Coolidge (99 page)

A PRESIDENTIAL MONUMENT.
Gutzon Borglum’s model for his presidential colossus. Coolidge visited the site and endorsed Borglum’s plan to sculpt past presidents into the Black Hills of South Dakota. Coolidge, however, was loath to endorse monuments to himself.

A TEST OF CHARACTER AND FEDERALISM.
After the Mississippi flood, a flood struck the president’s native Vermont. He had not gone to the Mississippi flood, and he did not go to this one, to demonstrate his commitment to the authority of a state government in an emergency. This image depicts Montpelier, the capital.

SAVE WORDS.
The Coolidge administration went to great lengths to instill frugality in the federal government. In the spring of 1928, General Lord wrote to Coolidge to say that the placard above was placed on the desks of correspondence clerks of the Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Animal Industry “with a view to reducing the number and length of letters.”

ANOTHER HISTORIC PARTNERSHIP.
After working with Andrew Mellon to pass historic tax cuts, Coolidge teamed up with Secretary of State Frank Kellogg to write the Kellogg-Briand Pact against war. Critics called the treaty a swordless sheath, but Coolidge believed its emphasis on law would foster worldwide peace.

LIKE THE MEN OF OLD.
The Republican Party repeatedly asked Coolidge to reconsider his decision not to run—in vain. Coolidge said that “the chances of having wise and faithful public service are increased by a change in the presidential office after a moderate length of time.”

WONDER BOY.
Coolidge and Hoover on the day of Hoover’s inauguration. Coolidge disliked Hoover and called him “Wonder Boy.”

IN DUE TIME.
Coolidge passed away on January 5, 1933. He was buried with his father, mother, and son Calvin at the small cemetery in Plymouth Notch. “In due time the good fortune of the United States to have had such a man as Calvin Coolidge in just the years he filled that office will be more clearly realized than it has yet been,”
The Wall Street Journal
commented.

About the Author

Amity Shlaes writes a syndicated column for
Bloomberg View
and directs the Four Percent Growth Project at the George W. Bush Presidential Center. She is the author of the
New York Times
bestsellers
The Forgotten Man
and
The Greedy Hand
. Shlaes chairs the jury of the Manhattan Institute’s Hayek Book Prize and has won both the Hayek and the Bastiat Prize for Journalism. She is a trustee of the Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation.

Visit
www.AuthorTracker.com
for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

Also by Amity Shlaes

The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression

The Greedy Hand: How Taxes Drive Americans Crazy and What to Do About It

Germany: The Empire Within

Credits

Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reproduce the following illustrations in the photo insert: All images courtesy of the Library of Congress unless otherwise noted. B
ORN ON THE
F
OURTH OF
J
ULY
: Vermont Division for Historic Preservation, President Calvin Coolidge State Historic Site. T
HE
O
UDEN
, A
N
E
DUCATED
F
IRST
L
ADY
, A S
ON’S
S
ENSE OF
O
FFICE
: Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum at Forbes Library. A S
TRIKE TO
E
ND
A
LL
S
TRIKES
: Walter P. Reuther Library. T
HE
A
LLY
, A N
OTARY’S
I
NAUGURATION
, W
ONDER
B
OY
, R
EST AT
L
AST
: Corbis. S
URPRISINGLY
L
OQUACIOUS
: Jay N. “Ding” Darling Wildlife Society. T
ECHNOLOGY AS
K
EY
: Getty. “I D
O
N
OT
C
HOOSE TO
R
UN FOR
P
RESIDENT IN
N
INETEEN
T
WENTY
-E
IGHT
”: Photograph by Susan Strange, courtesy of the Library of Congress. A D
IFFICULT
D
ECISION
: Forbes Library. A T
EST OF
C
HARACTER AND
F
EDERALISM
: Vermont Historical Society, Barre, Vermont. Photographer: Grover Templeton. L
IKE THE
M
EN OF
O
LD
: The Granger Collection.

Cover design by Anthony Morais

Cover photograph courtesy of the Library of Congress

Copyright

COOLIDGE.
Copyright © 2013 by Amity Shlaes. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

ISBN: 978-0-06-196755-9
EPub Edition © FEBRUARY 2013 ISBN: 9780062097972

13 14 15 16 17
OV/RRD
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1