Presidency of Calvin Coolidge Presidency of Calvin Coolidge The presidency of Calvin Coolidge began on August 2, 1923, when Calvin Coolidge became President of the United States upon the sudden death of Warren G. Harding, and ended on March 4, 1929. A member of the Republican Party, Coolidge had been Vice President of the United States for when he became the 30th President of the United States. Elected to a full four–year term in 1924, Coolidge gained a reputation as a small-government conservative. Coolidge was succeeded by Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover after the 1928 presidential election. Coolidge adeptly handled the aftermath of several
Calvin Coolidge personality: "When he wished he were elsewhere, he pursed his lips, folded his arms, and said nothing. He looked then precisely as though he had been weaned on a pickle." As president, Coolidge's reputation as a quiet man continued. "The words of a President have an enormous weight," he would later write, "and ought not to be used indiscriminately." Coolidge was aware of his stiff reputation; indeed, he cultivated it. "I think the American people want a solemn ass as a President," he once told Ethel Barrymore, "and I think I will go along with them." Some historians would later