Jackie Kennedy has long been renowned for her laudable fashion sense and regal stature. During JFK’s presidency she sparkled on the national stage. Yet there was another first lady who was the Jackie of her time. At Plymouth Notch she is the Queen of all our hearts: Grace Anna Goodhue Coolidge. Wife, mother, and First Lady of the United States, Grace warmed the hearts of all who knew her. She provided the family space and social grace that allowed her husband Calvin to succeed in the White House. The American people recognized what a gem they had in her, and we continue to celebrate the life of this great woman.
It can be said with a high degree of certainty that Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hooverdid not have the warmest of relationships. As the trailblazing Secretary of Commerce Hoover campaigned for industry standardization and greatly increased the influence and power of the sleepy backwater Commerce Department. Coolidge never thought highly of Hoover’s activist sentiments, referring to him as “wonderboy.” Nonetheless, Coolidge supported Hoover in both 1928 and 1932, giving his last public speech in the run-up to the 1932 presidential election in Hoover’s favor.
Could America ever find a leader who might cut our debt? There’s reason for hope. We at least have a model from history. There was once a president who stared down big government and won the battle for control of the debt. That president was Calvin Coolidge.
The Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation is pleased to announce that Dr. Donald Boudreaux of George Mason University is the winner of the 2014 Coolidge Prize for Journalism, a $20,000 journalism prize awarded to the author whose short works best embody the spirit and values of our nation’s thirtieth president. Dr. Boudreaux, a prominent libertarian economist, author, and professor, is published in the Wall Street Journal, Investor’s Business Daily, Regulation, Reason, Ideas on Liberty, the Washington Times, the Journal of Commerce, the Cato Journal, and several scholarly journals such as the Supreme Court Economic Review, Southern Economic Journal, Antitrust Bulletin, and Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking.