- Hi, I am South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem.

President Calvin Coolidge was a man who understood the great significance of the United States of America.

Though he grew up on the East Coast, he still understood the American farmer.

He recognized that in America, we don't only grow our own food.

We grow the world's food too.

Coolidge understood the importance of hard work.

As a man of few words, he often chose to let his actions speak for him.

During his 20 years in public service, Coolidge never said good enough.

He didn't rise to higher political office by being flashy.

He worked hard and he delivered results.

His leadership ushered in one of the strongest periods of economic growth in American history, and he helped bring Mount Rushmore from an idea to a reality.

President Coolidge reminds me a lot of the people of South Dakota.

He knew that the American work ethic was something that set us apart from other countries.

I'm so proud that South Dakota has shared history with this great leader.

I hope you'll enjoy this documentary about the life and the legacy of Calvin Coolidge.

(gentle music) (stream babbling) - [Narrator] Just what is the American presidency?

For many Americans, the presidency is about power.

A president is an active leader, a leader larger than life, but there have been other kinds of presidents in our past, also, uniquely American, leaders who saw themselves as servants, or, at most, presiders.

(somber music) The nature of our greatest office was also on the mind of a president who happened to be in the Black Hills of South Dakota during the summer of 1927, Calvin Coolidge.

This president was confronting a momentous decision of his own: whether to run for a second elected term in 1928.

Coolidge was enormously popular, so popular that the sculptor of Mount Rushmore, Gutzon Borglum, even suggested that Coolidge's own profile join those of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt.

Many took it for granted that Coolidge would run again.

Through July, while casting for trout or working at the summer White House in Rapid City, the president mulled the question.

(dramatic music) Then on August 2nd, the president shocked the nation.

After the president's usual press conference, each reporter was handed a slip of paper on which appeared just one sentence: I do not choose to run for president in 1928.

(somber music) Reporters could not believe it.

They focused on the ambiguity in the line "I do not choose."

It did not seem possible that a popular incumbent would relinquish power in this way.

Days later, the sculptor Borglum invited Coolidge to dedicate the project at Rushmore.

The reporters trailed the president as he rode up the mountainside, but at Mount Rushmore, Coolidge, again, disappointed.

The president chose not to speak of his own plans.

Instead, Coolidge praised each of the past presidents memorialized at Rushmore.

Then Coolidge turned away from the topic of the presidency and spoke about the power of citizens themselves.

"The progress of America has been due to the spirit of the people.

It is in no small degree due to that spirit that we have been able to produce such great leaders."

Calvin Coolidge.

The reporters were still mystified.

Whatever Coolidge said in South Dakota, surely the President would come to his senses once he got back to Washington.

Today, Coolidge also represents a mystery.

Little covered in our history books, the 30th President often earns mention only as an afterthought, yet many find that once they look at Coolidge, they look again.

(somber music) (stately music) - Working in politics, you familiarize yourself with your predecessor.

Coolidge struck me right away.

Who was this New Englander who became president?

- Well, I had the conventional opinion about Coolidge, and then I discovered a totally different Calvin Coolidge from the one that I'd kind of grown up with.

- We think of him as a kind of almost an ember, but there's a vividness to his vision.

It's a very American vision of possibility.

- I realized, well, here is somebody who really gets the American founding, and that caught my attention because there really aren't many presidents in the 20th century who not only get the founding but revere it.

- Yes, he had this branding, the 19th century farmer, the overalls and the the blue smock, but at the same time, this is a president who became a radio president.

- Even the Coolidge marriage goes against stereotype.

He was supposed to be a modest guy, but he was married to one of the most beautiful first ladies.

- People sensed in him a man who was honest, a man of integrity.

- When I think about Coolidge, I think about his humanity, how he cared about equality in a time when people weren't thinking about such things.

- Well, the thing about Coolidge is the more you study Coolidge, the more that you see is there, the more you want to get to know Coolidge.

- The famous nickname of Calvin Coolidge is Silent Cal, but that's pretty much a misnomer.

The average, two press conferences a week, which is more than any president has ever done.

- His ability to write the English language is just compelling and beautiful.

- We shall anchor at last in the harbor of justice and truth.

- [Narrator] You know, there's a lot to learn about Calvin Coolidge, the president and the man.

What's really interesting too is that when you go back, you find he tells his own story.

(stately music) (orchestral music) - [Narrator] "The town of Plymouth lies on the easterly slope of the Green Mountains, about 20 miles west of the Connecticut River.

When settlers began to come in around the time of the Revolution, the grandfather of my grandfather, Captain John Coolidge, located a farm, where he settled in 1780."

Calvin Coolidge.

- [Narrator] Calvin Coolidge was born in Plymouth Notch, Vermont on July 4th, 1872.

- [Narrator] Vermont's a remote rural state, and Plymouth Notch was especially isolated back then.

No railroad went there, and the only dirt road that led up to the Notch was muddy good part of the year.

- Many of the citizens of Plymouth found it too remote, and they headed for the Midwest.

The Coolidge's were the ones who stayed.

Colonel John Coolidge, Victoria Josephine Moor Coolidge, Calvin, and his little sister, Abby.

- Calvin's father was at the beginning a storekeeper here in the village, and then he gradually became more and more influential in town.

He was a selectman, a justice of the peace, notary public.

He was one of the five farmers who went in to start the cheese factory in 1890.

- [Narrator] "My father had the strong New England trait of great repugnant at seeing anything wasted.

He went to Boston in the spring and fall to buy goods.

He took the midnight train from Ludlow, when they did not have sleeping cars, which saved him his hotel bill.

He trusted nearly everybody, but lost a surprisingly small amount.

Sometimes people he had not seen for years would return and pay the whole bill."

Calvin Coolidge.

- President Coolidge's views on taxation were probably enormously informed by the fact that his father served as a tax collector.

- Riding the wagon with his dad at such a young age and seeing these hardworking Vermonters, mud on their fingers, running into their house, running out back to the wagon, counting it out, showing that, "These are my taxes.

Here you go.

Oh, I need to go back and get more?

Do we have it?

Do we have it?"

- Calvin saw what his father did, saw how he acted, saw how he treated people, saw how he traded with others, and was a very big influence on him and how he operated later on: always very responsible, good work ethic, and fair to people.

- Directly across the street from the Coolidge homestead is the Union Christian Church, a church where the Coolidge family has been involved with since its construction in the early 1840s.

In the winter, because Vermont winters are cold, church was held in the formal front parlor of the Coolidge homestead.

- When he wasn't working on the farm or at church with his family, he would accompany his dad to town meetings in the hall above the store, right across the street.

That was his first opportunity to see government in action at the local level and hear the debates about local issues.

- [Narrator] They drew no class distinctions except towards those who assumed superior heirs.

Those they held in contempt, they held strongly to the doctrine of equality.

(heartbreaking music) - Life wasn't always easy for young Calvin.

In his early years in Plymouth, he suffered the first of a number of losses.

- Calvin was very close to his mother.

Unfortunately, she was suffering from what was then called consumption, tuberculosis.

She died at the age of 39.

He was only 12 at the time.

(heartbreaking music) Calvin had a younger sister, Abigail.

They knew her as Abby.

She was very outgoing, and they had a very close rapport.

Unfortunately, she died at the age of 15, of appendicitis, we believe.

- The death of his mother and the death of his sister were difficult for him to bear.

- They didn't have antibiotics in those days.

They didn't have so many of the drugs we have, and grief was something every family had to absorb.

In Plymouth, they went to this cemetery so often in the winter that they put blades on the hearse so it could slide down the hill.

In this period, you can see the boy in Coolidge learning something, how to push past lost.

School was a part of that.

(gentle music) (stream babbling) - [Narrator] "Going away to school was my first great adventure in life.

It was so deep and remains so vivid that whenever I have started on a new enterprise, a like feeling always returns to me."

- Plymouth Notch had no public high school.

Calvin Coolidge went to Black River Academy in the neighboring town of Ludlow, where he stayed and boarded.

- Calvin found it hard to make friends, and he needed some academic coaching.

In fact, he once wrote home to his father in a letter, "I don't expect to pass in algebra."

One thing Calvin really did like about Ludlow was the railway depot.

He saw that it had what Plymouth lacked: connection to the wider world.

Eventually, Calvin did find friends, and, even more importantly, he got interested in school.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] "For some reason, I was attracted to civil government and took that.

This was my first introduction to the Constitution of the United States.

Although, I was but 13 years old, the subject interested me exceedingly."

- Coolidge says that he read the Declaration in his early teens, and even then, he had a sense of its importance and it stayed with him.

- [Narrator] That was a time when most people didn't go to college, and that was certainly true of the Coolidge family, but Calvin's father and grandmother saw something special in him.

They thought he probably ought to go to college.

(upbeat music) (train whistle blowing) - [Narrator] "If I had permitted my failures, or what seemed to me at the time a lack of success, to discourage me, I cannot see any way in which I would ever have made progress."

- Calvin Coolidge did go to college, but he almost didn't make it once he got there.

In fact, you could say no freshman in the history of Amherst College ever seemed less likely to make it than John Calvin Coolidge of Plymouth, Vermont.

He's kind of a hayseed compared to those fancy boys from New York.

- Coolidge was at Amherst in the 1890s when it was a men's college only.

There was an emphasis on oratory, and Coolidge, despite his introvertedness and shyness, really kind of blossomed.

He didn't look like a very dashing individual, but he had some depth.

(hopeful music) - [Narrator] "It always seemed to me that all our other studies were preparation for a course in philosophy.

The head of this department was Charles Garman, one of the most remarkable men with whom I ever came in contact.

It was here we learned the nature of habits and the great advantage of making them our ally instead of our enemies.

Above all, we were taught to follow the truth, whether so ever it might lead.

We were warned this would be very difficult."

(hopeful music) - Well, until Garman, it was tradition that students just sat there and took in what the lecturer said.

By contrast, Garman asked the students what they thought, and that absolutely captivated and fascinated Coolidge, a real two-way dialogue.

- One of the big anxieties for young people is wondering if they have the right plan.

Are they launching in the right part?

Will this lead to success?

One of the things that Garman said that really impressed Coolidge was that life is like a river.

It doesn't matter so much where you get in the river.

The important thing is that you do get in.

If you can stay in the center of the river, not get washed aside by the cross currents, then after time, with much persistence, you'll get somewhere.

(hopeful music) - [Narrator] "I had decided to enter the law.

One of my classmates wrote that there was an opportunity to go into the office of Hammond & Field at Northampton, so I applied and was accepted.

Office hours were from eight to about six o'clock, during which I spent my time reading "Kent's Commentaries" and in helping prepare writs, deeds, wills, and other documents.

The junior partner was Henry P. Field, who I found was an alderman.

That appeared to me at the time to be close to the Almighty."

(hopeful music) - Young Calvin wanted to show his father that he could pass the bar.

Coolidge did pass the bar.

In fact, he passed it a year early.

He soon developed a reputation as a lawyer who could get things done.

Local businesses, especially those begun by immigrants, started to retain Coolidge's services, a German brewery here, a new bank there.

Pretty soon he was enjoying some real success in his law practice.

(heartfelt music) - [Narrator] "A new block, called the Masonic Building, was under construction on lower Main Street, and when it was ready for occupancy, I opened an office there.

My earnings had been such that I was able to make some small savings.

My prospects appeared to be good.

I had many friends and few enemies.

While these relations were most agreeable and entertaining, I suppose I began to want a home of my own."

- He meets Grace Goodhue, who was a teacher at the Clarke School for the Deaf.

- Grace was the total opposite of Calvin.

She was vivacious.

She loved everyone.

She was funny.

She was beautiful, and she was the one person who could bring Calvin out of his shell.

- Tragedy marked Coolidge's life, but so did luck and love.

Grace was his greatest piece of luck.

(stately music) - [Narrator] Calvin and Grace Coolidge marry in 1905, and they welcome sons John in 1906 and son Calvin in 1908.

They were born at the Massasoit Street home here in Northampton.

(stately music) - Other families bought, but the Coolidge is rented, and, in fact, the house that they rented was only half of a two-family duplex.

- [Narrator] He also found time to get involved in politics.

He got his start at the local level, so his career was off and running.

(stately music) (percussive music) - Calvin Coolidge has more elected offices than any other president ever.

He was elected as a city alderman.

He later serves his ward on the city Republican Committee.

He becomes a state representative.

He becomes mayor in Northampton.

He's a state senator, and within that period, he's unanimously elected president of the state senate.

(lively music) - [Narrator] "I had been chosen chairman of the Republican City Committee.

I was not so successful in the city campaign.

We made the mistake of talking too much about the deficiencies of our opponents and not enough about the merits of our candidates.

I have never again fallen into that error.

My first campaign for mayor was very intense.

My opponent was a popular merchant, a personal friend of mine.

I called on many voters personally."

- What made Coolidge such an effective campaigner was that he actually listened to voters, so when he asked for their support, they felt he took in what they had to say.

It was not just a one-way street.

- In politics, mentors are very important, and one of Coolidge's was US Senator Murray Crane.

Crane came from a business background in Western Massachusetts.

He was head of the company that makes the US currency, even today.

And what Coolidge admired about Crane was that he didn't talk a whole lot, and he delegated to others and really got things done.

- One of the hallmarks of the Massachusetts legislature is compromise and getting it done through compromise, not taking extreme positions.

(lively music) - Someone once asked Coolidge if he had any hobbies.

"Sure," he said.

"Running for office."

In the 19-teens, the Republican party was split in half.

Teddy Roosevelt broke away to form the Bull Moose Party, and Calvin Coolidge had to decide exactly where he stood.

So in 1914, when he became head of the Massachusetts Senate, that gave him the opportunity to put a stake in the ground.

(sorrowful music) - [Narrator] "What was needed was a restoration of confidence in our institutions and in each other.

In taking the chair as president of the Senate, I therefore made a short address.

'Have faith in Massachusetts.

In some unimportant detail, some other states may surpass her, but in general results, there is no place on Earth where the people secure in a larger measure the blessings of organized government.

Do the day's work if it be to protect the rights of the weak.

Whoever objects, do it.

If it be to help a powerful corporation better serve the people, whatever the opposition, do that.'"

(sorrowful music) - Well, the speech really resonated.

It became known as "Have Faith in Massachusetts."

In those days, Coolidge voted for some progressive laws and voted for some conservative ones.

For example, he supported antitrust action against theaters and also a pay raise for teachers, but he decided that there were just too many new laws.

In fact, he wrote to his father and said, "It's better to kill a bad law than pass a good one."

He also thought there was too much talk, so at one point he decided to make a point about brevity.

He confined one address to 42 words.

"Be brief," he said.

"Above all, be brief."

Soon Coolidge found himself lieutenant governor, and the United States entered World War I.

After that, he was selected governor and the war was over.

The armistice was declared.

In those days, the governor of Massachusetts just served a one-year term, so there was a lot of pressure.

(sorrowful music) (sorrowful music) - [Narrator] "While war was done, its problems were to confront the state and nation for many years.

New problems constantly arose, and it was possible only to feel my way day to day."

(sorrowful music) - America after the cataclysm of the First World War was looking inward.

You have nativism, isolationism, the Spanish flu of 1918.

You have globalized anxieties about whether America can long endure.

(dramatic music) Disease, war, immigration.

- Another demographic change in the early 20th century is a very, very large influx of immigrants, particularly from Southern Europe, and this also touches off a reaction in the 1920s.

And another tension that occurs in the 1920s, of course, is the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan.

This Klan is fueled by notions of Protestant, native-born white supremacy, and it targets African-Americans but also immigrants, Catholics, and Jews.

(dramatic music) - Farmers struggled.

Workers struggled.

Businesses were struggling.

Newspapers spoke of a capital strike, which is a way of saying businesses felt so uncertain about the future, they weren't investing in the future.

So income earners were wondering, can they move up the ladder?

Can they earn more?

Something that cost a dollar before the war now might cost $1.10, $1.30, $1.50, and wages weren't keeping up.

State and local governments were the brunt of the anger of people who felt they were falling behind and didn't understand why.

(dramatic music) - In the summer of 1919, as another election was closing in, Coolidge sensed a strike was coming from a group that were his loyal supporters: the police of Boston.

The policemen were overworked and underpaid.

Conditions weren't great.

In fact, rats were chewing on the leather helmets in their store room, but the police contract did not allow strikes.

- The police knew that a police strike wouldn't be a quiet strike for Boston, and they knew Coolidge didn't want that so close to an election, in his city, Boston.

So they made a wager that Coolidge would conciliate, and they walked out in early September, breaking their contract.

Coolidge could sense this coming, and he gave a wonderful speech in early September about the importance of the rule of law, going back to the days of Shays' Rebellion, and he quotes a farmer saying, "Well, rules aren't always perfect, but sometimes they're better than nothing."

- And Coolidge did bring out the National Guard to break the strike and did not rehire any of the police officers.

- It was a terrible situation.

And finally, Coolidge send a telegram to Sam Gompers, the labor leader, saying, "there is no right to strike against the public safety, by anybody, anywhere, anytime."

He writes to his family about it.

"Well, this may be it.

I may not be elected again as governor.

This is a serious decision.

It's not gonna be popular."

(dramatic music) in these days after the strike, Coolidge was thinking about Massachusetts.

It's not clear that at this point he realized the whole nation was watching him.

People were saying, "Oh, my gosh, a governor who dares to say what we're thinking.

We're a little wary of emergencies.

We'd like a return to common sense life."

Coolidge did in fact win the Massachusetts election as governor in 1919, but he also won praise from President Wilson, for example, who telegraphed congratulations.

(light music) - [Narrator] "No doubt it was the police strike of Boston that brought me into national prominence.

The country had little interest in mere destructive criticism.

It wanted the progress that alone comes from constructive policies."

(light music) - So how do opponents challenge an incumbent?

By differentiating themselves.

In the 1920 election, Republicans came across as the anti-crisis party.

So Calvin Coolidge was seen as standing stalwartly for law and order, for what was best in America.

Warren Harding was seen as a genial man who had a real understanding of what made America great before the war and the crisis that followed the war.

Their motto was a return to normalcy, and that hit a cord with the American people.

- Normalcy meant an environment where a citizen or a business, a garage owner, say, could a job for a veteran.

When life got better, the divisions and anger would melt.

(dramatic music) - The individual planks of the Harding-Coolidge platform were absolutely key.

It was what they stood for, what the party stood for.

Key to these promises were paying down the federal debt so America wouldn't lose its position as a new economic world leader; reduce taxes to help individuals and businesses to get rid of the assets that government had accumulated during the war, like oil reserves, and not sell them back to the private sector, where they belonged; creating a budget bureau to end the anarchy in the budget process so you could get control of spending on the federal level.

In this election, voters weren't just voting for candidates, Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge.

They were voting for normalcy, getting America back on track again, and normalcy won in a landslide.

(light music) Harding told friends he wanted an outstanding cabinet, and he did appoint many outstanding members.

Most prominent was Andrew Mellon.

He was the greatest industrialist of his time.

He ran railroads.

He ran oil companies.

Harding wanted him in the cabinet, and he made him treasury secretary.

- There was no official residence for the vice president in those days, so the Coolidges moved into the Willard Hotel in Downtown Washington.

The city didn't know what to make of this quiet vice president.

- So there is a story, was Vice President Coolidge, he'd have to go to dinner parties as part of his obligations.

He was once seated next to a woman who told him she had a bet with someone that she could get him to say more than two words during the dinner, and his response was, "You lose."

- The Willard Hotel was no place for boys or pets.

The Coolidges found they had to pack their children off to boarding school at Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania.

They were a bit lonely.

One day, Mrs. Coolidge saw a mouse come out of the wall in her hotel room.

She fed it a few crumbs.

The mouse became her pet.

(dramatic music) - Harding managed to honor several key promises.

One, he got through a tax cut.

Another was he created that budget bureau to create order where there'd been anarchy before.

Chief problem with Harding was a lack of discipline.

It was the beginning of the era of prohibition, yet the president of the United States had drinking parties in the White House.

That, of course, undermined respect for the law and also undermined respect for the individual president, Warren Harding.

The economy was beginning to find its footings just as Harding and Coolidge said it would, but there were problems.

While there were outstanding members in the cabinet, like the secretary of state and the treasury secretary, Andrew Mellon, several other members were engaged in corruption.

For example, they sold oil rights in a place called Teapot Dome to their friends, not to the highest bidder.

So the anti-crisis party had a crisis of its own, Vice President Coolidge sitting there, taking it all in.

(hopeful music) - [Narrator] As vice president, Coolidge did make his mark in some areas.

- There had been introduced legislation against lynching.

Calvin Coolidge came in and recognized how awful this was and spoke in favor of the legislation.

This is a proud moment in his personal history.

- At cabinet meetings, Mellon and Coolidge did build up a rapport.

They're both silent individuals, and people wondered, "How did these two people converse with one another?"

The joke was they conversed in pauses.

- [Narrator] In 1923, the future of the Harding administration was becoming more uncertain.

Harding fell ill, decided to travel out West.

The hope was the trip would rejuvenate the president.

The Coolidges headed for Vermont.

The nights were cooler and waited.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] "On the night of August 2nd, 1923, I was awakened by my father coming up the stairs, calling my name.

I noticed that his voice trembled.

He told me that President Harding had passed away.

I examined the Constitution to determine what might be necessary for qualifying by taking the oath of office.

Having found the form in the Constitution, I set it up on the typewriter, and the oath of office was administered by my father in his capacity as notary public.

I do not know any other case in history where a father has administered to his son the qualifying oath of office, which made him the chief magistrate of the nation.

It seemed a simple and natural thing to do at the time."

(gentle music) - Vice president and Grace said a little prayer.

They came downstairs to the parlor.

- And so the deed was done at 2:47 in the morning on August 3rd, 1923.

- Coolidge told reporters that he would complete perfection what he and Harding had promised in the 1920 platform, but he also made it clear he'd be a different kind of president than Warren Harding.

- It was clear.

His presidency was gonna be without drama, without scandal, and also would not overreach the way his predecessors, he felt, had exceeded what he viewed as the appropriate boundaries of federal executive power.

- When Coolidge's train arrived at the nation's capitol, his minister met him at the station.

Someone asked the new president, "You think you're really up to this challenge?"

He replied, "I think I can swing it."

(gentle music) (dramatic music) - [Narrator] "It is a very old saying that you never can tell what you can do until you try.

When the events of August 1923 bestowed upon me the presidential office, I felt at once that power had been given upon me to administer it."

- That fall, the new president was confident the wager would remain the same to improve voters' lives, to make things better for all people.

It'd be more spending cuts.

It'd be key, more new tax cuts.

(dramatic music) But there were challenges: veterans, farmers, immigration controversy, what kind of tax cuts?

But could he manage that?

And voters weren't so sure.

After all, it was only a year and a half to the next election, and some people saw Coolidge as a lame duck, a seat warmer.

- [Narrator] The Coolidges felt the weight of the challenge.

Coolidge especially missed Calvin, Jr., who was away at boarding school.

Calvin, Jr. seemed to understand the discipline it took to be in the public eye.

- [Narrator] "The day I became president, he had just started to work in a tobacco field.

When one of his fellow laborers said to him, 'If my father was president, I would not work in a tobacco field.'

Calvin replied, 'If my father were your father, you would.'"

- When Coolidge turned to business, the first challenge was the budget.

Harding had cut the budget, but Coolidge knew it needed to be cut even more.

But with the economy strengthening, demands for spending were growing.

Coolidge and his budget bureau director, Herbert Mayhew Lord, met once a week punctually at 9:30 a.m. Their task: find more cuts.

- In government, it's not easy to cut budgets.

Coolidge likened it to cheese pairing at his father's factory back in Plymouth Notch.

He did it little by little and was always very disciplined.

The year he came into the presidency, outlays were 3.14 billion.

The next year they were down to 2.9 billion, and they stayed there for another year.

(dramatic music) - The country was still recovering from war.

Another issue is the many thousands of veterans struggling to find their way back to civilian life.

Imagine that time when wives didn't work, and the one earner in the household needs money and needs to provide for old age, no Social Security.

Why should a veteran not get a pension?

The government at that time generously gave for hospitals for veterans, for rehab for veterans, for work training for veterans to get the vets back into the workforce, but Coolidge drew one of his famous lines on veteran pensions from the federal government.

He said, "We have no money to bestow on one class of people that does not come from all the people," And so he vetoed the bonuses.

Training in hospitals, yes.

Pensions or bonuses, no.

Congress overrode the veterans' veto, but Coolidge had made his point.

(dramatic music) - [Narrator] A veto-proof majority in Congress wanted to restrict immigration.

- There becomes this very bipartisan support for reducing the number of immigrants that are allowed to come into the country.

At the same time, there's also an effort to exclude certain nationalities, most particularly Japanese, and this is a very difficult position for Coolidge.

Coolidge does not support the exclusion of Japanese nationals in the immigration bill, but when the immigration bill is passed by Congress and it includes a Japanese exclusion clause, he reluctantly signs it.

(bittersweet music) - [Narrator] At least he could do something for Native Americans.

- [Narrator] One of Calvin Coolidge's proudest moments for legislation-wise is the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act, which granted everyone living on reservations full citizenship.

- In Coolidge's first year in office, the extent of the Harding scandals was becoming clearer.

A lot of Harding administration friends had made crooked deals with private companies for oil reserves at a place out West called Teapot Dome.

Coolidge appointed special prosecutors from both parties to clean it up.

That bipartisan move impressed a lot of people.

(stately music) - Normalcy meant to Coolidge getting tax rates down, which had risen so high during the war.

His goal seemed very ambitious: to get the top rate down to 25%.

- For Coolidge, it was a moral issue to take one penny away from a hardworking American and waste it on some government program that wasn't effective, was larceny.

- He worked hard on that message.

- I want the people of America to be able to work less for the government and more for themselves.

- [Narrator] That fall, the new president was confident.

When it came to fulfilling the tax pledge, Andrew Mellon at Treasury stepped up.

Mellon knew from the private sector that sometimes if you reduced prices, you generated more sales, more commerce.

He liked to cite railroad freight rates.

If you will reduce the rates, by golly, more people might ship with you, and you ended up with more revenue.

- There's this wonderful file of correspondence from Andrew Mellon by his secretary of the treasury.

The correspondence is just absolutely amazing and seeing how, to a large extent, Mellon is tutoring him on tax policy.

- It requires the ability to build a trusting relationship where you are equal partners, and that is one of the things I most admire about Calvin Coolidge.

- [Narrator] The 1924 tax law that the administration got was a compromise.

Rates were reduced but not nearly as much as Coolidge and Mellon had hoped.

46% was the top rate.

Moreover, Coolidge had to accept some ugly provisions to get the bill through.

- Still, you can sense the determination.

Coolidge decided if he could just win the 1924 election, he could deliver the rest, and things were going Coolidge's way until July, 1924.

(stately music) (somber music) - [Narrator] "My own participation in the election was delayed by the death of my son, Calvin, which occurred on the 7th of July."

- [Narrator] His son, Calvin, Jr., played tennis on the White House tennis court, and Calvin was a boy who had grown quite a bit in the past year.

All of a sudden, he was tall, the way boys will grow several inches in a few months.

That was Calvin.

- And then tragedy strikes playing tennis and develops a blister on his toe.

It becomes infected and develops into blood poisoning and sepsis, and he dies.

There's a picture that's taken of his other son, John, his wife, Grace, his father, John, and himself, and it's about four days after Calvin's death.

The looks on their faces was haunting.

- Like many families, the Coolidges had a spot where they marked their children's height and tracked it over time.

In 1924, they measured John and marked a line.

They added a second line where they guessed Calvin, Jr.'s height would've been, but then added a note, "If he had lived."

- [Narrator] After Calvin, Jr. died, Coolidge sensed more loss was to come.

His father, John, was ailing, and, in fact, his father would pass away less than two years later.

- [Narrator] "For my personal contact with him during his last month, I had to resort to the poor substitute of the telephone.

When I reached home, he was gone.

It costs a great deal to be president.

(bright music) In spite of the remarkable record which had already been made, much remains to be done."

- After a blow like that, many people pour themselves into their work, and that's what Calvin Coolidge did.

He ascended to the presidency on the death of his predecessor and felt that there was so much more to be done for the country.

He wanted to see if the voters would give him a term in his own right.

- In the election of 1924, Coolidge's opponents came from two different parties.

Democrat Party had John Davis, but a member of Coolidge's own party, Senator Robert La Follette of Wisconsin, was running as a third-party candidate from the Progressive Party.

So it was a three-way race, a three-way split.

- Now the Democrats best issue in that election should have been the corruption under Harding, but Coolidge was so above reproach personally that one of the Democrats complained that it was almost unpatriotic to criticize Coolidge.

(bright music) Coolidge ran a masterful campaign.

The economy was good.

He didn't have to respond to anything Davis or La Follette said.

He just stayed above the fray, acted presidential, and he won a big victory.

(bright music) - Coolidge's party gained seats in both the House and the Senate, and that really steeled his determination to deliver on normalcy.

One of the things he did at the inauguration was he promised to return $60,000, had been given to the event, back to their donors.

Simplicity and budget cuts and tax cuts, that's what he was offering and wanted to deliver.

(bright music) (gentle music) - [Narrator] "Well, anything that relates to the functions of government is of enormous interest to me.

Its economic relations have always had a peculiar fascination for me."

(hopeful music) - What Coolidge meant by a constructive economy was cutting the budget bit by bit, which added up over time.

The same went for taxes.

He paired the two, budget cuts and tax cuts, and he delivered on both, not only at the beginning of his presidency, but two years, three years, four years in, the budget was cut.

What do they do?

They go back at the tax fight again, even though it was a bruising one.

This time, Coolidge and Mellon had more success.

They did get that top rate down to their target of 25%, but they also cut other taxes, including excise taxes, so one of the best tax cut bills in American history.

Coolidge's determination was evident even in the names of White House pets.

A mayor had given the president two twin lion cubs.

What did he name them?

With a little bit of humor, Budget Bureau and Tax Reduction.

(hopeful music) Opponents warned that the tax cut rates would mean that the rich would pay less taxes.

Actually, the opposite proved true.

The rich ended up paying more.

(percussive music) (lively music) People could see that the normalcy bet was paying off.

- There is a general feeling of prosperity in the 1920s, and you have material lives of many Americans changing radically.

- In the 20s, electricity became a commonplace.

Telephones became a commonplace.

Indoor plumbing became more and more common.

Movie theaters proliferated.

It's with the rise of the automobile, you saw the greatest road building program since the days of the Roman Empire.

You saw labor saving devices, whether it was electric iron, refrigerators, stoves, and the like, and one of the greatest inventions of all, the washing machine.

Along with the amendment enabling women to vote, gave women more freedom, more possibilities to do things.

- The sale of radios increased by more than 1,000%, and Americans are also spending money on recreational pursuits, whether it's going to movies or sporting events, or maybe traveling with their families.

It really epitomizes the 1920s decade and Coolidge, that, yes, in one regard was backward looking to what had been, on the other hand was forward looking in terms of a more modern type of America, particularly in terms of, for example, celebrating Charles Lindbergh with his solo flight across the Atlantic, where he brings Lindbergh afterwards to the White House.

- I hereby present in the name of the Congress a Medal of Honor to Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh.

(lively music) - I think he saw things like that as an inspiration that even in a modest way we could improve our lives if we could do something as astounding at that time as fly at high speeds across the world.

- On a national tour, one of the places Lindbergh flew over was Plymouth Notch.

Lindbergh dropped down a paper message for the village, "To the city of Plymouth."

(chuckling) Well, that was gratifying.

Little, lonely remote Plymouth was finally connected to the world.

(lively music) (gentle music) - [Narrator] "My speeches would average a little over 3,000 words.

In the course of a year, the entire number reaches about 20.

Each word has to be weighed in the realization that it is a presidential utterance which will be dissected at home and abroad to discover its outward meaning and any possible hidden implications."

(gentle music) - [Narrator] As President, Coolidge spent more and more time writing speeches, and they were magnificent.

- Coolidge was no William Jennings Bryan.

His voice couldn't fill a great hall.

The new medium of radio was a gift to him.

It was said that Coolidge's twang cut through the air like wire.

He gave dozens of addresses on the radio.

The only reason we don't know about them is because most weren't recorded.

All politicians wonder, "will anyone understand what I'm doing?"

By 1927, Coolidge had balanced four budgets.

He had reduced federal debt by 1/3.

He wanted to explain why he did what he did, that he wasn't just being Scrooge.

He wanted to make a better life for the American people.

He said, "I'm for economy not because I want to save money but because I wanna save people."

- When the government affects a new economy, it grants everybody a life pension with which to raise the standard of existence.

- Coolidge wanted to break the caricature of business, and he said the chief business of the American people is business, but he also pointed out that the chief ideal of the American people is idealism.

- A speech to veterans in 1925 provides an example of Coolidge's idealism.

He traveled to Omaha to speak to the American Legion.

In the summer of that year, the Ku Klux Klan had rallied in Washington on the National Mall, but at Omaha, Coolidge delivered a direct condemnation of bigotry.

- [Narrator] Whether one traces his Americanism back three centuries to the Mayflower or three years to the steerage is not half so important as whether his Americanism of today is real and genuine.

"No matter by what various crafts we came here, we are all now in the same boat."

(crowd chattering) (stately music) - One of the things that Coolidge did, which sent a very powerful message in terms of his position on civil rights, is that he had a very powerful speech that he delivered at Howard University.

- He was highly criticized by some in his party for coming to Howard, and the content of what he said was also way ahead of his time.

- [Narrator] "The Black man showed himself the same kind of citizen, moved by the same kind of patriotism, as the white man.

They were tempted but not one betrayed his country."

(stately music) - He felt very strongly that there should be investment in the African-American community.

President Coolidge persuaded Congress to appropriate money for the investment in Howard University Medical School.

That had a huge impact not only on the quality of healthcare in the African-American community but the development of a strong middle class.

- I actually came across his 1926 speech on the Declaration of Independence.

When I read that speech, I realized, well, here is somebody who really gets the American founding, and that caught my attention because there really aren't many presidents in the 20th century who not only get the founding but revere it.

Coolidge understood the spiritual dimensions of the American founding.

There's a portion of that speech where he says, "If all men are created equal, that's final.

If they're endowed by their creator with these unalienable rights, that is final."

(gentle music) (ducks quacking) Their idea of equality is no person is born to rule other people, and no person is naturally a slave, and therefore, if you're going to be ruled, it has to be with your consent.

That's a key insight.

I get this theme that runs throughout the writing that Coolidge did.

He says, "To be self-governing, you have to be self-supporting.

You have to solve your own (chuckling) problems."

And so he's giving people the benefit of being in control of their own destiny even though sometimes that's hard.

(gentle music) (gentle music) - [Narrator] "It is difficult for men in high office to avoid the malady of self-delusion.

They live in an artificial atmosphere of adulation and exaltation, which sooner or later impairs their judgment.

The chances of having wise and faithful public service are increased by a change in the presidential office after a moderate length of time."

- In the summer of 1927, the Coolidges headed for a change to South Dakota.

- The Coolidge party boards the train in Washington, DC and rides it all the way out 1,600 miles to Rapid City in the Black Hills.

When the Coolidges got out here, they set up for the summer in the State Game Lodge in Custer State Park, and that was their base of operations for the summer.

President Coolidge's routine was basically he would wake up early in the State Game Lodge and have breakfast.

Somebody would drive him to Rapid City.

The organizers of the Belle Fourche Roundup, just outside the Black Hills, gave Coolidge a big gaudy 10-gallon hat and invited him to come to their rodeo later in the summer.

(stately music) - The sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, is there to laying the final plans, commenced the work on Rushmore.

Coolidge supported monuments, he loved the American West, but the scale of the Rushmore project kinda grossed him out.

- During the summer, he was out here.

He wakes up one morning, gets in a car, and is driven to his office in Rapid City High School.

But when he gets there, he has this little note that he's written.

He has his office staff make about 30 copies of this note.

The reporters come in for their regular twice-weekly press conference with the president, and he says to the reporters, "If you'll all come by here and take a slip of paper."

They open up a (chuckles) slip of paper, and it says, "I do not choose to run for president in 1928."

All the reporters rushed out to report the news to the nation's newspapers.

- The Republican party didn't get it.

Why would an incumbent give up a sure reelection?

Moreover, became clear and clearer that the successor to Coolidge would be somebody that Coolidge really wasn't very fond of: Herbert Hoover.

- [Narrator] Still, 1927, 1928 passed, and Coolidge did not change his mind.

It took about half a year, but the nation finally absorbed the reality: Coolidge's decision was final.

- While some couldn't understand why an incumbent would give up the sure reelection, Coolidge saw the larger picture.

He saw it as a triumph.

- In a republic, the public is supposed to be more important than the individual, and his retiring, I think, speaks well of someone who had had ultimate power.

Incredibly difficult to give up power once you have it.

Remember, when George Washington resigned his commission, George III said he could be a king, and if he gives up, he'll be the greatest man in the world.

(stately music) - Unfortunately, the President's retirement proved quite short.

One morning in January 1933, Grace returned home from some errands.

She didn't find him downstairs, so she went upstairs, and there he was on the floor.

He was already gone.

He was only 60.

The burial could only be in one place: back in Plymouth Notch.

The President's grave is no taller than those of the adults around him.

The only distinguishing mark on it is the presidential seal.

The choice of tombstone was Calvin Coolidge's final act of humility.

(stately music) (birds chirping) (revering music) - One of the really important things that Coolidge did was balance the budgets, He ran surpluses and was able to pay down the national debt.

- He wanted to provide for a pathway to prosperity, and that's what was so important, because he did just that.

- Some people say you have to learn history so not to repeat it, but another reason to learn history is so you can repeat it.

- Coolidge famously said that it's important for the president to acknowledge that he is not a great man, and I think that's how Coolidge saw it, not as a prominent chief executive of the country but as one of many public servants who did his best to advance the cause of the American people.

- You're just the man we need.

You didn't do nothing, but that's what we wanted done.

(crowd laughing) - We tend to view restraint as weakness, but Coolidge showed restraint can be strength.

- He was a servant leader in the fullest sense of the word, which came from his religious principles and his veneration of the U.S. Constitution.

(revering music) - The most important part of his legacy is his commitment to civility and to promoting opportunity for all at a time when others really oppose that principle for our country.

Those things really stand the test of time.

- Presidents go out and campaign and make promises to people about a whole host of things.

Not everyone likes those promises, but what they do like is Coolidge kept his word, and that's something that all Americans can appreciate.

- [Narrator] I think he is underrated, and his stock will continue to rise as time goes on because he's exactly what we need at this point in time.

(gentle music)