Calvin Coolidge (1872 - 1933) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 30th president of the United States from 1923 to 1929. [1] He rose through Massachusetts politics to the governorship, gained national attention for his handling of the 1919 Boston police strike, and became president on the death of Warren G. Harding. His administration is associated with tax cuts, limited federal activity and the prosperity of the 1920s. [2]
Early life and education
Coolidge was born on 4 July 1872 in Plymouth Notch, Vermont, the son of a storekeeper and local official. He attended St. Johnsbury Academy and graduated from Amherst College in 1895, then read law in Northampton, Massachusetts, and was admitted to the bar in 1897. [1] He built a modest legal practice in Northampton and married Grace Goodhue in 1905.
Massachusetts politics
Coolidge advanced steadily through Republican politics in Massachusetts, serving as a city councillor, city solicitor, state representative, mayor of Northampton, state senator and president of the state senate, then lieutenant governor and, from 1919, governor. [3]
His national reputation was made in September 1919, when the Boston police force went on strike and the city experienced disorder. Coolidge called out the state guard and refused to reinstate the dismissed officers, declaring that there is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time. The stand was widely praised and led to his nomination as vice-president on the ticket with Warren G. Harding in 1920. [2]
Presidency
Harding died in August 1923, and Coolidge was sworn in at his family home in Vermont by his father, a notary public, in a ceremony lit by an oil lamp. He moved to contain the Teapot Dome scandal inherited from the Harding administration by appointing special counsel to pursue the investigations, and was elected in his own right in 1924. [1]
In office he pursued reductions in federal spending and in income tax rates, working closely with Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, and repeatedly vetoed farm price support legislation. He signed the Immigration Act of 1924, which sharply restricted immigration on national-origin lines and barred most immigration from Asia, and the Indian Citizenship Act of the same year, which granted citizenship to Native Americans born in the United States. [4] In foreign policy his administration supported the Dawes Plan on German reparations and concluded the Kellogg-Briand Pact renouncing war as an instrument of national policy.
He was among the first presidents to use radio effectively, despite a public reputation for silence. In 1927 he announced that he did not choose to run for president in 1928, and left office in March 1929. [3]
Later life and legacy
Coolidge returned to Northampton, published an autobiography and wrote a newspaper column. He died there on 5 January 1933, at the age of sixty. [1]
His reputation has fluctuated. Critics of laissez-faire policy have linked his administration's approach to regulation and speculation with the conditions preceding the 1929 crash, while admirers of limited government regard his fiscal record as a model. [2] He remains the only US president born on Independence Day. [4]
