Perhaps the president might, after all, together with Slemp, manage the Congress and get the legislation he sought the next term. Perhaps some of the challenges might take care of themselves. Every month that a federal bonus was not passed, one state or the other passed some kind of bonus. That, to Coolidge’s mind, was proper; it was the states’ job, not the federal government’s, to take care of citizens. By the end of 1923, nineteen states had found ways to finance the bonuses.
