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Though three U.S. Presidents have died on the Fourth of July, John Calvin Coolidge was the first and only one to have been born on that date, in 1874. He is also the only President to have had the oath of office administered by his father, a justice of the peace, who swore him in when the Coolidges received word of President Warren G. Harding's death. Coolidge's reputation is that of an unfeeling and lazy man, unaware of what was going on in the country and who dawdled while the United States drifted toward the Great Depression. Yet history doesn't really support this caricature of a man who actually was a highly intelligent and complex individual.

Though self-contained and terse, Coolidge was an extremely intelligent man and a fine scholar (his wedding gift to his wife, Grace Goodhue, was his own translation of Dante Alighieri's "Inferno". A week after the wedding, Coolidge, ever the practical New Englander, also presented his wife with 52 pairs of his socks that needed mending). Some have argued that Coolidge was the best-prepared candidate ever to become President, having worked his way through a succession of elective political offices until he wound up as the Vice President under Harding, attaining the presidency when Harding died in office in August of 1923. Coolidge was a laissez-faire proponent, believing, like Jefferson, that the government governs best which governs least. In July of 1924 his son, Calvin Jr., died of blood poisoning. The younger Coolidge, like his mother, was an outgoing and gregarious boy, and his death affected his father deeply. Although some historians have characterized Coolidge's behavior in office as marked by laziness or indolence, it seems now that it was almost certainly a deep depression brought about by the death of his son. Coolidge chose not to run in 1928. Privately, his wife remarked to a friend that "Daddy thinks there is going to be a Depression." On January 5, 1933, he died of heart failure at his home in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Though Coolidge was dismissed for years as a presidential lightweight, his reputation has grown in recent years. President Ronald Reagan retrieved Coolidge's portrait from storage and displayed it in the White House during his tenure in office, and a recent biography has provided a much more favorable view of Coolidge and his presidency than had previously been available.

Do the day&#39;s work. If it be to protect the rights of the weak, whoever
objects, do it. If it be to help a powerful corporation better to serve
the people, whatever the opposition, do that. Expect to be called a
stand-patter, but don&#39;t be a stand-patter. Expect to be called a
demagogue, but don&#39;t be a demagogue. Don&#39;t hesitate to be as
revolutionary as science. Don&#39;t hesitate to be as reactionary as the
multiplication table. Don&#39;t expect to build up the weak by pulling down
the strong. Don&#39;t hurry to legislate. Give administration a chance to
catch up with legislation.

Four-fifths of all our troubles in this life would disappear if we
would only sit down and keep still.

[commenting on the revelation that several
members of of his predecessor&#39;s cabinet were implicated in the Teapot
Dome scandal] Let the guilty be punished.

[asked what he was thinking when told that President <a class="ipc-md-link ipc-md-link--entity" href="/name/nm1136403/?ref_=nmqu_qu">Warren G. Harding</a> had died and he was now President] I thought I could swing it.

[asked for his reasoning for, when governor of Massachusetts, to fire striking members of the Boston Police Department] There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, any time, anywhere.

I do not choose to run for president in 1928.

Patriotism is easy to understand in America. It means looking out for
yourself by looking out for your country.

Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized
robbery.

I have noticed that nothing I never said ever did me any harm.

If you don&#39;t say anything, you won&#39;t be called on to repeat it.

I sometimes wish that people would put a little more emphasis on the observance of the law than they do on its enforcement.

People seem to think the presidential machinery should keep on running, even after the power has been turned off.

Quotes

Calvin Coolidge

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