CALVIN COOLIDGE

BOOK: Coolidge: An American Enigma
Author: Robert Sobol
Written: 1998
Pages: 462

After reading about Franklin Roosevelt, I wanted to take on the task of reading about someone I knew little about. After reading about Calvin Coolidge, the title of the book is apropos. He is certainly an enigma, although more specifically, just a boring guy!

I will not recite the book to you though I would like to highlight the accomplishments of one of our former Presidents, but I honestly cannot. What made hime unique was, get this, his honesty. That was the common thread through the book. He was honest, thrifty, slow to speak , and VERY pragmatic.

Coolidge is from Vermont but lived in Massachusetts where he was a mayor, state senator, Lt. governor, and governor. He became Vice President to Warren Harding and the President after Harding passed away in the middle of his term. Not a wealthy man until after he left the White House, he did not own a home until after he was President.

His defining moment is a speech called "Have Faith in Massachusetts" that was certainly a fine speech but not one that I would recite after reading this book. Politically he was a Republican that believed in little government interaction and a balanced budget. He was one of Ronald Reagan's favorite Presidents.

Robert Sobol is certainly a Calvin Coolidge apologist and defends him against the various criticisms that Coolidge faced after his Presidency. Among them were:

1. Coolidge did little to regulate the market which led to the Great Depression. While that may be true, no know could have predicted the magnitude of a market crash of the like we saw in 1929. However, the way so many people were buying stocks on margin in the 1920s was certainly an indicator. Also Coolidge did little to interact with the Congress of the time.
2. Coolidge laizze faire attitude towards foreign affairs led to events that started World War II. The coutnry was in no mood for war and what surprised me was that World War I turned out to be a very unpopular war in the 1920s. Coolidge led the way to reducing the Navy Fleet and the military was neglected during this time. Coolidge's only foreign relations success was working with Mexico. Europe and the US were at odds with the protective tariffs of the time and Japan was largely unchecked.
3. Domestic Issues dominated the 1920s scene and not for the better. While Coolidge did focus on the homefront, his silence on Prohibition was a huge failure. Coolidge was a "wet" (favored drinking) but did not voice that. The Teapot Dome Scandal he inherited and did a nice job of cleaning it up. For the most part, the Congress ran the country and the country meandered on its way with not a heavy rudder.

Coolidge was the last of that era of Presidents. McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Warren Harding, and Calvin Coolidge. The coutnry was moving too fast for Coolidge by the time he left office. Radio was a common household staple, Henry Ford had made the automobile a family institution and the economy was moving from the farm to the city.

Finally, the best part of the book was how Coolidge was nominated. Sobol devotes a large chunk of the book to the wheeling and dealing of political bosses and the party conventions. The primaries and media frenzy of our time does not remotely resemble the bank room deals made during that period of American history. Get this, Coolidge gets nominated for VP and he is not even at the convention AND the the presidential nominee has NO say in who is chosen.

RECOMMENDATION: Read only if you have to read a book about every US President. I caught myself thinking I should have read a shorter book.

SOURCE: St Louis Public Library

UP NEXT: Jimmy Carter: The Man and the Myth by Victor Lasky

Franklin Roosevelt

TITLE: The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph or Hope

AUTHOR: Jonathan Alter

Published 2007



My wife bought this book for me for Christmas when I told her about the idea about reading a book on every US President. She bought it at Barnes and Noble. While it would not have been my first choice, it certainly turned out to be a great first book for the project and an excellent springboard for future reading.

Alter's premise is looking at Roosevelt's first 100 days but ironically he doesn't get to the actual time period until Chapter Thirty One, page 207. Of course, in order to understand the flurry of legislation passed during that time period, Alter had to develop the historical characters before that but the title was more than a little misleading.

In a strange twist I found some of the best reading in the footnotes. Alter refers to past and future presidents in these on many occasions that made me want to know more. Footnotes in other books can take away from the narrative but Alter uses them as they are intended, to enhance the story.

Even with all the background, "The Defining Moment" has a rather narrow focus. It does not bog down in the actual legislation which is a good thing Although, I would have like to have known more about the repeal of Prohibition. Instead the book's theme is on the relationships developed between Roosevelt and the various people he comes in contact .

His relationship with family, especially his mother, was definitely interesting. His relationship with his wife and children have been well chronicled with nothing really new to add. Nevertheless, I found the entire dynamic fascinating.

How FDR interacts with his political allies and foes is probably the most intriguing. How he keeps people off balance was certainly a political tightrope that few could walk. Both allies and foes come and go but FDR uses them as interchangable parts to fit his particular purpose.

Alter's contention that Roosevelt has forever changed the way we look at future Presidents hold strong merit. Every President is measured by their first 100 days. Every President now has to be media savvy, it is part of the job, and FDR's use of the newest mediam, radio, is the harbinger to that thought.

RECOMMENDATION:

Easy read that is worth for $4.00 you can buy it on Amazon for right now.

NEXT UP:

COOLIDGE: An Ameican Enigma by Robert Sobel

The Premise

As all of us tend to do, I sat down on January 1, 2010, and made a list of New Year's Resolutions. Not the kind that vow to lose twenty pounds, although I certainly could use it, or to exponential change my lifestyle, thought processes, or beliefs. No, to pledge that radical of a change has always seemed pointeless to me. Instead, my thought was to find things that I genuinely enjoy and revisited them.

At 47 years of age, I am not old but I certainly have lived. With two teenagers, two dogs, and a wonderful wife, along with all the obligation that adulthood has brought, simple pleasures tend to be burrowed under, still fresh enough to see, but without the time to unearth the gems that once were. As a result I have decided to read a book about every US President in the year 2010.

I graduated with a history degree from University of Missouri-St Louis in 1988 so I at least have a cursory knowledge of the subject but that certainly does not make me an expert, nor do I claim to be. The idea is to read a book, let everyone know what I thought of it, and hopefully gain some feedback on who I should read about next and why.

At times, I will read something that is not related to Presidents and I will chime in on that as well. The source for my books are as follows:

1. The St Louis Public Library
2. The Half Price Book Store in Dallas (courtesy of my Aunt Trula Skaggs)
3. Barnes and Noble which is just a few miles from my house
4. The occasional book fair or garage sale.
5. Left Bank Books in St Louis
6. Amazon.com

The criteria for choosing the books will be far from exact:

1. They have to be about a US President, that is a given
2. The book does not have to be a full biographical account. It can be about something specific that occurred during the Presidency (Bay Of Pigs as an example)
3. Length is a determining factor. With 44 US Presidents and 52 weeks in a year, I can't read Team of Rivals with 944 pages, although I have and would like to read it.

So on with the reviews and most importantly, on too learning something new.