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Did you know that the Calvin Coolidge Foundation offers an annual full-ride scholarship to ANY college the winning student chooses? Learn about this and explore the topic of Christians in politics in today’s episode of Veritas Vox with guest Garland S. Tucker III.

Want to hear something specific?

> At minutes 5:27 to 10:54, learn about Garland’s book on Calvin Coolidge (and some fun facts about his presidential race in 1924!)

> At minutes 17:13 to 22:30, we provide information on the Calvin Coolidge Foundation scholarship

> At minutes 22:30 to 30:30, we dive in deeper on Calvin Coolidge and how Christians like him can shape the United States government

Episode Transcription

Note: This transcription may vary from the words used in the original episode.

Marlin Detweiler:
Hello again and welcome to another episode of Veritas Vox, the voice of classical Christian education. Today we have with us Garland Tucker. Garland is a friend of mine that I've gotten to know with where we live in the winter time. Garland, welcome.

Garland S. Tucker III:

Thank you. It's good to be here.

Marlin Detweiler:

Yeah. I miss not seeing you around the neighborhood. I know that you've left for the summer already. Back in Raleigh, North Carolina. Place that I'm also familiar with because I know.

Garland S. Tucker III:

We got back to Raleigh just in time for the pollen here, so I don't.

Marlin Detweiler:

Know if you get it twice.

Garland S. Tucker III:

Oh, we got three times. Then we go to the mountains again.

Marlin Detweiler:

Oh, man. Well, you're a glutton for punishment.

Garland S. Tucker III:

It's true.

Marlin Detweiler:
I've gotten to know Garland through being neighbors. But also, we've gotten to know you because you recruited us to be part of some activities around the Coolidge Foundation. But before we talk a little bit about that, tell us a little bit about your background and your education and your family. And I don't mind you saying that you went to the University of North Carolina. I know you had.

Garland S. Tucker III:

Well, actually, I can spare you that. I didn't go. I did grow up in North Carolina. I was born in here in Raleigh, where we live now. But I grew up in a little town east of here on Wilson. And I actually went to college in Virginia. I went to Washington and Lee.

Marlin Detweiler:

That's right.

Garland S. Tucker III:

And most everybody else in my family went to Carolina. So that's where Marlin was headed with that one. Well, anyway, I majored in economics at Washington Lee and then did a two year MBA at Harvard Business School and along with doing that, I was fortunate enough to get married and my wife's from North Carolina and we decided to come back.

We eventually got back to North Carolina in the late 70s, moved back to Raleigh in 78. And I was active in the financial services business. I ran a broker dealer firm here for a while and then we sold out and then developed what's called a business development company which was based in Raleigh.

And we took it public in 2008 and then I retired in 2016 but stayed on the board. And then we sold the company in 2018. So I've been totally retired since 2018.

Marlin Detweiler:

What do you mean by a business development company is that I was a really it's for a firm or –

Garland S. Tucker III:

No, it's a pretty obscure term and I'll try to define it for you. It's the business or the corporate investment equivalent of a rate of an that instead of investing in real estate, we invested in corporate securities and smaller companies. And we wound up with a portfolio of probably 110 different companies spread all over the country.

But we, the company was Triangle Capital and we raised money from the public then reinvested it in smaller companies. And the term is business development county but nobody ever knows what that means. So you're right to ask the question. We have two daughters, both of whom are married and surprising to my wife and me, we all of a sudden have ten grandchildren with two daughters.

Our one daughter has three and one is seven. So one daughter lives in Raleigh and one in South Carolina. So my career has always been in business but I guess going back certainly to my undergraduate college days, I had a real interest in history. And I think one of the interesting things about history, and I would give your students a plug for this, I think history is a great it's a great thing if you want to be a professional historian, which I'm not, I'm just an amateur.

But you can also be an amateur historian. And the good thing about history is it's an argument that goes on forever. Everybody can have his or her opinions about history and you know, who's to say which is right and which is wrong. And so I developed this interest in history over time and let's see, it was about 2008 or 09, just happened to do something that I never really planned to do and that was to write a book.

And I found I really enjoyed it. And I wrote the first. I've written two books. The first book was on the presidential election of 1924, which involves Calvin Coolidge. And the second book was just a series of or a collection of little chapters on my heroes, conservative heroes. And you know, again, that's another pitch for history.

I think everybody needs to have some heroes. That's kind of an outdated term these days. But in history you can pick your own. And there are lots of good choices. And I just happened to pick my 14 that I liked and wrote the book about them. But I enjoyed the I'm glad I didn't have to earn a living selling history books, but I really enjoyed writing them and it was fun to go around and speak.

And that's really how I got involved in the Coolidge Foundation, which Carlin mentioned, in which we'll talk about, I guess, in a few.

Marlin Detweiler:

So you wrote the book on Coolidge before you were connected to the Coolidge Foundation?

Garland S. Tucker III:

Yeah. I had, just over the years, gotten interested in Coolidge. I felt like he was a very underappreciated president. I remember very well when Ronald Reagan was elected in the early 80s, in 1980, and Reagan hung the portrait a portrait of Coolidge in the cabinet room, and there was all kinds of consternation among the press.

They couldn't figure out why in the world, first time they'd heard of Calvin Coolidge in decades. And Reagan made the point that he felt Coolidge was a very underrated president and thought that he had a lot to offer to 20th century politics. And so that's about the end that I got interested and started reading about it.

And at the same time got interested in even more obscure person. That's John Davis, who was the Democratic nominee for president in 1924. Coolidge was a Republican and Davis was a Democrat. And I realized somewhere along the way that the only time that their two paths crossed was in 1924, in the election. Nobody had written anything about the 24 election.

So I said, well, I'll try my hand at writing a book and it'll be the best book out on that topic. That took the pressure off. But I really enjoyed doing that. And it was a pleasure to write about that election because it just happened that, I mean, the reason I was interested in Coolidge and Davis is they happened to fit my political viewpoint, my conservative viewpoint. And it was the last election where both parties nominated a really conservative candidate.

Marlin Detweiler:

I didn't realize that. That's interesting.

Garland S. Tucker III:

Davis was probably as conservative as Coolidge, maybe even more conservative. And the end result of that election was, Coolidge won handily. Davis lost pretty badly. And the Democrats decided well, we're not going to try to be more conservative than the Republicans. And they went to the left and the Republicans stayed on the right.

And so our modern concept of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party really goes back to 1924.

Marlin Detweiler:

So you would say, wow, that's interesting. So the separation of right and left was what you're saying is a result of the 24 election.

00:09:29:21 - 00:10:01:14

Garland S. Tucker III:

Well, what you had all through it. Well, from the late 1800s up until 1924, certainly. And beyond, both parties had a liberal wing and a conservative wing. The Republican Party had a liberal wing. Teddy Roosevelt was pretty liberal. Okay. With progressive. And the Democrats had Woodrow Wilson, who was a progressive, but there was a very sizable wing of the Democratic Party that was conservative.

Garland S. Tucker III:

And of course, there was a sizable wing of the Republican Party that was conservative. And they went back and forth. And it's interesting to speculate. If Davis somehow had won in 1924, the Republicans might have gone to the left and the Democrats might have stayed over on the right with Davis. So, what happened after 24?

And it took probably 40 years, 50 years. But the migration started. Most liberal Republicans gradually moved over and became Democrats. And most conservative Democrats moved over and became Republicans. And so now we have arguably a much more homogeneous party in the Democrats and the Republicans. You know, it just it's as true in 2025.

Marlin Detweiler:

Yeah. Well, I know you to be both involved in conservative politics and also to be a godly man. It's been fun. The couple instances where I've been able to come to the community Bible study that we have right through here, your interactions there—it was your wife.

Garland S. Tucker III:

I hope I didn't say anything inappropriate.

Marlin Detweiler:

No. Yeah, it was obviously coming from a life of practicing, developing wisdom.

Garland S. Tucker III:

Well, I was very fortunate. I'm one of, I've got three siblings, and we were all very fortunate to have had Christian parents and Christian godparents. So the four of us became Christians the old fashioned way. We didn't really know we had an alternative growing up, and thankfully we didn't. But I would certainly say that both in business and in personal life, Christ has been an important part of the mix and probably the most rewarding thing that I did was involved in—we started an Anglican church in Raleigh in 2003, 2004, and my wife and I were on the founding vestry and were very involved in it, and it's fortunately become a very thriving parish. And that's been really rewarding.

00:12:31:20 - 00:13:05:11

Marlin Detweiler:

Wonderful. I need to come visit. You do? I've been to. I've been your home, but I haven't been to the church. Tell me how your—I hate using the term "your faith." This idea of faith-driven things, it's about much more than that. I don't have time to unpack my thinking here, but tell me how your Christian worldview, your beliefs, the core of what is important to you, affected how you did business.

Marlin Detweiler:

I'm particularly interested in how it affected the businesses that you would acquire.

Garland S. Tucker III:

Yeah, well, I think again, I feel like I was very fortunate in growing up. My father was in business and was a successful businessman. And I had a chance to see firsthand what I would say was a very integrated life. His faith, you know, he didn't separate the two. The faith he had at home or talked to us about was the same faith that he had at the office.

And I saw firsthand how important that was. And I think that was, and also saying to bosses when I got in the securities business that I would say from an ethical standpoint and an individual faith, they were less vocal in their faith than my father, but they were very ethically grounded.

And so I had some awfully good examples to look at. And, you know, I would say, and this kind of translates into Coolidge. If you look at, if you look at Coolidge or if you looked at my father and hopefully if you looked at me, but certainly if you looked at Coolidge or my father.

There was absolutely no difference in what they said they believed and how they lived. And, you know, how they treated people, in politics with Coolidge or in business. Father was very much in line with their faith. And, you know, that's something we don't see always certainly in business or in politics for sure.

Marlin Detweiler:

Did it affect the businesses that you would acquire?

Garland S. Tucker III:

You know, I don't know that it, we certainly, there were a number of our company that where we were making the investment decisions. There were a number of us who were, I would say strong believers. And whenever we found a company that we had reason to believe that the management were believers.

And that was always a big plus. It wasn't, we didn't use that as an asset test. We didn't require that. But it was certainly a plus when we saw it. And we did have as an asset test that we had to believe the management was ethical. And usually it was certainly when you, you know, when you don't know a management team or a group of people and you're getting to know them, it's much easier to get a feel for them if you can share your faith with them.

Marlin Detweiler:

Right. Well, it's not always possible to know the ethics of the people that you're dealing with. And I can understand that ethics would be the element of litmus test. Do you have any instances where you ran into a tough situation and really had to completely revamp the exact team?

Garland S. Tucker III:

We certainly did. Well, I can think of a couple of instances where we were fooled about the ethics and they really weren't, turned out over time. They weren't as ethical as we thought. We had to change out the management. And we certainly had some instances where the management teams weren't as capable as we thought from a business standpoint and we had to make changes.

But we did have a few surprises on the ethics. Nothing too major. But we did have a few surprises.

Marlin Detweiler:

Let's change the conversation and move it to Coolidge and the Coolidge Foundation. How long have you been involved in it now?

Garland S. Tucker III:

I've been on the Coolidge Foundation board since 2012, I believe 13 years?

Marlin Detweiler:

And what are the main initiatives of the foundation?

Garland S. Tucker III:
Well, the foundation really, even though the foundation's probably say excuse me, 60 or 70 years old, it really has taken shape as an entity since about 19, since about 2010. And it didn't have anything to do with my coming on the board. It had everything to do with Amity Shlaes, who's a very gifted historian, economist and historian, and she came on the board and became chair of the board about the time I went on.

And she has really driven some amazing growth. The Coolidge Foundation now has a very sizable endowment that she's raised. And the primary use of the endowment is for the Coolidge Scholarship program, which provides free ride scholarships for 5 or 6 students as merit every year for whatever college the students elect to go to. And it's a full ride, merit based only, purely merit.

Marlin Detweiler:
I want to really underscore this. This is where I've been invited to the conversation, been part of the process of evaluating applicants. At this point, for two years now, you've invited Laurie and me to participate. And we have had the privilege of seeing the second, the top level, process, the semifinal process and evaluating ten students.

We do that as one of ten groups around the country. So there are 100 at that point, this year out of 4900. And they are remarkable. And so I want to plug that for you. And for our students to look at the Calvin Coolidge Scholarship Foundation application and consider participating in it because it is a wonderful work.

Garland S. Tucker III:
It's really quite humbling to see how capable these students are as individuals. And, like you say, even viewing it from the jury standpoint and seeing what's become ten of the top hundred, that's really quite a group. And even though there are only 5 or 6 who are ultimately selected, the top 100 are invited to Washington a couple of times during the year.

And then on an ongoing basis, come back and stay involved with them. And there's some real benefits to being in that group of 100. So I would encourage anybody who is excelling both academically and in extracurricular activities to look at the Coolidge Scholarship. And Amity Shlaes vision is that she'd like to get it up to maybe 12 or 15 scholarships a year.

And her hope is that it'll be recognized as sort of the US equivalent of the Rhodes Scholarship. So the Coolidge and it's becoming very well known now.

Marlin Detweiler:
It's a premier scholarship. To be clear, the scholarship pays 100% of the students' costs for college and can be taken to the college of the student's choice. I don't know of anything like that in America.

Garland S. Tucker III:
No, I don't either. And it was really her vision. And part of her thinking is it really puts the decision making in the hands of the most qualified students, you know, a merit based. They can once they have the Coolidge Scholarship, they can pick any college that they want to attend.

And the odds are if they won the Coolidge Scholarship, they can get in most any place that they want to go to.

Marlin Detweiler:
So that's right.

Garland S. Tucker III:
It does some other—the foundation does some other things. There's a big debate program for high school debaters that goes on all over the country. And in recent years, I think about six years ago, a trustee bought for the foundation a wonderful house in Georgetown. That's a historic house that George Mason's family owned in Georgetown.

And the foundation uses that for conferences in Washington and to sort of give it a voice in Washington. And the real purpose for all this is to insert some of Coolidge's political philosophy into the current dialog around the country. And the foundation has become very effective in doing that.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah. It's wonderful to see how someone that was, to me and I think to many Americans, a person who was forgotten to be brought back and understand, especially in a very tough political setting, how one man stood out in ways that weren't flashy and weren't brash, but very effective, like.

Garland S. Tucker III:
Go to two of the really interesting things about Coolidge or one, just the sort of the facts of what happened during his administration. He was very effective. He reduced taxes, he reduced spending. The economy just soared. And he was very popular with the public and with the press and all of that. And I would say that he was a very fine president.

But the other thing that's interesting about him was if you came up with a short list of attributes you would think were necessary for a politician, Coolidge wouldn't fit any of them. I mean, he was hopelessly inept at small talk. He didn't do any backslapping. He was never viewed kissing a baby or anything that politicians think they have to do.

And he was a classic case of understatement. And interestingly, the public just seemed to understand him and respect him for it. And you would think, well, gosh, this guy could never get elected to anything. And yet he had a long string of being elected to offices at the state level and then vice president, president.

And yeah, and actually made the decision to step down as president when he could have run for another term. And that was unprecedented.

Marlin Detweiler:
Well, as we think about the time frame that he was president, he ran in 24 and successfully he was president for a couple of years prior to that because of Harding being assassinated. Right.

Garland S. Tucker III:
Harding. Yeah. Harding.

Marlin Detweiler:
Thank you. Yeah, yeah. So what year was his first year as president?

Garland S. Tucker III:
His first year as president was 23. So he was president about a year before.

Marlin Detweiler:
So 23 and then 24 through 28. These are the years that are typically referred to as the Roaring 20s. Right. That's not the character of Coolidge. How do you square those two?

Garland S. Tucker III:
Well, you're exactly right. There's a funny quote, and I can't remember exactly who made it. It might have been Walter Lippmann or somebody like that. But anyway, they were commenting on how the social mores of the 20s were really changing. But that Coolidge was like somebody— I think the quote was it was like somebody out of McGuffey reader, you know, which was an old-fashioned textbook for school students.

And his conclusion was, well, with all the social mores changing and everybody enjoying the change, it made them feel more virtuous to have an old-fashioned president like Coolidge. And so I don't know whether that was true or not, but that's one way to explain it anyway.

Marlin Detweiler:
Well, we certainly have diversity in cultural practice and expression today. But to have the time frame substantially known for one thing in the president would be somewhat antithetical to at least the reputation of the 20s is hard to square. And I assume that there were people who also were diligent, they went to bed early instead of partying late, and lived within their means in ways that would have been typical of Coolidge.

Garland S. Tucker III:

Oh, yeah. Well, the and another aspect of the Roaring 20s was it was obviously succeeded by the Great Depression. And there's a tendency, or there has been a tendency among some historians and others to somehow blame the 20s for the 30s. And, Amity Shlaes in particular, have done a very good job, I think, of disabusing that notion.

The progress, the economic progress that was made during the 20s is really amazing. I mean, the standard of living for the average American just jumped dramatically. And the tax burden was that the prosperity was real. So it wasn't something that in any way had to collapse. And the fact that the 30s followed it, I think was much more attributed to the bad policies that were implemented in the 30s than they were to the policies of Coolidge in the 20s.

Marlin Detweiler:
Interesting. Yeah. Well, it's been wonderful to have you on here. I know that you've written an article that contrasts President Trump with President Coolidge in some sense and is really worth reading. What's the title of the article that people can search since we didn't really have time to cover it?

Garland S. Tucker III:
Well, it's been run several places. American Spectator ran it, the North State Journal, I think one of the titles is Where is Silent Cal? Okay. I can't remember what The American Spectator had a different title on it, but, you know, the question was on Trump, as any president, when they come in, they can decide what portraits they put up in the Oval Office.

And for some reason, Coolidge was not there under Trump. So I was raising the question was, was there a reason? And, I ended the article with, I think, a wonderful quote from Coolidge. He says that it's really a great benefit to whoever is president and of great benefit to the country if they know that the president and the country knows that the president is not a great man.

And Coolidge was saying that what's great about America is our system. And if the president's honest and hardworking, that's really what you need. And you don't need the president to be some kind of superhuman. And I think the recent history in the US, with the people we've had as President Trump and Obama come to mind both, they probably wouldn't say about themselves, no, I'm not a great man. But that's what Coolidge was saying.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah. Well, I think the one significant takeaway for our students and their parents is that we have a model in Calvin Coolidge. How a classically educated kid who is committed to living a life that is exemplified by the gospel of Jesus Christ, there's a political model out there that can help shape somebody who's interested in being in political science or in the political world, and I appreciate you.

Garland S. Tucker III:
I would encourage all of your students, to read Coolidge's autobiography, which is very short, not hard to read, but I think you're right. I think his face shines through in that. And it shows you what a believer can do. In politics.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah. That's a good place to leave it. Thank you so much, Garland, for joining.

Garland S. Tucker III:
It’s been a pleasure.

Marlin Detweiler:
Yeah, folks, thank you for joining us again on another episode of Veritas Vox, the voice of classical Christian Education. We hope to see you again next time.