thought. >> and yes, sir, one final question. >> yes. this is for jeff also. ever since the 1920s people have been writing books about tombstone and i know you had to approach a lot of authors and researchers. some of whom don't quite agree with the other ones. and how did you manage that? how did you get to be able to talk to all those people? >> my rule is always that i'll talk to anyone who might have useful information. i've had a couple of people say well, if you talk to so-and-so then i won't talk toi. and my response is always well, then i'm sorry you and i aren't going to get a chance to talk. there are many strong opinions in this field. and hampton runs into this all the all the time and jim runs into this all the time. once you start talking to someone who has a genuine deep interest in a subject and has done a lot of research, they want to talk about it. and if you're polite and you're

>> the book, "silent cal's almanac," the book is a collection of president coolidge's speeches, editorial cartoons and campaign memorabilia that spanned his career. the william k. sanford library hosts the hour-long that you can >> thank you, joe. it's great to be back at the colony library. i had a great time last year. and i guess the basic question before us is why chronicle and commemorate the words of the wordless calvin coolidge? a president renowned for doing nothing. why indeed? because the basic premise of the question is doubly flawed. the modern world view silent cal

coolidge who accomplished nothing but who as columnists walter litman wrote a genius of inactivity. it depends on how one defines inactivity presumably mr. litman meant to damn mr. coolidge as a listless leader. but if inactivity is defined as a spirited, brilliantly active government intervention in the country and the concurrent and resulting tax rates which result, that is profoundly good. and it is inparticular lating and implementing that philosophy, that opposition, calvin coolidge was most decidedly genius. it is, he observed, a great advantage to a president and a

major source of safety to the country for him to know he is not a great man. the most single-minded of modern merge presidents. calvin coolidge may dead have been the most jeffersonian. a man who believed in limits of presidential power and i believe it of federal power to resist the temptation to extend it. coolidge believed the property of the nation belonged to the citizens of its nation and not to its government. he believed in strict obedience of law and service to the other in idealism rather than materialism. quaint ideas nowadays but maybe not so quaint.

we have seen what believers in the all-powerful have brought. some of the worst defenders are contemporaries. while this was carefully circumscribing his own powers, others around the world were not so reticence about government power. even in his own day, many dismissed coolidge's notions 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 one the most eloquent advocates for properly restrained government and taxation and concurrently for individual economic responsibility and liberty. he advocated a rigorously circumscribed federal government that empowered the american people to be free, 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 it out.

and it took the leadership of a washington and adams, a jefferson, a madison, a hamilton, a franklin and a pretty good supporting cast behind them to make it who can so simple that we seem to have forgotten it all. but as we glance back on what mr. coolidge articulated on such matters, we realize could he not clearly see what the founders had devised he could see the broader human condition and he could see far ahead he in the future, into the world where old verities, his verities would quickly be discarded and disdained. let's take one example and not a particularly well-known. 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.

what's he saying? you should be able to feed and clothe and shelter yourself. you should be able to make decision business your own property, your future, about children about your own money, about choices and about options. adults can take care of themselves. but note the subtext in that sentence who are not those, quote-unquote, normal. they need help. here is the concept of service once again. must assist them. preferably privately or if that is not possible, only then through the auspices of the proper level of government. all that in six words. and he meant what he said. as massachusetts lieutenant governor he remarked regarding the state's mental institutions. our party will have no part in a scheme of economy which adds to the misery of the wards of the

commonwealth. the sick, the insane and the unfortunate. those too weak to protest. because i know these conditions. i know a republican administration would face an increasing state tax rather than not see them remedied. but calvin coolidge did not raise taxes. and he did not abandon or neglect the wards of the state. just the aoccurred. he lowered taxes again and again while providing needed services. he did this by practicing what he called economy. a stringent attack on government waste and a refusal to fund programs no matter how politically popular that he found to be mere raids on the public treasury or assaults on the federal constitution. yes, calvin coolidge was no rich 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 they are bad for the country. and finally, because they are wrong. again, he backed 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 harding's secretary of the treasury andrew mellon and this was also coolidge's secretary of the treasury slashed that to 56% and coolidge finished the job taking that marginal rate down to 20%. the results actually aided those of modest incomes. in 1920 the last year of woodrow wilson's administration 15.4% of all personal income taxes were

paid by those everything $5,000 a year or less. by the time coolidge left office in 1929, that figure had shrunk to a minuscule zero, 0.4%. those earning 100 grand a year or more, the fat cats, had paid just 29.9% in 1920. by 1929 when coolidge left office, the figured had climbed to 56.2%. thus, when coolidge leaves office, 98% of the american people pay no income tax at all. quote, it is only a tiny exaggeration noted thomas b. silver to say that the coolidge and mellon removed the burden of income taxation from the backs of poor and working people. calvin coolidge cut federal income taxes four times. he produced a budget surplus each of the six years of his presidency.

he could do all this because he not only understood economics and government. he understood human nature. in february, 1924, he had informed the people, if we had a tax the government took 5%, on the second day 10% and on the sixth day, people worked six days a week then, 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 do tax-exempt economies. it will take the risk in embarking business. it will raise the rate. we'll have to pay for new capital and result in a marked increase in the cost of living. if new capital will not flointo

competing enterprise, 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 than a half century later economists jude wasinky the most lucid articulation of the wedge model in modern times. h.l. menkin once noted regarding coolidge he wrote simply innocently artlessly. he forgot all the literary affectations and set down his ideas exactly as they came down to his head. the result was a ball but strangely piece of writing. a composition of almost lincolnesque austerity and beauty. the true vermonter was in every line of it. yet, yet this master of

articulation and plain speaking has fallen victim as to one of the egregious misunderstandings of the american worshipper. the chief business of the american people is business. coolidge said in january 1925. they have been hung around his neck by critics to label him as a hopeless philistine. a worshipper of commercial and business interests. these words have been repeated ever since but coolidge did say the chief business of the american people is business. but he was only warming up to his main point. a message of considerable variance of what he has been charged of saying and meaning by ignorant, sloppy, naive or just plain lazy ever since. so long as wealth is made the means and not the end, we do not greatly fear it. and there never was a time when

wealth was so generally regarded as a means or so little regarded as a end as today. it is only those who do not understand our people, who believe that our national life is entirely absorbed by material motives. we make no concealment of the fact that we want wealth. but that there are many other things we want very much more. we want piece and honor and that charity which is so strong and elemental of all civilization. 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 a man who chose his words so carefully it is easy to believe there were no mere words. his entire adult life was spent in public service. councilm

councilman, city solicitor, state senator, lieutenant governor, vice president, president, more offices than any other president ever held. but, but, it was not easy for him to be a public man. to speak, to meet persons, to shake hands, to do what ordinary politicians do as a matter of course. a horrible shyness possessed calvin coolidge. possessed him from his early days and never let go. he never denied it. 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 10 that i couldn't go on that way and by fighting

hardy used to manage to get through that door. i'm all right with old friends. but every time i meet a stranger, i've got to go through the old kitchen door back home. and it's not easy. yet, he achieved more public offices and won more elections than any other president. and in doing so, he accomplished what he wanted in the way he wanted to. he served without being servile. said the normally cynical william minkin. he begins to see him in retrospect a praise worthy person. the company remembers only the grateful fact that he let it alone. well, there are worse epithets for a statesman if the stay ever comes when jefferson's warnings are heeded at last and we reduce government to its simplest terms it may very well happen that

cal's 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 born on the fourth of july. yes, calvin coolidge was born on the fourth of july. july 4th, 1872, to be exact. in the minuscule central vermont hamlet of plymouth. not particularly near anything save maple syrup and hillsides. he was not born rich nor poor. though by the standards of 1872, plymouth notch, his father colonel john coolidge, was a man of means. a general store keeper, insurance agent, farmer and politician. of his father calvin would write

the lines he laid out were true and straight. and the curves regular. the work he did endured. 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 money to pay them. of his mother, victoria josephine moore coolidge, he wrote, whatever was grand and beautiful in form and color attracted her. it seemed as though the rich green tints of the foliage came to her in the spring. and for autumn it was for her the mountain side was struck with crimson and gold. she died on her 39th birthday on march, 1885, five marches later

calvin's younger sister, abigail, died. she was 14. forged a greater bond between surviving son and father. he studied in the one room stone schoolhouse and later at amherst where his withdrawn vermont ways proved both a puzzlement and amusement to his more sophisticated and garrulous classmates. his habits then were the habits of his future life. none of them particularly pointing the way toward a political or any sort of public career. but he grew upon his classmates as he invariably grew on just about everybody, becoming known as a humorous and accomplished, somewhat laconic speaker. he graduated cum laude. he decided to practice law. not attending law school. instead clerking at law offices

in northampton, massachusetts. passed the bar and set up a practice and took a wife. grace was nothing for calvin also hailing from vermont. burlington to be exact and drifting to northampton, outgoing and vivacious university of vermont. she taught at the local clark school for the deaf. one day she happened to be walking past coolidge's bachelor lodgings. she looked up and saw him sharing while wearing a dirty hat. she laughed and he heard her and resolved to meet her. they married in her parents parlor in burlington october 4th, 1905. the couple eventually took a $27 a month lodging in northampton, a pleasant but white framed duplex.

i attended to the furnishing of it myself, he wrote. and when it was ready, mrs. coolidge and i walked over to it. in about two weeks our first boy came on the evening of september 7th. the fragrance of the flowers which covered the bay window filled the room like a benediction where the mother lay with her baby. we called him john in honor of my father. it was all very wonderful to us. we liked the house where our children came to us and the neighbors who were so kind. when we could have had a more pretentious home we clung to it. so long i live there i could be independent and serve the public without ever thinking that i could not maintain my position if i lost my office. all the while coolidge kept rising in politics. he won a term in the massachusetts house, traveling to boston he carried with him a letter of introduction.

it read like a singed cat, he is better than he looks. [laughter] >> his political philosophy took shape. as did his lifelong predilection to acting without regard to electoral consequences. said one massachusetts labor leader regarding coolidge, in all my years of work in the literature, i have never met a man in whose sets of justice and courage i had more trust. in 1918 he narrowly won the governorship and found himself confronted with two crises. the first is at constitutional mandate to consolidate 118 government agencies into 20 within three years. it was a political minefield. coolidge not only avoided tripping any mines, he did it within one year and won accolades and friends. the second and greater crisis involved the boston police

force. when in september, 1919, boston police commission disciplined union leaders 1500 cops walked off the job leaving the city unprotected. violence and lawlessness erupted. boston mayor andrew j. peters illegally removed curtis from office. coolidge reinstated curtis. he called out the full state guard. he broke the strike. when the american federation of labor leader samuel gompers urge to reinstate the strike force to the jobs they had abandoned, coolidge responded, there is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody anywhere anytime. coolidge's advisors thought his actions would alienate labor support and cost him re-election. 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. electrified the nation, stamping him as a no nonsense champion of post-war law and order. he swamped his democratic opponent winning 62% of the vote and the victory fueled a coolidge for president booklet. -- boomlet. his name was placed in nomination at the 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 two-family lodge, he said? never. ohio dark house candidate harding won the nomination on the tenth ballot and when time

came to nominate -- nominate a vice presidential candidate the delegates rebelled. they refused to nominate the conventions choice, the power structures choice, a guy named irvin lembert from wisconsin. they nominated calvin coolidge. harding will never serve his term out, they said in the press box. he'll die and coolidge will be president. coolidge luck. that november harding and coolidge swamped the democrat standard bearers. they got 60% of the vote against james middleton cox and his vice presidential candidate a guy you may have heard of named franklin roosevelt. that november -- or rather when they took office -- when coolidge took office he chafed under the idleness, the lack of responsibility in the vice

presidency. his only actual duty by the constitution was to preside over the united states senate and this really doesn't take much effort. so he wrote, i soon found that the senate had but one fixed rule. subject to exceptions, of course, which was to the effect that the senate would do anything it wanted to do whenever wanted it to do it. when i had learned that, i did not waste much time with the other rules. because they were so seldom applied. so unable to prove himself through accomplishment, washington saw him only as a silent little red-headed man who warren harding would probably dump from the ticket in 1924. but the coolidge luck eventually did strike and when it struck it, struck in spades. when warren harding died in

august, 1923, calvin coolidge was vacationing in plymouth notch and by flickering kerosene night at 1:00 in the morning he was sworn in as president of the united states of america by his 78-year-old notary public father. when have it was complete, he walked down the darkened road to visit his mother's grave. he came back and he said, i think i could swing it. he did swing it. many again underestimated him. they thought he wouldn't be nominated for president because no accidental president save for theodore roosevelt ever had one renomination in his own life. but as president coolidge cleaned up the whole residue of the scandals of the harding administration, in the interior department, in the veterans affairs bureau, in the justice

department, the whole teapot dome mess, he restored faith in government, in public honesty, easily won renomination and that november, that november he's elected in a three-way race. he carries every state but one outside the democratic solid south. he carries every county in new england. and he is the last republican president to ever carry new york city. coolidge's often maligned administration provided a wide variety of constructive measures. and witnessed unprecedented economic growth, the coolidge prosperity. his fiscal policies boasted still unequalled accomplishment triggered a widely based economic boom. unemployment averaged 3.3%. the gross national product increased annually by 7%.

per capita income tax grew 30%. real earnings for employed wage earners increased 22%. industrial production shot of 70%. the average work week decreased to 4%. consumer prices rose just 0.4%. no inflation. no inflation at all. national wealth rose 17.5%. total education spending rose fourfold. in the decade itself automobile ownership rose threefold and illiteracy fell by half. historian paul johnson summed it up. quote, under harding and sill more under coolidge the usa enjoyed a general prosperity that was historically unique in its experience or of that of any other society. coolidge was the last president to write all his open speeches. and he delivered more of them than any of his predecessors.

as president he held 520 news conferences. 8 per month. his formal inauguration address was for some reason expect it to set a record for brevity. but his 4,500 words edged warning harding 3318. it is not entirely ironic that a collection of coolidge press conference transcripts is of entitled the talkative president. over the course of a three-decade long political career he provided his opinion on any topics. he never wasted words or minced words and here's a sample of what silent cal had to say. regarding his most basically philosophy of government, he contended, i favor the policy of economy not because i wish to save money but because i wish to save people.

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 that their life will be so much more the meager. every dollar that we prudently save means that their life would be so much more the abundant. economy is idealism in its most practical form. or putting it more bluntly, i'm for economy after that, i'm for more economy. regarding taxes, he said 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 a man

to get what he can for his district will probably find they have elected a man who will get what he can for himself. and on morality, a nation that is morally dead will soon be financially dead. and further, if we are too weak to take charge of our own morality, we shall not be strong enough to take charge of our own liberty. on politics, the political mind is the product of men in public life who have been twice spoiled. they have been spoiled with praise and they have been 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. on self-government, it is very he difficult to reconcile the american ideal that sovereign people capable of owning and managing their own government

with an inability to own and manage their own business. on price controls, it is not possible to repeal the law of supply and demand. of cause and effect or of action and reaction, value is a matter of opinion. an act a of congress has small jurisdiction over what men think. on the principles of the founding fathers. these principles have now the same binding force as in those 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 laws. we need more religion. we do not need more of the things that are seen. are unseen. on 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 perfect. and if we just ourselves only by our aspirations and everyone else only by their conduct, we shall soon reach a very false conclusion. when we have exhausted the possibilities of criticism on ourselves, it will be time enough to apply it to others. on the art of legislating.

it is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones. on tough economic times, when depression and business comes, we begin to be very conservative in our financial affairs. we save our money and take no chances in its investment. yet, in our political affair actions we go in the opposite direction. we begin to support radical measures and cast our votes for those who advance the most reckless proposals. this is a curious and illogical reaction. when times are good, we might take a chance on radical government. but when we are financially weakened, we need the soundest and wisest of men and measures. 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 suffer the harm will be the poor. this country believes in prosperity. it is absurd to suppose it is envious to those who are already prosperous. the wise and correct course to follow in 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 results of dumping our markets on a price with which they could not compete. but the policy has a deeper significance than that. we are unwilling to profit by

the distress of 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 meant cheap men but we propose to set up a standard that will discourage other nations from exploiting their people by producing cheap goods. our policy requires 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, unsound it may appear to be in theory. that must mean the theories have not taken account of all 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 manner of conduct and social relations is very old. it was always the practice of primitive people. and somewhat less blunt, we have had many attempts at regulation of industrial activity by law. some of it has proceeded on the theory that if those who enjoyed material prosperity used it for the wrong purposes such prosperity should be limited or abolished. that is as sound as it would be to abolish writing to prevent forgery. and you've probably heard this bit of advice before. maybe not knowing who it came from. nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. talent will not. nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. genius will not. unrewarded genius is almost a problem.

education will not. the world is full of educated derelicts. persistence and a determination alone are omnipotent. indeed of domestic tranquility. yet coolidge could not enjoy his presidency. the coolidge luck ran out in june, 1924, when his younger son 16-year-old calvin, jr. playing tennis on the white house courts developed a blister on his right foot. infection and pathogenic blood poisoning resulted. from the very beginning the infection was serious. and from the very beginning coolidge seemed to know it. in an age without antibiotics, calvin, jr. died that july 7.

in his suffering he asked me to make him well the president wrote. when he weren't the power and the glory of the presidency are gone. it seemed to me that the world had need of the work that it was capable of what he could do. i do not know why such a price was exacted for occupying the white house. to escape washington's summer doldrumses they fled to cooler climbs, plymouth notch, to massachusetts, to superior, wisconsin. in 1927 they summered in the black hills and on tuesday 2, 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 to amaze news men. each read i do not choose to run for president in 1928. the political world thought he was angeling for a draft. he wasn't. in march, 1929, calvin coolidge retired to northampton. he reluctantly handed over the country to herbert hoover. but he wasn't crazy about herbert hoover. said coolidge, that man has given me nothing but advice and all of it bad. [laughter] >> in retirement coolidge dabbled at law. he earned $3,000 a week authoring a popular syndicated column and he composed his autobiography, the autobiography of calvin coolidge. his world was now a different world.

he had moved back to his house and discover an ex-president cannot live in a two-family house upon an ordinary smalltown street. autos crowded with curiosity seekers rolled by in constant procession. admirers trampled his lawn and trespassed upon his tiny porch. they peered through his windows. he and his wife paid $40,000 a house far grander than the other house, far less grand than pennsylvania avenue. it was there that he died on thursday january 5, 1933. disturbed by the great depression still saddened by his young son's passing and possessing fewer and fewer reserves of energy, he returned home from his offices at noon. as he shaved, a heart attack fell him.

they buried calvin coolidge at plymouth notch in the family graveyard next to his mother and father and sister and son. in the most humble grave of any american president. no signs directed visitors. no gate surrounds it. no words indicate the many offices he had held. no words. that is the way calvin coolidge would have wanted it. thank you very much. [applause] [inaudible] >> madam, can you wait for the microphone. your words will be reaching the nation, a grateful nation. [laughter] >> yes. [inaudible]

>> and he had a high tariff i think during his administration. and i just wondered if that was some kind of weakness. and the very fact he had herbert hoover as the head of the department of commerce. and within just four years after he resigned as president this terrible depression descended upon us. so i don't want to point to him as someone who was limited because you did so well i couldn't compete at any price.

but i do feel there was something in his point of view that was a weakness. and it was a world view that distressed me when i read about it. can you comment on that. >> sure. you covered a lot of ground. and i thank you for that because you raised things that 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 harding, coolidge, and hoover but it was also roosevelt who never went about that even though you came up with his league of nations 2.0, the united nations, in 1945.

coolidge did favor u.s. participation in the world court. he avoided threat of war. there was a possibility of war with mexico. there was very bad feelings with that country at that point. he avoided that. and restored good relations with that. he withdrew u.s. troops from nicaragua and was the first president to personally attend the conference of inter-american states in havana. beyond that, there was a five-power naval treaty, very important the daws plan, who became his vice president for german reparations and there was the kellogg-brand act to outlaw war as an instrument of international foreign policy. so you see a lot of things going on there. he did -- he actually vetoed the mcnairy hoggin act which was for farm aid and i think he did that twice. that was fairly controversial.

but he was, in fact, quite consistent on that point. so i think those were your two main points. as to herbert hoover, i think he would agree with your assessment. [laughter] >> any other questions? >> do you think he was prescient enough to know what was coming? do you think that by fail to run in november of '28 and leaving office in march of '29 and in october of '29 the wheels come off the wagon -- did he know what was coming? >> i don't know. some people do say that he did know. and there's quotes -- they're kind of unverified. there's a quote of grace coolidge where she said, papa, says there's a depression coming and it's like time to scram. and, you know, the business cycle had been very cyclical. so in the 1890s you've got the

grover cleveland major depression and you've got a panic in 1907 under theodore roosevelt. and the big woodrow wilson depression in 1920, 1921. so these things came about every 10 years and the question was, how you dealt with them. i think that not only -- there's been a lot of questions as to how bummed out he was. and he was seriously depressed over the death of his son, which is, of course, quite rational. but this took the steam and the glory and the presidency for him. and more so, almost more so, in 1926 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. he's not feeling well.

in 1929 -- 1932, they want him to speak for herbert hoover and he's really begging off. he's really begging off. and i think his personal feelings -- he doesn't want to do it. he says his throat hurts. everything. as a matter of fact, he's dead. he's dead before franklin roosevelt takes office. he had the heart problem and i think he probably simply thought he had accomplished -- he'd gone all the way. what more was there to do? and as he said, american presidents return to the people. it is good for me to return to them. so i think he said, this is -- this was not -- he was not a great man. it was essential for him for hold office and somebody asked him do you have hobbies and he said yeah, holding elected office. but it didn't mean that much to him where it was an absolute compulsion. and if the people didn't feel a

need for him to stay on, he wouldn't stay on. you have another question? >> was he 51 when he died? >> i think he was 62. something like that. yeah. it's a very disconcerting age to me right about now. [laughter] >> in the front. >> first of all, this is a terrific book. i keep it by my nightstand. it's so pithy on every page, i always find something from it so congratulations on that. now, i realize that you're a historian, not a prophet. i heard that on c-span the last time you were here. [laughter] >> there are certain aspects of coolidge's political philosophy that seemed to be rising nationally for the -- probably for the first time since he left the presidency. i hear a lot of coolidge in what i hear in the tea party movement.

do you think it's possible that coolidge's political philosophy is not something antiquated but something that we might see again implemented? >> well, i'm a historian, not a prophet. [laughter] >> but things go in cycles. and, you know, reagan was the second -- even though reagan had been a big fan of fdr, he was -- by the time he was president he had become more conservative and became a big coolidge fan and replaced a portrait of harry truman that hung in the white house with one of calvin coolidge, which surprised a hell of a lot of people. this very year we've heard glenn beck kind of resurrecting coolidge's philosophy and persona. and on his tv and at cpac. so i think the timing might be right for a coolidge boom. people are looking at this.

and as i quoted him quoting the founding fathers we see a lot of similarities in that philosophy. and we are seeing so much interest in the founding fathers where this might carry over. and we have in coolidge a distillation of that philosophy which is so pure and in implementing it so effective -- you know, one of the ways i was going to start this speech, then i said, no, no, you know, politicians stand up in front of you every time they want to be elected and they say, well, you know, i'm going to cut spending and i'm going to balance the budget. and i'm going to reduce the debt. and i'm going to cut out all the waste in government. and they never do it. they never do it. calvin coolidge did it and then we say he didn't accomplish anything. he spent four years and he never

did a damn thing and he did what every politician promises to do. so that is not too bad an act to follow. [inaudible] >> well, i don't know if he promised them outright. he probably said he would try his best. promising might be overstating for him. but he would work it out. i was an alderman once and i promised i wouldn't raise taxes. i dam well didn't raise taxes i'll tell you that. it can be rash because they won't know what circumstances will dictate but you can know what your principles will guide you on. yes, sir. >> what do you think cal's attitude would be we're handling our financial situation in this country. >> i haven't consulted him on that. i think he would be quite aghast at this level of deficits. this would -- and particularly in peacetime. it's one thing to run -- and i

guess you could say well, there's been iraq and there have been afghanistan but those are back boiler kind of conflicts not in the same circumstance as a world war. but nonetheless this level of deficit spending gives pause to everyone and you see right now where voices within the administration are suddenly worried about it. but their response is not to say, gee, maybe we spent too much in the last year. but gee, maybe we need another tax and one hell of a big tax with a value-added tax which canada has a national sales tax. i cannot believe coolidge would say on anything. any further questions? oh, one more? >> yeah, as long as you're going to pause.

a blogger friend of mine named miep says her favorite coolidge anecdote he embraced visiting the chicken farm. >> not the chicken farm. >> i you've looked into this. it's a great story. what have you learned about it. >> it's probably not true. why don't you tell it. >> you want me to tell the story. >> grace and calvin go to this chicken farm while he's president. and they go on separate tours. and grace is hearing all about this fantastic rooster who makes love to the other chickens like 20, 40 times a day and she says be sure to tell that to mr. coolidge when he comes around. and so coolidge comes around. and they say what grace said. and he said, same hen? no, different hens, tell that to mrs. coolidge. [laughter]

>> on that note, regarding coolidge's speech in favor of hoover at madison square garden, a lady came up to him afterwards and said, you know, mr. coolidge i enjoyed your talk so much that i stood the entire time. and he said, so did i. [laughter] >> i've enjoyed this all too, so 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 three presidencies. mr. pietrusza has served on the board of trustees of the calvin coolidge memorial foundation. and serves on the sienna college research institute survey of united states presidents. for more information, visit

davidpietrusza.com. >> an undercover journalist goes across the country doing several menial labor jobs that are mostly filled by undocumented workers. he argues that an underworld of minimum wage to deliver a chief foods delivery lifestyle changing hands bookstore in tempe, arizona hosts the hour-long event. this program contains language some viewers may find objectionable. >> what i thought i'd do is talk just a little bit about what led me to write this book, the sort

of ideas behind me getting into it. and like my motivations and then read a little bit from two sections of the book. it's divided into three different sections based on the areas that i was in, where i was doing the work. and then finish take a wave from it and open it up for questions. i was -- it was sort of -- i don't know if you've seen the movie capote, in the movie capote -- truman capote is sitting and reading the "new york times" article -- i think it was like a brutal murder in kansas, just sort of triggers him and he reads it i know i've got to like figure this out. i got to figure out what happened here. and i had just finished a writing project and didn't know what i wanted to do. and one of the great things about being a freelancer is that

you have a lot of freedom to do what you want but when you finish a new project -- or when you finish an old project, you suddenly are back where you started having no idea what you wanted to do. and with no boss to tell you what you should be doing, it can be very nerve-wracking. i was reading an article in the "new york times" and the article was about of a hog slaughterhouse in north carolina. and there had been an immigration raid. and so a lot of -- more than 1,000 latino immigrants in the slaughterhouse took off. i think they arrested only like 12 or so. but sort of the workers left en masse and suddenly the plant had to figure out how they're going to recruit many more u.s. citizens. and it shouldn't have been too hard because the wages in the area paid a lot better than what anyone else could find. you ow