What is the business of America?
A famous but misunderstood quotation, tensions in American history between idealism and realism in our response to 9/11 and the Covid 19 pandemic, Presidential history and some Ardsley connections.
America’s 30th President [1], Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933), is generally and perhaps unfairly remembered for two things - first being known as “Silent Cal” due to his reputation as a man of few words [2] and an often-repeated one- dimensional declaration he allegedly made during the “roaring twenties,” [3] to wit, “The business of America is business.” [4] However, as Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Carl Cannon has pointed out, the quote is frequently misunderstood because it “is a partial quote, taken out of context.”
First, the quote is inaccurate. What Coolidge said was “the chief business of the American people is business.” [5] It was spoken during an address entitled “The Press Under a Free Government” before the American Society of Newspaper Editors in Washington, D.C., on January 17, 1925. [6]
Coolidge explained what he meant by this one-liner in the following sentences of his speech:
They are profoundly concerned with producing, buying, selling, investing and prospering in the world. I am strongly of the opinion that the great majority of people will always find these are moving impulses of our life.
However, at the end of the speech, Coolidge reminded the assembled editors that the accumulation of wealth should not be an end but a means to the “multiplication of schools, the increase of knowledge, the dissemination of intelligence, the encouragement of science, the broadening of outlook, the expansion of liberties, and the widening of culture.” He then observes:
“Americans make no concealment of the fact that we want wealth, but there are many other things we want much more. We want peace and honor, and charity which is so strong an element of all civilization. The chief ideal of the American people is idealism. I cannot repeat too often that America is a nation of idealists. That is the only motive to which they ever give any strong and lasting reaction.”
For almost a century, pundits, scholars, and politicians have miscited Coolidge’s quip about “the business of America” and ignored the rest of the speech [7]. However, as noted by Cannon, the heart of the address is the line about idealism – a point he maintains stands nearly in opposition to the notion that the “business of America is business.” [8]
Support for Cannon’s interpretation finds support in the below headline of a newspaper account on the front page of the January 18, 1925, New York Times about Coolidge’s remarks:
The article is silent on whether the “business of America is business.”
Arguments about the importance of idealism to America's identity continue to be made. In 2016, then-President Obama stated he planned to close the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba which was housing suspected al Qaeda terrorists for the following reasons:
In our fight against terrorists like al Qaeda and ISIL, we are using every element of our national power -- our military; intelligence; diplomacy; homeland security; law enforcement, federal, state and local; as well as the example of our ideals as a country that’s committed to universal values, including rule of law and human rights.
… keeping this facility open is contrary to our values. It undermines our standing in the world. It is viewed as a stain on our broader record of upholding the highest standards of rule of law. As Americans, we pride ourselves on being a beacon to other nations, a model of the rule of law. But 15 years after 9/11 -- 15 years after the worst terrorist attack in American history -- we’re still having to defend the existence of a facility and a process where not a single verdict has been reached in those attacks -- not a single one. [9]
Despite these appeals to American ideals and values, Obama was unable to close the center, and in 2018, then-President Trump signed an executive order keeping Guantanamo open indefinitely. As of now, 38 prisoners remain, most held for nearly two decades without being charged or tried.
An article appearing in Barron’s on September 1, 2021, the day after all American military personnel left Afghanistan, entitled “Afghanistan Can’t Be the End of American Idealism,” concluded:
“America cannot save every suffering child, end all hunger, or free all the oppressed. But it cannot stop trying either. Contradictions are inherent in a world of ideas struggling to be made real. The power, politics, and compromises will always be there, but an America without its idealism would be its own failed state.” [10]
Arguably, in Afghanistan, American idealism was defeated by both realism [11] and deception. [12]
A recent essay in the Washington Post on the twentieth anniversary of 9/11 noted:
Deep within the catalogue of regrets that is the 9/11 Commission report — long after readers learn of the origins and objectives of al-Qaeda, past the warnings ignored by consecutive administrations, through the litany of institutional failures that allowed terrorists to hijack four commercial airliners — the authors pause to make a rousing case for the power of the nation’s character.
“The U.S. government must define what the message is, what it stands for,” the report asserts. “We should offer an example of moral leadership in the world, committed to treat people humanely, abide by the rule of law, and be generous and caring to our neighbors. . . . We need to defend our ideals abroad vigorously.”
This affirmation of American idealism is one of the document’s more opinionated moments. Looking back, it’s also among the most ignored. [13]
Yet, what happened after 9/11 should not permit us to forget what happened during 9/11. As vividly recounted in Garret Greff’s gripping 2020 book “The Only Plane in the Sky - An Oral History of 9/11”:
Under incredible duress, with no time for reflection, ordinary Americans rose to the occasion. Pentagon personnel rushed back into the burning building when they heard their office mates screaming. Ten office workers carried their quadriplegic colleague down 69 flights in a specially designed chair. At the Battery and nearby piers, a makeshift, largely civilian fleet organized an impromptu water evacuation of between 300,000 and 500,000 people, larger than Dunkirk. Even far from the devastation, residents of “pretty bad neighborhoods” brought out hoses so dust-covered refugees walking home could have something to drink.
Ardsley resident William Pohlmann, a former Acting Village Justice and volunteer fireman (where he served two terms as President of Ardsley Engine Company No. 1), perished on 9/11 when five members of al-Qaeda hijacked a Boeing 767 aircraft (American Airlines Flight # 175 heading from Boston to Los Angeles) and crashed it into the South Tower where he worked on the 87th floor. Firefighters Park just off Addyman Square in downtown Ardsley is dedicated to his memory.
* * *
Nearly one hundred years after Coolidge’s speech to the newspaper editors expounding idealism as America’s creed, the Covid-19 pandemic starkly reified the question whether the state or the federal government should take the lead in responding to the virus. As Coolidge biographer Robert Sobel [14] observed:
“As Governor of Massachusetts, Coolidge supported wages and hours legislation, opposed child labor, imposed economic controls during World War 1, favored safety measures in factories, and even worker representation on corporate boards.
Did he support these measures while president? No, because in the 1920s, such matters were considered the responsibilities of state and local governments.”Coolidge and American Business
In contrast, a recent letter to the editor of The New York Times penned by Michael Blatt of Croton-on-Hudson criticizing the handling of the pandemic by state governors in Texas and Florida observed:
“The fact that a pandemic is loose without regard for territorial boundaries demands a federalized approach commensurate with the scope of public health under attack. It is war. We don’t fight wars state by state. [15]
* * *
While there is no record of Coolidge visiting Ardsley, during and after his presidency he was a close friend of part-time Ardsley resident Adolph Lewisohn (1849-1938) , as indicated in the following short newspaper articles covering the period of 1923-1930:
In 1931, Lewisohn celebrated his 82nd birthday in Ardsley at his Heatherdell estate. In addition to receiving a telegram of congratulations from then-President Herbert Hoover, as indicated below, a special report to The New York Times related that former President Coolidge (seemingly in a letter sent to Lewisohn while in Ardsley for his birthday), conveyed his pleasure at his friend’s “cheerful outlook” on the occasion. Notably, Lewisohn enjoyed a relationship with twelve American presidents, from Ulysses S. Grant to Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Lewisohn’s nearly 400-acre estate in Ardsley had at least two presidential connections. Esteemed landscape architect James Leal Greenleaf (1857-1933), who later designed the grounds of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., laid out Heatherdell’s acreage, which included 14 greenhouses, a dairy barn, chicken houses, tennis courts. and a private golf course. [16] Greenleaf graduated in 1880 with a degree in Civil Engineering from Columbia University’s School of Mines which was later housed in a building funded by Lewisohn. When Lewisohn died in 1938, his obituary appeared on the first page of The New York Times and contained ten paragraphs detailing his extensive philanthropy. [17] The former School of Mines building is now known as Lewisohn Hall.
On November 16, 1912, then-President Wiilliam Howard Taft (1857-1930) was a luncheon guest of Lewishohn at his Heatherdell Farm estate in Ardsley. When Coolidge was sworn in for his second term on March 4, 1925, Taft, who was serving as the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, administered the oath of office to Coolidge. Taft had been nominated to the position in 1921 by Coolidge’s predecessor, Warren Harding. This was the first inauguration in which a former U.S. president administered the oath, and the first to be broadcast nationally on radio. Taft Lane in Ardsley is one of three streets in the Village of Ardsley named for American presidents (the other two are Lincoln and McKinley). The Ardsley Historical Society has proposed the Village of Ardsley rename the current entranceway to the former Heatherdell Farm “Adolph Lewisohn Way” in connection with its acquisition of a portion of the former Lewisohn estate for its new Department of Public Works facility.
Four decades after its construction, Heatherdell’s 40 room mansion (built in 1906 at a reported cost of $1,125,000), the remaining grounds, and amenities (e.g., a swimming pool) would be idyllically (if not euphemistically) enjoyed at “The Smart Woman’s Health & Vacation Resort” depicted below.[18]
Lewisohn’s deserved remembrance in Ardsley as a leading benefactor and humanitarian recalls another ableit less well known Coolidge quote:
“No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave.” [19]
Endnotes
[1] Coolidge, a Republican, was Vice-President under Warren G. Harding, and became President upon Harding's sudden death at age 57 on August 2, 1923. As this was before the adoption of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution (ratified in 1967) which allows the President to nominate a Vice-President when there is a vacancy in that office subject to confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress, a vacancy in the office of Vice-President was not filled until the next ensuing election and inauguration. Coolidge (running on a ticket with Charles Dawes for Vice-President who later won the Nobel Peace Prize for his World War 1 reparations plan for Germany) won a sweeping victory in 1924’s national election and served as President until March 4, 1929. The Twentieth Amendment to the United States Constitution (ratified in 1933) moved the beginning and ending of the terms of the President and Vice-President from March 4th to noon of January 20th.
[2] And there's that oft-told, and probably apocryphal, yarn of the White House dinner guest who gushed to President Coolidge that she had wagered she could get him to say more than two words to her -- only to be told icily, "You lose." Coolidge denied the story.
[3] Although the 1920s are thought of as an age of prosperity and a second industrial revolution, a more nuanced view of that decade which preceded the Depression and which followed the end of the 1918 flu pandemic can be seen here: The Complicated Roaring 20s
[4] For example, Coolidge championed and signed the law granting US citizenship to Native Americans and was outspoken in support of the civil rights of African Americans. However, in 1924, he signed the xenophobic Johnson-Reed Act strictly limiting immigration from Asia and Eastern Europe for decades with devastating consequences. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/1924-law-slammed-door-immigrants-and-politicians-who-pushed-it-back-open-180974910/ Paradoxically, also in 1924, under the Antiquities Act (discussed in the Ardsley Historical Society’s website entry on the W.R. Blackie Collection), Coolidge designated the Statue of Liberty a national monument. https://coolidgefoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Proclamation1713.pdf However, in 1939, former First Lady Grace Coolidge lobbied for legislation that would have granted a safe haven to Jewish refugees and announced that she and her neighbors in Northampton, Mass., would personally care for 25 refugee children. Coolidge announced he would not run for re-election in 1928. Had he run, his re-election was assured as Coolidge was both wildly popular and viewed as a steady hand amidst the fast paced changes the nation was experiencing in the 1920s. Unsurprisingly, his winning 1924 campaign slogan was “Keep Cool with Coolidge.” In the following nine decades, the two future presidents who took office due to the death of their predecessor (Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson) withdrew from running again after serving their own full term.
[5] Interestingly, another well known quote about American business, to wit, “What’s good for GM is good for America,” is also both a misquote and taken out of context. "Did a GM President really tell Congress what's good for GM is good for America?
[6] Full text of Coolidge's 1925 Speech
[7] https://www.northeastern.edu/sei/2017/02/the-business-of-america-is-business/
[9] Remarks by the President. Coincidentally, Obama (in 2016) and Coolidge (in 1928) share the fact of being the only two American presidents to have visited Cuba.
[10] https://www.barrons.com/articles/afghanistan-cant-be-the-end-of-american-idealism
[11] “Afghanistan has never been a modern state. Statehood presupposes a sense of common obligation and centralisation of authority... Building a modern democratic state in Afghanistan... implies a timeframe of many years, indeed decades... It was precisely Afghanistan's fractiousness, inaccessibility and absence of central authority that made it an attractive base for terrorist networks in the first place.” Henry Kissinger, Why America Failed in Afghanistan
[12] The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War (Craig Whitlock, Simon & Schuster, 2021 (“The groundbreaking investigative story of how three successive presidents and their military commanders deceived the public year after year about America’s longest war, foreshadowing the Taliban’s recapture of Afghanistan”)
[13] https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/interactive/2021/911-books-american-values/
[14] Coolidge, An American Enigma
[15] (August 31, 2021) https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/31/opinion/letters/desantis-abbott-covid.html
[16] New-York Daily Tribune (October 6, 1907); see also Heatherdell Farm of Philanthropist
[17] Lewisohn dies at 89
[18] Women's health resorts were generally understood as a place to lose weight. Photo provided by Brian Liebowitz and posted on the Ardsley High School Baby Boomer’s Nostalgia facebook page.
[19] https://coolidgefoundation.org/resources/veto-of-salary-increase/