Calvin Coolidge “vacations” on his Vermont farm in 1937. He believed in hard work and low taxes. (
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Few presidents are as little understood as Calvin Coolidge.
Most Americans know only two things about our 30th president, neither of which is true — that he got the nickname “Silent Cal” for being so quiet, and when he spoke at all it was as a mouthpiece for industry, peddling bromides such as “the business of America is business.”
This cartoonish portrayal remains lodged in the popular imagination largely because New Deal historians wanted to downplay Coolidge’s popularity and to write his successes out of the history books.
But the real Coolidge was a practical joker who could be downright chatty. And far from worshipping at the altar of business, Coolidge, one of our most religious presidents, was a serious thinker.
The man from Vermont eschewed luxury and believed that prosperity wasn’t the goal, but a happy result of a well functioning society. Perhaps as a cautionary tale about the excesses of the Roaring Twenties, he warned that there is “no surer road to destruction than prosperity without character.”
Only by understanding Coolidge as he understood himself and the politics of the day can we hope to learn what he has to teach about American life, economy, and the constitution.
He earned the silent nickname because of his reticence at parties. But in his public life, Coolidge published three collections of speeches, an autobiography, hundreds of letters and a syndicated post-presidential column. He gave more than 500 press conferences during his 5 1/2 years as president, but he was careful to mind what he had to say.
“The words of the president have an enormous weight and ought not to be used indiscriminately,” he later wrote.
Coolidge was popular for what he had to say. A young Ronald Reagan listened to him on the radio and developed a lifelong devotion. “When a man has gone into 20 elections and has won 19, he had something in him which compels confidence and which represents the popular will,” wrote William Allen White, one of Coolidge’s first biographers.
In a lesson contemporary conservatives would do well to learn, Coolidge understood that republics are made of public opinion and so, ever the statesman, he set out to shape it. He spoke to issues very similar to our own.
In the Boston Police Strike of 1919, then-Gov. Coolidge dealt a major blow to public-employee union excess. As president he disentangled America from a decade of military adventurism and a wandering foreign policy.
Throughout his career, Coolidge worked hard to bring new groups — immigrants, Jews, women, blacks and Native Americans — into the Coolidge Prosperity. The free fall in the number of lynchings, the advances made by women after suffrage, the first ballots cast by Native Americans and the cars and radios rolling off the assembly line — these were the scenes of his presidency.
He is popular among conservatives for cutting both government regulations and tax rates. But even liberals may find something to like in the Coolidge boom: the tax code became more progressive. Those making less than $5,000 a year paid 15.4% of total income taxes in 1920 but only 0.4% in 1929. Those earning more than $100,000 paid 65.2%, up from 29.9% over that same period.
Government got more revenue, too. The economic expansion led to a 28% increase in the proportion of the budget paid by federal income taxes.
This was possible because Coolidge understood the chief meaning of economic freedom, “the right of the individual to possess, enjoy, and control the dollar which he earns.” Liberty “would be . . . a mockery unless it secured to the individual the rewards of his own effort and industry.”
Coolidge fundamentally understood the American character. Americans hate class warfare because they “believe in prosperity. It is absurd to suppose that [Americans are] envious of those who are already prosperous.”
“The wise and correct course,” Coolidge said, was “not to destroy those who have already secured success but to create conditions under which everyone will have a better chance to be successful.”
Coolidge’s thinking seems tailor-made for today’s conservative activists: “Patriotism is easy to understand in America. It means looking out for yourself by looking out for your country. In no other nation on earth does this principle have such complete application.
“There is no dignity quite so impressive, no one independence quite so important, as living within your means. To live under the American Constitution is the greatest political privilege that was ever accorded to the human race.”
Why does Coolidge matter today? Because we haven’t learned all he has to teach.
Charles C. Johnson is the author of “Why Coolidge Matters: Leadership Lessons from America’s Most Underrated President” (Encounter Books ), out this week.