Continuing our “Best of Coolidge” series through the Presidential years, we come to the letter Calvin Coolidge wrote to Sergeant Charles F. Gardner, stationed at Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn, New York. Gardner, offended by the candidacy of a black man nominated by Harlem Republicans, Dr. Charles H. Roberts, the irate enlisted man dashes off a request and newspaper clipping to the President of the United States in order for Coolidge to do something about it, to at least publicly condemn Dr. Roberts. The President, writing back on August 9, 1924, did do something but in this stinging rebuke of Gardner, Coolidge’s actions prove not to be the something the Sergeant intended.

Though Dr. Roberts would go on to lose the election, it is revealing that Coolidge gives so strong an endorsement here. This is a remarkable piece of the Coolidge record and deserves to be included in any consideration of this President’s views on race and how he handled it at a time when the Jim Crow era could have kept him silent, especially that summer, right before the 1924 Presidential election. Coolidge’s words could just as easily have been written this week.

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.