So I was invited to watch the Glenn Beck show today. It was the episode on Coolidge that I already mentioned, but now I have a much more complete picture of the episode. Its primary function was to argue that Coolidge was a godsend and solved the terrible situation that Wilson created. He did so by using conservative policies of lowering taxes for the wealthy and minimizing government. Beck says that during Coolidge's administration there were three times as many cars in the USA and per capital wealth increased. “People made more money” and “real income went up.” There was little inflation and “it was a golden time.” Electricity lit up homes and appliances came into the home. Beck said this led to “euphoria” and leisure time. To help make this argument Beck brought in two “historians”: Amity Shlaes and David Pietrusza.
Where do I begin? First, let me say that some of this is correct. I admit it. Good work. Coolidge’s minimalist government program did increase production and growing supply lowered prices of goods so that for the first time in US history the middling classes could afford to buy all sorts of “stuff.”
However, Beck and his two buddies who are parading as historians conveniently overlook the advances during Wilson’s administration and thrust all positive economic gains onto Coolidge. They seem to forget that the unionization that occurred under Wilson’s administration created, for the first time, a working class that was finally paid enough to buy “stuff,” and this new consumerism is what drove the economic boom of the 1920s. During Wilson’s administration the government closely managed production and streamlined production to mobilize the economy for World War I. Wilson established unprecedented partnerships between the government, private industry, and labor groups to maximize communication and production. He suspended anti-trust lawsuits and minimized labor protests. He guaranteed profits to businesses but also base wages to workers. This sort of management really focused all the energies of the American economy for the war. After the war all bets were off, wages dropped, prices rose, and conflict between labor and business resumed. This all occurred at the close of Wilson’s presidency, at which point he was incapacitated by a stroke and unable to respond. It is hard to blame him for the economic recession that ensued, given his incapacitated status. We can never know what would have happened if he had his facilities, but what we do know is his efforts during the war created unprecedented economic stability and social equality.
So the economic boom of the 1920s can be traced to the growth of a consumer class (thank you Wilson) and the consequent growth of production (thank you Wilson and Coolidge). Of course, the expansion of credit during those years also led a major problem—the Great Depression (you can blame Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover). Certainly we should not overlook Coolidge, but let’s not go crediting him with all the good Wilson did or omit the economic instability that his policies set in motion. This is yet another example of why you should not get your history lessons from political talk shows, and definitely not from Glenn Beck.
On a related note, I take offense at the title of “historian” that Beck gave to his two guests. Amity Shlaes is a journalist. She only has a bachelor’s degree and I believe it is in English. It is possible that she has never taken a history class beyond the required survey class as a freshman in college. She is not a historian. David Pietrusza has both a BA and a masters degree in history, which makes him qualified to teach high school but still not a historian. Both have published several books but none by a scholarly press (a common standard of quality among true historians). Instead, they are published privately or perhaps by conservative think tanks who are more interested in advocating a political message be thrust on the past than a genuine study of the past. These two are not historians!
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