Calvin Coolidge had the political sense to distinguish between a question designed to bait him and a request for knowledge. Harding could be manipulated; Coolidge could not be coerced. Harding could be distracted from his goals; Coolidge retained focus on his objectives. Those of the “political mind,” as he called it, continually underestimated him as a campaigner, strategist and leader. Based on all they thought they knew about rising to the pinnacle of power, he was not supposed to be there at all let alone win resounding election on his own merits, without being beholden to anyone in the “club” for his success. 

When the Democrats emerged from the circus of their 1924 convention after 103 ballots, John W. Davis was the nominee. In August, he had finally landed on the issue with which to bait Coolidge. He could not use the economy because Coolidge Prosperity, thanks to a tenacious combination of budget cutting and further tax reduction, was underway. He could not use law and order because Coolidge had already preempted the issue on every front from lynching to labor to immigration to cleaning up the messes left by Harding’s unscrupulous “friends” in the Justice and Interior Departments as well as the Veteran’s Bureau.

Davis finally could force Coolidge into a very tough position with voters — call out the Klan, Davis challenged in August that year — a move that would surely alienate one side or the other. Instead, Coolidge said nothing. On the contrary, he had already made clear his resolve against the Klan. To address it would simply legitimize its influence. Coolidge was not going to validate its destructive mission. Instead, he had already begun traveling around the country to speak and participate in the projects of every group the Klan targeted: Jews, Catholics and immigrants, sending the proper message that each audience was engaged in the building up of our ideals while hatred, division and segregation contribute nothing to America’s progress.

The previous October at the White House he met with and expressed support for the American Jewish Congress.

In January of 1924 he commissions W. E. B. DuBois, known for his work in education and toward full assimilation, to represent the United States at the inauguration of Liberia’s new president.

In March Coolidge had taken up the unsuccessful effort under Harding to appoint Walter L. Cohen, an accomplished Louisiana businessman, to serve as collector of customs for New Orleans. After securing him as a recess appointment, Coolidge finally saw the Senate confirm the man despite the opposition of Cohen’s own governor, and federal Senators.

On June 6, Coolidge comes and speaks to Howard University before the students and faculty of that flourishing institution. Their motto, Veritas et Utilitas (‘Truth and Service’), no doubt held great meaning for Coolidge.

On August 9, Coolidge, in response to a letter from Charles F. Gardner who was protesting the candidacy of a black man in his area, writes a resounding rebuke published in The Literary Digest that same month.

On August 23, Coolidge’s Vice-Presidential nominee, Charles G. Dawes, goes straight at the Klan with a public condemnation during a speech in what was a Klan-stronghold, Augusta, Maine.

Two days later, August 25, Coolidge and Dawes meet in Plymouth where the President commends the speech as “good.” A hearty endorsement with someone of his reticence. 

On September 2, expert attorney, William Clarence Matthew, who happens to be a black man, is named to help the Coolidge campaign.

On September 21, Coolidge addresses thousands of Catholics gathered to hear him talk about “Authority and Religious Liberty” to the Holy Name Society in Washington.

On September 26, Coolidge meets with “Mother Jones,” the controversial co-founder of the Industrial Workers of the World, an organization largely comprised of new immigrants.

On October 15, Coolidge takes up the universal impact of “Religion and the Republic,” reminding the nation of each individual’s moral obligations to others.

On October 16, Coolidge stands before a group of recently naturalized citizens and praises “The Genius of America,” a melting pot built on common ideals of freedom, law and equality before God.

The following day, October 17, Coolidge welcomes a delegation of actors and performers including the Lithuanian-born Jew, Al Jolson, already known for his belief in full assimilation for minorities.

Finally, on October 26, Coolidge speaks on “Discriminating Benevolence” to the Federation of Jewish Philanthropic Societies of New York City.

While this is but a partial chronology of all Coolidge was doing, obviously not including all he did with those the Klan despised throughout his years in office, it illustrates how the Klan’s retreat during the Coolidge years was hardly coincidental. It all happened without passing a law, issuing an executive order or reacting to others’ expectations of what he should do. Actions always meant more than words to Coolidge. It was not enough to say you cared, you best show it. Rejecting the premise set for him, Coolidge pointed back with his behavior to something more essential than our base desires…the love we owe our neighbor.

Coolidge took action and those quiet rebukes accumulated until no respectable place was left to nurse animus toward skin color, religious belief, or ethnic background. He succeeded in revealing the Klan for what they were: small, petty, and unreasonable. He staked out the ground for respect and understanding when it was most unpopular to do so and thereby, without saying so, helped the country reconnect with its ideals.

President Coolidge speaking at the dedication of the Jewish Community Center in Washington, D.C., May 1925.

“Reports have reached me, which I fear are correct, that President Harding has gone. The world has lost a great and good man. I mourn his loss. He was my chief and my friend.

     “It will be my privilege to carry out the policies which he has begun for the service of the American people and for me to meet their responsibilities whenever they may arise.

     “For this purpose I shall seek the cooperation of all those who have been associated with the President during his term of office. Those who have given their efforts to assist him, I wish to remain in office, that they may assist me. I have faith that God will direct the destinies of our nation.

     “It is my intention to remain here until I can obtain the correct form for the oath of office, which will be administered to me by my father, who is a notary public, if that will meet the necessary requirement. I expect to leave for Washington during the day.“

These words, delivered on the announcement that the President had died thereby leaving Calvin Coolidge to succeed him on August 3, 1923, underscore the profound importance of our institutions as constituted. Coolidge’s oath by his own father, a local notary, could not have made the point any clearer. This is our nation and our government. We make it work for us.

America is unique for so simple and orderly a process of succession but it is also profoundly grieved when it loses good leaders. The path blazed by Harding would continue under Coolidge. That simple expression of continuity, respecting our will at the ballot box, comforted a nation that genuinely and rightly missed a President who had lit the way back toward our American ideals of self-reliance, understanding and independence.

This is a scene from the Oval Office with the President’s chair in mourning ribbons in observance of President Harding’s death, 1923.

Most historians have been supremely unjust to Warren G. Harding. As Paul Johnson, in Modern Times, observes, the process to create a mythological narrative around the man and his administration started almost immediately. The publication of his papers long ago discredited every mischaracterization which textbooks and authors, who should know better, still repeat as “fact” as they simultaneously omit his accomplishments. It is forgotten that the Harding-Coolidge ticket won an historic landslide on the platform of normalcy, the return of America to the quiet progress of hard work, limited government, civic participation and the true independence of avoiding costly and destructive entanglements abroad, a policy President Washington had warned against less than one hundred and fifty years before.

It is forgotten that Harding achieved much that is worth recognizing today. He guided the nation out of the wreckage of World War, depression and loss laying the foundation for the unprecedented prosperity across the economic spectrum. He showed how to successfully get out of the way in economic hard times by actually cutting 40% of government expenses while reducing taxes, enabling self-correction of the markets to occur and growth to return.

Hoover should have been paying attention.

He is discounted as a poor judge of men but he selected some of the best qualified leaders to serve in the Cabinet, from Hughes at State to Mellon at Treasury.

It was Harding who shepherded the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921 that brought order and responsibility to government budgeting for the first time.

It was Harding who fought for and achieved the first tax cuts of the 1920s, that would pay down the debt, ensure people worked more for themselves than for government, and participated more in their own affairs.

It was Harding, by nominating William H. Taft to be Chief Justice, who merits some credit for the complete reorganization of the Judiciary by the “Judge’s Bill” of 1925, improving much in the way the federal Courts worked so that justice moved swifter and more efficiently.

It was Harding who pardoned Eugene Debs, the Socialist leader imprisoned by the Wilson administration along with numerous others. By doing so, Harding restored a commitment to peace, calm and healing from the discord and division encouraged by his predecessor.

These real accomplishments deserve more consideration than history has given Warren Harding. We deprive ourselves of the constructive lessons he taught when we see only his failures and stop short of understanding his successes. He deserves better. So do we.

Writing of his predecessor, Calvin Coolidge said,

     The country had little interest in mere destructive criticism. It wanted the progress that alone comes from constructive policies…I witnessed the gigantic task of demobilizing a war government and restoring it to a peace-time basis…The efforts of President Harding to restore the country became familiar to me. I saw the steady increase of the wise leadership of Mr. Hughes and Mr. Mellon in the administration of the government and the passing of some of the veteran figures of the Senate…Later it was disclosed that he had discovered that some whom he had trusted had betrayed him and he had been forced to call them to account. It is known that this discovery was a very heavy grief to him, perhaps more than he could bear. I never saw him again. In June he started for Alaska and–eternity.

A reappraisal of his accomplishments is in order. It will reveal a man who defies the conventional wisdom in which he has been relegated and marginalized for more than ninety years. What better time than now to reassess the substance of spending cuts, strict budgeting, individual freedom and a return to our founding ideals, choosing to remain independent and not the vassal of the nations?