Historical Figure
Calvin Coolidge
1872–1933
President of the United States from 1923 to 1929
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Biography
Calvin Coolidge was the 30th president of the United States, serving from 1923 to 1929. A Republican lawyer from Massachusetts, he previously served as the 29th vice president from 1921 to 1923, under President Warren G. Harding, and as the 48th governor of Massachusetts from 1919 to 1921. Coolidge gained a reputation as a small-government conservative, with a taciturn personality and dry sense of humor that earned him the nickname "Silent Cal".
In Their Own Words (5)
It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones.
Letter (6 September 1910) to his father, John Coolidge, who had been elected to the Vermont State Senate; in Your Son Calvin Coolidge, as cited in Silent Cal’s Almanack: The Homespun Wit and Wisdom of Vermont's Calvin Coolidge (2011), Ed. David Pietrusza, Bookbrewer, "Legislation". , 1910
Parties do not maintain themselves. They are maintained by effort. The government is not self-existent. It is maintained by the effort of those who believe in it. The people of America believe in American institutions, the American form of government and the American method of transacting business.
As quoted in Manuscripts: speeches and messages of Calvin Coolidge, 1895–1924, the Massachusetts State Library, George Fingold Library, Boston. , 1920
Men do not make laws. They do but discover them. Laws must be justified by something more than the will of the majority. They must rest on the eternal foundation of righteousness. That state is most fortunate in its form of government which has the aptest instruments for the discovery of law.
Speech to the Massachusetts State Senate (7 January 1914). , 1914
It is characteristic of the unlearned that they are forever proposing something which is old, and because it has recently come to their own attention, supposing it to be new.
From 'Address at Holy Cross' (25 June 1919), published in Have Faith In Massachusetts: A Collection of Speeches and Messages (2nd Ed.), Coolidge, Houghton Mifflin, p. 231. , 1919
Workmen's compensation, hours and conditions of labor are cold consolations, if there be no employment.
From the speech "Plymouth, Labor Day" (1 September 1919), as printed in Have Faith in Massachusetts: A Collection of Speeches and Messages (2nd Ed.), Houghton Mifflin, pp. 200-201 : see link above. , 1919
Timeline
The story of Calvin Coolidge, told in moments.
Born on Independence Day in Plymouth Notch, Vermont. The only U.S. president born on the Fourth of July. His father was a farmer and storekeeper.
Elected Governor of Massachusetts. Made national headlines by breaking the 1919 Boston Police Strike, declaring "There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time."
Sworn in as 30th President at 2:47 a.m. in his father's Vermont farmhouse by lamplight. His father, a notary public, administered the oath. Harding had died hours earlier.
Chose not to run for re-election with the famously terse announcement: "I do not choose to run for President in 1928." No explanation. The Roaring Twenties roared on without him.
Died of a heart attack at his Northampton home at 60. Found by his wife on the bedroom floor. The Great Depression had wiped out the prosperity he'd presided over.
Artifacts (6)
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