President Calvin Coolidge Books

Easton Press books:
A Puritan in Babylon The story of Calvin Coolidge - William Allen White - 1986


President Calvin Coolidge biography

Calvin John Coolidge (1872-1933), 13th President of the United States, born in Plymouth, Vermont. Calvin Coolidge was educated at Amherst College, where he received A.B. degree in 1895. Two years later, following law study with a firm in Northampton, Massachusetts, he was admitted to the Massachusetts bar. His political career began in 1899, when he was elected to the Northampton city council. During the next 20 years, he became prominent in the Republican Party of Massachusetts, serving in the State House of Representatives (1907-1908), in the State Senate (1912-1915), as lieutenant governor (1916-1918), and as governor (1919-1920). His intervention, in September, 1919, to end the strike of Boston Police was widely praised in the press, making him nationally famous. At the National Convention of the Republican Party in the following year, he won the nomination for the vice presidency. Elected on the same ticket with President Warren Harding, he served as Vice President of the United States from March 4, 1921, until the death of President Harding. He was sworn in as President of the United States early the following day. In taking the oath of office he was sworn in by father John C. Coolidge, justice of the peace, at the family home in Plymouth, Vermont.

President Calvin Coolidge adhered to the conservative policies of the Harding administration, both in domestic and foreign affairs, opposing soldier bonus, Federal relief measures for farmers, and the American entry into the League of Nations. Toward the end of 1923, Senate investigations of certain leases of naval oil reserve lands to private operators, granted during Harding's incumbency, resulted in widespread charges of corruption in Calvin Coolidge's cabinet. By his skilful handling of this situation, commonly known as the Teapot Dome case, he helped to maintain popular support of the Republican Party. The chief event of the remainder of his first term as President was the action of Congress in overriding his veto of the soldier bonus bill.

At the Republican Convention of 1924, President Calvin Coolidge was nominated to succeed himself. He was elected in the following November, obtaining 382 of the 531 electoral votes. His second term as President, which coincided with a period of unprecedented prosperity, was marked, like the first, by extreme economy in governmental expenditures. President Calvin Coolidge obtained passage of a bill reducing income taxes, rejected proposals for tariff reduction, and vetoed (1927) the McNary-Haugen Farm relief Bill. In foreign affairs, he achieved a number of successes, including a solution for the Tacna-Arica Dispute between Chile and Peru, establishment of better relations with Mexico, and Senate ratification of the Kellogg-Briand Pact. Calvin Coolidge retired to private life in 1929, after completion of his second term as President.

President Calvin Coolidge wrote the following books and a number of articles for books and magazines:

Having Faith in Massachusetts - 1919
The Price of freedom - 1924
Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge - 1929