On This Day - July 4, 1872

The 30th President, Calvin Coolidge, was the only President (so far) who was born on the 4th of July. His birthday was July 4, 1872.

 

30th President Calvin Coolidge,
in office 1923-1929

Three Interesting Anecdotes

1 - His birth name was John Calvin Coolidge. He dropped "John" when he was in college.  However, he kept the family name going by naming his first son John Coolidge and his second son John Calvin Coolidge Jr. 

2 - While Calvin Coolidge was President, the budget was balanced every year he was in office.

3 - Calvin Coolidge was one of the many politicians of his era who was a practicing attorney without ever attending a day of law school. Biographers, past and present, claim that Coolidge graduated with a law degree from Amherst College. 

Although Amherst was his alma mater, he never studied law there.  He completed four years and received a token Bachelor's Degree because he never choose a course of study. To him, college was a social club. The only special course he was interested enough to show up for was Oration because he was on the Debate Team. To his surprise, he found his niche in public speaking.  

By his junior year, he still had not made a decision as his life's work. When pre-graduation forms asked what his business or profession would be, he wrote "Undecided."  But when asked his preference of political party, he wrote in all capital letters "REPUBLICAN."  

He specialized in being the class clown which was exactly how his classmates remembered him when they were interviewed after he became Vice President.

The Debate Team proctor summed up Calvin Coolidge at the graduation commencement ceremony:  "Calvin Coolidge, Class Jester of 1895."

His father, a justice of the peace, called in a favor asking two young lawyers Hammond and Field, both Amherst graduates, to read the law and apprentice young Coolidge. Not quite two years later, he passed the Bar exam in 1897.  He became a country lawyer in 1898 and opened his own law office in Massachusetts.