Writing six years after the grueling series of clashes with Congress on everything from tax reform to immigration, former President Coolidge would reflect on the national immigration policy as a whole in his daily article on December 13, 1930: “Immigration is not a simple question. The entire economic effect of restriction is unknown. Every immigrant is a consumer requiring food, clothing and shelter. To that extent work is made for wage earners. But when many are already idle, an influx of wage earners would aggravate the condition of unemployment. Every race and creed that has come here in numbers has shown examples of unsurpassed loyalty and devotion to our country. But only by coming slowly, avoiding city colonies and spreading over the land do they arrive in the real United States. The economic reasons for restricting immigration are not always the most important. We have certain standards of life that we believe are best for us. We do not ask other nations to discard theirs, but we do wish to preserve ours. Standards, government and culture under free institutions are not so much a matter of constitutions and laws as of public opinion, ways of thought and methods of life of the people. We reflect on no one in wanting immigrants who will be assimilated into our ways of thinking and living. Believing we can best serve the world in that way, we restrict immigration.” Our freedoms would be relinquished if we consign our sovereignty as a nation to an amorphous existence. We are a freer and more united people when we uphold standards of immigration.
Month: January 2013
On Immigration
As the political decision on immigration is taking shape, some thoughts on Coolidge’s view of the matter are in order. The Immigration Act of 1924 (the Johnson-Reed Act) has not been judged favorably by history. Coolidge is even held unfairly responsible for its “racial animus.” Congress, in a series of assertive actions that year, chose to restrict immigration down to 2% of the nations present in the 1890 census, severely rolling back Southern European and Asian entry. The previous law, passed in 1917, had allowed 3% of those present at the 1910 census. Under the new law, after 1927, the annual quotas would reflect those present at the 1920 census. As if this were not enough, the Congress included a refusal of Japanese immigrants into the country, ignoring the Gentleman’s Agreement that had expressed the good will and peace existing between the two nations up to that time. It was the unfortunate letter of Japanese Ambassador Hanihara referring to “grave consequences” from Japan’s government should the bill pass that rallied support for it in Congress. The Congress recklessly interpreted this as a threat of war and emotional reaction, not reasonable discussion, prevailed. Both President Coolidge and Secretary Hughes fought against this momentum without success. It would finally be signed by the President but he would attach a firm protest against so hostile a measure toward a friendly nation. In his protest, he declared how he reconciled defeat on principled grounds, “If the exclusion provision stood alone, I should disapprove it without hesitation, if sought in this way at this time. But this bill is a comprehensive measure dealing with the whole subject of immigration and setting up the necessary administrative machinery…It is of great importance that a comprehensive measure should take its place and that the arrangements for its administration should be provided at once in order to avoid hardship and confusion.” Had it been solely his to decide, his personal disgust with prejudice on the basis of class or color, would have vetoed the bill promptly. But it was given to the Congress, not the President, by the Constitution to outline immigration law. Still, he would not leave people without legal continuity given by the rest of the law as a whole. Were he to withhold his signature then, it would hurt more people by depriving them of the good in the bill without any sure expectation that a better result could be obtained in a Congressional climate so emotionally-charged.
On Greatness
Much ridicule has been heaped upon the 1920s, the Coolidge Era in particular, for its utter lack of “great events” and “great men.” Those who claim such have a confused and backward sense of “greatness.” There were no costly wars, no dramatic upheavals of society, no expansive programs sent down from Washington for how we ought to improve ourselves. The country went about its business only marginally sensing government’s existence, let alone a need for its presence. The President did not insert himself into the daily affairs of Americans not only because it was unnecessary but also because he respected his role under the Constitution. His obligation, as Amity Shlaes has noted, was to restrain harmful measures, to check the abuses of executive and legislative power not to champion revolutionary agendas of his own (“The Forgotten Man,” p.18). He did so not from some overriding sense of his own importance but from a sober commitment to duty, for he also once declared, “It is a great advantage to a President, and a major source of safety to the country, for him to know that he is not a great man. When a man begins to feel that he is the only one who can lead in this republic, he is guilty of treason to the spirit of our institutions” (Autobiography, p. 173).Yet, his restraint, judgment and political wisdom make him a great man even now. “His ability to appraise men quickly on the first interview seemed uncanny” was an observation noticed by more than one of those with whom he would serve (Hubert Work, “Why He Did Not ‘Choose to Run,’ “ The Real Calvin Coolidge vol. 1. Plymouth: CCMF, 1983, p.27). He exercised it in the appointment and support of like-minded men of integrity and ability throughout his tenure. He listened to the suggestions of others but he kept his own counsel. In fact, his sound judgment and cool headedness helped avert more than one potential disaster, any one of which could have defined the decade. He did not engage in micro-managing the Departments as some Presidents do. To do so would not only undermine the confidence the people should have in their leaders but would trespass on the work belonging to others. If a person was not up to the job, as he told his Labor Secretary James Davis, he would have to find someone else who was. It was simply not his place to know all the details and get involved in the minutiae of the various departments. Coolidge understood his function was to delegate (and thus disburse, not consolidate) authority. Considering the record of collaboration with men like Mellon and Hughes, he deployed it with great success. Scandal could have overwhelmed the new Administration but it did not. When the demand for resignations by Denby and Daughtery were loudest, the President held immovably to the right course, which was fairness even to those suspected of wrongdoing until the process of law demanded action. He was not swayed by the mob mentality since it placed emotional satisfaction above true justice.
The great men who worked under him were not all of his choosing but he knew their worth and placed them where their talents could be best applied for the good of the country. Andrew Mellon is one of those stellar teammates with whom Coolidge had a unique affinity. But less is said about others like the “great statesman” (as Coolidge considered him, The Autobiography p. 118) Charles Evans Hughes. Hughes’ good sense was evident to him from the night Coolidge succeeded Harding through Hughes’ faithful service even after leaving the limelight of the State Department. The Secretary’s character and experience alleviated many a conflict that could have erupted into violence and discord from Japan to Latin America to Soviet Russia.
Attorney General John G. Sargent was another exemplar of what it means to have capably and quietly carried out what needs to be done without fanfare or need for applause. Sargent’s decency, sense of equity and life training formed the basis of what made him among the best qualified AGs ever to serve. Yet he is unjustly anonymous today. Other men, like Dwight Morrow and Henry Stimson, diffused volatile situations in Mexico and Nicaragua and the Philippines. These “unsung” great men are forgotten today not because of some failure to do enough but because the standard for greatness itself is not properly understood. Ultimately, it is a failing of education. As we live under an increasingly expanding Executive Branch, we would do well to recall the assessment of President Coolidge on the matter, “We have had too much government action, with attendant publicity, proposing to cure human illness which no government can cure and too much public opposition when there was nothing to oppose. The people want from both parties an effective and quiet conduct of public affairs” (November 11, 1930). The same quiet competence from men and women at all levels of public service is what is in order today.
The Importance of the Obvious 