Professor Warren Cohen of the University of Maryland is quite prolific, having authored twelve books, editing seven more, and contributing toward two textbooks. His specialty on East Asian relations is evident even in this book, published in 1987. While it is approaching thirty years of age, it is still one of the best primers on foreign policy in the 1920s to date. It remains a book that needs to be written to supply what has continued to be a neglected and ignored even among “historians.” Too many seem blissfully unaware that the 20s were anything but naively isolationist, an uneventful and dull interlude between wars, aspiring to peace but fatefully predetermined for more violence. Dr. Cohen’s book puts this sorely mistaken impression not only to rest but in the grave. Yet, it continues to walk around these days as if it were respectable and informed, a kind of “undead” falsehood about the Harding-Coolidge Era.

Cohen proves in his walk-through of events that, “In the 1920s the United States was more profoundly engaged in international matters than in any peacetime era in its history.” This includes America’s involvement with almost every important gathering and policy conference held by the League of Nations. Too many have echoed the notion that since America never joined the League, she never sent her diplomats and officials to take part in any of its deliberations or proceedings. Cohen reminds us this could not be more wrong. America was there at every step of the way to an extent never known before. It was during the 1920s that the United States stepped into the role of world leader, the creditor, guide, and peacemaker in a world devastated by global war.

America was realizing it had become an empire but, being in the aftermath of war, it determined to live by higher ideals than that of mere force, coercion, dictation, and imperialistic displays of power. It aspired to reason and law and set about forming a new system that would be the example for the future. Americans wanted peace but to maintain it would take a degree of peaceful involvement the nation had not before undergone. This was to be an empire, for sure, but one “without tears,” without the upheaval and manipulation that historically characterized the empires of the past. To Cohen, who finds Wilson to have failed in his objectives, this ideal had flaws brought crashing down by the developments of the 1930s.

Cohen begins with an introduction of President Harding’s approach, one that was far more involved for America than is recognized. The next three chapters deal in turn with the economic empire of America as it reached across the world, the peace movement, and the handling of revolution and collapse in Mexico, Russia, China, Germany, and Nicaragua. Finally, Cohen looks at the aftermath of the 20s, how the empire so carefully built to avoid tears had to renounce those impossible limitations following their failure in the 30s. Cohen concludes with a short summation, with all the convenience of looking back on events in hindsight. He still shares in the myopic tendencies historians nurse toward the 20s, as destined to implode. The era, in this regard, is handled no better by Cohen than anyone else filling in the gaps of understanding with what came afterward.

He sides with Charles Evans Hughes, the Secretary of State under Harding and Coolidge, as well as Henry Stimson, Hughes counterpart in the Hoover administration, and most of all, Hoover himself. For Cohen, Hoover was better than his two predecessors, an assessment we believe here is undone by Cohen’s own claims. Hoover, for all his competence and experience, was simply driven by events too strong for any one individual. The Great Depression and the subsequent unraveling of the peace treaty system so carefully laid out in the 20s are not Hoover’s doing but the irrepressible forces of economics and militant nationalism around the world. This makes it appear that he was both helpless and did little to incur the consequences, as if events were that predetermined.

While Cohen grants that Hoover could make his own task harder, the ideological rigidity he criticizes in Coolidge and Harding is actually a defining attribute of Mr. Hoover. It was Hoover’s intransigence and stubborn refusal to deviate and adapt to circumstances when the conditions changed in order to navigate through problems, avoiding the needless creation of other conflicts, that undid him. He trusted few but himself as the master of all details. As such, he centralized nearly everything through the White House – an extraordinary level of micromanagement in peacetime. This, well-intentioned as it was, only worsened circumstances by confirming doubt in our institutions, our people, and our ability to work through even seemingly insurmountable difficulties if left to ourselves without incessantly suspending normal recovery, healthy liquidation, or a proper use of force in foreign and national defense policy.

It was actually Coolidge and to some extent, Harding, who demonstrated the ability to adapt, think through a problem, delegate wisely, and help steer the course of policy toward ideals but not be blindly wedded to one only one course regardless of the constant change in a given situation. Coolidge’s years of experience in public office had taught him the value of thinking “on his feet,” as it were. It did not mean a forfeiture of principle but the tack and methods to arrive at the desired goal had to constantly adjust if the rocks and shoals of unsound and unhealthy destinations were to be avoided. Hoover, on the other hand, with little experience beyond bureaucratic administration and private sector management, ploughed ahead with preconceived means and goals worked out independently of real-time conditions or “facts on the ground.” He was the consummate planner, almost incapable of deviating from the textbook plan, whatever happened. Coolidge was not so naive. He knew the best plans unraveled quickly the moment any action is taken. His training and outlook had informed him to distinguish between essentials and superfluous details. Rarely did he confuse the two.

One of the best illustrations of Coolidge’s adaptability can be found after the failure of the Geneva Conference, which Cohen lightly discusses in preference to the more successful Washington and London Conferences, in 1922 and 1930, respectively. Having just become clear that Britain would not yield on further armament reduction, with Japan likewise exceeding the United States in naval construction, Coolidge could have “dug” in, persisted on course to make it happen on those terms. He had learned there are other ways to “skin the cat.” He knew that peace did not foreclose adequate defense, and so national preparedness required naval construction to bring America back to a position of strength. Moratoriums in the name of peace served only those who would take advantage as Britain and Japan had done. Coolidge would thus go on to approve the second naval construction bill of his administration, providing for fifteen cruisers and one carrier. Hoover, by contrast, would delay their completion and never did offer a naval construction bill of his own, even when remaining current with the treaty system demanded it. He failed to distinguish between the principle at stake and countenancing a different approach to achieve it. It was akin to Captain Smith of the Titanic approaching the iceberg with two styles in mind: 1. Like Coolidge, he could slow engines and turn the vessel to avoid the worst, or 2. Like Hoover, he could maintain speed and steam ahead unaltered.

Another instance is the Nicaragua controversy of the 1920s, cursorily dealt with in Cohen’s book. Coolidge did not approach the problem by hamstringing his ambassador Henry Stimson, as Hoover later would in the Manchuria incident, taking off certain options from the “table” of possibilities. Coolidge had removed the Marines but as chaos returned, he sent them back in and presented a statement of reasons for doing so. He did not take this forceful option out of consideration, even when it risked making him look inconsistent or imperialistic. The cause of peace was no less important but it had to be understand that there remains a proper role for military force, however unpopular, in advancing the cause. Legalistically holding to a course of action worked out in advance would have been absurd to Coolidge, who discusses the interpretation of executive power in his Autobiography,

“This has always seemed to me to be a hypothetical question, which it would be idle to attempt to determine in advance. It would appear to be the better practice to wait to decide each question on its merits as it arises. Jefferson is said to have entertained the opinion that there was no constitutional warrant for enlarging the territory of the United States but when the actual facts confronted him he did not hesitate to negotiate the Louisiana Purchase. For all ordinary occasions the specific powers assigned to the President will be found sufficient to provide for the welfare of the country. That is all he needs.”

Overall, the book does supply a useful service to a better comprehension of America’s foreign policy. Cohen’s suggestions for further reading give a welcome addition to the literature on the subject, despite the age of the material, the gap of accurate comprehension still remains. This book remains important when so little is written or understood about that decade even now. Cohen, like any author, has his blindspots and omissions, such as never mentioning the crucial role of Alanson Houghton in the Coolidge administration’s approach to Europe. Cohen’s preference for Hoover certainly plays an unfortunate part in skirting a fuller accounting of the Coolidge record. He is simply dismissed as the inflexible, fiscally confined, ineffectual President that has become the lie accepted as truth since propounded by the “court historians” of the New Deal. Cohen makes little effort to investigate those claims or look beyond the patchwork veneer papered over “Silenced” Cal, especially in his foreign policy.

Dr. Cohen’s book deserves a place in any renewed examination of those years and what they sought to achieve, however imperfectly, not as a guarantee of permanent peace but as a testament to the worth of ideals higher than the centuries of strong preying on the weak, force reacting with force, instituting instead a call to principles all nations owe obeisance. Cohen helps us catch a glimpse of that, even through his skepticism of it, and by reading we set out into a world nine decades removed that seems more lost and faithless now that ever. A generation this bereft of compass and course can surely benefit from a reexamination of a time when, having seen firsthand the horrors of modern warfare and global upheaval, Americans stepped into world leadership resolving to live for higher, better purposes than predetermined, utilitarian, nihilistic ends.

Coolidge biographer Claude M. Fuess recounts this amusing and illustrative anecdote from Cal’s White House days, looking back on his thorough experience in campaigning for office. Fuess writes:

“[A] group of apprehensive Republican leaders went to the White House to seek his counsel on how to win certain impending state elections. ‘Funny’ said the President after listening in unflustered silence to the unfolding of difficulties, ‘what a lot of trouble you fellows have getting elected. [Slight pause.] I don’t.’

“James W. Wadsworth, Jr., then United States Senator from New York and facing a hard contest for reelection, sought explicit advice, saying, ‘Just what would you do, Mr. President?’

‘When you going home?’

‘Very soon.’

‘Then,’ said Mr. Coolidge, ‘hitch up a buggy and drive around the state.’ ”

Sometimes what is most needed is to get out there, put in the hours, and travel your state, not merely to talk but to listen.

Another Coolidge insight, something especially useful as we watch while candidates begin to quit the Presidential race, comes from his experiences early in politics, “People will judge of me by the men who are willing to be known as my supporters.” Whoever you support for President in 2016, that will remain true. We not only reflect the values of the one we endorse but the candidate is known by the kind of people he or she attracts.

Read more Coolidge insights to examine all our candidates in the coming year by picking up a copy of Keeping Cool on the Campaign Trail: 101 of “Silent” Cal’s Insights on Voting, Campaigning, and Governing.

It is regrettable that Professor Timothy Moy is no longer with us, having died in 2007 in a tragic attempt to rescue his son from the surf off the Hawaiian coast. Moy wrote a superb book, published in 2001, on the institutional identity, doctrinal development, and technological innovation of the Air Corps and Marine Corps from the 1920s to the eve of World War II. It is a fascinating look at a largely neglected subject. It is a fine companion to John T. Kuehn’s Agents of Innovation: The General Board and the Design of the Fleet That Defeated the Japanese Navy, which focuses on (as the title indicates) the simultaneous endeavors of the Navy to overcome the challenges imposed by the political forces, technological limits, and institutional outlooks of the 1920s and 30s.

While President Coolidge plays merely a supporting role in the developments of this era. Moy reminds us of a principle Coolidge often voiced, the spiritual must precede the material. Such was the case with the Air Corps and Marine Corps. Moy points out that both, possessing distinctive institutional identities, had to reinvent visions for themselves to step forward into the future. The attitude and the dream had to come first. The technological advancements and even institutional permanence would follow only after the creation of a vision of who each was and what its purpose should be.

The Air Corps envisioned itself as the high-tech knights of the sky, bringing war to a higher art through precision bombing. Meanwhile, the Marines embraced the identity of the low-tech all-purpose warriors, carving out the unique turf of advance-base, amphibious warfare. Once these fantastic, even outlandish, visions had been imagined the late 1920s into the 1930s would produce the tactical training, the testing of equipment, and finally the production of materiel that just a few short years before had been impossible. The imagination, freed to design and adapt, became reality as blueprints were built into the tools that both the Air Corps and Marine Corps would introduce to the world, with incomprehensible results and devastating effects, during World War II.

The B-29 “SuperFortress,” the Norden bombsight, the LCVP “Eureka,” and the Higgins’ hinged bow ramp were, as Moy observes, anything but foregone conclusions. There was no inevitably logical process that produced these amazing leaps in technology. Nevertheless, they grew out of the institutional identities and collaborative visions born in the 1920s. It was that decade, with all its optimism in hard work and the attitude that no dream is impossible with persistent effort, charted and informed the direction each took to stake out its significance and move forward.

The Washington Arms Limitation Conference in 1921-22 certainly set the basic parameters of where America allowed itself to go in the next twenty years. However, significantly, Coolidge, as  Commander-in-Chief (even through the failed Geneva Conference and annual budget fights), did not attempt to micromanage the planning, R & D, or institutional purposes of air power or the Marine Corps, as Hoover would later try through extensive cuts in personnel and funding. The Washington Conference, having placed obstacles on the contingency and war plans of Army and Navy, Coolidge wisely did not indulge a temperament of dictating how each branch would get around the challenges presented to them. He left that to those closest to the situation, the officers and enlisted men themselves in each service. They were the best experts to solve the problems politicians and bureaucrats had imposed.

The Conference, in extracting concessions from Japan, promised that no bases would be built or reinforced in the Pacific. This clause created more problems to the Navy and Marine Corps than anything else could. Though the administration differed with the military on the basis of “good faith” between nations: The military believing the other signatories needed to show “good faith” first by enacting the limits upon which all had agreed whereas the administration believed the United States needed to exemplify “good faith” for the others to follow. In the end, as the failure of the Geneva Conference in 1927 illustrated, the other signers were anything but impressed by the American example of “good faith,” as both Britain and Japan had been cheating on the agreement, the former using legend tons as opposed to standard tons and the latter outpacing the U.S. in naval construction, defying the original 5:5:3 ratio.

It showed Coolidge that the United States had been suckered in, something he personally despised learning. He corrected course and signed the largest naval construction legislation of his tenure, providing for fifteen cruisers and one carrier. Through it all, Coolidge could have camped in the Navy and War Department offices, setting the exact terms on which each ought to develop its personnel and technology. He could have deployed the bureaucratic machines in Washington to inject themselves in the process. He did none of these things. The credit for the solutions the Navy, the Air Corps, and the Marines would discover belonged, rightly, to those most directly involved. They were the best qualified experts, not politicians. He left all this for others to work out, and they did. The development of carriers – self-sufficient mobile bases – in lieu of land sites, with all the tactics and strategy this entailed, became the Navy’s answer to their part of the dilemma. The speed, range, and capabilities of strategic bombers, instead of merely improved fighter planes, became the answer of the Air Corps. This was set to overturn the conventional wisdom in military aviation, breaking the deadlock witnessed in trench warfare during the First World War. Also overturning conventional tactics and strategy was the Marine Corps’ preparation of amphibious campaigning, answering the problem of what could be done about no launching point in the Pacific should Japan attack, as “War Plan Orange” speculated. By capitalizing on the exceptional capabilities of the Higgins’ Eureka, the LVT (“Alligator”), the logistical complications of landing on hostile shores, and the creation of the flamethrower all combined to furnish the Marine Corps’ answer to the problem.

While no one can honestly claim that Coolidge somehow deserves credit for all this innovation, he did, even unwittingly, help encourage its development. Coolidge’s budgetary discipline, while appropriations for the military continued to rise each year of his administration, did little to fund expansive projects or convert ideas into concrete tools. However, as we noted above, the vision had to be worked out first. Throwing money at this or that concept, before giving the overall picture time to solidify in the minds and attitudes of each branch would have been wasteful and likely not yielded the final results. He made plain in his Budget statements that for national defense to remain adequate, as opposed to bloated and profligate, the problems presented to each arm of the military would best be met through industrial means. It would be the brains and resourcefulness of industry that would solve – fixes seen only dimly in the 1920s – the issues each had to face to become better. It forced each element of our military to distill down the most essential goals and their most important means to accomplishment from what otherwise would be a Christmas list of superfluous wants subordinated to truly necessary functions. It forced everyone to more carefully sift through the minutae and understand what was most important to each branch’s purpose. This brought them to realize their most efficient best, than otherwise would have been the case. The credit, of course, goes to the inventors, officers, and men who made these decisions.

Moy’s book is concise, and though there are a few repetitions and tedious passages, it presents an intriguing and inspiring picture that contradicts the accepted notion that the 1920s were uneventful, uninteresting, and inconsequential to America or to the world. Coolidge’s part in this element of the overall picture is minor, a supporting actor in the production, but his role remains consequential to the outcome. Had there been a micromanager (like LBJ) in the White House, a President who personally set the parameters for unit-to-unit decision-making on the ground, or had we been fast and loose with public money, expecting that to automatically translate into powerful and beneficial innovations, we would not have seen the fruits of so much hard work by so many.