In a recent column for the Washington Examiner, Gene Healy of the Cato Institute suggests that Barack Obama could learn a thing or two from Calvin Coolidge. In particular, the president might take a lesson from from Silent Cal’s modesty.

Calvin Coolidge, a genuinely humble man and a fine president, wrote in his autobiography that it was “a major source of safety to the country” for the president “to know that he is not a great man.”

Healy’s got a point, albeit one suffused with a dollop of wishful thinking. Yes, it would be nice of modern presidents weren’t consumed by their own grandeur.  But were their predecessors ever really so humble?

I might buy the argument that George Washington was humble. After all, not many men turn down an offer to be king. But then again, Washington didn’t either.

Still, Washington had an appreciation for both opportunity and responsibility. He knew when it was time to step up, but he also knew when it was time to step down. That’s a fine thing, and every one of his successors — save one  – has followed his lead.

But that doesn’t mean Washington was humble. Indeed, plenty of evidence suggests that his character included plenty of vanity and ambition. And I think it’s fair to say that every other president has been similarly infused with a keen appreciation of his own self-worth.

Which brings us back to Coolidge. Was he really humble? Well, maybe. Certainly, his governing style suggests that he didn’t consider himself indispensable to any situation.

But Coolidge was also a deeply ambitious politician who managed his career and public image with the utmost care. His was not an accidental presidency, either in origin or execution. The “Silent Cal” trope captures something important about Coolidge, but it also obscures his goals, ambition, and skill.

Coolidge, I think, believed deeply in his own capacity and character. I think he yearned to be president and did what was necessary to win — and keep — the job.

What’s striking about Coolidge is not his humility, but his respect for things larger than himself. Coolidge had faith in Coolidge, but he also had faith in America, its people, and its political institutions. In that sense, I think the title of his campaign book, Have Faith in Massachusetts, is revealing. Deep down, I think Coolidge believed he was a great man — or at least a pretty damn impressive one. But he believed that America was much greater.

So readers: tell me what you think? Was Coolidge humble?

Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.

On September 14, 1919, Coolidge sent a telegram to Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor (AFL). Artful and at times almost eloquent in its terse phraseology, it included a statement that would soon rocket Coolidge to national prominence. (See highlighted text below.)

A TELEGRAM
BOSTON, MASS., Sept. 14, 1919

MR. SAMUEL GOMPERS

President American Federation of Labor, New York City, N.Y.

Replying to your telegram, I have already refused to remove the Police Commissioner of Boston. I did not appoint him. He can assume no position which the courts would uphold except what the people have by the authority of their law vested in him. He speaks only with their voice. The right of the police of Boston to affiliate has always been questioned, never granted, is now prohibited. The suggestion of President Wilson to Washington does not apply to Boston. There the police have remained on duty. Here the Policemen’s Union left their duty, an action which President Wilson characterized as a crime against civilization. Your assertion that the Commissioner was wrong cannot justify the wrong of leaving the city unguarded. That furnished the opportunity, the criminal element furnished the action. There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time. [emphasis added] You ask that the public safety again be placed in the hands of these same policemen while they continue in disobedience to the laws of Massachusetts and in their refusal to obey the orders of the Police Department. Nineteen men have been tried and removed. Others having abandoned their duty, their places have, under the law, been declared vacant on the opinion of the Attorney-General. I can suggest no authority outside the courts to take further action. I wish to join and assist in taking a broad view of every situation. A grave responsibility rests on all of us. You can depend on me to support you in every legal action and sound policy. I am equally determined to defend the sovereignty of Massachusetts and to maintain the authority and jurisdiction over her public officers where it has been placed by the Constitution and law of her people.

CALVIN COOLIDGE
Governor of Massachusetts

"Have Faith in Massachusetts," which shares a title with one of Coolidge's most famous speeches, was published as he rose to national prominence in 1919

On September 11, 1919, Coolidge issued a proclamation, firmly establishing his position on the police strike, as well as an order to the city’s police chief.

Both documents were later reprinted in Coolidge’s book, Have Faith in Massachusetts.

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts
By His Excellency Calvin Coolidge, Governor

A PROCLAMATION

The entire State Guard of Massachusetts has been called out. Under the Constitution the Governor is the Commander-in-Chief thereof by an authority of which he could not if he chose divest himself. That command I must and will exercise. Under the law I hereby call on all the police of Boston who have loyally and in a never-to-be-forgotten way remained on duty to aid me in the performance of my duty of the restoration and maintenance of order in the city of Boston, and each of such officers is required to act in obedience to such orders as I may hereafter issue or cause to be issued.

I call on every citizen to aid me in the maintenance of law and order.

Given at the Executive Chamber, in Boston, this eleventh day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and nineteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and forty-fourth.

CALVIN COOLIDGE

At the same time, Coolidge also issued an order to Boston Chief of Police Edwin Curtis:

AN ORDER
BOSTON, September 11, 1919

To EDWIN U. CURTIS,

As you are Police Commissioner of the City of Boston,

Executive Order No. 1

You are hereby directed, for the purpose of assisting me in the performance of my duty, pursuant to the proclamation issued by me this day, to proceed in the performance of your duties as Police Commissioner of the city of Boston under my command and in obedience to such orders as I shall issue from time to time, and obey only such orders as I may so issue or transmit.

CALVIN COOLIDGE
Governor of Massachusetts

Coolidge placed great faith in the notion of the “common good.” Good government, in the Coolidge style, did not involve any sort of brokering between special interests. Rather, the wise leader worked assiduously to identify a “common interest” and pursued it doggedly. As he said in one of his most famous speeches:

This Commonwealth is one. We are all members of one body. The welfare of the weakest and the welfare of the most powerful are inseparably bound together. Industry cannot flourish if labor languish. Transportation cannot prosper if manufactures decline. The general welfare cannot be provided for in any one act, but it is well to remember that the benefit of one is the benefit of all, and the neglect of one is the neglect of all. The suspension of one man’s dividends is the suspension of another man’s pay envelope.

This was an attractive and widely shared view in 1919, when Coolidge offered it up. As CC biographer David Greenberg has observed:

This view, quite prevalent at the time, was not a reactionary position but a mainstream conservative one — and not too far even from Progressive orthodoxy. Progressives such as Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson tended to believe that the proper goal of politics was to satisfy a “general interest,” and not the special interests of any particular groups.

But of course, one man’s common good was another man’s factional interest. Political leaders could — and did — disagree on the meaning of this vague but powerful notion.

For Coolidge, the most dangerous threat to the common good often came from those trying to pit one class against another. More particularly, it came from those who would demonized business and wealth, ostensibly in the service of labor and hard work.

The common good, Coolidge believed, was wholly consistent with a free and vibrant economic system. Indeed, it required economic freedom. He used an analogy to make the point:

Diffusion of learning has come down from the university to the common school—the kindergarten is last. No one would now expect to aid the common school by abolishing higher education … It may be that the diffusion of wealth works in an analogous way. As the little red schoolhouse is builded in the college, it may be that the fostering and protection of large aggregations of wealth are the only foundation on which to build the prosperity of the whole people.  Large profits mean large pay rolls. But profits must be the result of service performed. In no land are there so many and such large aggregations of wealth as here; in no land do they perform larger service; in no land will the work of a day bring so large a reward in material and spiritual welfare.

Coolidge’s notion of the common good — and the policy implications that flowed from it —  were central to his political career.