# 30 Calvin Coolidge : The Silent, Cheapskate, Vanilla President (1923-1929)

Nov 26, 2017

"Coolidge" by Amity Shales 2013

How can there be a giant book about a president who rarely spoke and had minimal personality?

Well, there is one and it took me forever to read it since I kept falling asleep.  His nickname was Silent Cal since he would invite guests to his house, politicians and cabinet members to meetings, and press to briefings and literally say nothing. 

Calvin Coolidge was born in a very small Vermont town on a very small farm.  The town was so small that his father was like the mayor, police chief, tax collector and probably dog catcher.  He was a sickly, skinny kid and his parents were both rather cold, practical New Englanders.  He knew he was too physically weak to be a good farmer so he decided to go to college and study law.  It took some tutoring for him to get accepted  (he was always very bad at math) but he finally got in to Amherst College.   He was so awkward and unpopular that even though 95% of the students belonged to a fraternity, no one asked him to join until his Senior year.  By then he had become pretty good at debate and speeches if he could mainly just read them. 

His early career started with a small law office in Northampton, MA  and he struggled with money for many years, continuing to need support from his folks.  He married a beautiful woman named Grace- not quite sure what she saw in him. He literally counted every penny and they never bought a house until the last few years of his life.  He progressed from the state legislature, to mayor, to lieutenant governor, and then governor of Massachusetts. 

Coolidge was surprisingly popular for a republican governor in a democratic state.  Most of his career he seemed to try to find the middle way.  He was never very talkative but listened a lot.  Two things helped propel him upwards. First, the governor he was lieutenant for was super wealthy and a great friend.  His name was Stearns and  he helped Coolidge a lot, personally and professionally.  Second, when he was governor there was a massive strike by the Boston police department.  Coolidge fired all of them and said they had endangered the public and did not deserve their jobs.  It made him look like a tough guy who was very decisive.  Ironic, since it really was the first major stand he had taken.  But he got a LOT of press for this.

Coolidge was chosen to be vice president for Warren G. Harding because of his "toughness".  Their personalities were totally different.  Harding was a partier ( lots of liquor even during Prohibition) and he was a great schmoozer with people.   Harding's administration was also plagued with corruption ( ie Teapot Dome Scandal) since he appointed a lot of cronies.  The very upstanding Coolidge sort of felt awkward and embarrassed by all that.  However, he and Harding were alike in that they wanted to shrink government and get the debt incurred during WW1 paid off.   However, Harding died after about 2 years in office and Coolidge took over.

As president, he was still a cheapskate. He refused to ever provide aid for social programs, veterans and natural disasters that struck during his term.  His Treasury secretary was the famous rich guy Andrew Mellon and his budget director was named Lord. He held weekly meetings with them and literally examined every expenditure-- deciding what kind of paper was cheaper and cutting government departments. He said the country should have a consistent budget of just 3 billion dollars. ( Bahaha!) Impressively,  he did manage to shrink the war debt and have a surplus every year.  Mellon convinced him that if the wealthy paid significantly less taxes, the government would actually bring in more revenue since it would stimulate the economy ( is this where the "trickle down"  idea started??! Argh!) Mellon and Coolidge called it "scientific taxation" and said it would be an experiment.  And it seemed to have moderate success, UNTIL the stock market crashed right as Coolidge left office which led to the greatest depression in our history.   

While he was running for reelection for a full term after finishing Harding's remaining term, Coolidge's son, Calvin Jr. died at the White House.  He got a blister on his toe playing tennis and it turned into sepsis, so he was dead within a week. This devastated Coolidge and he became even quieter and lost a lot of enthusiasm for being president.  While he was reelected for a full term, he refused to seek another one after that.  He went home to Vermont and Massachusetts. He spent time writing a weekly column , farming, and being closer to his remaining child, John.  Since he was never a robust healthy man, he died of a heart attack at the age of 60. Maybe his heart broke when he saw how much money FDR was spending by then.