Coolidge

by Amity Shlaes

The regular worker did not pay the income tax, but, Mellon believed, the regular worker would benefit from the tax rate cut. Therefore he titled his book Taxation: The People’s Business.

Scientific taxation

Scientific taxation theory actually functioned: with lower rates you get more activity and therefore more revenue. When you dropped tax rates, people kept more of their business and sometimes did more business. Take away the car tax, and people would buy more cars. Lower rates meant that the economy would grow even faster than the revenues grew. One could look at the economy as a fraction. On top was the numerator, the government. On the bottom was the general economy, or “commerce,” as Coolidge called it. Coolidge had been focusing on the numerator, the government, making it smaller relative to commerce. But you could also get the same result by concentrating on the mysterious denominator. If commerce grew, while the government, the numerator, stayed the same, or grew less fast, the goal could be achieved, too. No one knew how much the economy would grow if rates were cut even farther than planned. The commerce, in the end, was the goal; that in turn would obviate the need for all the new legislation for the groups. If business was strong enough, the farmers might see prices go up; if trade was strong enough, soldiers could buy their own pensions. If commerce was strong enough, the endless pressure for new laws, as strong here as in Massachusetts, would relent. Here was one experiment an administration that so ostentatiously rejected government experiments, a party of normalcy, could embrace.

Black leaders had in the past been disappointed with the cold reception they received in his office, too little aware that this reception was accorded just about every interest group. Coolidge saw his work as freeing the individual rather than the group. Now a voter wrote to complain that a black man was competing for a nomination to run for Congress. Coolidge saw to it that his reply was published. He wrote, “I was amazed to receive such a letter. During the war 500,000 colored men and boys were called up under the draft not one of whom sought to evade it. A colored man is precisely as much entitled to submit his candidacy” as any other citizen.

A colored man has every right to put forth a candidacy

Coolidge decided to update Harding’s “no new experiments” with a line of caution: “If we wish to erect new structures, we must have a definite knowledge of the old foundations.”

Whether 300 100 years on the mayflower or three years we are all in the same

“Whether one traces his Americanism back three centuries to the Mayflower or three years to the steerage is not half so important as whether his Americanism of today is real and genuine. No matter by what various crafts we came here, we are all now in the same boat.”

The U.S. flag by the president’s desk obscured the politicians present from some angles. Cameramen asked the president for permission to remove the flag. But Coolidge, who normally obliged the press men, this time denied permission. The Stars and Stripes had to be part of the scene; they came before individual politicians.

The stars and stripes are more important than any one politician

He had always argued that aviation had the potential to obviate, at least to some extent, destroyers or battleships, perhaps eventually allowing savings in outlays for the War Department. His conviction strengthened: the future was brighter for flight if commerce, not the War Department, drove the industry.

Aviation would be more powerful if commerce not the government sought its role.

But Coolidge did not deem it appropriate for a president to march south like a general into governors’ territory to manage a flood rescue. The job of the executive branch in such situations was to coordinate, offer limited supplies, and encourage. But the job of the chief executive did not go further. It was wrong, on principle, for a president to intrude upon a governor; that was basic federalism. Rescue was work for the state governments. A number of governors and senators shared this view. Governor Austin Peay of Tennessee, a Democrat, took a position to the right of Coolidge on that: he turned down the Red Cross, too, because he “felt that the people should be expected to provide for themselves,” as a Red Cross official had noted. Praise for Coolidge’s position came from The New York Times: “Fortunately, there are still some things that can be done without the wisdom of Congress and the all-fathering Federal Government.”

Federalism is that the president does not interfere with governors.

By lowering rates on the wealthy, the Treasury had actually collected more from them. A greater portion of the income tax came from top earners than had at the beginning of the decade. In 1927, those earning over $50,000—a tremendous sum—would pay about 80 percent of the income taxes, whereas in 1920 those top earners had paid about half. “The income tax in this country,” as Mellon wrote triumphantly to one of the Treasury’s correspondents, “has become a class rather than a national tax.”

The office mattered more than the man

What a mess kind of monument to his presidency was no monument at all

Asking the federal government to spend more was sassing to change its role

Law and man of law were what could stop wars

If the government squandered money during high times the deficit would be all the worse

Hoover is going to have to spend a lot of money and when things fail the Democrats will come in and I’ll spend money like water

Christmas is not a timer a season for the state of

Coolidge had opposed the refitting of German ships, which years back experts had deemed “worse than a waste of good money”; lawmakers wanted to spend at least $12 million to reconstruct the aging craft.

Progressives had deemed Coolidge as anti-immigrant as Gompers since his signing of the Johnson Act. But to call Coolidge anti-immigrant was wrong, Cartotto saw. The difference between Coolidge and some progressives was that 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.

It was Coolidge’s conviction, dating back to his days in Northampton at the Home Culture Club, that citizens must know their country and learn its language to become good citizens.

Coolidge later explained his defense and his admiration of Cartotto to the artist: “You can serve this land better and more by bringing to it the best you inherited.”

Self-defense was a natural right.

law to provide for the coordination of public health activities by the federal government.

Vermont’s way was to allow people to help themselves, as the reporter had noted during the flood.

Vermonters did not mind starting small if they could do something themselves. They preferred it. Small was not the way of Hoover, the man who would be succeeding him in the presidential office, but it was Coolidge’s way.

Probably none of us however are going to do what we should like to do most but are going to struggle on somewhat unsuccessfully trying to do what we think we ought to do.”

Barton told Coolidge that a bit of restraint on the part of former presidents served the office of the presidency best.

Coolidge simply was not sure that the federal government ought to regulate financial markets, or that ex-presidents should work in finance. “I have considerable doubt as to whether the national government can interpose to make it so,” he had told the press pool once. After a while, Wall Street had heeded him: Coolidge held no Wall Street job.

Coolidge believed that for markets to find their level, businesses had to choose their own wages and prices.

“the Declaration of Independence—the eternal right to seek happiness through self government.”

“Largely because trade has declined we have set about finding fault with nearly everything,” he wrote. Then he changed that: “Largely because of some decline in trade, we have set about finding fault with nearly everybody and everything.”

“My countrymen, it is time to stop criticizing and quarreling and begin sympathizing and helping.”

“Business can stand anything better than uncertainty.”

The country seemed to do better when Congress was on holiday; that had been the problem with Harding’s perpetual extra sessions.

“The post office ought to be self-supporting,” he wrote on August 4, 1930.

“I made a contract with you to write ten articles at $2,000 each and I wrote them and you published six, and you haven’t published the other four.” Yes, came the editor’s reply, with the predictable response: the magazine had paid for all ten. “But if they aren’t worth publishing,” Coolidge said, “they oughtn’t to be paid for,” and he pulled out a check for $8,000. The move was deliberate, and deliberately Coolidge: somehow he had not pleased the other party. He gave the money back even though the contract did not say that he had to. The point, for him, was a simple one: it was important to show people that you cared about what they expected, so that they would want to do business with you again.

That was the danger now, he said, as was expecting too much from Washington. “A large expenditure of public money to stimulate trade is a temporary expedient which begs the question,” he added. “Many local governments are already taxing the people too much. Business does not need more burdens than less.”

“The world waits in our anteroom for our advice and assistance. The name Mr. Lewis gives us is unimportant. The record of our deeds will surpass all books.”

It is difficult for men in high office to avoid the malady of self-delusion. They are always surrounded by worshipers. They are constantly, and for the most part sincerely, assured of their greatness.

“The chances of having wise and faithful public service are increased by a change in the presidential office after a moderate length of time.”

You, my son, Have shown me God, Your kiss upon my cheek Has made me feel the gentle touch Of Him who leads us on. The memory of your smile, when young, Reveals His face.

To Grace, this personal encouragement was worth more than $2 million. Coolidge was a different man from the one who had forbidden horseback riding and rotated her Secret Service agent to another post. The Clarke School was there, Grace’s to enjoy and improve. The Coolidges were truly back together.

Cleveland had stood on sound and conservative principles. Indeed, “he was so sound on most economic questions that his party deserted him.”

Hoover had spent more money than he should have; he had spent like a Democrat. But that spending hadn’t been enough to ensure even Hoover’s own reelection.

pursue action for action’s sake, continuing where Hoover had started. “The Democrats will probably set aside the Hoover measures and try some of their own. That only means more experimenting with legislation.” Harding’s great inaugural address about the damage of experimentation seemed gone from memory. Though Coolidge could not know the details, Roosevelt was preparing an inaugural address that called for the opposite: “bold persistent experimentation.”

Coolidge was, he said, “in the class of presidents who were distinguished for character more than for heroic achievements.”

The idea that his life’s papers might be displayed grandly offended Coolidge as the kind of “self-aggrandizement” he condemned in others.

The Republican Party repeatedly asked Coolidge to reconsider his decision not to run—in vain. Coolidge said that “the chances of having wise and faithful public service are increased by a change in the presidential office after a moderate length of time.”