economy

On Pancakes

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President Coolidge’s pancake breakfasts were a trademark of his five and a half years in the White House.  As a frequent visitor of the kitchen, he expected much from the housekeeper, Miss Riley. Her papers, kept by the Vermont Historical Society, are well worth renewed interest and study. The President, long the conscientious manager of household expenses, approached the White House no differently. He understood that the best results did not come from costly purchases or elaborate meals. Yet, as long-time Washington journalist Frances Parkinson Keyes notes, “the general atmosphere of state receptions was never more brilliant than when the Coolidges were in the White House” (Capital Kaleidoscope, p.132-3).

He never forgot he was just the man who lived temporarily on the third floor. Regarding himself no better than any of his fellow White House tenants, he once went to the housekeeper’s office to have a word with Miss Riley about the pancakes. Holding the dainty cake carefully between his thumb and index finger he wanted to know, “Why can’t I have big ones like they have down downstairs?” Ishbel Ross, in her book Grace Coolidge and Her Era, notes how the kitchen staff saved time by making their cakes as large as dinner plates (p.104). The President saw no reason why any exception should be made for him. He expected thrift not only in public money but also in the use of time.

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This Calvin and Hobbes strip by Bill Watterson printed August 1986 humorously illustrates the attitude of economy when it comes to pancakes. It may have amused President Coolidge to see this duo’s attempt at thrift when it came to making breakfast.

On Labor

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In Robert A. Woods’ fascinating little book entitled, “The Preparation of Calvin Coolidge,” the author recounts the numerous ways Coolidge advanced American labor. Coolidge backed policies that improved conditions for everyone, not merely one interest group over that of another. Through cutting state executive government down from 120 agencies to 19, Coolidge enabled the people of Massachusetts to keep more of their wages every week for themselves instead of sending up increasing quantities in taxes to Boston. He supported the decrease of work hours because it helped those who worked…not simply those who led unions, even though, ironically, it originally had the firm opposition of organized manufacturers. Known for his principled stand for law and order, he not only backed Commissioner Curtis for refusing to reinstate 19 police officers after they led most of the department on strike in September 1919. Having become affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, in violation of long-standing department regulations, their duty to the public became secondary to an ideological allegiance that already brought them in conflict with their sworn obligation.

Any or all of these three instances could have alienated political friends, forced Coolidge out of office or worse, led to a violent series of repercussions around the state, even the country.

1919 was hardly a peaceful year, despite the War’s end. But this was not all he encountered since the Lawrence textile and phone operators strikes could have blown into larger conflicts as well. They did not spiral out of control principally because of sound leadership. It is through good leadership that complex and seemingly insurmountable obstacles are resolved with clear and consistently applied principles. Coolidge, known by everyone for his fairness, gave partiality to none. He adhered to the law, even when it might cost him personally or politically. As such, he gained the support of those who saw past the bias and political agendas of those calling for violence, social upheaval, nationwide strikes and economic change for its own sake.

He continually lauded the glory of work. As Coolidge would observe on Labor Day in 1919, “Workmen’s compensation, hours and conditions of labor are cold consolations, if there be no employment. And employment can be had only if some one finds it profitable. The greater the profit, the greater the wages.” Such a truth needs no clearer illustration than where we stand in September 2013. If only the realization of Coolidge’s day, that “we can take from one class and give to another class” is never going to fix the problem. The problem only aggravates, as it did then, when class warfare rhetoric convinces Americans to expect fairness without freedom for all and benefits without the work to earn them.

Coolidge recognized the right to form unions by mutual agreement. Without consent, both unions and arbitration of disagreements were impossible to reconcile “with the right of individual freedom,” which could never be surrendered to any effort to equalize labor. He saw a clear distinction of responsibility when it came to those performing a service to the public, be it policemen, telephone operators or (in Reagan’s case) air traffic controllers.

This is why Coolidge told labor leaders on September 1, 1924, “Of course employment affecting public safety and public necessity is not private employment, and requires somewhat different treatment.” Those who work in public unions are not simply serving themselves, as Coolidge said on April 21, 1919, “There is another principle involved which has received very little attention, and that is the obligation that exists on those who enter the public service to continue to furnish such service even at some personal inconvenience. This obligation reaches to the highest officer or government official to the humblest employee. The public has rights which cannot be disregarded.” Such is why Coolidge endorsed resolution by peaceful arbitration — not the coercion of strikes, violence and disregard of law and orderly behavior — when disagreements occur. The “us” versus “them” rhetoric only proved increasingly hollow as tax reduction and constructive economy revealed the property owners and the laborer to be one and the same.

The emphasis on what one is entitled, rather than what one owes, misses both the importance and increased opportunity hard work affords to each person. No short cut exists. One cannot demand the fruits of toil without the effort to acquire them. The welfare of all, made clear from the earliest experiments in socialism by Plymouth colony, is never achieved by the many enjoying the rewards earned by a few. Work and the ability to keep its results have proven, through centuries of human experience, to be the means toward progress, the agency of mutual prosperity, and the continuance of civilization.

It is why Coolidge, in his address to the leaders of labor, said this,

“America recognizes no aristocracy save those who work. The badge of service is the sole requirement for admission to the ranks of our nobility. These American policies should be continued. We have outlawed all artificial privilege. We have had our revolution and our reforms. I do not favor a corporation government, a bank government, a farm government or a labor government. I am for a common-sense government by all the people according to the American policy and under the American Constitution. I want all the people to continue to be partakers in self government.”

With Coolidge, his actions matching his words, we can know that he meant it.

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On Being Worthy of Freedom

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Apprehensions over the future have always remained an ever-present concern for a wise and circumspect people. When Americans stop being concerned for the next generation, it will be because we are no longer free individuals. The prospects for freedom stand in greater doubt than perhaps they have for many years, but a lack of confidence in our system is only new to us, not to generations of Americans who came before us.

Any one of the hardships overcome by prior generations could have halted the experiment of self-government in its tracks. It has certainly had no shortage of critics who proclaimed “failure” and “defeat” only to be proven flatly wrong time and time again. Inequity and unfairness have been present in human history from the outset, but neither has had the power to prevent individuals of determination from accomplishing truly great things despite it. Our time is hardly the first to ask, “who is worthy of freedom?”

The Progressive Era produced an almost overwhelming array of reasons to change the way this country was established. It would answer our question with pessimism: the people were ultimately not to be trusted with freedom. It was an intelligent few who merited such power. Coolidge knew, on the other hand, freedom was safest in the hands of the people.

The charge that our system was both too wild and too unequal, compared to the “enlightened” societies of Europe, led to calls for regulation of human behavior on a scale never before known. The pursuit began to implement an efficient and intelligent approach to government that would mitigate risk, remove inequities and shepherd the people to progress.

These activists, predisposed to intense skepticism about capitalist systems, trusted government implicitly with greater and greater control. Enamored with a lopsided admiration for methods foreign to American ideals of law and liberty, these generally middle class intellectuals failed to appreciate the remarkable nature of our constitutional system. They overlooked the careful balance worked out by the Framers, infusing a disastrous measure of good intentions with a reckless accumulation of new laws.

They entrusted government with the power to supply the shortfalls of human nature with legislation. Each effort undervalued, even ignored, the unquantifiable worth of freedom. Government, endeavoring to be “smart” and “humane,” hurt those it proclaimed to help by robbing them of the dignity of free will, the moral judgment of those given sovereignty in our system.

Ours is a history of accomplishment and success because people were recognized not as subjects in service to the State but individuals whose value comes from a Divine Creator. Made in the image of God, it logically follows that the dreams, aspirations and abilities to create, construct and succeed are within every person’s power. It is that power now being denied our young people as unrealistic and unattainable. This is nothing more than the latest incarnation of those who denied Edison could harness light, the Wrights could fly and Ford could mobilize America.

The avoidable tragedy of all this is that it literally destroys the wholesome yearnings of millions for something better than marginal existence. Instead, the young are told to be content with mediocrity, cease the pursuit of success, and consign all future faith and hopes to Washington’s management. No less self-deluded than the Progressives of Coolidge’s day, this operation dehumanizes humanity. History proclaims it will ultimately fail but the cost to countless lives in the process can never be known.

Coolidge, grappling with these problems, said in 1923,

[T}he motive power of progress and reform has not come from the high and mighty but from the mass of the people…It is not the quantity of knowledge that is the chief glory of man…It is in the moral power to know the truth and respond to it, to resist evil and hold to that which is good, that is to be found the real dignity and worth, the chief strength, the chief greatness. This power, even in the humblest and the most unlettered, rises to a height which cannot be measured, which cannot be analyzed. It is this strength of the people which can never be ignored. Of course it would be folly to argue that the people cannot make political mistakes. They can and do make grave mistakes. They know it; they pay the penalty. But compared with the mistakes which have been made by every kind of autocracy they are unimportant…

…Unless the people struggle to help themselves, no one else will or can help them. It is out of such struggle that there comes the strongest evidence of their true independence and nobility, and there is struck off a rough and incomplete economic justice, and there develops a strong and rugged national character. It represents a spirit for which there could be no substitute. It justifies the claim that they are worthy to be free…

     …Civilization and freedom have come because they are an achievement, and it is human nature to achieve. Nothing else gives any permanent satisfaction. But most of all there is need of religion. From that source alone came freedom. Nothing else touches the soul of man. Nothing else justifies faith in the people.

Like the generation who saw beyond the narrow confines of subsistence imposed upon it by king and Parliament, it is time to refuse to participate in a supervised decline. Being taught to doubt our own judgment is merely a prelude to forfeiting the ability to make our own choices, to strive, to fail, to triumph — in short, to live free. If we are to be worthy of that freedom, we cannot surrender to this latest effort — however organized it is — to train out the moral ideals and intangible dreams of people.

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