“It is easy to understand why a people with the historic background of the Jews, should thus overwhelmingly and unhesitatingly have allied themselves with the cause of freedom. From earliest colonial times, America has been a new land of promise to this long-persecuted race…whatever their origins as a people, they have always come to us, eager to adapt themselves to our institutions, to thrive under the influence of liberty, to take their full part as citizens in building and sustaining the nation, and to bear their part in its defence, in order to make a contribution to the national life, fully worth of the traditions they had inherited…
“Our country has done much for the Jews who have come here to accept its citizenship and assume their share of its responsibilities in the world. But I think the greatest thing it has done for them has been to receive them and treat them precisely as it has received and treated all others who have come to it. If our experiment in free institutions has proved anything, it is that the greatest privilege that can be conferred upon people in the mass is to free them from the demoralizing influence of privilege enjoyed by the few. This is proved by the experience here, not alone of the Jews, but of all the other racial and national elements that have entered into the making of this nation. We have found that when men and women are left free to find the places for which they are best fitted, some few of them will indeed attain less exalted stations than under a regime of privilege; but the vast multitude will rise to a higher level, to wider horizons, to worthier attainments” — President Coolidge, portion of remarks at the laying of the cornerstone of the Jewish Community Center, Washington, May 3, 1925.
Cited in Slemp, C. Bascom, compiler, “The Mind of the President.” New York: Doubleday, Page and Company, 1926, pp.288-9.
class warfare
On the Equality of Women
Coolidge was not one to join the latest popular movement awarding privileges to one group while denying them to others. To do so is the opposite of equality. Suppressing the differences between men and women not only denies each one’s unique role but it thwarts the realization of equality. As Coolidge would say, “Women have a natural and indisputable place in the affairs of state. We do not want solely a man’s or a woman’s world — we want a human world and we are rapidly achieving it. This does not mean that men and women are to become alike. Rather it requires each of us to make his or her peculiar contribution. Fortunately no two of us are alike. Our civilization will be sturdy and satisfying, rich and dependable…in proportion as we deepen rather than decrease the difference between men and women.” Coolidge did not see people as monolithic groups. He ably measured the individual by his or her character. In fact, he saw more potential in people than they usually saw in themselves.
Coolidge was among those who believed women, naturally conservative in outlook “not only for themselves but for their posterity,” would render a “great benefit” by voting with sound moral values. Suffrage, to Coolidge, was not about placating a demographic. “Nothing can be safer…than the informed judgment of the mothers of the land.” Notice, what made the country secure was not empathy with or identity as a woman but informed judgment. The voter must understand how his and her decisions impact the future. Progress comes through the moral character each individual possesses. Skin color, gender, and party affiliation were unessential to genuine equality. This standard was illustrated by those with whom Coolidge worked.
Though the first President to nominate a woman to the Federal Judiciary, Coolidge was not seeking symbolism. His choice was Genevieve Cline, a self-taught expert in customs law who adroitly surveyed the complex terrain of tariff policy. She had developed this fascination as a young lady and, after many years of hard work, had established her own private practice in Cleveland. She eventually took on the challenging work of merchandise appraiser for the Treasury Department until her confirmation to the U. S. Customs Court in May 1928. Through it all, she consistently refused special treatment for herself, expecting the quality of her work, not her gender, to measure justice. She bravely asserted in 1949 that, “There is no gender in the law. No one says ‘man lawyer’ so why say ‘woman lawyer?’ ” For Judge Cline, justice must remain blind to incidentals to remain just.
Though appointed before Coolidge rose to the Presidency, Mabel Walker Willebrandt was retained and encouraged to keep doing her duty. After she took heat for criticizing certain federal district attorneys over selective enforcement of the law, Coolidge encouraged, “Keep plugging away at ’em.” Willebrandt was the Assistant Attorney General of the United States. Her unshakeable commitment to the law meant setting aside any personal reservations about the Volstead Act. Prohibition enforcement, enacted by the people through Constitutional amendment, applied impartially to everyone alike. For Willebrandt, the law did not depend upon having empathy for people’s plights. The law remained fair when it was blind to those particulars.
One of seven Republican women to serve during the Harding-Coolidge years, Florence Kahn demonstrated that faithful public service can be accomplished without catering to “women’s issues.” Mrs. Kahn, having supported her husband in his Congressional work, decided to run for his seat after his sudden death in 1924. Her sense of obligation prompted her to serve, forging a strong conservative record representing San Francisco over six terms. At any time, she could have appealed to her identity as a woman, or even a Jewess, to engender support for legislation. She refused. The merits of each issue must stand or fall on their own. While she believed women should serve, Kahn never accepted the premise that women needed special legislation for their “issues.” Asked why not, she said: “I am not specifically interested in so-called women’s questions, as all national positions are sexless.” Kahn did not represent women, she would say, she represented her district. Building strong military preparedness, enabling constructive economy, and meeting national obligations to veterans and their families were important policies for everyone. Governmental affairs are not segmented into gender-specific issues. They are borne by all and pertain to all. Therein lies equality.
For Representative Kahn, Assistant Attorney General Willebrandt, Judge Cline, and President Coolidge, what the nation required was not special allowance for irrelevant differences, but a deeper appreciation for the ways our distinct gender roles complement each other. When men and women exercise informed judgment as citizens, contributing together toward common goals, a vibrant liberty under an impartial and truly equal law can be preserved for the next generation.
Further Reading
Brown, Dorothy M. “Mabel Walker Willebrandt: A Study of Power, Loyalty and Law.” Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1984.
“Florence Prag Kahn,” in “Women in Congress, 1917-2006. Prepared under direction of Committee on House Administration by Office of History and Preservation, U.S. House. Washington: Government Printing Office, 2006.
Fowler, Russell. “Coolidge and the Supreme Court.” Journal of Supreme Court History 25 (November 2000): 271-295.
Goodhue, Norman H, “No Gender in Law, Says Woman Judge,” LA Times, April 17, 1949, p. C1.
Keyes, Frances Parkinson, “Seven Successful Women,” Delineator (July 1928): 16.
Levstik, Frank R. “Cline, Genevieve, Rose.” Notable American Women: The Modern Period: A Biographical Dictionary. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986.
Willebrandt, Mabel Walker. “The Inside of Prohibition.” Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1929.
On Banks and Prosperity
While the “Occupy Wall Street” mobs have subsided, having served their political purpose last year, the notion that banks are a device of the “excessively wealthy” is not new to our time. The image of fat, out-of-touch, greedy capitalists forming banks to “exploit” workers, the poor and the needy, robbing them of their hard-earned money was just as familiar in the early years of the twentieth century as it is now. Despite the verifiable fact that Secretary Mellon paid millions more in income taxes under his own plan, it did nothing to assuage the attempts throughout the twenties and thirties to finally “pin down” this “excessively wealthy tycoon” as guilty of something. If one keeps looking, they seemed to say, it can be found somewhere. Even F.D.R.’s tax “show trial” of Mellon yielded nothing but an unfairly demolished reputation. On the contrary, Vice President Coolidge addressed this very attitude about banks, a prejudice against capitalism and the myth that forceful redistribution of prosperity is both possible and virtuous. In a speech given on June 27, 1921, he said:
“There can be no permanent prosperity of any class or part. Such a condition can only be secured through a general and public prosperity. This means that to secure this end there must be a general distribution of the rewards of industry. Wherever this condition is maintained there you have the foundation for an increasing production and a sound financial and economic situation.
“One of the strongest reasons for supporting American institutions is that under them this condition is more nearly attained than under any other form of government that has ever met with any permanent success…
“…Too often the uninformed think of a bank as the possession of a few rich people, and as the creditor of the people at large. You who have had any experience with banking know that it is the opposite of this which is true. The resources of banks are not the resources of a few rich, but the resources of the people themselves, small perhaps in any individual instance, but, in the aggregate, very large. Nor are banks exclusively a creditor class. It is usually true that they owe to their depositors more than their borrowers owe to them. Every banker knows that to depend on the business and patronage of the rich would be in vain, that if any success attends his efforts it must be by serving and doing the business of the people. The stock is generally owned by the people, the deposits are always made by the people. This is the reason that banks partake of the nature of a public institution and perform real public service. They are the sole means by which modern commercial activities can be carried on. They afford the method by which the people combine their individual resources, providing a collection of capital sufficient to extend the necessary credit for financing the whole people of the nation…A bank is not a private institution, responsible to itself alone, or to a few. It is a public institution, under a moral obligation to be administered for the public welfare…Any power which is not used for the general welfare will in the end destroy itself…Such an institution is doing the work of the people.”
This simple explanation lays bare the ignorance of those who vilify banking and American capitalism as the instigators of what is wrong with the country. To go to war against these concepts is to war against the “common man,” the very person protestors claim to be helping. By calling for redistribution and the boycott of banks, the true perpetrators of class conflict, economic stagnation and human suffering are sought out as “saviors.” People like us, ultimately, are held responsible for this “unfairness” while those who create the climate are rewarded with more authority to solve problems they have no inclination or ability to resolve. While certain government officials are usually first and foremost this kind of “savior” sought, it is conveniently ignored that the capital on which banks are made possible belongs to “normal” people engaged in the daily use of what is theirs — buying, selling, saving, earning, investing, exchanging, lending, and borrowing. The complaint is with Washington not with regular folks.
The Importance of the Obvious 