Meet Calvin Coolidge

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ^ | Wednesday, April 07, 2004 | David Shribman

[Willie Green]

Unfairly forgotten, the 30th president left words that can speak to us today

This is a campaign year and the windbags sure are busy, and full of themselves. Some of them are out there on the campaign trail, some of them here on the op-ed page. They love compound sentences and they profess to have complex thoughts. But in politics, as in life, it's often the simple sentence that matters, and the simple thought that endures.

Twice in the last month I've professed a weakness for an American politician who has fallen from favor and, finally, from memory. He's Calvin Coolidge, remembered, terribly unfairly, as a simpleton but in truth the master of the simple truth. There is a very important difference.

In any case, my casual asides about Silent Cal prompted a friend to send me a little book from 1919, a collection of the speeches Coolidge made in his Massachusetts gubernatorial re-election campaign. It is a first edition, necessarily; there almost certainly was no cause for a second edition of a volume like this. Only a collector would have it, or want it.

But at an idle moment, and even editors have them from time to time, I thumbed through this little book and discovered some extraordinary treasures....

[republicanwizard]

ONE OF MY FAVORITE PRESIDENTS!

[MattinNJ]

BTTT to one of our top 5 POTUS of all time.

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[Lurker]

I love old Silent Cal.

L

[republicanwizard]

Massachusetts AND Vermont!

How times have changed!

[mattdono]

I agree with you. I have had in my profile that he is the most underrated President we have ever had. I love the story about "You lose". It perfectly captures the essence of simplicity.

[Fiddlstix]

[glorgau]

I was walking down the street in Chicago and one of the itinerant panhandlers that frequent the city stepped out in front of me and said "Can I ask you a question?". I said "You already have" and didn't even break stride. The look on his face was priceless. :-)

[mattdono]

Love it! That is a response that I could give at least (AT LEAST) 10 times a day (work stuff).

[Calvin Coolidge]

I just felt obligated to post to this thread, given that it commemorates one of the 20th century's most underrated presidents. The same liberal commentators who think that FDA saved the world and that the sun shone out of JFK's nether regions are, of course, quick to dismiss him as a lightweight. But for holding back the tide of big government that washed over the last century, even if only for a few years, was a great achievement.

[gcruse]

a man who, like Coolidge, is a conservative Republican

Hah!  We wish.

[French-American Republican]

I was planning to make a post about Coolidge, who is my favorite US president of the 20th century (maybe in all of American history). I'm glad to see he's not forgotten because with the recent idolizing of John "Big Government" Kennedy by some supposed conservatives has been making my stomach turn. Coolidge was what a president should be: Someone who promotes commerce and doesn't exploit and extend his powers.