Posted on 02/25/2013 4:10:30 AM PST by Kaslin
For years, most Americans' vision of history has been shaped by the New Deal historians. Writing soon after Franklin Roosevelt's death, Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and others celebrated his accomplishments and denigrated his opponents.
They were gifted writers, and many of their books were bestsellers. And they have persuaded many Americans -- Barack Obama definitely included -- that progress means an ever bigger government
In their view, the prosperous 1920s were a binge of mindless frivolity. The Depression of the 1930s was the inevitable hangover, for which FDR administered the cure.
That's one way to see it. But there are others, and no one is doing a better job of making a counter argument than Amity Shlaes, whose 2008 book "The Forgotten Man" painted a different picture of the 1930s.
Shlaes agrees that Roosevelt's initial policies seemed to end the downward deflationary spiral. But then bigger government, higher taxes and aggressive regulation led to further recession and years of achingly slow growth. Sound familiar?
Now Shlaes has produced a book tersely titled "Coolidge." It shows the 30th president in a far different light than the antique reactionary depicted by the New Deal historians.
Calvin Coolidge began his political career during the Progressive era, a time of expanding government. But he came to national notice when that era was ending in turmoil.
It was a time of revolution in Russia and attempted revolutions elsewhere in Europe, a time of continuing war in parts of the world even after the armistice formally ended World War I.
At home, it was a time of unemployment and inflation, of bombs set off before the attorney general's house and on Wall Street, of labor union strikes in coal and other basic industries.
Coolidge was governor of Massachusetts and in charge of the Boston police when they went on strike in September 1919. The cops had legitimate grievances. But the strike was followed by nights of violence and murder, looting of department stores and shops.
Coolidge fired the striking policemen. He explained why in a telegram to labor leader Samuel Gompers. It concluded, "There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, anytime."
"The time for disruption was over; in order for the next day to be better," Shlaes writes, "law must be allowed to reign now."
Coolidge became a national celebrity. The Republican bosses in the smoke-filled room picked someone else to be Warren Harding's running mate. But the convention delegates stampeded and nominated Coolidge.
That made Coolidge president on the sudden death of Harding (who comes off much better here than in the New Deal histories) in August 1923.
Shlaes tells how he settled into a routine of meeting regularly with the director of the new Bureau of the Budget, paring down spending any way he could.
Coolidge's Republicans had small majorities in Congress, and many favored big new spending programs -- veterans' bonuses, farm subsidies. Coolidge said no, with vetoes that were sustained.
At the same time, he pressed Congress for tax cuts. After Coolidge won a full term in 1924, the top income tax rate was reduced from the wartime 70 percent to 25 percent.
An economy that lurched from inflation to recession between 1918 and 1922 suddenly burst into robust economic growth.
That helped Coolidge achieve budget surpluses ever year -- surpluses that he used to pay down the national debt.
In the summer of 1927, while vacationing in the Black Hills of South Dakota, Coolidge announced, "I do not choose to run for president in 1928."
All the political indicators -- random sample public opinion polls had not yet been invented -- suggest he would have won a second full term. And would have been in office when the stock market crashed in October 1929.
The New Deal historians depict the prosperity of the Coolidge years as illusory. In their view, the binge would inevitably be followed by the hangover.
More recent economic historians have suggested that policy mistakes by the Federal Reserve were the prime cause of the deflationary downward spiral. The onerous Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930 may have been a culprit, too.
In any case, the standard of living of millions of Americans improved in the Coolidge years. Automobiles, refrigerators and radios became commonplace possessions.
Shlaes doesn't argue that Coolidge's policies could or should be replicated today. But she does establish that the 30th president is worthy of more respect than previous historians have accorded him.
That is, totally boss.
Both Hoover and George H.W. Bush ran on a platform of continuing the policies of their predecessors.
The GOP platform of 1928 was mostly about praising the Coolidge administration and pledging to continue doing the same: cutting taxes and reducing government debt. Hoover campaigned as being a part of that administration for 8 years and believing in "the American system of rugged individualism". He ran to the right of the generally centrist Al Smith, saying Smith and the Democrats believed in "the doctrines of paternalism and state socialism" that were popular in Europe at the time. (of course, the modern day Democrats, liberal media, and useful idiot neo-confederates will ignore history and make up BS that the Democrats were "the conservative party back then", and "the two parties switched sides" in the 1960s)
60 years later, in 1988, we essentially had the same thing. George H.W. Bush got the nomination because he had the name ID and had been part of the Reagan administration for 8 years. He essentially campaigned as Reagan's third term and ran well to the right of Dukasis, going after him as a bleeding heart peacenik Massachusetts liberal, attacking Duke's "revolving door prison system" in Mass, campaigning as a hardliner on crime and the death penalty, and giving a John Wayne type "read my lips, no new taxes" speech at the Republican National Convention. Idiot Dukakis actually ran against Reaganism when Reagan was still enormously popular with the public. Reagan also campaigned extensively for Bush.
Basically, Coolidge and Reagan weren't replaced with conservatives because moderates in their administration happened to be in the right place at the right time, to take advantage of their popularity and win the office on their coattails by talking like they were clones of their predecessor. There was no actual conservative "heir apparent" in the position to succeed them.
Reasonable minds can disagree on this one.
Reagan certainly had more significant accomplishments but that isn’t what I was basing it on.
Every President since Coolidge, other than Reagan, has been a wanker. Ike, a moderate Republican, is the next best/least wankerish, that says a lot. Hoover, Nixon, Ford and the Bushes, yikes. In that group POPPY Bush seems to look good, that’s just sad.
Tells us why Reagan dusted off the painting of Coolidge, and gave it a special place in the White House. Good read!
” Had Coolidge been President during the 1929 crash, I don’t think there would have been a depression.. Maybe a recession..”
100% spot on!
Very well written, and I include in this, your home page!
” Coolidge was almost an excellent champion of conservative values (sadly forgotten by history), but didn’t have those negatives in his presidency. Coolidge closed the immigration floodgates with the Immigration Act of 1924, and during his Presidency from 1923-1929, he greatly reduced the size and scope of the federal government. Federal spending remained flat during Coolidge’s administration, allowing one-fourth of the federal debt to be retired. The Revenue Act of 1924 reduced income tax rates and eliminated all income taxation for some two million people. Coolidge also represents a now long forgotten time (even during Reagan’s day) where the President and the executive branch saw their role as executing the laws of the land, not making them. Coolidge said it his job first and foremost to use his veto to stop bad legislation from becoming law, not to lobby for new federal laws. “
I agree with all of this. Reagan’s biggest mistake was the 1986 amnesty.
What's impressive is that the most prominent issues during his presidency are the same as those of today: taxes, spending, deficits and surpluses, national debt, and size of government. Coolidge met regularly with his Cabinet and Budget Director. The Budget Director's main emphasis was keeping tabs on federal agencies to keep their expenditures in line. By holding the line on spending like this, and vetoing a bunch of what he considered budget-busting bills (including veterans' bonuses), he made his share of adversaries in Republican-controlled Congresses, but he was able to keep the federal government in surpluses and pay down the national debt. As this was going on, the economy on the whole did very well, with the exception of agriculture.
BUMP
I am in the process of reading that work now, it is excellent.
What a great idea, to charge the budget director with keeping the heads of the administrative agencies in line. Brilliant!
Thanks for the ping!
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