Saturday, July 29, 2017

History Space: A Coolidge celebration

Joe Fountain was the editor of Springfield's weekly paper on August 3, 1923 when Calvin Coolidge became President of the United States. Fountain was the only newsman present for the 1:47 a.m. swearing in ceremony.

www.burlingtonfreepress.com    

1 comment :

  1. chuck gregory7/31/17, 8:13 AM

    Frederick Lewis Allen, author of the popular history of the truly amazing changes that happened between 1920 and 1950 (and a very funny book, too), wrote of Coolidge's decision not to run in 1928, "He viewed the onset of the Depression with the air of a man who has just stepped off the train and watched it plunge off the next bridge."

    While many attribute Coolidge's decision not to run again, I think that he actually was motivated largely by the disparity he saw between stated American ideals of law-abiding government and what was going on. He inherited during Prohibition a White House that had liquor stored in its basement; his term followed that of the second most corrupt President we ever had; Herbert Hoover, the Secretary of Commerce, was frantically pointing to fatal excesses on Wall Street; and Woodrow "The South's Revenge" Wilson's attack on African Americans had successfully destroyed most of the improvements ex-slaves and their defendants had made until 1916.

    Apart from his occasional stand for and defense of African-Americans, Coolidge went with the flow, campaigning on the slogan, "America's business is business." I like to think it was his probity that primarily influenced him to get out of politics when he did.

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