Coolidge Blog

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 […]

Calvin Coolidge and the Post-Armistice Chlorine Gas Campaign

By Robert M. Klein, M.D., Columbia University Irving Medical Center On May 18, 1924, First Congregational Church in Washington held its regular service. But this Sunday, one important congregant was […]

GRACE: ON THE AIR

GRACE COOLIDGE’S RADIO DEBUT OVER STATION NAA ON DECEMBER 4, 1922 By Jerry L. Wallace Next year is a centennial year for President Calvin Coolidge. But this year marks a […]

The Great 1928 Budget Debate

We tend to project our own assumptions about party positions onto events long past. For example, we assume that Democrats always advocated for increased government spending, at least more so […]

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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