Presidency of Calvin Coolidge
's tenure as the 30th president of the United States began on August 2, 1923, when Coolidge became president upon Warren G. Harding's death, and ended on March 4, 1929. A Republican from Massachusetts, Coolidge had been vice president for when he succeeded to the presidency upon the sudden death of Harding. Elected to a full four–year term in 1924, Coolidge gained a reputation as a small-government conservative. Coolidge was succeeded by former Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover after the 1928 presidential election.
Coolidge adeptly handled the aftermath of several Harding administration scandals, and by the end of 1924 he had dismissed most officials implicated in the scandals. He presided over a strong economy and sought to shrink the regulatory role of the federal government. Along with Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon, Coolidge won the passage of three major tax cuts. Using powers delegated to him by the 1922 Fordney–McCumber Tariff, Coolidge kept tariff rates high in order to protect American manufacturing profits and high wages. He blocked passage of the McNary–Haugen Farm Relief Bill, which would have involved the federal government in the persistent farm crisis by raising prices paid to farmers for five crops. The strong economy combined with restrained government spending produced consistent government surpluses, and total federal debt shrank by one quarter during Coolidge's presidency. Coolidge also signed the Immigration Act of 1924, which greatly restricted immigration into the United States. In foreign policy, Coolidge continued to keep the United States out of membership or major engagement with the League of Nations. However he supported disarmament agreements and sponsored the Kellogg–Briand Pact of 1928 to outlaw most wars.
Coolidge was greatly admired during his time in office, and he surprised many by declining to seek another term. Public opinion on Coolidge soured shortly after he left office as the nation plunged into the Great Depression. Many linked the nation's economic collapse to Coolidge's policy decisions, which did nothing to discourage the wild speculation that was going on and rendered so many vulnerable to economic ruin. Though his reputation underwent a renaissance during the Ronald Reagan administration, modern assessments of Coolidge's presidency are divided. He is adulated among advocates of smaller government and laissez-faire; supporters of an active central government generally view him less favorably.
Accession
Coolidge, who served as the governor of Massachusetts from 1919 through 1921 was nominated at the 1920 Republican National Convention for the ticket of Warren G. Harding for president and Coolidge for vice president. Coolidge became the Vice President of the United States after the Republican ticket was victorious in the 1920 presidential election. On August 2, 1923, President Harding died unexpectedly while on a speaking tour of the Western United States. Vice President Coolidge was visiting his family home in Vermont when he received word by a messenger of Harding's death. Coolidge's father, a notary public, administered the oath of office in the family parlor at 2:47 a.m. on August 3, 1923. The following day, Coolidge traveled to Washington, D.C., where he was sworn in again by Justice Adolph A. Hoehling Jr. of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia. Coolidge addressed Congress when it reconvened on December 6, 1923, expressing support for many of Harding's policies, including Harding's formal budgeting process and the enforcement of immigration restrictions.Administration
Although a few of Harding's cabinet appointees were scandal-tarred, Coolidge initially retained all of them out of an ardent conviction that, as successor to a deceased elected president, he was obligated to retain his predecessor's counselors and policies until the next election. He kept Harding's able speechwriter Judson T. Welliver; Stuart Crawford replaced Welliver in November 1925. Coolidge appointed C. Bascom Slemp, a Virginia Congressman and experienced federal politician, to work jointly with Edward T. Clark, a Massachusetts Republican organizer whom he retained from his vice-presidential staff, as Secretaries to the President.Perhaps the most powerful person in Coolidge's Cabinet was Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon, who controlled the administration's financial policies and was regarded by many, including House Minority Leader John Nance Garner, as more powerful than Coolidge himself. Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover also held a prominent place in Coolidge's Cabinet, in part because Coolidge found value in Hoover's ability to win positive publicity with his pro-business proposals. Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes directed Coolidge's foreign policy until he resigned in 1925 following Coolidge's re-election. He was replaced by Frank B. Kellogg, who had previously served as a senator and as the ambassador to Great Britain. Coolidge made two other appointments following his re-election, with William M. Jardine taking the position of Secretary of Agriculture and John G. Sargent becoming Attorney General. Coolidge appointed Sargent only after the Senate rejected his first choice, Charles B. Warren, who was the first Cabinet nominee to be rejected by the Senate since 1868. Coolidge did not have a vice president during his first term, but Charles Dawes became vice president at the start of Coolidge's second term. Dawes and Coolidge clashed over farm policy and other issues.
Judicial appointments
Coolidge appointed only Harlan Fiske Stone to the Supreme Court of the United States. Stone was Coolidge's fellow Amherst alumnus, a Wall Street lawyer, and a conservative Republican. Stone was serving as dean of Columbia Law School when Coolidge appointed him to be attorney general in 1924 to restore the reputation tarnished by Harding's Attorney General, Harry M. Daugherty. Stone proved to be a firm believer in judicial restraint and was regarded as one of the court's three liberal justices who would often vote to uphold New Deal legislation.Coolidge nominated 17 judges to the United States Courts of Appeals, and 61 judges to the United States district courts. He appointed Genevieve R. Cline to the United States Customs Court, making Cline the first woman to serve in the federal judiciary. Coolidge also signed the Judiciary Act of 1925 into law, allowing the Supreme Court more discretion over its workload.
Domestic affairs
Harding administration scandals
In the waning days of Harding's administration, several scandals had begun to emerge into public view. Though Coolidge was not implicated in any corrupt dealings, he was faced with the fallout of the scandals in the early days of his presidency. The Teapot Dome Scandal tainted the careers of former Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall and Secretary of the Navy Edwin Denby, and additional scandals implicated Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty and former Veterans Bureau director Charles R. Forbes. A bipartisan Senate investigation led by Thomas J. Walsh and Robert LaFolette began just weeks into Coolidge's presidency. As the investigation uncovered further misconduct, Coolidge appointed Atlee Pomerene and Owen Roberts as special prosecutors, but he remained personally unconvinced as to the guilt of Harding's appointees. Despite congressional pressure, he refused to dismiss Denby, who instead resigned of his own accord in March 1924. That same month, after Daugherty refused to resign, Coolidge fired him. Coolidge also replaced the Director of the Bureau of Investigation, William J. Burns, with J. Edgar Hoover. The investigation by Pomerene and Roberts, combined with the departure of the scandal-tarred Harding appointees, served to disassociate Coolidge from the Harding administration's misdeeds. By May 1924, Harding's scandals had largely receded from public attention, though a separate scandal involving former Postmaster General Will H. Hays would briefly garner headlines in 1928.Economy and regulation
| It is probable that a press which maintains an intimate touch with the business currents of the nation is likely to be more reliable than it would be if it were a stranger to these influences. After all, the chief business of the American people is business. They are profoundly concerned with buying, selling, investing and prospering in the world. |
| President Calvin Coolidge's address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Washington D.C., January 25, 1925 |
During Coolidge's presidency, the United States experienced a period of rapid economic growth known as the "Roaring Twenties." Unemployment remained low while the country's gross domestic product rose from $85.2 billion in 1924 to $101.4 in 1929. According to Nathan Miller, "the postwar years ushered in an age of consumerism with a broader base of participation than had ever existed before in America or anywhere else." The number of automobiles in the United States increased from 7 million in 1919 to 23 million in 1929, while the percentage of households with electricity rose from 16 percent in 1912 to 60 percent in the mid-1920s.
The regulatory state under Coolidge was, as one biographer described it, "thin to the point of invisibility." Coolidge believed that promoting the interests of manufacturers was good for society as a whole, and he sought to reduce taxes and regulations on businesses while imposing tariffs to protect those interests against foreign competition. Coolidge demonstrated his disdain for regulation by appointing commissioners to the Federal Trade Commission and the Interstate Commerce Commission who did little to restrict the activities of businesses under their jurisdiction. Under leadership of Chairman William E. Humphrey, a Coolidge appointee, the FTC largely stopped prosecuting anti-trust cases, allowing companies like Alcoa to dominate entire industries. Coolidge also avoided interfering with the workings of the Federal Reserve, which kept interest rates low and allowed for the expansion of margin trading in the stock market. The 1922 Fordney–McCumber Tariff allowed the president some leeway in determining tariff rates, and Coolidge used his power to raise the already-high rates set by Fordney–McCumber. He also staffed the United States Tariff Commission, a board that advised the president on tariff rates, with businessmen who favored high tariffs.
Secretary of Commerce Hoover energetically used government auspices to promote business efficiency and develop new industries like air travel and radio. Hoover was a strong proponent of cooperation between government and business, and he organized numerous conferences of intellectuals and businessmen which made various recommendations. Relatively few reforms were passed, but the proposals created the image of an active administration. Between 1923 and 1929, the number of families with radios grew from 300,000 to 10 million, which grew further to a majority of U.S. households by 1931 and 75 percent of U.S. households by 1937. The Radio Act of 1927 established the Federal Radio Commission under the auspices of the Commerce Department, and the FRC granted numerous licenses to large, commercial radio stations that demonstrated that they served "the public interest, convenience, or necessity", and the Act also established the equal-time rule for radio broadcasters in the United States. At Hoover's request, Congress passed the Air Commerce Act, which granted the Commerce Department the authority to regulate air travel. The Coolidge administration provided matching funds for roads under the authorization of the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1921. The total mileage of highways doubled in the 1920s, and the administration helped establish the United States Numbered Highway System, which provided for orderly designation of highways and uniform signage on those highways.
Some have labeled Coolidge as an adherent of the laissez-faire ideology, which some critics claim led to the Great Depression. Historian Robert Sobel argues instead that Coolidge's belief in federalism guided his economic policy, writing, "as Governor of Massachusetts, Coolidge supported wages and hours legislation, opposed child labor, imposed economic controls during World War I, favored safety measures in factories, and even worker representation on corporate boards...such matters were considered the responsibilities of state and local governments." Historian David Greenberg argues that Coolidge's economic policies, designed primarily to bolster American industry, are best described as Hamiltonian rather than laissez-faire.