Review of "The Quotable Calvin Coolidge: Sensible Words For a New Century," edited by Peter Hannaford

 Review of

The Quotable Calvin Coolidge: Sensible Words For a New Century, edited by Peter Hannaford ISBN 9781884592560

Five out of five stars

The real, not the silent Cal

 Nearly all presidents acquire some form of a bad rap while in office. For Calvin Coolidge, the label was “Silent Cal,” due to his penchant for minimum speaking. Yet, in many ways such an attitude would be a welcome relief in the modern world, where every word a president utters is magnified and dissected. Yet, Coolidge did speak often and with focus, just not to hear himself speak and gather attention. Coolidge was a genuinely humble man, unlike the self-centered people that are the set of modern presidents.

 The quotes in this book contain a great deal of wisdom and reflect both Coolidge and the times when he was president. The automobile age was just beginning, and the world had yet to experience the Great Depression. It was a time of great optimism, and it was reasonable to think that the best role of the national government was to stay out of the way as much as possible.

 Coolidge was also someone that had genuine empathy for the people with real problems of poverty, health issues and even those of another color. If you have no in depth knowledge of Coolidge, you will be surprised at how liberal his views were regarding welfare. While brief, it reveals much about the man that history calls “Silent Cal.”