reputation helped Coolidge to rise
through the ranks of the Republican party.
Many historians believe it to be the
deciding factor behind his nomination for
Vice President. After Warren G. Harding
was elected president in 1920, Vice
President Coolidge became president
when Harding passed away in 1923. He
was sworn in by his father—who was a
certified public notary— at the family
compound in Plymouth Notch. It was the
only time in history a president has ever
been sworn in in the state of Vermont.
Two portraits of Calvin Coolidge
state political ladder through his ability to
carefully listen to his constituents and act
on their demands.
In 1918, an international flu pandemic
swept through Massachusetts when
Coolidge was serving as the state’s
Lieutenant Governor. As death and
infection rates continued to climb, Massachusetts’
state government remained
ill-equipped to deal with the torrential
influx of incurable patients. Over a century
before COVID-19 tested the limits of the
American medical system, Coolidge took
the initiative to send a telegram to nearby
states requesting additional resources and
medical staffing. During a time of
nationwide chaos and uncertainty,
Coolidge’s level-headed and metered
approach allowed the state of
Massachusetts to work cooperatively with
other states and the Federal government
to better manage the influenza crisis.
Shortly after the peak of the flu pandemic,
Coolidge encountered the defining
challenge of his political career. After
being elected to the office of Massachusetts
State Governor, he oversaw the
tumultuous resolution of the Boston Police
Strike of 1919. When the city’s police force
refused to work due to low wages and
unsanitary working conditions, Coolidge
called in the Massachusetts state militia in
an attempt to pacify the growing group of
pro-union protestors.
During the course of the subsequent
protests, militiamen fired upon a large
gathering of protestors, killing two civilians
who were present in the crowd. After the
ensuing clash resulted in citywide chaos, a
total of nine lives were lost. Coolidge
subsequently faced a great deal of local
public backlash for his failure to negotiate
a timely resolution between Boston Police
Chief Edwin Curtis and the emergent
Boston Police Union.
Many notable politicians across the country
continued to support Coolidge’s actions,
however, including President Woodrow
Wilson. As the protests continued, many
conservative-leaning newspapers used the
deadly mayhem that had occurred during
the crisis in Boston as a platform to take
a partisan stance on labor union policy. In
one such example, the Philadelphia Public
Ledger wrote that “Bolshevism in the
United States is no longer a specter.
Boston in chaos reveals its sinister
substance.”
While the Boston Mayor and Chief of
Police argued over the fate of the striking
police workers, Coolidge spoke out in
favor of the officers’ reinstatement in a
telegram sent to a labor convention. The
telegram seemed to have little effect, as
Commissioner Curtis fired all 1,100 of the
police workers who went on strike and
hired 1,574 new workers at a higher salary
to the immense chagrin of the mayor. After
the dust had settled, Coolidge was praised
by President Woodrow Wilson and many
of his Republican political allies for helping
to restore lawful order to the Bay State
Capital.
In the wake of the police strike, Coolidge
gained a national reputation among the
conservative electorate as a dedicated arbiter
of public safety who had the ability to
successfully diffuse volatile situations. This
Although Coolidge’s ascension to the
presidency came on the heels of his
controversial involvement in a nationally
publicized municipal crisis, he refrained
from participating in many of the partisan
political skirmishes that occurred during
the years he spent in the Oval Office.
Coolidge opted instead to focus on a
concentrated fiscal campaign of “Constructive
Economics” and used his time as
President to tirelessly advocate for financial
reform. By the time he left office in 1929,
he had reduced the national debt from
$22.3 billion to $16.9 billion. Industrial production
grew by 70%, overall wages rose
by 22%, and unemployment fell by 3%.
In the same way that Chester A. Arthur’s
presidency was defined by the passage of
the Pendleton Act, Coolidge’s presidency
was arguably defined by the passage
of his finance reform legislation and his
balancing of the federal budget. Through
the passage of the Revenue Acts of 1921,
1924, and 1926, the Coolidge Administration
oversaw the complete restructuring
of the American tax system. Coolidge’s
policies created a prosperous economic
climate that peaked before the stock
market crashed in 1929 under President
Herbert Hoover.
Coolidge is also remembered for his
anti-isolationist stance on Post-World War
I international peacemaking efforts and
his epic battle with Congress concerning
the funding of the 1927 Mississippi River
flood relief campaign. In the aftermath of
another cataclysmic flood that occurred
during the same year in Vermont, Coolidge
left a permanent mark on the Green Mountain
State’s political history with his pivotal
“Brave Little State of Vermont” speech.
Record rainfall in Vermont during the
months of October and November of 1927
created river floods that wreaked
devastating destruction in many
communities across the state. While
Vermonters everywhere struggled to
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