I feel I must come to the defense of "Silent Cal." Early in your essay, you describe "Coolidge’s characteristically unadorned line that 'the chief business of the American people is business.'" This line was actually, perhaps uncharacteristically, adorned with context that is lost when that line, and it's misquote variations, are shared.
The remark came during an address to newspaper editors about freedom of the press. He noted the in a free society, the newspapers have both journalistic and business concerns, and he thought that the press would generally do better with such an arrangement because they'd be in tune with the similar concerns of virtually everyone in that society.
“After all, the chief business of the American people is business. They are profoundly concerned with producing, buying, selling, investing and prospering in the world. I am strongly of the opinion that the great majority of people will always find these the moving impulses of our life.”
He went on, though, to clarify that he was not encouraging a Gordon Gecko style greed-is-good philosophy.
“Of course, the accumulation of wealth cannot be justified as the chief end of existence,” he said. “But we are compelled to recognize it as a means to well-nigh every desirable achievement. So long as wealth is made the means and not the end, we need not greatly fear it…But it calls for additional effort to avoid even the appearance of the evil of selfishness. In every worthy profession, of course, there will always be a minority who will appeal to the baser instinct. There always have been, probably always will be, some who will feel that their own temporary interest may be furthered by betraying the interest of others.”
You also suggest that Coolidge, along with Harding and Hoover, was considered a failure. Not so fast! The C-Span poll of historians to rank the presidents had Coolidge solidly in the middle of the pack, and his reputation has risen with each poll. See https://www.c-span.org/presidentsurvey2021/?personid=39815
I'm always down for a Calvin Coolidge defense! Not nearly enough Coolidge defenders running around. Tbh I know almost nothing about him. I happened to read about Harding recently, and was struck at how much perceptions of him changed after his death - I think largely because Democrats won the information war in the '30s and '40s. There have been some attempts to rehabilitate Harding, which I haven't read. I'm sure the case for Coolidge is even stronger - he presided over about as great a period in American history as there has ever been. I'm not sure to what extent the Wall Street crash can be laid at his fee - which is sort of the Rooseveltian perspective.
History is a fickle thing, it seems. It's virtually impossible to find a definitive perspective, and the winds of interpretation change more often than the winds in Chicago (both metaphorical and meteorological)!
"Trump is the democracy wrecking evil titan Hitler but wait he's also banal and boring."
-Today's explication of the miraculous flexibility of Trump as seen by people who still don't understand or accept what has happened and is continuing despite their best dismissive witticisms.
My primary historical interest is in pre-Civil War America, which period I taught at the elementary level for just over 40 years. But while I’m not as familiar with the first two decades of the twentieth century (with the exception of our involvement in WWI) as with the years before 1865, I’m still inclined to see Trumpmuskovia not so much as a return to some aspects of that gilded period as more like two billionaire dilettantes running amok through their shiny new toy - the US Government - with a pair of really big machetes.
It’s certainly true that Big Business ruled (with the invaluable aid of a very business friendly Supreme Court), and the Robber Barons cavorted, and New York gilded itself, but I’m not sure I see any one of the presidents of that era as so thoroughly disdainful of the Constitution as Trump has proven to be. And I doubt Musk has much of a sense that such a document even exists. What I see happening is the convergence and ‘maturation’ of two of Trump’s more notorious utterances - “I’m a very stable genius”, and “I alone can fix it”.
But throwing out the baby with the bathwater is a seldom if ever a formula for the permanent improvement of any situation.
Sam, thankyou for this deep dive back into American political history. Your comments...
"The point I want to make here is that, as the great political commentator Ecclesiastes put it, “there is nothing new under the sun.”...and ... as the great philosopher Yogi Berra—one of very few philosophers to also supply power from the left side of the plate—put it, “It’s déjà vu all over again?” Both seem to confirm that "history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes." So the Roosevelt "New Deal" arose as a result of these American politics of the 1920's? Or was it that at the time there were other factoids that influenced how the New Deal has dominated American political life since that time? Are we going to have a 1929 stock market crash- Government debt levels are the highest they have ever been? Are we to return to the world wide turmoil of the 1930's- there are some pretty strong authoritarians in this world at present - Putin and Ping? Or are Trump's policies for the next four years, going to move the political dial more permanently to the Right? Or will there be a "back lash akin to the Great New Deal? A conundrum indeed. But Sam your journalist fraternity just producing articles that are nothing but rants that just denigrate Trump, calling him all sorts of names, describing him as "evil," "a Nazi" an "authoritarian" and what have you, is not going to change the factoid that he is the democratically, elected POTUS for the next four years. Sam let's hope there are more article like this one that "listen not to answer, but to understand," as the Western Press need a paradigm shift in their attitude before there can be any semblance of trust in what journalists report, as was the case in the Walter Cronkite era.
I feel I must come to the defense of "Silent Cal." Early in your essay, you describe "Coolidge’s characteristically unadorned line that 'the chief business of the American people is business.'" This line was actually, perhaps uncharacteristically, adorned with context that is lost when that line, and it's misquote variations, are shared.
The remark came during an address to newspaper editors about freedom of the press. He noted the in a free society, the newspapers have both journalistic and business concerns, and he thought that the press would generally do better with such an arrangement because they'd be in tune with the similar concerns of virtually everyone in that society.
“After all, the chief business of the American people is business. They are profoundly concerned with producing, buying, selling, investing and prospering in the world. I am strongly of the opinion that the great majority of people will always find these the moving impulses of our life.”
He went on, though, to clarify that he was not encouraging a Gordon Gecko style greed-is-good philosophy.
“Of course, the accumulation of wealth cannot be justified as the chief end of existence,” he said. “But we are compelled to recognize it as a means to well-nigh every desirable achievement. So long as wealth is made the means and not the end, we need not greatly fear it…But it calls for additional effort to avoid even the appearance of the evil of selfishness. In every worthy profession, of course, there will always be a minority who will appeal to the baser instinct. There always have been, probably always will be, some who will feel that their own temporary interest may be furthered by betraying the interest of others.”
You also suggest that Coolidge, along with Harding and Hoover, was considered a failure. Not so fast! The C-Span poll of historians to rank the presidents had Coolidge solidly in the middle of the pack, and his reputation has risen with each poll. See https://www.c-span.org/presidentsurvey2021/?personid=39815
Just trying to be fair to the guy!
I'm always down for a Calvin Coolidge defense! Not nearly enough Coolidge defenders running around. Tbh I know almost nothing about him. I happened to read about Harding recently, and was struck at how much perceptions of him changed after his death - I think largely because Democrats won the information war in the '30s and '40s. There have been some attempts to rehabilitate Harding, which I haven't read. I'm sure the case for Coolidge is even stronger - he presided over about as great a period in American history as there has ever been. I'm not sure to what extent the Wall Street crash can be laid at his fee - which is sort of the Rooseveltian perspective.
History is a fickle thing, it seems. It's virtually impossible to find a definitive perspective, and the winds of interpretation change more often than the winds in Chicago (both metaphorical and meteorological)!
Thank you for your kind response!
"Trump is the democracy wrecking evil titan Hitler but wait he's also banal and boring."
-Today's explication of the miraculous flexibility of Trump as seen by people who still don't understand or accept what has happened and is continuing despite their best dismissive witticisms.
My primary historical interest is in pre-Civil War America, which period I taught at the elementary level for just over 40 years. But while I’m not as familiar with the first two decades of the twentieth century (with the exception of our involvement in WWI) as with the years before 1865, I’m still inclined to see Trumpmuskovia not so much as a return to some aspects of that gilded period as more like two billionaire dilettantes running amok through their shiny new toy - the US Government - with a pair of really big machetes.
It’s certainly true that Big Business ruled (with the invaluable aid of a very business friendly Supreme Court), and the Robber Barons cavorted, and New York gilded itself, but I’m not sure I see any one of the presidents of that era as so thoroughly disdainful of the Constitution as Trump has proven to be. And I doubt Musk has much of a sense that such a document even exists. What I see happening is the convergence and ‘maturation’ of two of Trump’s more notorious utterances - “I’m a very stable genius”, and “I alone can fix it”.
But throwing out the baby with the bathwater is a seldom if ever a formula for the permanent improvement of any situation.
If this is true I hope he takes a visit to Alaska soon and stops by San Francisco on his way home.
Sam, thankyou for this deep dive back into American political history. Your comments...
"The point I want to make here is that, as the great political commentator Ecclesiastes put it, “there is nothing new under the sun.”...and ... as the great philosopher Yogi Berra—one of very few philosophers to also supply power from the left side of the plate—put it, “It’s déjà vu all over again?” Both seem to confirm that "history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes." So the Roosevelt "New Deal" arose as a result of these American politics of the 1920's? Or was it that at the time there were other factoids that influenced how the New Deal has dominated American political life since that time? Are we going to have a 1929 stock market crash- Government debt levels are the highest they have ever been? Are we to return to the world wide turmoil of the 1930's- there are some pretty strong authoritarians in this world at present - Putin and Ping? Or are Trump's policies for the next four years, going to move the political dial more permanently to the Right? Or will there be a "back lash akin to the Great New Deal? A conundrum indeed. But Sam your journalist fraternity just producing articles that are nothing but rants that just denigrate Trump, calling him all sorts of names, describing him as "evil," "a Nazi" an "authoritarian" and what have you, is not going to change the factoid that he is the democratically, elected POTUS for the next four years. Sam let's hope there are more article like this one that "listen not to answer, but to understand," as the Western Press need a paradigm shift in their attitude before there can be any semblance of trust in what journalists report, as was the case in the Walter Cronkite era.
Nothing new under the sun, not even fine tuned ineptitude