presidency

On Leading By Example

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Example is the heart of leadership. Anyone can tell someone what to do, how it should be done and what will happen when instructions are not followed. In short, anyone can be a bureaucrat. Possessing leadership is something entirely different. While it is not always, and some would say not usually, an official position, the approach of successful leaders follows the same course every time. Without a conscientious commitment to duty manifested in example, one is merely “that jerk” in the office. By throwing one’s weight around, reminding people of your authority, and refusing to put hand to the wheel and work, especially when conditions burden everyone, it only breeds resentment and exposes an utter lack of one’s qualifications to lead. Without the keen sense of moral obligation tempered with humility, even Presidents reveal their mettle.

Leadership is not simply who has the most ideas, consider Herbert Hoover. Leadership is not simply who has the most amiable personality, consider Warren Harding. Leadership, especially of Chief Executives, is a profound call to serve, not be served. The inconsistency between one’s words and one’s actions could not be hidden forever and for honest leaders, such is never tolerable. For men like Coolidge, the oath and the office were serious responsibilities to be exercised with utmost respect and self-discipline. Those who lack such qualities are never able to conceal them completely from the people.

The inception of the Budget Bureau illustrates the strength of Coolidge’s leadership. The Bureau was the result of some nine years of persistent effort to bring about responsible budgeting at the national level. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, some twenty-eight consecutive years had kept balanced budgets, ensuring that government expenditures were carefully met within revenues. Surpluses defined these years and it was simply a matter of good sense to so manage the public household. That began to change with the feckless habits of the Benjamin Harrison years and when deficits hit six years in a row, from 1904-1910, something had to be done. It was President Taft who advocated replacing the piecemeal approach with a coordinated and deliberate budgeting process for all government departments. They would go through a formal system that prioritized cutting waste and practicing the strict economy it preached to others. It would be sidelined during the Wilson administration, underscoring how those considered the most “forward-thinking” today would be left in the dust by conservatives such as Taft, Harding and Coolidge, the latter being the most tenacious advocate of modern budgeting. It would be under Harding that the two Congressional bills for this concept would find effective support and quick passage into law as the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921. The Bureau found realization with Harding’s prudent selection of General Charles Dawes, as its first Director. Suitably, Dawes would serve alongside Coolidge as his bold and flamboyant Vice President.

It would be Coolidge, however, (with Bureau Director, General Herbert Mayhew Lord) who would bring both a meticulous and relentless approach to cutting down the debt and restoring surpluses. Continuing to hack away at every possible area of waste, the President, General Lord and his staff of 45 people, ensured that government spending was kept down despite constant efforts to the contrary. At the end of six straight years of surpluses, the nation’s debt had dropped to $16.9 from $22.3 billion at the beginning of Coolidge’s Presidency. Directing those growing surpluses toward productive ends became more and more difficult as Congress sought increased spending levels rather than returning those surpluses to taxpayers in the form of tax cuts, as Coolidge sought.

The Coolidge Administration, and his team of Mellon and Lord did more than talk about benefiting people with these policies, they lived them. Lord’s Bureau was proud of the fact that it used every supply until it wore out. Mellon would give $52 million of his personal income to charity, giving to people generations in the future, not including his generous gifts to the National Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian. Coolidge, ever conscious of his moral duty to Americans, saved much of his Presidential salary and, when his friends sought to establish his official library (before such entities were funded by public money), he gave it all to help the blind. These were leaders not by virtue of their position in government or their campaign rhetoric but by virtue of their genuine demonstration of service toward others. It is time for a renewed commitment to leadership by example.

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On Legislative Power

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Coolidge knew how to exercise the energy of executive power in calculated doses for maximum effect. Despite the stereotypical impression that he slept through the White House years, a false impression attributed to a later Chief Executive by the name of Ronald Reagan, he understood the use of authority better than most, especially of the executive variety. The independence of Congress, a co-equal in the division of power, was no less imperative to Coolidge.

As a freshman state legislator, Coolidge was not exactly a greenhorn to politics. He had already served as a town councilman, bank legal counsel, city solicitor, clerk of courts and chairman for the Northampton Republican Committee, all by age 34. He had crafted municipal policy before, represented the interests of others both in his practice and in his duties as legal council and city solicitor, learning the law well. Always an active listener and continual thinker, he said little because he truly believed, “He who gives license to his tongue only discloses the content of his own mind. By the excess of words he proclaims his lack of discipline.” Even as he would come to build a record that included direct election of Senators, minimum wage laws, women’s suffrage, transportation regulation, restriction of child labor and other matters, he was not simply running with the “legislative herd” in order to keep pace with a clamor to legislate. While some were running headlong into heavy regulation of rails and Morgan steel, Coolidge refrained. He was not suckered into the movement, quite popular at the time, of breaking up “big business” simply because it was “too big.” He represented the folks back home, to be sure, but was doing so with an informed and conscientious judgment of matters. Even then the full price of what was done would not be understood for years. He knew destroying the mobility of capital and people’s ability to adapt to market conditions, even when it meant unpopular rate increases, hurts not helps everyone, especially the poorest. Legislatures were poor stand-ins for people free to make their own decisions in the marketplace. They may act with good intentions but would leave a trail of havoc that could have been avoided.

Coolidge would later summarize the impact of this period,

The power of legislation has been to a large extent recast, for the old order looked on these increased activities with much concern. This has proceeded on the theory that it would be for the public benefit to have government to a greater degree the direct action of the people. The outcome of this doctrine has been the adoption of the direct primary, the direct election of the United States senators, the curtailment of the power of the speaker of the House, and a constant agitation for breaking down the authority of decisions of the courts. This is not the government which was put into form by Washington and Hamilton, and popularized by Jefferson. Some of the stabilizing safeguards which they had provided have been weakened. The representative element has been diminished and the democratic element has been increased; but it is still constitutional government; it still requires time, due deliberation, and the consent of the States to change or modify the fundamental law of the nation.

It is that slow, deliberate consideration that keeps legislative power independent and people’s liberty preserved. When the Congress abandons that exercise of deliberation and attempt to speed the process without full consideration of the bill, the independence of legislative power is lost. The distinct functions of government are tipped in favor of only one aspect: an energetic executive. Without legislative deliberation, Congress surrenders its central check upon executive abuses. It places decisions that deserve time and thought into the “fast track,” disregarding what harm may come. Coolidge recognized the peril of this transformation to sound lawmaking and people’s freedoms. He differentiated productive collaboration — Congress passing and the President enforcing measures only after thorough consideration –from legislative subservience to executive power.

Speaking in Northampton on Memorial Day, May 30, 1923, Vice President Coolidge articulated the essential distinction this way,

The chief repository of power is in the legislature, chosen directly by the people at frequent elections. Is it this body, which is particularly responsive to the public will, and yet, as in the Congress, is representative of the whole nation. It does not perform an executive function. It is not, therefore, charged with the necessity of expedition. It is a legislative body, and is, therefore, charged with the necessity for deliberation. Sometimes this privilege may be abused, for this great power has been given as the main safeguard of liberty, and wherever power is bestowed it may be used unwisely. But whenever a legislative body ceases to deliberate, then it ceases to act without due consideration. That fact in itself is conclusive that it has ceased to be independent, has become subservient to a single directing influence or a small group, either without or within itself, and is no longer representative of the people. Such a condition would not be a rule of the people, but a rule of some unconstitutional power…An independent legislature never deprived the people of their liberty.

In the haste to “pass the bill to see what is in it” and “prevent deadlock,” the point of properly applied legislative power is being missed on a grand scale. In such an environment, no one can be assured of their freedoms. As Coolidge would say, “A good measure can stand discussion. A bad bill ought to be delayed…Open debate is the only shield against the irretrievable action of a rash majority.”

On Executive Power

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Surveying the years of public service that prepared Coolidge for the Presidency, Robert A. Woods, in his instructive book on the thirtieth president, reminds us how extensively trained Coolidge was in statecraft. Very few chief executives can lay claim to as broad a span of experience in local, state and national governance as Calvin Coolidge. Yet, through it all he retained an enduring sense of perspective toward himself and the specific duties of each particular office. As Coolidge transitioned from a state legislator to executive leadership in the Massachusetts Senate and from there to Lieutenant Governor, Governor, Vice President and President, he continued to adjust to the constitutional limits of the role. It was all grounded in his respect for and grasp of the office he held. The powers of government were separated for an incontrovertible reason. The powers of making law and enforcing them were not safe in the hands of one man, even if he was that man. The people’s liberties were safeguarded by limiting the reach of each branch and assigning powers not easy to consolidate by any single group or individual.

In the State House, Coolidge became the best-informed legislator by listening and carefully studying each issue himself. When the time came to act, he was decisive and thorough, gaining a reputation as a master of legislative procedure and vote getting. He not only knew the content of the legislation under consideration but had weighed its consequences on those to whom it would apply. It is a measure of scrutiny all but missing in legislators today.

When the time came to direct the Senate, he did so with complete command not through coercive tactics, for that was not his way. He led by understanding his task fully, applying what he had learned with political acumen and exemplifying service. When others paraded their abilities to influence men, Coolidge demonstrated what he expected and let the actions do the talking.

As he moved upward in executive responsibilities, Coolidge continued to observe and learn. He saw firsthand the effects of excessive legislation. He began to speak up on the detriments of passing laws without giving enforcement time to catch up. It also became increasingly clear that executive power carries even greater limits than legislative authority. It was not up to the President or Governor to drum up votes for his own array of proposals and add to the excess of laws pressing down on the people. It was part of the Framer’s deliberate design that wisely diffused power into co-equal, yet distinct, branches of government.

The President was not to fill in with his own preferences what was lacking in the laws either. He was bound by oath to enforce even the laws with which he did not agree, from prohibition in the Volstead Act to the Japanese exclusion in the Johnson-Reed Act. The Congress could not always see the impact of what was being passed nor could it execute legislation without the President’s authority. Both had to work toward laws that would protect what was good for all citizens, not a few preferred above others. This principle took immense self-discipline to an extent that no Roosevelt or Wilson would have easily held to it. It was too tempting for Presidents to be legislator-executives. Coolidge restored the Framer’s balance and showed it can work when tried.

As Coolidge continued to be prepared in proper administration, he came to see ahead of Congress, as his Vice President, Charles Dawes, would point out. He would recognize the appropriate powers of Congress to craft laws but he was equally as determined to protect the powers of the President, as his victories over the removal of Cabinet officials, full exercise of the veto, and foreign affairs bear out.

Mr. Woods, summarizing the Coolidge way, writes,

The impression made by him upon the country is not merely that of the capable executive. His whole front toward life appeals to those who are bearing the responsibilities of existence and know that they must continually reckon with them. He instinctively and conscientiously represents the kind of progress, the advancing moral standards, which the people can agree to, and the Government can embody…He holds that ‘leadership should not be by force, but by service.’

      But we are told that he has fallen short because Congress has so little followed his lead…One sort of man might have sought to utilize on a large scale the leverage of government patronage; another might have thrown the gauntlet to Congress as a whole, and to recalcitrant Republicans, whether radical or conservative. Neither of these methods goes with Mr. Coolidge’s type of leadership; and no one can say that either would have been more productive of results…In the conflict with Congress, he acted throughout on the basis of the principle which was well-established in his mind by experience, that in a disagreement between the legislature and the executive, the latter is always at a great advantage with the public… (pp.268ff).

Coolidge would not see the legislature assume the powers of his Office any more than he would take on the role of a lawmaker, venturing into the jurisdiction of Congress. Woods continues,

     But it is not difficult to see in Mr. Coolidge, amid all the administrative complexities of his office and all the pressure of material demands upon him, his strong characteristic tendency toward what will advance the higher well-being of the Nation.

Coolidge understood that executive power, used sparingly and with respect for its limits, ensured the full weight of its authority was not dispensed at every press conference or public appearance. Such would only undermine and dilute the potency of Presidential authority. If every utterance was heralded as a monumental event or an historic agenda-setting occasion, it would only impair executive power and cheapen its moral credibility. To Coolidge, the enforcement of the “moral relationship of things” was paramount to the President’s role. Any personal sense of importance or superiority was immaterial. It was not his greatness involved here but it was the sacred trust laid upon the Office that was to honor, protect and maintain the moral precepts of the people from whom he was chosen, merely first among equals (Johnson, “Why Coolidge Matters,” chapter 5). He was not at liberty to supplant those principles with his own notions of “morality.” To do so would squander that inheritance making one unfit for the Office and a threat to the health of a republic.