Many of our presidents aren’t treated the same way by history as they are by popular opinion. In other words, after they leave the White House, there’s a good chance we’ll think better or worse of them, compared with how we thought when they were in. Harry Truman is probably the best example. After he fired General MacArthur, he had an approval rating of only 25 percent in the polls (even lower then the 30 percent rating that we keep hearing for George W. Bush), but because he had to make several very tough decisions, like whether or not to drop the atom bomb on Japan, he is now seen as one of the best presidents of the twentieth century. Along that line, I think after his presidency ends, Bush will be treated more kindly by historians, because he kept his promise to cut taxes (twice), and because he prevented a second terrorist attack like the one that struck on September 11, 2001. To those who remember that grim day, did any of you think that we would go for seven years without a repeat of 9/11? We have a similar case with Abraham Lincoln; during his presidency Democrats and Southerners treated him almost as badly as today’s Democrats treated Bush, until one of Lincoln’s opponents shot him, but now he is regarded as perhaps the best president we ever had.
The pendulum of opinion can swing the other way, too. Warren G. Harding and Lyndon B. Johnson were very popular as presidents, but nowadays their performances look so bad that we wonder what the voters were thinking, when they elected these characters with landslides that buried their opponents. I have a feeling that Bill Clinton will be rated downwards as well, once the day comes when we no longer have him or Hillary to kick around.
I am mentioning this because when I wrote the American history papers on The Xenophile Historian, I came to the conclusion that several presidents, notably James Polk, Chester Arthur and Grover Cleveland, are underrated to the point that the average American probably doesn’t remember anything about them. I am now going to add Calvin Coolidge to that list. He was the last president who actually cut spending and reduced the size of the federal government. Not even Ronald Reagan, the most conservative president of my lifetime, could do that much. The best he could do was slow down the rate by which spending increased (liberals think that was a “cut”), and while he and other conservatives have promised to get rid of the Department of Education, it hasn’t happened yet. For this achievement, recently the historian Paul Johnson called Coolidge the “last president of the nineteenth century,” because big government was not in fashion before 1900.
Coolidge is also called “Silent Cal” for saying almost nothing in public, but when he had something to say, it was worth remembering. I’m especially thinking of that after the recent election. Because the Democrats won by their biggest margin in decades, and because of the current move to bail out failing banks and industries with federal funds, we’re probably going to see tremendous growth in both government and spending, growth at least as big as what we saw under LBJ’s “Great Society.” From my point of view, it looks like a majority of the voters have rejected personal responsibility and “rugged individualism,” in favor of cradle-to-grave government protection. Perhaps it is because I live just twenty miles from the fort of Daniel Boone, one of the most famous “rugged individualists” who ever lived. If I am right, this election saw the ratification of a “Declaration of Dependence.” Now that we seem to be turning into a European-style welfare state, I wonder who’s going to defend us in the future; the Chinese?
Anyway, here are some quotes from President Coolidge that are relevant to this issue. Some of them are good for motivational lectures, too:
“Civilization and profit go hand in hand.”
“Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery.”
“Don’t expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong.”
“Duty is not collective; it is personal.”
“Economy is the method by which we prepare today to afford the improvements of tomorrow.”
“I have found it advisable not to give too much heed to what people say when I am trying to accomplish something of consequence. Invariably they proclaim it can’t be done. I deem that the very best time to make the effort.”
“If you see ten troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you.”
“Industry, thrift and self-control are not sought because they create wealth, but because they create character.”
“It is only when men begin to worship that they begin to grow.”
“Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. It may not be difficult to store up in the mind a vast quantity of face within a comparatively short time, but the ability to form
judgments requires the severe discipline of hard work and the tempering heat of experience and maturity.”
“Little progress can be made by merely attempting to repress what is evil. Our great hope lies in developing what is good.”
“No enterprise can exist for itself alone. It ministers to some great need, it performs some great service, not for itself, but for others; or failing therein, it ceases to be profitable and ceases to exist.”
“No man ever listened himself out of a job.”
“Perhaps one of the most important accomplishments of my administration has been minding my own business.”
“Prosperity is only an instrument to be used, not a deity to be worshipped.”
“The business of America is business.”
“The government of the United States is a device for maintaining in perpetuity the rights of the people, with the ultimate extinction of all privileged classes.”
“The man who builds a factory builds a temple, that the man who works there worships there, and to each is due, not scorn and blame, but reverence and praise.”
“The nation which forgets its defenders will be itself forgotten.”
“The right thing to do never requires any subterfuge, it is always simple and direct.”
“There is no dignity quite so impressive, and no independence quite so important, as living within your means.”
“They criticize me for harping on the obvious; if all the folks in the United States would do the few simple things they know they ought to do, most of our big problems would take care of themselves.”
“Those who trust to chance must abide by the results of chance.”
“To live under the American Constitution is the greatest political privilege that was ever accorded to the human race.”
“Ultimately property rights and personal rights are the same thing.”
And here is a related, relevant quote from the great Christian author, C. S. Lewis:
“Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
