American Presidents: Totalus Rankium - 30.1 Calvin Coolidge

Episode Date: September 19, 2020

Coolidge may be a man with hidden depths, but if he is, they are ocean-trench deep. Join us as we try and figure out if Coolidge has a dry wit and worked hard to get the top job, or he is a robot with a lot of luck.

Welcome to Totalus Rankium. This week, Galvan College Part 1. Hello and welcome to American President Total's Rankium. I am Jamie. And I am Rob, ranking all of the presidents from Washington to Trump. And this is episode 30.1. Calvin Coolidge. That's right, two thirds of the way there, Jamie. Two thirds. Yeah, we are. Oh yeah, milestone. An unusual milestone, but still a milestone. Well, we've already had a little chat about who we're doing, kind of off air.

But it's Coolidge, Jamie. You're looking forward to Coolidge? More curious now. Yeah. With your cryptic suggestion. Well, not even suggesting anything. No, no. See, I've completely forgotten that people said that you particular would like Coolidge. And I'll be interested to see whether you do. Is there another Jerry?

Jerry does not appear in this episode, I will have to warn you. We'll just start, and then you can find out more about this Coolidge fellow, and see what you think. Yeah. You're going to have to sell me off, though. Yes. Let's, What represents me? Let's keep it simple.

Shiny brass. Brilliant. Perfect. Start on shiny brass. We're not doing Harding this week, so nothing can be insinuated. All-out focus. Lots of... You know when light has gone all hexagon-y in a in the camera oh yeah yeah sort of is it a box

effect lots of brassy hexagons octagons whichever they are on your screen lots of twinkly lights and uh yeah you pull into focus and there's a big brass chandelier just hanging there as music wafts towards you from the screen you're watching from. Brass chandelier? That's pretty cheap, I've got to say. Yeah, everything in this place is unfortunately a little bit cheaper than it should be. They're trying to impress, but they've fallen on hard times of the hosts. So they've had to pull out the brass chandelier from the shed and they've put it up. Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh no.

Yeah, it is a shame. Half a dead rat on one of the spokes. Yeah, if you listen carefully, it sounds like fancy music. And if you don't focus too hard, it really does sound like you're at an upmarket social gathering. But if you listen carefully, it is actually just someone playing the spoons really, really well, which makes it sound like classical music being played.

The swell from the violins, you know, it's all in the wrist action. It's a seriously good spoon player, but ultimately cheaper from hiring the orchestra to play in the corner. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, as the spoons clack out some Vivaldi's Summer, you pan down and everyone's sitting around at a dinner party. All the best and the brightest and the upper crust of Washington, all of them are conspicuously not in this room. However, if you ever wanted to go to a party full of B-listers,

this is your place. Oh, yeah. Right. Yeah, like undersecretary to the Department of Interior, that kind of thing. Yeah. Third in line to be the war secretary. People have heard a nod and a wink, so that's why he's here.

And obviously, guest of honour, the vice president. Anyway, you see a woman in very fancy clothes. Oh, hello, my dear. I mean, again, you look closely, it is just newspaper. But it's, again, done very, very well. Anyway, she sits down to a very severe-looking man and turns to him and says, You must talk to me, Mr Coolidge.

I made a bet today that I could get more than two words out of you. There's a pause, and Coolidge turns to the woman and says one simple statement. You lose. Oh, nice. Smash to the words Coolidge. And then they all turn to icicles and then they shatter. And then, yeah, yeah.

Cool. Coolidge. Yeah, get it. Put on the name. And there you go. That is the opening to Coolidge. I'd have gone for the whole, you know, the glasses with like the lines that go across that aren't really glasses oh yeah no he always in a backwards cap Coolidge definitely wore those plasticky visory things I'm sure they have names there we go we

begin the exciting life of Calvin Coolidge I I can't help but sense a certain level of uh sarcasm in your tone there oh well I'm, well, I'm warning you and anyone listening, if you get overexcited easily, you might want to listen to this one in small chunks. Because, phew, I can tell you, wow. Oh, OK. Well, Calvin Coolidge earns the nickname Silent Cal, and he earns the nickname Silent Cal for a very good reason. He's silent.

Oh yes, from all accounts, he was a very quiet man. He spoke little, he joked less. Some have claimed that his silence hid a keen sense of humour and a love for practical jokes. I can't say I'm convinced. There was one biography that

I read a fair amount of that kept telling me how much he loved practical jokes. Never once did it tell me about a practical joke, apart from one that is fairly likely someone else did. However, somewhat ironically, his quiet demeanour has actually left us with a large number of small humorous anecdotes, all revolving around how robotic Coolidge is. We perhaps have more tiny little anecdotes for Coolidge than any president we've come across, bizarrely, just because he is such a boring man. So, I mean, this is a good job. It means I can sprinkle some of these anecdotes into the episode to stop it drying up completely. However, just know,

and for reasons we get into towards the end of the episode, some of these stories are most likely not true. Were made up at the time and kind of filtered through history. Right. But what is interesting is if they're not completely true, they were believed at the time. So it does give us a hint of what his personality must have been like. All right. So that said, we don't actually start with Calvin, but with his parents. The Coolidge family lived in Vermont, the most exciting of states. I apologise to all our Vermontians. The letters we're going to get now you said that.

It's going to be unreal. It'll be all very polite. Vermont's practically Canada, isn't it? So, it'll all be very polite. It'll be fine. It's like Vancouver. Yeah, we're talking cold winters, harsh living conditions in the rural northern America. For four generations, the Coolidges had lived in the town of Plymouth Notch.

Yeah. This is a tiny little sort of village or a notch in a valley near the slightly bigger town of Plymouth, but not the Plymouth you might be thinking of. It's more inland. Do they pronounce it Plymouth? Do Americans pronounce of Plymouth, but not the Plymouth you might be thinking of. It's more inland. Do they pronounce it Plymouth? Do Americans pronounce it Plymouth? They always say Plymouth Rock, don't they? Yes, I guess so.

Yeah, maybe they pronounce it Plymouth. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Yeah, maybe. No, I think it is Plymouth. Pronunciation of things are almost normal in New England. Oh, that's true. It's the further south and further west you get, the crazier the accent goes.

They say aluminium and everything. And herbs. Exactly. So anyway, we've got John Calvin Coolidge and Victoria Moore, who had met shortly after the Civil War and wed. Yeah, short story of their courtship. John and Victoria ran a farm, but John also did all sorts to get an income. Jack of all trades, he was.

In fact, when their children first come along, he is running the local store and using that to supplement the income from their small farm. But he didn't just do that. He also undertook the position of just about every local official you could think of. He was the school commissioner at one point, a tax collector, a constable, deputy sheriff. Eventually he'd go on further in politics, reaching the heights of being a state senator. Wow. But that's all in the future.

For now, just know that he's doing what he can to get by. Yeah. We're not talking rich aristocratic family here. Yeah. Anyway, John and Victoria, very patriotic couple, obviously. They love their country. So what better day to have a child than on Independence Day? Oh!

Oh, yes, of 1872. Wait, conceived or produced? Both. They were in a rush. Wow. Or took their time. Yes. No, no, born 1872. John and Victoria have a little boy,

and they name him after his father, John Calvin Coolidge. So his first name's John. Oh, yes, to avoid the confusion, the boy was referred to by his middle name Calvin throughout pretty much all his life. Fair enough. Yes, so Calvin Coolidge is added onto the growing list of presidents whose names aren't actually the names you know them by. Yeah. Off the top of my head, I've gone blank. Ulysses. There we go.

Yes. Grant wasn't actually called Ulysses. And there's definitely been more. George Washington. Yeah. His name was actually King George. Yes. They covered that one up well. Yeah. So anyway, little boy born on Independence Day. As an adult, Calvin would look back and fully appreciate how his parents raised him. He'd look

back fondly on his childhood. His mother loved to plant things and watch the sky, the sunsets and the stars whilst talking to her son of poetry and novels and the such like. The arts, appreciating the beauty in the world. That's a good thing in a way, but, you know, there was no Wi-Fi back then, I guess. Well, maybe you would have preferred John's method of parenthood, where he was far more practical. Yeah, this is how you get by in life, some kind of thing. In fact, I'll quote Corlidge here about his father. He was a man of untiring industry.

So he'd just keep on working. As a boy, Calvin helped on the farm. He swept up for the local blacksmith to get a little bit of pocket money. And he also became very good at getting the sap out of the maple trees. See, you're right, they were in Canada. Yeah, exactly. But I'll quote John Calvin here. It always seemed as though Cal could get more sap out of a maple tree than any other boy.

Words of a proud father. Yes. Interestingly, though, it just goes to show how many things in the world happen that you never stop to think about. It's only doing my research for this podcast that it occurred to me that maple syrup actually comes from maple trees. Really? Yeah. I mean, it makes complete sense. There was nothing in there when I looked into it that surprised me or shocked me.

I just never stopped to think about it before. So yeah, there it was. Going up to the maple trees, shoving in one of the taps, just turning the faucet, little bottle, maple syrup, job done. At the age of four, Calvin gains his first memory, or at least it's his earliest memory when he's an adult. It was his birthday slash independence day, and he and his father went fishing. How nice. The reason why Calvin remembers this so well is that he fell in the river, and his dad had to. How nice. The reason why Calvin remembers this so well is that he fell in the river

and his dad had to jump in after him and rescue him and then they had to trudge home dripping wet. I bet he looks back on it and laughs and goes, how silly I was. This is Coolidge. I doubt he left.

He probably raised half an eyebrow and then made a note somewhere to smile at the next available convenient time. Oh dear. It's not boding well. Oh, just wait. Anyway, four years later we get another anecdote. One day at around age eight, and this is the first one where we perhaps get an insight of what his personality is like. Cal asked his

father for a penny to buy some sweets. John told his child that it looked like a democrat was about to become the president, so they had best economise, and just refused to hand the penny over. However, this was the election that Garfield won, Republican Garfield. And I'll quote Coolidge here, as soon as the news reached our town, I went to my father and I told him the result indicated that we were to continue with a Republican administration. And with that prospect in view,

I was able to secure the advance of the sum I had asked for. What a logical, soulless way to describe Yeah, I got my penny off my dad eventually. Yes. Wow. Yeah. soulless way to describe yeah I got my penny off my dad eventually yes wow oh was this brutal

to research? No actually this was a really simple one to research it wasn't like McKinley's episode where it's like he doesn't do anything and this is painful to research this one was fairly straightforward it's just well as you'll see you come to almost admire it in a way.

Anyway, Corlidge would later remember his childhood with fondness. Apparently, it was a world full of country fets and bobsleighing and just generally helping out on the family farm and sitting under the night sky with his mother chatting. Oh, very nice. His mother, whilst looking at the stars, would occasionally cough a little bit. Oh, no.

Into a handkerchief that she'd then stare into with horror in her eyes and hide. Coolidge would say, what's wrong, mother? And she'd say something along the lines of, nothing, nothing, dear. Yeah, it's TB, Jamie. It's consumption. It's not good.

Growing up with his mother being ill was just part of life to Coolidge. In fact, I'll quote him. She was practically an invalid ever after I could remember her, but she used what strength she had in lavishing care upon me and my sister. Because, yes, he now has a little sister as well called Abby. TB couldn't have thought about that, could it? In fact, I'll continue the quote. When Mother knew the end was near,

she called us children to her bedside to receive her final parting blessing. We laid her away in the blistering snows of March. The greatest grief that can come to a boy came to me. Life was never to seem the same again. Maybe this is why he shelled up and became frosty. Quite possibly. I'd read in more than one place during my research, this is a suggestion a few historians come to,

the loss of his mother, early age, taught him to be cautious. Life was precious, could be snatched away at any moment. A sort of Aaron Burr in the musical Hamilton, not real life kind of attitude to life. If you've seen the musical, which you haven't, the listeners have. All of the listeners have.

It's just you. Interestingly, though, guess how she dies? I can't tell. I could not figure it out, and I spent quite a while trying to work this out. I mean, you'd guess, wouldn't you, that it was TB? Yeah.

In most places online, it says it's TB. In his autobiography, which I've just quoted from, Coolidge doesn't actually mention how his mother dies, just that she dies. In his autobiography, which I've just quoted from, Corledge doesn't actually mention how his mother dies, just that she dies. In Ruth Feldman's biography, it insinuates that she died of tuberculosis, but doesn't say so outright. But it's fairly clear that that's what she died of. It's mentioned she had it and then she died. Yeah. However, in the biography by David Greenberg, he just

casually throws in the line that she died after an accident involving a runaway horse. What? Yeah. Now, obviously, with a line like that, I want to know more information. Yeah. What runaway horse? Was she there in her bed dying of TB as a horse just ran through

and clattered into her? I don't know. So I thought I'd find out. Could not find out. Well, they live on a farm, don't they? They do. Beyond the realm of possibility. If you're listening and you know, please let me know. I looked into

Corledge's autobiography, into his wife's autobiography. I read the relevant chapters of four separate biographies uh and no it was either just very unclear said it was tb apart from the one that mentioned a runaway horse so well i think we need to make the assumption now that it was the horse i'm going to assume that there's been a big mix-up and there was a horse on their farm called tony tony barnes and they just called it tb and the horse clattered into her one day

and said oh she's died of tb yeah yeah i think when he was a foal, you know, years prior, Thunderstorm, little, what do you call it, Todd Barnes. Tony Barnes. Tony Barnes jumped into her arms and said, oh, you've just caught TB. Yes, that happened. That happened. Oh, Tony Barnes, you naughty horse, you.

Anyway, either way, whether it's tuberculosis, stray horse called Tony, she's dead. Yeah, and this left John with his two children, Calvin and Abby. Calvin was already a shy boy, apparently. And like you say, this is speculated that this death really causes him to be even more awkward around people. Now, by this time he's in

school. The village had a small stone building as the school that all the children would go to. College would later say that his teachers were not very good. Oh, Mr. Ofsted. Ooh. Yeah. He was seen as an above average student if somewhat of an, and I quote, odd stick.

Oh, that's great. A bit quirky, a bit weird. Yeah, a bit weird. Apparently he's just sort of really shy, awkward with his freckles and his red hair and he wouldn't talk to anyone. Now, there is some evidence that his father started pushing Calvin a little bit.

A little bit a lot, in fact, after the death of his wife. Because by this time John was the school commissioner for the area. And for whatever reason, he made his son take the test that teachers were given to see if they were allowed to teach.

Which 13-year-old Calvin passed. Oh. Well, I guess the information is, like, kiddie-level stuff, though, right? Well, yeah, exactly. I think this is John trying to prove that his boy is actually very intelligent. I can tell you. Lucky he can pass the test that I've prepped him for.

Tree, car, fridge. Yeah, exactly. Anyway, soon after this, it's off to Ludlow, which is 12 miles away to enroll in a boarding school. Calvin struggled. Now, he could do what he'd been taught well enough, but there were some areas that he'd never really been taught very much.

Especially algebra. He did not like algebra. He did not have a mathematical brain. Who does? Exactly. He'd not been prepared. He struggled. He made very few friends, if any, in the boarding school and later talked about how he found it impossible to talk to strangers at the time.

Yeah, he mentioned walking past his kitchen at home if there was a stranger in there and he realised he'd have to go in and introduce himself. He found it the hardest thing in the world to go into the kitchen. He'd just get painfully, painfully shy. He would head home every weekend from the boarding school to see his father

and help out at home, which is nice. And then after studying for a few years, he improved his grades. He kept chipping away at those areas he didn't like and started to thrive in the areas that he did. So doing better in his education, he still preferred his own company. However, he had changed because he had started the school as the freckly little redhead. He was now the impeccably dressed in a derby hat and a fancy coat kind of dandy figure. Oh yes, yeah. So that's interesting because normally if you have a sudden change of fashion it's usually because you've you're with a group of friends that do the same thing right yeah or he just

thinks how can i make friends for people who dress like this can always popular so maybe if i dress like this i'll be popular that's really sad it could be that but this is the thing with callage uh he's he's a blank slate. You can kind of put whatever you want on him because it's so hard to actually find out what he was thinking. So you're right. He might have been going, I don't care about anyone else. I'm going to dress the way I want and screw the lot of them.

But he might have been desperately trying to get friends. And it's very hard to tell which one's true. Now, he could afford his new look because he had a job. Oh. Yeah, it's the world's creepiest job. He worked in a toy factory making dolls. Oh, that's creepy. And we're talking, like, late 1800s here.

So these are... Porcelain. Freaky, scary dolls, and he worked in the factory. And he always asked the night shift as well. Yeah, definitely. Personal theory of mine, this is why he is so cold. It's because to make those dolls, you do need to pour some of your soul into each and every one

so they can come to life at night and kill people. So that's probably why. That's sad. Anyway, he worked there for a while. He made some money, which is nice. Two years after starting at Black River, his boarding school, his sister enrolled also. Remember, his sister's a couple of years younger than him,

so she's now around. However, she wasn't there for long because she died. Oh. Yeah, about that suddenly as well. She just suddenly got ill. One week, she was dead the next. This hit Coolidge about as hard as his mother's death had.

Yeah. Yeah. The two Coolidge men were just left with just those two with mother and daughter gone. Oh, that's really sad. It is really sad, isn't it? Yeah. And again, historians have speculated that the death of his mother and sister are what led to his reserved attitude.

However, as we have seen many times in this podcast, death was unfortunately common back then, and life goes on. And after a while, he got back to his studies. It had taken a while, but also people at his school had started to get to know him a little bit. He became a little bit more popular. Not, like, really popular, but a little bit. He became a little bit more popular. Not like really popular, but a little bit. He made friends.

Well, friends, acquaintances. He made acquaintances. He may have been involved in a couple of pranks, including one where a donkey was led into a classroom one night to cause mayhem. That would be brilliant. Yeah. If you're going to coax it in to start with. We're going way back to John mayhem. That would be brilliant. Yeah. If you're going to coax it in to start with.

We're going way back to John Adams level. The cow. Yeah, the cow and the inkwell. Yeah, Corledge makes reference to this prank in his autobiography. One of the very few times he admits to doing anything frivolous. I'll quote him here. About as far as I deem it prudent to discuss my own connection with these escapades is to record that I was never convicted of any of them,

so it must be presumed I was innocent. That's nice. I was never caught, so therefore it didn't happen. Yeah, which does show a little bit of humour, a bit of dry wit. Or literal. Or literal, and he genuinely thinks. And this is it with Corlidge. He's either got a very very dry sense of humor that he maintains throughout his whole life including to his wife or or he genuinely is this robotic so we can decide at the end anyway in his studies

he'd found a love of cicero high five yeah he high-fived himself. Who doesn't love a bit of Cicero and his pontifications? He studied Greek and Latin, politics and history, and found a real love for these subjects. And then he left school. It was time to go to further education and to college. So Amherst College was selected. He was going to go to a more local college, but Amherst was a bit more prestigious.

However, it had an entrance exam, and the college was nervous about going. What if he went and did the exam and failed? However, he was convinced he should give it a go, and off he went. He took the entrance exam and failed. Yeah. Now, in his defence, he was ill at the time.

So it is claimed. And to be fair, even if it's nothing but the slight sniffles, his mother and sister have both died of illness slash rampaging horse. So that meant that even getting slightly ill would be mentally taxing to the young man. Yeah. It didn't help that his uncle had just died of tuberculosis as well. Oh, a bloody horse. Bloody Tony Barnes. His dad shouted, falling to his knees. He didn't pass as the op shot. However, his father was the school commissioner, remember?

And this helped out. Well, he had a couple of connections. So he was able to get his son into the local college for just a term to do a bit of extra study. And then the president of that college was able to put in a good word for college with Amherst College. Yeah. So, yeah, a few favours were asked for and received. Nice. And yeah, this worked. After failing the entry exam to begin with, Coolidge, after a few months, is given a place in Amherst. And his time in Amherst was very similar to his time in his

previous school. To begin with, he was the odd stick. He stuck to himself. He rarely talked to others. In fact, I'll quote one fellow pupil he lacked small talk and was never known i suspect to slap another man on the back he did develop a nickname however that's a good sign isn't it um i'm probably mispronouncing this uh because it is a greek word but his nickname was uden udenuden. O-U-D-E-N. It's going to be the gold. It sounds pretty good, doesn't it? Yeah, it's a good name.

Copper Man, the Gold Man, that would be good. Yeah. No, it's the Greek word for nothing. Oh. Oh, no. The most depressing nickname anyone could ever have. You are nothing. That is brutal.

Apparently this was because he wasn't part of any fraternity or social clubs, but possibly it just was because he was an empty shell of a man. Who knows? Yeah, well, yeah. But this said, over the next four years, people got to know nothing a bit. And he did manage to make a couple of friends. Good. Which is nice.

And he graduated. I'd love to tell you more stories of his college life, but there aren't any that I could find. He just got on with his work. I do feel kind of sorry for him. He's been through a lot and, you know, social anxiety, social... Oh yeah, yeah. Not having the social skills is challenging. It does make you wonder, though,

how does it go from here to become the President of the United States? That's what I keep thinking. Yeah. Well, we're going to find out. So he's graduated. What's he going to do? Law. Of course. He's not doing anything exciting or interesting. All his classmates were going to law school. College, however, decided to stay closer to home and read law the old-fashioned way, which was go to an actual law firm and then

study in his spare time, like we used to see back in the earlier days of the podcast. So a local law firm called Hammond and Field were recruiting. Hammond and Field were ex-Amherst students, and Coolidge found himself with a position there soon enough. Nice. By day, he worked on legal documents. Hammond and Field specialised in one particular area of the law, which suited Coolidge quite well. Do you want to hazard a guess at what area they specialised in?

Something really dope. Yes, got it in one. They specialised in the mundane. Yeah, they basically, they took the low-key humdrum cases, the background noise in the world of law, stuff that's just ticking over in the background, never made a splash but provided a steady income. This was not a few good men style loitering. This was, well, they've not made a film about it because why would you? No. It's like there's a pothole on 23rd Avenue.

Exactly. And the gauge goes behind that, that sort of thing. Exactly. So, yeah, College spent his days measuring the potholes to see if he could find a legal loophole. And in the evening... No, this is a pothole, sir. And in the evening, he would read law, studying.

It took him two years, and he passed the bar at the age of 25. Impressive stuff. A very good result. As Corledge himself put it. I was 25 years old and very happy. I was ecstatic. A party was had. I didn't go.

Three streets away. It was someone else's birthday. Anyway, as it often was, however, of course, the law was a means to an end. Hammond and Field, who he was working for, were far more interested in their political careers than their law firm. There was a reason why they just did the home-drawn background law stuff. It's because they were focusing on furthering their political agendas. And Corledge became part of the political shenanigans going on. He was essentially part of the

campaign team whenever one of the two owners of the firm ran for a political post. And due to this, Corlidge started to meet various leading men in politics for the area. And he starts on the ladder himself. And for the next couple of decades

he is steadily elected to more and more important positions. It just keeps going. I won't do the whole list, but I'll give you the start just to give you a sense. Well, I mean, he goes from lawyer to president, so it's a long ladder with lots of boring positions on it, but Coolidge takes it one rung at a time and off he goes. So to begin with, in 1898, he was elected into the Northampton City Council. In 1900, he was elected a city solicitor, who was re-elected in 1901. In 1903, he got the position of clerk for the courts. In 1904, he became the chairman of Northampton's Republican City Committee.

I could literally keep going like this until he hits vice president. Yeah, please don't. He's just, no, I'm not going to. It is just steady. Next year rolls around, he goes for something else. The next year rolls around, he goes for something else. Wow. Yeah. So let's grab one of those interesting anecdotes that I told you about earlier that might not be true. And let's say it happened here here couldn't quite figure out when in his life this happens but it would be around this time i think um so one day he goes to the barber's shop he needs his hair cut it continues don't worry so he goes in he sits down he has his hair cut and then in comes another man and sits down in the waiting area there was only one seat only one person could have their hair cut at a time.

It was Abraham Lincoln. It was not Abraham Lincoln. It was his doctor. Small town stuff. Yeah. So the doctor realises that his patient's there and this is before the days of patient-doctor confidentiality, clearly. Because the doctor says,

Oh, Kel, did you take those pills I gave you? There was a pause. And then Calvin, while still having his hair cut, replied, Nope. Snip snip, snip snip, snip snip. Eventually the doctor, feeling like he should perhaps give it another go, says, Are you feeling better then, Kel? Snip snip, snip snip.

Yep. Snip, snip, snip, snip. Yep. Snip, snip. The doctor at this point gives up on conversation and just patiently waits his turn. The haircut then finishes and Corlidge stands up and just goes to leave and walk out the door. The barber had to stop him in a kind of polite, oh, excuse me, and says, aren't you forgetting something, Mr. Corlidge? Corlidge looked embarrassed, apologetic, and replied, oh, I'm so sorry, I forgot to pay.

I was so busy gossiping with the doctor, it slipped my mind. You could just imagine a whole conversation gear on his head. And he thought he's had it. Yeah. See, it's stories like this where it's like no surely not there were so many little stories like this where it's like no these were jokes about how boring a man could be and they've been applied to college surely but let's say that happened during this time college was staying in a boarding house which happened to be next to a school for

the hearing impaired and one morning while, he heard laughter through his window. Let's hope it was slightly nicer laughter than that, because Coolidge went, ooh, what nice laughter, and looked out of the window. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Someone's plotting something. What a strange group of people out there. Someone's just told a joke to a very diverse crowd.

He looked out the window and discovered the source of the laughter was a young woman who was pleasing to the eye, shall we say. And in a rare flash of putting himself forward, Coolidge arranged to meet up with the woman. This was a woman named Grace Goodhue, who apparently was a very warm and friendly university graduate who lacked any of the social awkwardness that Coolidge had. Yes, Grace was teaching in Northampton, where Coolidge was living at this time. The reason why Grace was teaching in Northampton was because her mother thought that it was a woman's town, where the only men were

already married. Go and teach there. You'll be safe there from all the horrible men. Yeah, as Grace states in her autobiography, my mother did not know that a student graduating from Annhurst College had crossed the river and taken up residence there. Oh, yes. Coolidge plucked up the courage, invited Grace on a date. Ooh. That's pretty brave. The upcoming Republican rally at the City Hall.

Oh, it was so close. It was so close. Well, Grace accepted. And in her autobiography writes, I accepted and have been accepting similar invitations from him ever since that first acquaintance. And then all the crowd goes, ah. And then it just fades to black.

Yeah. How nice. How quaint. So there you go. He's with Grace now goes very well, I could find annoyingly little on their courtship we just don't seem to know much they get married soon afterwards though

in Grace's home it was a very small affair, Grace's mother was not very well maybe she'd come down in shock of the fact that her daughter managed to find a man in Northampton which for some reason she was convinced was devoid of men. Anyway, yeah, it was only

close relatives. Small affair. They get married, and then they move to a small, simple house together. A two-family house, as semi-detached houses were apparently known back then in America. Interesting. Yeah. This house, by the way,

remains the Corlidge family house for the rest of their lives. Corlidge returns there after being president. Oh, okay. Yeah. Well, that means he doesn't die in office. That's the thing. There you go. I've given something away, yeah.

But yeah, they're living together. They move into the house and apparently Corlidge brought with him a huge, large sack of socks that he had worn out throughout the years. Oh no, darn these. Oh yeah, Grace counted 52 pairs and then asked if he had married her just so someone could darn his socks. And apparently he had replied, no, but I find it mighty handy. Oh, the silver tongue devil.

handy. Oh, the silver-tongued devil. But it wasn't all just darning socks in the Coolidge household, because soon afterwards, two sons are born. Little John in 1906 and Calvin Jr. in 1908. Calvin Jr., the younger boy, reminded his father very strongly of himself as a boy, in looks and in temperament, and also reminded Coolidge of his mother as well apparently so he seemed to favour his younger boy but he definitely loved both of his children but in a very sort of Victorian male kind of way. Coolidge was apparently a very strict father who fully believed the best way to be a father was to set an example of moral fortitude. Right. Yes. That sounds fun. Oh, yes, it does sound fun, doesn't it?

So with this expanded family, Corlidge started really watching the pennies coming in. I mean, they weren't destitute, by all means, but they did have to be sensible with their money. For example, the Corliges did not own a telephone or a car, even though these things were starting to become cheap enough that they were no longer just for the rich elite. By this time, through connections he had made, he had gained a seat on the Massachusetts Senate, so State Senate. His family stayed in Northampton and he rented a room in Boston to do his work.

Quite often didn't see his children or Grace for days at a time, if not weeks. He was busy working. Now, he was known to be on the progressive side of the Republican Party, voting for women's rights, voting for the direct election of senators. However, when the party began to split due to Taft and Roosevelt's falling out that we've covered, Corlidge wasn't prepared to abandon his party to join the progressives, so remained loyal to the republicans. Rather than alienating himself, however, his silence aided him because no one really knew why it was that he stuck

with the republicans. He wasn't seen as a traitor by the progressives, he was seen as a moderate by both sides because everyone else could just sort of fill in the gaps in his personality with whatever they wanted really. Yeah he never really voiced an opinion on anything so everyone just assumed that he agreed with them. Yeah in 1913 he was elected as president of the state senate so he keeps going up the the ladder yeah step by step he made a name for himself at this time when he delivered a speech that became known as the have faith in massachusetts speech essentially this was him supporting progressive agendas but telling everyone to maybe be a bit conservative with their ideas oh it is a perfect example on how Coolidge got on in politics when he was forced

to actually say something. I'll quote a small amount of it to you, but it's impressive stuff. Do the day's work. So work hard. Yeah. If it is to protect the rights of the weak, whoever objects do it. So support workers' rights. If it is to help a powerful corporation better to serve the people, whatever the opposition, do that. So support the companies who are putting down the strikes. Yeah. Don't hesitate to be as revolutionary as

science. So be revolutionary in your thinking. Don't expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong. Don't actually do like a revolution. Don't hurry to build up the weak by pulling down the strong. Don't actually do like a revolution. Don't hurry to legislate. Give the administration a chance to catch up with legislation. Now, rather than being accused of delivering a speech that literally meant nothing at all,

this won him a lot of acclaim. Really? I mean, seriously, I was reading that. It's like he is literally ping-ponging from one sentence to the next, from one extreme to the other, in an attempt to just placate everyone. And apparently it works. But you can imagine the audience in two halves, like you say one thing, and they go, yay!

And then he says the next thing, and the other side goes, yay! So I stopped to try and think, well, why the hell did this go down as a good speech then? And, well, if you think about it, it does make sense. The world's becoming more and more chaotic. The First World War's coming up. Everything's very fractured in America. We've had decades of the Gilded Age. But now progressive policies are starting to come in and fight against that.

It's a lot of chaos. Everything seems uncertain. So it would have just been nice to hear someone very calmly agreeing with your views. Even if you did have to mentally airbrush out half of what he was saying, you could just pretend he hadn't said that part. Do you remember the bit where he said

that you should fight for workers' rights? Good old Coolidge. Or do you remember the bit where he said that powerful corporations serve the people? Good old Corlidge. Yeah. So, yeah, it goes down. It's wonderful politics, to be fair.

Yeah, exactly. So Corlidge continues his steady rise through politics and was elected lieutenant governor, a job with no responsibility whatsoever. It suited him well. For three one-year terms, he held the post just biding his time, essentially. And then, in 1918,

the governor of Massachusetts stepped aside, and Calvin went for the job. Now, Massachusetts at this time was strongly Republican, and with endorsement from the party, this should have been an easy win for Coolidge. There's no way he should have lost this.

Right. However, times were changing, as a man who will be born surprisingly soon sang about. The Democrats were changing as a party. The villages and towns and even the small cities were still firmly Republican, but large industrial Boston was full of factory workers who were starting to see the Democrats as the only party looking out for their rights. Coolidge was also going up against a man

named Long, and Long was able to point to Coolidge's past and point out a couple of things. This man has done nothing but politics all his life. He graduated, he made some friends with some rich businessmen slash politicians, and since then has just gone from post to post whilst doing what exactly? What did he stand for? Why was Coolidge so successful? Was it maybe

because he was in the pockets of big business? What exactly has he done for the average working man, exactly? This was a good attack line. It resonated with a lot, especially in Boston. It was a disturbingly close race, but like I say, a very Republican state.

Coolidge did win, but it was a much smaller margin than he would have liked. And here we get another dubious anecdote, which I really hope this one's true, because this one's perhaps my favourite. After winning the race, an old friend of the family came round. He happened to be a newspaper reporter, his name was Bill, and he'd come round to congratulate Coolidge and be the first reporter to get his side of the story. So he was invited in by a relative of Coolidge, who happened to be staying, and shown into Coolidge's study. They talked for a bit and then the relative said to

Corledge, and I'll quote, Cal, are you not going to give Bill a drink? Apparently Corledge silently stood up and pulled out a bunch of keys from his pocket. He then cycled through the keys and then stopped on two keys. He walked to a cabinet in the corner of the room and unlocked the cabinet with one key. He then pulled a trunk out of the closet, placed it on a table and unlocked the trunk. From there he lifted a bottle, pulled out the cork and poured a small measure into a glass. He placed the glass down, he placed the bottle back in the trunk, he locked the trunk, placed the trunk in the cabinet, and then locked the cabinet. He then turned around and gave Bill his drink. Then, not long after that, the relative appeared at the door again. A second guest had arrived, another well-wisher.

This man was called Jim. Jim and Bill, and also Carolyn, chatted for a while. The relative happened to come back into the room and mentioned that Corlidge had forgotten Jim's drink. Cal stood up, pulled out his bunch of keys, cycled through the keys, put one of the keys in the cabinet, opened the cabinet, pulled out the trunk, unlocked the trunk, pulled out the bottle, poured a small measure, put the bottle in the trunk, locked the trunk, put the trunk in the cabinet, and then locked the cabinet, poured a small measure, put the bottle in the trunk, locked the trunk, put the trunk in

the cabinet, and then locked the cabinet, turned around, and gave Jim his small drink. As he passed the drink to Jim, he simply stated, Bill's had his. Wow. It's like you with your whiskey, isn't it? I really hope that one's true. Yeah. the whole setup is so it's just got the the canter of a joke yes yes exactly that's exactly what it it just seems too much like a joke it's like is this really real did this happen but i hope it did i hope so uh massachusetts didn't have a governor's mansion like many many states did. So Coolidge did what was sensible. Remember, he was renting a room in a hotel when he worked in Boston. So he just rented out a second room in the hotel he was in.

That will do, he thought. So he could walk to work, then walk back. Yeah. Yeah. Sensible. That's sensible at the White House, right walk back. Yeah. Yeah. Sensible. That's sensible at the White House, right? Yeah, exactly. And Coolidge ran the state as its governor,

how you'd expect him to, really. Moderation was the key word. By this time, Coolidge had firmly hound political beliefs. He believed that all Americans had the right to be free. That meant freedom to work and choose where you work. If you did not like your job, you should have the freedom to choose another job. It meant you had the right to run your businesses without interference. Government should be small and people should not be messed about with. And Corlidge fully believed that businesses were ran by people and therefore

businesses were people. If the law applied to people it applied to businesses oh interesting yeah so that's that's quite a progressive fidelity isn't it really it's i wouldn't describe it as progressive but it's definitely we're seeing the early signs of the republican party becoming the party that it becomes the republican party is it's definitely no longer the party of Lincoln and is turning more into the party of Reagan. So they're trying to deregulate. Is he in favour of that for more business freedoms? Yeah, yeah. Deregulation, business freedoms.

If businesses were doing well, then everyone would benefit, was essentially his belief. The wealth of the businesses would trickle down to the poor. Obviously, there's no way that wouldn't happen. No, it wouldn't. We'll ignore countless economic studies that proved otherwise, but to be fair to Coolidge, they hadn't actually happened yet. He's a pioneer.

Yeah, this is right at the start of this idea of let's just make businesses do well and make them responsible and the responsible businesses will benefit everyone. Yeah, because it's morally the right thing to do. Yeah, exactly. All you need to do is get rid of the bad businesses and society will prosper.

Yeah. Coolidge continued as governor using this philosophy for a while. The World War was over. Oh, there's been a World War, by the way. Oh, OK. Yeah. Again, it doesn't really affect Corlidge in the same way it didn't really affect Carding,

so I didn't need to go into it at all. But the World War was over. Wilson was president, and he was touring the country attempting to encourage people to support the entry into the League of Nations. attempting to encourage people to support the entry into the League of Nations. Coolidge came out and very firmly made a stance of just not letting anyone know his views, which was handy. He did, however, veto an attempt to work around the 18th Amendment at this time, the 18th Amendment being the banning of selling of alcohol.

So, yeah, Massachusetts were trying their hardest to work around that because, ooh, they did not like that. Yeah, something passed the state senate, but Cornish just went, no, we can't do this. It's the 18th Amendment. We've got to stop it. Incidentally, still serving alcohol in its own place. As they say, yeah, with his chest in the box.

Yeah, but it's not selling, so it's fine. The rich of the country still had stockpiles of the stuff. They were fine. I'd be interested to do a study into when the 18th Amendment was repealed and the depletion rates of the stocks of alcohol that the rich in the country had. Yeah. There was a correlation there.

Yeah. Down to my last third bottle of bourbon. I need to repeal this mother right now. So, yeah, again, there's not much to report on from his time as being governor. He was a workaholic, according to one historian. That was based on the fact that he missed his son's birthdays at this time. Yeah.

The main thing, of course, he was governor during the summer of 1919. Now, we've covered this a couple of times, although not in a huge amount of detail, but this was a tense time for the country. This is the first Red Scare that's fully up and running. If you remember, the Red Summer was going on with the race riots in the streets. Yeah, the government

largely were blaming these race riots on communists if they could be bothered to try and hide their racism. Otherwise, they just simply blamed it on the black population. Strikes, of course, were the other big thing. They were becoming bigger and more fraught

and uh in in this chaos that's going up and down the country uh boston certainly was not immune if anything boston was was more susceptible than anywhere else i mean highly industrial city a history of not bowing down to political pressure b Boston's always been a bit, what's the word? Rogue. A bit rogue, yeah. For better or for worse, depending on your side and various things that have happened in history. But Boston's not the kind of city that are just going to lay down

and let people tell them what to do. I mean, aside from the revolution at the start of the podcast, we've also got, this is the city that literally had their courts chained up, if you remember. So, yeah, Boston definitely a mounting pot of frustration, shall we say. And one of the biggest areas of disillusionment was the police force itself. The Boston police force, like several police forces in the country, at this time were made up almost entirely

of Irish Catholics. It had become very factionalised. Yeah, it would. Many of the police force had fought in the war and had returned. Now, the elite in Boston largely were made up of Protestants, not Irish Catholics.

And there was tension there. The police force felt that they were underpaid the city was full of tension and danger and the politicians didn't care about them who risked their lives on a daily basis the working conditions were terrible the pay was poor and we're literally risking our lives trying to protect the politicians. Why are we doing this? Was the thought amongst the police force. In particular, because a lot of them had just returned from the war. They had been proclaimed as heroes.

They had marched through parades and people had cheered them and all sorts. But that lasted, what, a day? If that. And now, just because they wanted a pay rise, they were being accused of being secret communists. Yeah. Resentment started

to grow. Where would... So the force attempted to organise a union. They were refused permission to do so by the police commissioner. So they formed a union anyway. Oh, okay. The officers who were instrumental

in organising this union were fired. Yeah, as you can see, tensions are starting to rise. It's just like this balloon getting constantly blown up and blown up and blown up and eventually it's going to go Yeah, tensions rose. The mayor of Boston

although opposing the illegal union, voiced sympathy for the officers. So you've got the mayor who was cautiously getting on side with the police force. You've got the police commissioner who was fighting against them. So Coolidge, as governor, was sought to step in. You've got the mayor and the police commissioner starting to go at it and you've got the police force threatening to strike. It's time you step in and take the bull by the horns.

Yeah, Coolidge didn't do that. No. No, he did nothing, nothing whatsoever. Of course not. It was the police commissioner's job, he said. He wasn't going to get involved. No. Anyway, the tensions continued.

The police force then went on strike because the commissioner had fired several of their leaders. because the commissioner had fired several of their leaders. Over 1,500 officers did not show up to work that day. Word soon got around the city, and the looting started. Away! Yeah. It's party time in Boston, said many.

The police commissioner had assured Coolidge the state militia wasn't needed. Of course he had a handle on this. He's the police commissioner. And Coolidge had fully accepted this, so he had gone to bed that night. So he had a nice night's sleep. He slept through all the rioting. Yeah, oh, good, good. Yeah, so that's nice, isn't it?

Nice and fresh for the clean-up in the morning. Nice and fresh to face the press the next day, in fact. Because the press lay the blame firmly in one place. Coolidge. Oh, no. The police force. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Other unions in the city outraged that the police force were being targeted rather than the politicians, went on strike in support of the police. Firemen went on strike, streetcar workers, telegraph operators. Oh no. Yeah, the city starts grinding to a halt completely. It will. The mayor asked for the Boston branch of the state

militia. This isn't the full state militia, but the bit that he's in charge of and he can call up. That essentially however meant Harvard. Right. It meant students in Harvard who fancied playing the soldier. Oh, no. Yeah, several hundred Harvard students attempted to control the street the next night.

You'll be shocked to learn when going up against angry workmen, they didn't stand much of a chance. No, they were doomed from the off. No. Three men died that night, and rioting just continued in the streets. Eventually, Corlidge realised that perhaps he needed to actually do something here. He could no longer just say, not my job. It's the police commissioner's and the mayor's job.

So he called up the entire state militia, who were able to put the riots down, but no one was happy. The police commissioner, very angry by this point, decided to fire those responsible. And who was responsible? The unions. The police force.

Oh, yeah. Oh, what? Ooh. Mm-hmm. Yeah. He's now fired the... If you went on strike, you were fired. A majority of the police force had gone on strike. I'm seeing a flaw in this plan.

Yes. There is a flaw in that plan. He then desperately starts to attempt to find replacements to fill in the gaps. We need more students. Cornish supported this. In fact, I quote him, There is no right to strike against public safety by

anybody at any time of course college supported the right for people to be free to strike but not against the freedom that people had for public safety freedom freedom keep saying the word freedom people will agree with me yeah a while later he went even further than this at college announced that anyone willing to strike from the police force was inherently unfit for the job i'll quote him to trust public safety to men who would have attempted to destroy it would be irresponsible uh these comments made college a national figure riots acrossots across the country, remember, this is Red Scare. Everyone's worried about communists taking over. The race riots

are going on as well. The country is a mess. And here is a very calm man talking about how we can restore order and be sensible. People started to take note. Yeah, it's good he's not being brash. It's just sort of more chilled out. No, we'll get it sorted. It's fine. Yeah, exactly. It was a good, calming voice. He wasn't stoking any fires. People naturally started to be drawn to him.

So he didn't look too closely into how he hadn't actually done anything to help solve the situation. In fact, arguably, he'd made it worse by his inactions. So he didn't actually look into that and just focused on what he was saying. It was reassuring. So people started flocking towards him. Due to this publicity,

as the 1920 Republican Convention arrived, there were some in the party starting to say Cornish's name in those smoky back rooms when deciding who was going to be president next. Not many, to be fair, but he was a name being talked about. In fact, the main man talking about Coolidge was a man named Barton. Barton's an interesting man. Barton is an ex-Armhurst student, or so, and founding member of the advertising and marketing company BBDO, which, I'll be honest, meant nothing to me. But apparently it's a big marketing and advertising company that started this time.

It's still around today. I imagine some of our American listeners will know exactly what I'm talking about. But, yeah, no, that one hasn't reached us here in England. But big deal is what I'm trying to say. Yeah, okay. Unless I've completely misread the situation and all our listeners are just going, I don't know, as well.

Who knows? It's one of those cultural things. I'm trying to hedge my bets. Like Santa Claus. Who? Yeah, Barton was a man who understood the powers of capitalism and felt that the Gilded Age had not really reached its potential. He's making it more efficient.

Oh, yes, definitely. He wrote a book called The Man Nobody Knows. I suggest everyone tries to read a little bit of this book because, wow, it is fascinating. In it, Barton puts forth the idea that Jesus was not some wishy-washy weak man who banged on about moles. Oh no, Jesus was the first CEO. He was the founder of modern business.

In fact, that was one of the chapter titles. Jesus was a strong-willed man who worked with his hands. He had picked out 12 men from the bottom of business and had risen with them through the ranks to create a world-conquering organisation. There's a certain logic to what he's saying, I guess. There is.

I mean, we've spent a few hours, I'd say, on the rise of Christianity in our Roman podcast. I'll admit, I never saw it that way. No. No, I never did. I think it takes a certain type of person to see it in that way. A particular favourite line in this amazing book, I quote to you. In fact, before I quote, this is in the introduction, which is written entirely in third person,

In fact, before I quote, this is in the introduction, which is written entirely in third person, about a man who heard stories of Jesus, about how weak he was, and realised that can't be true. And then that man looked into it in more detail, and realised all the amazing business ideas this Jesus fellow had. And this man waited for a book to be written about the truth on Jesus, but it never came. And eventually that man decided to write the book himself. And here is that book. That's how this book starts. Wow. Anyway, my favourite line from that introduction. Talking about Jesus here.

His muscles were so strong that when he drove the money chargers out, no one dared to oppose him. This obviously is the story of Jesus driving the money chargers out of the temple. Yeah, yeah. Literally, Burton is using... Burton? Barton?

Burton. Literally, Barton is using this part of the Bible that is almost always used to criticise the accumulation of wealth to point out how ripped Jesus must have been. Like a WWE wrestler. Yeah.

We are full-on gung-ho macho Jesus who is the executive of a business. The book was a way, quite simply, to excuse the obvious discrepancies between Christianity and the rise of the robber barons in America. It's an excuse, yeah. The morality of Christianity doesn't quite gel

with this incredibly hyper-capitalist, money-grabbing society we've developed, so how can we gel them together? Barton wrote this book to attempt to do that. It was the best-selling book in the United States for two years. Wow. Oh, yeah. And disturbingly, it really sounds like it could have been published today. You read it, and it does not read like a 100 a hundred year old book at all. It really doesn't. It was

in some ways very forward thinking, disturbingly so. What's it called? It is called The Man Nobody Knows because no one knew Jesus like Barton has figured out Jesus. No one knew him. I went down a bit of a rabbit hole with this guy. He sounds fascinating in a disturbing way. There's a free audio book. Excellent. Anyway, so Barton was a big fan of Coolidge. Read into that what you will. Because it's not entirely clear why perhaps the accusations

that Coolidge just being in the pockets of big business perhaps ring true. clear why perhaps the accusations that Coolidge just being in the pockets of big business perhaps ring true. Because Barton then starts to work as a consultant for the governor of Massachusetts. Barton used his connections to have several very flattering pieces written about Coolidge. Coolidge represented the silent majority. He was the voice of common sense. Silence Kell became a well-known figure with that nickname. The silence being shown as a sign of strength, a stony wall of competence, perhaps, that the revolutionaries would break if they tried to go up against.

Yeah, Barton was good at his job, and his job was selling. And he sold the image of this slightly reclusive career politician as being some kind of solution for all the nation's ills. Ah, it's quite masterful, actually. Oh, yeah, yeah, it works incredibly well. One of the more famous stories comes from Barton's writings. It's yet another one of these anecdotes that we get about Coolidge. Coolidge and Barton were sat on his porch one evening

when a man rode past on a wagon and just called out a greeting to Corlidge. Howdy, Newt, said Corlidge. And after the wagon had gone by, Burton asked who the man was. Apparently, Corlidge replied, Oh, it's a cousin of mine. I haven't seen him in 20 years. Yeah, Barton used this story to display Coolidge as unflappable. Again, who knows how

true this is? And this is what I meant by the start of the episode. We get all these anecdotes, but a lot of it is propaganda slash mocking. And how true they are is hard to tell. It's interesting as well, because I know that, well, isn't the Cornish president

at the beginning of the crash? We'll get into that. That's the next episode, Jeremy. That's the next episode. But not quite. Not quite. But yes. Because he exacerbated it or something. Yeah. He let it go wild. Again, we'll get into that. Next episode. That is definitely

a next episode of Conversation. For now, Barton is trying to teach his pupil the world of advertisement and marketing. And he finds a very willing pupil. Corlidge starts to do things like suggest that he start talking whilst people are taking photos of him to make him look more natural. The whole idea of a photo op starts to be born. He's actually staging his photographs. These photos appear next to advertisements created by Barton

targeted at specific groups such as women or teachers or congressmen. Yeah, really targeted. A book of college's speeches was then released called Law and Order. Because if you say the words Law and Order lots of people start nodding

and going, yes, I agree with Law and Order, I'll vote for you. Especially capital S's. Yeah, exactly. This is stuff that has become almost cliched now because it's been done by politicians for so long but this is the start of it. Still, that convention that was approaching

is now approaching very quickly, and even with Barton fighting in his corner, Coolidge was very much a minor player. His only hope was to be the dark horse compromise as the two most popular candidates, Wood and Loudon, came to a standstill. But as we saw in our last episode, there was another man in a better place to be that dark horse,

and when the fight between Loudon and Wood came to nothing, certain warren harding was there to step in yeah college received the news he didn't take it well apparently he put on his hat and went for a walk he must have been livid oh yes definitely again read into that what you. Put on your hat and go for a walk could mean that it's a Tuesday. Who knows? But apparently that's what happened. However, whilst he was going for his walk, feeling very disappointed, back in the convention, the voting had turned to the position of vice president. Now, the position for vice president was going to Irvine and Root.

Everyone knew that. So much so that most delegates had headed home after the presidential nomination. Now, the position for vice president was going to Irvine and Root. Everyone knew that. So much so that most delegates had headed home after the presidential nomination. No point staying for the rest. I don't know if you remember, but that round of voting had lasted for an entire week. By the end of it, everyone just wanted to leave. So most people started to leave. Those that did remain, however, were not very happy. They weren't happy with the fact

that the party bosses had made a decision on Harding becoming the president essentially in a smoky back room somewhere. And now they just assumed that they could dictate the vice president nominee. So someone just plucked Coolidge's name out of the air. He'd been making a bit of a name for himself recently. You know what? I don't want Lenroot. The party bosses say Lenroot. I say Coolidge. Coolidge's few supporters, who happen to still be there, jumped on this. Brilliant.

They pull out their Law & Order banners once more and they start campaigning. And it works this time. Coolidge gets the nomination. Coolidge is home from his walk by this point and the phone rings. Grace watched her husband talk for a while and then he hangs up well she asks I've been nominated for vice president he said well you're not going to take it are you said Grace there was a sigh and Corlidge said I suppose I shall have to

no one wants to be vice president anyway the campaign starts up Harding if you remember and Corlidge said, I suppose I shall have to. No one wants to be vice president. Anyway, the campaign starts up. Harding, if you remember, campaigned from his front porch. He was doing a McKinley-style campaign. He was going to sit on his porch, people would come to him, but that kind of meant the vice president had to go out touring. Corlidge didn't like this, as you can imagine, but it was part of his role, so he got on with the job.

And as we saw, the Democrats were wiped out. The Republicans won in a landslide. Courtledge was well pleased. He stated, The radicalism which has tinged our whole political and economic life from soon after 1900 to the World War has passed. Nice. Which is a very big statement. It is, yeah.

It is. Everything's fine from now on. But it does give you a sense that everyone thought the world was falling apart at the time. Yeah. Everything was chaos. And Corlidge fully believed that as soon as the Republicans were back in, with Harding as president and him as vice president, everything would

finally be sorted. What year was this? The election was 1920. Yeah, that's about right. A hundred years post and we're in the same position. Oh, yes, nothing has changed. So there is some hope. Yeah. Anyway, Cornish settles into his role as vice president.

He soon had a visitor. It was the new governor of Massachusetts, a man named Cox. Yeah. He'd come to congratulate his predecessor, but he had a question. Cox had looked into what Corlidge had been up to now that he was the governor, and he'd seen how many meetings Corlidge had managed to get through every single day. And Corlidge was known for leaving the office at five o'clock every day. How had that happened? for leaving the office at five o'clock every day.

How had that happened? Cox was often in the office up until 9pm. That's our quote. Why is there a difference? Cox asked Corledge. Corledge simply replied, you talk back. Nice.

Ooh. Yeah. Calvert and Grace moved into the Willard Hotel in Washington. Corlidge then travelled to the office and back. But about that, it's very little. It's very hard to figure out what he did as vice president. There was nothing for him to do. Harding actually had given him a place in the cabinet.

So in theory, the vice president had more power than most vice presidents had throughout history. But it turned out that this was just a gesture. He wasn't actually welcome in the cabinet. He wasn't involved. He did go to dinner parties, but apparently he didn't particularly enjoy them too much. Grace enjoyed herself and fit in very well, but Coolidge didn't enjoy it. He was asked at one point why he went to them if they bored him so much, and he just replied, a man must eat.

And then one night, a fire alarm went off in the hotel that he and Grace were staying in. The guests all headed down to the lobby, and the small fire that had started was put under control by the firemen, which is nice. However, the guests were then asked to remain where they were whilst various things were sorted out, so they waited, and they waited. Eventually, Corlidge became annoyed and just decided to head back to his room. He headed up the stairs, and a fire marshal stopped him. Who are you? asked the fire marshal.

I'm the vice president, Corlidge replied. Oh, all right, go ahead, said the fire marshal. I'm the vice president, Corlidge replied. Oh, all right, go ahead, said the fire marshal. However, after a couple of steps up the stairs, the fire marshal called after him. The vice president of what, exactly? Corlidge replied, I'm the vice president of the United States. The fire marshal then asked him to come back down into the lobby. Oh, I thought you were were vice president of the hotel. I like that story.

Yeah. It works on quite a few levels. It's nice. Yeah, that's good. With little else to do, Corledge worked on speeches. Speeches that he and Barton could use to further his career. These speeches were becoming more and more conservative in their thinking, and encouraged the Red Scare attitude. He released a series of articles

called The Enemies of the Republic, warning that communist students were going to bring down the country. Yeah. Barton's clearly realised the way to get popular, and is encouraging Coolidge to lean in a certain direction. And Coolidge is more than willing to do it.

In fact, some historians speculate that Barton actually wrote these articles and Coolidge just put his name to them. Now, despite this, Coolidge was most well known for not being known. One example of this was the story that went around that he would regularly receive complimentary tickets to events with made-up middle initials, because no one knew what his middle name was. That's fantastic. Yeah. Jokes were made about him frequently, many of which, as I've said, are probably where we get many of the anecdotes that have come down to us. And in the background, or more to point in the foreground, Harding's presidency continues on. Now, if you remember, Harding's presidency was a hotbed of corruption that

Harding spent his entire presidency trying to keep a lid on. Corlidge, it would appear, was not part of any of this. He just simply didn't work in the same circles. Everyone else was on the take, but Corlidge just, his finger was so far removed from the pulse, he just wasn't involved. And then, in August of 1923, Corlidge was visiting his father in Plymouth Notch, and in the middle of the night, a man knocked on the door of John Calvin's cottage. 70-year-old John Calvin answered. There'd been a phone call on the village phone. The president was dead. They needed to inform the vice president that he was now the president.

John climbed the stairs and woke up his son and told him the news. According to Coolidge, later in life, a story he recounted whilst having his official portrait painted, he got dressed utterly stunned and then headed downstairs and the only thing he could remember thinking was, I believe I can swing this. And there we go. That is Corledge's life up until him becoming president. Interesting. Do you know what? I'm getting a bit of a soft spot for him. It's the irony of Corledge that he is so boring it actually becomes fascinating. Yeah, to me it doesn't cross as boring, it's just awkward and antisocial.

Probably not the best word for it, but yeah. Yeah, he's... Awkward introvert. Yeah, exactly. He's different. We've not seen his type before. No, because everyone's quite bombastic and... Yeah. I'm the president president kind of thing. I don't think you could get further from a Teddy Roosevelt or a Jackson or a Lincoln.

He's just plodding along. You do get the feeling, though, if he hadn't have met Barton with his advertising genius, he would have just plodded along. But due to a series of accidents and happy chances, happenstances, yeah, he finds himself president. Just before the Great Depression. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So how do you think his presidency is going to go? I don't think it's going to go great. Because I think there are powers and people working by the scenes that aren't going to be great for everything. Remember, he becomes president only about a year before the next election. Well, he must get voted in again, surely. He gets voted in for a second time. I think he does. I think he gets voted voted in again, surely. He gets through a second term. I think he does. I think he gets voted

in for a second term. And then things go wrong? Yes. Okay. Well, we will see next time. We will. Okay, well, thank you very much for listening. Don't forget to download us on Podbean and iTunes and follow us on Facebook and Twitter. And all that needs to be

said. It's goodbye. Yes, it is. Goodbye. on iTunes and follow us on Facebook and Twitter. And all that needs to be said... Is goodbye? Yes, it is. Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye. So just popped round to say congratulations, really. James and I popped round to say, well done, Vice President, amazing news.

Yes, we're actually thrilled, Calvin. It's wonderful news. Are you pleased, Calvin? Are you happy? So, James was just saying... Tell him, James. Tell him what you were saying on the way over. Well, I was just saying that you'd be in an absolute fresh air compared to all these other politicians, you know.

You're pretty calm, pretty chilled out, pretty straight-laced. Can you hear us? Calvin? Hello? Oh, you've blinked. Thank God. Right, yes.

Yeah, Coolidge. That's what we're doing. You seem excited by Coolidge. A lot of people have said, oh, you really like Coolidge. Okay. Have they? Yeah.

I don't really remember that.'ve people on uh online on comments and things on facebook interesting as in you personally or yeah they mentioned me my name and then coolidge yeah i wonder what they meant and i think jerry lantry as well when he said which presidents we both like he's I wonder what they meant. And I think Jerry Lantry as well, when he said which presidents we both like, he compared me to college as well. Why?

Oh, you'll find out. It's nothing that bad. I just... It's not an association or a link I would have made. Yeah. I'd take it as a compliment. Choose to take it as a compliment choose to take it as a compliment anyway Calvin Coolidge, that's his name

let's do the intro Calvin Coolidge