the book "cal's almanack" profiles america's 30th president, calvin coolidge. the book is a collection of president coolidge speeches examples of his political thinking and photographs, editorial cartoons and the campaign, really get that stands his political career. the william k. samford library in new york post this hour-long talk.

>> thank you. it's great to be back here at the library. i had a great time last year. i guess the basic question before us is why chronicle and commemorate the words of calvin coolidge, a politician and president renowned for doing nothing and for saying less. why, indeed. because the basic premise of the question is small. the modern world view of calvin coolidge as a failure, political cypher who met a man who not only accomplished nothing but who columnist and abundant walter wittman famously charged the variable genius for inactivity. it all depends of course how one defines inactivity, presumably mr. wittman him as eight unimaginable leader and that is

certainly bad. but the inactivity is defined as a spirited principled often brilliantly eloquent active opposition to government intervention and the economy and the resulting tax rates that is profoundly good. and he is articulating and implementing that philosophy, that opposition. calvin coolidge was most decidedly a genius. he did not of course view himself as a genius or as a great man. is, she observed, a great advantage to a president and major source of safety to the country for them to know he is not a great man. but calvin coolidge did suggest coherent philosophy of government and of life itself. in fact historian paul johnson has praised this supposed cipher as, quote, the most materially consistent and single-minded of

modern american presidents. calvin coolidge may indeed have been the last jeffersonian. a man who as president believed strongly enough in the limits of governmental power, and particularly federal power, to resist the temptation to extend it, even when he himself would be the man implementing the power. coolidge believed the property of the nation belong to the citizens of that nation and not to its government. he believes in strict obedience of the law, service to others, and idealism rather than materialism. quaint ideas nowadays or maybe not so quiet. we assume that the leaders of the all-powerful state, some of the worst offenders were coolidge's own contemporaries that are supposedly simple vermont was carefully circumscribing his own power and a around the world were not so about government power. even in his own day many dismissed coolidge of limited

government as hopelessly outdated and antiquated. he didn't care. he meant what he said and he said what he thought and remains among the most heavily eloquent and the kids that properly restrain government and taxation and concurrently for individual economic responsibilities and liberty. he advocated a rigorously circumscribes federal government that in powered the american people to be free to be whatever they wanted to be. a simple philosophy. a philosophy so simple it took mankind until the late 18th-century to figure out, and it took the leadership of a washington and adams, jefferson and madison, hamilton, franklin and pretty good supporting cast behind them to make a work. so simple that we seem to have forgotten it all. but as we glance back on what mr. coolidge articulate on such matters we realize not only

could he clearly see what the founders devised, he could see the broader human condition and he could see far ahead into the future it's a world where all varieties, his verities were quickly being discarded and disband. let's take one example, and in january 1914 on assuming control of the office of the presidency of the massachusetts state senate, he told his fellow legislators the normal must care for themselves. the normal must care for themselves. what is he saying? he is saying that if you are a reasonable human, you should be able to clothe and feed and shelter yourself. you should be able to make decisions about your own property, about your future, about your children, about your own money, about choices and options. adults can take care of themselves. but note the sub text in the

sentence. what about those who are not, quote on quote normal. the need help. they cannot adequately fend for themselves and others. here is the concept of service once again. preferably privately or if that is not possible only them through the auspices of the proper level of government. all of that in six words. and he meant what he said. massachusetts lt. governor he remarked the state's mental institutions. our party will have no part in a scheme of economy which ads to the misery of the word of the commonwealth. the sick, the in san and the unfortunate. those who are too weak even to protest, because i know these conditions. i know a republican administration would face an increasing state tax rather than not see them remedy. but calvin coolidge did not

raise taxes and he did not abandon or neglect the words of the state. just the opposite occurred. he lowered taxes again and again while providing the needed services. he did this by practicing what he called economy. a stringent attack on government waste and refusal to fund programs no matter how politically popular that he found to be a raise on the public treasury or asphalt on the constitution. yes, calvin coolidge was a politician. the method of raising revenue, he said ought not to impede the transaction of business. it ought to encourage it. i am opposed to extremely high rates because they produce little or no revenue. because the are bad for the country, and finally because they are wrong. again, words with actions.

american participation in the first world war had skyrocketed the highest marginal income-tax rate from 7% to 77%. coolidge's predecessor, warren harding and the secretary of the treasury andrew maldon, and this was also coolidge's secretary of the treasury slashed that to 56%, and coolidge finished the job taking the marginal rate down to 20%. the results actually aided those of modest incomes of in 1920 the last year of woodrow wilson's administration, this means 4% of all personal income taxes paid by those earning $5,000 a year or less. by the time coolidge left office in 1929, that figure had shrunk in to a minuscule 0.4%. those earning 100 grand a year or more as a tax had paid just 29.9% in 1920.

by 1929 when coolidge left office, the figure climbed to 65.2%. thus, when coolidge leaves office, 98% of the american people paid no income tax at all. quote, it is only a tiny a saturation noted historians speaks over to say that the coolidge completely remove the burden of several income taxation from the backs of poor and working people. calvin coolidge, federal income taxes four times. he produced a budget surplus each of the six years of his presidency. he could do all of this because he not only understood economics and government. he understood human nature. in february, 1924, he informed the national republican club if we had a tax, whereby on the first working day the government took 5% of your wages and the second day, 10%, the third day,

20%, the fourth day, 30%, and the fifth day, 50%, and on the sixth day -- people work six days a week back in -- 60%, how many of you would continue to work on the last two days of the week? it is the same with capital. surplus income will go into tax-exempt securities. it will refuse to take the risk incidental and in parking in business. this will raise the rate which established business will have to pay for new capital and result in a marked increase in the cost of living. if new capital will not flow into competing enterprises, the present concerns tend toward monopoly increasing again the prices which the people have to pay. he said more in that speech. so much more that a half a century later economists jude berlinski what label that address the most lucid

articulate son of a supply side reg model in moderate times. h. ullman can once noted regarded coolidge. he wrote simply in a centrally heartlessly he forgot all of and set down his ideas exactly as they came into his head. the result was a ball decoupled but strangely appealing piece of writing, a composition of almost lincoln prosperity and beauty. the true vermonter was in every line of it. yet this master of articulation and plain speaking has fallen victim to one of the most of egregious misunderstandings of the 20th century. derided as a slavish worshiper of commercial interests. the chief business of the american people is business. coolidge said in january, 1925, and for decades these words have been hung around his neck by critics to label him as a

helpless philistines. a worshiper of commercial and business interests. these words have been repeated ever since. but coolidge did say the business of the american people was business. but he was only warming up to his main point. the message of considerable syrians from what he's been charged with singing and meaning for ignorance, sloppy, he or just plain lazy writers ever since. here is what calvin coolidge also said that day. so long as wealth has made the means and not the end we meet not greatly fear it. and there never was a time when the wealth was generally regarded as a means or so little regard it as an end as today. it is only those who do not understand our people who believe that our national right is entirely absorbed by material motives. we make no conceal that we want wealth. that there are many other things we want very much more.

we want peace and honor and charity which is so strong an element of all civilizations. the chief ideal of the american people is idealism. i cannot repeat too often that america is a nation of idealists. idealism. again, no mere word to calvin coolidge. indeed, regarding the man who chose his words carefully, it is easy to believe there were no mere words. his entire adult life was spent in public service. councilman, city solicitor, mayor, state representative, state senator, lieutenant governor, gabbard, vice president, president, more offices than any other president ever held. but it was not easy for him to be a public man come to speak, to meet persons come to shake hands, to do what ordinary politicians do as a matter of

course. a horrible shyness possessed calvin coolidge, possessed from his earliest days and never let go. he never denied. he told friends when i was a little fellow i would go into a panic if i heard strange voices in the house. i felt i just couldn't meet people. most of the visitors would sit with mother and father in the kitchen, and it was the hardest thing in the world to have to go through the kitchen door and give them a greeting. i was almost ten before i realized i couldn't go on that way. and by fighting hard, i used to manage to get through that door. i am all right with old friends, but every time a stranger, i have got to go through the old kitchen door back home, and it's not easy. yet, he achieved more public offices and one more elections than any other president, and in doing so, she accomplished what

he wanted in the way he wanted to. he served without being served. said the cynical starts adel menkin regarding mr. coolidge. he begins to see him in retrospect and extremely comfortable and even praiseworthy citizens his failings are forgotten. the country remembers only the great fact that he let it alone. while there are worse habitats for a state income if the day ever comes when jefferson's warnings are heated up last and we reduce government with the simplest terms it may very well happen that his bones now resting inconspicuously in the vermont granite will come to be revered as those of a man who really did the nation some service as one might expect from a man on the fourth of july. jeff, colquitt was born on the fourth of july, july 4th, 1872

to be exact, in the minuscule central vermont of plymouth notch perhaps a dozen drillings between the corners of other words not particularly near anything. maple syrup and hillsides. he was not born which were poor, but by the standards of 1872, plymouth notch his father, colonel john coolidge was a man of means, a general store keeper, insurance agent, former and petition. his father would like the lines she laid out were true and street and the curbs were regular. the work she did in word and from his father's business he learned this lesson which never left him: as i went about with my father when he collected taxes, i knew that when taxes

were laid, someone had to work to earn the money to pay them. of his mother, victoria josephine coolidge, he rode what ever was grand and beautiful and color attracted her it seems the foliage and blossoms of the flowers came for her in the spring and in the autumn it was for her that the mountainsides were struck with crimson and gold. she died on her 39th birthday in march of 1985, five march's leader, his younger sister, abigail son and father and know that reinforcing his already powerful almost crippling sense of shyness. he studied in the one-room stone schoolhouse and leader ed and

hearst where his withdrawn vermont ways proved by a puzzlement and amusement to the more sophisticated classmates. his habits than were the habits of the future wife, none of them particularly pointing the way towards a political or any sort of public career that he grew upon his classmates as he invariably grew on just about everybody becoming known as a accomplished and somewhat laconic speaker he graduated cum laude and decided to practice law not attending law school and said clerking law offices in north hampton massachusetts just south of elmhurst on passing the bar he said the practice of his own and entered politics and took a wife. grace was nothing like calvin healing from vermont. burlington to be exact and they also were drifting to north hampton the growing educated university of vermont she taught

at the local school for the deaf. one day she happened to be walking past coolidge's bachelet lodgings and looked up and saw him shaving while wearing a derby hat. she laughed, he heard her, she saw her and he resolved to meet her. they married in her parents' parlor in burlington on october 4th, 1905. the couple eventually took a $27 a month watching 21 st. northampton, a pleasant duplex. i attended to the furnishings of it myself, she wrote, and when it was ready mrs. coolidge and i walked over to it and about two weeks our first boy can on the evening of september 7th. the fragrance of the flaw was that covered the window filled the room like an benediction where the mother with her baby. we call him john in honor of my

father. it was all very wonderful to us. we like the house where our children came to us and the neighbors who were so kind. when we could have had a more pretentious tome we still clung on to it. so long as i live there, i could be independent and serve the public without ever thinking that i could not make the my position if i want my office. all the laconic coolidge kept rising in politics. he won determine the massachusetts house traveling to boston he carried with him a letter of introduction and a red like a cinch that he is better than he looks. [laughter] his political philosophy took shape as the lifelong predilection to acting without regard to electoral consequences. said one massachusetts leader who leader regarding coolidge

and all of my years of work in the legislature i've never met a man into a sense of justice and courage i have more trust. in 1980 he narrowly won the governorship and found himself and found himself with to crises to the first of the constitutional mandate to consolidate 118 government agencies and 20 within three years it was a political minefield. coolidge not only avoid tripping the lines, he did it within one year and one at the late. the second and greater crisis involved the boston police force. september 1919 boston police commissioner edwin curtis disciplined union leaders at 1500 copps walked out the job leading the city and protected. violence and all this erupted. andrew jay peters legally removed curtis from office.

coolidge reinstated curtis and called up the four states guard and broke the streak. when the american federation leader samuel gompers demanded coolidge reinstate the striking police force in the jobs they abandoned, coolidge responded there is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody anywhere anytime. coolidge's at fisa terse for his actions would alienate the leader support and cost him reelection. he thought so, too, and he didn't care. it does not matter, he said, whether i am elected or not but instead, instead coolidge's response caught the imagination of the american people to be electrified the nation stamping him as a no-nonsense champion of post war law in order. he sought the democratic opponents that november when 62%

of the vote. and the victory fuelled coolidge for president. he resisted that. he really didn't go out and campaign, but his name was placed in nomination at 1920 republican national convention and he might have gathered more votes had he had the support of his own united states senator, senator henry cabot lodge nominate a man who lives in a family house watch? never. [laughter] ohio's dark horse candidate, ohio senator warren harding won the nomination on the tenth ballot and win the time came to nominate a vice presidential candidate the delegates were rebelled. they refused to nominate the conventions course, a guy named irvine from wisconsin and instead they stampeded and nominated calvin coolidge. harding will never serve his

term out. they said in the press conference he will die, and coolidge will be president. that november, harding and coolidge swapped the democratic standard. they got 60% of the vote, 60% of the vote against james madison and his vice presidential candidate a guy you may have heard them named franklin delano roosevelt. that november rather when he took office, when coolidge took office he came under the lack of responsibility and vice presidency his only actual duty by the constitution was to preside over the united states senate and this doesn't really take much effort so he approached kysa and found that the senate had but one fixed rule subject to up exceptions of course which was to the effect that the senate would do

anything it wanted to do whatever it wanted to do it. when i have learned that as i did not waste much time with the other rules because they were seldom applied. so able to prove himself to accomplishment, washington saw him only as a silent little redheaded man who warren harding would probably dump on the ticket in 1924. but the coolidge look did strike and when it struck it struck in spades. when warren harding died in august of 1923 calvin coolidge was vacationing in plymouth knox and by flickering kerosene light at 1:00 in the morning he was sworn in as president of the united states of america by his 78-year-old republic father. when the ceremony was complete, the new president walked down the darkened road to visit his

mother's grave and came back and said i think i can swing it. he did swing it many again underestimated him. they thought he would not be nominated for president because no accidental president ever has won renomination in his own right. but as president coolidge cleaned up the whole residue of the scandal of the harding administration and the interior department and veteran's affairs bureau and the justice department, the whole teapot dome ms he restored faith in government and public honesty and easily won renomination and that november he was elected in a three-way race. he carries every state but one outside of the democratic south. he carries every county in new

england and he is the last republican president to everett carey new york city. coolidge's off of the lines administration provided a wide variety of constructive measures and witnessed unprecedented economic growth. the coolidge prosperity. his policies boasted on still unequal accomplishment triggering a wide lead based economic goal. on a plan it averaged 3.3%. the gross national product increase annually by 7%. per-capita income grew 30%. real earnings for employee wage earners increased 22%. industrial production shot up 70%, the average workweek decreased 4%, consumer prices rose just 0.4%, no inflation at all.

national wealth rose 17.5%. total education spending rose fourfold and in the decade of self automobile ownership rose threefold and literacy by half. historian paul ducks in sum it up, quote come under harding and still under coolidge the usa enjoy the general prosperity that is historic week unique in its experience or of that of any other society. coolidge was the last president to write his own speeches and he delivered more of them than any of his predecessors. as president he held 520 news conferences, eight per month. the fall when inauguration was for some reason expected to set a record for brevity. but his 4,005 words edged warren harding's 318 and the 3328 of

woodrow wilson's to inauguration's. it is not entirely ironic that a collection of the coolidge press conference transcripts is entitled the talkative president. over the course of a three decade long political career he provided his opinion on any number of topics. he never wasted words, he never missed words and here is a sample of silent cal had to say. regarding the basic philosophy of government, he contended i favor the policy of the economy not because i wish to save money but because i wish to save people read the men and women of this country who toil are the ones who bear the cost of the government. every dollar that we carelessly waste means their life will be so much more meager. every dollar we prudently safe means their life will be so much more abundant. the economy is idealism in its

most practical form. putting it more bluntly, and i am for economy after that i am for more economy. regarding taxes he says collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery. and high taxes make high prices. regarding service no person was ever honored for what he received. honor has been the reward for what he gave. on congressional pork the people who start to elect the manage to get what he gave for his district would find the have elected a man who will get what he can for himself. and of morality, a nation that is morally dead will soon be financially dead. and further, if we are too we can to change charge of our own morality we shall not be strong

enough to take charge of our own liberty. on politics. the political alliance is the product of men in public life who have been spoiled. they've been spoiled with praise and spoiled with abuse. and there is only one form of political strategy in which i have any confidence and that is to try to do the right thing and sometimes to succeed. of self-government it is very difficult to reconcile the american ideal that sovereign people capable of owning and managing their own government with an inability to manage their own business. on price controls it is not possible to repeal oh-la-la of supply and demand calls and reaction. value is a matter of opinion and active commerce has slowed jurisdiction over what men

think. on the principles of the founding fathers these principles have now the same binding force as endless revolutionary days when they were recognized and proclaimed. i am not unaware that they are old. whatever is is old. what is new is our own misunderstanding of it. on our national needs we do not need more material development. we need more spiritual development. we do not need more intellectual power. we need more moral power. we do not need more knowledge, we need more character. we do not need more government. we need more culture. we do not need more law, we need more religion. we do not need more of the things that are seen, we need more of the things that are on the scene. on the wages those who do only what they are paid for will

never be paid very much. on criticism destructive criticism is always easy because despite some campaign oratory some of us are not yet perfect. and if we judge it herself only by our aspirations and everyone else only by their conduct we shall soon reach across false conclusion. what we have exhausted the possibility of the criticism on ourselves it will be time enough to apply it to others. on the art of legislature it is much more important to kill bad bills to pass good ones. on tough economic times when the person and business comes we begin to be very conservative in our financial affairs. we save our money and take no chances and its investment. yet in the political affair action a week when the opposite

direction we begin to support radical measures and cast votes for those who have advanced the most reckless proposals. this is a curious and a logical reaction when times are good we might take a chance on a radical government. but when we are financially weakened we need the soundest and the wisest of men. on soaking the rich we cannot finance the country. we cannot improve social conditions through any system of injustice. even if we attempt to inflict it upon the rich. those who suffered the harm will be the poor. this country believes in prosperity putting it is absurd to suppose it is envious of those who are already prosperous. but why is and correct course to follow an taxation and other economic legislation is not to destroy those who have already

secured success but to create conditions under which everyone will have a chance to be successful. the verdict of the country has been given on this question that verdict stands. on fair trade or free trade or protectionism or whatever one might choose to call it, we wish to protect our own wage earners, our agriculture and industry from the result of dumping progress on the markets at a price which they could not compete. but the policy has a deeper significance than that. we are unwilling to profit by the distress of the foreign people. we do not want their blood money. our efforts are not only to protect our own people from cheap goods which president mckinley said meant sheepman, but we propose to set a standard that will discourage other nations from exploiting their people by producing cheap goods.

all of our policy requires a fair wages for both domestic and foreign production we have no market for blood and tears. and my observation of protectionism is that it has been successful in practice, however on the sound it may appear to be in theory. that must mean the theory hasn't taken account of all of the facts. and having once toiled in the regulatory reform field i always found this quote to be of particular interest. the attempt to regulate, control, and prescribe all men are of conduct and social relation is very old. it was always the practice of primitive people. and somewhat less bluntly we have had many attempts at regulation of industrial activity by law. some of it has proceeded on the

theory those who enjoy material prosperity use it for the wrong purposes, such prosperity should be limited or abolished. that is a sound as it would be to abolish the right thing to prevent for jury. and you've probably heard this a bit before and maybe not known of which came from nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. talent will not. nothing is more common and then on a successful people with talent. genius will lot. unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. education will not. the world is full of educated derelicts. persistence and determination alone are significant. the slogan press on as salt and always will solve the problems of the human race. the coolidge years were a time of accomplishment, of

prosperity, indeed, of domestic tranquillity. yet, coolidge could not enjoy his presidency. the coolidge luck ran out in june, 1924 when his younger son, 16-year-old calvin, jr., fleeing tennis on the white house courts developed a blister on his right foot. infection and pathogenic blood poisoning result. from the very beginning, the infection was serious, and from the beginning coolidge seemed to know it. at an age without antibiotics, calvin jr. died july 7th. and his suffering he asked me to make him well because i could not. when he went, the power and the glory of the presidency went with him. the ways of providence are often beyond our understanding.

it seemed to me that the world had the work it was capable he could do. i do not know why such a price was exacted for occupying the white house to read to the skate washington's summer doldrums, the coolidge usually fled the crimes diplomat notch, of massachusetts, to superior wisconsin. in 1927, the summer in the black hills at rapid city, south dakota, and tuesday, august 2nd, 1927, exactly four years to the day after calvin coolidge became president, he stood in a classroom in rapid city, south dakota and handed out tiny slips of paper. each read "i do not choose to run for president in 1928." the political world thought he was aiming for a draft. he wasn't. in march, 1929, calvin coolidge

retired to north hampton. he reluctantly handed over the country to his former secretary of commerce, herbert hoover. but he wasn't crazy about herbert hoover. sacrilege, quote cope that man has given me nothing but the ice and all of it bad." [laughter] in retirement, coolidge gal told $3,000 a week offering a popular syndicated newspaper column and he compost the public autobiography, the autobiography of: which. his world was now a different world. he had moved back only to discover that an ex-president cannot live in a two-family house upon an ordinary small town st.. curiosity seekers road by in constant procession. admirers trampled the lawn and trespassed his tiny porch. they peered through his windows.

he and grace paid $40,000 to move to larger quarters with 16 rooms on 9 acres overlooking connecticut river, a house far grander than that and far less grand than the one on pennsylvania avenue. it was there that he died on thursday, january 5th, 1933. disturbed by the great depression still saddened by his young son's passing and possessing few and fewer reserves of energy, she returned home from his offices at noon. as he shaved, a heart attack tell him. they buried calvin coolidge at plymouth notch in the family graveyard next to his mother and father and sister and his son. in the most humble grace of any american president. no signs directed visitors, no dates surrounded, no words indicated the many offices he

had held. no words. that is the way calvin coolidge would have wanted it. thank you very much. [applause] raise your hand and wait for the microphone. [inaudible] >> can you wait for the microphone? your words will be reaching the nation, a grateful nation. [laughter] >> [inaudible] [inaudible]

[inaudible] [inaudible] i don't want to point to him as someone who is limited. i think he did well [inaudible] >> sure, you covered a lot of ground i think you raised some things which i did not cover when i spoke.

he did not favor the league of nations because i think american public opinion which was sort of mixed on the topic originally had really moved on from that point, and even when you see franklin roosevelt coming in in 1933 with a solid democratic congress, house and senate, you see america never moves into the league of nations. it wasn't just partying and coolidge and hoover but it was also roosevelt who never went into that even though he eventually came up with his sword of league of nations 2.0 in 1945. coolidge did favor u.s. participation in the world court. he avoided the threat of or not. there was a possibility with war to make mexico, there were bad feelings with that country at that point. he avoided that and restore good relations with that. he withdrew the u.s. troops from the dawa and was the first

president to personally attend the conference in havana. beyond that, there was a five power naval treaty. very important his vice president for reparations and there was the pact which was to outlaw the war as an instrument of international foreign policy. so, you see a lot of things going on there. he did not -- ki actually vetoed the act which was for. that was fairly controversial of the time that he was in fact quite consistent on that point. so i think those were the two main points as did refer i think he would agree with your assessment to get >> any other questions? >> in the back.

[inaudible] october 29 did he know what was coming? >> i don't know. some people do say that he did know, and others quotes -- there is a quota of grace coolidge where she says popov says there's a depression coming and it's like time to scram. and guess, the business cycle has been very cyclical so in the 1890's you have got a grover cleveland major depression and panic in 1907 and teddy roosevelt and the big board for wilson depression of 1920, 1921 so they can about every ten years and the question was how you dealt with of them and i

think that not only -- there's been a lot of questions how bombed out and he was seriously depressed over the death of his son which was of course quite rational but this to the steam and moore salles -- his father died and he may have been closer to his father than anyone else, so he has these two personal tragedies clouding his presidency and he's not feeling well. in 1929, 1932 they wanted to speak for herbert hoover and he is really taking off and it's a site from his personal feelings he doesn't want to dewitt he says his throat hurts and as a matter of fact, he is dead before franklin roosevelt takes

office. he had that heart problem and i think she probably simply thought he had accomplished -- he had gone all the way. what more was there to do. and as he said, american president's return to the people. it is good for me to return to them. so, i think that he felt it wasn't an essential for him to look at public office. cuban hobbies and he said holding elected office. but it didn't mean that much to him where it was an absolute compulsion and people didn't feel the need for him to stay on. do you have another question? >> [inaudible] >> i think it was 62. it's a very disconcerting age to be right about now. [laughter] in the front.

>> first of this is a terrific book. [inaudible] on every page and find something so congratulations. now, i realize you are a historian and nonprofit. there are certain aspects of coolidge's political philosophy that seem to be rising nationally for the first time since he left the presidency. i hear a lot of coolidge and the tea party movement. do you think it's possible that coolidge political philosophy is not just something antiquated but something that we might see again implemented? >> well i'm a historian, not a profit. [laughter] but yes, things are in cycles and reagan was like the second,

even though ronald reagan was a big fan of fdr by the time he was president he had become more conservative and became a big coolidge dam and replaced a portrait of harry truman that was hung in the white house as one of calvin coolidge was surprised and a lot of people and this very year we have heard cleantech kind of resurrecting coolidge's philosophy and persona and tv show and cpac so i think the timing might be right for the coolidge. people are looking at this. and as i quoted in the founding fathers, we see a lot of similarities in that philosophy. and we are seeing so much more of an interest in the founding fathers where this might carry over. and we have in the coolidge the distillation of that philosophy which is so pure and implementing it so effective.

one of the ways i was going to start his speech and i said -- politicians stand up in front of you every time they want to be elected and they say will come to know, i'm going to cut spending and i'm going to balance the budget and i going to reduce the debt and i am going to put out all of the waste in government and they never do it. they never do it and you know, we fall for it all the time. they never do it. calvin coolidge did it come and then we say he didn't accomplish anything he never accomplished a thing and he did everything that every politician ever promises to do. that's not too bad an act to follow. he probably said he would try his best because promising might be overstating for him. but he was probably working

which i refused to promise i wouldn't raise taxes in the white well didn't raise taxes i will tell you that. but it can be negative because you don't know what circumstances will dictate but you can know your principal's also guide you in. yes, sir. >> what do you think cal's attitude would be [inaudible] financial situations today -- >> i hadn't consulted him on that but i think that he would be quite a cast at this level of deficit. particularly in peacetime. it is wanting to run -- i guess you could say well, they're has been iraq and afghanistan but those are sort of back we were kind of conflicts not in the same circumstances as a world war. but nonetheless this level of deficit spending gives cause to everyone and you see right now

bases within the administration are suddenly worried about but the response is not to say maybe we spent too much in the last year maybe we need another tax and one hell of a big tax with a value added tax which as canada has a national sales tax i cannot believe that coolidge would count against any of that. any further questions? >> we have time for one more. spec one more? >> and logger friend of mine since a favorite coolidge anecdote about soliciting the chicken farm. >> not the chicken farm one. >> it's a great story. what have you learned about it? >> it's probably not true. why don't you tell it? [laughter] you tell the story.

>> grayson and calvin go to a chicken farm while he's president and they go separate and grace is hearing about this fantastic rooster who makes love to the other chickens like 40 times a day and she says you should tell that to mr. coolidge when he comes around so he comes around and he says same hen? they say no, different hens. he says tell that to mrs. coolidge. [laughter] >> regarding the favorite speech at madison square garden, a leedy came up to and afterwards and said you know mr. coolidge i enjoyed your talked so much that i stood the entire time and he said so and i. [laughter] i have enjoyed this, too.

thank you for coming. [applause] >> david pietrusza is the author of 1920 the year of the six presidents and 1960, lbj versus jfk versus nixon the epic campaign that forged the three presidencies. mr. pietrusza served in the board of trustees of the calvin coolidge memorial foundation and serves on the siena college research institute survey on the united states presidents. for more information, visit davidpietrusza.com.

here is a look at some upcoming book fairs and festivals over the next few months.

this is book tv live coverage of the "los angeles times" book festival held on the campus of ucla in the west word area of los angeles. it's the largest public literary festival in the country. now in its 15th year the l.a. times book festival is expected to attract over 130,000 people over the next two days. and book tv will be here for the next two days life covering author panels and bringing offers on the panel for sex. here's the lineup for today. we will kick off with an author kawlija with presidential historian tim naftali the author of several books and serves as the director of the richard

nixon library in nearby yorba linda. he will be followed in about 30 minutes by nomi prince about the 2008 financial crisis. she is also based in california and is a scholar with the demos think tank. then the first author panel of today is called quote polk history rising above oppression." offers the attorney, richard ressa and jeffrey robinson will be participating. and during the short break after that panel, we will ask you what he would like to see on book tv. then at about 3:30 eastern time, 12:50 pacific, another author panel, "struggle for a better tomorrow" is the name of that panel and that will be followed by a call-in with sociologist at usc and the author of quote culture of your stock quote written ten years ago but has been released on its tenth anniversary. ..