One hundred years ago this morning, Calvin Coolidge became president of the United States. The circumstances were unusual but somehow fitting. President Warren G. Harding had died suddenly the day before. Vacationing at a deliberately primitive abode in Plymouth Notch, Vt., Vice President Coolidge awoke and, by kerosene lamplight, was sworn in as president by his father John, a notary public and justice of the peace. Then, he returned to bed, taking a second oath in Washington the next day to resolve any procedural ambiguities.
In the latest issue of National Review, Amity Shlaes, author of Coolidge and the chairwoman of the board of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation, has a lovely tribute to the reticent president marking the occasion. “Conservatives pigeonhole Coolidge as a kind of pre-Reagan, a Morning in America leader who demonstrated that slashing tax rates promotes both strong revenues and prosperity,” she writes. There’s truth to this perception, but it “fails to capture the scope of Coolidge’s achievement.” She continues:
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