By Guy Page

Today on Hot Off The Press on WDEV, callers answered: who is/was your favorite president?

Bill from Morrisville chimed in on Thomas Jefferson’s support for Congressman Matthew Lyon, who was charged by the Adams administration for publishing allegedly seditious statements, convicted and fined $1500 and jailed in Vergennes. When elected, Jefferson pardoned Lyon, who then moved to Kentucky, to have a county named after him and become a Congressman. 

Chris Bradley from Northfield said George Washington, for crossing the Delaware River and attacking the Hessians in pay of the British. “He pulled it off with men poised for their enlistment,” Bradley.

Ruth from Sheldon said she liked Ronald Reagan because he liked jelly beans (so does Ruth!) and more importantly, for the paper he sent to her that is pinned in the place of honor on her bulletin board: “A nation that is no longer under God is a nation that has gone under.”

We also played clips from interviews with legislators:

Rep. Greg Burtt (R-Danville) – Teddy Roosevelt, because of his inspiring ‘Man in the Arena’ speech. 

Rep. Mark Higley – Ronald Reagan, for his foreign policy.

Rep. Bob Hooper – Dwight Eisenhower, a warrior-president who moved ahead on domestic improvements. 

Rep. Brian Cina – Carter (humanitarian), Kennedy (civil rights, health care), FDR (winning WWII), and Obama (health care & more). 

Click here for all posted podcasts of Hot Off The Press.

It should be noted that (per Wikipedia) two presidents were born in Vermont.

Chester Alan Arthur (October 5, 1829 – November 18, 1886) was the 21st president of the United States, serving from 1881 to 1885. He was a Republican from New York who previously served as the 20th vice president under President James A. Garfield. Assuming the presidency after Garfield’s assassination, Arthur’s administration saw the largest expansion of the U.S. Navy, the end of the so-called “spoils system”, and the implementation of harsher restrictions for migrants entering from abroad.

Arthur was born in Fairfield, Vermont, and practiced law in New York City. He served as quartermaster general of the New York Militia during the American Civil War. Following the war, he devoted more time to New York Republican politics and quickly rose in Senator Roscoe Conkling’s political organization. President Ulysses S. Grant appointed him as Collector of the Port of New York in 1871, and he was an important supporter of Conkling and the Stalwart faction of the Republican Party. In 1878, following bitter disputes between Conkling and President Rutherford B. Hayes over control of patronage in New York, Hayes fired Arthur as part of a plan to reform the federal patronage system.

During the 1880 Republican National Convention, the extended contest between Grant, identified with the Stalwarts, and James G. Blaine, the candidate of the Half-Breed faction, led to the compromise selection of James Garfield as the nominee for president. Republicans then nominated Arthur for vice president to balance the ticket geographically and to placate Stalwarts disappointed by Grant’s defeat. Garfield and Arthur won the 1880 presidential election and took office in March 1881. Four months into his term, Garfield was shot by an assassin; he died 11 weeks later, and Arthur assumed the presidency.

As president, Arthur presided over the rebirth of the U.S. Navy, but he was criticized for failing to alleviate the federal budget surplus which had been accumulating since the end of the Civil War. Arthur vetoed the first version of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, arguing that its twenty-year ban on Chinese immigrants to the United States violated the Burlingame Treaty, but he signed a second version, which included a ten-year ban. He appointed Horace Gray and Samuel Blatchford to the Supreme Court. He also enforced the Immigration Act of 1882 to impose more restrictions on immigrants and the Tariff of 1883 to attempt to reduce tariffs. Arthur signed into law the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883, which came as a surprise to reformers who held a negative opinion of Arthur as a Stalwart and product of Conkling’s organization.

Suffering from poor health, Arthur made only a limited effort to secure the Republican Party’s nomination in 1884, and he retired at the end of his term – as a result, he is the most recent president to have never contested an election as his party’s presidential nominee. Arthur’s failing health and political temperament combined to make his administration less active than a modern presidency, yet he earned praise among contemporaries for his solid performance in office.

Calvin Coolidge 

Calvin Coolidge (born John Calvin Coolidge Jr. (July 4, 1872 – January 5, 1933) was the 30th president of the United States, serving from 1923 to 1929. A Republican lawyer from Massachusetts, he previously served as the 29th vice president from 1921 to 1923, under President Warren G. Harding, and as the 48th governor of Massachusetts from 1919 to 1921. Coolidge gained a reputation as a small-government conservative, with a taciturn personality and dry sense of humor that earned him the nickname “Silent Cal”.

Coolidge began his career as a member of the Massachusetts State House. He rose up the ranks of Massachusetts politics and was elected governor in 1918. As governor, Coolidge ran on the record of fiscal conservatism, strong support for women’s suffrage, and vague opposition to Prohibition His prompt and effective response to the Boston police strike of 1919 thrust him into the national spotlight as a man of decisive action. The following year, the Republican Party nominated Coolidge as the running mate to Senator Warren G. Harding in the 1920 presidential election, which they won in a landslide. Coolidge served as vice president until Harding’s death in 1923, after which he assumed the presidency.

During his presidency, Coolidge restored public confidence in the White House after the Harding administration’s many scandals. He signed into law the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, which granted U.S. citizenship to all Native Americans, along with the Immigration Act of 1924, which aimed at limiting immigration from outside the Western Hemisphere and established the United States Border Patrol; and oversaw a period of rapid and expansive economic growth known as the “Roaring Twenties”, leaving office with considerable popularity.

Coolidge was known for his hands-off governing approach and pro-business stance; biographer Claude Fuess wrote: “He embodied the spirit and hopes of the middle class, could interpret their longings and express their opinions. That he did represent the genius of the average is the most convincing proof of his strength.” Coolidge chose not to run again in 1928, remarking that ten years as president would be “longer than any other man has had it—too long!”

Coolidge is widely admired for his stalwart support of racial equality during a period of heightened racial tension, and is highly regarded by advocates of smaller government and laissez-faire economics; supporters of an active central government generally view him far less favorably. His critics argue that he failed to use the country’s economic boom to help struggling farmers and workers in other flailing industries, and there is still much debate among historians about the extent to which Coolidge’s economic policies contributed to the onset of the Great Depression, which began shortly after he left office. Scholars have ranked Coolidge in the lower half of U.S. presidents.