On Accounting for Coolidge Popularity

January 12, 2014January 12, 2014 / gouverneurmorris / Leave a comment

It may come as a surprise that a coterie of critics, some members of the press and even a Party establishment existed in Coolidge’s day. They were hostile to the notion that one not of their number, lacking in sophistication or elite pedigree, could attain to the Presidency. Taken together they are what Charles Willis Thompson called, “The Intellectuals.” It is no different now for anyone with the courage and common sense to run for elective office independent of and without approval from the self-appointed political and cultural establishment. The Intellectuals had to reckon with Coolidge’s genuine and immense popularity. Henry Cabot Lodge, Republican Senator of Massachusetts, when told that Coolidge was being considered by some to lead the national ticket in 1920, sneered, “Nominate a man who lives in a two-family? Never!”

The fact that Coolidge, from his earliest years in state politics, consistently garnered more votes than any other Republican did. It was no secret that he secured more votes as Lieutenant Governor than his partner, Governor McCall, in the 1916 race. Even as the state went Democrat and Republicans lost their seats, Coolidge kept winning by greater and greater margins. “The Intellectuals,” chagrined at each electoral success, could not believe he was capable of winning the next time. Yet, win he did. In the presidential election of 1924, the man they had dismissed as a lightweight, local fad whom they would easily discard, perhaps along with Harding, went on to surpass challengers, secure a unanimous nomination and win an unprecedented landslide of 15.7 million voters in a three-way campaign, achieving what conventional wisdom said could never be done, especially after the outcome of 1912.

The Party elites had a clear champion in their midst but rather than rally to him, they maintained their skeptical alienation. He was not of them and never would be. Of course, he held an unshakable belief in party loyalty, not to simply secure office for himself or others but to advance principles he knew were right and tested true by human experience. The “secret” to his success lay not in the path of expediency, watering himself down to match what made him “electable” in the eyes of the “experts.” He required no pollster, no consultant, no speech writer to tell him what to believe. Decades before “Reagan Democrats,” the hard-working, patriotic, religious, “blue-collar” family men of manufacturing, service and industry were “Coolidge Democrats.” He earned their trust not through threats, manipulation, calculated promises, misinformation, pandering or even back-door dealing. His recipe for such stunning success, a genuine popularity and political success held all his life, was due to two simple qualities: “Simple words and straightforward acts” comprised Coolidge’s “magic” (Thompson, Presidents I’ve Known and Two Near Presidents, p.354). “The Intellectuals” never understood this. In the end, even as Coolidge walked away from office and continued to enjoy a level of popularity very few former Presidents have, the elites blamed it on the stupidity and simplicity of the American “masses.”

Thompson explained in 1929,

“As for the Mystery of 1924–the mystery of his election by a tremendous majority when so many towering geniuses had demonstrated that he hadn’t a chance–that too, was psychological. He was elected on that day in 1923 when he sent his first message to Congress. The country had heard language for many years. The unceasing, all-embracing sea of it had swollen until it reached high tide under Wilson…The country was apathetically resigned to a permanent government by language.

“Therefore, the first official word it heard from Coolidge was sensational. Not only was there no purple in the message, but there was no ratiocination, no argument, no stock official phrases. He told Congress what he thought would be for the good of the country and told it as briefly as he could. One of the things it wanted was economy. The burning question of that day, the soldier’s bonus, he treated in a single sentence, merely saying he was opposed to it; this at a time when the conventional attitude for politicians on the bonus question was astride the fence.

“The country rubbed its eyes. Here was a President of an entirely new kind. The country waited long enough to see if Coolidge meant what he said. He had just one session of Congress to prove it in. He did. Throughout that session he worked hard to get Congress to carry out the recommendations he had made…The country liked him immensely; it did after he had been President only a year…It liked Coolidge in 1923; it even made up its mind definitely that he was the kind of President it wanted. His first message to Congress fixed his popularity, and it increased until, to the astonishment of the politicians, they had to nominate him in obedience to a popular demand they did not understand and could not account for” (Thompson p.357).

Presidential Election of 1924 by county, showing Coolidge's very impressive support across the country. Securing 54% of the popular and 382 electoral votes to 136 (for Democrat Davis) and 13 (for Progressive La Follette), Coolidge shattered the conventional wisdom that he was both "unelectable" beyond Massachusetts and incapable of prevailing in a three-way race nationally. No one has ever done that before or since without throwing the election into the House (1824) or losing to the Democrat opponent (1912, 1992).

Presidential Election of 1924 by county, showing Coolidge’s very impressive support across the country. Securing 54% of the popular vote (15, 723,789 of 29 million votes cast) and 382 electoral votes (35 of 48 states, 71.9% of 531 electoral votes) to 136 (for Democrat Davis) and 13 (for Progressive La Follette), Coolidge shattered the conventional wisdom that he was both “unelectable” beyond Massachusetts and incapable of prevailing in a three-way race nationally. He even continued, as had begun in 1920, breaking into the supposedly monolithic counties of the Democrat “Solid South” as well as the supposedly un-winnable Progressive West. No one has ever overwhelmed a Third Party challenge and a Democrat bloc before or since without throwing the election into the House (1824) or losing to the Democrats (1912, 1992).

Just as is the case now, the “talking heads” of media networks, the establishment of Party politics, and many of the gatekeepers of cultural trends revealed their utter insensibility to what Americans understood and felt about the country and its future. This institutionalized tone deafness swept them aside in 1924 and the foundations are already in place to do it again in the Congressional races of 2014. The “silent majority” of American politics led their leaders in 1924, and that same process is poised to happen again. Coolidge saw this as a vindication of the people’s sovereignty over their government. He was not threatened, as some are, by such an event. Coolidge would not even name a Vice President, leaving the delegates to make that decision, saying with a sparkle in his eye, “It did in 1920 and it picked a durned good man.”

Thompson continues,

“Throughout that campaign the Intellectuals were confident that even so stupid an electorate as the American one could not elect such a poor boob as Coolidge, and they never did account for the avalanche which swept him into office. Senator La Follette did emerge from under the avalanche long enough to offer a sort of explanation; he intimated that the sixteen millions who voted for Coolidge were bought up, and self-sacrificingly promised to go on working for the interest of these corrupted ‘masses’; but the Intellectuals didn’t accept that explanation, and finally concluded that it was just another proof of the incorrigible wrong-headedness of the electorate, or, as H. L. Mencken calls it, the ‘booberie’ ” (Thompson p.357).

The same effort by the elites to make sense of the current American groundswell of opposition to the direction its “leaders” are taking the country will follow much the same route, whether the issue be Chris Christie for President or new green cards for the nearly 12 million illegals living in the country. In the end, these elites will not acknowledge their deficiencies of vision or their failures to deserve leadership, they will blame the American voter for being too dumb to understand who and what is good for the country. The challenges we face, and they are supremely daunting, heading into these next two years will require the utmost involvement from the American people to become informed, take up their sovereign duty as participants not merely spectators in politics and perpetuate the republican ideals the Founders presciently secured. They did so not merely for themselves but for us and our children. Staying at home as so many did in 2012 ultimately hurts ourselves and the future of the country. Teaching the establishment a lesson by abstaining from our solemn duty to vote never reaches its intended purpose any more than is surrendering our dual system for a Third Party in 2016.

We simply need to better exercise our power to choose qualified leaders at the primaries, replacing those unfit for public trust. As Coolidge reminds us, our destiny rests in our own hands at the ballot box. If we shirk it there, we have no place to protest the stripping of our freedoms after the election by those we have directly or indirectly sustained in power. That is how serious the vote remains this year, of all years. The ideals the Founders fought to establish, held by subsequent leaders like Calvin Coolidge, are perpetuated not through the choice of an elite few, but through the determined will of an engaged American people.

On Calvin Coolidge

January 8, 2014January 9, 2014 / gouverneurmorris / 1 Comment

Though no eulogies were uttered for Calvin Coolidge officially, a massive outpouring of voluntary tributes spread across the country in the months following his death, funeral and burial. Just as Americans had spontaneously raised him to a Vice Presidential candidacy, so now they held services, wrote editorials and considered anew the substance of Coolidge’s leadership and legacy. Three such tributes are especially worth noting not only because these three were on the opposite side of Mr. Coolidge politically, but, having studied the culture for so long, were not speaking as novices but veterans of great influence around the nation.

Comedian Will Rogers

The first was comedian and columnist Will Rogers, who wrote on January 5,

“Mr. Coolidge, you didn’t have to die for me to throw flowers on your grave. I have told a million jokes about you but every one was based on some of your splendid qualities. You had a hold on the American people regardless of politics. They knew you were honest, economical and had a native common sense. History generally records a place for a man that is ahead of his time. But we that lived with you will always remember you because you was ‘with’ your times. By golly, you little red-headed New Englander, I liked you. You put horse sense into statesmanship and Mrs. Coolidge’s admiration for you is an American trait” (The Autobiography of Will Rogers, p.307).

1928 Presidential candidate and Governor of New York, Al Smith

The second had been a presidential candidate, in fact, Al Smith had been nominated in 1928 to run against Coolidge’s successor, President Hoover. The “Happy Warrior,” Al Smith, had served with Coolidge on more than occasion in their retirement from public service. Mr. Smith offered one of the fairest assessments of Coolidge, all the more commendable given the fact that he was a loyal and life-long Democrat. He shatters the mistaken perception of Coolidge with something far more than another cliched attempt to speak kindly of the dead. Smith was offering a sincere and honest judgment,

“I had a great liking and respect for him. Beneath a chilly, reserved, and dignified exterior, he was keen, kindly and entirely free from conceit, pompousness, and political hokum. We are often told politics in a republic produced only demagogues. Calvin Coolidge was a most successful and popular politician, but he had nothing of the demagogue in him.”

Coolidge rightly belonged “in a class of presidents who were distinguished for character more than for heroic achievements. His great task was to restore the dignity and prestige of the presidency when it had reached the lowest ebb in our history, and to afford in a time of extravagance and waste, a shining public example of the simple and honest virtues which came down to him from his New England ancestors. These are no small achievements, and history will not forget them.

“Calvin Coolidge was a salty, original character, an unmistakable home-grown, native, American product, and his was one of those typically American careers, which begin on the sidewalks, or on the farm, and prove to the youth of the nation that this is still the land of unbounded opportunity” (cited by Robert Sobel in Coolidge: An American Enigma, pp.418-9).

Journalist and critic Henry L. Mencken, the “Sage of Baltimore”

Finally, the third man was a critic and journalist, one who had cynically followed politics for years and who was not one to give praise to anybody, especially to the dead. Yet, of Coolidge’s legacy H. L. Mencken finally wrote, all the more timely given that F. D. R. was already a month into his New Deal program of legislation,

“We suffer most when the White House busts with ideas. With a World Saver preceding him (I count out Harding as a mere hallucination) and a Wonder Boy following him, he begins to seem, in retrospect, an extremely comfortable and even praiseworthy citizen. His failings are forgotten; the country remembers only the grateful fact that he let it alone. Well, there are worse epitaphs for a statesman. If the day ever comes when Jefferson’s warnings are heeded are last, and we reduce government to its simplest terms, it may very well happen that Cal’s bones now resting inconspicuously in the Vermont granite will come to be revered as those of a man who really did the nation some service” (H. L. Mencken, A Carnival of Buncombe, p.136).

Indeed, it may and not a moment too soon.

On his Last Day, January 5, 1933

January 5, 2014January 5, 2014 / gouverneurmorris / Leave a comment

Massachusetts State House, flags lowered at half-mast in honor of the late former President Coolidge, January 1933

The morning of Thursday, January 5, 1933 dawned like any other weekday. The former President was up by 7AM, as was his custom. He dressed without shaving and went down the stairs of his home, The Beeches, to enjoy a breakfast with Mrs. Coolidge by 8AM. Coolidge went downtown to the old law office to check the mail, answer correspondence, read the newspapers, and take care of any other work that needed attention. However, by 10AM, Mr. Coolidge was no longer feeling well, remarked that he was turning into an old man and might even work out of his office at The Beeches from now on. Wishing to head back home. Coolidge was driven back by his chauffeur, John Bukoski, whom Coolidge affectionately nicknamed “Johnny jump-up,” for his enthusiastic and always helpful manner. Walking back in the door at the house, Coolidge found Grace preparing to go shopping downtown. “Don’t you want to take the car?” he asked. “No, it’s such a nice day I’d rather walk than ride.”

Mr. Coolidge went up to the library after his wife’s departure. There was one of his favorite recreations sitting on the table, a jigsaw puzzle, this one of George Washington. It was his habit never to start a puzzle but to place a few pieces as he went about his day. Mr. Coolidge worked on it a short time and then talked with Harry Ross, the former President’s private secretary, about the homestead in Plymouth. Ross began to notice that Coolidge was not well and even appeared to be uncharacteristically restless. Mr. Coolidge had certainly lost weight and energy throughout much of the winter of 1932, but he seemed to be fighting through it.

Coolidge went back downstairs to get a glass of water in the kitchen. He went to the basement and spoke briefly with the hired man as he shoveled some coal into the furnace. It seems the house was starting to feel colder as mid-day approached. Then, Mr. Coolidge remembered he had not shaved and he better do so before Grace returned for lunch. He ascended the stairs once more and, as was his practice, rolled his sleeves and prepared the old-fashioned straight razor, brush, and mug he used. Having prepared the soap and water, he looked into the mirror and it was there that death quietly took him.

While she had been out, Mrs. Coolidge realized she did not have a black dress in her wardrobe. Something persuaded her that it would be a wise investment. She returned home around 12:45PM, more than twenty minutes after her husband had gone upstairs, and she then set her things down. She discovered Mr. Coolidge on his back laying as if asleep on the floor upstairs. Harry Ross was the next to learn what happened, as Grace called down to him, “My husband is dead.”

The doctor, E. W. Brown, was called and he determined the time of death to be 12:25PM, the cause a coronary thrombosis due to chronic heart failure. Doctor Brown concluded that the President had not been dead more than fifteen minutes by the time Grace found him. Secretary Ross next called John and Florence in Connecticut and word quickly spread from there across the nation. President Hoover established thirty days of mourning for the former President. Coolidge’s body was embalmed and respectfully placed in his own bed during the night of January 5th.

Coolidge’s old friend, James Lucey, upon hearing of the younger man’s death, broke down, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. He was the best friend I ever had. I’ve known him ever since November of the first year he went to Amherst College. My sympathy goes out to Mrs. Coolidge and their son, John.”

Shoemaker James Lucey in his Northampton shop, January 7, 1933

That evening via a National Broadcasting Company radio hookup, long-time family friend and respected journalist Bruce Barton spoke,

“It happens that I wrote the first magazine article ever published about Calvin Coolidge. It was in Collier’s. Dwight Morrow suggested it. ‘Don’t you think we ought to begin to get some publicity for our fellow Amherst man who is Governor up in Massachusetts?’ he asked me.

“So I went up to Boston, and Frank Stearns telephoned to the State House, and I had one of the great surprises of my life. This man Coolidge, whom I had heard described as cold and repressed and taciturn, proved that he could be very gracious. He talked intelligently. He had humor. He was very easy to interview. I remember that he pulled out of his desk an old yellow pamphlet. It was the record of a law passed by the Selectmen of Belchertown, Mass., after the Revolutionary War, fixing the prices which the farmers would be allowed to charge for their produce in the Belchertown market.

“Mr. Coolidge said, ‘Isn’t it strange how, in every period of economic disturbance, people have the idea that you can pass a law and fix everything?’ I thought to myself: Here is something new. Here is a politician who has read some history. He knows that some things have been tried and won’t work. A few minutes later I said: ‘Governor, how it is that you have been able to stay in public life all these years and hold office when you have no money?’ His answer was in just two words: ‘I’m solvent.’

“He took care to keep solvent. He never lost his head. He never let anything change him. As Lieutenant Governor he had been living in one room in the old Adams House, for which he paid a dollar a day. When he was elected Governor, Frank Stearns said to him: ‘Now you must rent a house and bring Mrs. Coolidge down from Northampton. The Governor must not live in a room in an hotel. He must have a home where he can entertain.’

“Mr. Coolidge said nothing, but when he was inaugurated as Governor he stopped living in one room in the Adams House at a dollar day; he took two rooms in the Adams at two dollars a day.

“When I came back to New York after that first interview Mr. Morrow sent for me and, taking me into his private office, he shut the door, and said: ‘Now, Bruce, tell me. How big a man is he anyway? I have known him for nearly thirty years, and I can’t make up my mind.’ He added, almost wistfully: ‘You know, I have seen them all now. And none of them look very big to me any more.’

“From that day until the hour of his death Dwight Morrow’s opinion of Calvin Coolidge mounted steadily. He saw him rise to one situation after another. He had a steadily higher estimate of his judgment, his courage and his solid common sense. Coolidge did not wear his heart on his sleeve, but Morrow’s death hurt him more deeply than anything that had happened since the death of his boy. It left a permanent scar. The two men, so different in personality and experience, were very close in spirit. When Mr. Morrow passed Mr. Coolidge mourned. Perhaps he knew even then that the sentence of Fate had been passed upon him. Certainly the loss of Mr. Morrow must have helped to hasten his own end.

“You have heard many people say many different things about this man who now lies dead in his Northampton home. I shall say something about him that I doubt you have ever heard any man say. I loved him. Morrow loved him. There was a very lovable side to Calvin Coolidge. He was unique. God broke the pattern when he was formed. There never has been any one like him in the White House. There never can be. The nation will remember his personality and his dry humor long after it has forgotten most of the events of his administration. And to some of us those memories will bring a pang of loneliness.”