7 months.
Coolidge also held other positions during these years. They included:
Northampton City Solicitor, 1900-01. Two appointments. Chosen by the City Council. Passed over for a third appointment.
Clerk of the Court of Hampshire County pro tempore, 1903. Appointed by the Court. Served out the term of the deceased incumbent; declined to run for election to the post.
biosketch_4_rev
Reflections on a Politician and Statesman
In his political thinking, Coolidge was at heart a conservative. This is seen in his focus on preserving individual liberty and freedom, his defense of property rights, his support of religion, his encouragement of tolerance by personal example in a time of intolerance, and his Burkean respect for the law and the time-honored institutions and customs of society. When it came to new legislation, he was concerned that it not only be constitutional but also met a genuine need in a practical fashion. He was never quick to legislate. He was, in fact, more concerned with stopping bad legislation than passing good. Yet he was not afraid to use the powers of government, when necessary, to address exceptional public needs, as demonstrated during the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, when government agencies and the Red Cross combined efforts to meet the crisis.
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Coolidge was attuned to the public mood, and he did support progressive or liberal measures during his days in Massachusetts politics. Indeed, early on, he was considered a liberal. He was sympathetic to the causes of woman and labor and worked on their behalf. And throughout his career, he was a staunch supporter of education, raising teachers’ salaries as mayor and proposing a Department of Education and Relief as president. It must be understood that Coolidge was proud of Massachusetts—then an example to the nation of an enlightened, progressive state—and what it had accomplished for the well being of its citizens through its institutions, public and private.
It was while governor of the Commonwealth that Coolidge faced the greatest challenge of his political career: the Boston Police Strike of 1919, one of those sad, tragic happenings that should never have been. Here he was faced with a challenge that could either make him politically or destroy his career.[i] Standing firmly for the right as he saw it, he navigated the storm successfully.
At the end of it all, he clearly and definitively expressed the issue at the heart of the crisis: “There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time.”[ii] In these few words, he summed up the nation’s mood. The Democrat President Woodrow Wilson congratulated him on his firm stand against this “crime against civilization.”[iii] On the floor of the U.S. Senate, Senator Charles S. Thomas, a Democrat of Colorado, remarked, “It is to such men [as Coolidge] that we must look for the preservation of American institutions.”[iv] That fall the voters of the Commonwealth returned Calvin Coolidge to office in historic landslide victory. —Vox Populi, Vox Dei!
As a consequence of the police strike, Coolidge reaped praise and gained a national fame that would propel him to the top of the political ladder. At the Republican national convention in June of 1920, the delegates, tired of being bossed by the bosses, rejected the bosses’ candidate for vice president and instead, enthusiastically chose Calvin Coolidge as Warren G. Harding’s running mate.
At Harding’s sudden passing on August 2, 1923, Calvin Coolidge was called to the presidency. Asked what thought first came to mind on receiving the news of his elevation, he replied, “I thought I could swing it.”[v] He was famously sworn into office by his father, a notary public, in the parlor of the family homestead at Plymouth Notch by the light of a kerosene lamp. This simple event captured then as it still captures today the imagination of a nation.
With his belief in local and state government as the true engine of democracy, Coolidge necessarily held a narrow Jeffersonian view regarding the functions of the national government. Indeed, his views on the subject were much more in keeping with those of Grover Cleveland, the president of his youth, than with those of Theodore Roosevelt or Woodrow Wilson. As president, he respected and honored states’ rights. He often spoke of the essential, basic role of state and local governments in our political system. “What we need,” he preached, “is not more Federal Government but better local government.”[vi] Frankly, few of his contemporaries paid him much heed, for they had learned to love, even in those pre-New Deal days, the dollars following into their communities from Washington for such popular projects as highway construction.[vii]
As president, Coolidge made himself into the nation’s chief administrator, de-emphasizing his role as a political leader, like Dwight Eisenhower would later do. His primary concern was on reducing the deficit, cutting taxes, maintaining tariff stability, and making the government run efficiently and effectively In these tasks, he excelled. Particularly notable was Coolidge’s skillful use of the newly created Bureau of the Budget in bringing order and direction to the budgeting process and thereby achieving the savings and efficiencies he sought.
On his watch, the national debt was reduced from $22.3 billion to $16.9 billion and tax rates were slashed significantly with most Americans eventually paying no Federal taxes at all. The economy boomed with industrial production increasing 70%, real earnings for wage earners growing 22%, and unemployment averaging 3.3%. Truly, Calvin Coolidge was the right man, at the place, at the right time. It should be noted that the passage of the Revenue Act of 1926, which embodied his tax policies, was the culmination of his presidency.
To build public support for his program of “constructive economy,” as he referred to it, he cleverly made pioneering use of the new medium of radio, reporting semi-annually to the public on the budget and tax matters.[viii] The radio permitted him to speak directly to the American people over the heads of politicians and newspaper editors. It helped him to block or lessen raids on the Treasury, such as those attempted by Congress in connection with Mississippi River improvements. To improve his effectiveness over the air, he brought in an expert to work with him on his radio presence. Through his extensive use of airwaves—he made over 50 major radio addresses—Coolidge became America’s first radio president.
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Coolidge, of course, did not neglect the print media, it being a great source of free publicity. As president, he went out of his way to accommodate the needs of the White House press corps. For instance, he provided them with stories on slow news days and, most notably, he became the first president to hold regular, twice-weekly press conferences. He thus got along well with most newsmen, and in turn, he received generally favorable coverage in the pages of nation’s newspapers.
He also willingly satisfied the demands of camera and newsreel men, who had only recently gained access to the White House. All he asked of them was not to take his picture while he was savoring one of his favorite cigars. It is worth noting that during the 1924 campaign, he became the first president to appear in a talking newsreel. Lee de Forest produced the film in which Coolidge read excerpts from his speech accepting the Republican presidential nomination.[ix]
Coolidge was no isolationist.[x] He understood early on the new heightened status of the United States among the nations of the world. Speaking at Tremont Temple on November 2, 1918, only a few days before the Armistice, Governor Coolidge said this: “We have taken a new place among the nations. The Revolution made us a nation; the Spanish[-American] War made us a world power; the present war has given us recognition as a world power. We shall not again be considered provincial. Whether we desired it or not this position has come to us with its duties and its responsibilities.”[xi]
On the international front, the Coolidge administration supported the Dawes plan for German reparations and established accommodative payment schedules for the Allied war debt to the United States. This, along with American private loans and governmental support, gradually led the major nations of the world to restore the international gold standards, thereby spurring world trade. The administration also secured the ratification of the Kellogg-Briand Treaty outlawing war. It failed, however, because of the opposition of isolationists Senators, to secure U.S. membership on the World Court, although a revived attempt at joining it was underway at the end of the Coolidge presidency. Also, its efforts to build upon the success of the Washington Conference on the Limitation of Armaments, 1921-22, were unproductive. Notably, the administration through the good work of Ambassador Dwight W. Morrow did succeed in restoring our strained relations with Mexico at a time when some were pressing for intervention in that unhappy country. As President, Coolidge did venture outside of the United States on one occasion. This was in January of 1928, when he journeyed to Havana, Cuba, to speak to the Sixth International Conference of American States.
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Coolidge’s interest in military affairs dated from 1899 when, as a city councilman, he proposed to secure an armory for Northampton. It was revived again during the Great War at the time he was serving in state government. Indeed, his first act as governor was to approve funding for a welcoming celebration for the men of Yankee Division. As president, Coolidge sought to maintain a modest military force one sufficient to meet peacetime needs. His guiding principles were, as he described them, “preparation, limitation, and renunciation.”[xii] This policy, it is worth recalling, was well suited for a time when anti-war sentiment was strong.
Not all was peaceful within the military itself: Controversy raged around Colonel William “Billy” Mitchell, a proponent of what were then advanced but controversial ideas about military aviation. Lacking restraint, Mitchell attacked the military establishment for being hidebound, going so far as to accuse its leaders of an “almost treasonable administration of the nation’s defense.”[xiii] This could not go on. Eventually, at the direct order of President Coolidge, Mitchell was court-martialed for insubordination. Having been found guilty, he resigned from the Army.
Coolidge was the last president never to have flown in an airplane, yet he well understood the value of aviation and supported its development. The greatest public moment of Coolidge presidency, as well as the high water mark of the 1920s, was the welcoming home ceremony at Washington for Charles Augustus Lindbergh on June 11, 1927. It took place following the Lone Eagle’s solo flight in Spirit of St. Louis from New York to Paris in which the young, brave pilot had triumphed over Death. Thanks to radio, Americans in the cities and towns and on the farm were able to participate in this wonderful, national celebration.
With the backing of the Coolidge Administration, Lindbergh, who the President raised to rank of colonel, went on to tour the nation to build public support for aviation. Later, as America’s winged-ambassador, he made a good-will tour of Latin America, being greeted along the way by large enthusiastic crowds. Lindbergh and Coolidge developed a lasting relationship.
Military training was encouraged. Coolidge’s son John was attending a Citizens Military Training Camp when his father became president. It was Coolidge’s thinking that the national debt was the weakest link in the nation’s defense, because it reduced the funds available to meet military needs in a crisis. Thus, his debt reduction program was fundamental to strengthening the nation’s military footing. He understood, moreover, that the great strength of the country rested ultimately not on its implements of war, but on its people, its agriculture and industrial resources, and its wealth. This led him to focus primarily on issues relating to the mobilization of manpower and industry. In this matter, he called for advice upon Bernard M. Baruch, who had headed the War Industries Board during the Great War. To address the problems of war profiteering and war fortunes that had so angered the public, he urged the drafting not just men but also wealth and resources in the event of a future war. Sacrifice would be required of all and no war profits would be allowed.
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Coolidge did not forget the veterans and their families. As governor and president, he supported programs for veterans, especially those aimed at the disabled. The one notable exception was his opposition to the World War soldiers’ bonus bill, which was finally passed over his veto in 1924. Besides threatening the country’s finances at a critical point, he believed this bill, with its money handouts, would diminish the value of the veterans’ service to their nation. “No person,” he firmly noted, “was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave.”[xiv]
As president, he and Mrs. Coolidge held receptions on the White House lawn at which they welcomed and entertained wounded veterans from area hospitals. Coolidge famously summed up his feelings for veterans in these words, “The nation that forgets its defenders will itself be forgotten.”[xv] He was also an enthusiastic supporter of the American Legion, which he viewed as a unifying, patriotic force in American life, speaking before its national convention as vice president in 1921 and as president in 1925. One of the highlights of his presidency was his dedication of the World War I Liberty Memorial in Kansas City on Armistice Day 1926, an event that was broadcast nationally.
The Coolidge presidency, 1923-29, was a most successful one. That was certainly the overwhelming judgment of most of Coolidge’s contemporaries. The President was fortunate to preside over what was probably the most exciting, vital, and creative decade of the twentith Century. It was a decade of youth. It was a decade when modern America came alive. Not all was perfect by any means: There were pockets of unemployment; some farmers were hard pressed; and most disturbing, intolerance manifested itself in the form of the Ku Klux Klan. Yet, it was overall an era marked by peace and unprecedented prosperity. Most Americans had never had it so good. And some would later argue that it was the last time the American people were truly free.
As president, Coolidge achieved his principal objectives of debt reduction and tax reform, along with downsizing the government to reflect post-war needs. When he left office, he did so knowing that he had been a good and faithful servant; his stewardship well done.
Although the Coolidge administration was focused on catching up with existing legislation rather than enacting new, there was notable legislation passed and signed. Four measures that stand out are these:
the Revenue Act of 1926, which embodied the Coolidge-Mellon tax policies that were at the heart of the administration’s program of fiscal reform;
the Air Commerce Act of 1926, which regulated civil aviation and made possible the development of this new industry;
the Public Buildings Act of 1926, which authorized the start of construction on the magnificent Federal Triangle complex of buildings in the nation’s capital; and
the Federal Radio Act of 1927, which put in place a regulatory framework for the new media under which it would thrive.
Attached to this essay is a listing of important legislation of the Coolidge era.
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Coolidge also successfully blocked many of those initiatives he opposed, most notably the McNary-Haugen farm relief bill, which he rejected mainly on constitutional grounds and twice vetoed. In the case of the Mississippi River Flood Control Act of 1928, the President worked with Congress to turn a flawed and fiscally irresponsible measure into a responsible bill that he could sign. He was not, however, always successful, as in his attempt to remove the Japanese exclusion provision from the Immigration Act of 1924, a bipartisan measure having overwhelming public and Congressional support. And it must be recorded that there were also several instances of Coolidge supported initiatives that went nowhere in the Congress; these included legislation addressing railroad consolidation, government reorganization, and an anti-lynching measure.
In all, Coolidge vetoed 20 bills and pocket vetoed another 30. Only four of his regular vetoes were overridden, but among them was the popular and costly Soldiers’ Bonus Bill. Here, Coolidge put himself in opposition to the Congress and their constituents, especially veterans—and he lost. But the people seemed to admire him for having the courage of his convictions, and to lessen criticism, he acted promptly to implement the legislation.
Coolidge enjoyed a widespread popularity and could easily have won re-election in 1928. Instead, he chose not to run again. Personal Factors played a role in his decision, as well as the realization that his work was done and that the public was ready for a new man with a new approach. He remarked to a Cabinet member, “I know how to save money. All my training has been in that direction. The country is in a sound financial condition. Perhaps the time has come when we ought to spend money. I do not feel that I am qualified to do that.”[xvi] Moreover, as he wisely observed, “It is pretty good idea to get out when they still want you.”[xvii]
Retirement and Death
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On March 4, 1929, Calvin Coolidge departed Washington to the plaudits of the public for a job well done. When a reporter asked him what he considered his most important accomplishment, he replied simply, “minding my own business.”[xviii] He returned to Northampton, there to live out the time remaining to him. He took up the pen, writing his Autobiography, contributing to periodicals, and doing a syndicated newspaper column, “Calvin Coolidge Says.” He became a director of the New York Life Insurance Co. and at President Hoover’s request, served on the National Transportation Committee, both transportation and insurance being subjects that had long interested him. He and Mrs. Coolidge travelled about the county: He dined with Huey Long, Governor of Louisiana; he dedicated an Arizona dam named in his honor; and even visited Hollywood and stayed at Hearst’s San Simeon estate. He withdrew from active politics, limiting himself to a few political addresses on behalf of the beleaguered Hoover administration. His health was not good, and worries over the ever-deepening Depression definitely preyed upon him. Death, in the form of heart attack, came for him on the 5th of January 1933, at the age of 60 years. He never lived to see the coming of the New Deal. He rests today among his ancestors in the cemetery at Plymouth Notch. [xix]
Calvin Coolidge, in full John Calvin Coolidge, (born July 4, 1872, Plymouth, Vermont, U.S.—died January 5, 1933, Northampton, Massachusetts), 30th president of the United States (1923–29). Coolidge acceded to the presidency after the death in office of Warren G. Harding, just as the Harding scandals were coming to light. He restored integrity to the executive branch of the federal government while continuing the conservative pro-business policies of his predecessor.
Key events in the life of Calvin Coolidge.
Key events in the life of Calvin Coolidge.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Coolidge, Calvin
Coolidge, Calvin
See all media
Born: July 4, 1872 Plymouth Vermont
Died: January 5, 1933 (aged 60) Northampton Massachusetts
Title / Office: presidency of the United States of America (1923-1929), United States vice president of the United States of America (1921-1923), United States governor (1919-1920), Massachusetts
Political Affiliation: Republican Party
Notable Family Members: spouse Grace Coolidge
Early life and career
Coolidge was the only son of John Calvin Coolidge and Victoria Moor Coolidge. His father, whose forebears had immigrated to America about 1630, was a storekeeper who instilled in his son the New England Puritan virtues—honesty, industry, thrift, taciturnity, and piety—while his mother cultivated in him a love of nature and books. A graduate of Amherst College, Coolidge began practicing law in 1897. In 1905 he married Grace Anna Goodhue, a teacher in the Clarke Institute for the Deaf, with whom he had two sons.
Coolidge, Calvin
Coolidge, Calvin
Calvin Coolidge, age seven.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Coolidge, Calvin; Coolidge family
Coolidge, Calvin; Coolidge family
The Calvin Coolidge family: (from left) John, Calvin, Calvin, Jr., and Grace.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
A Republican, Coolidge entered politics as a city councilman in Northampton, Massachusetts, in 1898. He was elected mayor of Northampton in 1909 and then served in the Massachusetts state government as senator (1911–15) and lieutenant governor (1915–18). Elected governor in 1918, Coolidge captured national attention the following year when he called out the state guard to quell violence and disorder resulting from a strike by the Boston police, who had formed a labour union to press their demands for better pay and working conditions. When labour leaders called on him to support their demands for reinstatement of police officers who had been fired for striking, Coolidge refused, summing up his reasoning in a single sentence that reverberated throughout the country: “There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time.”
Calvin Coolidge, c. 1920.
Calvin Coolidge, c. 1920.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
That statement—combined with Coolidge’s strong stand against the Boston police at a time when many Americans viewed organized labour as too radical—catapulted Coolidge onto the Republican Party’s ticket in 1920 as Harding’s vice-presidential running mate. The personality of the taciturn Coolidge could not have provided a greater contrast to that of the gregarious Harding. In terms of policy, however, Harding and Coolidge were nearly identical. Both were members of the Old Guard Republicans, that conservative segment of the party that had remained with Pres. William Howard Taft in the 1912 election when Theodore Roosevelt left to form the Bull Moose Party. Promising the American people a “return to normalcy,” Harding and Coolidge achieved the greatest popular vote margin in presidential elections to that time, crushing the Democratic ticket of James Cox and Franklin Delano Roosevelt by 60 to 34 percent. The electoral vote was equally one-sided: 404 to 127.
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Presidency
Acceding to the presidency upon Harding’s unexpected death (August 2, 1923), Coolidge took the oath of office from his father, a notary public, by the light of a kerosene lamp at 2:47 AM on August 3 at the family home in Plymouth, Vermont. He inherited an administration mired in scandal. Cautiously, quietly, and skillfully, Coolidge rooted out the perpetrators and restored integrity to the executive branch. A model of personal rectitude himself, Coolidge convinced the American people that the presidency was once again in the hands of someone they could trust. The change of ambience in the White House did not miss the keen eye of Alice Roosevelt Longworth, daughter of Pres. Theodore Roosevelt, who said that the new White House was “as different as a New England front parlor is from a backroom in a speakeasy.”
At the Republican convention in 1924 Coolidge was nominated virtually without opposition. Running on the slogan “Keep Cool with Coolidge,” he won a landslide victory over conservative Democrat John W. Davis and Progressive Party candidate Robert La Follette, gaining about 54 percent of the popular vote to Davis’s 29 percent and La Follette’s nearly 17 percent; in the electoral college Coolidge received 382 votes to Davis’s 136 and La Follette’s 13. Coolidge’s inaugural address, the first inaugural address to be broadcast on national radio, focused principally on his vision of the role of the United States in the world.
Button from Calvin Coolidge's 1924 U.S. presidential campaign.
Button from Calvin Coolidge's 1924 U.S. presidential campaign.
Americana/Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Coolidge, Calvin
Coolidge, Calvin
Calvin Coolidge taking the oath of office as U.S. president, 1925.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Coolidge was famous for being a man of few but well-chosen words. Despite his reputation, “Silent Cal,” as he was called, had a keen sense of humour, and he could be talkative in private family settings. His wit was displayed in a characteristic exchange with a Washington, D.C., hostess, who told him, “You must talk to me, Mr. President. I made a bet today that I could get more than two words out of you.” Coolidge replied, “You lose.”
Coolidge captured the prevailing sentiment of the American people in the 1920s when he said, “The chief business of the American people is business.” The essence of the Coolidge presidency was its noninterference in and bolstering of American business and industry. Government regulatory agencies, such as the Federal Trade Commission, now were staffed by people who sought to assist business expansion rather than to police business practices. Most Americans, identifying their own prosperity with the growth of corporate profits, welcomed this reversal of progressive reforms. They generally agreed with the assessment of Oliver Wendell Holmes, associate justice of the Supreme Court: “While I don’t expect anything very astonishing from [Coolidge] I don’t want anything very astonishing.”
The New York Stock Exchange on an active trading day in the late 1920s.
The New York Stock Exchange on an active trading day in the late 1920s.
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Key to the conservative, pro-business focus of the Coolidge administration was Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon. A multimillionaire himself, Mellon believed strongly that reducing taxes for the rich was the best way to expand the nation’s wealth. He held that, as the rich invested funds that otherwise would have been taken away in taxes, new businesses would form and older enterprises would expand and that the result would be more jobs and greater national production. Under the leadership of Coolidge and Mellon, Congress sharply reduced income taxes and estate taxes.
One form of business enterprise, however, received almost no help from the Coolidge administration: agriculture. Farmers constituted the one group of producers clearly not participating in the decade’s prosperity. Twice Congress passed the McNary-Haugen bill, calling for the federal government to purchase surplus crops. Twice (1927 and 1928) Coolidge vetoed it, and the economic woes of American farmers persisted well into the following decade. Coolidge also vetoed a bill offering a bonus to veterans of World War I; Congress overrode that veto in 1924.
Reflecting its focus on internal economic growth, the Coolidge administration showed little interest in events outside the nation’s borders. Coolidge adamantly opposed U.S. membership in the League of Nations, though he did increase unofficial American involvement in the international organization. Ironically for such an inward-looking administration, two of its members received the Nobel Prize for Peace. In 1925, Vice President Charles G. Dawes won the prize for his program to help Germany meet its war debt obligations, and Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg won it in 1929 for his role in negotiating the Kellogg-Briand Pact, a multinational agreement renouncing war as an instrument of national policy.
Kellogg-Briand Pact
Kellogg-Briand Pact
U.S. Pres. Calvin Coolidge (seated left) signing the Kellogg-Briand Pact, January 1929, Washington, D.C.
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (LC-DIG-hec-35222)
Life after the presidency
In 1928, announcing, “I do not choose to run,” Coolidge turned his back on what surely would have been another election victory and instead retired to Northampton. There he wrote a syndicated newspaper column, several magazine articles, and his autobiography (1929). And there, a little less than four years after leaving the White House, he died of a heart attack. After his death, as the country suffered through the worst economic crisis in its history, many came to view the Coolidge era as a time of inaction and complacency in the face of looming disaster. Although Coolidge’s personality continued to be the butt of jokes—upon hearing that Coolidge was dead, the writer Dorothy Parker quipped, “How can they tell?”—he was fondly remembered for his quiet New England virtues and for the renewed dignity and respect he brought to his office.
Coolidge, Calvin
Coolidge, Calvin
Calvin Coolidge.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Coolidge was survived by first lady Grace Coolidge, a woman whose outgoing personality contrasted sharply with that of her tight-lipped spouse. She lived another 24 years, during which time she devoted herself to the needs of the hearing-impaired.
Coolidge, Calvin; Coolidge, Grace
Coolidge, Calvin; Coolidge, Grace
Calvin and Grace Coolidge.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Cabinet of Pres. Calvin Coolidge
The table provides a list of cabinet members in the administration of Pres. Calvin Coolidge.
Cabinet of President Calvin Coolidge
August 3, 1923–March 3, 1925 (Term 1)
State Charles Evans Hughes
Treasury Andrew W. Mellon
War John Wingate Weeks
Navy Edwin Denby
Curtis Dwight Wilbur (from March 18, 1924)
Attorney General Harry Micajah Daugherty
Harlan Fiske Stone (from April 9, 1924)
Interior Hubert Work
Agriculture Henry Cantwell Wallace
Howard Mason Gore (from November 21, 1924)
Commerce Herbert Hoover
Labor James John Davis
March 4, 1925–March 3, 1929 (Term 2)
State Frank B. Kellogg
Treasury Andrew W. Mellon
War John Wingate Weeks
Dwight F. Davis (from October 14, 1925)
Navy Curtis Dwight Wilbur
Attorney General John Garibaldi Sargent
Interior Hubert Work
Roy Owen West (from January 21, 1929)
Agriculture William Marion Jardine
Commerce Herbert Hoover
William Fairfield Whiting (from December 11, 1928)
Labor James John Davis