“The sort of government I have in mind ought to take advantage of the capacity and experience of a man like Governor Coolidge, by bringing him into the councils. It would be a fine thing and I don’t see why it has not been done before. Governor Coolidge is an eminent American and has had experience as an executive and should be helpful. I think the Vice President can be the most effective agency in keeping the executive offices in touch with the legislative branch of the government.” A study of the men who have been called to the Presidency makes President Coolidge stand out from them all. For he is a new kind of public man. He is called “Silent Cal,” the inscrutable; he is an unguessable quantity, the shrewdest politician the White House has ever known, though on the surface he lacks all set and prescribed qualities of the successful man of politics. He is spare in figure, auburn-haired, gray-eyed with rather thin lips and nose, in vigorous health and possessed of a dignity and reserve that have already become a national tradition. He is a typical New Englander all of whose physical features proclaim his Pilgrim ancestry. The climate and conditions under which the early settlers of his section of the country and their descendants have battled to wrest from the rocky soil of coast line and mountain valleys the means of a livelihood, have moulded physiques and mentalities to meet force with wit and batter down obstacles with the power of brain as much as by brawn. He is the son of the late John C. Coolidge and Victoria J. Moor Coolidge, one of the descendants of John and Mary Coolidge, early Pilgrims that settled in Watertown, Mass., about 1630. His ancestry runs through a long line of farmers of Massachusetts until his great-great-grandfather moved into Vermont, and he and his descendants tilled the soil, raised stock, tapped the trees for maple sugar, and were known and respected as substantial citizens of their community. His mother died when he was but thirteen, and before he reached manhood his only sister passed away; these bereavements evidently drew father and son closer together. In college--he attended Amherst--he was not a brilliant student, and the course was half over before his mates were really acquainted with him.