If I had permitted my failures, or what seemed to me at the time a lack of success, to discourage me I cannot see any way in which I would ever have made progress.

He returned to Washington the next day and was re-sworn in by Justice Adolph A. Coolidge continued the previous administration's policy not to recognize the Soviet Union. "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.

As a Coolidge biographer put it "He embodied the spirit and hopes of the middle class could interpret their longings and express their opinions. Coolidge restored public confidence in the White House after the scandals of his predecessor's administration and left office with considerable popularity. That he did represent the genius of the average is the most convincing proof of his strength.