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Calvin Coolidge Was Super Weird...and Surprisingly Cool · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
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Speaker 1: the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
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Speaker 1: for tuning in. Shout out to our super producer, mister
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Speaker 1: Max Williams. Shout out to another guy, a very cool cat,
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Speaker 1: who is in fact following up on a pop quiz
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Speaker 1: for our Ridiculous Historians tuning in earlier this week. Calvin
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Speaker 1: Coolidge was not, in fact the basis of Calvinism. There
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Speaker 1: are a lot of people named Calvin in the world.
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Speaker 1: And know all you pointed out, Calvin Clyde, You're no Brown,
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Speaker 1: I'm ben Bowling. But out of all the US presidents
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Speaker 1: named Calvin, this guy is automatically the coolest.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I would agree with that.
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Speaker 3: And as of the recording of this podcast, forty five
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Speaker 3: individual human people have held the position of president of
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Speaker 3: these United States. And Max pointed out that there might
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Speaker 3: be some personnikity listeners that would say, hey, Max, what's
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Speaker 3: the deal? There have been forty six presidents. You have
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Speaker 3: to remember, fair listeners, that Grover.
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Speaker 2: Cleveland was both the twenty second and the twenty fourth president.
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Speaker 4: And there are the facts.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, there we go. And there were a lot of
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Speaker 1: also rants in Potus history. That's just the acronym president
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Speaker 1: of the United States. One person who gets a lot
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Speaker 1: of heat is a president named Warren G. Harding. Hang on, Ben,
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Speaker 1: you might be saying, why are we talking about Harding?
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Speaker 1: You just made such a big deal about a president
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Speaker 1: named Calvin Well. That's because Warren G. Harding, Warren G.
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Speaker 1: Warren G.
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Speaker 3: It was the regulator.
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Speaker 1: Yep, he's the first one. Warren G. Gets elected president.
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Speaker 1: We're abbreviating a lot of this. Here's what you need
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Speaker 1: to know. Warren G. Becomes president, he is unfortunately unable
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Speaker 1: to complete his term of office. He passes away while
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Speaker 1: he's president in nineteen twenty three. And this means that
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Speaker 1: his vice president, Calvin Coolidge, automatically becomes commander in chief,
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Speaker 1: the thirtieth president in the history of the United States.
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Speaker 1: And you know, I love credit. I love shouting out
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Speaker 1: our research associates. Credit to Max Williams for this beautiful
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Speaker 1: turn of phrase. Here what would ensue would arguably be
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Speaker 1: the call mist boringist presidency in the history of America,
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Speaker 1: but also somehow the most hilarious and ridiculous.
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Speaker 2: Dare we say so?
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Speaker 1: It's very important to shout out our research associates, and
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Speaker 1: in today's episode, we're going to dive into the history
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Speaker 1: of a guy who had a street name as President
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Speaker 1: Silent Cal.
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Speaker 3: And this is not like one of the classic opposite
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Speaker 3: day nicknames like Little John, not the rapper, but the
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Speaker 3: member of the Robin Hood, Mary Band or.
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Speaker 2: You know what was it. There was actually someone in history.
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Speaker 3: I know what it was. It was in Skyrim. There
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Speaker 3: is an orphanage in riftin I believe that is run
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Speaker 3: by this sort of miss Hannigan type figure. I can't
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Speaker 3: remember her name, but when you talk to one of
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Speaker 3: the NPC's when you go in and hear her beating
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Speaker 3: the child and saying, how you gotta snipes, will never
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Speaker 3: be adopted ever, you're mine, And they say, the nice
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Speaker 3: kind lady that works there tells you, yeah, people around
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Speaker 3: town call her kind Margaret or something loved.
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Speaker 1: The kind.
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Speaker 3: Boiler certainly on the Brotherhood also haven't gone. I did
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Speaker 3: immediately want to murder her. But Silent Cal was in
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Speaker 3: fact quite a laconic figure, the one that definitely wouldn't
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Speaker 3: talk unless he had something to say.
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Speaker 1: Favorite mentioned this on the on the air in a
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Speaker 1: previous episode, so got to give credit where its to.
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Speaker 1: My favorite Talvin Coolidge anecdote is one time someone came
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Speaker 1: up to him and said, because he's so famously taciturn,
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Speaker 1: they came up to him and said, I bet I
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Speaker 1: could get three words out of you, and our buddy
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Speaker 1: cal looked around, looked at the person, and then said,
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Speaker 1: you lose.
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Speaker 3: Ooh, James set match match whatever. Yeah, Calvin, what a guy.
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Speaker 3: Let's learn more about him, though, Let's do it. David Greenberg,
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Speaker 3: writer of Calvin Coolidge Life before the Presidency for the
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Speaker 3: University of Virginia's Miller Center, had this to say. Coolidge
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Speaker 3: was born John Calvin Coolidge Junior on July fourth, eighteen
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Speaker 3: seventy two, in Plymouth.
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Speaker 2: Notch, Vermont.
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Speaker 3: He grew up helping his storekeeper father tend to the accounts,
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Speaker 3: selling apples, and doing other chores around the store at
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Speaker 3: home on the family farm. As a boy, Coolidge had
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Speaker 3: little ambition in life beyond hoping to follow his father
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Speaker 3: as a good.
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Speaker 2: Honest, small town merchant.
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Speaker 1: In the original course of research here, I had initially
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Speaker 1: misread that that passage as Calvin Coolidge grew up helping
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Speaker 1: his storekeeper father to tend apples and sell accounts, which is.
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Speaker 2: You know, sketchy selling it well maybe yeah the time.
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Speaker 1: So anyway, yeah, let's let's learn about the patter familias here.
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Speaker 1: The senior Coolidge is a kind of hard nosed guy.
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Speaker 1: He's a pillar of the community, upstanding dude, probably not
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Speaker 1: a ton of fun at parties. But he's also active
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Speaker 1: in local government. He's in the Vermont's House Representatives, he
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Speaker 1: serves a term in the Senate of Vermont. And he
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Speaker 1: also he's one of those guys who is continually in
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Speaker 1: local office, like one of my kind of sketchy uncles. Sorry,
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Speaker 1: Uncle Sam.
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Speaker 2: Isn't Bernie Sanders from Vermont?
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Speaker 1: Isn't that Sanders? Yeah, Sanders is a Vermont guy.
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Speaker 3: It just strikes me as a place that breeds level
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Speaker 3: headed individuals.
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Speaker 2: I don't know why.
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Speaker 1: Maybe it's it's beautiful in autumn. Go if you get
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Speaker 1: a chance, people drive up there just to see the leaves.
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Speaker 1: So everybody says, all right, this guy Coolidge is he
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Speaker 1: he's not a wild Coolidge, the elder patter familius. Again,
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Speaker 1: he's not a wild man. You know. You see, some
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Speaker 1: years he's the peace officer, some years he's the tax collector.
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Speaker 1: But he is good at his job. He's good at
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Speaker 1: running his store, he's thrifty, he's also a farmer, and
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Speaker 1: he's got this sort of solidity to him. He is
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Speaker 1: an anchor for the town and he's committed to public service.
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Speaker 1: And this is something that we know young Calvin aspired to.
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Speaker 1: He really looked up to his father on miny levels.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, and he also appreciated how good he
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Speaker 3: was with money. And I love how David Greenberg describes
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Speaker 3: the younger Coolidge in terms of his academic pursuits. He
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Speaker 3: described him as a fair to average student in the
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Speaker 3: Plymouth Elementary school, and he did manage to make good
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Speaker 3: enough grades to get into Amherst College, which was considered,
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Speaker 3: you know, prestigious at the time. So he must have
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Speaker 3: worked hard because if if he's considering him a fair
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Speaker 3: to average student he's getting into a prestigious university, that
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Speaker 3: probably means he had to bust his butt to like
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Speaker 3: keep those grades up and that it was important to him.
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Speaker 2: He wasn't just naturally a whiz, you know in school.
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Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, he is not necessarily the most precocious student,
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Speaker 1: but he does understand the value of study and hard work.
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Speaker 1: He gets excellent grades in his last two years at
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Speaker 1: Amherst College. He graduates with honors in fact cum laude,
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Speaker 1: and he becomes a member of the Republican Club and
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Speaker 1: the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity. He also gets He also
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Speaker 1: gets known for his dry wit, and I love that
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Speaker 1: he was lauded for his public speaking skills. He actually
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Speaker 1: got the junior prize in oratory competitions, which is just like,
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Speaker 1: who is the best at talking in front of more
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Speaker 1: than four people?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's funny.
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Speaker 3: I mean, when you think about his reputation as being
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Speaker 3: somewhat taciturn, it is kind of funny that he was
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Speaker 3: the one who was brought up to host sort of
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Speaker 3: like a roast kind of situation of the graduating class.
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Speaker 3: I just I don't know I can possibly even attempt
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Speaker 3: to do it. I'm just not funny enough. But I
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Speaker 3: would love to see a sketch where someone did like
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Speaker 3: a stand up comedy set presented by Calvin Coolidge. It'd
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Speaker 3: probably be something along the lines of like Joe Para,
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Speaker 3: you know, very monotone, kind of meadow, kind of string
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Speaker 3: of dad jokes.
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Speaker 2: I'm just picturing this. I don't know.
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Speaker 1: He also, in addition to that, and obviously that's a
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Speaker 1: pitch for his upcoming podcast. He also got first prize
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Speaker 1: for his essay The Principles Fought for in the American Revolution.
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Speaker 1: He eventually goes to Northampton, Massachusetts, where he reads law
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Speaker 1: in a law firm. He passes the bar in the
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Speaker 1: summer of eighteen ninety seven. One big thing about the
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Speaker 1: United States versus a lot of other powerful countries is
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Speaker 1: that many US press scidents have their background in the
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Speaker 1: world of law, in the world of litigation. You can
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Speaker 1: look at other countries where many leaders have their background
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Speaker 1: in engineering stuff like that. It's just it's a cultural
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Speaker 1: fun fact. He opens a law office, and if you
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Speaker 1: own a law office in the late eighteen hundreds, guess what.
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Speaker 1: You also participate in local politics. And that's what Calvin does.
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Speaker 1: Following I would argue in his father's footsteps.
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Speaker 3: And Coolidge's sort of ascension into political life was very
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Speaker 3: measured and it was just kind of like slow and
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Speaker 3: steady wins the race. And around nineteen hundred he started
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Speaker 3: to do some work with the local Republican Club in Northampton,
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Speaker 3: and this ultimately led to him getting a place on
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Speaker 3: the city council.
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Speaker 1: So in his ascension he becomes Lieutenant governor in nineteen sixteen.
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Speaker 1: He holds that role for two years, and then he
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Speaker 1: gets some national press because he runs for the position
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Speaker 1: of governor of Massachusetts and he barely wins. He just
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Speaker 1: edges out the Democratic candidate, Richard H. Long, and so
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Speaker 1: now the eyes of the world and probably people in
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Speaker 1: Congress are upon him. And this is fratuitous timing because
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Speaker 1: the Republican Party, as we know, returns to power at
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Speaker 1: the end of World War One. And then also he
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Speaker 1: does some things that remain controversial to some. He gets
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Speaker 1: a lot of press across the nation when he calls
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Speaker 1: on the National Guard of Massachusetts to break a strike
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Speaker 1: by the Boston City Police, and then he says, there
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Speaker 1: is no right to strike against the public safety by
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Speaker 1: anybody anywhere anytime.
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Speaker 2: We don't like that. That's not great.
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Speaker 3: This was seen historically, you know, upon further analysis, is
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Speaker 3: something of a reactionary move, but it was actually pretty
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Speaker 3: popular at the time because labor sentiment pro labor sentiment
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Speaker 3: was not necessarily what it is today.
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Speaker 2: I guess it's still a little.
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Speaker 3: Bit complicated for some people, but at the time it
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Speaker 3: certainly wasn't, you know, considered like the position of the
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Speaker 3: you know, moral individual, the moral citizen, that workers deserve
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Speaker 3: to be treated with respect, and it got him some
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Speaker 3: pretty serious support.
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Speaker 5: I do want to jump in here though, and say, like,
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Speaker 5: there was actually an extensive writing I found while researching
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Speaker 5: this that said Coolidge kind of regretted doing this in
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Speaker 5: the future because he was up despite like, you know,
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Speaker 5: he was a Republican, he was a fisical conservative, but
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Speaker 5: he was actually a pretty progressive dude, and he would
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Speaker 5: look back like, I shouldn't have done that, but because
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Speaker 5: it's like, you know, the cops are striking, but also
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Speaker 5: you know, you shouldn't send the National Guard into break
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Speaker 5: a strike.
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Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I mean there was a sense I think
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Speaker 3: maybe it wasn't so much about like the public at
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Speaker 3: large being anti labor, but the results of these types
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Speaker 3: of strikes were lawlessness, or at least we're seeing as lawlessness,
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Speaker 3: and I think the general population was like looking at
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Speaker 3: strikes through that lens, right exactly.
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Speaker 1: And you know, despite this, overall, he is pursuing a
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Speaker 1: pretty progressive agenda for a politician of his stature at
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Speaker 1: the time. He says, look, if you're a public employee,
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Speaker 1: we know the cost of living is rising. We've got
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Speaker 1: to pay you what you're worth. If you are a
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Speaker 1: child who is working, then you shouldn't work more than
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Speaker 1: forty eight hours, which we knew a week, which we
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Speaker 1: know sounds terrible now, but that was actually that was
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Speaker 1: a really good move on his part. He also did,
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Speaker 1: by the way, limit the work week for women in Massachusetts.
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Speaker 1: He said, there's too many billboards, there's too much advertise.
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Speaker 1: Let's calm that down. People liked it on both sides
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Speaker 1: of the political aisle. People were like, he gets it.
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Speaker 3: There's a little something for everybody, you know, and the
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Speaker 3: kind of stuff he's doing. And so he continued to
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Speaker 3: advance in local politics and eventually went on to marry
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Speaker 3: Grace Anna Goodhue. That was on October fourth of nineteen
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Speaker 3: oh five at her parents' house in Burlington, Vermont. And
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Speaker 3: she was also a graduate of the Higher Education in
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Speaker 3: the University of Vermont, a Phi Beta Kappa member, and
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Speaker 3: was a teacher at the Clark Institute for the Deaf
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Speaker 3: in Northampton.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and they've got a nice meet cute. I think
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Speaker 1: it's good for a rom com So Max, if we
14:44
Speaker 1: could get some we get some rom calm music. I
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Speaker 1: leave it to you, sir. So Coolidge gets Grace's attention
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Speaker 1: one morning because she is walking through town in Northampton
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Speaker 1: and he was living a boarding house at the time,
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Speaker 1: and she walks through the streets. She happens to look
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Speaker 1: up and she sees an open window where there's this
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Speaker 1: guy standing. It is underwear, shaving and wearing a hat.
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Speaker 3: Was it a baseball cap? We don't know at this time, glistening,
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Speaker 3: you know, with shaving cream. It reminds me of like
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Speaker 3: the trope of like the sexy bare chest to construction
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Speaker 3: worker with a six pack drinking a diet coke on
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Speaker 3: a roof, but only way nerdier and schlubbier and less sexy.
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Speaker 1: I also think it's interesting that we don't know what
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Speaker 1: part of his body he was shaving. I mean, history
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Speaker 1: wants us to assume it was his face.
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Speaker 3: I'm going to come clean on something, y'all. I once,
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Speaker 3: when I was younger. I don't know why I shaved
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Speaker 3: my right thigh, or rather a calf, and I swear
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Speaker 3: to you the hair has never grown back to this day.
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Speaker 1: A like Lee's story. Oh that's cool, man. I mean, swimmers, hey,
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Speaker 1: swimmers are some of the most physically fit people, and
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Speaker 1: they shave all the time. They got to get rid
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Speaker 1: of the friction. Okay, it wasn't love at first sight.
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Speaker 1: She thought he looked like a cartoon. And then she
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Speaker 1: go thawed, this was not a coquettish cover the mouth
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Speaker 1: kind of thing.
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Speaker 2: This is like, are you okay?
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Speaker 1: And she could fowt as I was saying, and she
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Speaker 1: laughed long and loud enough for him to notice her,
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Speaker 1: and then she turned away. And he later like, when
16:37
Speaker 1: they talk about this later, because they have a long relationship.
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Speaker 1: When they talk about this later, he tries to justify it,
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Speaker 1: and he says, well, I wear a hat when I'm
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Speaker 1: shaving because I get to keep my hair out of
16:50
Speaker 1: my eyes.
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Speaker 2: That's respectable. Yeah, I'll buy that.
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Speaker 3: I do love this though, whenever you hear and I've
16:57
Speaker 3: got a couple of friends who very similar story. He said,
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Speaker 3: I am going to be married to you one day.
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Speaker 3: I guess that was him actually proposed that. Yeah, that's true.
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Speaker 3: Maybe it's just a little different. But as a couple
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Speaker 3: of dear friends of mine who I've known for a
17:14
Speaker 3: long time, who I knew separately, one of them said
17:18
Speaker 3: was I'm going to marry that girl, And he definitely did,
17:21
Speaker 3: which is so romantic.
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Speaker 1: Again, Rodic and Grace really dug this Calvin Coolidge vibe,
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Speaker 1: just like the populace of Massachusetts. She immediately said something
17:34
Speaker 1: to the effect of, I imagine you have mistaken that for
17:37
Speaker 1: a proposal, But yeah, dude, I'm in.
17:40
Speaker 2: Al then you rogue.
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Speaker 1: So they have a kid. They have John in nineteen
17:45
Speaker 1: oh six, and then in nineteen oh eight they have
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Speaker 1: Calvin Junior. The whole time, by the way, our buddy
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Speaker 1: Calvin Coolidge is pursuing his career in politics, and as
17:56
Speaker 1: we know, he reaches some rarefied heights.
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Speaker 3: He does, and it all really starts with his attending
18:03
Speaker 3: the Republican National Convention in Chicago as the state's favorite
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Speaker 3: candidate for the Republican presidential nomination.
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Speaker 2: That's in nineteen twenty.
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Speaker 3: He only got thirty four votes on the first ballot.
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Speaker 3: But then there was some you know how backroom deals,
18:19
Speaker 3: especially back in the early days of politics, were really
18:22
Speaker 3: the thing that elevated well, who am I kidding?
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Speaker 2: Of course, it's still that way today.
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Speaker 3: Was come on, I s to have any illusions, but
18:31
Speaker 3: there were some of these deals going on that helped
18:34
Speaker 3: ensure that Warren G. Harding was in fact nominated. We
18:38
Speaker 3: already talked about Warren g All. Remember what happened with him?
18:41
Speaker 3: He regulated, he did, he got regulated. Coolidge wasn't initially
18:47
Speaker 3: part of the conversation to be his running mate. They
18:50
Speaker 3: were hoping for a guy by the name of Irving
18:53
Speaker 3: Linn Roots, Wisconsin.
18:57
Speaker 2: Honorable Senator Irving Lynn Roots.
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Speaker 3: I'm we all remember that name, right, definitely Len Root
19:05
Speaker 3: for life and and Coolidge name did get Coolidge's name
19:09
Speaker 3: rather did get dropped into the ring. And then there
19:13
Speaker 3: was some support that rallied around him from some delegates
19:17
Speaker 3: that were sort of I think, kind of almost I
19:21
Speaker 3: guess protesting in a way like yeah, it.
19:24
Speaker 1: Was more like they were voting against Len Roots. That's right,
19:27
Speaker 1: and that's right in the larger context. Shout out to
19:30
Speaker 1: our friends at Encyclopedia Britannica. In the larger context, Calvin
19:35
Speaker 1: just keeps lucking out because he's on the ticket now,
19:38
Speaker 1: as you said, in the nineteen twenty election is really
19:42
Speaker 1: a question for America, and the question is do you
19:45
Speaker 1: or do you not like President Woodrow Wilson. We know
19:49
Speaker 1: our pal Max doesn't like Woodrow Wilson because he gave
19:52
Speaker 1: Woodrow Wilson, the nickname dumb Dick.
19:55
Speaker 6: Woodrow Wilson is the fucking worst?
19:58
Speaker 1: Is you is?
19:58
Speaker 3: Or is you ain't?
19:59
Speaker 1: My constitut See, well he's no Franklin Pierce, but a
20:02
Speaker 1: few people yeah.
20:03
Speaker 5: In my book, I mean she resegregated the national He
20:08
Speaker 5: sure did.
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Speaker 7: He was.
20:09
Speaker 6: He basically murdered Eugene V.
20:12
Speaker 2: Debs.
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Speaker 6: So yeah.
20:13
Speaker 1: Oh also uh oh Andrew Jackson as well. Look, the
20:18
Speaker 1: presidents aren't perfect nor.
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Speaker 6: As generally pretty bad.
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Speaker 5: If you actually go put it, hold them up like
20:24
Speaker 5: the wasn't the last one hundred plus a years look
20:26
Speaker 5: a lot.
20:26
Speaker 6: Better when you go back before nineteen hundred.
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Speaker 1: You gotta see there's a great stand up comic who's
20:31
Speaker 1: really making a name for himself, Shane Gillis. You got
20:34
Speaker 1: to see his bit on George Washington. It's amazing, and
20:38
Speaker 1: visiting the Washing the Washington Museum anyway. So people aren't
20:42
Speaker 1: surprised that Harding wins the election pretty easily. And part
20:48
Speaker 1: of the reason he wins this pretty easily, to your point, Max,
20:51
Speaker 1: is because Eugene V. Debs is imprisoned at the time,
20:57
Speaker 1: and uh, and the status quo is against him. Republicans
21:00
Speaker 1: are like, look, our boy Harding and Calvin. We guess
21:04
Speaker 1: they win, and this means that we can reverse all
21:08
Speaker 1: of the policies Woodrow Wilson made in the US, and
21:12
Speaker 1: we can also get rid of all the international overtures
21:15
Speaker 1: he made across the world.
21:16
Speaker 3: I love that about government changing hands, where it's like, hey,
21:19
Speaker 3: let's do everything we can to wipe out what the
21:22
Speaker 3: last people.
21:22
Speaker 1: Did psyche other countries.
21:24
Speaker 2: It seems really effective.
21:26
Speaker 1: Faclks the number one reason that other countries don't trust
21:30
Speaker 1: the United States.
21:31
Speaker 3: And thus begins one of the most corrupt, toward nasty
21:37
Speaker 3: presidential terms in the history of the United States.
21:40
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah.
21:42
Speaker 1: And that's where people start rightly saying that President Harding
21:46
Speaker 1: is a very open to and vulnerable to corruption. This
21:52
Speaker 1: really stresses Harding out. Historians speculate it may have been
21:56
Speaker 1: a factor that led to his early death. He got
21:58
Speaker 1: a heart attack in August of nineteen twenty three, and
22:02
Speaker 1: so on August third, nineteen twenty three, at like two
22:05
Speaker 1: point thirty in the morning, Calvin Coolidge gets the official
22:09
Speaker 1: word that he is now President of the United States,
22:14
Speaker 1: and he goes to his dad, because his dad.
22:17
Speaker 2: Does the shop keep the humble shopkeeper from Vermont.
22:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, his dad, like me, is a notary public and
22:23
Speaker 1: so his dad's wait a humble brag. It's easy, you
22:27
Speaker 1: should do it. It's fun. You get a stamp. So
22:31
Speaker 1: his own father administers the oath of office, and Coolidge
22:38
Speaker 1: takes his oath with the family Bible. It might seem weird,
22:42
Speaker 1: and it might seem a little bit ad hoc, but
22:44
Speaker 1: we have to remember then as now, there always has
22:49
Speaker 1: to be a president as immediately as possible. So they
22:53
Speaker 1: can't hold up to like travel outside of Vermont. They
22:57
Speaker 1: can't schedule a day. It has to happen.
23:00
Speaker 2: Now.
23:00
Speaker 1: I think that's pretty dramatic. Honestly it is.
23:03
Speaker 3: You know, in Coolidge again, he had a little something
23:06
Speaker 3: for everybody. As he ascended to the role of the president,
23:11
Speaker 3: he realized that there was some damage control that needed
23:15
Speaker 3: to be done, you know, sort of rebrand this administration
23:19
Speaker 3: to differentiate them from the corruption of the Harding administration. Yeah,
23:25
Speaker 3: and really inherited kind of a pile of crap that
23:28
Speaker 3: he had to mold into a beautiful sculpture.
23:31
Speaker 2: I don't, okay do with that image, which it's.
23:33
Speaker 1: A real messy bowl of spaghetti. And he does have
23:36
Speaker 1: to bring order out of this chaos and skullduggery. So
23:41
Speaker 1: he's again a very tenacious guy. He's the kind of
23:46
Speaker 1: guy who doesn't make a big to do. He just
23:49
Speaker 1: does what he believes should be done. And so it
23:53
Speaker 1: comes to pass, I'm saying, And so it comes to
23:56
Speaker 1: pass a lot more often because I feel like that
23:58
Speaker 1: raises our dramatic stakes. And so it comes to pass
24:01
Speaker 1: that Coolidge one by one starts rooting out the sources
24:06
Speaker 1: of corruption and making the executive branch of the US
24:10
Speaker 1: government a model of integrity. And this is in his
24:15
Speaker 1: own image. He says, Look, you know, America, we might
24:19
Speaker 1: not agree on everything, but I will deal with you
24:23
Speaker 1: and the fate of our nation in good faith. I
24:27
Speaker 1: am someone you can trust.
24:28
Speaker 2: Yeah.
24:29
Speaker 3: And he also, you know, like I keep saying, he
24:31
Speaker 3: kind of had a little something for everybody. He was
24:35
Speaker 3: determined to maintain this sense of the old moral and
24:40
Speaker 3: economic ways, not representing some sort of massive shift that
24:45
Speaker 3: would freak people out, because America is actually doing pretty well.
24:49
Speaker 3: And you know, one thing that freaks people out when
24:51
Speaker 3: there's a new president coming in is like, are you
24:53
Speaker 3: going to raise our taxes? Are you going to do
24:55
Speaker 3: something that's going to affect my money. You know, I
24:58
Speaker 3: never realized why politics becomes so much more important to
25:01
Speaker 3: older people.
25:02
Speaker 2: It's because they're looking out for their money man.
25:05
Speaker 1: And so it comes to pass. I'm not letting go
25:08
Speaker 1: of it. It comes to pass that Coolidge has to
25:11
Speaker 1: explore some of his own moral boundaries. He says, We're
25:15
Speaker 1: not going to use the economic power the federal government
25:19
Speaker 1: to stop this boom. We're not going to likewise ameliorate
25:25
Speaker 1: the depressed condition of certain industries. We're going to treat
25:29
Speaker 1: everybody equally. And so his first message to Congress December
25:33
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty three, it's a very weird year for him.
25:36
Speaker 1: He says, we're going to be more isolationist in our
25:39
Speaker 1: foreign policy. We're going to cut taxes, We're going to
25:43
Speaker 1: provide some limited aid to farmers and humble farmers. Humble farmers,
25:49
Speaker 1: guys check out Rebel Moon. It's important to realize that
25:52
Speaker 1: one guy's a humble farmer. And so it's.
25:54
Speaker 3: Literally all I know about the movie, right right, It's
25:57
Speaker 3: an important point that occurs every ten minute.
26:00
Speaker 1: But the thing is, these moves are incredibly popular throughout
26:06
Speaker 1: the United States because no one knows the Great Depression
26:10
Speaker 1: is on the way.
26:11
Speaker 3: So with Coolidge kind of representing the strong arm of
26:15
Speaker 3: justice and the antithesis of the corruption of what the
26:18
Speaker 3: Harding administration came to be represented, as he also brought
26:23
Speaker 3: with him this kind of return to a more conservative
26:27
Speaker 3: fiscal policy that has been I believe is still I mean,
26:32
Speaker 3: who knows these days, that sort of the foundation of
26:35
Speaker 3: what the Republican Party went on to sort of evolve into.
26:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, Coolidge also again is functioning as a thing to
26:44
Speaker 1: be held up in contrast to political opponents. Because the
26:49
Speaker 1: Democratic Party then was not the Democratic Party of today.
26:53
Speaker 1: The ku Klux Klan had a lot of influence in them.
26:57
Speaker 1: And so in the election nineteen twenty four, Coolidge wins
27:02
Speaker 1: by a huge margin. He gets like three hundred and
27:05
Speaker 1: eighty two electoral votes. The Democratic candidate John W. Davis
27:10
Speaker 1: only gets one hundred and thirty six. And they kept
27:14
Speaker 1: the same They kept the same idea all throughout this presidency,
27:19
Speaker 1: the idea that this was a guy who would hear
27:22
Speaker 1: you out. This guy was steady, he was an anchor
27:25
Speaker 1: for America. He would keep calm. They used the slogan
27:30
Speaker 1: keep it cool with Coolidge, get it in nineteen twenty
27:34
Speaker 1: four and nol. You brought up a great point off
27:37
Speaker 1: off Mike. We've talked so much about this guy's physical
27:41
Speaker 1: and social kind of like his vibe. So you found
27:46
Speaker 1: a great clip for us to play of the actual
27:50
Speaker 1: Calvin Coolidge, right, Yeah.
27:52
Speaker 2: It's great.
27:52
Speaker 3: It's DeForest Funo Films Present President Coolidge, taken on the
27:58
Speaker 3: White House grounds. This would be the kind of thing
28:00
Speaker 3: would probably be played before the feature, you know, in
28:03
Speaker 3: a movie house, like the newsreels or whatever. But I
28:06
Speaker 3: love the framing and this whole like production sort of plate,
28:11
Speaker 3: I guess at the beginning of it.
28:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's he's humble, he's got a pince nez, he's
28:16
Speaker 1: he's holding his notes, and we're just gonna play a
28:19
Speaker 1: quick clip from nineteen twenty four.
28:22
Speaker 7: Costs of government are all assessed upon the people. This
28:28
Speaker 7: means that the palmer is doomed to provide a certain
28:31
Speaker 7: amount of out of the sale of his no matter
28:35
Speaker 7: how low the price, to pay his taxes. The manufacturer,
28:40
Speaker 7: the professional.
28:41
Speaker 1: Man he's going through his notes, cret.
28:44
Speaker 7: Must do the same from their incomes, often the higher
28:50
Speaker 7: right when compared with his earning.
28:52
Speaker 1: I'm falling asleep, guys, I think we can stop Yeah.
28:58
Speaker 3: Well, the funny thing, I mean, this, what he's talking
28:59
Speaker 3: about out here directly pertains to, you know, the policies
29:03
Speaker 3: that we're talking about. But also, wow, this guy roasted
29:08
Speaker 3: his senior class again.
29:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, the dogs. I can handle a roast from this guy.
29:16
Speaker 1: He's a he is doing though. I love that example
29:19
Speaker 1: because he is speaking to particular demographics of the United
29:25
Speaker 1: States and he is saying, look, I get it this,
29:30
Speaker 1: the the government could be better to farmers things like that. Right,
29:34
Speaker 1: He's speaking directly to the people, and this is tremendously reassuring.
29:41
Speaker 1: We could argue to the American public. But when he
29:45
Speaker 1: said this, uh, he also he was not He was
29:49
Speaker 1: not a fan of like impulsive radical decisions. And our
29:53
Speaker 1: boy loved a veto He vetoed so much stuff all
29:59
Speaker 1: the time. He vetoed fifty bills. I think in two
30:02
Speaker 1: of those, by the way, were far we're relief for
30:05
Speaker 1: farmers bills, right, I mean, he was shrewd.
30:09
Speaker 3: You know, this seems to go back to what his
30:11
Speaker 3: pappy taught him back in the old home front, you know,
30:15
Speaker 3: keeping keeping the family store. This idea of prudence you know,
30:19
Speaker 3: with money, and of being a good steward of Resources.
30:23
Speaker 3: Walter Lippman, journalist and media critic, and also he is
30:27
Speaker 3: listed as an amateur philosopher, which I'd like to think
30:30
Speaker 3: we all are. Walter Lippman had this to say. He
30:33
Speaker 3: actually refers to President Coolidge as having a sort of
30:36
Speaker 3: political genius, and he says this active inactivity suits the
30:41
Speaker 3: mood and certain of the needs of the country admirably.
30:45
Speaker 3: It suits all the business interests which want to be
30:48
Speaker 3: let alone, and it suits all those who have become
30:51
Speaker 3: convinced that the government in this country has become dangerously
30:55
Speaker 3: complicated and top heavy.
30:56
Speaker 6: Small government.
30:57
Speaker 2: Small government, you know.
30:59
Speaker 1: Also the art of frantically and importantly doing nothing, which.
31:05
Speaker 2: Activity we've seen. We see this of that.
31:09
Speaker 1: So this is where he starts to get famous. He
31:12
Speaker 1: starts to get known for his taciturn nature, his his
31:17
Speaker 1: lack of verbosity. Coolidge is seen as a kind of remote,
31:28
Speaker 1: negative president, but at the same time he's seen as
31:31
Speaker 1: the most accessible because he will go to an interview
31:36
Speaker 1: with you, he just won't expound very much outside of
31:40
Speaker 1: his like scheduled White House law and speeches or talks
31:43
Speaker 1: with Congress. He's like, uh, what is it? Uh, He's
31:47
Speaker 1: in an interview. He's not I'll get to another noted
31:50
Speaker 1: uh literary man of the day, Bernard Barouche, and he says,
31:54
Speaker 1: look a lot of times I'll be in these interviews
31:57
Speaker 1: and I'll just sit through them. He specifically said, well,
32:01
Speaker 1: my rooch, many times I say only yes or no
32:04
Speaker 1: two people even not just too much. It wigns them
32:09
Speaker 1: up for twenty minutes. More so, he's basically he's like saying, look,
32:12
Speaker 1: if I give these folks anything, they just keep going.
32:16
Speaker 2: They're like a dog with the bone.
32:18
Speaker 3: It reminds me of when people ask David Lynch about
32:20
Speaker 3: the meaning of his films or like specifically a raser Head,
32:22
Speaker 3: where he's just like, no.
32:27
Speaker 2: I'm not going to tell you. What do you what
32:29
Speaker 2: do your stuff?
32:30
Speaker 1: What do you think about the music in your films?
32:32
Speaker 1: David like, well, I do, I do think about it.
32:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's very important. I like Red Kurtains, I love
32:41
Speaker 3: album David Lynch Show. I like his album too, Crazy
32:43
Speaker 3: Clown Down, Crazy Clown Time.
32:46
Speaker 1: So we mentioned how he gets the nickname Silent Cal.
32:52
Speaker 1: It's it goes back to of course, that Washington DC hostess.
32:58
Speaker 1: She's a socialite, and she says, oh, you must talk
33:00
Speaker 1: to me, mister President, I made a bet today that
33:03
Speaker 1: I could get both in two words out of you,
33:05
Speaker 1: and Coolidge replies, you lose. So his policies, though, I
33:10
Speaker 1: think this gives you a hard time to Max. His
33:12
Speaker 1: policies are conservative. He is very pro business. He is
33:18
Speaker 1: very much not a Eugene V.
33:20
Speaker 2: Debs.
33:21
Speaker 1: And there is something impressive, low key impressive for his
33:27
Speaker 1: international policy because the Coolidge administration is not rocking a
33:31
Speaker 1: lot of tectonic plates or cultural boundaries, but they are
33:36
Speaker 1: pretty competent in terms of what best benefits the people
33:42
Speaker 1: of America. They're focusing on internal growth. They are, perhaps
33:47
Speaker 1: you could argue a bit too isolationists in different places,
33:50
Speaker 1: Like Calvin Coolidge says, no way are we joining the
33:55
Speaker 1: League of Nations, the predecessor to the United Nations. He's like,
33:59
Speaker 1: I'm an American president. Beat me here, Max, I do
34:03
Speaker 1: shit for Americans. Oh and we should mention that he
34:06
Speaker 1: did have a vice president as well, Charles G.
34:10
Speaker 2: Dawes. It's right, does what we had to say about Dawes.
34:15
Speaker 6: He received the Nobel Prize for helping Germany.
34:18
Speaker 2: Oh that's cool, I like that, Gon, Max. What else
34:21
Speaker 2: did this? Dawes fellow do so.
34:23
Speaker 5: Dawes actually because they were not involved in international stuff,
34:26
Speaker 5: but when they did, they were actually good at it.
34:28
Speaker 5: Dawes helped Germany meet its war debt obligations, you remember,
34:33
Speaker 5: they're paying everybody off.
34:34
Speaker 1: Which were huge and indeed part of the economic factor
34:38
Speaker 1: leading to World War two.
34:39
Speaker 5: Ultimately, yeah, great depression than World War two. Uh So
34:43
Speaker 5: he helped with that. And they also had this guy
34:45
Speaker 5: named Secretary of State, actually Frank B. Kellogg, who was
34:51
Speaker 5: very influential in this pack called the Kellogg Brand packed.
34:55
Speaker 6: We figured out how to stay.
34:56
Speaker 5: At one point because we have a we have an
34:58
Speaker 5: episode about this is we do. It's titled something along
35:01
Speaker 5: the lines of when they outlawed war, So basically it
35:05
Speaker 5: outlawed this we're taking your land type of war, which
35:08
Speaker 5: is still you know now, whenever countries go to war,
35:11
Speaker 5: they come up with some fake reason, like Russia has with.
35:15
Speaker 1: Ukraine that time everyone tried to outlaw war. January sixth,
35:21
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two. Complete coincidence. So no presidency lasts forever
35:27
Speaker 1: by design, you know. And you can look to the
35:32
Speaker 1: Administration of FDR to see why that can become unpopular
35:36
Speaker 1: and dangerous. So let's go to nineteen twenty eight. Our boy,
35:42
Speaker 1: our boy, the cool cat Cow is pretty popular still,
35:46
Speaker 1: you know, some warts, some bumps along the way, but
35:49
Speaker 1: he's up for reelection, and there is no law at
35:52
Speaker 1: this time that limits the amount of times you can
35:56
Speaker 1: run for president. There was sort of what we could
35:58
Speaker 1: call I hate to use this phrase, but there was
36:02
Speaker 1: like a gentleman's agreement or house rule of US politics
36:07
Speaker 1: that you should only run for president twice.
36:11
Speaker 2: Yeah.
36:11
Speaker 3: Is that more of like a, like you said, like
36:13
Speaker 3: a decorum thing at this point?
36:15
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, okay, gotcha, gotcha. But now it's official. Good,
36:19
Speaker 2: Now it's super efficial. Yeah, it's good. I'm glad, Thank god,
36:22
Speaker 2: thank god.
36:23
Speaker 3: And he could have run again if he had wanted to,
36:25
Speaker 3: based on that sort of social norm of the time,
36:28
Speaker 3: but he just was kind of done with it. I
36:30
Speaker 3: think he'd felt like he had accomplished all he'd wanted
36:33
Speaker 3: to do and wanted to maybe step out of the
36:35
Speaker 3: public eye for a while.
36:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, and going back to that excellent work by David Greenberg,
36:41
Speaker 1: we know this. He was pretty low key and abrupt
36:46
Speaker 1: with his announcement. He said, look, I'm not going to
36:48
Speaker 1: seek reelection. With one statement, I do not choose to
36:52
Speaker 1: run for president in nineteen twenty eight. The first people
36:56
Speaker 1: to find out about this are reporters who are traveling
36:59
Speaker 1: with him during his summer vacation in nineteen twenty seven,
37:02
Speaker 1: and he just gets He doesn't even publicly say it.
37:05
Speaker 1: He hands it to them on little strips of paper.
37:08
Speaker 1: It's like he gave them a very specific and weird
37:10
Speaker 1: fortune cookie. And so people like the word spreads, and people,
37:17
Speaker 1: including his family members, have no idea what's going on.
37:21
Speaker 1: Someone asks his wife Grace, what she thinks about the announcement,
37:24
Speaker 1: and she goes, what announcement? And there's one story, a
37:28
Speaker 1: little bit saucy. We don't know if it's totally true,
37:30
Speaker 1: but according to one kind of cinematic story, he hands
37:35
Speaker 1: these reporters these slips of paper and then immediately kid
37:40
Speaker 1: you not, hops in a row boat and starts rowing
37:42
Speaker 1: a way before they can say anything, Row row, row
37:46
Speaker 1: your boat.
37:46
Speaker 5: That's how I was taught this story in APUs history,
37:50
Speaker 5: and I.
37:51
Speaker 1: Humble brag I learned it from my ap teacher. But
37:55
Speaker 1: she said, she said, I'm telling you the version of
37:58
Speaker 1: the story that I like.
38:00
Speaker 5: I'm gonna say it right now. Considering this guy He
38:03
Speaker 5: was actually pretty into physical fitness too.
38:05
Speaker 1: He would like swim naked and stuff.
38:08
Speaker 5: Yeah, him rolling away in a boat would seem like
38:11
Speaker 5: something very relaxing to him.
38:13
Speaker 3: It's like a slow fade, man. It's like Homer disappearing
38:16
Speaker 3: backwards into the bushes.
38:17
Speaker 2: You know.
38:17
Speaker 1: It feels like Wes Anderson has made this film.
38:20
Speaker 3: It just takes so long to get You see them
38:23
Speaker 3: for so long on the horizon, you know, it's like
38:26
Speaker 3: slowly backing away.
38:27
Speaker 2: I like that. I like this Calvin Coolidge's vibe.
38:31
Speaker 1: And so Calvin Coolidge kind of retires from public life
38:37
Speaker 1: sort of because he writes an autobiography. He writes articles
38:41
Speaker 1: for magazines of note. He has a nationally syndicated column
38:45
Speaker 1: for a newspaper for a while called Thinking Things Over
38:48
Speaker 1: with Calvin Coolidge, because he's at that point in his
38:51
Speaker 1: career where he feels like he has to put his
38:53
Speaker 1: name in the title of everything. Anyway, I walked down
38:56
Speaker 1: the street from that one. He lives his life until
39:00
Speaker 1: January fifth, nineteen thirty three. It's just after lunch. He
39:05
Speaker 1: usually takes a two hour nap after lunch at this
39:08
Speaker 1: time in his life, but on January fifth, he collapsed
39:12
Speaker 1: he collapses in his bedroom and later doctors conclude he
39:17
Speaker 1: has died from heart failure. His passing comes right before
39:22
Speaker 1: the inauguration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who, as I mentioned,
39:27
Speaker 1: is the reason we have hard limits on presidential terms
39:30
Speaker 1: in the modern day. But we didn't want to end
39:33
Speaker 1: on a total down note. So instead of closing with
39:38
Speaker 1: that cinematic look at his row boating career to syndicate
39:43
Speaker 1: a columnists switch, we've got to tell you about his
39:46
Speaker 1: presidential pets, because we did an episode on this, and
39:50
Speaker 1: this had to have appeared in that episode, right. He
39:52
Speaker 1: loved dogs and cats.
39:54
Speaker 3: He had several by the name of Climber, Tiger and Blackie,
39:57
Speaker 3: which is maybe a little bit problematic now, but it
40:00
Speaker 3: is what it is. I'm not sure which was the
40:02
Speaker 3: dogg or which was the cat in that in that trio.
40:05
Speaker 1: I know you didn't name the dog tiger.
40:08
Speaker 2: You know what tiger makes sense for the cat.
40:10
Speaker 6: I don't know what this guy's this guy's sense of humor.
40:12
Speaker 1: Though I know he's a swing I get it.
40:17
Speaker 2: But he also had birds.
40:19
Speaker 3: Uh And most importantly and delightfully, if you're a fan
40:23
Speaker 3: of something that the internet just gives beautifully now is
40:27
Speaker 3: raccoon content?
40:29
Speaker 2: He had a raccoon named Rebecca.
40:31
Speaker 3: I think I personally, yeah, I follow like six different
40:33
Speaker 3: raccoon Instagram accounts. They got human hands man. It's weird,
40:38
Speaker 3: but also it's also cute. He got lion cubs too,
40:41
Speaker 3: that's wild lion cubs. He got those as a gift
40:44
Speaker 3: actually from the Mayor of Johannesburg, South Africa, and the
40:48
Speaker 3: White House named the Cubs. I guess they sort of
40:51
Speaker 3: were almost like soft ambassadors, named the Cubs Budget Bureau
40:55
Speaker 3: and tax Reduction.
40:57
Speaker 1: All right, well, not every joke is going to land.
41:00
Speaker 2: Wow.
41:00
Speaker 1: They probably called him Budgie and Taxi, you know, a
41:03
Speaker 1: pet names were.
41:04
Speaker 3: But he also had his sort of flagship pet, which
41:07
Speaker 3: was a Collie by the name of Rob Roy, which
41:10
Speaker 3: was a historical war hero I believe in Scotland, the
41:16
Speaker 3: inventor of dubstep. Okay, fair enough, but also a delightful cocktail. Rebecca,
41:21
Speaker 3: the raccoon, though, was less of Calvin's Special Guy and
41:25
Speaker 3: more of Grace's. In fact, you can find a lot
41:27
Speaker 3: of photos of them posing together at the White House.
41:30
Speaker 1: Very domesticated, so much so that one day the Coolidge
41:34
Speaker 1: family said, we should get Rebecca a friend. Let's get
41:37
Speaker 1: her another raccoon. We'll name it Ruben. Get it a literation.
41:41
Speaker 1: They're cute. However, Ruben was much less domesticated and much
41:46
Speaker 1: more He's more of a street raccoon, you know what
41:49
Speaker 1: I mean. He was for the streets, he was for
41:51
Speaker 1: the dumpsters.
41:52
Speaker 2: But this is for history.
41:55
Speaker 1: This is a pretty good look at Calvin Coolidge. There's
41:58
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff we didn't get to, which I
42:00
Speaker 1: think will show up in one of our forthcoming episodes,
42:03
Speaker 1: stuff that got left over.
42:04
Speaker 2: We love it. Yeah, well, that's for sure.
42:06
Speaker 3: And also in the meantime, if you want to read
42:09
Speaker 3: more about his life following suit with his kind of
42:12
Speaker 3: soft spoken demeanor. His autobiography is I believe, one of
42:16
Speaker 3: the shortest and presidential history.
42:18
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
42:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a series of haiku. It is actually super short.
42:23
Speaker 1: But again a man of few words, the words he
42:27
Speaker 1: chose did have tremendous impact even today in twenty twenty four,
42:32
Speaker 1: I almost said, twenty twenty three, Oh geez, when did
42:36
Speaker 1: we start this show? What was it twenty seventeen, twenty seventeen.
42:40
Speaker 3: I guess that's right. We talked about that the other day.
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Speaker 3: We've been doing this for over what's five six years.
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Speaker 2: Later? This year will be years seven years. Yeah, Oh,
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Speaker 2: the fingers.
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Speaker 1: Bargain, the Faustian bargains, come and do. Shout out to
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Speaker 1: anybody who gets that weird joke. I just want to
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Speaker 1: say the time has flown. So grateful to all or
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Speaker 1: ridiculous historians and Noel Max, I'm so grateful to you.
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Speaker 2: Guys.
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Speaker 1: We were talking about this a little bit off air,
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Speaker 1: but this is just one of my favorite things to do,
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Speaker 1: and we hope you enjoy it as well. Folks.
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Speaker 2: Oh, the feeling is mutual.
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Speaker 3: I can definitely speak for both myself and Max. Even
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Speaker 3: though Max occasionally does a face palm, I think they're
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Speaker 3: good natured face palms, and these face palming out of love.
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Speaker 1: I always like to think maybe his hand just smells
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Speaker 1: really good.
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Speaker 3: It's possible, especially the cast hands, especially of getting a
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Speaker 3: little ripe. But no, truly I feel the exact same way.
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Speaker 3: I love you both to death and I can't wait
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Speaker 3: till we reconvene. I was thinking this might be a
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Speaker 3: two parter, but I think we we we in the
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Speaker 3: spirit of Calvin himself, exercise the spirit of brevity, and
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Speaker 3: that is so appreciate that. Yeah, a little longer for
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Speaker 3: a one partner, but I think that there was no
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Speaker 3: other way to do.
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Speaker 1: We had a lot of stuff to do.
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Speaker 5: I joked beforehand, and I'm like, I think ed an
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Speaker 5: episode about Calvin Coolidge.
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Speaker 6: We should make sure to go along on it.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and also, you know how it is you got
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Speaker 1: to kill your darlings. I am chock full of dumb
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Speaker 1: facts about baseball hats. I'm hoping they'll fade bye by
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Speaker 1: the time we record our next episode. Big Big thanks
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Speaker 1: to superproducer and research associate for this episode, mister Max
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Speaker 1: Williams Alex Williams, real life brother of the show and
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Speaker 1: biological brother of Alex, who composed this slap and bop.
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Speaker 2: It's true.
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Speaker 3: Thanks to Chris frostiotis here in spirit, Eves, Jeffcoach, the
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Speaker 3: whole pantheon of ridiculous historians that came before.
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Speaker 2: We hope you guys have a really great weekend and life.
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Speaker 2: We'll see you next time, folks.
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Speaker 3: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
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Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.