He not only had the gift of “reading” men and women, of seeing into their hearts, he also had the gift of putting himself in their place, of not just… - Robert A. Caro

The roar of the Twenties was only the faintest of echoes in those vast and empty hills — a mocking echo to Hill Country farmers who read of Coolidge Prosperity and the reduction in the work week to forty-eight hours and the bright new world of mass leisure, while they themselves were still working the seven-day-a-week, dawn-to-dark schedule their fathers and grandfathers had worked; a mocking echo to Hill Country housewives who read of the myriad new labor-saving devices (washing machines, electric irons, vacuum cleaners, refrigerators) that had “freed” the housewife. Even if they had been able to afford such devices, they would not have been able to switch them on since the Hill Country was still without electricity.

The farm work they hated was the only work they knew. Often, even the basic skills of plumbing or electricity or mechanical work were mysteries to them – as were the job discipline and the subtleties that children raised in the industrial world learn without thinking about them; starting work on time, working set hours, taking orders from strangers instead of their father, playing office politics.

When Silent Cal Coolidge noted that “You don’t have to explain something you haven’t said,