Leading off our “Best of Coolidge” Readings for the Presidential years is the First Annual Message delivered before the joint session of Congress on December 6, 1923. In it he outlines more than five dozen proposals informing the country what to expect from him and his administration after four months of quiet study and preparation (subsequent, of course, to the two and a half years in Washington as Vice President) on the variety of issues needing attention after the death of President Harding.

He would later write that most of these recommendations would go on to become law by the time he left office in 1929. This result came without White House coercion or reprisal, tactics Coolidge despised in executive leadership. He accomplished much without seeking credit while entrusting subordinates with their responsibilities. By and large, they did not let him down. Their competent reliability and both his administrative talents and mind for detail kept the ship on course and efficiently directed in faithful service to the country, not merely themselves. By this measure, Coolidge was one of our most effective Presidents.

We are left to wonder how differently history (and the country as a whole) would have gone had visionary proposals like the reorganization of the federal departments – eliminating redundancy and needless bureaucracy – succeeded with so many of the others.

Looking for that elusive Christmas gift for the history enthusiast in your family? How about that “news junkie,” voracious reader, or young person – the book he or she doesn’t have but needs? Or how about your local candidates who could use some guidance? Don’t know what else to get your loved one different from gourmet food baskets, tools, toys, or more clothes? How about Cal Coolidge this year?

Pick up the book or, for those on the go, the audio edition on iTunes or here.

As our very devoted and admirably disciplined friend has been reading through biographies on each of the Presidents, we are enthused to see he has arrived at Mr. Coolidge. We eagerly await his impressions of #30 and look forward to his thoughts on the six (and we hope the Pony Express will make it seven) biographies ahead in the coming weeks.

A heartfelt thanks goes out to our friend for the double mention of our site at his treasure trove of Presidential study. Perhaps the harder to find but no less worthy biographers — who set out as distant as ninety years ago to explain Cal to his generation, will find new welcome in the collection of sound biographical portrayals and good Presidential literature.

We look forward also to Mr. Coolidge rising substantially in the estimation of those who read deeper than the surface mischaracterizations to which his record has been so unfairly subjected.