WI: Calvin Coolidge reelected in 1928?
- Thread starter Gog (♀)
- Start date
Well, it's possible, but I'm unsure of if Coolidge would actually run or not. From what I've heard (which isn't much, my knowledge of him is little), he was a quiet and somewhat stoic man in office.
If that's true, then he was similar to what the Founding Fathers had wanted. But that's a topic for another day.
If that's true, then he was similar to what the Founding Fathers had wanted. But that's a topic for another day.
Paul V McNutt
Banned
Getting him to run would be hard. His wife did not want him to run. I think he thought he done enough, If he did run he would have won easily. The economy was good and he was popular. He would get the blame for the depression. We would have Cooldigevilles. Quite likely he would die in office, I assume Curtis would have been Vice President. We would get the first Native American President.
ManintheField
Banned
He wouldn't veto Smoot-Hawley. The tariff was the Republican issue in this time period. It was essentially the one thing that differentiated Republicans from Democrats (except for Republicans being mildly more friendly to blacks than Democrats).
So you still get a trade war and thus you still get a bank collapse. Since a Coolidge re-election isn't likely to change who gets elected to the Presidency of the New York Fed, and Coolidge himself isn't likely to go out of his way to push the Federal Reserve System to loosen, you still ultimately get a Great Contraction and a subsequent Depression. I don't see any reason it would be worse, it would probably be better without some of the nonsense that Hoover pursued, but it will still be bad. Exactly what happens when depends on specifics of policy, both by Coolidge and by his successor.
So you still get a trade war and thus you still get a bank collapse. Since a Coolidge re-election isn't likely to change who gets elected to the Presidency of the New York Fed, and Coolidge himself isn't likely to go out of his way to push the Federal Reserve System to loosen, you still ultimately get a Great Contraction and a subsequent Depression. I don't see any reason it would be worse, it would probably be better without some of the nonsense that Hoover pursued, but it will still be bad. Exactly what happens when depends on specifics of policy, both by Coolidge and by his successor.
You need to radically improve Coolidge's health, and to prevent his son dying. If you can do that, you get Coolidge in 1928.
And yes, he'd be significantly worse than Hoover in terms of the Great Depression (think Andrew Mellon bad). The tariff really didn't make much difference in the overall scheme of things.
And yes, he'd be significantly worse than Hoover in terms of the Great Depression (think Andrew Mellon bad). The tariff really didn't make much difference in the overall scheme of things.
No, no, no, no, no.
I don't know why this legend is so persistent. (Well, actually, I do--some conservatives and libertarians, eager to blame the Depression on Hoover's "interventionism," like to contrast him with Harding and Coolidge so much that many people assume a contrast even in areas where there were few policy differences among them, and in particular mistakenly assume that Coolidge was a devotee of pure laissez-faire.)
Coolidge was a standard Republican protectionist. Not only did he support Fordney-McCumber (which raised rates over the prior tariff *much* more than Smoot-Hawley did over Fordney-McCumber) but he implemented it in a very protectionist way: "Fordney-McCumber let the president raise or lower individual tariffs, and when Coolidge used this power he almost always raised them. Coolidge also inherited (and declined to change) a Tariff Commission populated with representatives of the industries it controlled--an unholy arrangement that lasted until eventually Congress cried foul." http://books.google.com/books?id=HkwzetIhfY0C&pg=PA73
Oh, and Coolidge wrote *after* he had left the presidency:
"The greatest asset of our whole economic system is its effect upon commerce, agriculture, industry, the wage earner, and the farmer, and practically all our producers and distributors, is our incomparable home market. It has always been a fundamental principle of the Republican Party that this market should be reserved in the first instance for the consumption of our domestic products…Our only defense against the cheap production, low wages and low standard of living which exist abroad, and our only method of maintain our own standards, is through a protective tariff. We need protection as a national policy, to be applied wherever it is required." http://coolidgefoundation.org/blog/...sts-calvin-coolidge-and-the-full-dinner-pail/
ManintheField
Banned
It made an absolutely gigantic difference. Without the trade war, the cascades of bank failures never set off. Without that, there is a short, sharp recession in the face of the stock market crash (assuming that just happens -- it's perfectly possible that those who say Smoot-Hawley's progress through the Senate in late October was the cause of the crash are correct), and then a return to growth.
And there's very little Coolidge would be driven to do that could make him worse than Hoover.
Smoot-Hawley was a bad idea, but its effects in deepening the Depression have been *hugely* exaggerated. The article at http://eh.net/encyclopedia/smoot-hawley-tariff/ makes the relevant points:
(1) First of all, the *extent* to which Smoot-Hawley raised rates over Fordney-McCumber had been overstated. "During the early 1930s the prices of many products declined, causing the specific tariff to become an increasing percentage of the value of the product. The chart below shows the ratio of import duties collected to the value of dutiable imports. The increase shown for the early 1930s was partly due to declining prices and, therefore, exaggerates the effects of the Smoot-Hawley rate increases..."
(2) The extent to which Smoot-Hawley led to retaliation is also exaggerated. True, some retaliation did occur that can fairly be traced to Smoot-Hawley, notably in the case of Canada. But "Clearly it is possible to overstate the extent of retaliation and Jones almost certainly did. For instance, the important decision by Britain to abandon a century-long commitment to free trade and raise tariffs in 1931 was not affected to any significant extent by Smoot-Hawley."
(3) "If there was retaliation for Smoot-Hawley, was this enough to have made the tariff a significant contributor to the severity of the Great Depression? Most economists are skeptical because foreign trade made up a small part of the U.S. economy in 1929 and the magnitude of the decline in GDP between 1929 and 1933 was so large.
"If we focus on the decline in exports, we can construct an upper bound for the negative impact of Smoot-Hawley. Between 1929 and 1931, real exports declined by an amount equal to about 1.7% of 1929 real GDP. Declines in aggregate expenditures are usually thought to have a multiplied effect on equilibrium GDP. The best estimates are that the multiplier is roughly two. In that case, real GDP would have declined by about 3.4% between 1929 and 1931 as a result of the decline in real exports. Real GDP actually declined by about 16.5% between 1929 and 1931, so the decline in real exports can account for about 21% of the total decline in real GDP. The decline in real exports, then, may well have played an important, but not crucial, role in the decline in GDP during the first two years of the Depression. Bear in mind, though, that not all — perhaps not even most — of the decline in exports can be attributed to retaliation for Smoot-Hawley. Even if Smoot-Hawley had not been passed, U.S. exports would have fallen as incomes declined in Canada, the United Kingdom, and in other U.S. trading partners and as tariff rates in some of these countries increased for reasons unconnected to Smoot-Hawley."
As for the wave of bank failures, they started in late 1930 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_of_United_States This was too early for the so-called trade war to have had much effect; it was for example before the British decision to go protectionist in 1931 (a measure which in any event would have taken place with or without Smoot-Hawley).
Once again, I am not saying Smoot-Hawley was a good idea--it was in fact a quite bad one IMO. But there is no evidence it had that much effect on deepening the Great Depression. And in any event, even if it did, this has no relevance to Coolidge-vs.-Hoover, because as I keep on pointing out, Coolidge was an absolutely standard Repuiblican protectionist (he even continued to defend protectionism after he left the White House) and there is no reason whatever to think he would have vetoed Smoot-Hawley.