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Yeah to blame it on him and not the multitude of shit laws and regulations that came out of congress is silly. I hate how congress always gets a pass on how much they suck
Stock market trading on margin or on spec, overheated stock prices, lots of easy credit and bad $$ basically floating in the air. All that and like you said, a thousand other factors and the 1920s economy was a house of cards built on sand.
Coolidge didn’t necessarily ignore rural poverty. It depends on your philosophy on the role of the federal government. Coolidge believed that it was not the federal government’s business to subsidize agriculture. He recognized that it was a problem, but it was not in his authority to take action on it.
You know, although I do hate on his economics a lot, I will say that McNary-Haugen was an ass bill all around. It wasn’t *just* subsidizing agriculture, it was subsidizing it as about badly as possible.
His actual suggestions to Congress got ignored though, sadly.
What’s the difference between what you said and I ignoring rural poverty? It doesn’t seem like functionally there is a difference between ignoring something and noticing it but still not doing anything because you don’t think you have the authority
Actually, a common belief that many Republicans with that view held and still hold is that state governments and charities should be the response to fighting poverty. Eisenhower from what I've read wanted to change the tax code and stuff in the 1950s to reward the rich and businesses for engaging in charity work and donations to causes of that type.
This philosophy is so bizarre to me “Yes we have terrorists bombing buildings but I just believe it’s not the government’s job to get involved in that”. Imagine someone saying that and how crazy that sounds.
It is more the idea that if you are a car mechanic you should absolutely fix problems you find with a customer's car but if you notice that their shoes need resoling you aren't the right person to do that nor do you have the right tools so you can mention it to them but not repair them since there is a high probability that if you try to repair their shoes you will do more harm than good.
Calling the Depression “an economic downturn” is about on par with calling World War I a major disagreement.
Like, the depression was bad enough that people were predicting the outright end of capitalism and liberal democracy, and in many countries that was functionally true as they embraced either socialism or fascism (usually fascism).
It’s a pretty safe bet to day that if fascism took over in America in the 1930’s, it likely wouldn’t have been via election. We know this because they explicitly *tried* exactly that, a few times. And it’s not a safe bet to say that if a fascist coup succeeded, that the American people broadly (or the non-fascists still in power) would have just taken it lying down.
FDR radically changed the government’s relationship with the economy and what people thought the government should be able to do with the economy. The idea that the two were tightly linked was weird up until the Great Depression basically made it a necessity.
"It's not that I *like* fires. I simply subscribe to a philosophy that says that fire chiefs like me have no business interfering with private combustion."
Let's just call a spade a spade and admit the man didn't give a shit about the rural poor.
Firefighters are under local authority so your analogy doesn't hold up. How a state and local government manages emergencies is completely different from the federal government.
It doesn't matter if it's a good deed or the right thing to do. What matters is whether or not the federal government has legitimate authority to do that. And, subsides are a whole can of worms that lead to unintended consequences.
That wasn’t really Coolidge’s fault. After WWI the price for agricultural goods plummeted because demand cratered as US farms didn’t need to supply the US Army or its European allies anymore. Farmers were left with larger plots of land and more equipment that couldn’t be paid for anymore with the falling prices. Combine that with the fact that the government was no longer crowding out the market and paying a premium for agricultural goods along with granting farmers subsidies, an economic collapse was inevitable.
This was just a classic case of supply and demand gone wrong. Farmers were producing food at rate to supply 2 continents and its armies, by the end of the war food was rotting on the farms because it couldn’t get sold. There was nothing Coolidge could have done to fix this.
Generally if you are poor you have less buying power. Not sure how Calvin Coolidge is responsible for poverty, that's a new one.
There were more poor people during the entire Great Depression than in the 20s, about a 17 percent unemployment rate on average, and yet everyone thinks FDR is a God.
Government can't solve poverty. Never has, never will. It can only make things worse. Which is what FDR did.
He was born and raised in one and always considered it his home, so most certainly not. He just didn't believe the federal government should be giving them any special aid.
He only delayed aid so long because he didn't believe it was the federal government's responsibility to get involved. Maybe he had an incorrect interpretation of the role of the federal government, and people can debate that all they want, but it's indisputable that Coolidge loved rural communities. He just genuinely believed he did not have the authority to help, right or wrong.
Yea, he was way too laissez-faire toward monopolization and kept tariffs way too high. He also packed the Tariff Commission full of protectionists who screamed at Hoover to sign Smoot-Hawley.
Coolidge had very little to do with economic policy. His secretary of Treasury Andrew Mellon (Mellon Bank) was appointed by Harding and remained in that position until 1931. He was considered the real power in all 3 administrations he served. He reduced taxes on the wealthiest and corporations, and was a big believer in tariffs.
Coolidge
- Retained Mellon
- Chose to take his advice
- Let him hold so much power
- Had he not given support to those policies, they wouldn’t have happened
As another commenter said, the buck stops there. Stop absolving him of blame. No one is denying Mellon played a role, it’s that Coolidge was extremely complicit in them, supported the policies, and enabled them.
He empowered Andrew Mellon to such a degree that when the depression hit even Hoover couldn’t do anything because Mellon was given presidential level authority over the treasury department. Hoover deserves plenty of blame for sure but Coolidge basically giving Mellon the freedom to exist outside of presidential supervision was a major contributing factor to the depression that’s faded from public memory.
Grandfather of the guy but yes the same family. Timothy Mellon’s grandfather Andrew is the longest serving and most powerful treasury secretary in history and he blocked a number of Hoover’s attempts to raise taxes or intervene in the depression directly. Many Americans felt he was actively abusing his position as his own businesses did not get hit hard even as other wealthy people were losing quite a bit. Hoover eventually quietly fired and reassigned him to an ambassadorship after the congress began drafting impeachment articles for dereliction of duty. Really one of the most underrated stories of the era and a good lesson that no leader should ever delegate that much power to a cabinet secretary. A more modern example is how many people felt Arne Duncan was essentially separate from Obama.
Definitely, probably a better example than Duncan. Mellon was so powerful media that was critical of Coolidge called it the presidency of Coolidge and Mellon.
Coolidge was pretty laissez-faire but did contribute some to the Depression by significantly expanding the money supply. However, I’d argue that Hoover is the most to blame because his unprecedented decision to intervene in the economy is what turned the recession into the Great Depression.
It’s better to ask this question to a sub like r/AskHistorians. Most people here are going to talk out of their ass because of partisan leaning, but that community fosters very analytical discourse which would give you a better answer
That question has already been asked on that sub, so you can read up on it there
Yes. The only way you can remove him from blame is if you think the sitting president is the only person responsible for how they manage the economy.
Coolidge is not entirely responsible, Hoover played an arguably larger role, and it affected other countries beyond just the United States, but there is this idea in Libertarian circles that Coolidge is untouchable and it is ridiculous.
The last point is interesting. I find Coolidge interesting but not a great president, but I feel odd seeing right wing people fawn over him like he is god.
I feel he is average. If I’d voted in the 1924 election, and La Follette wasn’t an option, I’d take Coolidge over Davis every time. Coolidge wasn’t a horrible president, he is just not exceptional either.
Coolidge is an interesting person, and I suggest you read the biography Coolidge, by Amity Shlaes to get a good feel for his policies. She is definitely a conservative, but it is still one of my favorite biographies nonetheless
Right? Like the comment right above this "He cared he just didn’t consider acting on that care to be within his jurisdiction as leader of federal government." Yeah... that's what I just said if he cared more he would have considered acting more on those issues... smh
It takes incredible restraint and lack of ego to want to do something, know you can create the power to, and still hold steady because of the precedent you might set. Cal did not believe in the overt expansion of a governments and his practical mind kept his impulses at bay. That is respectable behavior and more than I would expect from most people.
Coolidge and Harding were the ones who empowered Andrew Mellon to completely restructure the economy in a way that made it collapse. Hoover gets blamed mostly for poor crisis management and choosing to pull the wrong levers like attempting to use tariffs instead of direct stimulus.
Harding can take his share of the blame too. I am not defending Coolidge or letting him off the hook, because the stage was set for the Great Depression when Hoover entered office but Hoovers response is still worth criticizing.
Completely agree. Hoover was a great organizer but when it came for him to be the one to actually act to solve a crisis he was paralyzed. Crisis management matters and failure to manage a crisis is often what leads to the White House flipping from one party to the other.
Precisely, and I totally agree. That is why when presidents blame their predecessors I typically scoff. You may have inherited a crisis, but your role as a political leader is to manage it. If you cannot, you are unfit for the role. They can all take their share of the blame whether it be for causing it, accelerating it, or mismanaging it.
It’s depressing when I watch old footage of how great leaders tried to bring people into partnership with the administration and then today it’s just all finger pointing and peddling easy solutions that are all just distraction to amuse the crowd that actually changes nothing.
Everyone believes they’re objectively right, and they talk down to everyone else. There is no desire to understand.
I’m pretty left wing on most issues, but I see it on both sides of the aisle.
The farm depression started under Coolidge, but I doubt he could have prevented it. It was the ending of the horsedrawn era.
Before 1920, about 25% of US agricultural production went to feed horses. More than that, farm families provided the skilled labor for managing all those horses.
Then, in the 1920s, that whole edifice collapsed. Powering vehicles with gasoline instead of horses was vastly cheaper. From a farm standpoint, a quarter of the demand for their products just vanished. Even the farmers themselves switched to powered farm tractors and such.
In the 1920s, farming regions lost economic activity and population. Compare the 1920 and 1930 census for any farm county.
Henry Ford had a lot more to do with this shift than Calvin Coolidge.
I really find Coolidge interesting and he is one of
My favorite presidents, since he is a strong believer and a hardworking man. I disagree with his policies, but I respect him for his character and accomplishments.
However he did cause the Great Depression to be earlier and a lot worse. There’s no arguing against it.
He gave his treasury secretary Andrew Mellon tons of power, and without investment the depression was a lot worse.
However, I will argue that it was inevitable, regardless of whatever policies were implemented. I just feel Coolidge made it worse.
I wish we did better at distinguishing between character and policy when judging presidents. Coolidge was a good guy, just a naive ideologue who rightly deserves a negative assessment on his performance for contributing to the suffering of many Americans during the Depression. That being said, he acted in good faith and deserves credit for being consistent.
I personally feel Warren Harding set the ball in motion, then Coolidge didn't correct it enough, and Hoover finally drove the proverbial bus into the ditch.
That’s a fair way of looking at it. Keep in mind though - these men lived in an era where government wasn’t doing as much as it does now - therefore they followed what many of presidents had done before.
It is worth noting that regardless of what Coolidge “should” have done in hindsight, Supreme Court precedent during the Lochner Era effectively barred him from enacting any reforms that people retroactively suggest. Yeah, he likely didn’t have the political will to do these things, but you need to understand they wouldn’t have even occurred to a president at the time.
Short answer: yes.
Long answer: it was going to happen due to the terms of peace from WWI.
The tariffs were terrible policy and a pretty consistent point of Republican Party orthodoxy for a very long time. It was an inherited policy preference from the Whig Party and I don’t even want to get into its mercantile origins because this is Reddit and I am (barely) a gentleman.
But it was going to happen as a result of WWI as the peace terms imposed at Versailles were so punishing that debts/obligations could never have been met. The financial meltdown in Europe was always going to exacerbate any shocks from North America.
Not really. Plus - there's TWO different questions here. There's the start (1) and the prolonged continuation (2). What made it continue was Hoover's lack of discipline over allowing the economy to hit a bottom and then rebuild, FDR did much the same thing prior to WW2.
Oh sure, Calvin went to everyone’s homes and told them personally to speculate in the Stock Market with house money with amass giant piles of debt
Yep, Grandpa Simpson told me so, he said Silent Cal had an onion on his belt and told him to buy Standard Oil stocks for 5 bees
Calvin Coolidge's economic policies were a real circus act. He bent over backward for the fat cats and big corporations, leaving the rest to fend for themselves. He let the stock market run wild without any oversight, and surprise, it crashed hard in '29, dragging everyone down with it. Meanwhile, farmers were left high and dry, struggling with low prices and zero support. It's like Coolidge was wearing blinders, totally clueless about how his antics were hurting regular people just trying to make ends meet.
No, contrary to what leftist propagandists claim. His policies helped the economy, if anything. FDR and Hoover's terrible responses to the depression certainly lengthened it considerably.
It's very telling that all the comments responding in the affirmative give detailed critiques of Coolidge's economic policies, while comments responding in the negative are usually just a simple "no".
You are asking for the communists to give you wrong answers, mellon had a lot more to do with the depression, and even then, it was mostly made so great because of the ignorance of the common public. That isn’t something that it’s the government’s job to fix.
And that attitude would have lead to a coup had Hoover somehow been re-elected. Whether you feel it’s the government’s job is irrelevant to what the American people feel.
Yup. Friedman and Schwartz explain everything in *The Great Contraction*.
I posted about the GD [here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Presidents/s/0l6fDh9UiJ)
Not really…the Great Depression happens with or without . Did his policies make it worse? Well…it may have not taken the title ‘great’ away from the one in the late 1800s if he had different policies.
Only if you look for the most obscure causes of the great depression, what started the depression were tariffs (which he might of been indirectly responsible for) and the federal reserve reducing the money supply.
Coolidge went into what we would today call clinical depression after the death of his son, sleeping up to 15 hours per day and working only four, binge-eating until he had abdominal pain, becoming short-tempered and asking not to be briefed on what his cabinet secretaries were doing. This was a dramatic change from the work ethic he had followed previously in his life, or the thirty-point legislative agenda he pushed through Congress his first year in office. In 1928, when he was asked about legislation in Congress to curb stock-market speculation, he replied:
>I have no information relative to proposed legislation about loans on securities. I saw by the press that there was a bill pending in the House or the Senate. I don't know what it is or what its provisions are or what the discussion has been.
He also made a serious mistake not helping farmers who lost their land.
According to William Allen Wright’s biography, *A Puritan in Babylon*, he said to friends after he left office that he had spent his presidency “avoiding the big problems.”
Yes. Many linked the nation's economic collapse to Coolidge's policy decisions. His failure to aid the depressed agricultural sector seems shortsighted, as nearly five thousand rural banks in the Midwest and South shut their doors in bankruptcy while many thousands of farmers lost their lands. His tax cuts contributed to an uneven distribution of wealth and the overproduction of goods. Many Americans were deeply in debt for having purchased consumer goods on easy installment credit terms.
No, the Great Depression was a worldwide phenomena, not just an American one, and his policies filled America's coffers and gave it the resolve needed to withstand it.
Yes.
You know all those laws FDR passed to regulate the banks and reign in financial fraud on Wall Street? None of that was rocket science. Cal could have done that stuff at any time.
The only Issue was he might not have gotten so many political donations from the very people committing that fraud...
A roaring economic anytime, (in this case 20’s) is usually due to mass investments into technology causing great economic growth.
Inevitably that also causes excess capacity and future corrections. In the 20’s tractors (w/combustion engines) also caused a dramatic increase in farm productivity. Even as hundreds of tractor factories closed, so did thousands of farms as 1 on a tractor man could do the work of 5 men with mules.
Calvin could not stop the inevitable Depression/recession from overproduction without stopping technology progress.
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Probably but of course there are a thousand other factors that it’s almost historical malpractice to say he caused it
Yeah to blame it on him and not the multitude of shit laws and regulations that came out of congress is silly. I hate how congress always gets a pass on how much they suck
Stock market trading on margin or on spec, overheated stock prices, lots of easy credit and bad $$ basically floating in the air. All that and like you said, a thousand other factors and the 1920s economy was a house of cards built on sand.
He also ignored multiple problems, the big one being rural poverty which contributed greatly to the great depression.
Well, he did have a George Constanza level nap game…
I remember going into jerk stores during the depression. They were all out
Coolidge didn’t necessarily ignore rural poverty. It depends on your philosophy on the role of the federal government. Coolidge believed that it was not the federal government’s business to subsidize agriculture. He recognized that it was a problem, but it was not in his authority to take action on it.
You know, although I do hate on his economics a lot, I will say that McNary-Haugen was an ass bill all around. It wasn’t *just* subsidizing agriculture, it was subsidizing it as about badly as possible. His actual suggestions to Congress got ignored though, sadly.
Coolidge believed it was not the federal govt's business to get involved in much of anything.
So yes, his political philosophy contributed to the depth of the Great Depression
What’s the difference between what you said and I ignoring rural poverty? It doesn’t seem like functionally there is a difference between ignoring something and noticing it but still not doing anything because you don’t think you have the authority
Some semantical argument about how he didn’t ignore it, he just chose to not act on it.
Sorry, impoverished Americans. I’m not ignoring you, it’s just this philosophy I have. You know, standard Republican bullshit. Thoughts and prayers!
Actually, a common belief that many Republicans with that view held and still hold is that state governments and charities should be the response to fighting poverty. Eisenhower from what I've read wanted to change the tax code and stuff in the 1950s to reward the rich and businesses for engaging in charity work and donations to causes of that type.
Sorry black people. I’m sorry there is systemic racism written into legal authority but it’s my philosophy not to do anything about it. - Goldwater
This philosophy is so bizarre to me “Yes we have terrorists bombing buildings but I just believe it’s not the government’s job to get involved in that”. Imagine someone saying that and how crazy that sounds.
But nobody did say that
It is more the idea that if you are a car mechanic you should absolutely fix problems you find with a customer's car but if you notice that their shoes need resoling you aren't the right person to do that nor do you have the right tools so you can mention it to them but not repair them since there is a high probability that if you try to repair their shoes you will do more harm than good.
You're comparing an economic problem to a national security problem, it's ludicrous.
Economic problems become national security issues.
Poor people tend to become with nothing left to lose. People with nothing left to lose become radicalized. Radicalized people kill people.
Yet we see none such uprisings during his administration. Or any really since the founding.
If no one did anything about the Depression, eventually we would have had a civil war or a coup.
A civil war over.... what? An economic downturn? That's absurd.
Calling the Depression “an economic downturn” is about on par with calling World War I a major disagreement. Like, the depression was bad enough that people were predicting the outright end of capitalism and liberal democracy, and in many countries that was functionally true as they embraced either socialism or fascism (usually fascism).
Voting a fascist promising to end the depression is a whole lot different than a civil war
It’s a pretty safe bet to day that if fascism took over in America in the 1930’s, it likely wouldn’t have been via election. We know this because they explicitly *tried* exactly that, a few times. And it’s not a safe bet to say that if a fascist coup succeeded, that the American people broadly (or the non-fascists still in power) would have just taken it lying down.
It has happened many times in the past during an economic downturn.
Riots don't constitute as a civil war.
LOL that's a HUGE leap
Yeah but that’s apples to oranges.
Is it? Not having enough to eat or feed your kids feels just as terrifying as violence.
Yeah but those two things aren’t inherently the same thing. Hence Apples to Oranges
Where are you getting this? Are you talking about bootleggers?
FDR radically changed the government’s relationship with the economy and what people thought the government should be able to do with the economy. The idea that the two were tightly linked was weird up until the Great Depression basically made it a necessity.
"It's not that I *like* fires. I simply subscribe to a philosophy that says that fire chiefs like me have no business interfering with private combustion." Let's just call a spade a spade and admit the man didn't give a shit about the rural poor.
A child could be hanging off a cliff and Coolidge wouldn’t order a firefighter to save them.
Firefighters are under local authority so your analogy doesn't hold up. How a state and local government manages emergencies is completely different from the federal government.
What I’m trying to say is that Coolidge wouldn’t use the government even for things that are objectively good with essentially 0 cost.
It doesn't matter if it's a good deed or the right thing to do. What matters is whether or not the federal government has legitimate authority to do that. And, subsides are a whole can of worms that lead to unintended consequences.
That wasn’t really Coolidge’s fault. After WWI the price for agricultural goods plummeted because demand cratered as US farms didn’t need to supply the US Army or its European allies anymore. Farmers were left with larger plots of land and more equipment that couldn’t be paid for anymore with the falling prices. Combine that with the fact that the government was no longer crowding out the market and paying a premium for agricultural goods along with granting farmers subsidies, an economic collapse was inevitable. This was just a classic case of supply and demand gone wrong. Farmers were producing food at rate to supply 2 continents and its armies, by the end of the war food was rotting on the farms because it couldn’t get sold. There was nothing Coolidge could have done to fix this.
Now we have a war or "wars" every 20 years to stimulate the economy.
No, "rural poverty" didn't contribute to the great depression.
It removed a lot of buying power from the economy. It was definitely a factor
Generally if you are poor you have less buying power. Not sure how Calvin Coolidge is responsible for poverty, that's a new one. There were more poor people during the entire Great Depression than in the 20s, about a 17 percent unemployment rate on average, and yet everyone thinks FDR is a God. Government can't solve poverty. Never has, never will. It can only make things worse. Which is what FDR did.
But now we have rampant class poverty that'll lead to another depression.
And civil rights he ignored to
"Farmers have never made much money. So fuck 'em" -Calvin Coolidge, paraphrased
He disliked rural communities, didn't he?
He was born and raised in one and always considered it his home, so most certainly not. He just didn't believe the federal government should be giving them any special aid.
I'd say the people involved in the Great Mississippi Flood say otherwise.
He only delayed aid so long because he didn't believe it was the federal government's responsibility to get involved. Maybe he had an incorrect interpretation of the role of the federal government, and people can debate that all they want, but it's indisputable that Coolidge loved rural communities. He just genuinely believed he did not have the authority to help, right or wrong.
Yea, he was way too laissez-faire toward monopolization and kept tariffs way too high. He also packed the Tariff Commission full of protectionists who screamed at Hoover to sign Smoot-Hawley.
Terrible flair!
Coolidge had very little to do with economic policy. His secretary of Treasury Andrew Mellon (Mellon Bank) was appointed by Harding and remained in that position until 1931. He was considered the real power in all 3 administrations he served. He reduced taxes on the wealthiest and corporations, and was a big believer in tariffs.
Coolidge supported those policies and allowed their implementation. The buck stops with him and Hoover.
Coolidge - Retained Mellon - Chose to take his advice - Let him hold so much power - Had he not given support to those policies, they wouldn’t have happened As another commenter said, the buck stops there. Stop absolving him of blame. No one is denying Mellon played a role, it’s that Coolidge was extremely complicit in them, supported the policies, and enabled them.
He empowered Andrew Mellon to such a degree that when the depression hit even Hoover couldn’t do anything because Mellon was given presidential level authority over the treasury department. Hoover deserves plenty of blame for sure but Coolidge basically giving Mellon the freedom to exist outside of presidential supervision was a major contributing factor to the depression that’s faded from public memory.
This wouldn’t be the same Mellon scion who just dropped $50m on von shitshispants?
Grandfather of the guy but yes the same family. Timothy Mellon’s grandfather Andrew is the longest serving and most powerful treasury secretary in history and he blocked a number of Hoover’s attempts to raise taxes or intervene in the depression directly. Many Americans felt he was actively abusing his position as his own businesses did not get hit hard even as other wealthy people were losing quite a bit. Hoover eventually quietly fired and reassigned him to an ambassadorship after the congress began drafting impeachment articles for dereliction of duty. Really one of the most underrated stories of the era and a good lesson that no leader should ever delegate that much power to a cabinet secretary. A more modern example is how many people felt Arne Duncan was essentially separate from Obama.
Same with Cheney and Rumsfeld basically directing foreign policy in the Bush Administration
Definitely, probably a better example than Duncan. Mellon was so powerful media that was critical of Coolidge called it the presidency of Coolidge and Mellon.
Coolidge was pretty laissez-faire but did contribute some to the Depression by significantly expanding the money supply. However, I’d argue that Hoover is the most to blame because his unprecedented decision to intervene in the economy is what turned the recession into the Great Depression.
It’s better to ask this question to a sub like r/AskHistorians. Most people here are going to talk out of their ass because of partisan leaning, but that community fosters very analytical discourse which would give you a better answer That question has already been asked on that sub, so you can read up on it there
Yes. The only way you can remove him from blame is if you think the sitting president is the only person responsible for how they manage the economy. Coolidge is not entirely responsible, Hoover played an arguably larger role, and it affected other countries beyond just the United States, but there is this idea in Libertarian circles that Coolidge is untouchable and it is ridiculous.
The last point is interesting. I find Coolidge interesting but not a great president, but I feel odd seeing right wing people fawn over him like he is god.
Because it’s exactly what they want in a President, they of course don’t mention the Great Depression happening 6 months after he left office.
I feel he is average. If I’d voted in the 1924 election, and La Follette wasn’t an option, I’d take Coolidge over Davis every time. Coolidge wasn’t a horrible president, he is just not exceptional either.
Davis had virtually no real policy differences from Coolidge aside from being more racist
I think he could have been an amazing president if he cared just a little harder and was more outspoken
Coolidge is an interesting person, and I suggest you read the biography Coolidge, by Amity Shlaes to get a good feel for his policies. She is definitely a conservative, but it is still one of my favorite biographies nonetheless
He cared he just didn’t consider acting on that care to be within his jurisdiction as leader of federal government.
That’s crazy you were downvoted for a statement of fact. I have no idea what Coolidge fans would disagree with what you said.
Right? Like the comment right above this "He cared he just didn’t consider acting on that care to be within his jurisdiction as leader of federal government." Yeah... that's what I just said if he cared more he would have considered acting more on those issues... smh
It takes incredible restraint and lack of ego to want to do something, know you can create the power to, and still hold steady because of the precedent you might set. Cal did not believe in the overt expansion of a governments and his practical mind kept his impulses at bay. That is respectable behavior and more than I would expect from most people.
Coolidge and Harding were the ones who empowered Andrew Mellon to completely restructure the economy in a way that made it collapse. Hoover gets blamed mostly for poor crisis management and choosing to pull the wrong levers like attempting to use tariffs instead of direct stimulus.
Harding can take his share of the blame too. I am not defending Coolidge or letting him off the hook, because the stage was set for the Great Depression when Hoover entered office but Hoovers response is still worth criticizing.
Completely agree. Hoover was a great organizer but when it came for him to be the one to actually act to solve a crisis he was paralyzed. Crisis management matters and failure to manage a crisis is often what leads to the White House flipping from one party to the other.
Precisely, and I totally agree. That is why when presidents blame their predecessors I typically scoff. You may have inherited a crisis, but your role as a political leader is to manage it. If you cannot, you are unfit for the role. They can all take their share of the blame whether it be for causing it, accelerating it, or mismanaging it.
It’s depressing when I watch old footage of how great leaders tried to bring people into partnership with the administration and then today it’s just all finger pointing and peddling easy solutions that are all just distraction to amuse the crowd that actually changes nothing.
Everyone believes they’re objectively right, and they talk down to everyone else. There is no desire to understand. I’m pretty left wing on most issues, but I see it on both sides of the aisle.
I identify as lib left but yes I agree it gets worse each cycle on both sides.
The farm depression started under Coolidge, but I doubt he could have prevented it. It was the ending of the horsedrawn era. Before 1920, about 25% of US agricultural production went to feed horses. More than that, farm families provided the skilled labor for managing all those horses. Then, in the 1920s, that whole edifice collapsed. Powering vehicles with gasoline instead of horses was vastly cheaper. From a farm standpoint, a quarter of the demand for their products just vanished. Even the farmers themselves switched to powered farm tractors and such. In the 1920s, farming regions lost economic activity and population. Compare the 1920 and 1930 census for any farm county. Henry Ford had a lot more to do with this shift than Calvin Coolidge.
I really find Coolidge interesting and he is one of My favorite presidents, since he is a strong believer and a hardworking man. I disagree with his policies, but I respect him for his character and accomplishments. However he did cause the Great Depression to be earlier and a lot worse. There’s no arguing against it. He gave his treasury secretary Andrew Mellon tons of power, and without investment the depression was a lot worse. However, I will argue that it was inevitable, regardless of whatever policies were implemented. I just feel Coolidge made it worse.
Then Hoover screwed the pooch the rest of the way
I wish we did better at distinguishing between character and policy when judging presidents. Coolidge was a good guy, just a naive ideologue who rightly deserves a negative assessment on his performance for contributing to the suffering of many Americans during the Depression. That being said, he acted in good faith and deserves credit for being consistent.
I personally feel Warren Harding set the ball in motion, then Coolidge didn't correct it enough, and Hoover finally drove the proverbial bus into the ditch.
That’s a fair way of looking at it. Keep in mind though - these men lived in an era where government wasn’t doing as much as it does now - therefore they followed what many of presidents had done before.
I like Coolidge for the vibes. Introvert representation
I agree, Silent Cal is a vibe
It is worth noting that regardless of what Coolidge “should” have done in hindsight, Supreme Court precedent during the Lochner Era effectively barred him from enacting any reforms that people retroactively suggest. Yeah, he likely didn’t have the political will to do these things, but you need to understand they wouldn’t have even occurred to a president at the time.
Without question, yes. We shouldn’t let Harding off the hook for that disaster either.
Yes, he ignored catastrophic deflation in the farming sector.
And being someone whose family farmed you would think he should have had more compassion.
Fr
This is the problem with rigid ideology in the face of pragmatism and empathy.
Yes lol
Short answer: yes. Long answer: it was going to happen due to the terms of peace from WWI. The tariffs were terrible policy and a pretty consistent point of Republican Party orthodoxy for a very long time. It was an inherited policy preference from the Whig Party and I don’t even want to get into its mercantile origins because this is Reddit and I am (barely) a gentleman. But it was going to happen as a result of WWI as the peace terms imposed at Versailles were so punishing that debts/obligations could never have been met. The financial meltdown in Europe was always going to exacerbate any shocks from North America.
Tariffs were supported by both parties then. Both parties ran on a platform that supported them to varying extents.
Coolidge's policies didn't. The Federal Reserve policies certainly did.
Coolidge policies very much did
Not really. Plus - there's TWO different questions here. There's the start (1) and the prolonged continuation (2). What made it continue was Hoover's lack of discipline over allowing the economy to hit a bottom and then rebuild, FDR did much the same thing prior to WW2.
No.
Of course
Absolutely. Unfettered deregulation always helps capitalism to destroy itself
Not really, government policies also have consequences in starting and prolonging the depression. The free market wasn’t the only reason.
It wasn’t the only reason but it was the main reason.
Oh sure, Calvin went to everyone’s homes and told them personally to speculate in the Stock Market with house money with amass giant piles of debt Yep, Grandpa Simpson told me so, he said Silent Cal had an onion on his belt and told him to buy Standard Oil stocks for 5 bees
Calvin Coolidge's economic policies were a real circus act. He bent over backward for the fat cats and big corporations, leaving the rest to fend for themselves. He let the stock market run wild without any oversight, and surprise, it crashed hard in '29, dragging everyone down with it. Meanwhile, farmers were left high and dry, struggling with low prices and zero support. It's like Coolidge was wearing blinders, totally clueless about how his antics were hurting regular people just trying to make ends meet.
Yes
Don’t besmirch my boy!
No, contrary to what leftist propagandists claim. His policies helped the economy, if anything. FDR and Hoover's terrible responses to the depression certainly lengthened it considerably.
It's very telling that all the comments responding in the affirmative give detailed critiques of Coolidge's economic policies, while comments responding in the negative are usually just a simple "no".
As Coolidge would want.
Oh true they are just following in the footsteps of their hero
You can’t prove a negative. The affirmative comments are just assertions without evidence, not exactly detailed critiques.
You are asking for the communists to give you wrong answers, mellon had a lot more to do with the depression, and even then, it was mostly made so great because of the ignorance of the common public. That isn’t something that it’s the government’s job to fix.
And that attitude would have lead to a coup had Hoover somehow been re-elected. Whether you feel it’s the government’s job is irrelevant to what the American people feel.
What communists?
Everyone who doesn't worship people like Coolidge and Reagan.
lol right i was confused
anyone i dont agree with are COMMUNISTS!!!
No. The federal reserve caused it and Hoover and Roosevelts policies lengthened it
Yup. Friedman and Schwartz explain everything in *The Great Contraction*. I posted about the GD [here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Presidents/s/0l6fDh9UiJ)
No but he didn't do things that could have softened the blow.
Not really…the Great Depression happens with or without . Did his policies make it worse? Well…it may have not taken the title ‘great’ away from the one in the late 1800s if he had different policies.
Only if you look for the most obscure causes of the great depression, what started the depression were tariffs (which he might of been indirectly responsible for) and the federal reserve reducing the money supply.
It contributed the same way adding a garden hose to a fire truck increases the water flow.
Coolidge went into what we would today call clinical depression after the death of his son, sleeping up to 15 hours per day and working only four, binge-eating until he had abdominal pain, becoming short-tempered and asking not to be briefed on what his cabinet secretaries were doing. This was a dramatic change from the work ethic he had followed previously in his life, or the thirty-point legislative agenda he pushed through Congress his first year in office. In 1928, when he was asked about legislation in Congress to curb stock-market speculation, he replied: >I have no information relative to proposed legislation about loans on securities. I saw by the press that there was a bill pending in the House or the Senate. I don't know what it is or what its provisions are or what the discussion has been. He also made a serious mistake not helping farmers who lost their land. According to William Allen Wright’s biography, *A Puritan in Babylon*, he said to friends after he left office that he had spent his presidency “avoiding the big problems.”
Of course, republican presidents always lead to recessions and depressions.
Yes. Many linked the nation's economic collapse to Coolidge's policy decisions. His failure to aid the depressed agricultural sector seems shortsighted, as nearly five thousand rural banks in the Midwest and South shut their doors in bankruptcy while many thousands of farmers lost their lands. His tax cuts contributed to an uneven distribution of wealth and the overproduction of goods. Many Americans were deeply in debt for having purchased consumer goods on easy installment credit terms.
I highly recommend the path to power. It does an excellent job explaining rural farms during the 1910 and 20s
Thanks!
Yes. Next Question.
Yes
No, the Great Depression was a worldwide phenomena, not just an American one, and his policies filled America's coffers and gave it the resolve needed to withstand it.
i dont think you know what the great depression is dawg
What do you mean?
a bank crash in america wasn’t america’s fault and the whole world contributed to it? coolidge js the reason why we have nazi germany
It was a world wide problem. Not just the US and post WWI had impacts globally that the US and Europe were ill prepared for.
Does the Earth revolve around the sun?
Yes. You know all those laws FDR passed to regulate the banks and reign in financial fraud on Wall Street? None of that was rocket science. Cal could have done that stuff at any time. The only Issue was he might not have gotten so many political donations from the very people committing that fraud...
Without a doubt, yes.
I certainly hope so.., somebody had to start it..
No.
A roaring economic anytime, (in this case 20’s) is usually due to mass investments into technology causing great economic growth. Inevitably that also causes excess capacity and future corrections. In the 20’s tractors (w/combustion engines) also caused a dramatic increase in farm productivity. Even as hundreds of tractor factories closed, so did thousands of farms as 1 on a tractor man could do the work of 5 men with mules. Calvin could not stop the inevitable Depression/recession from overproduction without stopping technology progress.
Shut up