Calvin Coolidge(1872-1933)
Though three U.S. Presidents have died on the Fourth of July, John
Calvin Coolidge was the first and only one to have been born on that
date, in 1874. He is also the only President to have had the oath of
office administered by his father, a justice of the peace, who swore
him in when the Coolidges received word of President
Warren G. Harding's death. Coolidge's
reputation is that of an unfeeling and lazy man, unaware of what was
going on in the country and who dawdled while the United States drifted
toward the Great Depression. Yet history doesn't really support this
caricature of a man who actually was a highly intelligent and complex
individual.
Though self-contained and terse, Coolidge was an extremely intelligent
man and a fine scholar (his wedding gift to his wife, Grace Goodhue,
was his own translation of
Dante Alighieri's "Inferno". A week
after the wedding, Coolidge, ever the practical New Englander, also
presented his wife with 52 pairs of his socks that needed mending).
Some have argued that Coolidge was the best-prepared candidate ever to
become President, having worked his way through a succession of
elective political offices until he wound up as the Vice President
under Harding, attaining the presidency when Harding died in office in
August of 1923. Coolidge was a laissez-faire proponent, believing, like
Jefferson, that the government governs best which governs least. In
July of 1924 his son, Calvin Jr., died of blood poisoning. The younger
Coolidge, like his mother, was an outgoing and gregarious boy, and his
death affected his father deeply. Although some historians have
characterized Coolidge's behavior in office as marked by laziness or
indolence, it seems now that it was almost certainly a deep depression
brought about by the death of his son. Coolidge chose not to run in
1928. Privately, his wife remarked to a friend that "Daddy thinks there
is going to be a Depression." On January 5, 1933, he died of heart
failure at his home in Northampton, Massachusetts.
Though Coolidge was dismissed for years as a presidential lightweight,
his reputation has grown in recent years. President
Ronald Reagan retrieved Coolidge's
portrait from storage and displayed it in the White House during his
tenure in office, and a recent biography has provided a much more
favorable view of Coolidge and his presidency than had previously been
available.
Calvin Coolidge was the first and only one to have been born on that
date, in 1874. He is also the only President to have had the oath of
office administered by his father, a justice of the peace, who swore
him in when the Coolidges received word of President
Warren G. Harding's death. Coolidge's
reputation is that of an unfeeling and lazy man, unaware of what was
going on in the country and who dawdled while the United States drifted
toward the Great Depression. Yet history doesn't really support this
caricature of a man who actually was a highly intelligent and complex
individual.
Though self-contained and terse, Coolidge was an extremely intelligent
man and a fine scholar (his wedding gift to his wife, Grace Goodhue,
was his own translation of
Dante Alighieri's "Inferno". A week
after the wedding, Coolidge, ever the practical New Englander, also
presented his wife with 52 pairs of his socks that needed mending).
Some have argued that Coolidge was the best-prepared candidate ever to
become President, having worked his way through a succession of
elective political offices until he wound up as the Vice President
under Harding, attaining the presidency when Harding died in office in
August of 1923. Coolidge was a laissez-faire proponent, believing, like
Jefferson, that the government governs best which governs least. In
July of 1924 his son, Calvin Jr., died of blood poisoning. The younger
Coolidge, like his mother, was an outgoing and gregarious boy, and his
death affected his father deeply. Although some historians have
characterized Coolidge's behavior in office as marked by laziness or
indolence, it seems now that it was almost certainly a deep depression
brought about by the death of his son. Coolidge chose not to run in
1928. Privately, his wife remarked to a friend that "Daddy thinks there
is going to be a Depression." On January 5, 1933, he died of heart
failure at his home in Northampton, Massachusetts.
Though Coolidge was dismissed for years as a presidential lightweight,
his reputation has grown in recent years. President
Ronald Reagan retrieved Coolidge's
portrait from storage and displayed it in the White House during his
tenure in office, and a recent biography has provided a much more
favorable view of Coolidge and his presidency than had previously been
available.