President Calvin Coolidge

choi

Robert Merry, Calvin Coolidge for President. The Coolidges lived simply and avoided debt. They even rented a house instead of taking on a mortgage to buy. Wall Street Journal, Feb 10, 2013 (subtitle in print)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB ... 82212160724672.html
(book review on Amity Shlaes, Coolidge. Harper, 2013)

Note:
(a) Calvin Coolidge
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_Coolidge
(birth name  John Calvin Coolidge, Jr; 1872-1933; after college: "Avoiding the costly alternative of attending a law school, Coolidge followed the more common practice of the time, apprenticing with a local [Amherst, Mass] law firm, Hammond & Field"; in 1905 "[age 33] married the daughter of a Vermont steamboat inspector, Grace Anna Goodhue, who was working as a teacher at the Clarke School for the Deaf"; Governor of Massachusetts 1919-1921 when he was elected vice president of United States; US president 1923–1929; Republican)
(i) The surname Coolidge was "probably an occupational name for a college servant or someone with some other association with a university college."
(ii) Calvin (given name)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_(given_name)
(John Calvin of France)
(iii) The Southern French surname Calvin is "from a diminutive of Old Occitan calv ‘bald’ (from Latin calvus)."
(iv) He was born in
Plymouth Notch, Vermont.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plymouth_Notch,_Vermont
(v) He attended Black River Academy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_River_Academy
(a public high school 1835-1938; now a museum: Black River Academy Museum, a museum of local history)
located at village of Ludlow in Vermont)
(vi) He went to Amherst College.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amherst_College
(private; located in Amherst, Massachusetts; Established 1821)
(vii) Remember that his presidency coincided with the Roaring Twenties. As President Bill Clinton did not get all the credit of the prosperous nineties, so shouldn't President Coolidge.

(b) His predecessaor:
(i) Warren Harding
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Harding
(1865-1923; US president 1921–1923; a Repiblican from Ohio)
(ii) Woodrow Wilson
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_Wilson
(full name Thomas Woodrow Wilson; son of Joseph Ruggles Wilson and Jessie Janet Woodrow; 1856-1924; US president 1913-1921; Democrat)

(c) The review describes Mr Coolidge as a "flinty-faced New Englander."

flinty (adj): "resembling flint; especially: STERN, UNYIELDING <flinty determination>"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/flinty

(d) For city solicitor, see city attorney
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_attorney
(can be an elected or appointed position in US)

In City of Boston, Corporate Counsel of city of Boston is appointed by a mayor.
(e) The review says, "A Coolidge exchange with Grace's father reflects the spare mode of New England expression: 'Up here on some law business, Mr. Coolidge?' 'Come to see about marrying Grace.'"

The question was posed by Grace's father, when Mr Coolidge went up (north) to Vermont, from Amherst. The latter replied.

(f) The review states, "In the state Senate, Coolidge voted for * * * a state income tax."
(i) Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six ... States_Constitution
(ratified on Feb 3, 1913 [a century ago this month])
allowed the federal government to collect federal income tax.
(ii) Wisconsin was the first state to impose income tax. See

Howe ET and Reeb DJ, The Historical Evolution of State and Local Tax Systems. Social Science Quarterly (1997) 78: 109-121
www.lincolninst.edu/subcenters/p ... ry/dl/howe_reeb.pdf
("The 1911 Wisconsin income tax law, the first modern statute, levied state-administered rates on individuals and corporations based on "information returns" filed by businesses that detailed various forms of income payments. Income taxes were quickly adopted in Mississippi (1912), Connecticut (1915), Virginia (1915), Massachusetts (1916), Delaware (1917), Missouri (1917), Montana (1917), North Carolina (1919), North Dakota (1919), and New York (1919)")

(iii) Wisconsin Income Tax is 100 Years Old. Wisconsin Historical Society, Apr , 2011
http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/ ... wisconsin_incom.asp

a section (with a heading and two paragraphs):

"Three Centuries of Failure

"Taxing income (as opposed to real estate, personal property or other tangible assets) was begun by the Puritans in Massachusetts in 1643. It didn't work. In fact, all 16 states that tried to tax incomes from 1643 to 1911 failed to raise significant amounts of revenue.

"The principal reasons that income taxes didn't work were that most citizens deliberately lied about their incomes, elected officials were reluctant to antagonize voters by enforcing the law, and income was hard to verify compared to tangible property. Experts even said that taxing income was impossible.

(iv) state income tax
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_income_tax
(section 6 History)

(g) During Coolidge's presidency, Republican Party dominated both chambers of the Congress. See

United States elections, 1924
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_elections,_1924

choi

Calvin Coolidge and the Great Depression | When Less Led to More; America’s 30th president has been much misunderstood. Economist, Feb 23, 2013.
http://www.economist.com/news/bo ... -when-less-led-more