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COOLIDGE, (John) Calvin
(1872–1933), 30th president of the U.S., who served
from 1923 to 1929. In a rapidly changing society, he expressed traditional
small-town values.
Born in Plymouth, Vt., on July 4, 1872, Coolidge attended
Amherst College (B.A., 1895), studied law, and was admitted to the
bar. In 1905 he married Grace Goodhue (1879–1957), whose
social sophistication contrasted markedly with her husband’s
sometimes curt manner.
Coolidge began to practice law in Northampton, Mass., where
he was regularly elected to local office until he became lieutenant
governor (1916–18) and governor (1919–20). Brought
to national attention by his suppression of a police strike in Boston—with
the assertion that “there is no right to strike against
the public safety by anybody, anytime, anywhere”—Coolidge
was chosen by the Republican National Convention as the party’s
nominee for vice-president in 1920, on a ticket headed by Warren
G. Harding.
Elected with Harding in a landslide, Coolidge succeeded to
the presidency upon Harding’s death in 1923. Untainted
by the scandals within the Harding administration, he was free to force
the resignation of Harding’s attorney general, Harry Daugherty
(1860–1941), and institute other reforms. Nominated for
president in his own right in 1924, Coolidge won easily.
Coolidge’s conception of presidential leadership
differed sharply from the activism of other 20th-century U.S. presidents.
Endorsing the Jeffersonian tradition of minimal government, he believed
in waiting for problems to arise before trying to solve them. Within
these narrow limits, he was a competent and effective leader. He
used the presidential press conference with skill, securing favorable
treatment of his administration by the media of his day. Popularly
known as Silent Cal, because of his refusal to engage in small talk,
he could, when he chose, be a voluble and articulate speaker and
writer.
Coolidge believed that “the business of America is
business,” and that the business of government was to balance
the budget, reduce the debt, cut taxes, make easy credit available
(by means of the Federal Reserve), and otherwise not interfere with
the private enterprise system. Ironically, the money saved by government thrift
flowed to the financial centers in New York City instead of to Washington.
Thus, as the national public debt diminished, private and municipal
debt expanded alarmingly with the increase in money supply.
In foreign policy Coolidge cautiously endorsed America’s
entry into the World Court, which the Senate rejected. He was adamant
about the repayment to the U.S. of debts incurred by the Allies
in World War I, although he was relatively flexible about the schedules
of repayment. Under Coolidge, the interventionist Latin American
policy of previous presidents was moderated. Dwight Morrow (1873–1931),
his ambassador to Mexico, averted a serious crisis with that country
arising from Mexico’s constitutional decision in 1917 to
nationalize its oil industry, in which the U.S. had substantial investments.
Announcing simply that he did “not choose to run” for
reelection in 1928, Coolidge retired to private life in 1929. Consequently
he did not have to deal with the subsequent stock market crash and
the depression of the 1930s, which occurred after he left office.
He died in Northampton, Mass., on Jan. 5, 1933.