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Go looking through us presidents from the first half of the 20th century and you'll find a surplus of icons Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson FDR, and Harry Truman are still famous for being among America's greatest leaders.
回顾20世纪上半叶的美国总统, 你会发现很多偶像人物泰迪·罗斯福, 伍德罗·威尔逊·罗斯福和哈里·杜鲁门仍然以美国最伟大的领导人而闻名。
While Warreng Harding and Herbert Hoover are famous for being the exact opposite heck, even William Mckinley and William Howard Taft remain known, one for being assassinated, the other for being so fat, he was practically a walking your mum joke.
而沃伦·哈丁和赫伯特·胡佛却恰恰相反,就连威廉·麦金利和威廉·霍华德·塔夫脱也广为人知,一个因为被暗杀,另一个因为太胖,他简直就是大街小巷都知道的笑料。
Yet the most fascinating president of this era is also likely the one most of us have never heard of.
然而,这个时代最迷人的总统, 可能也是我们大多数人从未听说过的一位。
Calvin Coolidge rarely makes lists of best or worst commanders in chief outside political history geek circles
卡尔文·柯立芝很少被政治历史圈子之外的名单列为最佳或最差的总司令。
His five years and seven months in office are barely remembered, yet they constituted one of the most quietly radical eras that washington has ever seen as president of the 1920s
他在位的5年零7个月几乎无人记得,但这段时间却是华盛顿作为上世纪20年代总统所经历的最平静、最激进的时代之一。
Coolidge oversaw a roaring economy, even as he trimmed government spending to the bone when he left office. it was as a conservative hero a man who'd brought prosperity
柯立芝见证了经济的蓬勃发展,尽管他在卸任时将政府开支削减到了最低限度。他是一个带来繁荣的保守英雄。
So why isn't silent cow better remembered today?
那么,为什么今天没有很好地记住沉默的总统呢?
The answer lies in a tale of excess prosperity and heartbreak.
答案就在一个关于过度繁荣和心碎的故事里。
In terms of over-the-top symbolism, it's hard to beat a future president of the United States, being born on independence day but that's exactlywhat john Calvin Coolidge did, entering the world on July the 4th 1872, like a living metaphor.
就夸张的象征意义而言，很难打败一位未来的美国总统，他出生在美国独立日，但约翰·卡尔文·柯立芝就是这么做的，他在1872年7月4日来到这个世界，就像一个活生生的比喻。
Yet this well-timed entrance would turn out to be a rare flash of bombast in the quiet life of the 30th president.
然而,在这位美国第30任总统平静的生活中,这次来得正是时候的入场,却是罕见的一次夸大其词。
And we don't mean quiet in the sense of boring, we mean he literally barely ever spoke growing up in picturesque, but hard scrabble Plymouth Vermont.
我们说的安静并不是无聊的意思,我们说的是他在风景如画的佛蒙特州的普利茅斯长大,几乎没有说过一句话。
Young calvin absorbed the family trait of speaking only when absolutely necessary.
年轻的加尔文吸收了家族的特点,即只在绝对必要时才说话。
Even the boy's father who was a merchant into legislature and thus expected to occasionally talk to people treated words like expensive chocolates dosing them out in small doses and only on special occasions, compared to his son, though the man was practically locatious.
即使是这个男孩的父亲,作为一个商人,进入了立法机构,因此希望偶尔和人们交谈,他对待语言就像昂贵的巧克力,小剂量地,只有在特殊的场合才会发言,与他的儿子相比,尽管这个人实际上有点地方色彩。
Calvin Coolidge grew up so silent
卡尔文·柯立芝从小就很沉默。
It was a local joke that he was mute.
他是个哑巴，这是当地的一个笑话。
For the boy, muttering agreeting was a conversation while exchanging twosentences was like launching into a soliloquy.
对男孩来说，咕哝着打招呼是一种谈话，而交换两句话就像开始自言自语。
While that quietness was in his nature though the boy also relished the opportunity that it gave him to observe.
虽然这孩子天性安静,但他也很享受观察的机会。
As most kids, his age were playing or studying, Coolidge seemed to be absorbing life lessons storing them away in a special safe.
当大多数和他同龄的孩子在玩耍或学习时,柯立芝似乎正在吸取人生的教训,并将它们储存在一个特殊的保险箱里。
Deep within his soul, he noted for example the way debt crushed family friends. A safety swore he'd never endure, he noticed too.
例如,在他的灵魂深处,他注意到债务是如何摧毁家庭朋友的。他也注意到,他不会忍受一份安全保证。
The way his father's economical use of speech wasn't a hindrance at town meetings, but almost a superpower a way to ensure no one could ever throw ill-advised words back in his face much later.
在镇民大会上,他父亲的讲话很精简,这并没有成为障碍,但几乎是一种超级力量,一种确保没人能在很久以后把不明智的话扔到他面前的方式。
Coolidge would remark of his own taciturn nature.
柯立芝会说出他自己沉默寡言的性格。
The things I don't say never get me into trouble.
我没说的话永远不会给我带来麻烦。
Yet there were also times when perhaps more should have been said when Coolidge turned 12, his mother died of tuberculosis.
然而,在柯立芝12岁时,他的母亲死于肺结核,这也许是更多应该被提及的时候。
Sent in to see her one last time, he was merely told by his father not to cry in the aftermath of her death
他被派去见她最后一面,他父亲只是告诉他不要因为她的死而哭泣。
There was mourning but no grieving. the two men simply never spoke about it much as they would keep silent.
只有哀痛,没有悲伤。这两个人只是很少谈论这件事,就像他们会保持沉默一样。
When Coolidge's sister died it's back to these twin tragedies that some today trace Coolidge's temperament irritable melancholic and difficult to be around, but you could also just as easily trace back to them,
当柯立芝的姐姐去世的时候这两件悲剧就在今天有些人认为柯立芝的性格易怒忧郁,难以相处,但你也可以很容易地追溯到这两件事,
His drive to succeed years earlier Coolidge's grandfather had left the boy 40 acres on the understanding that he continued to work the hard Vermont soil, like his family always had, instead following his sister's death, the boy suddenly left Plymouth traveled to amherst to get an education there. Coolidge was unwanted by the fraternities forced to live instead in boarding houses.
几年前他对成功的渴望,柯立芝的祖父给他留下了40英亩的土地,因为他要继续在佛蒙特州艰苦的土地上劳作,就像他的家人一直做的那样,相反,在他姐姐死后,他突然离开了普利茅斯前往阿默斯特在那里接受教育。柯立芝不受兄弟会欢迎,被迫住在寄宿公寓。
This turned out to be a blessing in disguise as it allowed him to gradually level up his social skills he didn't really do small talk but at least every sentence. no longer felt like a double colonoscopy where he did start to excel.
事实证明,这是塞翁失马,焉知非福,因为这让他逐渐提高了他的社交技能,他不是真的闲聊,但至少每句话。不再像做双结肠镜检查那样他确实开始表现出色了。
Though was in making speeches it sounds counterintuitive i mean a guy for whom hello was one word too many was happy to get up before an auditorium and wow them for 40 minutes.
虽然是在演讲中,听起来有点违反直觉,我的意思是一个人,对他来说,“你好”是一个太多的词,他很高兴在礼堂前站起来,让他们惊叹40分钟。
Yet it seems Coolidge's natural reticent simply melted away in theseformal settings in the sheltered world of college.He was free to discover his hidden talents.
然而，柯立芝天生的沉默寡言似乎在大学这个受保护的世界里，在这些正式的环境中消失了。他可以自由地发现自己隐藏的才能。
He was also free to discover his political beliefs.
他也可以自由地发现自己的政治信仰。
One of Coolidge's tutors at amherst was professor charles garman, a guy who regularly turned his lectures into pians on individual liberty property rights and conservatism.
查尔斯·加曼教授是柯立芝在阿默斯特学院的导师之一,他经常把他的讲座变成关于个人自由、财产权和保守主义的演讲。
Under his spell, Coolidge began to identify more and more as a republican.
在他的魅力下,柯立芝开始越来越多地认同共和党。
By the time he graduated it was no longer enough to return to Plymouth and get into farming.
到他毕业的时候,已经不足以回到普利茅斯从事农业了。
No the young man now had another destiny.
不,这个年轻人现在有了另一种命运。
One it might be even harder to reap rewards from than the cold northeastern soil Coolidge was going to get into politics.
从寒冷的东北土壤中获得回报可能比柯立芝参与政治的难度还要大。
Normally when we do videos on presidents who came up through party politics like lyndon johnson or richard nixon,there's a section where their career takes off like a rocket ship.
通常情况下,当我们做关于总统的视频时,他们是通过党派政治出现的,比如林登·约翰逊或理查德·尼克松。在一段时间里,他们的事业像火箭一样飞速发展。
Calvin Coolidge's rise by contrast was like watching a snail climb up a stepladder, rather than the name straight for the house or senate .
相比之下,卡尔文·柯立芝的崛起就像看着蜗牛爬上梯子,而不是直接进入了众议院或参议院。
Coolidge instead set his sights on the city council in northampton massachusetts where he moved after graduation.
柯立芝把目光投向了马萨诸塞州北安普顿市议会,毕业后他搬到了那里。
Only five years later did he bolster this with a run for the school committeea race that he lost but rather than shrug his shoulders and move on.
仅仅五年后,他又参加了学校委员会的竞选——虽然他输了,但他并没有耸耸肩继续前行。
Silent cow went back, he analyzed what had gone wrong, he tried to figure out how he could have turned the loss into a win.
他沉默地回来了,他分析哪里出了问题, 他试图弄清楚他怎样才能把失败变成胜利。
