Robert K. Murray's Politics of Normalcy

Robert K. Murray. The Politics of Normalcy. New York: WW Norton, 1973. 162 pages. $18.95

Robert K. Murray is a good writer and this is a useful account of the Warren G. Harding administration. The subtitle refers to the "Harding-Coolidge Era" but the book is about the Harding administration with a brief final chapter about Coolidge. Coolidge is more vividly remembered than Harding because after Harding died in office minor scandals, the most famous of which was the Teapot Dome Scandal, were revealed and these tarnished Harding's image.

Murray suggests that Coolidge carried forward Harding's "normalcy" philosophy and so Harding was the more influentional of the two presidents. Arguably, Harding's "normalcy" philosophy has been carried forward through George Bush.

The scandals did not touch Harding; they were the product of two or three unfortunate appointments he had made. Ironically, Harding's cabinet appointments were among the better ones in history. They included Charles Evans Hughes (state), Herbert Hoover (commerce), Andrew W. Mellon (treasury) and Henry Wallace (agriculture; the father of President Roosevelt's Vice-President, Henry A. Wallace). However, there were several exceptions, namely, Harry M. Daugherty, an Ohio crony of Harding's who was later accused of corruption and resigned during the Coolidge administration (1924), although nothing was really proven about Daugherty. Another unfortunate appointment was Interior Secretary Albert Fall, who was responsible for the Teapot Dome scandal, which involved Harry Sinclair's Mammoth Oil bribing Fall for oil leases. Another was Charles R. Forbes, director of the Veterans' Bureau who had sold government supplies illegally and whom Harding had asked to resign as a result.

My key interest in reading this book was to try to grasp why Americans had supported Theodore Roosevelt, a left-wing Progressive Republican in 1904, then supported William Howard Taft, a conservative Progressive Republican in 1908, then supported Woodrow Wilson, a middle of the road Progressive Republican in 1912 and 1916, then reverted to what most people call conservatives--Harding in 1920, Coolidge in 1924 and Hoover in 1928.

Murray does not give an answer to this because the political vocabulary he uses is already steeped in post-World War II liberalism, but a bit of interpretation is all that is needed. Hoover was a Progressive and the question that needs to be interpreted is how two conservatives, Harding and Coolidge, got sandwiched between 30 years' worth of Republican and Democratic Progressives (Wilson being the one Democrat). The answer is that Harding and Coolidge were not conservative in the sense that the word is used to refer to the late 19th century Mugwumps or Barry Goldwater. The Mugwumps had much more in common with Goldwater than Goldwater did with Harding or Coolidge. Rather, Harding and Coolidge were rural Americans who retained some of the homespun feeling for individualism without having much concern with the ideas of laissez faire economics or individual liberty. It is evident from Murray's rich description of the 67th Congress that progressivism had long been established. Harding's goals as president revealed the same thing. His goals included increasing agricultural tariffs, improving the federal farm loan system, increasing farmers' representation on federal boards (p. 32), promotion of "business-government cooperation" (with Hoover turning the Department of Commerce into "a beehive of probusiness activity"), and shipbuilding subsidies (p. 64). The tariff that Congress passed in 1922, the Fordney-McCumber tariff, in Murray's words:

"was of dubious value...The tariff debates had rarely involved principle; there were no great clashes as in the past between high and low tariff advocates. It was simply a struggle between vested-interest-groups for economic advantage. As the New York Commercial described it: 'The tariff now represents the composite selfishness of the country.'"

With respect to subsidies to ship builders, on February 18, 1922 Harding proposed (p. 68):

"that a fund was to be created to aid private shippers in building new ships as well as in buying the existing wartime government fleet. Subsidies would be paid to private shippers on a sliding scale, depending on vessel speed and gross tonnage. Shippers were to be allowed a 10 percent annual profit, but any excess would be divided between the owners and the government until the amount of the subsidy was repaid. The estimated cost of the program was $30 million per year. In presenting this plan to Congress, Harding pointedly admonished:

'We have voiced our concern for the good fortunes of agriculture, and it is right that we should. We have long proclaimed our interest in manufacturing...But we have ignored our merchant marine. The World War revealed our weakness, our unpreparedness for defense in war, our unreadiness for self-reliance in peace...'"

However, the agricultural interests fought this proposal. As preposterous as the shipbuilding proposal sounds to me, the farm lobby's opposition sounds even more preposterous. The agricultural resistance led Harding to change his philosophy of government from a belief that the president should be hands off, to a belief that the president should lead Congress toward legislation (p. 70).

It is evident that nothing in Harding's legislative or administrative agenda were conservative in an activist sense. Rather, his notion of "normalcy" was to accept the social system that the left-wing and conservative Progressives had implemented and simply "stand pat". He had no conception that assertion of markets and reassertion of individual freedom might be preferable to the Hepburn Act or the Federal Reserve Bank. He was conservative in this sense: he wished to conserve the progressives' programs, adding just a wee bit more progressivism, but not too much. What he meant by "normalcy" was just a wee bit more government spending.

In pages 3-6 Murray makes clear that there were serious economic problems facing the nation in 1920. Wilson had failed to liquidate military supplies resulting in inefficiency and waste (p. 3). Roberts indicates that prices increased 104.5% between 1914 and 1920, a compounded annual inflation rate of more than 10%. (Note that the Federal Reserve Bank was founded in 1913.) On top of the inflation, the end of the war threw many Americans into unemployment. In February 1919 an estimated 3 million Americans were unemployed. Then, the cost of living fell by about 10% in March 1921, just when Harding was inaugurated (March 4). By May 1921 farm prices had fallen by two thirds and land values fell (p. 5). The unemployment rate was 20 percent. Interestingly, Roberts is describing an inflation/recession somewhat like the one that preceded the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. In the late 1970s the inflation and increasing unemployment occurred together, but the situation wasn't that different. But Harding did not offer to remedy the inflation/unemployment cycle by correcting Fed policies. Rather, his normalcy policy was primarily political: to end the discussion of the League of Nations and to subsidize farmers with a tariff (p. 11), tighter immigration policy, a bigger navy, subsidies to the shipbuilders and an anti-lynching law. He also favored rationalization of government, a long-time progressive theme. Most of all, Harding advocated normalcy (quoted on p. 15):

"By 'normalcy' I don't mean the old order, but a regular, steady order of things. I mean normal procedure, the natural way, without excess."

Harding defined the Republican stance for much of the twentieth century. Republicans have called for normalcy, accepting the "progressive" reforms that the Democrats concoct and then responding to by saying that they are too much. The Republicans then call for "normalcy" and win another term in office. But is it normalcy to have a Federal Reserve Bank that prints $29 billion to subsidize an incompetent and corrupt investment bank like Bear Stearns? Is it normal for the US government to spend a trillion dollars a year? What is normal about that? Perhaps in Harding's day the normalcy theme rang true, but the Democrats' schemes, the Department of Education, inflation, the Fed, political correctness, the incompetent, "progressive" education system, the failed social security system, the failed policies of "urban renewal" that destroyed American cities and subsidized real estate developers are not normal. Is accepting such programs normalcy?

Calvin Coolidge on Delegation

"In the discharge of the duties of the office (of the presidency) there is one rule of action more important than all others. It consists in never doing anything that some else can do for you. Like many other good rules it is proven by its exceptions. But it indicates a course that should be very strictly followed in order to prevent being so entirely devoted to trifling details that there will be little opportunity to give the necessary consideration to policies of larger importance."

---Calvin Coolidge, The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge, p. 196.

The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge

Calvin Coolidge. The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge. New York: Cosmopolitan Book Corporation, 1929. 247 pages.

Calvin Coolidge grew up in Plymouth, an old fashioned, rural town in Vermont. The town was mostly Republican. Coolidge's father was a justice of the peace and held several other government posts that led to his collecting taxes. Coolidge writes (p. 26):

"As I went about with my father when he collected taxes, I knew that when taxes were laid some one had to work to earn the money to pay them. I saw that a public debt was a burden on all the people in a community, and while it was necessary to meet the needs of a disaster it cost much in interest and ought to be retired as soon as possible."

While at Amherst College, he favored Benjamin Harrison over Grover Cleveland in 1892. Cleveland was the Mugwumps' candidate and more committed to limited government than was Harrison. Harrison was a mainstream Republican. However, Coolidge was an advocate of the gold standard early in life. While he was studying for the bar exam in 1896:

"When I was home that summer I took part in a small neighborhood debate in which I supported the gold standard. The study I put on this subject well repaid me. Of course, Northhampton went handsomely for McKinley."

In 1909 Coolidge was elected Mayor of Northampton, Massachusetts (p. 101):

"Our city had always been fairly well governed and had no great problems. Taxes had been increasing. I was able to reduce them some and pay part of the debt, so that I left the net obligations chargeable to taxes at about $100,000. The salaries of teachers were increased."

Coolidge writes that early in his tenure in the Massachusetts state senate (p. 102):

"I...secured the appointment of a commission that resulted in the passage of a mother's aid or maternity bill...and I was made chairman of a recess committee to secure better transportation for rural communities in the wester part of the Commonwealth.

(p. 103) "...the Boston Democrats came to be my friends and were a great help to me in later times...

"...My committee reported a bill transforming the Railroad Commission into a Public Service Commission, with a provision intending to define and limit the borrowing powers of railroads which we passed after a long struggle and debate...The bill came out for our trolley roads in Western Massachusetts and was adopted..."

He goes on to suggest that he differed from the more radical Progressives in tone (p. 106-8):

"It appeared to me in January 1914 that a spirit of radicalism prevailed which unless checked was likely to prove very destructive. It had been encouraged by the opposition and by a large faction of my own party...It consisted of the claim in general that in some way the government was to be blamed because everybody was not prosperous, because it was necessary to work for a living, and because our written constitutions, the legislatures and the courts protected the rights of private owners especially in relation to large aggregations of property...The previous session had been overwhelmed with a record number of bills introduced, many of them in an attempt to help the employee by impairing the property of the employer. Though anxious to improve the condition of our wage earners, I believed this doctrine would soon destroy business and deprive them of a livelihood. What was needed was a restoration of confidence in our institutions and in each other, on whcih economic progress might rest...In taking the chair as President of the Senate I therefore made a short address, which I had carefully fully prepared, appealing to the conservative spirit of the people. I argued that the government could not relieve us from toil, that large concerns are necessary for progress in which capital and labor all have a common interest, and I defended representative government and the integrity of the courts."

When the state Republican Committee chose him as chairman (p. 109-110):

"I drew a conservative platform, pitched in the same key, pointing out the great mass of legislation our party had placed on the statute books for the benefit of the wage earners and the welfare of the people, but declaring for the strict and unimpaired maintenance of our present social, economic and political institutions."

As President of the Massachusetts Senate (p. 110):

"I wanted to cut down the volume of legislation. In this progress was made. The Blue Book of acts and Resolves for 1913 had 1,763 pages...for 1915 only 1,230, which was a very wholesome reduction of more than thirty percent. People were coming to see that they must depend on themselves rather than on legislation for success."

While Coolidge had many conservative impulses he also had many progressive ideas. He mentions that in his inaugural speech as governor of Massachusetts in January 1919 (p., 125):

"I dwelt on the need of promoting the public health, education, and the opportunity for employment at fair wages in accordance with the right of the people to be well born, well reared, well educated, well employed and well paid. I also stressed the necessity of keeping government expenses as well as possible... "

Thus, Coolidge adapted the language of progressivism to a somewhat self-contradictory model whereby he would give the people progressive government while not spending for it.

Coolidge helped stop a police strike in Boston which received national attention. He reinstated Police Commissioner Edwin U. Curtis (who had been supplanted by the Mayor). Samuel Gompers, head of the AFL attacked Coolidge for removing union policemen, but Coolidge refused. He said (p. 134):

"There is no right to strike against the public safety by any body, any time, any where."

As governor, Coolidge signed a law limiting the work week for women and minors to 48 hours. He vetoed a bill permitting the sale of beer (during Prohibition).

The police strike brought Coolidge national attention and he won the nomination to vice president.

His instincts were conservative based on his basic rural New England education (p. 153):

"I contended that the only sure method of relieving this distress was for the country to follow the advice of Benjamin Franklin and begin to work and save. Our productive capacity is sufficient to maintain us all in a state of prosperity if we give sufficient attention to thrift and industry."

He adds (p. 182):

"Wealth comes from industry and from the hard experience of human toil. To dissipate it in waste and extravagance is disloyalty to humanity. This is by no means a doctrine of parsimony. Both men and nations should live in accordance with their means and devote their substance not only to productive industry but to the creation of the various forms of beauty and the pursuit of culture which give adornments to the art of life.

"When I became President it was perfectly apparent that the key by which the way could be opened to national progress was constructive economy. Only by the use of that policy could the high rates of taxation, which were retarding our development and prosperity, be diminished and the enormous burden of our public debt be reduced."

Despite his small government conservatism, he was no libertarian. He notes that as vice-president (p. 180):

"I had seen a large amount of government business. Peace had been made with the Central Powers, the tariff revised, the budget system adopted, taxation reduced, large payments made on the national debt, the Veterans' Bureau organized, important farm legislation passed, public expenditures greatly decreased..."

Coolidge remarks on Jefferson (p. 214):

"(A)ny one who had as many ideas as Jefferson was bound to find that some of them would not work. But this does not detract from the wisdom of his faith in the people and his constant insistence that they be left to manage their own affairs. His opposition to bureaucracy will bear careful analysis, and the country could stand a great deal more of its application. The trouble with us is that we talk about Jefferson but do not follow him. In his theory that the people should manage their government, and not be managed by it, he was everlastingly right."

On political parties Coolidge supports the two-party system (p. 230):

"The last twenty years have witnessed a decline in party spirit and a distinct weakening in party loyalty. While an independnet attitude on the part of the citizen is not without a certain public advantage, yet is is necessary under our form of government to have political parties. Unless some one is a partisan, no one can be an independent. The Congress is organized entirely in accordance with party policy. The arties appeal to the voters in behalf of their platforms. The people make their choice on those issues. Unless those who are elected on the same party platform associate themselves together to carry out its provisions, the election becomes a mockery...It is the business of the President as party leader to do the best he can to see that the declared party platform purposes are translated into legislative and administrative action."

Was Calvin Coolidge a conservative? I think on balance the answer is "yes", unlike his Republican predecessors Roosevelt and Taft and his Republican successor Hoover. But Coolidge's conservatism was an accidental one. It resulted from his mainstream American upbringing. The conservatives of the 1910's did not see the need to educate the public about conservative ideas in the way that the Progressives saw the need to educate the public about Progressivism. There was no unified movement, only the broader cultural inheritance. Coolidge was an un-selfconscious conservative and in that he was a weak conservative. The reason is that Progressivism was a conscious, organized movement with intellectual underpinnings and self conscious vigor. In order to present a real conservative response, Coolidge would have had to have perceived the need for a parallel kind of organiztion that could proactively reinvent American culture along conservative lines, not just respond to the initiatives of the Progressives and cut taxes when they went a little too far. This was not a robust conservatism because it did not replenish the roots of American culture and economy. Rather, it was a tepid reaction to the Progressives, who never gave up. This weak response characterizes the Republican Party even now. The unwillingness to undo the Democratic progressive program reflects a tepidness and failure of inventiveness. Conservatism is not acceptance of the Democratic initiatives. But this is all the Republicans have had to offer since Coolidge.

From Progressivism to Conservatism

Having just read a few books on mugwumps, the evolution of political thinking from mugwumpery to progressivism, the legal reconstruction of American capitalism and the philosophy of progressivism, I have admittedly just begun to scratch the surface of the source of the generic failure of American politics to produce responsive and flexible solutions. Today, on the right, the promise of limited government has been betrayed and given the Republican Party's progressive history, which followed through Rockefeller Republicanism to President Bush's mangling of conservatism, the Republicans had traditionally had a big government impulse and so they are unreliable representatives of the small government view. However, the question needs to be traced through Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge. Coolidge was a teenager when the Mugwumps bolted to vote for Grover Cleveland in 1884, so he was not a Mugwump, but he was very much in the Mugwump tradition. On first glance it seems there is more EL Godkin than Herbert Croly in Coolidge, but I need to learn how that played out in Coolidge's thinking--did he outright reject Progressivism and return to the late 19th century view (and if so why did he not repeal at least some of the Progressive legislation). In general there is a question as to why the Mugwump tradition in American politics has been able to reassert itself vocally but not practically. Reagan adopted free market rhetoric but behaved like a Progressive. Did Calvin Coolidge establish the pattern of twentieth century Mugwump timidity? Or is the timidity simply a reflection of the American public's commitment to the Progressive model? Perhaps special interest theories such as Mancur Olson's can explain the clash between Republican rhetoric and action as simply a reflection of economic self interest on politicians' part. They believe in free markets but know that if they betray special interests they will lose elections. The special interests believe in free markets for everyone else, but inevitably see themselves as an exception. Thus, American politics has become a tragedy of the town commons, where everyone believes in freedom but aims to repeal it for a special favor for themselves.