Calvin Coolidge: life, ideas and books

Life

John Calvin Coolidge Jr. was born on July 4, 1872, in Plymouth Notch, Vermont. He practised law in Northampton, Massachusetts, and rose through local and state office: city council, city solicitor, state legislator, mayor of Northampton, state senate president and lieutenant governor. As governor of Massachusetts from 1919 to 1921 he gained national attention for his response to the Boston police strike of 1919.

He became vice president under Warren G. Harding in 1921 and succeeded to the presidency when Harding died in August 1923. He won election in his own right in 1924 and chose not to seek another term in 1928. He died in Northampton in January 1933.

Ideas

Coolidge believed in small government, fiscal restraint, paying down the national debt and a hands-off approach to the economy and business. He signed the Revenue Act of 1924, which cut the top marginal income tax rate from 58 to 46 percent. In January 1925 he addressed the American Society of Newspaper Editors on the role of business in American life.

He also signed the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 and the Immigration Act of 1924, which restricted immigration and established the Border Patrol, and he supported racial equality and women's suffrage in his public statements.

Major works

• "Have Faith in Massachusetts" (1914), a speech on the aims of government.
• Address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors (1925).
• The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge (1929).

Why conservatives read him

Admirers of limited government treat Coolidge as a model of restraint: low taxes, a balanced budget and a modest view of the presidency. Ronald Reagan admired him and hung his portrait in the White House. Historians continue to debate how his economic policies relate to the Great Depression, which began after he left office, and scholars generally rank him in the middle or lower half of presidents, so he is best read with that debate in view.