Coolidge Blog

Calvin Coolidge’s First Presidential Broadcast

By Jerry L. Wallace The clock in the U.S. House Chamber pointed to half past noon.[1] Congress had assembled for a joint session. Standing at the clerk’s desk in front […]

A Supreme Court Justice’s Private Views of Coolidge

By John William Sullivan   One of President Calvin Coolidge’s harshest critics—in private, at least—was Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis. Both men had made their names in Massachusetts: Brandeis as […]

Joseph Fountain: Witness to the Inauguration

by Paul D. Houle Joseph Fountain, the twenty-four-year-old editor of the Springfield Reporter, scooped every reporter in Vermont—indeed, in the world—with his account of the presidential inauguration of Calvin Coolidge. […]

The Mellon Plan: The Legislative Fight for the First Supply-Side Tax Reforms

By The Honorable French Hill Tax reform isn’t easy, but it is possible. Even dramatic tax reform. Today, when many doubt that proposition, it’s useful to look back at another […]

When Life Strikes the President

April 19, 2017

“It costs a great deal to be president,” President Calvin Coolidge remarked when he reflected on the March 1926 death of his elderly father. In writing those words Coolidge spoke for all his predecessors, as well as presidents who came after him. Every president has dealt with tragedies and personal challenges during their tenure in the White House. Now an impressive assemblage of presidential historians have joined together to examine those challenges in the recently released book When Life Strikes the President: Scandal, Death, and Illness in the White House.

Coolidge Foundation chairman Amity Shlaes contributed a chapter on the death of Calvin Coolidge, Jr., and the impact that tragedy had on President Coolidge. Calvin, Jr. was a bright young man with a promising future ahead of him. Yet fate took him at the age of sixteen, after a toe blister went septic, subjecting Calvin, Jr. to blood poisoning, an ailment which today could be treated by antibiotics, but had no known treatment or cure in 1924.

Many historians argue that Calvin, Jr.’s death enervated the Coolidge presidency. Amity is not of their number. Instead, she views the death of Calvin, Jr. as a significant blow, of course, but a blow from which President Coolidge recovered. Not only did he recover, but he went on to achieve major accomplishments for the United States, including finally triumphing in his great tax crusade in 1926 and signing the Kellogg-Briand Pact to end war in 1928.

The book also explores the tragedies experienced by other presidents. It is amazing just how many profound tragedies there have been when one reflects upon the lives of the 44 commanders-in-chief. When Life Strikes the President provides a comprehensive and insightful overview of many of these seminal events, adding valuable new scholarship to the historiography of the American presidency.

3 Responses to “When Life Strikes the President”

  1. Debra B COOLIDGE

    Calvin Coolidge always said hed never say more than three words that day a woman came up to him and said she bets him she can get him to say more than three words his reply was President Calvin Coolidge was:::YOU LOSE

  2. Debra vaneperen

    President coolidge was so smart he also became a Lawyer

  3. Debra Coolidge

    President Calvin Coolidge never spoke more than three words ..when a woman came up to him.she said ill bet chew that i can make you say more than 3 words…to which “”President calvin coolidge replied YOU LOSE”” thats.why calvin coolidges nic name.was SILENT. CAL.

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