“Make a film on Calvin Coolidge?” When the idea was first suggested to me I barely could muster a yawn. As a “liberal” filmmaker, what little I knew of Coolidge came from New Deal historians who view him as a somnambulant “capitalist tool” whose presidency served only as a prelude to disaster.

“Why Coolidge?”

“Read his autobiography — 250 pages, large print.”

I did, and was intrigued. I moved on to his speeches, all of which he wrote himself. A master at delegating duties, Coolidge was not one to delegate beliefs. His speeches read like lay sermons to the American public, revealing fundamental values and ideals any small “d” democrat should embrace. I was hooked.

Initial grants launched two years of research, followed by three and a half years of fundraising for this — the first film ever made on Coolidge. Finally underway, preproduction, production, and editing took four and a half years. The three-hour story edit of “Things of the Spirit” was finished in 1997. Since then, completion fundraising has consumed another decade, bolstered by nationwide screenings of our one-hour preview and unprecedented praise from viewers of every political persuasion — see persistenceplus.com.

So who was Coolidge, and what is it about him that motivates me to persist, year after year, in my quest for completion funds? If I had to fashion a “sound bite” to describe him, I would call Coolidge a political minimalist who chose to guide rather than legislate.

Others may disagree, but I can’t imagine Coolidge rising to political bait like flag burning, the Pledge of Allegiance, gay marriage, or school prayer. In my opinion, he would have viewed these “hot-button” issues as inappropriate, having nothing to do with presidential business.

Coolidge became president upon Warren Harding’s death in 1923. At the time, 31 political prisoners still languished in jail for violations of President Wilson’s wartime espionage, sedition, and “aid to the enemy” legislation. Harding already had released some, including Eugene Victor Debs, Socialist candidate for president five times, who was serving a 10-year sentence for advocating freedom of speech for those who opposed our entry into World War I.

When Coolidge was asked at one of his twice-weekly press conferences about the remaining political prisoners, he replied:

“I don’t exactly like the term political prisoners, because I hope we do not have any such thing in this country, but I use that term because you know what it means, I know what it means, and the public knows. I am having an investigation made, and when I get the results of the investigation I am going to act upon it.”

Less than two months later, all 31 prisoners were free.

Coolidge refused to allow members of his cabinet to obstruct congressional investigation of the Harding administration’s Teapot Dome scandal. Accordingly, rather than claim executive privilege, Coolidge summarily dismissed Attorney General Harry Daugherty when he denied a Senate request to open Justice Department files for inspection. Coolidge viewed Daugherty’s refusal as improper:

“I do not see how you can be acting for yourself in your own defense in this matter, and at the same time and on the same question acting as my Attorney General … These two positions are incompatible and cannot be reconciled.” Coolidge replaced Daugherty with Harlan Fiske Stone, whom he later appointed to the Supreme Court. The appointment was sanctified by Franklin Roosevelt when he named Stone chief justice in 1941.

It is on economic matters that Coolidge is most remembered. World War I and its aftermath caused skyrocketing national debt. At the same time, the top income tax rate soared to 73%, stifling private investment. Post-war America was a chaos of strikes, race riots, anarchist bombings, inflation, and unemployment.

Harding, Coolidge, and Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon sought to kick-start the economy by reducing the top marginal tax rate to 25%. They did. Revenues increased dramatically, presaging Arthur Laffer by half a century. Both presidents ran surpluses in all their annual budgets. By the time Coolidge left office, the national debt had been cut by one-third.

New Deal historians maintain that the tax cuts of the 1920s reversed the progressive tax policies of Woodrow Wilson. Far from it. Exemptions increased so much that by 1927 almost 98% of the American people paid no income tax whatsoever. When Coolidge left office in 1929, wealthy people paid 93% of the tax load. During Wilson’s last year in office they had paid only 59%.

Less remembered, and less appreciated by contemporary politicians, was Coolidge’s aversion to farm subsidies. At great political risk, Coolidge twice vetoed the popular McNary-Haugen farm subsidy bill. As Coolidge put it:

“If the government gets into business on any large scale, we soon find that the beneficiaries attempt to play a large part in the control … and those who are the most adroit get the larger part of it.” Although some may wish otherwise, Coolidge was not one publicly to condemn private organizations. Rather than censure the Ku Klux Klan following its massive 1925 march in Washington, Coolidge chose to address the annual meeting of the American Legion in Omaha on “toleration and liberalism,” concluding:

“I recognize the full and complete necessity of 100 percent Americanism, but 100 percent Americanism may be made up of many various elements … Whether one traces his Americanisms back three centuries to the Mayflower, or three years to the steerage … we are all now in the same boat … Let us cast off our hatreds.”

I can’t think of any other public figure who would have dared deliver that message to that audience at that time.

Throughout his political life Calvin Coolidge was essentially a moral force. As such, the place we give him in history reflects as much on us as it does on him. No greater motivation is needed for me to continue my quest for completion underwriting in order to bring this untold story to home and academic viewers nationwide.

Mr. Karol is an Academy Award-nominated independent filmmaker based in Orford, N.H. Screenings of the one-hour preview from “Things of the Spirit” can be scheduled by contacting him at his e-mail address, karol@apertura.org.