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Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933) est un homme d'État américain, gouverneur du Massachusetts et vice-président puis président des États-Unis de 1923 à 1929. Il est connu pour sa politique de laissez-faire, son austérité et son taciturnité.
Calvin Coolidge (born John Calvin Coolidge Jr.; [1] / ˈ k uː l ɪ dʒ /; July 4, 1872 – January 5, 1933) was an American attorney and politician who served as the 30th president of the United States from 1923 to 1929. Born in Vermont, Coolidge was a Republican lawyer who climbed the ladder of Massachusetts politics, becoming the ...
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- Life after the presidency
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Calvin Coolidge was the 30th president of the United States (1923–29). He acceded to the presidency after the death in office of Warren G. Harding, just as the Harding scandals were coming to light. He restored integrity to the executive branch of the federal government while continuing the conservative pro-business policies of his predecessor.
What was Calvin Coolidge’s family like?
Calvin Coolidge was the only son of John Calvin and Victoria Moor Coolidge. His father was a storekeeper, and his mother cultivated in him a love of nature and books. In 1905 he married Grace Anna Goodhue, a teacher at the Clarke Institute for the Deaf, with whom he had two sons.
What was Calvin Coolidge’s occupation?
Calvin Coolidge worked as a lawyer in Northampton, Massachusetts. A Republican, he entered politics as a city councilman in Northampton in 1898 and served in the Massachusetts state government before being elected governor in 1918. He was U.S. vice president under Warren G. Harding and assumed the presidency upon Harding’s death.
How did Calvin Coolidge become famous?
Coolidge was the only son of John Calvin Coolidge and Victoria Moor Coolidge. His father, whose forebears had immigrated to America about 1630, was a storekeeper who instilled in his son the New England Puritan virtues—honesty, industry, thrift, taciturnity, and piety—while his mother cultivated in him a love of nature and books. A graduate of Amherst College, Coolidge began practicing law in 1897. In 1905 he married Grace Anna Goodhue, a teacher in the Clarke Institute for the Deaf, with whom he had two sons.
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A Republican, Coolidge entered politics as a city councilman in Northampton, Massachusetts, in 1898. He was elected mayor of Northampton in 1909 and then served in the Massachusetts state government as senator (1911–15) and lieutenant governor (1915–18). Elected governor in 1918, Coolidge captured national attention the following year when he called out the state guard to quell violence and disorder resulting from a strike by the Boston police, who had formed a labour union to press their demands for better pay and working conditions. When labour leaders called on him to support their demands for reinstatement of police officers who had been fired for striking, Coolidge refused, summing up his reasoning in a single sentence that reverberated throughout the country: “There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time.”
Acceding to the presidency upon Harding’s unexpected death (August 2, 1923), Coolidge took the oath of office from his father, a notary public, by the light of a kerosene lamp at 2:47 am on August 3 at the family home in Plymouth, Vermont. He inherited an administration mired in scandal. Cautiously, quietly, and skillfully, Coolidge rooted out the perpetrators and restored integrity to the executive branch. A model of personal rectitude himself, Coolidge convinced the American people that the presidency was once again in the hands of someone they could trust. The change of ambience in the White House did not miss the keen eye of Alice Roosevelt Longworth, daughter of Pres. Theodore Roosevelt, who said that the new White House was “as different as a New England front parlor is from a backroom in a speakeasy.”
At the Republican convention in 1924 Coolidge was nominated virtually without opposition. Running on the slogan “Keep Cool with Coolidge,” he won a landslide victory over conservative Democrat John W. Davis and Progressive Party candidate Robert La Follette, gaining about 54 percent of the popular vote to Davis’s 29 percent and La Follette’s nearly 17 percent; in the electoral college Coolidge received 382 votes to Davis’s 136 and La Follette’s 13. Coolidge’s inaugural address, the first inaugural address to be broadcast on national radio, focused principally on his vision of the role of the United States in the world.
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Coolidge was famous for being a man of few but well-chosen words. Despite his reputation, “Silent Cal,” as he was called, had a keen sense of humour, and he could be talkative in private family settings. His wit was displayed in a characteristic exchange with a Washington, D.C., hostess, who told him, “You must talk to me, Mr. President. I made a bet today that I could get more than two words out of you.” Coolidge replied, “You lose.”
Coolidge captured the prevailing sentiment of the American people in the 1920s when he said, “The chief business of the American people is business.” The essence of the Coolidge presidency was its noninterference in and bolstering of American business and industry. Government regulatory agencies, such as the Federal Trade Commission, now were staffed by people who sought to assist business expansion rather than to police business practices. Most Americans, identifying their own prosperity with the growth of corporate profits, welcomed this reversal of progressive reforms. They generally agreed with the assessment of Oliver Wendell Holmes, associate justice of the Supreme Court: “While I don’t expect anything very astonishing from [Coolidge] I don’t want anything very astonishing.”
In 1928, announcing, “I do not choose to run,” Coolidge turned his back on what surely would have been another election victory and instead retired to Northampton. There he wrote a syndicated newspaper column, several magazine articles, and his autobiography (1929). And there, a little less than four years after leaving the White House, he died of a heart attack. After his death, as the country suffered through the worst economic crisis in its history, many came to view the Coolidge era as a time of inaction and complacency in the face of looming disaster. Although Coolidge’s personality continued to be the butt of jokes—upon hearing that Coolidge was dead, the writer Dorothy Parker quipped, “How can they tell?”—he was fondly remembered for his quiet New England virtues and for the renewed dignity and respect he brought to his office.
Coolidge was survived by first lady Grace Coolidge, a woman whose outgoing personality contrasted sharply with that of her tight-lipped spouse. She lived another 24 years, during which time she devoted herself to the needs of the hearing-impaired.
Learn about the life and achievements of Calvin Coolidge, the 30th president of the United States who restored integrity to the executive branch after the Harding scandals. Find out his political affiliation, family background, notable quotes, and legacy.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
27 oct. 2009 · Learn about the life and achievements of Calvin Coolidge, the 30th U.S. president who led the nation through the Roaring Twenties. Find out how he became president, what policies he pursued and how he handled the Great Depression.
- 1 min
Learn about the life and achievements of Calvin Coolidge, the 30th President of the United States (1923-1929), who preserved the old moral and economic precepts amid the prosperity of the 1920s. Find out how he became popular for his silence, frugality, and isolationism, and why he refused to run for reelection in 1928.
John Calvin Coolidge, Jr., né le 4 juillet 1872 à Plymouth (Vermont) et mort le 5 janvier 1933 à Northampton (Massachusetts), est un homme d'État américain, 30 e président des États-Unis en fonction du 2 août 1923 au 4 mars 1929.
Overview. A quiet and somber man whose sour expression masked a dry wit, Calvin Coolidge was known as "Silent Cal." After learning of his ascendancy to the presidency following the death of Warren Harding in 1923, Coolidge was sworn in by his father, a justice of the peace, in the middle of the night and, displaying his famous "cool," promptly ...