What We Should Expect from Our Leaders
The Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927 (NOAA)
By Audrey Kamena
When I recently interviewed political commentator Ben Shapiro for the Yale Free Press, the last thing I expected was to find a fellow Calvin Coolidge fan. In the midst of our discussion on education, media, and politics, I mentioned that Coolidge was my favorite American president.
“I’m a big fan of Coolidge myself,” Shapiro replied, and we briefly exchanged our mutual admiration for the president and first lady. I asked whether he thought any current or future president would be able to follow Coolidge’s example and meaningfully reduce the budget or pay down the national debt.
Shapiro laughed. “I seriously doubt it,” he said, shaking his head. “The government is beholden to the people. In order for the budget to be cut, the people have to care about all the restructuring that would have to happen. That’s just not likely in this economy.”
Although I agree that paying down the national debt ranks low among the general public’s priorities, I wonder whether it actually enjoyed more support from the people in Coolidge’s day. I suspect Coolidge’s success had less to do with widespread public support for his actions than with the virtues we all admire in the thirtieth president.
Making the Unpopular Decision
Coolidge was far from afraid to make an unpopular decision, particularly when he believed an important precedent was involved. During the 1919 Boston Police Strike, Governor Coolidge agreed to fire the striking police force even though he knew the decision could cost him reelection. He wrote, “There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time.”
In 1927, the Great Mississippi Flood tested President Coolidge’s belief in federal restraint. The flood displaced hundreds of thousands of people across the South. Amity Shlaes and Matthew Denhart write in their introduction to The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge: “Coolidge knew that if he went to the flood sites, the political pressure to back broad federal rescue money would be as unstoppable as the river waters. So Coolidge stayed away from the disaster zone, to the disapproval of many, who painted him as cruel or lazy. Senator Thaddeus Caraway of Arkansas, furious at Coolidge’s refusal to call an extra session of Congress or authorize a new disaster law, commented icily, ‘I venture to say that if a similar disaster had affected New England that the president would have had no hesitation in calling an extra session.’”
In fact, just months later, a flood did terrible damage to Coolidge’s native Vermont—and the president stayed away then, too.
What enabled Coolidge to make the right decision was not his ability to garner public support but rather his capacity to divorce populist pressures from his decision making. Though deeply humble, Coolidge was confident in his choices in office. He took full responsibility for his mistakes and in turn owns the glory of his successes.
Integrity in Leaders
Cutting the budget to pay down national debt will never be the popular or easy choice for a president to make. No matter how powerful the economic arguments for austerity appear in the abstract, it will always be painful to tell constituents that they will not be getting the money they expect.
Shapiro is right in his assessment of the electoral difficulty of taking on the deficit. But it is important to recall that Coolidge earned Americans’ support because he could be trusted to make the right decision, no matter the public pressure. He was willing to make unpopular choices and allow his personal reputation to take a hit in order to ensure long-term goals, such as preventing the expansion of federal power.
For Coolidge’s efforts to live on, we must expect and even demand this level of integrity from our national leaders. If we want our presidents to stand up for us, then we must also recognize the necessity for them to stand up to us.
Audrey Kamena, a 2022 Coolidge Senator, is a student at Yale.