Editing Calvin Coolidge (section)

==="Silent Cal"===
[[File:HardingCoolidge.jpg|thumb|President Harding and Vice President Coolidge with their wives]]
The vice presidency did not carry many official duties, but Harding invited Coolidge to attend cabinet meetings, making him the first vice president to do so.{{sfn|Sobel|1998a|pp=210–211}} He gave a number of unremarkable speeches around the country.{{sfnm|Sobel|1998a|1p=219|McCoy|1967|2p=136}}

As vice president, Coolidge and his vivacious wife [[Grace Coolidge|Grace]] were invited to quite a few parties, where the legend of "Silent Cal" was born. It is from this time that most of the jokes and anecdotes involving Coolidge originate, such as Coolidge being "silent in five languages".<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Appleby|first1=Joyce|title=The American vision : modern times|last2=Brinkley|first2=Alan|last3=Broussard|first3=Albert S.|last4=McPherson|first4=James M.|last5=Ritchie|first5=Donald A.|date=2010|publisher=Glencoe/McGraw-Hill|others=Appleby, Joyce, 1929–2016, National Geographic Society (U.S.)|isbn=978-0078775154|edition=Teacher wraparound|location=Columbus, Ohio|page=364|oclc=227926730}}</ref> Although Coolidge was known to be a skilled and effective public speaker, in private he was a man of few words and was commonly referred to as "Silent Cal". 

An apocryphal story has it that a person seated next to Coolidge at a dinner told him, "I made a bet today that I could get more than two words out of you", to which Coolidge replied, "You lose".{{sfn|Hannaford|p=169}} On April 22, 1924, Coolidge said that the "You lose" incident never occurred. The story was related by Frank B. Noyes, President of the [[Associated Press]], to its membership at its annual luncheon at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, when toasting and introducing Coolidge, the invited speaker. After the introduction and before his prepared remarks, Coolidge told the membership, "Your President [Noyes] has given you a perfect example of one of those rumors now current in Washington which is without any foundation."<ref>{{cite news |title=Sees Hope in Dawes Plan |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1924/04/23/archives/sees-hope-in-dawes-plan-proposes-limitation-parley-after.html |access-date=June 10, 2019 |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=April 23, 1924 |page=2}}</ref>

Coolidge often seemed uncomfortable among fashionable Washington society. When asked why he continued to attend so many of their dinner parties, he replied, "Got to eat somewhere."{{sfn|Sobel|1998a|p=217}} [[Alice Roosevelt Longworth]], a leading Republican wit, underscored Coolidge's silence and his dour personality: "When he wished he were elsewhere, he pursed his lips, folded his arms, and said nothing. He looked then precisely as though he had been weaned on a pickle."{{sfn|Cordery|2008|p=302}} Coolidge and his wife, Grace, who was a great baseball fan, once attended a [[History of the Washington Senators (1901–1960)|Washington Senators]] game and sat through all nine innings without saying a word, except once when he asked her the time.{{sfn|Bryson|2013|p=194}}

As president, Coolidge's reputation as a quiet man continued. "The words of a President have an enormous weight," he later wrote, "and ought not to be used indiscriminately."{{sfn|Sobel|1998a|p=243}} Coolidge was aware of his stiff reputation, and cultivated it. "I think the American people want a solemn ass as a President," he once told [[Ethel Barrymore]], "and I think I will go along with them."{{sfn|Greenberg|2006|p=60}} Some historians suggest that Coolidge's image was created deliberately as a campaign tactic.{{sfn|Buckley|2003|pp=615–618}} Others believe his withdrawn and quiet behavior was natural, deepening after the death of his son in 1924.{{sfn|Gilbert|2005|p={{page needed|date=June 2023}}}} [[Dorothy Parker]], upon learning that Coolidge had died, reportedly remarked, "How can they tell?"{{sfn|Greenberg|2006|p=9}}