Calvin Coolidge – The Intelligent Collector Magazine

For all his humanitarian work, Hoover remembered for one, crucial moment

A vibrant from-life oil on canvas portrait of Herbert Hoover, autographed, realized $5,250 at a December 2017 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

With the specter of another depression on America’s horizon, my mind flashes back to the past and sad irony of Herbert Hoover. He was born in 1874 in West Branch, Iowa – the first president born west of the Mississippi River. An orphan at the tender age of 9, he was taken in, luckily, by relatives in Oregon. The Minthorns were Quakers like his parents and they taught him the value of community service and hard work.

In 1891, he enrolled at Stanford University, the first year that classes were open. He was a geology major and after graduation ended up in London with a company investigating gold deposits in Western Australia. While at Stanford, Hoover dated Lou Henry, a fellow geology major and the first female to earn a degree. Hoover proposed to her in a telegraph from Australia and they were married in California in February 1899 – two mining engineers … both intrepid travelers.

Together they set off for China, where Herbert discovered coal deposits. The hard work earned him a junior partnership with his London-based employer. This was followed by a stint in Tientsin just in time for the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 when Chinese rebels rose up against colonial powers. The couple became fluent in Mandarin, a skill they would use later in the White House to communicate in private without the WH staff listening in.

Next was a series of trips starting in Burma (silver, lead and zinc), copper and oil in Russia, and then back to Australia in a quest for more zinc. After forming his own company in 1908, their fortunes began to accumulate and by 1913 exceeded $4 million. After the United States entered World War I in 1917, President Wilson asked Hoover to manage America’s domestic food supplies. In Washington, D.C., he was successful in establishing programs to control prices, eliminate waste and promote conservation by the public. His managerial reputation was beginning to grow and his ability to cut through government bureaucracy produced results almost unprecedented in American history.

After flirting with the presidency in 1920, the ultimate winner, Warren Harding, selected Hoover to become the third Secretary of Commerce. When Harding died unexpectedly in 1923, President Calvin Coolidge retained Secretary Hoover in the Cabinet. Coolidge had observed Hoover’s work and decided to expand his formal duties. He put him in charge of the American Relief Administration to assist the recovery of post-war Europe. Hoover was more than qualified and had played a role in assisting thousands of Americans get back home when the war exploded in 1914. In addition, he had helped Belgium and France from starvation after the German invasions.

He soon became universally recognized as the greatest humanitarian alive in the world. In addition to being widely admired, he had the distinction of having an orbiting asteroid, Hooveria, named in his honor. Earlier, Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt had proclaimed, “Hoover is certainly a wonder and I wish we could make him president of the United States! There could not be a better one.”

By 1928, Coolidge had tired of Washington and chose not to run for reelection. The 54-year-old Herbert Hoover was certainly not tired and was eager to demonstrate his extensive experience by expanding America’s fortunes even further. He easily defeated Al Smith, the governor of New York, with help from anti-Catholic voters and the burden of corruption associated with the infamous Tammany Hall group. The newspapers excitedly touted Hoover as an innovator and set high expectations for his administration. In his inaugural address, the new president confidently declared, “I have no fears for the future of our country. It is bright with hope!” The joy of his Inauguration day, March 4, 1929, seems totally incongruous with the events of the next four years.

Just seven months after he entered the White House, economic trouble trashed his campaign prediction about “being near the final triumph over poverty.” On Oct. 24, 1929, panic enveloped the New York Stock Exchange when almost 13 million shares changed hands. There was a short respite, but on Tuesday, Oct. 29, the market basically collapsed, heralding the beginning of the Great Depression. No one expected the Depression would last a full decade, including the American Economic Association. Virtually all the experts assumed it would be a matter of months until the normal business cycle resumed. Scholars are still debating the cause of the Depression and the stock market crash is only one of the contributing factors.

Just as it was one of the factors that cost Hoover his job. He didn’t cause the crash, but an episode in 1932 certainly contributed. In 1924, President Coolidge vetoed a bill to pay war veterans a bonus to compensate them for loss of income during their military service. However, Congress overrode his veto and the money was to be paid in 1945. In 1932, 20,000 veterans marched on Washington hoping to get an advance payment to alleviate Depression hardships. Congress was considering a Bonus Bill, but President Hoover opposed it and the Senate rejected it. Veterans turned their sights on the Capitol Building, marching for three days and four nights in a “Death March.”

President Hoover ordered General Douglas MacArthur to force them back into temporary camps. MacArthur overreacted, using cavalrymen with drawn sabers and an infantry with tear gas. Six tanks joined the fray under Major George Patton. The soldiers attacked the camps and the angry veterans set their own huts on fire in protest. Colonel Dwight Eisenhower was shocked at MacArthur’s treatment and later said, “It was a pitiful scene, ragged, discouraged people burning their own little things.” The excessive use of force, especially against veterans, disgusted most Americans. Then Hoover made it worse by deriding the bonus marchers as rabble and refusing to criticize MacArthur.

When Democratic presidential candidate FDR heard about the fiasco, he simply said, “This will elect me.”

Intelligent Collector blogger JIM O’NEAL is an avid collector and history buff. He is president and CEO of Frito-Lay International [retired] and earlier served as chair and CEO of PepsiCo Restaurants International [KFC Pizza Hut and Taco Bell].

Latest volume on political career of Johnson can’t come soon enough

A photo of Lyndon B. Johnson being sworn in as president, inscribed and signed by Johnson, sold for $21,250 at an August 2018 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

Like other reverential fans of author Robert Caro’s multi-volume biography of Lyndon Baines Johnson, I’m still waiting patiently for him to finish volume five. It will cover the entire span of LBJ’s presidency, with a special focus on the Vietnam War, the Great Society and the Civil Rights era. Caro’s earlier biography of Robert Moses, The Power Broker, won a well-deserved Pulitzer in 1974.

In 2011, Caro estimated that his final volume on LBJ (his original trilogy had expanded to five volumes) would require “another two to three years to write.” In May 2017, he confirmed he had 400 typed pages completed and intended to actually move to Vietnam. In December 2018, it was reported Caro “is still several years from finishing.”

Since Caro (b.1935) is two years older than me, there may exist a certain anxiety that time may expire unexpectedly. However, it will still be worth the wait and I shall consume it like a fine 3-Star Michelin dinner in Paris. Despite all that’s been written about this period of time, Caro is certain to surprise with new facts and his unique, incomparable perspective.

Recall that planning for the 1963 campaign was well under way by autumn for the 1964 presidential election. The razor-thin victory of JFK over Richard Nixon in 1960 (112,000 votes or 0.12 percent) had largely been due to VP Johnson’s personal efforts to deliver Texas to the Democrats.

Others are quick to remind us that allegations of fraud in Texas and Illinois were obvious and that Nixon could have won if he had simply demanded a recount. New York Herald Tribune writer Earl Mazo had launched a series of articles about voter fraud. However, Nixon persuaded him to call off the investigation, telling him, “Earl, no one steals the presidency of the United States!” He went on to explain how disruptive a recount would be. It would damage the United States’ reputation in foreign countries, who looked to us as the paragon of virtue in transferring power.

Forty years later, in Bush v. Gore, we would witness a genuine recount in Florida, with teams of lawyers, “hanging chads” and weeks of public scrutiny until the Supreme Court ordered Florida to stop the recount immediately. Yet today, many people think George W. Bush stole the 2000 presidential election. I’ve always suspected that much of today’s extreme partisan politics is partially due to the bitter rancor that resulted. His other sins aside, Nixon deserves credit for avoiding this, especially given the turmoil that was just around the corner in the tumultuous 1960s.

Back in 1963, Johnson’s popularity – especially in Texas – had declined to the point JFK was worried it would affect the election. Kennedy’s close advisers were convinced a trip West was critical, with special attention to all the major cities in Texas. Jackie would attend since she helped ensure big crowds. Others, like U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson and Bobby Kennedy, strongly disagreed. They worried about his personal safety. LBJ was also opposed to the trip, but for a different reason. Liberal Senator Ralph Yarborough was locked in a bitter intraparty fight with Governor John Connally; the VP was concerned it would make the president look bad if they both vied for his support.

We all know how this tragically ended at Parkland Hospital on Nov. 22 in Dallas. BTW, Caro has always maintained that he’s never seen a scintilla of evidence that anyone other than Lee Harvey Oswald was involved … period. Conspiracy theorists still suspect the mob, Fidel Castro, Russia, the CIA or even the vice president. After 56 years, not even a whiff of doubt.

Lyndon Baines Johnson was sworn in as president in Dallas aboard Air Force One by Judge Sarah T. Hughes (who remains the only woman in U.S. history to have sworn in a president). LBJ was the third president to take the oath of office in the state where he was born. The others were Teddy Roosevelt in Buffalo, N.Y., following the McKinley assassination (1901) and Calvin Coolidge (1923) after Harding died. Coolidge’s first oath was administered by his father in their Vermont home. Ten years later, it was revealed that he’d taken a second oath in Washington, D.C., to avert any questions about his father’s authority as a Justice of the Peace to swear in a federal-level officer.

On her last night in the lonely White House, Jackie stayed up until dawn writing notes to every single member of the domestic staff, and then she slipped out. When the new First Lady walked in, she found a little bouquet and a note from Jackie: “I wish you a happy arrival in your new home, Lady Bird,” adding a last phrase, “Remember-you will be happy here.”

It was clear that the new president was happy! Just days before, he was a powerless vice president who hated Bobby Kennedy and the other Kennedy staff. They had mocked him as “Rufus Corn Pone” or “Uncle Corn Pone and his little pork chop.” Now in the Oval Office, magically, he was transformed to the old LBJ, who was truly “Master of the Senate.” Lady Bird described him with a “bronze image,” revitalized and determined to pass Civil Rights legislation that was clogged in the Senate under Kennedy. Historians are now busy reassessing this period of his presidency, instead of the prism of the Vietnam quagmire.

LBJ would go on to vanquish Barry Goldwater, the conservative running as a Republican in 1964, with 61.1 percent of the popular vote, the largest margin since the almost uncontested race of 1820 when James Monroe won handily in the “Era of Good Feelings.” 1964 was the first time in history that Vermont voted Democratic and the first time Georgia voted for a Republican. After declining to run in 1968, LBJ died five years later of a heart attack. Jackie Kennedy Onassis died on May 19, 1994, and the last vestiges of Camelot wafted away…

Roosevelt selected a running mate who now ranks among the best

A pencil portrait of Franklin Roosevelt by E.A. Burbank, dated 1939 and signed by both, sold for $2,270 at a June 2008 auction.

“I hardly know Truman.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1944)

By Jim O’Neal

President Franklin Roosevelt was a tired and worn out man. The worry aroused by his appearance was more than justified. Unbeknown to all but a few, he was suffering from a progressive, debilitating cardiovascular disease. Several elite cardiologists agreed he would be dead within a year, especially if he decided to run for a fourth term. But FDR was determined, and told a few close confidants that he would resign as soon as WWII was concluded satisfactorily.

He had ventured into national politics when his name, youth and political strength in populous New York led to his nomination for vice president in 1920. The DNC had met in June in San Francisco and picked James Cox for the president slot. However, the Republican ticket of Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge won easily.

The following year, the 39-year-old Roosevelt contracted poliomyelitis while vacationing at the family’s summer home on Campobello Island in Canada. He was crippled in both legs, permanently. In a show of intestinal fortitude, he mastered the use of leg braces, crutches and a wheelchair; he built his upper-body strength by swimming. He demonstrated his new skills in dramatic fashion in June 1924 at the National Democratic Convention.

He rose from a wheelchair and, unassisted, walked to the speaker’s rostrum and nominated Al Smith for president. The crowd went wild after Roosevelt crowned Smith “the Happy Warrior of the political battlefield.” Smith ultimately lost the nomination that year; four years later in 1928 he won the nomination but lost the election to Herbert Hoover. The economic good times favored the better-known Hoover, but there was also the lingering issue of Smith’s Catholicism. This would remain an issue until 1960 when Jack Kennedy would vanquish it permanently.

In 1930, FDR was re-elected governor of New York. In the wake of the stock market crash, he convinced the legislature to provide $20 million to the unemployed. This was the first direct unemployment aid by any state and was a harbinger of bigger government programs. It was also a springboard to the 1932 Democratic nomination for president. FDR was so energized that he flew to Chicago to accept – the first time a nominee accepted in person.

No one was surprised at the results of the 1932 election, when FDR defeated Hoover in a landslide. The country had turned on Hoover and the Republicans and was eager and impatient to have the new president installed. This led directly to the 20th Amendment of the Constitution, which advanced the presidential inauguration to Jan. 20 and Congress to Jan. 3. Alas, it didn’t go into effect until 1933. Hoover was full of ideas on how to help the new president, but Roosevelt was less willing to accept any advice, since he had his own plans.

And so it began. With a soothing voice and supreme self-confidence, Roosevelt rallied a fear-ridden country to overcome the Great Depression. With a New Deal, he provided social justice; security to the aged; relief to the unemployed; and higher wages to the working man. He revamped the federal government, adding scores of new agencies and reshaping the Democratic Party from states’ rights into a Hamiltonian model of a strong central government.

Twelve years went by fast, and the last days of the Second World War required a series of critical decisions and it started with a decision on a fourth term. His trusted advisers saw defeat unless something was done about VP Henry Wallace. A plant geneticist by profession, he had become very popular as an author, lecturer and social thinker. To the “wise men,” he seemed pathetically out of place and painfully lacking in political talent. But there was more concern over the president’s declining health, which could no longer be ignored. All realized that the man nominated to run with Roosevelt would probably be the next president.

That man turned out to be Senator Harry Truman from Missouri. Together, they would win the 1944 election; 82 days after taking office, Truman would become president when FDR died on April 12, 1945. He would end the war as expected, win re-election in 1948 and become embroiled in another war, this time with Korea. However, with each passing year, Truman continues to gain in stature and now often polls among the top 10 best presidents.

President Coolidge deserves credit for his guiding hand

An official inaugural medal for Calvin Coolidge, inscribed “Inauguration March 4, 1925,” sold for $16,250 at a May 2019 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

There must have been thousands of American veterans of World War I still alive when I was born in 1937. After all, it had been less than 19 years since the Peace Armistice had been signed in November 1918. Although the war started in Europe in 1914, the United States didn’t get directly involved until April 1917 after a series of events provoked President Wilson to ask Congress to declare war.

However, my only recollections are about the Second World War, when my father and five of my mother’s brothers went to strange-sounding places like Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal, Tarawa and Okinawa. My Saturdays at the movies were (seemingly) exclusively Westerns and war films. Of course, there were the newsreels narrated mostly by Lowell Thomas, the voice of Movietone News. This was the generation that suffered through the Great Depression and earned the title of “the Greatest Generation” (Tom Brokaw) for their courage, sacrifice and honor. I give them a lot of credit for a time in the 1950s that I fondly recall with television, my own car, more money than I could spend and unlimited basketball, baseball and surfing.

Still, historians agree that the First World War had a major impact in shaping the modern world. A war of unprecedented violence, it upended the Victorian Era’s peace and prosperity. It unleashed mechanized warfare and death on a level that was staggering. Concurrently, it fundamentally altered the social norms for economics, psychology and liberalism that dated back to the Enlightenment. No one has developed an acceptable theory on the confluence of events that shattered the relationships of monarchies with blood and familial ties. The complicating treaties and alliances served as an obvious domino factor, but a single circuit breaker had the power to defuse the entire situation if it had been employed early.

Yet not a single leader had the courage or foresight to simply call “Time out!” and stop the equivalent of a runaway train. This strategic void led directly to the loss of 10 million lives and the destruction of a continent that had slowly evolved a benevolent culture with so much potential. Fortunately, the war was primarily rural and most of the grand historic buildings were spared; fate would not be so kind to the next confrontation … with thousands of bombers, guided bombs and the destruction of entire cities.

Perhaps worse, though, was the post-war legacy of hatred that made the horrific second tragedy inevitable. Consider the mindset of Adolf Hitler on Sept. 18, 1922, when he warned, “It cannot be that 2 million Germans should have fallen in vain … No, we do not pardon, we demand … vengeance!” Are these the words of a sane man who would be satisfied to regroup, rebuild and start over? Or a clever psychopath who would corrupt the minds of people, even as they were struggling with the punishment required by the Treaty of Versailles and the English, French and Russians exacting their revenge? Thousands of books have answered this with clarity.

Sadly, Americans and especially President Wilson would be seduced by a vague concept of a “14 Point Peace Plan” and a “League of Nations” to prevent future war, yet couldn’t even pass an obstinate Congress. It was another academic chimera, followed by a disabling stroke. Wilson’s successor was a flawed man, surrounded by corrupt men and public scandal. President Harding’s death in 1920 was unexpected but provided the opportunity for his vice president to perform an overdue house cleaning.

Calvin Coolidge was just the man to address the scandal-ridden administration of Warren G. Harding. His list of accomplishments are still not well known, but included cutting taxes four times, a budget surplus every year in office, and reduction of the national debt by a third. In many respects, he was a man of a bygone era. He wrote his own speeches, had only one secretary and didn’t even have a telephone on his presidential desk. Little wonder that President Reagan, who admired Coolidge’s efforts toward a smaller government and lower taxes, placed Silent Cal’s portrait in the White House Cabinet Room next to Lincoln and Jefferson.

Today, it’s not clear precisely how many wars we are in and how many have the exit strategy that Colin Powell considers essential to any military action (along with a clear objective and overwhelming forces to ensure victory). I wish I’d heard more from those WWI veterans that prompted this lesson!

The New Yorker is perhaps the best magazine America has ever produced

Charles Samuel Addams’ original cartoon art for *Sad Movie*, which appeared in *The New Yorker* in 1946, sold for $40,625 at a March 2012 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

Conventional wisdom suggests that greatness did not come easily or immediately to the venerable New Yorker magazine. Founded in February 1925, its primary strengths were zeal and enthusiasm, derived primarily from editor Harold Ross. He had journalism in his blood and would be editor for every copy (1,339 issues) until his death in 1951.

Then there was the critical financial indulgence of principal backer Raoul H. Fleischmann, who founded the General Baking Company. Ross and Fleischmann formed F-R Publishing Company to publish the new magazine. Fleischmann was widely quoted as saying, “The very best thing about the first issue was the cover” – a Knickerbocker dandy (by Rea Irvin) peering through a monocle at a butterfly. Later named Eustace Tilley, the New Yorker dandy became a well-known icon.

The magazine “stank,” Fleischmann pronounced. That first year was dangerously precarious. By the fourth month of publication, circulation had plummeted from a robust 15,000 to a mere 4,000 … with a measly three to four pages of ads. Fleischmann reluctantly agreed to prop it up financially through the summer, and by the fall, it had stabilized … barely.

The 1925 cover of *The New Yorker*’s first issue, created by Rea Irvin.

But timing was favorable since New York – at least during Prohibition years – was at the peak of its gaudiest best. American writing, graphic art and musical comedy were especially lively. Soon, a host of bright, talented writers were attracted to this unconventional weekly publication. Some were already established names, like Robert Benchley and Ralph Barton, while others made the risky leap from ad agencies in the hope it was something more exciting than writing ad copy.

Gradually, the magazine morphed into a curious, almost schizophrenic publication, with parts of The New Yorker getting lighter and funnier, while its fiction, reporting and poetry got more serious. Ross banished sex in any form and scrutinized every sentence for off-color jokes and double entendres. He scrubbed the advertising to ensure it was suitable and disliked fatalistic or socially conscious pieces since they were inevitably too grim.

He was the quintessential editor who kept the copy clear and concise. In his opinion, Harry Houdini and Sherlock Holmes were the only two people in the English-speaking world everyone knew. Any lesser-known, marginal characters were quickly dispatched with a red line. Come back when they’re famous!

Well known for his extreme use of commas, one saving grace was that Ross was a true original member of the Algonquin Round Table, a group of writers, critics and actors who gathered daily for lunch to amuse each other with razor-sharp wisecracks and witticisms. Ross used his contacts with this group to help leverage the magazine since many had national newspaper columns. Also known as “The Vicious Circle,” especially after a few rounds of martinis, they delighted in sharpening their tongues. For example, someone would say “Calvin Coolidge died” and poet/satirist Dorothy Parker would respond, “How could they tell?” Or the comment about a famous actress’ theatrical performance: “Her emotions ran the full gamut from A to B.”

The group was a perfect complement to the magazine and New York’s classic elitism and charming sarcasm. In fact, a prospectus brochure announced (proudly) that it was not edited for old ladies in Dubuque. It was New York snobbery at its best (worst?).

Cartoonists Peter Arno and Helen Hokinson became regulars that first season and added to its reputation of “cosmopolitan sophistication.” One 1928 cartoon shows a mother telling her daughter, “It’s broccoli, dear” and the daughter responds, “I say it’s spinach and I say the hell with it!” (“I say the hell with it” became a common catchphrase and inspired a Broadway song by Irving Berlin). But perhaps the most reprinted cartoon in history is Peter Steiner’s 1993 gag: a drawing of two dogs at a computer with one saying, “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.”

On the serious side, after WWII, John Hershey penned a 31,000-word article in 1946 titled “Hiroshima.” It deftly conveyed the cataclysmic narrative of the 130,000 people killed through the stories of six survivors coping with the bomb’s aftermath. It was a publishing sensation and the questions it raised about humanity languish yet today. It has been called the most celebrated piece of journalism to come out of the war. This is exactly what Ross wanted. He dedicated nearly the entire issue to the article – a first for the magazine.

Another highly controversial coup was “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson on June 6, 1948, which told a morbid, dark tale of a small town that conducts a bizarre ritual each year. It is often ranked as the most famous short story in the history of American literature (you’ll have to Google it).

Now, David Remnick, the fifth editor (starting in 1998), calmly leads the magazine to an uncertain future. The New Yorker has become the nation’s most honored magazine, with numerous National Magazine Awards and Pulitzer Prizes. Remnick’s personal awards are impressive and he has authored six important books. The New Yorker is not only the best general magazine, but perhaps the best magazine America has ever produced. At age 94, some say without it, everyone’s sights would be lower.

You decide.

Tremendous Challenges Awaited the Plainspoken Truman

Fewer than 10 examples of this Harry Truman “60 Million People Working” political pin are known to exist. This pin sold for $19,717 at an August 2008 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

When Franklin Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, Harry Truman became the seventh vice president to move into the Oval Office after the death of a president. Truman had been born during the White House years of Chester Arthur, who had followed James Garfield after his assassination (1881). And in Truman’s lifetime, Teddy Roosevelt and Calvin Coolidge had ascended to the presidency after the deaths of William McKinley (1901) and Warren Harding (1923). However, none of these men had been faced with the challenges awaiting the plainspoken Truman.

FDR had been a towering figure for 12 years, first leading the country out of the Great Depression and then deftly steering the United States into World War II after being elected a record four times. Unfortunately, Truman had not been involved in several important decisions, and was totally unaware of several strategic secrets (e.g. the development of the atom bomb) or even side agreements made with others, notably Winston Churchill. He was not prepared to be president.

Even the presidents who preceded FDR tended to exaggerate the gap in Truman’s foreign-relations experience. Woodrow Wilson was a brilliant academic and Herbert Hoover was a world-famous engineer. There were enormously important decisions to be made that would shape the world for the next half century. Even Truman had his sincere doubts about being able to follow FDR, despite the president’s rapidly failing health.

The significance of these decisions has gradually faded, but for Truman, they were foisted upon him in rapid order: April 12, FDR’s death; April 28, Benito Mussolini killed by partisan Italians; two days later Adolf Hitler committed suicide; and on April 29, German military forces surrendered. The news from the Pacific was equally dramatic as troop landings on the critical island of Okinawa had apparently been unopposed by the Japanese. It was clearly the apex of optimism regarding the prospects for an unconditional surrender by Japan and the welcomed return of world peace.

In fact, it was a miracle that turned out to be a mirage.

After victory in Europe (V-E Day), Truman was faced with an immediate challenge regarding the 3 million troops in Europe. FDR and Churchill did not trust Joseph Stalin and were wary of what the Russians would do if we started withdrawing our troops. Churchill proved to be right about Russian motives, as they secretly intended to continue to permanently occupy the whole of Eastern Europe and expand into adjacent territories at will.

Then the U.S. government issued a report stating that the domestic economy could make a smooth transition to pre-war normalcy once the voracious demands from the military war-machine abated. Naturally, the war-weary public strongly supported “bringing the boys home,” but Truman knew that Japan would have to be forced to quit before any shifts in troops or production could start.

There was also a complex scheme under way to redeploy the troops from Europe to the Pacific if the Japanese decided to fight on to defend their sacred homeland. It was a task that George Marshall would call “the greatest administrative and logistical problem in the history of the world.”

Truman pondered in a diary entry: “I have to decide the Japanese strategy – shall we invade proper or shall we bomb and blockade? That is my hardest decision to date.” (No mention was made of “the other option.”)

The battle on Okinawa answered the question. Hundreds of Japanese suicide planes had a devastating effect. Even after 10 days of heavy sea and air bombardment on the island; 30 U.S ships sunk, 300 more damaged; 12,000 Americans killed; 36,000 wounded. It was now obvious that Japan would defend every single island, regardless of their losses. Surrender would not occur and America’s losses would be extreme.

So President Truman made a historic decision that is still being debated today: Drop the atomic bomb on Japan and assume that the effect would be so dramatic that the Japanese would immediately surrender. On Aug. 6, 1945, “Little Boy” was dropped on Hiroshima with devastating effects. Surprisingly, the Japanese maintained their silence, perhaps not even considering that there could be a second bomb. That second bomb – a plutonium variety nicknamed “Fat Man” – was then dropped two days ahead of schedule on Aug. 9 on the seaport city of Nagasaki.

No meeting had been held and there was no second order given (other than by Enola Gay pilot Paul Tibbets). The directive that had ordered the first bomb simply said in paragraph two that “additional bombs will be delivered AS MADE READY.” However, two is all that was needed. Imperial Japan surrendered on Aug. 15, thus ending one of history’s greatest wars.

Wall Street was Booming Just Months Before the Great Depression

Vintage photograph shows Calvin Coolidge in Plymouth, Vt., shortly after learning of President Warren G. Harding’s death.

By Jim O’Neal

After the 1928 election, President-elect Herbert Hoover met with incumbent Calvin Coolidge to make a special request. There were four months to go until inauguration and Hoover planned to use six weeks of that time to tour Latin America. He asked the president to place a battleship at his disposal since he wanted to include Mrs. Hoover, who spoke fluent Spanish.

Initially, Coolidge suggested a cruiser “since it does not cost so much,” but finally relented and gave Hoover the battleship USS Maryland one way and then the USS Utah to come home from Montevideo, Uruguay. This was classic Calvin Coolidge, always looking for creative ways to avoid federal spending.

Then Coolidge dispatched his final annual message to Congress on Dec. 4. The document revealed the optimism felt by Coolidge and the nation as a whole: “No Congress of the United States, on surveying the State of the Union, has met with a more promising prospect than that which appears at the present time. In the domestic field, there is tranquility and contentment, harmonious relations between management and wage earner, freedom from industrial strife and the highest record of years of prosperity.”

In his budget address, read to Congress the following day, Coolidge said estimated revenues for 1929 were $3.831 billion with expenditures of $3.794 billion. Since the surplus was smaller than hoped for, he would not ask for yet another tax cut.

Calvin Coolidge – who assumed the presidency when Warren Harding died in 1923 – had a simplistic fiscal philosophy: hold the line on spending and if possible reduce it, while at the same time cutting taxes. He believed this would result in greater personal freedom and a more moral population. In 1923, federal expenditures were $3.1 billion and fell to $3.0 billion by 1928. Despite tax cuts, revenues were the same at $3.9 billion and the national debt fell from $22.3 billion to $17.6 billion. The number of federal employees in Washington fell from 70,000 to 65,000.

By 1929, automobiles jammed the roads, spurring a major construction boom. The Ford Model A was enthusiastically greeted in 1927, but the talk of the industry was Walter Chrysler, who came from nowhere to build the third-largest company in the industry. Auto sales zoomed and the Federal Oil Conservation Board announced the country was in danger of running out of petroleum.

The front-page news of early 1929 was Britain’s ailing King George V, whose sons were rushing home to his bedside. But the business pages focused on RCA’s purchase of the Victor Talking Machine Company, following the acquisition of Keith-Albee-Orpheum, which was renamed RKO. The stock of RCA was now selling at a P/E of 26 and there was talk of a 5-for-1 stock split.

Wall Street was booming and dividends were at an all-time high. The Federal Reserve was complaining about the banks using their money to fuel speculation, but the only response was from the small Dallas Reserve, which raised their discount rate to 5 percent (yawn). A few months later, Wall Street crashed and the entire country spiraled down into the Great Depression, which would last the next 10-plus years.

Welcome to Washington, D.C., President Hoover. It’s all yours!

President Coolidge’s Inaction Opened White House Door for Herbert Hoover

A photograph of President Herbert Hoover and his Cabinet, signed, circa 1929, sold for $2,151 at an April 2012 Heritage auction.

By Jim O’Neal

The first president born west of the Mississippi River was Herbert Clark Hoover in 1874. He was born in West Branch, Iowa, about 30 miles from the mighty river. He had a remarkable life, although there is little evidence of true joy other than the rewards from devoting all of his energy to work and public service … always striving for achievement.

It’s curious that he ended up the Cabinet of President Calvin Coolidge. “Silent Cal” was another taciturn man, “weaned on a pickle” and a work ethic that resulted in five-hour workdays, supplemented by naps in the White House. He did not like many people, especially Hoover, his Secretary of Commerce, complaining, “That man gave me unsolicited advice for six years, all of it bad.” Coolidge jeeringly called Hoover “Wonder Boy,” since Hoover’s reputation for saving lives in World War I had earned him an international title as “The Great Humanitarian.”

It was the Roaring Twenties and times were rosy.

By 1927, America was the most comfortable place in the world. Surrounded by sleek new appliances – radios, refrigerators, telephones, electric fans – that were all within reach of the common man. Eighty-two percent of all things produced were made in America, 80 percent of movies and 85 percent of all cars. America had 50 percent of the world’s gold and the stock market increased by one-third in one year.

But suddenly, there were rain clouds in the sky and for months, it rained steadily across the country. Southern Illinois received two feet of rain in three months and places in Arkansas got over three feet. People had never seen anything like it.

Rain-swollen rivers overran their banks; the San Jacinto in California; the Klamath and Willamette rivers in Oregon; the Snake, Payette and Boise in Idaho; the Neosho in Kansas; Ouachita in Arkansas; the Tennessee and Cumberland in the South; and the Connecticut River in New England.

Then on Good Friday, April 15, 1927, a mighty storm system pounded the middle third of the nation with an unprecedented rain of intensity and duration. From Western Montana to West Virginia and from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, rain fell as one might envision what Noah experienced.

Nearly all of this water raced into swollen creeks and rivers and headed straight to the great central artery of the continent – the Mississippi River. The Mississippi and its tributaries drain 40 percent of America, almost 10 million square miles across 31 states. Never in recorded history had the entirety of it been this strained. People standing on the banks watched the carnage floating by. Houses, trees, dead cows, barn roofs. At St. Louis, the volume of passing water was an astonishing two million cubic feet per second.

On April 16, the first levee gave way and 1,300 feet of earthen bank ruptured and a volume of water equal to Niagara Falls passed through the chasm. By May 1, the flood stretched 500 miles from Illinois to New Orleans. The statistics of the Great Flood were staggering. Sixteen million acres flooded … 204,000 buildings lost … 637,000 people homeless, along with 50,000 cattle, 25,000 horses, 145,000 pigs and 1.3 million chickens.

The Mississippi Flood of 1927 was the most epic natural disaster in American history. The Mississippi was at flood stage for 153 consecutive days.

President Coolidge sent Wonder Boy to clean up the mess, rolled over and went back to sleep. It would help Herbert Hoover win the 1928 presidential election, never suspecting that in 1929 the merry-go-round of good times would stop when the stock market crashed, followed by the Great Depression, which would last for 10 long years until we started gearing up for war.

Intelligent Collector blogger JIM O’NEAL is an avid collector and history buff. He is president and CEO of Frito-Lay International [retired] and earlier served as chairman and CEO of PepsiCo Restaurants International [KFC Pizza Hut and Taco Bell].

Her Fearless Tongue Made Alice Roosevelt the Most Popular of Presidential Children

Albert Beck Wenzell (1864-1917) painted this gouache on paper, titled *Theodore Roosevelt and His Daughter Alice*. It went to auction in May 2006.

By Jim O’Neal

To describe Alice Roosevelt Longworth (1884-1980) as a handful would be a gross understatement. She was the only child of Teddy Roosevelt and Alice Hathaway Lee. Her mother died two days after her birth of Bright’s disease – a catch-all term for kidney diseases. Eleven hours before her death, TR’s mother, Martha “Mittie” Roosevelt, had died of typhoid fever. It was a traumatic time in the Roosevelt home and it would haunt Teddy for the rest of his life.

Young Alice never founded a school or hospital, never ran for public office, and was terrified of public speaking, but she became unquestionably the best known and most popular of presidential children.

She was 17 when William McKinley was assassinated in 1901, which vaulted her vice-president father into the White House. When she learned of the news, she reportedly let out a war whoop and danced on the front lawn. Years later in an interview with reporter Sally Quinn (third wife of Ben Bradlee, executive editor of The Washington Post), Alice described her feelings as “utter rapture.” This kind of candor made her almost irresistible to the American public, and the press dubbed her “Princess Alice.”

One infatuated biographer described her as the “first female American celebrity of the 20th century.” Her cousin Joseph Alsop – the famous syndicated columnist whose robust opinions appeared in national newspapers for five decades – referred to her as “Washington’s other memorial.” Her celebrity started early, as people all over the country were talking about her antics, her clothes and her fearless tongue, which all delighted the average citizen.

On Inauguration Day in 1905, she was so exuberantly waving to her friends in the crowd that her father chided her by saying, “Alice, this is MY inauguration!” She was a flirt who smoked cigarettes in public and when her father declared that no daughter of his would smoke under his roof, she devilishly climbed to the roof of the White House to smoke on top of his roof. A perplexed TR told renowned author Owen Wister (“The Virginian”): “I can either run the country or attend to Alice, but I cannot possibly do both!”

After her 1902 society debut, the press constantly speculated on her romantic links with most of Washington’s eligible bachelors. She finally married Congressman Nicholas Longworth (future Speaker of the House) in one of the most famous weddings in American history, with front-page coverage across the country. Longworth was a notorious philanderer. William “Fishbait” Miller, doorkeeper of the House, described him as the “greatest womanizer in the history of Capitol Hill.”

Their marriage was an open sham and Alice was rumored to have had a child with William Borah, who became a senator after Idaho became a state in 1890. He was a perennial contender for president and was responsible for killing President Wilson’s attempt to approve the Treaty of Versailles.

Alice delighted in skewering prominent politicians. Calvin Coolidge “was weaned on a pickle.” Speaking of Herbert Hoover, she said “the Hoover vacuum is more exciting, but of course it is electric.” New York Governor Thomas Dewey, with his slick black hair, reminded Alice of the little groom on the top of a wedding cake. When FDR ran for a third term, she declared, “I’d rather vote for Hitler!”

Her acidic commentary on the rich and famous delighted and amused the public for four generations. Alice Roosevelt died of pneumonia on Feb. 20, 1980. At age 96, she had outlived the children of every other president.

She was a handful.

Coolidge Focused on Creating Conditions Under Which Everyone Could Succeed

This rare “KEEP COOL-IDGE” campaign button, 1924, sold for $2,250 in February 2015.

By Jim O’Neal

The Republican Party’s 1924 presidential convention in Cleveland was the first to be broadcast on radio. Incumbent President Calvin Coolidge was a cinch to win the nomination as the nation was at peace, the country prosperous and the integrity of the executive branch restored after the Warren G. Harding scandals. “Keep Cool With Coolidge” captured the mood of the country and Democrats were so divided it took 103 ballots before they picked John Davis of West Virginia (“The Disaster in Madison Square Garden”).

The only real surprise was the selection of the Republican vice president candidate. Coolidge favored Senator William Borah of Idaho, who declined. On the second ballot, they nominated Governor Frank Lowden of Illinois, but he stunned everyone by refusing just as delegates were making the vote unanimous. Finally, Charles Dawes was nominated and he accepted. He would win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1925 for his work on World War I reparations and is the only vice president to be credited with a No. 1 pop song (“It’s All in the Game,” 1958, performed by Tommy Edwards).

President Coolidge’s inaugural address in March 1925 was a ringing endorsement of his policies: encourage business and reduce taxes. “Economic legislation is not to destroy those who have already secured success, but to create conditions under which everyone will have a better chance to be successful.”

On Aug. 2, 1927, Coolidge surprised the nation with a terse announcement of his intent to retire. “I do not choose to run for president in 1928.” He explained his reelection would extend his presidency to 10 years … longer than anyone before … and too long in his opinion.

Some observers have speculated that he turned down reelection due to health concerns. Mrs. Coolidge claimed he told her that the next four years may have required greater federal spending … something he was too frugal philosophically to support. Others believe Coolidge retired because he sensed the coming economic crash and got out before his reputation for fostering prosperity was tarnished.

“You hear a lot of jokes about ‘Silent Cal Coolidge.’ The joke is on the people who make the jokes. Look at his record. He cut taxes four times and we probably had the greatest growth and prosperity we’ve ever known. I have taken heed of that because if he did that by doing nothing, maybe that’s the answer.” – President Ronald Reagan

Amen.