Just stumbled on this article at the American Spectator marking the 76th anniversary of the death of President Calvin Coolidge. Coolidge, who became President on the death of Warren Harding, and then won re-election himself in 1924, is an oft-ignored President--in large part, it would seem, because of his more unassuming (almost shy) persona. While those of us of a certain age tend to point to Ronald Reagan as "the great conservative of our time"--we forget that Reagan often claimed as his "model President" Calvin Coolidge.
Anyway, maybe a rebirth of Coolidge interest is in order--maybe the only way that Republicans can redeem themselves is by remembering the virtues of the 30th President--the only President, by the way, to have been born on the 4th of July. From Cole's American Spectator article:
On this day, 76 years ago, Calvin Coolidge died at the age of 60. Shortly before his life ended and the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt began, Coolidge reportedly told a friend, "I feel I no longer fit in with these times."
If Coolidge felt out of step in the Era of Roosevelt, he would have been a truly lost soul in the coming Age of Obama.
We are entering a time when the American president is simultaneously the sole arbiter of good and bad in the universe, a fashion plate, a paparazzi-attracting celebrity and a pop art icon. His face graces public transit tickets. Schoolchildren numbly chant his campaign slogans. The notion that a simple and shy New Englander such as Coolidge could ever occupy today's White House is absurd.
....His rearing in rural Vermont imparted in the future president the values of thrift (he never owned a car or even a house until after his presidency), a disdain for his era's version of political celebrity. ("We need more of the Office Desk and less of the Show Window in politics. Let men in office substitute the midnight oil for the limelight," he once said.) And strikingly to us in today's era of the superstar chief executive and the revived hyperactive federal government, Coolidge understood that there are some things the government and its chief executive are not capable of doing. He considered the Constitution a limiting document to be adhered to, not adjusted.
Today, the faithful prepare to flock to the nation's capital to participate in what increasingly seems like a coronation. Simultaneously, train trips are being planned and an ancient bible is being brought out, rather immodestly, to remind us of the supposedly uncanny similarities between Barack Obama and Abraham Lincoln. Before the president-elect takes the oath of office in front a crowd of millions, it is worth remembering Coolidge's own assumption of the presidency. When news of President Warren G. Harding's death reached Plymouth Notch, Vermont, Vice President Coolidge, out of necessity, was administered the oath of office by his father, at the family homestead, using a family bible by the flickering light of an oil lamp.
Coolidge took that oath and assumed the presidency without promises to heal the soul of the country, change the world, or make loaves and fish magically appear. Instead, when asked for his thoughts on assuming the presidency, Coolidge simply replied, "I think I can swing it."
Be sure to read the rest: it's an interesting (and brief) account of a chief executive who would--in many ways, I think--be very much at home with a Ron Paul presidency, had that happened.
LLE
"Should the day ever dawn, when Jefferson's warnings are heeded at last, and we reduce government to its simplest terms, it may very well happen that Calvin's bones now resting inconspicuously in the Vermont granite will come to be revered as those of a man who really did the nation some service." - H. L. Mencken
How true. What a great article for a back-to-the-routine Monday morning. Thanks, Laura.
I agree that the upcoming inauguration is, in reality, a coronation. That's why I referred to President Bush as "King George" many a time.
Posted by: Brutus | 01/05/2009 at 08:07 AM