Calvin Coolidge to work jointly with Edward T. Clark, a Massachusetts Republican organizer whom he retained from his vice-presidential staff, as Secretaries to the President (a position equivalent to the modern White House Chief of Staff). Perhaps the most powerful person in Coolidge's Cabinet was Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon, who controlled the administration's financial policies and was regarded by many, including House Minority Leader John Nance Garner, as more powerful than Coolidge himself. Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover also held a prominent place in Coolidge's Cabinet, in part because Coolidge found value in Hoover's ability to win positive publicity with
John Calvin Coolidge Sr. of the Vermont militia, and held the law enforcement posts of town constable and county deputy sheriff. Considered a prominent local leader, he served in numerous Plymouth town offices, and was elected to terms in both the Vermont House of Representatives and Vermont State Senate. John C. Coolidge remained active in his farming and business interests until his death in Plymouth in 1926; he was buried in Plymouth Notch at a village cemetery where several generations of his family are also buried. Coolidge was born in Plymouth, Vermont on March 31, 1845, the son of Calvin Galusha Coolidge and Sarah