Coolidge_An American Enigma

by Robert Sobel

  Coolidge could have avoided this had he worked more energetically with the leadership. Speaker Gillett had been elected to the Senate and had been replaced by Nicholas Longworth, the silky and subtle native of Cincinnati, who soon proved more effective than his predecessor. By then Lodge had died, and was followed as Republican leader by Charles Curtis of Kansas, who was prepared to work with and for the president. While lacking Lodge’s skills and reputation, Curtis had many friends among the regulars. Had Coolidge given the word to Longworth and Curtis that he wanted to win back the dissidents, he might have had an easier time with the outcasts, but he didn’t.

  Vice President Dawes was also a problem. During his swearing in he harangued the Senate on the filibuster and other issues, pointing at individual senators as he shouted and pounded on the lectern. Senator Harry Ashurst, the droll Arizonan, remarked, “It was the most acrobatic, gymnastic speech I have ever heard in the Senate,” while James Reed of Missouri dryly commented that “his melody of voice, grace of gesture, and majesty of appearance were excelled only by his modesty.” Dawes meant to be forceful, but like other newcomers who arrived with their own ideas on how the Senate should be run, he met with instant opposition from all quarters, and soon proved an embarrassment as well. That day he took the first step toward becoming a joke.

  Coolidge developed further problems with the Senate when he named Stone to the Supreme Court. For his replacement as attorney general, Coolidge selected Charles Warren of Michigan, who had been ambassador to Japan and Mexico, and had worked assiduously for Coolidge at the 1924 convention. He had also been an attorney for and later president of Michigan Sugar, said to be a member of the “Sugar Trust,” which had been cited by the Federal Trade Commission for illegally marketing sugar. Warren was, moreover, an imperious and irritating person. His nomination arrived at a time when the progressives who had been expelled from their positions were still smarting and seeking to retaliate. Ironically, Franklin Lane, Wilson’s progressive secretary of the interior, had stated after Harding’s 1920 electoral victory that Warren would be his choice for attorney general.

  After the Judiciary Committee favorably reported the nomination, Democrats Reed and Walsh led the attack against Warren, and other Democrats soon joined in. Few Republicans voiced their support for the nominee, in part because initially Curtis felt he had sufficient votes to put him over, and besides, presidents had traditionally been permitted to select their cabinets. In fact, no cabinet appointment had been denied since 1868.

  On March 9, 1925, the debate continued. Dawes had no idea what was happening. As far as he could see, the debate would drone on for hours or even days. He asked Senators Curtis and Joseph Robinson of Arkansas, the majority and minority leaders, whether there would be a vote that day, and they replied that six senators wanted to speak, making a vote impossible. So Dawes beckoned for a replacement as presiding officer, and set off for his apartment in the Willard Hotel to take a nap—at which point five of those senators who had wished to speak withdrew.

  Seeing his support melting rapidly, Curtis called for a vote. Word was sent to Dawes, who dressed quickly, went downstairs, and took a cab to the Capitol. But before he could get there the vote was taken, and resulted in a 40-40 tie. Senator Lee Overman, a North Carolina Democrat who had voted for Warren, now switched his vote, making it 41 to 39. The nomination was defeated. Had Dawes been there, he could have cast the deciding ballot in Warren’s favor.

  The president was irate that the Senate Republicans had been unwilling to support him and that the Democrats had defied tradition. Dawes’s gaffe was also troublesome, as were rumors that he deliberately missed the vote because the one vote against him for the vice presidential nomination had come from Warren. Nevertheless, Coolidge should have realized Warren was a poor nominee, certain to be attacked given that his activities at Michigan Sugar were suspect and perhaps subject to Justice Department inspection.

  Meeting with the president, Curtis informed him that Warren had no chance of being confirmed, and recommended that he select a substitute. Uncharacteristically, Coolidge dug in his heels on what he should have recognized was an embarrassing, losing cause. He sent the nomination back to the Senate, but by then there was little support for Warren. On March 18 the nomination was again defeated, this time by a margin of 46 to 39. Coolidge might have made a recess appointment, but Warren had had enough, and asked for his name to be withdrawn.

  Coolidge now turned to an old friend, John Garibaldi Sargent, a fellow Black River Academy graduate, who had been attorney general of Vermont, and the nomination had no trouble getting through the Senate. But Coolidge didn’t forget; he retaliated against some of the senators who had opposed Warren by withholding patronage, but inconsistently, giving off false signals.

  The president and Warren were not the only losers in this episode. Dawes, who early on had been considered a possible presidential nominee for 1928, had become the butt of gags. Someone placed a sign at the Willard’s entrance: “Dawes Slept Here.” In another instance, shortly after the vote, Dawes was escorting a friend around the Capitol and went to the Supreme Court, where a particularly boring case was being heard. Justice Van Devanter was nodding, and Justice Holmes was having difficulty keeping his eyes open. Chief Justice Taft, who noticed Dawes, sent him a note: “Come up here. This is a good place to sleep.” Then again, when Dawes formed an organization of conservative businessmen he foolishly called “The Minutemen,” a reporter commented, “Minute Man was two minutes late.” He was no longer presidential timber.

  Warren wasn’t the only Coolidge nominee rejected by the senators. In 1925 Coolidge selected Wallace McCamant for a recess appointment as a federal appeals judge. McCamant was unquestionably qualified for the position, but he probably wouldn’t have been selected had he not nominated Coolidge for the vice presidency in 1920, setting him on the road to the White House. The following year the Judiciary Committee approved the nomination, but Hiram Johnson asked for it to be sent back for reconsideration—McCamant had opposed Johnson’s presidential nomination in 1920. It was a gratuitous slap in the president’s face, a striking indication of how little control he had over his congressional party.

  The change from Stone to Sargent as attorney general was one of several switches in the administration during this period. Secretary of Agriculture Henry C. Wallace died on October 25, whereupon Coolidge offered the post to farm bloc leader Arthur Capper of Kansas, who was critical of McNary–Haugen. As Coolidge had expected, Capper rejected the offer, but the president sought his advice on another nominee. Capper supported William Jardine, a Kansas educator, who had no trouble being confirmed with Capper’s strong support.

  Slemp, who had lost his contest with Butler at the convention, submitted his resignation in January, and was replaced by Everett Sanders. Sanders may have lacked Slemp’s political astuteness, but a president who had already decided not to seek reelection no longer had any real use for that.

  Secretary of State Hughes resigned in March 1925. Once again Coolidge asked for recommendations, and Hughes suggested Frank Kellogg. Kellogg had had a long career, making his mark as one of Roosevelt’s trust-busting attorneys, and although he bolted the GOP to support Roosevelt in 1912, he returned to be elected senator from Minnesota. Kellogg had become more conservative as he grew older. At the time he was ambassador to the Court of St. James, and at the age of sixty-eight prepared to retire. But Coolidge convinced him to accept the post, and Kellogg was easily confirmed.

  On December 8, 1925, Coolidge again had the clerk read his State of the Union message, to the first session of the new Sixty-ninth Congress. And again, he wrote of the need for economy and reduced taxes. There were the usual references to agricultural policy, Muscle Shoals, and the need to reorganize government. But in this message Coolidge asked for very little specific legislation. It was as though he knew Congress would shoot down his requests. In any case, why should there be additional legislation? Coolidge reported that “it is exceedingly
gratifying to report that the general condition is one of progress and prosperity,” which indeed was the case. “Here and there are comparatively small and apparently temporary difficulties needing adjustment and improved administrative methods, such as are always to be expected, but in the fundamentals of government and business the results demonstrate that we are going in the right direction.”

  Coolidge’s budget message, sent down the following day, was similar in that he asked for little. Again, the theme was, “If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.”

  At this time John Coolidge fell ill. He had been a semi-invalid for several months, and the president knew the end was near. Coolidge pleaded with his father to come to the White House to live, but John Coolidge would not leave Plymouth. On January 1, 1926, Coolidge wrote to his father:It is a bright day for the New Year, but rather cold. I wish you were here where you could have every care and everything made easy for you, but I know you feel more content at home. Of course we wish we could be with you. I suppose I am the most powerful man in the world, but great power does not mean much except great limitations. I cannot have any freedom even to go and come. I am only in the clutch of forces that are greater than I am. Thousands are waiting to shake my hand to-day.

  Clearly the presidency had become a burden for Calvin Coolidge.

  It is forty-one years since mother lay ill in the same room where you are now. Great changes have come to us, but I do not think we are any happier, and I am afraid not much better. Every one tells me how cheerful you are. I can well understand that you may be. So many loved ones are waiting for you, so many loved ones are daily hoping you are comfortable and are anxious to know about you.

  The president had a direct telephone line installed between the White House and the Coolidge home in Plymouth, and he spoke to his father every day, until John Coolidge died on March 18, 1926. The next morning several newspapers noted that this was the first time a president’s father had died while his son was in office. The Coolidges traveled to Vermont for the funeral, and then returned to Washington.

  The month before John Coolidge’s death Coolidge got the one piece of legislation he very much wanted that session: another tax cut. The Revenue Act of 1926 had been introduced as a bill the previous year and was reintroduced in the new Congress. The debate was fierce, and once again pitted Secretary Mellon against the progressives, this time with Norris, chairman of the Agricultural Committee, in the lead. At one point in the debate Norris observed that under the proposed measure, “Mr. Mellon himself gets a larger personal reduction than the aggregate of practically all the taxpayers in the state of Nebraska.” If Mellon responded, it went unrecorded, but, as historian Thomas Silver noted a generation later, in 1924 Mellon had paid more taxes than all the people of that state.

  The act as finally reported was largely what Coolidge had wanted—it would cut taxes while at the same time enabling him to lower the national debt. It repealed the gift tax, halved estate taxes, and lowered rates down the line. The rate on the first $7,500 of income was 1.5 percent, with an exemption of $1,500 for a single taxpayer and $3,500 for married ones. Approximately one-third of those who paid taxes in 1925 would be off the rolls. A married person with an income of $7,500 paid less than $70 in federal income taxes under the new rule. But contrary to Coolidge’s wishes, the corporate tax rate was increased. The measure was passed in February by a vote of 58 to 19 in the Senate and 390 to 25 in the House. Coolidge congratulated the legislature, and pledged further reductions as budgetary considerations permitted.

  That year Coolidge had to face another round in the continuing battle over McNary–Haugen. Although conditions on the midwestern farms were improving—wheat rose from an average price of $1.11 a bushel in 1923 to $1.67 in 1925—the farmers were still debt-ridden. In a discussion with agriculture expert R.A. Cooper, Coolidge remarked, “Well, farmers never have made money.” All he could offer was his plan that farmers cooperate to limit production and thus raise prices. This, and tariffs to keep foreign crops from American shores, were his palliatives for the problem. “I don’t believe we can do much about it,” he told Cooper. “But of course we will have to seem to be doing something; do the best you can without much hope.” On another occasion he related a tale to illustrate his view:At every cabinet meeting for a year or so back, Secretary Henry Wallace used to be grumbling and complaining about the price of corn and was always wanting the government to do something about it. Then corn took a rise. The government didn’t do it. I noticed that Wallace had shut up on the price of corn.

  On other occasions Coolidge noted that population shifts from the countryside to the cities had accelerated. He had seen this in Vermont, and now it was taking place throughout the nation. “The life of the farmer has its compensations but it has always been one of hardship,” he remarked.

  None of this was particularly assuring to the midwestern farmers, who continued to press their representatives to push for McNary–Haugen. The bill was introduced in early 1926, along with several moderate programs Coolidge espoused. Mellon came out against McNary–Haugen, writing to congressmen saying that in his view the measure would cause inflation, increase production while decreasing consumption, and thus lead to a depression. “If the bill were to become law it would present the unusual spectacle of the American consuming public paying a bonus to the producers of five major agricultural products.”

  Coolidge threw his support behind a substitute measure, the Curtis–Crisp bill, which provided for the creation of a Federal Farm Board, with $250 million to lend to farm cooperatives to keep perishable crops off the market in times of surplus. In the end neither McNary–Haugen nor Curtis–Crisp passed, but the Division of Cooperative Marketing was created in the Agriculture Department and provided with a token sum of $250,000 to encourage farm cooperatives.

  Although this session of Congress passed almost one thousand measures, all but a few were minor. Coolidge had asked for little, and that was what he got. Other than the Revenue Act, Congress didn’t pass a major bill. Surveying the scene, Walter Lippmann wrote in May:The politicians in Washington do not like Mr. Coolidge very much, for they thrive on issues, and he destroys their business. But the people like him, not only because they like the present prosperity, and because at the moment they like political do-nothingism, but because they trust and like the plainness and nearness of Calvin Coolidge himself. This is one of the most interesting conjectures of our age.

  On the day Coolidge left office, Lippmann wrote, “Surely no one will write of those years since August 1923, that an aggressive president altered the destiny of the Republic. Yet it is an important fact that no one will write of those same years that the Republic wished its destiny to be altered.”

  Claude Fuess, who wrote the closest we have to an official Coolidge biography, came to pretty much the same conclusion in his 1940 book. In analyzing Coolidge’s smashing victory in the 1924 presidential election, he inquired into the reasons. Quoting Theodore Roosevelt’s 1912 statement, he wrote, “The country ought not take me unless it is in a heroic mood.” To which Fuess added, “In 1924, the United States was not looking for either heroism or romanticism. What it wanted was plain ordinary common sense. Calvin Coolidge had character—and in the long run character outlasts what is temporarily spectacular.”

  In the autumn of 1926 the Republicans campaigned on the Coolidge record, or it would be more precise to say, the strong economy, the tax cuts, and the budget surpluses. The country was doing quite well, for the economic boom that followed the postwar depression had gathered steam and power. But this time Coolidge attempted to take some credit for it. “Our present state of prosperity has been greatly promoted by three important causes,” he said, “one of which is economy, resulting in reduction and reform in national taxation. Another is the elimination of many kinds of waste. The third is the general raising of the standards of efficiency.”

  If the Republicans wanted Coolidge’s coattails, he did not give them gladly. As in 1924, he did l
ittle campaigning. GOP National Chairman Butler was too busy with his own campaign to spare time for other races. Since Butler was in trouble, running for the Senate seat against the popular David Walsh, and Massachusetts Governor Alvan Fuller was plagued by fallout from the Sacco–Vanzetti murder case, Coolidge agreed at the last minute to campaign for them. In Massachusetts the party indicated that votes for Butler and Fuller were votes of confidence in Coolidge. Fuller won reelection, but Butler lost, which the Democrats claimed implausibly was a repudiation of Coolidge.

  Historically the party in power loses seats in off-year elections, and 1926 was no exception. The Sixty-ninth House had 247 Republicans, 183 Democrats, and 4 members of other parties; the Seventieth Congress had 237 Republicans, 195 Democrats, and 3 minor party members. In the Senate the Republicans went from 56 members to 49, the Democrats rose from 39 to 46, with one Farmer–Labor member. On the surface it appeared the Republicans once more controlled both houses, but, as is often the case with opposition parties, the Democrats were united, while the Republicans were still split by memories of the La Follette insurgency and the strengthening of the farm bloc. On many issues an anti-administration majority ruled in the Senate, and the margin in the House was sufficiently slim to cause Coolidge problems. Further tax cuts were possible, but so was passage of the McNary–Haugen bill.

  Coolidge’s fourth annual message to Congress, sent up to Capitol Hill on December 7, 1926, was much like the previous one. It opened with the familiar optimistic analysis of the state of the Union. “I find it impossible to characterize it other than one of general peace and prosperity.” He again called for tax cuts, and noted that the high tariff had brought in record revenues that in a measure made up for previous reductions. In the longest section Coolidge noted that his administration had been responsible for several measures to assist agriculture, indicating his continued opposition to McNary–Haugen. He also called for passage of a measure, largely designed by Hoover, to regulate radio. And he favored strengthening the national banks, but he was vague about what he wanted done, which implied his support of the Pepper–McFadden Act authorizing branch banking by national banks. Finally, Coolidge hit out at government directives, calling for a reduction in “government bureaus which seek to regulate and control the business activities of the people.”