On NPR this morning, linguist John McWhorter compared the pro-business rhetoric in President Obama’s speech to the Chamber of  Commerce with similar language from Calvin Coolidge.

McWhorter based his comparison on this comment from Obama:

In addition to making government more affordable, we’re also making it more effective and customer-friendly. We’re trying to run the government a little bit more like you run your businesses — with better technology and faster services. So in the coming months, my administration will develop a proposal to merge, consolidate and reorganize the federal government in a way that best serves the goal of a more competitive America.

According to McWhorter, this sounds a bit like Coolidge’s famous suggestion that “the chief business of the American people is business.” But as McWhorter explained, Coolidge didn’t seem quite so intent on coddling business leaders:

What’s interesting about that statement is that he [Obama] is implying that the government will change its ways to suit the preference of business, as opposed to, for example, a rather similar speech in intent that Calvin Coolidge made in 1925. And this is the one where he made the famous quote, ‘The chief business of the American people is business.’ And what’s interesting is the complete difference in tone. In his speech, Obama used the words ‘we’ and ‘us’ 66 times. Coolidge in his speech used ‘we’ and ‘us’ just 28 times.

Asked whether he was suggesting that Obama was  ”chummier” with business than Coolidge, McWhorter said yes.

So does this mean Obama was being chummier in his speech than Coolidge, one of the most famously pro-business presidents in U.S. history? “That is precisely what I’m saying,” McWhorter says. Presidents nowadays, he says, “cannot be as saliently pro-business as Coolidge was. Obama has to be more coded.”

The Coolidge rehabilitation seems to be spreading, thanks in part to the publication of Why Coolidge Matters (which has gotten a rather remarkable amount of press). Here’s an item I ran across today:

The Vermont Republican is well known, perhaps, for what he didn’t do. In some history classes, he has been referred to as lazy, with some rumors even suggesting he was clinically depressed. But if you were to ask historians and family members of Coolidge what they think, the opinions and memories change dramatically. In fact, they are more like rebuttals to several decades worth of redicule by casual observers.

“Coolidge was our President during a time of peace and prosperity, between the two wars,” said Vermont Governor James H. Douglas (R). “He has a lot of offer the current American political scene. Fiscal responsibility, for example. He came at a time when our debt was quite high, when tax burdens were quite high, and he worked hard to reduce them.”

As one of the first radio presidents, Douglas claims President Coolidge was actually quite the conversationalist, connecting on levels to the American public in ways that are often overshadowed by historically great communicators like FDR and Ronald Reagan. A new book, “Why Coolidge Matters,” showcases some of the political victories and Presidential precedents set by Coolidge.

via 9NEWS.com | Colorado’s Online News Leader | Worst President ever, or simply misunderstood?.

Garland Tucker's new book on the 1924 election

As Americans head to the polls today, I’m sure everyone is pondering the 1924 battle between Calvin Coolidge and John W. Davis. What? You’re skeptical? Well, if they aren’t, they should be. And they can start their studies by taking a gander at Garland Tucker’s new book, The High Tide of American Conservatism.

On it’s surface, Tucker’s book tells the story of an election, the presidential contest of 1924 that pit Republican Calvin Coolidge against Democrat John W. Davis.

But it’s really a tandem biography of two prominent conservatives. Such books are never easy to write, often ending up as a lopsided treatment of two main characters, with one getting all the attention and the other relegated to the margins. Not so with Tucker’s book, however, which does a fine job with both its protagonists. Its fine sense of balance clearly derives from Tucker’s obvious admiration for both men.

Tucker’s principal goal is fairly straightforward: he wants to remind us that 1924 marked the last time both major parties nominated genuine conservatives for the presidency. Throughout the book, he stresses the  philosophical commonalities between Coolidge and Davis — commonalities that might surprise  readers inclined to view the political universe in binary terms, with Republicans consistently on the right and Democrats always on the left. While such a view is oversimplified even in today’s political arena, it’s even more misleading when projected into the past.

Tucker is unhappy with the historiographical treatment of both Coolidge and Davis. “Modern historians have consistently and regrettably ignored or belittled them,” he contends. Coolidge has been reduced to a caricature of mindless conservatism, while Davis has been nearly forgotten. Both men deserve better. Coolidge, for his part, was a thoughtful and decent man.  ”Not only did he articulate a coherent, thoughtful strand of conservatism,” Tucker writes, “but he also came — quite accurately — to be seen as an icon for those solid American values of honesty, hard work, self-reliance, and thrift.”

Davis shared many of these virtues, while adding a few more to boot. He was able, honest, charming, and smart, Tucker maintains. And he was every inch the conservative that Coolidge was. “Davis was a Democrat dedicated to small government, states’ rights, individual freedom, and free trade in the tradition of Jefferson, Madison, Cleveland, and Parker,” he observes.

The 1924 election pit these two pillars of conservatism against one another. “It is remarkable that both political parties nominated a bona fide conservative,” Tucker notes, “and, in some ways, this election was a defining moment in American presidential election history.” Indeed, it represented high tide of American conservatism, Tucker contends. (As opposed to the high tide of progressivism, which occurred in 1912 when all three major candidates for the presidency — including Bull Mooser Theodore Roosevelt — could make a plausible claim to the mantle of progressive politics).

Tucker casts the 1924 election as part of a longer drama. “Twentieth -century American political history was certainly dominated by the conflict betweent he left and the right over the proper role of government,” he writes. Tucker’s book offers a lucid, readable, and and extremely valuable portrait of two key players in this drama over the role of the state.

Even more important, however, Tucker reminds us that partisan alignments are not timeless. Democrats and Republicans have not always arrayed themselves in simple, predictable patterns along the ideological cleavage between statists and anti-statists. Such alignments have changed. And they will again.

Two weeks before election day in 1924, Washington Star cartoonist Clifford Berryman took aim at the partisan competition over tax cuts.

In an era of buoyant revenues and restrained spending, lawmakers felt free to promise additional tax relief. Partisan divisions centered not on the desirability of tax cuts in general, but on their distribution in particular.

For the most part, Democrats were eager to raise income tax exemptions, thereby freeing more Americans from a tax widely considered a rich man’s burden. Republicans, by contrast, were more interested in cutting marginal rates for the income tax, while also arguing for elimination of the federal estate tax.

Find more on 1920s tax policy at the Tax History Project at Tax Analysts.