Coolidge

Coolidge - by Amity Shlaes

A thought that kept going through my mind as I read this excellent biography by Amity Shlaes about America’s 30th Commander in Chief was “How could someone so dreadfully boring as Calvin Coolidge ever become President of the United States??”  Now, don’t misunderstand me.  When I use the word “boring”, I don’t mean to use it in any sort of negative connotation.  No, just the opposite.  During my entire lifetime, anyone who runs for any high visible office must be overbearing, flashy, a tad obnoxious, and always be able to come up with quick, witty soundbites that show just how brilliant of a communicator they are.  If not, well, the folks such as Bill O’Reilly and Chris Matthews will quickly carve them up for lunch on prime time, while devout followers gladly imbibe the kool-aid that implies that those who can’t dazzle, obviously must not be very smart.

This book was very refreshing in that it shows us how unnecessary such traits are to be a great leader.  As we read the story of Calvin Coolidge, we discover that this lower class young man never was a great orator, and this caused him some problems during his early years, but we soon discover that Calvin Coolidge was very much like that guy we all know that probably works at our company.  You know, the guy that never speaks up in a company meeting, and instead, sits quietly absorbing all of the dialogue going on around him.  When someone finally asks the guy for his opinion, he then speaks in a low, audible voice - barely above a whisper - and finally shares his thoughts on the matter at hand.  When everyone listens, they realize that this quiet individual is actually a genius.

Such was the man Calvin Coolidge.  We see him slowly work his way up to more highly visible elected positions in authority, yet it never really seems like he cares one way or another whether or not people will vote for him.  When he does get elected, he refuses to prostitute his beliefs or positions.  In the long run, this helps him tremendously, but in hindsight, he comes across (to me anyway) as a bit of an unsentimental tightwad.  Perhaps it’s because I’ve grown up with a nation of entitlements, but nobody under Coolidge’s rule ever got a free ride.  It’s interesting because even though Ronald Reagan would one day claim that Calvin Coolidge was his favorite president, I saw a lot of similarities between Coolidge’s upbringing, and the upbringing of Richard Nixon.  Nixon, who grew up in poverty, seemed to have the attitude of “when I was a kid, there were never any government handouts, so why should we start now?”.  So depending on your political views, such an individual can come across as either a hero or a pit bull.  In Coolidge’s time, it tended to be the former.

Such events tend to dominate the majority of this book.  We read about when Coolidge was Governor of Massachusetts and the Boston police go on strike for better conditions and wages.  Coolidge refuses to budge - even though the precinct houses are falling apart and are infested with rats.  That doesn’t matter to Coolidge.  Public workers who are dependent on for the safety of the citizens do not go on strike.  Period.  Later, when he’s President, he has the same unbending attitude when the Mississippi Valley suffers disastrous consequences with a horrible flood.  According to Coolidge - not the federal government’s problem.  What’s ironic is that his birthplace of Vermont suffers a similar blow of a similar flood about one year later.  Will Coolidge be more sympathetic now that the disaster has hit closer to home?  Nope.  Again, that’s the states’ problem, not Washington’s.

His entire tenure as President seems to be all about budget and saving pennies.  His main concern is bringing the country back on track after the extravagant spending incurred only a few years prior during World War I.  I lost track in this book how many “meetings” he had with Budget Director Herbert Lord, or with Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon.  Coolidge seemed to enjoy meetings about how to save money like some men enjoy baseball or hunting.  When the Wright brothers start to open the eyes of the world with the possibility of long distance aviation, Coolidge is very interested, but not because of the awe of such a novelty as flying, but rather as a way that the country can save money in the future by adapting such technologies.

Coolidge’s Presidency takes place during what is now known as “The Roaring 20’s”, but you really don’t read much about all of that in this book.  We don’t hear about Speakeasys, flappers, or anyone dancing the Charleston.  Instead we just see Coolidge methodically plodding along with his finance gurus trying to ensure that the country maintains prosperity.  When he leaves office in early 1929, the author tells us that Coolidge “knows” that an economic downfall is only right around the corner, and tries to make suggestions to prevent an economic disaster from happening.  Well, with hindsight being twenty-twenty, we all know that, if Coolidge ever really did give such advice, it went unheeded.

And this is where there is a lot of controversy around the legacy of Calvin Coolidge.  Although this author presents him in a very favorable light, there are some that believe many of his financial decisions and actions during the 1920’s actually aided in the cause of the Great Depression.  This book really doesn't dive too much into that.  In fact, you wouldn’t really know such an economic travail happened in the country’s history that lasted more than a decade.  This is another criticism of the man, and of the book.  Well, even though Coolidge is looked at mostly favorable, I never thought the author made him out to be an untouchable demagogue.  In fact, such retrospectives (as well as the opposite - high levels of mudslinging) don’t appeal to me.  I felt like I learned an awful lot about the man.  I confess, that although I knew the name and knew he was President, I knew very little otherwise.  I’m happy to have learned a lot more by reading this thorough, entertaining biography. 

The Novel

The Novel - by James Michener

James Michener was a fascinating author in that, for the majority of his works, he always made a particular geographical location the main focus of his books rather than a person or a group of people.  We would normally read about all the things - even from before the recorded history of the place - that were indigenous to the particular area.  He would usually focus on a family, or a group of individuals that were living in the area, and then tell the tale of the family throughout the proceeding centuries.  Even though the (mostly) fictitious characters’ families had long detailed histories within the pages, they always had their lives shaped by the particular state, country, or geographic region that was the title of the book.

As Michener got older, most would agree that the quality of his books slipped a bit, and he started to slightly alter some of the foundations of his later books.  The Novel is a prime example.  Now, I’m speculating here, but my guess is that Michener had every intention to write this book with his familiar formula.  The main character of this book was to be rural Pennsylvania inhabited by the Pennsylvania Dutch.  At some point, he switched gears for some reason, and instead, wrote this book about writing a book about the Pennsylvania Dutch.  Did you catch that?

When the story opens, we meet Lukas Yoder, a sixty-something year old man who is one of the Pennsylvania Dutch.  He’s just finishing his eighth, final novel, in a series about, well, The Pennsylvania Dutch.  As we meet Lukas and his equally humble, simple country wife, we learn that the first three books of this particular series didn’t sell well at all, yet with a steadfast publisher who believed in him, he was able to finally break out with book number 4, and has since become incredibly popular with his latter books selling in the millions.  We’re allowed a brief glimpse into the life of a best selling author, but, sadly, a bit too brief.  Michener spends an awful lot of time, as I mentioned, on the area where these people live - their homes, their food, their customs, their hobbies, etc.  At times it seems like the actual “novel” becomes a supporting player instead of the main role.  Then, the focus abruptly shifts, and Michener focuses next on the life of Yoder’s publisher  (the book is essentially broken into four sections, The Writer, The Publisher, The Critic, and The Reader).

Although I wasn’t ready to stop reading about Yoder, I did enjoy the second part of this book that focuses on Yvonne Marmelle, Yoder’s steadfast supporting publisher.  We then read about her history, when she started at the bottom of a somewhat second-rate publishing house in New York City back in the 1960’s, and her climb to the top.  We read, for example, that this particular  publishing company receives several hundred unsolicited manuscripts each day, and only about one in nine hundred is good enough to bear consideration.  Of course, as her story is told, we read about the incident when Lukas Yoder sends in his unsolicited piece of work.  Although no one else at the publishing company really wants to give it a second look, Marmelle senses “something” in this author, and a relationship is born.

The third act focuses on “The Critic”, Karl Streibert.  In a sense, he’s connected to Yoder and Marmelle, but in my judgement, we stray too far this time.  Streibert is a University Professor and is one of those cultivated individuals that seems to have his nose forever stuck high in the air.  Of course, anything popular in the literary world is complete rubbish according to him, and he, along with his contemporaries, tend to only favor material that the layman can’t even begin to comprehend, let alone enjoy.  So we read all about his life, his mentors, his European trips to “uncover culture”, his hatred of popular works of fiction, etc. etc.  He really doesn’t seem that bad of a sort, it just seemed like Michener was straying too much from the original story to keep us interested.

The last section, “The Reader”, is undoubtably the worst of the lot.  I won’t go into details, but this section really takes a bad, unnecessary turn that sends the entire book in a completely different direction.  I think the goal was to focus on something entirely different to give Lukas Yoder an idea for his next novel, since his eight book series on the Pennsylvania Dutch has now come to a conclusion.  Yoder says he’s retiring, but we all know how that goes.  This whole section seemed unnecessary and forced.

I still enjoyed this book overall, but I wanted more.  I think had Michener cut out the last quadrant altogether and fleshed out the other three sections (particularly the first two) I would have enjoyed it more.  The book also (sadly) seems a bit dated since it takes place in a world before e-mails, e-books, and e-correspondence.  This was an overall good read, but I thought it could have been slightly better.  I tend to feel this way a lot about Michener’s latter day works.