Richard Norton Smith on Calvin Coolidge

[Ad Orientem]

http://youtu.be/A7sDOZIOqkA
A great lecture on the most underrated president of the last 100 years.

[MediumTex]

He was truly a man of inaction.

We need more like him in government.

[l82start]

http://www.zazzle.com/coolidge_restrain ... 9929800791 a must have!!

[Ad Orientem]

[MediumTex]

He was truly a man of inaction.

We need more like him in government.

It is very difficult for man of inaction to get any accolades.  In any field, I suspect.

Yep.  We like people who do things, whether or not anything needs to be done.

[moda0306]

I was disappointed to find out Cool Cal was supportive of our involvement in WWI.  I fully understand all the functional arguments for a draft, but overall I consider the draft one of the most coercive institutions imaginable.

I also hesitate to give too much credit to the presidents whose hands off attitudes may have had a large role to play in the Great Depression.

He also spoke very highly of the federal reserve. 

At least he was against prohibition.

[moda0306]

Coolidge quote:

It would be difficult to overestimate the service which the Federal Reserve System has already rendered to the country. It is necessary only to recall the chaotic condition of our banking organization at the time the Federal Reserve System was put into operation…

The Federal Reserve System… enables us to look to the future with confidence and to make plans far ahead, based on the belief that the Federal Reserve System will exercise a steadying influence on credit conditions and thereby prevent tiny sudden or severe reactions from the period of prosperity which we are now enjoying. In order that these plans may go forward, action should be taken at the present session on the question of renewing the banks' charters and thereby insuring a continuation of the policies and present usefulness of the Federal Reserve System.

To be clear, as most people know, I don't like the gold standard and think that sovereign fiat money is better... however, I definitely see the creation of the federal reserve as a very large, if appropriate, expansion of the federal government's role.

[Ad Orientem]

Re: The Fed...
It's important to remember that in the 1920's the Federal Reserve was still bound by the gold standard which Coolidge supported. So we did not have wholesale currency debasement that we have seen since 1933-34. In it's original mission and incarnation I am not all that hostile to the Fed.