Calvin Coolidge

[[File:Portrait of President Calvin Coolidge.jpg|thumb|a portrait of Coolidge.|165px]]
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{{cquote| After all, the chief business of the American people is business. They are profoundly concerned with producing, buying, selling, investing and prospering in the world.|||Calvin Coolidge, speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, January 17, 1925.<ref>[https://blogs.loc.gov/inside_adams/2019/01/when-a-quote-is-not-exactly-a-quote-the-business-of-america-is-business-edition/ Library of Congress]</ref>}}
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'''John Calvin Coolidge''' {{lived|1872|1933}} was an [[United States|American]] politician who served as the 30<sup>th</sup> [[President of the United States]] from 1923 to 1929. He was sworn in following the death of [[Warren G. Harding]]<ref>[https://www.inaugural.senate.gov/swearing-in-of-coolidge/ THE SWEARING-IN OF CALVIN COOLIDGE]</ref> before winning the Presidential Election in 1924.<ref>[https://www.270towin.com/1924_Election/ 1924 Presidential Election]</ref> He presided over the  [[Roaring Twenties]].<ref>[https://www.history.com/topics/roaring-twenties Roaring Twenties]</ref>

He was a proponent of [[Laissez-faire|laissez-faire economics]], as seen by both his massive tax cuts<ref>[https://coolidgefoundation.org/blog/tax-policy-coolidge-style/ Tax Policy, Coolidge Style]</ref> and his cutting the federal budget "with the same determination that other presidents prosecute foreign wars" in the words of one online admirer.<ref>https://www.coolidgeandthebudget.com/</ref> As such, his reputation has surged recently among [[Conservatism|conservatives]] and [[Libertarianism|libertarians]], with [[Ronald Reagan]] being known for his admiration of Coolidge while he served in the White House.<ref>[https://www.the-american-interest.com/2010/05/01/reagans-muse/ Reagan's Muse]</ref>

==Governorship==
The most important event of Coolidge's Governorship of [[Massachusetts]] was the Boston Police Strike.

In 1919, some members of the Boston Police Department planned to join a union. The Police Commissioner, a man named Curtis, banned them from doing so. When they registered with the AFL, Curtis suspended them from duty. Due to this, the police went on strike. Coolidge tacitly supported Curtis, believing that policemen should not be able to unionize or strike, but deferred to the Mayor of Boston. The Mayor sent in the National Guard and fired Curtis. At this point, Coolidge intervened. He restored Curtis to his job, took personal control of the police force, and fired all the strikers. This put him into the national consciousness.  The First [[Red Scare]] was going on at this time, and Coolidge was seen as a decisive leader defending law and order.<ref>[https://www.britannica.com/event/Boston-Police-Strike Boston Police Strike]</ref>

==Vice presidency==

=== Nomination and Campaign ===
[[File:Election-Results-Candidate-American-Political-Party-Votes-1920.webp|165px|thumb|1920 Presidential Election]]
During the 1920 RNC, [[Warren G. Harding]] was nominated for President. The party bosses wanted Senator Irvine Lenroot for Vice President, but Coolidge was nominated instead by the rank-and-file.<ref>[https://www.jstor.org/stable/4635197 Irvine L. Lenroot and the Republican Vice-Presidential Nomination of 1920]</ref>

The Democrats nominated newspaperman and Governor of [[Ohio]] {{wpl|James M. Cox}} for President, who displeased [[Woodrow Wilson|Wilson]] supporters for refusing to turn the election into a referendum on the [[League of Nations]]<ref>[https://alchetron.com/James-M-Cox James M Cox]</ref> (despite his own personal support for the matter, he never made it the massive issue Wilson wanted it to be)<ref>[https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB119013476839631205 James M. Cox's Stance on the Issues Facing Democrats in 1920 Election]</ref> and displeased everybody else through his similarities to Woodrow Wilson, with the general public much preferring Harding's "return to normalcy" message.<ref>[https://www.britannica.com/topic/return-to-normalcy Return to normalcy]</ref> His running mate was one [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]], who was little more than the Secretary of the Navy at the time. Harding and Coolidge absolutely trounced Cox and Roosevelt, winning 404 [[Electoral college|electoral votes]] to Cox's 127.

The VP didn't do much at this time, and he was no different. It was at this time that Coolidge developed a reputation as a quiet man. When asked why he attended dinner parties even though he didn't like to socialize, Coolidge replied, "Got to eat somewhere".<ref>Robert Sobel (1998a), ''Coolidge: An American Enigma'', Regnery Publishing. ISBN 978-0895264107 p.217</ref>

== Presidency ==
When Harding died of a heart attack in 1923, Coolidge took over. He was staying at his father's house at the time, and his father, a justice of the peace, swore him in. During his term, the {{wpl|Teapot Dome scandal}} broke, causing many people to think Coolidge would lose in 1924. However, due to Coolidge not doing much in the Harding administration, the scandals didn't rub off on him. He chose brigadier General {{wpl|Charles G. Dawes}} to be his running mate. After a chaotic convention,the Democrats nominated [[West Virginia]] congressman and Solicitor General {{wpl|John W. Davis||.}} Davis was a conservative Democrat (although he was relatively progressive on the issue of race), causing the Progressives under {{wpl|Robert M. La Follette}} to walk out and form their own party. Due to this division and the good economy, Coolidge easily won reelection.
[[File:ElectoralCollege1924.svg|thumb|1924 election results.]]

He was infamous for his constant desire to stop the government from doing much of anything over actually attempting to use it to help people. "It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones," he wrote in a letter to his father.<ref>[https://coolidgefoundation.org/blog/kill-bad-bills/ Kill Bad Bills]</ref> He used fifty vetoes during his time as President, thirty of which were pocket vetoes,<ref>[https://www.senate.gov/legislative/vetoes/presidents/CoolidgeC.pdf CALVIN COOLIDGE]</ref> the ninth most in American history.<ref>[https://www.britannica.com/list/9-us-presidents-with-the-most-vetoes 9 U.S. Presidents with the Most Vetoes]</ref>

=== Good One, Cal ===
During his term, Coolidge created the Federal Radio Commission and granted citizenship to [[Native American]]s.<ref>[https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1091/radio-act-of-1927 Radio Act of 1927 (1927)]</ref><ref>[https://www.whitehousehistory.org/calvin-coolidge-and-native-americans Calvin Coolidge and Native Americans]</ref>{{efn|However, Native American opinion on this issue was divided between those who saw this as a way to secure political identity (while still not seeing American citizenship as an unambiguously "good" thing) and those who opposed the citizenship act as denying and eroding indigenous sovereignty and imposing citizenship on a people without their consent by a colonizing power.<ref>[http://www.onondaganation.org/news/2018/the-citizenship-act-of-1924/ THE CITIZENSHIP ACT OF 1924 – Onondaga Nation]</ref><ref>Bruyneel, K. (2004). Challenging American Boundaries: Indigenous People and the “Gift” of U.S. Citizenship. ''Studies in American Political Development'', 18(1), 30-43. doi:10.1017/S0898588X04000021
</ref>}} Also, the economy was doing great, but this wasn't really his doing. He denounced the [[Ku Klux Klan|Klan]] and called for an anti-[[lynching]] bill, although it died in Congress (the Klan responded by—of course—spreading rumors that he was actually half black.)<ref>[https://forbeslibrary.org/coolidge/coolidge-and-civil-rights/ Coolidge and Civil Rights]</ref><ref>[https://www.npr.org/transcripts/91845732 Has America Already Had a Black President?]</ref> He signed the {{wpl|Washington Naval Treaty}} which limited the number of warships nations could build and the Kellogg–Briand Pact, which attempted to outlaw [[war]].<ref>[https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/museums/nmusn/explore/photography/wwi/wwi-armistice/washington-naval-treaty.html Washington Naval Treaty – Impact on U.S. Navy]</ref><ref>[https://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/kellogg The Kellogg-Briand Pact, 1928]</ref>

=== Bad One, Cal ===
Coolidge was an early adopter of [[trickle-down economics]], to the point where his Treasury Secretary Andrew  Mellon could even been seen as the father of the concept of the Laffer Curve,<ref>[https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/140859/economics/the-laffer-curve/ The Laffer Curve]</ref> which some historians think helped cause the [[Great Depression]], an interpretation that has become especially popular since the release of ''The Great Crash, 1929'' by [[John Kenneth Galbraith]].<ref>''The Great Crash, 1929'' by John Kenneth Galbraith</ref> He also opposed farm subsidies, which hurt farmers.<ref>[https://www.britannica.com/topic/McNary-Haugen-bill McNary-Haugen bill]</ref>

When the {{wpl|Great Mississippi Flood of 1927|Great Mississippi Flood}} hit, Coolidge did absolutely nothing because he didn't want to spend the money that it would require to actually help people.<ref>[https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/17255 The Executive Branch’s Response to the Flood of 1927]</ref> He also signed the Immigration Act of 1924, which banned [[Asia]]ns from immigrating to America and set quotas on Eastern Europeans, for the express puropse of "[preserving] U.S. homogeneity".<ref>[https://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-1936/immigration-act Milestones:The Immigration Act of 1924 (The Johnson-Reed Act)]</ref> He also continued  U.S. [[imperialism]] in South and Central America<ref>[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781118834510.ch14 Military Interventions in the Coolidge Administration], Theodore J. Zeman, ''Wiley Online Library'' 1 August 2014</ref> and was a supporter of [[eugenics]].<ref>[https://rethinkingschools.org/articles/the-forgotten-history-of-eugenics/ The Forgotten History of Eugenics], Alan Stoskepf, ''Rethinking Schools''</ref>

== Post-presidency ==
At a press conference on 2 August 1927, Coolidge handed the gathered reporters strips of paper which simply read "I do not choose to run for president in 1928."<ref>[https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/calvin-coolidge/ Calvin Coolidge]</ref> He died several years later in 1933.<ref>[https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/05/calvin-coolidge-dies-1933-1079489 Calvin Coolidge dies at age 60, Jan. 5, 1933]</ref> In the time between his retirement and death, Coolidge wrote a weekly newspaper column for about a year<ref>[https://coolidgefoundation.org/calvin-coolidge-says/ Calvin Coolidge Says]</ref> and wrote an autobiography.<ref>''The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge'' by Calvin Coolidge</ref>

==Notes==
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==References==
{{reflist|2|80%}}

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