President Coolidge, We Hardly Knew Ye

Ask today for the names of three famous Calvins, and the response is likely to be “Klein” . . . or “and Hobbes” . . . or a long pause. Literary types may come forth with “Trilling.” The religious may say “John.” Ask when Calvin Coolidge served as president or for three accomplishments of his time in office, and you’re likely to be greeted with the sort of stony silence for which this historical figure was renowned.

Author Robert Sobel, 67, bet that there was more interest in Coolidge than was obvious with a new biography, “Coolidge: An American Enigma,” published in July. This year marks the 75th anniversary of Coolidge’s inauguration.

Sobel, a professor of business history for 41 years at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., says he wrote the book because “a lot of what I’d been led to believe about Coolidge I found out just wasn’t so, and I wanted to set the record straight. Our 30th president was a very underrated guy.

“Still, when I pitched the idea, publishers laughed at me. They said no one’s going to be interested.”

However, fueled by positive reviews, many in conservative publications, the book has gone into a second printing. The Wall Street Journal heralds “An American Enigma” by concluding in its review that “truly, this book could stir a Coolidge nostalgia boom.” Sobel (wisely and probably realistically) rejects that prospect.

“I think the people who should read this book will not read it,” he says. “Historians after World War II were raised and nurtured on the New Deal and viewed Woodrow Wilson and FDR as presidential ideals. If Wilson and FDR were ideal, then what’s in between must have been evil.”

What was in between Wilson and FDR were Warren G. Harding, Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. While Harding had his Teapot Dome scandal and Hoover had the Great Depression, Coolidge, the so-called “do-nothing” president, was exceedingly busy while in office, presiding over one of America’s greatest periods of prosperity. During the five years that Coolidge served, between 1923 and 1928, he cut taxes four times, reduced the national debt by a third, multiplied education spending fourfold while cutting the U.S. illiteracy rate in half, and supported women’s suffrage.

Silent Cal would most likely never have succeeded in today’s media-centric political spectrum, Sobel says. He could never socialize with any kind of alacrity nor engage in banter with friends or acquaintances. His taciturn personality didn’t lend itself to sound bites. Televised debates would have done him in. As would a campaign of nasty TV commercials.

“Not only would Coolidge have nothing to do with negative campaigning,” Sobel says, “but he refused even to utter the name of his opponents. The thought of Coolidge philandering, keeping an enemies list, lying or flip-flopping on the issues would have amazed even his political enemies.

“[Coolidge] was not a bold man, the kind who would mount a quixotic campaign. Such had never been his style. If limited to one adjective to describe him, it might be ‘calculated.’ He did not take chances, which was one of the reasons he often seemed reluctant to speak out on issues. He delayed decisions, perhaps more than he should have. He could be swift and decisive but only when the odds were good.”

Issues he avoided included the Japanese arms buildup. He was indecisive in his personal life as well. He was financially supported by his father until he was in his 30s.

“The sleaze that characterizes much of American political life today, in both parties, was absent in his administration,” writes Sobel. “Whatever one thinks of Coolidge, the possibility that he would sell access to the Lincoln bedroom or divert public funds for private uses . . . would have been dismissed out of hand.”

How would Coolidge view the current occupant of the White House? Sobel says, “I think he’d be horrified--just as he was horrified by Harding.”

Coolidge was also said to be the last president with the now-quaint practice of writing his own speeches. But there is one thing about his administration that is right up to date: special prosecutors.

“When Coolidge became president, Harding’s scandals had just broken. The Democrats wanted to implicate Coolidge [a Republican, as was Harding] in the Harding scandals, but there was nothing there,” says Sobel. “Coolidge named two special prosecutors--one Democrat, one Republican--and washed his hands of it.”