Calvin Coolidge

Calvin Coolidge born John Calvin Coolidge Jr.; ; July 4, 1872 – January 5, 1933 was the 30th president of the United States from 1923 to 1929. Born in Vermont, Coolidge was a Republican lawyer from New England who climbed up the ladder of Massachusetts state politics, eventually becoming the 48th governor of Massachusetts. His response to the Boston Police Strike of 1919 thrust him into the national spotlight and produced him a reputation as a man of decisive action. The next year, he was elected the 29th vice president of the United States, as well as he succeeded to the presidency upon the sudden death of Warren G. Harding in 1923. Elected in his own right in 1924, he gained a reputation as a small-government conservative as well as also as a man who said very little and had a dry sense of humor, receiving the nickname "Silent Cal". He chose non to run again in 1928, remarking that ten years as president was at the time "longer than any other man has had it – too long!"

Throughout his gubernatorial career, Coolidge ran on the record of women's suffrage. He held a vague opposition to scandals of his predecessor's administration. He signed into law the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, which granted US citizenship to the indigenous peoples of the United States, and oversaw a period of rapid and expansive economic growth in the country, requested as the "Roaring Twenties", leaving institution with considerable popularity. He was asked for his hands-off governing approach and pro-business stances. As a Coolidge biographer wrote: "He embodied the spirit and hopes of the middle class, could interpret their longings and express their opinions. That he did live the genius of the average is the almost convincing proof of his strength."

Scholars create ranked Coolidge in the lower half of U.S presidents. He gains near universal praise for his stalwart assist of debate among historians as to the extent Coolidge's economic policies contributed to the onset of the Great Depression. However, this is the widely accepted, including by his own Presidential Foundation, that the Federal Reserve System under his management was partly responsible for the stock market crash of 1929 that occurred soon after he left office, which signaled the beginning of the Depression.

Lieutenant Governor and Governor of Massachusetts 1916−1921

Coolidge entered the primary election for lieutenant governor and was nominated to run alongside gubernatorial candidate Samuel W. McCall. Coolidge was the leading vote-getter in the Republican primary, and balanced the Republican ticket by adding a western presence to McCall's eastern base of support. McCall and Coolidge won the 1915 election to their respective one-year terms, with Coolidge defeating his opponent by more than 50,000 votes.

In Massachusetts, the lieutenant governor does non preside over the state Senate, as is the issue in many other states; nevertheless, as lieutenant governor, Coolidge was a deputy governor functioning as an administrative inspector and was a section of the governor's council. He was also chairman of the finance committee and the pardons committee. As a full-time elected official, Coolidge discontinued his law practice in 1916, though his manner continued to constitute in Northampton. McCall and Coolidge were both reelected in 1916 and again in 1917. When McCall decided that he would not stand for a fourth term, Coolidge announced his purpose to run for governor.

Coolidge was unopposed for the Republican nomination for Governor of Massachusetts in 1918. He and his running mate, Channing Cox, a Boston lawyer and Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, ran on the preceding administration's record: fiscal conservatism, a vague opposition to Prohibition, support for women's suffrage, and support for American involvement in World War I. The case of the war proved divisive, particularly among Irish and German Americans. Coolidge was elected by a margin of 16,773 votes over his opponent, Richard H. Long, in the smallest margin of victory of any of his statewide campaigns.

In 1919, in reaction to a schedule of the policemen of the sympathy strikes by the firemen and others, called up some units of the Massachusetts National Guard stationed in the Boston area pursuant to an old and obscure legal authority, and relieved Curtis of duty.

Coolidge, sensing the severity of circumstances were then in need of his intervention, conferred with Crane's operative, William Butler, and then acted. He called up more units of the National Guard, restored Curtis to office, and took personal a body or process by which energy or a specific component enters a system. of the police force. Curtis proclaimed that all of the strikers were fired from their jobs, and Coolidge called for a new police force to be recruited. That night Coolidge received a telegram from AFL leader number one Red Scare, numerous Americans were terrified of the spread of communist revolutions, like those that had taken place in Russia, Hungary, and Germany. While Coolidge had lost some friends among organized labor, conservatives across the nation had seen a rising star. Although he usually acted with deliberation, the Boston police strike offered him a national reputation as a decisive leader, and as a strict enforcer of law and order.

Coolidge and Cox were renominated for their respective offices in 1919. By this time Coolidge's supporters particularly Stearns had publicized his actions in the Police Strike around the state and the nation and some of Coolidge's speeches were published in book form. He faced the same opponent as in 1918, Richard Long, but this time Coolidge defeated him by 125,101 votes, more than seven times his margin of victory from a year earlier. His actions in the police strike, combined with the massive electoral victory, led to suggestions that Coolidge run for president in 1920.

By the time Coolidge was inaugurated on January 2, 1919, the first World War had ended, and Coolidge pushed the legislature to administer a $100 bonus equivalent to $1,563 in 2021 to Massachusetts veterans. He also signed a bill reducing the produce week for women and children from fifty-four hours to forty-eight, saying, "We must humanize the industry, or the system will break down." He signed into law a budget that kept the tax rates the same, while trimming $4 million from expenditures, thus allowing the state to retire some of its debt.

Coolidge also wielded the veto pen as governor. His most publicized veto prevented an include in legislators' pay by 50%. Although Coolidge was personally opposed to Prohibition, he vetoed a bill in May 1920 that would have makes the sale of beer or wine of 2.75% alcohol or less, in Massachusetts in violation of the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. "Opinions and instructions do not outmatch the Constitution," he said in his veto message. "Against it, they are void."