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Coolidge: An American Enigma

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How interesting that as we look at the last century, President Coolidge has become a polarizing figure. After smears from William Allan White, Arthur Schlesinger and others, Coolidge has finally merited re-evaluation. While not an activist President in the vein of, say, Franklin Roosevelt, Coolidge was far from indolent or passive. He gave more press conferences than any other, inaugurated the use of radio, and sponsored airplanes in the military. However, it was indeed his belief that government should exist for the people, not the other way 'round. Interestingly, he was the last President to refuse to have a telephone in the Oval Office--he considered it undignified. He supported women's suffrage and his wife, Grace, was the first First Lady to smoke in the White House. I have undertaken to read many accounts of Coolidge; he does remain a mystery to us in so many ways. Regardless of the slant of the source, though, his deep sense of decency and honor in performing public service always shines through. I'd recommend purchasing a copy of 'Grace Coolidge and Her Era' from 1962 to give a more human side to both the President and his wife. Another characteristic of this man is that despite his reserve, his overriding love for his wife and sons remains there. The heartbreak that he and Mrs. Coolidge endured with the needless death of their youngest son in the White House cannot be overstated. Especially since we know now that the Staph. infection from which young Calvin died would nowadays have certainly not been fatal. I think part of the reason the Coolidge times have become fascinating for those of us interested in history is the obscurity to which these years have been consigned. The terms of FDR with his extensive radio and movie coverage has overshown the previous three Republican administrations, not by accident. I have concluded that no one book can cover all the aspects of President Coolidge, and he deserves further reading.

Calvin Coolidge, who served as President from 1923-1929, has long been rated as a "poor" President by liberal historians and academics who fault him for his seemingly passive, quiet, and inactive approach to the Presidency. In this first-rate biography, Mr. Sobel shows us just how wrong those judgements are. Far from being a "Silent" or "Lazy" President, Coolidge ran a remarkably honest and efficient Administration that led America through one of the most exciting and prosperous decades in American history - the "Roaring Twenties". As Sobel demonstrates, Coolidge was born and raised in an environment which the great majority of Americans today would find alien. He grew up in the tiny rural village of Plymouth, Vermont. His beloved mother died when he was young and he was raised by his father, a classic "pillar of the community" type - his father was serious, sober, religious, a prosperous farmer and general-store owner, and a local politician who served as a justice of the peace, constable, and Vermont state legislator. Coolidge grew up to be an equally serious-minded and self-reliant young man - a modern Puritan, without the hypocrisy or self-righteous attitude. Coolidge became a good lawyer in Northampton, Massachussetts, married Grace Goodhue and had a happy marriage, and slowly but steadily climbed the political ladder. Unlike most modern politicians who try to start out with a major office (such as Senator or Governor) and then immediately try to run for President, Coolidge spent many years in local and state politics before he became a "big-time" politician - a fact which probably accounted for his success as President. He served as a city councilman, Mayor of Northampton, state legislator, head of the Massachussetts State Assembly, Lieutenant Governor, Governor, and finally Vice-President and President. During his long climb Coolidge was never dramatic or spectacular, but he was intelligent, efficient, honest, reliable, and a good speaker. People seemed to like and trust him wherever he went, and his dry yet biting wit, and his quiet and reserved personality became legendary (in one famous story, Coolidge went to a party and said nothing. The hostess, desperate, approached him and said "Mr. President, I made a bet with my friend over there that I could get at least 3 words out of you tonight". Coolidge's reply: "You lose"). What this biography does is to give the reader a much better appreciation for the man, and Sobel convincingly demonstrates that the great economic boom of the 1920's was not merely a fluke, but the direct result of Coolidge's shrewd business sense and leadership. Anyone who continues to rate Coolidge as a poor President should be required to read this book and refute Sobel's persuasive arguments. To sum up, this is a first-rate book about a much-underrated President, and it should be highly recommended to all political and presidential history buffs.

This is an excellent Biography of a President that Americans ought to know more about than they do. Beyond that Robert Sobel presents a portrait of a Statesman of High moral character and unimpeachable integrity that is seldom encountered in life, Much less at the summit of political life Professor Sobel is an economic Historian, Consequently He devotes a considerable part of the Book to a discussion of Coolidge's controversial economic policies which rank among the most sucessful in modern times. Consider that Coolidge was President for five years and in every one of those years the U.S. government had a balanced budget with a surplus which was returned to the taxpayers in the form of a tax cut,And that government spending progressively declined over this same period. And all this was done during an unprecedented economic boom.Now liberal Historians like Arthur Schlesinger Jr.whom Sobel gloriously debunks,would argue that ''Coolidge prosperity'' was a ''false prosperity'' which ultimately led to the stock market crash of 1929 and the great depression. Sobel makes a strong case that the prosperity of the twenties was a genuine economic revival based on sound free market principles.Professor Sobel strongly refutes the conventional wisdom that Coolidge was blissfully ignorant of the danger to the economy posed by an unregulated stock market.In fact He clearly saw the danger.But in His Jeffersonian view of the Constitution He believed that federal legislation was unconstitutional.In Coolidge's the regulation of business was the province of the states. This book is not as detailed as it might be. But on the whole it is an excellent biography of an honorable Statesman and a fine moral example. You may expect that this book will be attacked by the liberal establishment as revisionist History...And long overdue!

As an ardent admirer of FDR and the New Deal, I'd never read any more on Coolidge than his "Keep Faith in Massachusetts". This book didn't change any of my major beliefs about Coolidge, but certainly filled in countless details about his life and work. I admire Mr. Sobel's efforts to make a readable book despite the lack of Coolidge's papers.

As is ably demonstrated, Mr. Coolidge was popular as much for what he was as for what he did. His integrity and moral rectitude served him so well in those pre-TV times. A man such as this would stand no chance in today's prettified, telegenic politics.

Mr. Sobel is able to illustrate the injustice done to the memory of President Coolidge as being cold and remote. Mr. Coolidge was a child of his time, region, and upbringing. His deep love for his family is refreshing.

This eminently readable book will give great enjoyment to those interested in Presidential history.

I think Mr. Sobel has done an excellent job in destroying much of the criticism of Calvin Coolidge the man as well as Calvin Coolidge the President.
I picked up this book out of curiosity - I read the Coolidge chapter in Nathan Miller's book "Star-Spangled Men - America's Ten Worst Presidents", and decided to learn more about this silent, penurious, enigmatic President who was apparently heartless and supported big business while in office.
I soon found that this man was quite likable, although he lacked the garrulous nature of many politicians. One of his major faults, as Mr. Sobel put it, was in "not being able to predict the future." He cut taxes four times and had good reason not to interfere with Wall Street (read the book to find out why!).
To any person that wishes to know more about an OUTSTANDING U.S. President who was in office during a time of great prosperity, please consider this wonderful biography.

The few bad reviews I've seen on this book call attention to Sobel's use of secondary sources: I'm not sure that Sobel's aim was to show anything new. He critically and categorically looks at the lines history has been giving us for so many years and offers a fresh perspective. The book gives some lesser known facts on Coolidge: he was voted one of the best radio personalities of his time, "Silent Cal" gave more press conferences than ANY of his predecessors, and had staggeringly high approval ratings that could have ushered him into another term. Sobel also shows Coolidge to be the epitome of "hands-off" government. What a refreshing thought for today.

When I say that this book is a balanced look at the life and presidency of Calvin Coolidge, that is not to suggest that the author does not have his own opinions, or that he resists making them clear: he is pro-Coolidge, believes that Coolidge is a vastly underrated president, and it shows. But he gives sufficient information that it is possible, and in fact not at all difficult, for the reader to come to his own conclusions about the subject. That is the key to a balanced biography, and balance is one of the keys to a quality biography. Further, this book is quite readable, with occasional anecdotes relating some of the various humorous stories poking fun at Coolidge's not undeserved reputation for taciturnity, while at the same time demonstrating through other anecdotes that the reputation, while not undeserved, was exaggerated.

An excellent biography of a president most know little if anything about.

Sobel presents the view of Coolidge as a principled, practical man with political principles based on his personal values: frugality, patience, and studiousness. As a politician, he used these values to his adavantage as he made the trip from city council to the oval office.

Sobel also brings light onto the evolution Coolidge made from being an activist Progressive governor to a near-libertarian President. While he has no way to examine the internal factors leading to this change, Sobel does show the external factors, including his association with conservative businessman Frank Stearns. Coolidge's change made him the political heir of Thomas Jefferson and Grover Cleveland.

I purchased the late Robert Sobel's "Coolidge: An American Enigma" by happenstance. I had no particular opinion of Calvin Coolidge, beyond the general impression that he was one of the very few "caretaker" presidents of the 20th century. After completing this biography, that impression remains unchanged. Despite Sobel's infectious enthusiasm for his subject, Coolidge remains a cipher: likable, decent, honest, but very deliberately lacking in color or discernable personality.

Sobel knows how to write an entertaining biography, especially in light of how dry his subject is. He skillfully follows Coolidge from his childhood in Vermont, his education at Amherst, his governance of Massachusetts, and finally his rise to the office of first vice-president, then president. Through this, Sobel paints interesting portraits of the man and his times. Indeed, some of the most exciting parts of the book occur when Sobel shifts his focus away from Coolidge and focuses on the events that affect the outcome of Coolidge's life. While some of the examination of the Massachusetts political machine seem a little tangential, the passages recounting the Boston police strike and the 1920 Republican convention are particularly gripping. His overview of the scandals of the Harding administration are paticularly instructive.

Still, Sobel never loses sight of the fact he's writing a book about Coolidge. His examination of Coolidge as president is intriguing, if a little sparse. Sparse, because Coolidge himself is difficult to pin down. He was very much from the laissez-faire school of government, taking great pains to limit federal intervention in state and local matters, as well as business. The downside of this was, as Sobel does note, Coolidge did very little beyond pay lip-service to social issues of the country, e.g., the plight of African-Americans and Native Americans. He was also not terribly interested in international matters, although as Sobel points out, Coolidge was able to handle tensions with Mexico. He is also very explicit that the tendency to lay the Depression at Coolidge's feet is totally unfair, as Coolidge was only in the vaguest awareness of what could happen to the booming economy, and was far less equipped to do anything about it.

The most substantial problem I had with this book is Sobel's tendency to allow too much of his own bias show. Sobel, from what I can tell, was very much a Reagan Republican. This was obviously a reason for his decision to attempt to rehabilitate Coolidge. However, that often leads to awkward editorializing. The most overt example is a lengthy dissection of previous Coolidge historiography, including an an attempt to reutt the works of Arthur M. Schlesinger on the failure of the Harding-Coolidge-Hoover era. While I realize that Sobel's intent was to take on the popular view of Coolidge as some sort of failure, I felt that Sobel's decision to place this argument in the beginning of Chapter 9 inappropriate. This would have made perfect sense in the introduction or the epilogue materials. Including it in the body was distracting, and caused me to set it down for a little while.

Another concern was Sobel's copious use of block excerpts, particularly in the opening of the book. It felt like Sobel was padding a little. As the work progresses, the quotes seem more useful, and less intrusive.

On the whole, I surprised by "Coolidge: An American Enigma". I found Coolidge the man appealing. While he would have been horribly out of step with this day and age (indeed, just years later he would have been quaint), Coolidge was a man of his time, lending further credence to the idea that times make men as much as men make times. Had Sobel distanced himself a little more from his subject, it would have been about perfect. As it stands, it's an excellent single volume about a caretaker president.

The title of Robert Sobel¹s Coolidge: An American Enigma summarizes the entire work. No other President achieved success despite the contradictions of his life. Coolidge was a man strict party man who did not have the support of his party. He was nominated for Vice-President and then President during the age of the political machine, despite his lack of support from the bosses. He was a man who said and did almost nothing, refusing to comment on specific issues during campaigns, who received his support directly from the people. He was a man of the greatest moral character who governed during the roaring twenties. He was as an earlier biographer put it "A puritan in Babylon." Sobel shows all of these contradictions in Coolidge and in the decade. Existing as an anachronism, Coolidge was perhaps the last great statesman to be President. However, Sobel also presents Coolidge as a master politician, a man who was considered unbeatable in a general election. He won the support of "Coolidge Democrats" decades before Reagan crossed party lines. And, he refused to mention his opponents¹ name during an election, and the peopled responded to honest and simple style. Lastly, Sobel seems to wonder how a man so loved in his own time could be so forgotten today.