Our completely forgotten 29th and 30th presidents should be ranked in the top five. They served without high-PR large-scale social engineering or legislative programs. They didn't involve the United States in any major foreign wars. They simply left the American people alone and let the system work, which made them forgettable.
I will grant that neither should be considered a sterling ideal when it came to their personal or political lives, but in their role as president it seems to me that they "got it."
The result of their presidential style was one of the most economically prosperous times in American history. The top income tax rate fell from 73% to 25%, and in the lower income brackets many saw their income tax burden eliminated completely. Union membership dwindled while wages increased and working hours decreased. American businesses set production records.
Warren Harding made no move to reinvent the world, and no effort to strengthen and enlarge the office of the president like Wilson had. He was loved by the American people even though Harding did not labor himself wondering if the United Nations or the French approved of his chosen course of action.
"Confident of our ability to work out our own destiny and jealously arding our right to do so, we seek no part in directing the destinies of the Old World. We do not mean to be entangled. We will accept no responsibility except as our own judgment and conscience may determine." Harding declared.
Calvin Coolidge was an unassuming man who offered amazing sound bites:
"Nothing is easier than the expenditure of public money. It doesn't appear to belong to anyone. The temptation is overwhelming to bestow it on somebody."
"It is probable that a press which maintains an intimate touch with the business currants of the nations is likely to be more reliable than it would be if it were a stranger to these influences. After all, the chief business of the American people is business. They are profoundly concerned with buying, selling, investing and procuring in the world."
"Civilization and profits go hand in hand."
"The people know the difference between pretense and reality. They want to be told the truth. They want to be trusted. They want a chance to work out their own material and spiritual salvation. The people want a government of common sense."
"It has always seemed to me that common sense is the real solvent for the nation's problems at all times - common sense and hard work."
"A man who has the companionship of a lovely and gracious woman enjoys the supreme blessing that life can give."
"Education is to teach men not what to think, but how to think."
"Fate bestows rewards on those who put themselves in the proper attitude to receive them."
"I want the people of America to be able to work less for the government and more for themselves. I want them to have the rewards of their own industry. This is the chief meaning of freedom."
Both men have been maligned by the writers of history as strict supporters of laissez-faire economics and nonintervention in foreign affairs. Compared to the previous decade - World War I, that is probably true.
It is also true that neither Harding nor Coolidge established a Square Deal, a New Deal, a New Frontier, a Great Society, or a New Covenant. They just pretty much stayed out of American's lives and the American economy.
The results? At the end of their tenure the United States contributed an amazing 34% of total world production. By comparison the next largest contributors, Britain and Germany, came in at just over 10%. Not a bad thing in my book.
We named a glacier ice field after Harding that extends to a great view from my property in the Hamptons. Alaska was the last stop in this unassuming, but by all Alaskan counts personable man. He walked the streets of Seward without fanfare, casually chatting with the locals. We found him endearing.
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