Happy Birthday Calvin Coolidge

Happy 140th birthday to my favorite President. Some facts about President Coolidge...

• He was the last President to balance the budget every year while in office.
• During his administration the top income tax rate fell to its lowest level in the history of the country to the present day at about 25%.
• He paid down the national debt every year he was in office.
• He cut spending in every department of the government during his administration.
• Coolidge supported sound money and made sure the United States remained on a rigid gold standard. During his administration he encouraged, with only limited success, the European nations to return to a gold backed currency which they had abandoned during the Great War.
• President Coolidge believed war was a monstrous and barbaric waste to which end he supported disarmament and the rather idealistic Kellog Briand Treaty that supposedly outlawed war.
• He was the last president who never learned how to drive a car. However he was sufficiently impressed with the Pierce Arrow touring car at the disposal of the President that when he left office he paid the US Government $900 for it. A new one would have cost at least $1200 but Coolidge pointed out that the car was "used" and refused to pay a dime more.
• He was the last president who wrote all of his own speeches without an aid.
• He intensely disliked telephones and refused to allow one in the oval office and refrained from using them as much as possible. He believed it was undignified for the President to communicate in such an impersonal manner and also he complained that you never knew who might be listening in.
• Although he was in office during prohibition, he was personally opposed to coercion in personal habits. Nonetheless he felt duty bound to enforce the law of the land.
• Coolidge was legendary for his economy not only with money, but also with his words. He was known as "Silent Cal" and was the butt of scores of jokes and amusing stories related to his tight wallet and lips not all of which were apocryphal.

Coolidge related the story about when he was a boy during the summer of 1880 he once asked his father for a penny after finishing his farm chores. His father asked him what he wanted the penny for and Coolidge responded that he wanted to buy a candy stick. His father shook his head sadly and explained that it was an election year and that it looked like the Democrats were going to win. If that happened it would mean hard times for the country and therefor he must learn to economize. Several months later the telegraph reported that Garfield and the Republicans had won the election. Cal then went to his father reminding him of their earlier conversation and "in view of such favorable intelligence I was able to secure the advance of the sum requested."

His wife Grace Coolidge told the story about how not long after they married a traveling salesman came to the door hawking a home medical guide. Impressed by the book Mrs. Coolidge bought it for the rather steep sum of $5.00 (about $100 in today's money). After a little bit Mrs. Coolidge became concerned about how her husband would react so she decided to just put the book on the shelf and see what came of it. And there it sat unremarked upon for years until one day she pulled it off the shelf to thumb through it and noticed a note penned in the flyleaf. There her husband had written "I find in this work no cure for a sucker."

One Sunday morning Cal went to church to hear a famous preacher. After he returned home he sat in his favorite chair and began to read the paper. His wife asked him if the preacher had been at church. Without moving his eyes from the paper he replied "yep." After a couple of minutes she asked him what was the subject of the sermon. Again not stirring from his paper Coolidge responded "sin." After a few more minutes Mrs. Coolidge asked "what did he have to say about it?" The President finally looked up from his paper in some evident exasperation and replied "he's against it."


Newsreel footage from President Coolidge's 1925 inauguration and a number of other public events.


An actual voice recording of President Coolidge outlining his political philosophy.