History Book: Quiet Cal becomes president

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Monday, July 31st. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Next up, the WORLD History Book…just two stories today. The great flood of 1993 is one of the most devastating natural disasters in American history—we’ll take another look in just a moment.

EICHER: But first, an unexpected job promotion for Vice President Calvin Coolidge. Here now is WORLD Radio Executive Producer, Paul Butler.

PAUL BUTLER: On August 2nd, 1923, Vice President Calvin Coolidge and his wife Grace are on vacation at Coolidge’s family farm near Plymouth Notch, Vermont. The farm house has no electricity...and a phone that only occasionally works. The couple goes to bed early. But a little before midnight, they are awakened by a loud knock at the front door. A moment later, Coolidge’s father calls up to Calvin to come down. President Warren Harding is dead.

Coolidge gets dressed. Prays with his wife. And in the early morning hours of August 3rd, is sworn into office by his father John Calvin Coolidge Sr. He’s a Vermont notary public and justice of the peace. By the light of a kerosene lamp, Calvin Coolidge becomes the 30th President of the United States. As it’s 2:47 in the morning, President Coolidge goes back to bed.

With the 1924 election just around the corner, many expect Coolidge to be a lame duck President. But on his train ride back to Washington he begins to plan how to build upon Harding’s most important policies. He believes he can. His first order of business…limiting the government itself.

Biographer Amity Shlaes from a 2013 Hoover Institution video interview:

SHALES: Government for the sake of government isn't always beneficial for the constituents. It just makes everyone feel good. And there's a wonderful letter to his father and Coolidge writes to his father: “it's better to kill a bad bill than to pass a good one.” And that's very counterintuitive today. But he saw himself as protecting the voter.

President Coolidge is a life-long conservative politician. Unlike most of his contemporaries though, he doesn’t seek the lime-light. He’s quiet and reserved with a dry sense of humor so he’s nicknamed “silent Cal.” But he’s outspoken about the limited role of government…as can be heard in this August 11th, 1924 speech from the White House Grounds:

COOLIDGE: I want to cut down public expense. I want the people of America to be able to work less for the government and more for themselves. I want them to have the rewards of their own industries. This is the chief meaning of freedom. Until we can we establish a condition under which the earnings of the people can be kept by the people. We are bound to suffer a very severe and distinct curtailment of our liberty.

Coolidge easily wins reelection. During his presidency, he restores public confidence in the White House. His foreign policies are a mixed bag, but his domestic policies are strong. He is an advocate for civil rights and oversees granting Native Americans citizenship. Economically he is focused on returning the country to its pre-war footing.

And for Amity Shlaes, that’s his most significant accomplishment: successfully cutting the nation's debt and its budget.

SHALES: Coolidge is a professional politician. Today, we tend to say that's bad, we're cynical about it. But he was that rare thing, a professional politician who used his mastery to make government smaller instead of bigger.

President Calvin Coolidge serves one and half terms, and chooses not to run in the 1928 election as he thinks spending nearly 10 years in the White House is just too long.

Next, August 1st, 1993.

REPORTER: That house is starting to go. Oh, Jeff, it's unbelievable.

Breaking coverage from KSDK channel 5 News.

REPORTER: There it goes. Just now lifted off the foundation and it's just crumbling. In the rapid and the violent waters here that are coming.

Millions watch on television as homes are swept away by the raging rivers.

REPORTER: We've watched the silos go. We've watched the barn go. We've watched a shed go. And now the house itself has been lifted off the foundation by these floodwaters. It's just unbelievable.

Heavy spring and summer rains across the midwest lead to a “500-year flood” along the Missouri and Mississippi river basin. Some areas get more than 10 times their usual rainfall over a period of just a few weeks. By August 1993, many towns along the river are completely underwater. Gerald Resnick is a reporter with KRCG channel 13 television news:

REPORTER GERALD RESNICK: Of the 130 homes in Cedar City. 80% are heavily damaged. Dozens no longer exist. This graveyard of homes is testimony to the power of the Missouri River.

On August 1st, the Mississippi River crests at 49.6 feet in St. Louis, nearly 20 feet above flood stage. When the waters recede, the scope of the damage is staggering—exceeding $10 billion dollars along 745 miles of river. The human toll is heartbreaking.

RESIDENT: I'm not going back there's nothing to go back to the trailer is destroyed. I grew up in that trailer as a child. And now it's gone. It was just given to me in February as an inheritance. I know I have nothing left.

Nearly 50 people die in the flooding. Shipping along the Mississippi River is shut down for weeks. The flood waters destroy thousands of acres of famer’s crops. Many businesses never recover. State Representative Gracia Backer:

REPRESENTATIVE GRACIA BACKER: This is many, many years of people's lives and people's work, washed away and covered in mud. It's the extent of the devastation is truly profound.

But in the face of such a trying crisis, thousands of everyday people step up to help their neighbors. On August 12th, 1993, President Bill Clinton signs the flood relief bill in Missouri. He begins by recognizing 19 representative volunteers for their selflessness and bravery. Audio here courtesy of the Clinton Presidential Library.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Because of their efforts lives were saved and larger disasters were averted. They are mothers and fathers, business owners, police officers and neighbors. But in this time of crisis, they risked their lives to save children and parents, to pull people from troubled waters or trapped vehicles, to feed the hungry, to provide water to people who literally could not have had safe living conditions otherwise. And most importantly, a lot of them are committed to staying involved in this for the long haul.

Another devastating flood hits eastern Iowa fifteen years later. It’s a more localized event, but the damage is significantly worse for the state. However, officials acknowledge that the lessons learned during the 1993 deluge made them much better prepared, and no lives were directly lost in the 2008 flood. River cities had built stronger and taller levies and had protected their domestic water and sewage treatment plants.

That’s this week’s WORLD History Book, I’m Paul Butler.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.