Looking for Calvin Coolidge

By Published on September 11, 2015

I’m currently reading Garland Tucker’s book Conservative Heroes—recently reviewed for TAC by Thomas Woods—and happened upon this interesting thought in the chapter on Calvin Coolidge’s conservative legacy:

Coolidge began his political career in the waning days of Lord Salisbury’s career and developed a philosophy of government similar to that of the British prime minister. Salisbury often compared the English nation to a boat being carried downriver, with the function of a wise government being “merely to put out an oar when there is any danger of its drifting into the bank.” Paul Johnson has noted that Coolidge practiced a policy of “masterly inaction.” The historian Amity Shlaes agrees, writing in her Coolidge biography: “Most presidents place faith in action; the modern presidency is perpetual motion. Coolidge made virtue of inaction.”

Many contemporaries underestimated Coolidge as a politician and a president. They mistook his restraint and inaction for weakness. Coolidge realized: “The people know the difference between pretense and reality. They want to be told the truth. They want to be trusted. They want a chance to work out their own material and spiritual salvation. The people want a government of common sense.”

Read the article “Looking for Calvin Coolidge” on theamericanconservative.com.

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