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Coolidge is shown seated in the Oval Office in 1923. Calvin Coolidge shakes hands with Walter Johnson at Griffith Stadium in Washington. |
Part three of a seven-part series about U.S. presidents.
QUINCY, Mass.
--America's 30th president, Calvin Coolidge, left the White House at the height of his personal popularity, in a time of peace, relative tranquility, and national prosperity. It was a period of entrepreneurial spirit, opportunity, and vibrant artistic expression, great music, literature, and theater. It was the "Roaring Twenties."Coolidge had refused another term. He later wrote, "Ten years in the White House is too long." The Grand Old Party chose Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover as its candidate.
Following President Hoover's rain-soaked inauguration, the Coolidges took the train from Union Station home to half of a two-family house in Northampton, Mass.
In retirement, Coolidge rejected job offers that would have capitalized on his presidency. Yet, there was no golden parachute. Wealthy friends wanted to provide him with a retirement fund, but he turned them down and redirected their $2 million generosity to the Coolidges' favorite charity: the Clarke School for the Deaf, where his wife, Grace Goodhue Coolidge, had been a teacher.
Always economical, Cal bought a used car--his presidential Pierce-Arrow--but now he had to hire a chauffeur. Coolidge was our last president to never drive a car--nor to fly in an airplane.
Soon, his autobiography was earning him $5 a word, and subsequent magazine articles and a newspaper column allowed him to purchase a stately home with
A YANKEE DOODLE DANDY?
"Silent Cal"--who was this guy? He was born on the Fourth of July in Plymouth, Vt., and he died 75 years ago. Ronald Reagan chose Coolidge's portrait for the Cabinet room, but are there any lessons for us in his administration?
While Coolidge was well-read, I doubt that he ever read the Tao Te Ching. Yet in a previous life, he could have written it. The ancient Chinese text resonates with the voice of Coolidge. His career path seems the Way of Lao Tzu. He was our least ambitious president, a man who succeeded without striving. His contemporaries called it "Coolidge luck."
Coolidge arrived in Washington in 1921 as Warren G. Harding's vice president. His place on the ticket didn't come from a smoke-filled room but rather from delegates at a runaway convention who were tired of being manipulated by powerful senators. He was never his party's choice; he was not even Massachusetts' favorite son. The Bay State's senior senator, Henry Cabot Lodge, said: "No man who lives in a two-family house is going to be president. Massachusetts is not for him!"
THE SPOTLIGHT FOUND HIM
The spotlight sought out Coolidge following the Boston police strike of 1919 when, as governor of Massachusetts, he refused to rehire the police who had left the city unprotected. He said, "There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anytime, anywhere." He had thought this position would mark his political demise; instead, his words made him a presidential contender.
But he refused to act like one! Upon learning that a campaign headquarters had been opened and money raised on his behalf, Gov. Coolidge ordered it closed and the money returned.
In 1920, the smart money was on Theodore Roosevelt's return to the White House. His death six days into the New Year left the Republicans with no obvious candidate. Also, while it was not immediately apparent, President Woodrow Wilson's League of Nations would become a tin can tied to any Democratic candidate's tail.
BIG CHANGES IN SOCIETY
Society in the 1920s had experienced a great change. The "Great War" was over and our soldiers came marching home, but they
The Volstead Act had made Prohibition the law of the land, and women voted for the first time. Coolidge had actively supported women's suffrage and while privately he considered Prohibition a bad law, he obeyed it because it was the law. Coolidge initially favored some kind of League of Nations and advocated for America to join the World Court.
President Harding had promised a return to normalcy. His administration seldom receives the credit it deserves for returning us to peacetime, as it was a monumental task. Harding assembled a mostly excellent Cabinet and invited his vice president to attend the meetings. Harding often repeated his father's story: "Warren, we are damned lucky you weren't born a girl because you'd be in the family way all the time: You can't say 'No'!"
Two years later, when it was Coolidge's turn to sit
It was said that Coolidge's favorite day as president would be one where nothing happened. He doubtless knew Henry Ford's prime directive for his Model T. "If it runs, leave it alone." And that's how Coolidge governed. To his successor, Herbert Hoover, he offered this advice: "If you see 10 troubles coming down the road, wait. There's a good chance that nine of them will run off into the ditch and you will have to deal with just one."
ECONOMY, AND THEN SOME
The U.S. Constitution was his constant study. He saw it as a how-to, not as a vexing curb to what he might wish to do. He came to office with no grand scheme. He favored economy in government, saying, "After that, I favor more economy." At the end of the Coolidge administration the majority of Americans still paid no taxes.
Coolidge became clinically depressed following the death of his 16 year-old son, just after his nomination. His administration was not much diminished by it. Mrs. Coolidge said, "He seemed to lose his zest for living," but after an interval of mourning, they resumed entertaining at the White House. He held twice-weekly press conferences and made numerous speeches around the country--all of which he wrote himself. He was endlessly cooperative with news photographers and the innovative sound newsreel.
Thanks to radio, "Silent Cal's" Vermont-accented voice was heard by more Americans than the combined voices of all previous presidents. He dedicated the work about to begin on Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills of South Dakota, the last time a president traveled on horseback to deliver an address and the only time Coolidge suggested that taxpayer dollars be spent on something nonessential. In his dedication, he coined the phrase "Shrine of Democracy."
He sent an ambassador to Mexico with a one-sentence directive: "Keep us out of war!" In 1928, with the president on board, the battleship Texas dropped anchor in Havana harbor, in the exact spot where the explosion of the battleship Maine became our cue to go to war with Spain in 1898. He is our only president to visit Cuba while in office.
Are there any Coolidge qualities we might look for in our next president? Could we use a few days where "nothing happens"?
Jim Cooke is an actor who performs one-man shows on a quartet of diverse New England characters: Calvin Coolidge, Daniel Webster, Edward Everett, and John Quincy Adams.
