By John Solomon
How the government's punishing of the exposure of official wrongdoing can linger for years
It is disappointing that Calvin Coolidge is consistently relegated to the hinterlands of America's presidential landscape. There are several reasons for this. First, he is a victim of what Lincoln called the "silent artillery of time" -- the way the memory of any earthly thing fades with the years.
When Ronald Reagan chose to hang a portrait of Calvin Coolidge in the White House Cabinet room, he was making a policy statement: Coolidge was a seriously underrated president, and the 30th president had a view of taxation in sync with his own. Six decades earlier, Coolidge had branded taxation that was "not absolutely required" as "only a species of legalized larceny."
I am indebted to Amity Shlaes for gently correcting a joke of mine that dates back to July 8, 1972. On that day in the New York Times, I joshed that President Calvin Coolidge "probably spent more time napping than any President in the nation's history" and therefore was a successful president.
Amity Shlaes' brilliant and highly readable book surely must be the best analysis of the Great Depression ever. With the precision of an economist, a historian's sense of the enduring and a journalist's ear for language, she deftly parries the claims of FDR fans and defenders. She details Herbert Hoover's complicity in his successor's flawed perception of one of America's darkest hours. The Bloomberg columnist's "The Forgotten Man" will stand the test of time.
Amity Shlaes' brilliant and highly readable book surely must be the best analysis of the Great Depression ever. With the precision of an economist, a historian's sense of the enduring and a journalist's ear for language, she deftly parries the claims of FDR fans and defenders. She details Herbert Hoover's complicity in his successor's flawed perception of one of America's darkest hours. The Bloomberg columnist's "The Forgotten Man" will stand the test of time.
Not Spider-Man
The Forgotten Man
The Forgotten Man
She has written a very impressive biography titled simply "Coolidge," wherein she never mentions Cal's naps but rather what made him the most successful president of the 1920s.
She adds in a later chapter that Mr. Ickes and his spending agenda "had more authority than any politician."
