"Nothing in the world can take the
place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful
men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not; the world is full of educated men. Persistence and
determination alone are omnipotent."
To most
people, Calvin Coolidge is little more than punch line. He may be best known
for his reply to a woman who approached him at a White House dinner. She said,
"My husband bet me I couldn't get you to say three words." Coolidge told
her, "You lose."
Though Coolidge
is little remembered, Ronald Reagan had good things to say about his fellow
Republican. "I'd always thought of Coolidge as one of our most underrated
presidents," Reagan said. "He came into office after World War I
facing a mountain of war debt but instead of raising taxes, he cut the tax rate
and government revenues increased, permitting him to eliminate the wartime debt
and proving that the principle…about lower taxes meaning greater tax revenues
still worked in the modern world."
Coolidge
was a notorious skin-flint, even in the days when government spent far less on
few fewer programs. He and his budget chief determined that federal workers would
only be issued one pencil. Every employee was told to use his pencil down to
its stub before asking for a new one. "Our item of expense for pencils is
materially less," a federal report proudly stated.
Though the U.S. experienced boom times during his presidency from 1923 to 1929,
he had to contend with a woe far more intractable than debt.
Like Crimson Lightning
His son Calvin
Jr. died while he was in office.
Even his
older brother John admitted he was his father's favorite. He had inherited his
father's dry wit and stone-faced expression.
At age 16,
he was a strong young man. The summer before, he had worked as a farm-hand on a
Connecticut tobacco farm. He was "full of pranks" and lover of books.
On June 30,
1924, he and John, 17, played tennis on the White House lawn. A blood blister
rose on the middle toe of his right foot. Calvin Jr. hadn't been wearing socks.
At first, he didn't think much of it and told no one. Soon he was limping, and he
developed a fever of 102. Red streaks went up his leg like crimson lightning.
He had a
sepsis (blood poisoning) caused by the bacteria Staphylococcus aureus. In those days, it caused many deaths. Penicillin
or another antibiotic would have likely easily cured him, but such wonder drugs
had yet to be discovered.
A few days
later doctors admitted him to the nearby Walter Reed Medical Center, home to
some of the nation's best physicians. Calvin Jr. received blood transfusions
and even had an operation.
The Fourth
of July was the President's birthday. He used the occasion to write his father
in Vermont, saying "Calvin is very sick, so this is not a happy day for
me….Of course he has all that medical science can give but he may have a long
sickness with ulcers then again he may be better in a few days."
Calvin Jr.
drifted in and out of consciousness, at one point blurting out on July 7
"Come on, help!" as if he were leading a cavalry charge. Then he
relaxed and said, "We surrender!" His doctor said, "Don't
surrender." Calvin Jr. said "Yes" and died.
His doctor
remembered, "It is commonly stated that President Coolidge
is 'cold as ice, but I had the opportunity of seeing him in his hour of grief
and to know quite otherwise. Indeed, it was the most touching and heart-rending
experience of my whole professional career."
(Not
since Lincoln's son William died of typhoid fever in 1862 had such a tragedy
befallen a President. "He was too good for this earth," Lincoln
wrote. "It is hard, hard to have him die.")
The
Presidential election campaign was underway. When Calvin Jr. died the Democrats
convention was in its second sweltering week in Madison Square Garden. An announcement
came over the loudspeakers. There was a "low, prolonged moan, almost a
sob. Rancor ceased and a wave of common sympathy swept over the vast
audience."
Coolidge
lost interest in campaigning. For weeks, he was always wore black armband. Many
historians believe Coolidge fell into a depression which never lifted and may
have even contributed to his death four years after leaving office.
"Such a Price"
In his
autobiography, Coolidge acknowledged that a bright spark in his life had been
extinguished. "The greatest grief that can come to a boy came to me,"
he wrote. "Life was never to seem the same again."
Most
notably, he added "When [my son] went, the power
and glory of the Presidency went with him." Perhaps Coolidge thought he
was destined for ill fate. "I do not know why such a price was exacted for
occupying the White House," he wrote.
Was
Coolidge's presidency ruined by this tragedy? Biographer Amity Shlaes thinks
not. "Like Lincoln too, Coolidge lost a son while in office; like Lincoln,
he pushed ahead and achieved much despite the loss," including fighting
corruption and improving government services. Historian Robert Gilbert, the
author of a psycho-biography of Coolidge, disagrees writing that he "declined
to use his powers as president to achieve his goals."
Whatever
the truth, depression and grief were not as well understood—or treated—in the
1920s as they are today. Calvin Coolidge could have resigned the presidency. He
did not. Coolidge, whatever one thinks of his political beliefs or
accomplishments, upheld his duties as president to the best of his abilities.
MORAL: Fight the good fight.
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