Calvin Coolidge

Despite being one of the most prosperous economic periods in all of American history, the Roaring 20s and the presidents who served during it do not have positive reputations in popular media or in the minds of historians. Warren G. Harding, who served from 1921 to his death in August 1923, used to be considered the worst president in American history due to how corrupt his administration was. Harding was rarely involved in the scandals himself, but his cabinet often sold land under conservation, medical supplies, and other important government property to private businessmen in exchange for personal gifts. When this information started to come to light, Harding likely aided in efforts to cover them up, much like Richard Nixon during the Watergate Scandal. Herbert Hoover is infamous for his lack of action during the Great Depression. In fact, some of the few actions Hoover did take during the Great Depression ultimately worsened the crisis, such as the Smoot-Hawley Tariff.

Of the 3 men to lead the United States during the Roaring 20s, one's name has avoided much of the muddying and criticism received by the other two: Calvin Coolidge. Unlike Harding, the economic health Americans enjoyed under Coolidge was not accompanied by giant waves of corruption and deep pits of shady lies. Unlike Hoover, that very same economic health did not start rotting away just 8 months into Coolidge's tenure. From the second Coolidge became president to the second he left office, the economy enjoyed unprecedented growth. For this reason, many people - especially conservatives - consider Coolidge an amazing president. His lack of government intervention in both personal and corporate affairs also has made his name one written in gold, frankincense, and myrrh. I agree that Coolidge was a good man who did many good things as president, but I also think the bad was numerous and severe enough to cancel out the good. For me, Coolidge was an average president.

Two years into his presidency, Warren G. Harding died of a massive heart attack at a hotel in California on August 2, 1923. When news of this tragedy reached Coolidge, who was vacationing at his father's home in Vermont, he was instantly woken up, informed that he was now president of the United States of America. Interestingly, Coolidge was actually sworn in by his father (a local judge by this point), becoming the first and only president to be inaugurated that way. Soon after taking office, Coolidge took one of the greatest actions of his presidency: He finally permitted investigations into the Harding Administration's corruption. This fact is not very surprising. As Harding's vice president, Coolidge urged Harding not to shatter investigations into his corruption, but to allow them. He had an history of despising corruption, particularly when it was present in his beloved Republican Party. Still, it was an amazing act of Constitutional courage that deserves love and praise, even 100 years after Coolidge first swore the oath of office.

Although Coolidge diverged from Harding on the issue of corruption, they largely upheld one another when it came to economics and finance. Both were opposed to large-scale government intervention in the monetary world. While Harding reduced the income tax, Coolidge reduced the property tax. I oppose this. In my last article, I outlined the reasons I support Grover Cleveland's implementation of the income tax: The income tax allows the tax burden to shift toward the wealthiest members of society (which won't impact then much anyway) and away from the working class and impoverished. It also incentivizes the government to properly care for the economy, as then it can collect more revenue from a wealthier populace. For similar reasons, I dislike Coolidge's decision to reduce property taxes. Taxing property allows the tax burden to shift from those without property or with very little property to those with a lot of property. Much like the income tax, property taxes also give the government a motivation to not damage the economy, as a wealthier population has more access to property.

Other elements of Coolidge's economic policy were very problematic in my opinion. For instance, one of the few times in which Coolidge actually did intervene in the economy was in a region of the economy I actually want to be more or less free from government intervention: The media. In 1924, Coolidge established what would go on to the Federal Communications Commission, which creates and enforces regulations on radio, TV, literature, and, eventually, the Internet. With a few exceptions, I believe in a totally free press and completely sovereign artistic community. I am a free speech absolutist, and so I don't want a government agency capable of telling people whether or not they can curse on shows broadcasted at certain times, as the FCC actually does. I also consider much of the FCC's purpose to be a violation of the Constitution and Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment.

Generally, I just consider Coolidge's economic policy to be neglectful. Yes, the presidency of Coolidge (as well as that of Harding) was defined by historic economic strength. However, that strength was largely a facade. Like the Gilded Age being an awful era of corruption, authoritarianism, and abuses toward the working class all wrapped up in a thin layer of industrialization meant to distract from the broader social issues, the Roaring 20s was a deeply unstable period coated in bright, cheerful paints to try and avert attention away from its combustible nature. The stock market was booming, for sure, but only because of a practice called buying on margin. Due to how much money companies were earning, their stocks became too expensive for most Americans to buy. So instead, people would borrow money and use the borrowed currency to purchase whatever stocks they wanted. Buying on margin facilitated a lot of stock activity, but the moment stock values began to decline, debt-owing shareholders would panic, jeopardizing the economy. Everyone knew this, yet Coolidge refused to act.

And a debt-based panic in the stock market wasn't some possible scenario only capable of manifestation in a bizarro nightmare world where everything went wrong. It was an inevitability specifically because of how the Roaring 20s came to be. For example, food prices were extremely low during the Roaring 20s. This fact was great for consumers, but also held inside itself a deeply troubling cause that ultimately infected the rest of the economy. During WW1, many European farmers went off to fight in the war themselves, creating a gap in food production that American farmers plugged. When the US joined WW1 in 1917, then-President Woodrow Wilson established the US Food Administration to give food to American soldiers and the American Relief Administration to help Europe rebuild from the conflict. Both of these programs required additional crop growth and meat production to sustain. That fact, coupled with the spike in American farming during the first months of WW1, caused crops and meats to become so common they lost all value.

The overproduction problem metastacized throughout the end of the 1910s and all of the 1920s. People only wanted so much of the food farmers produced, leaving most crops and meats stuck on the market and amplifying overproduction. Farmers soon were making so little money they could hardly finance their own endeavors. And where was Coolidge during all of this? Napping in the White House. As farmers faced the collapse of their sector and way of life, Coolidge refused to act, repeatedly declining offers to assist the ailing agriculture sector. Had Coolidge not something to slow crop production, prices would rise again and agriculture would stabilize. A major cause of the Great Depression would have been averted and so buying on margin wouldn't have been as hazardous.

I generally consider foreign policy to be a positive field of the Coolidge Administration. I dislike how isolationist Coolidge was (especially in comparison to Harding and Hoover, both of whom expressed great interests in promoting better relations with the outside world, local self-determination rights, and reduced armaments), but the few diplomatic goals he did pursue were very admirable! The greatest aspect of the Coolidge Administration's foreign policy was the Kellogg-Briand Pact. Composed in 1928 by Coolidge's secretary of state Frank Kellogg and a number of French diplomats, the Kellogg-Briand Pact was a treaty in which all signing nations agreed never to launch an offensive war ever again. Had it been successful (its failure was more the fault of fascist expansionists like Adolf Hitler in Germany, Benito Mussolini in Italy, and Hirohito in Japan rather than of any American institution), the Kellogg-Briand Pact would have been an awesome accomplishment capable of saving countless lives!

Civil rights was a lot more mixed for Coolidge. One June 2, 1924, Coolidge signed the Indian Citizenship Act, which gave citizenship to all Native Americans. This was an incredibly important step forward. While Native Americans continued to be oppressed under Coolidge and have been under every subsequent president, the Indian Citizenship Act still gave Native Americans official status as US citizens and all the legal protections implied with that status and the 14th Amendment. It paved the way for so much more progress, as Native Americans were eligible for equal protection under the law as a part of the 14th Amendment and ensured that they could vote for politicians and proposals that would improve their lives. However, also in 1924, Coolidge signed the Immigration Act of 1924. This was a terrible law that set specific limits on how many immigrants from each country could live in America at any given time. The statute even prohibited all immigration from Japan to the US.

With Calvin Coolidge, the good canceled out the bad and vice versa. At his heart, Coolidge was a good person doing what he thought was right. His moral principles, however flawed or irrational, had many bright spots that guided him toward supporting pacifist foreign policy, Native American citizenship, and the exposure of corruption, even when it targetted the man he served as vice president under. But those same moral principles, however well-intentioned or compassionate, also led to him passing prejudiced legislation against immigrants, ignoring critical financial issues that would quickly snowball into the worst economic crisis in recorded history, and to trying to isolate his country from the rest of the world.