At the Martin Center for Academic Renewal’s recent policy banquet, author and Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation board chair Amity Shlaes nominated Calvin Coolidge as America’s greatest education president. This nomination was made not because of Coolidge’s conventional contributions to education, though, but rather because, as president, “he taught the nation how to return to itself.”
In her 40-minute address, Shlaes compared Coolidge’s presidency to the work of the Martin Center and similar education-focused groups, as both met their respective audiences (students and voters) where they ought to and could be rather than where they were. She also insisted that the style of leadership that Coolidge embodied — having shrunk the size of the federal government in spite of a political environment demanding expansion — is necessary in DC today.
Shlaes drew several parallels between the turbulence of the 1920s and the contemporary political environment in the US. She described the United States in that era as being in a “vengeful mood as now,” with “an element of anger beyond the necessary with the opposition on both sides.” She spoke further about societal and governmental hostility towards free speech during World War I through the 1920s, exemplified by the First Red Scare and the arrest of socialist presidential candidate Eugene Debs. She noted that authorities “put a lot of people in jail, some of whom did not deserve to be there. We were quite strict with people who opposed the war.”
Additionally, Shlaes pointed out that, like today’s GOP, the Republican Party of the 1920s was undergoing a split between its traditional, small-government wing and a newer, more activist coalition. Through intentional anachronism, she described the divergence between the party’s market-oriented “old Reaganites” and its progressive wing, which favored increasing the scope and power of the federal government.
Having illustrated the similarities between the social and political conditions in America during the 1920s and the 2020s, Shlaes asserted that the style of leadership Calvin Coolidge exhibited during his presidency can serve as a model for today’s politicians. She stated that it takes a “very special leader” to begin turning back the clock on government expansion, joking that “It’s easy to make fish soup from an aquarium, but it’s hard to make an aquarium from fish soup.”
Schlaes proceed to provide a high-level overview of the Coolidge administration and the virtues that set it apart as an exemplary model to follow. Chiefly, these were his free market and small government values, his ability to resist pressure to abandon those values, and his discretion in addressing scandal.
Having risen to the office of president in the wake of his predecessor Warren Harding’s cronyism scandal, Coolidge appointed both a Republican and a Democrat to jointly oversee the “house-cleaning” to quickly and fairly hold those responsible to account. By doing so, Coolidge was able to help the country move on from the scandal without lingering animosity, Schlaes asserted.
Once he put the Teapot Dome scandal behind him, Coolidge went to work restoring the credibility of his party’s deregulatory agenda by rejecting the appeals of special interests cutting costs wherever possible, including in the White House’s own household finances. Schlaes described how in one instance of spurning special interests, Coolidge rejected lobbyists’ appeals for agricultural subsidies by saying, “You’re farmers… Well, farmers never made much money… Don’t suppose they ever will… Don’t suppose there’s much the government can do about that.”
In her closing remarks, Schlaes insisted that the prosperity of the 1920s was not illusory, as it is often characterized in the common conception of the era, but was genuine and the result of sound, free-market policy and public support for limited government. “What the Coolidge story says,” she concluded, “is please also stop meeting voters where they are. Show them instead what they can be, and they may surprise you.”
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