RUTH KING: A REVIEW OF “COOLIDGE” BY AMITY SHLAES
A Review of ‘Coolidge’ (By Amity Shlaes)
by RUTH KING
When Calvin Coolidge died in 1933 The Wall Street Journal’s obituary stated:
“….In due time, the good fortune of the United States to have had such a man as Calvin Coolidge in just the years he filled the office will be more clearly realized than it has yet been.”
That time has come thanks to Amity Shlaes and her remarkable biography of an outstanding man.
In 1981 when President Ronald Reagan took office, he replaced a portrait of Harry Truman in the Oval office with one of Calvin Coolidge and explained “I’d always thought of Coolidge as one of our most underrated presidents … He cut the tax rate and government revenues increased.” Ronald Reagan an enormously popular and successful President probably created a bump in interest for Calvin Coolidge, but it is Amity Shlaes’ masterful biography “Coolidge” that now places “Silent Cal” front and right of center among American Presidents.
Calvin Coolidge was born on July 4th, 1872, on the 96th birthday of the nation whose 30th President he would become on August 2, 1923 when President Warren G.Harding suddenly died. Unlike more illustrious “accidental’ Presidents who ascended to the White House when the elected President died, Calvin Coolidge has been relegated to secondary status by historians and academics and pundits who derided him as dull, bourgeois, materialistic and boring.
Theodore Roosevelt who became president when President William McKinley was killed in 1901 was a flamboyant explorer, hunter and conservationist who won a Nobel Prize in 1906 for brokering peace between Russia and Japan.
Harry Truman who became President when Franklin Delano Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, ushered America through the conclusion and victory of World War II and rose unexpectedly to every economic and foreign policy challenge, including the decision to use nuclear force in Japan, enact the Marshall Plan, implement the creation of NATO and recognize the threat of Communism.
The 38th President Lyndon Johnson, replaced John Kennedy who was assassinated after 1000 days in office. Johnson enacted the utopian, and disastrous policies of “The Great Society” but left his stamp on history by ending segregation in the United States.
Calvin Coolidge in contrast to those three was unassuming and modest but, like them, he delivered far more than was expected and left his own major footprints as a highly successful and popular President. He assiduously avoided the celebrity of the office, adhered strictly to conservative principles, understood that the creation of prosperity for Americans was dependent on individual responsibility, ambition, participation and character. One is also reminded that the choice of a Vice-President can have major consequences for our nation.
While he was Governor in 1919, the Boston police, encouraged and abetted by the American Federation of Labor declared a strike. Coolidge responded ” There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time” and supported the Police commissioner Edwin Curtis’ decision to fire the strikers. His general reticence belied the steely resolve.
That resolve was sorely put to the test in April 1927, when the Mississippi River overflowed its banks causing chaos and devastation and displacing hundreds of thousands and killing hundreds of people. Coolidge held a meeting of his Cabinet and chose Herbert Hoover, his commerce secretary, to head up a rescue and relief effort. Coolidge resisted Governors, senators, and mayors who asked him to visit the flood zone fearing the demand for a federal role in solving national problems. and he declined to convene a special session to pass an emergency appropriation. In December 1927 he relented and endorsed federal flood control measures, but only if local governments and property owners bore most of the costs. The press and public were outraged, but he retained his popularity and was urged to run for re-election. He declined with the usual economy of language: “I do not choose to run in 1928.”
As Amity Shlaes reminds us, when Coolidge campaigned for the Presidency in 1920 the nation was burdened with economic turmoil and downturn, government was suffocating industry and business, nationalizing communication by rail and bloating the national debt. During his Presidency- he was elected to a full term in 1924-he opposed raising taxes, encouraged aviation and the automobile industry, promoted education and science, balanced a runaway budget, lowered unemployment significantly, erased the deficit, and helped create an era of prosperity, creativity and optimism.
During his tenure, American Indians gained full citizenship in 1924, the Mount Rushmore National Memorial was authorized and construction was started on October 1927. That May, Charles A. Lindbergh had completed the first solo nonstop transatlantic flight in history, flying his Ryan NYP “Spirit of St. Louis” 5,810 kilometers (3,610 miles) between Roosevelt Field on Long Island, New York, and Paris, France, in 33 hours, 30 minutes paving the way for commercial aviation. By 1927 over 17,000,000 homes in America had electricity permitting longer working days and heralding a better life through technology.
How would he cope with today’s vexing problems? The labor unions wanted restrictions on immigration so that domestic workers would have greater leverage. Coolidge complied by signing a restrictionist bill into law, stating: “I am convinced that our present economic and social conditions warrant a limitation of those to be admitted.” As Shlaes writes “Coolidge believed that immigrants should come only if the United States could absorb them and only if they were prepared to make an effort to assimilate.”
In “Coolidge” Amity Shlaes skillfully weaves biographical data with contemporaneous history to present the style and substance of the man. A guiding force in his personal life as well as in his legislative life was adherence to thrift and austerity and avoidance of debt. In his words: “I am for economy, after that I am for more economy.” To many younger Americans who owe more than they own and accept the present government’s ineluctable path to deficits, Coolidge’s concepts of thrift, piety, and self-reliance may seem antediluvian. However, to those who came of age in the post war era, savings, avoidance of huge mortgages and credit debt and living within one’s means were a mantra for success and security. His adherence to those principles worked in his administrations as Governor of Massachusetts and President of the United States.
It is a most worthwhile book….read it.
There remain three unanswered questions which I posed to the author:
1. The 1920s witnessed the rise of Fascism, Nazism, and brutal Marxism. There is not much known about Coolidge’s reaction. Will you comment on that?
Shlaes responded: ” Coolidge abhorred Russia, but hoped strong recovery in Europe would weaken fascism. Fascism was on a roll but Coolidge believed, it turned out wrongly, that the economy would improve enough to weaken it. He was not a neocon. He said that if one saw ten stones rolling down the road toward one, nine would go in the ditch before they got to you.”
2. Did his policies have any impact on the major Depression when he left office?
Shlaes: Coolidge’s policies did not cause the Great Depression. In the Forgotten Man I detail the series of errors by bankers, statesmen and politicians in the Hoover and Roosevelt governments who made the Depression Great. Remember a crash does not force a Depression. In Coolidge’s life prior to becoming President, the Dow Jones Industrial Index crashed seven times. In 1907 it dropped 37.7% (to 58.75 on 12/31/1907 from 94.35 on 12/31/1906). In 1920 it dropped 32.9%, in 1914 it dropped 30.7%, in 1903 it dropped 23.6%. The stock market was (way) high in 1929, but he did not believe the fed’l govt should intervene.
Other years of big drops:
1917: -21.7%
1910: -17.9%
1913: -10.3%
3. Is there no one on the scene that embodies the small government and conservative policies of Coolidge?
Shlaes: Not really. No.
Coolidge by Amity Shlaes (Feb 12, 2013)
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