When we vote for president, the main candidates often carry the labels “conservative” or “liberal.” Imagine a presidential race in which both major-party candidates are clearly conservative. Garland Tucker, president, CEO, and chairman of the board for Raleigh-based Triangle Capital Corporation, wrote a book about the 1924 election, the last presidential contest that pitted two conservatives. Tucker discussed the book, The High Tide of American Conservatism, with Mitch Kokai for Carolina Journal Radio. (Click here to find a station near you or to learn about the weekly CJ Radio podcast.)
Kokai: The race that we’re talking about is the 1924 presidential race. Let’s set the scene. This was in the days of Calvin Coolidge. What was this race all about?
Tucker: Well, when you look back, at least in retrospect, it was all about conservatism. It was the last time that both major parties nominated a conservative, and Coolidge was the incumbent. He had succeeded Warren Harding when Harding died in 1923, and, as the incumbent, he was blessed with a very strong economy, had most of the tide running in his favor. The Democrats were considerably divided and were casting about for what to do. They had a very heated, divisive nominating convention in New York City in July of 1924, and a compromise candidate emerged. It was John W. Davis, who was an outstanding man, a fine candidate, and a very conservative public servant. He went on in the election to lose to Coolidge, and, in some ways, I think this election could be called a watershed election because it was certainly the last time that both parties nominated conservatives. It was the last time that the Democrats nominated a conservative. It really signaled the end of the conservative wing of the Democratic Party.
Kokai: Do you think it was because of that result that Democrats changed course?
Tucker: Well, there had been a … real struggle within both parties between conservative and progressive wings. And the Republican Party — if you look back, the first progressive president was Teddy Roosevelt in the Republican Party — and so there was this fight going on in the Republican Party between the progressives and the conservatives. And the same thing was going on in the Democratic Party. The first progressive nominee for president was William Jennings Bryan. Then Woodrow Wilson was elected as a progressive. And it was see-sawing back and forth in both parties. It could have gone the other way. The Republicans could have wound up being the liberal party and the Democrats the conservative party. But because Coolidge was the incumbent — was a very fine president I think; has not gotten nearly as much credit as conservatives think he should have, in retrospect — he had a good, strong economy, he ran an excellent campaign, and he was overwhelmingly elected. And the lessons that the Democrats took from that was: “Well, we’re not going to try to be more conservative than the Republicans. We’re going to veer to the left.” So far, they’ve been very consistent in that.
Kokai: If both candidates were very conservative, what set Coolidge apart? Was it the fact of the incumbency and the roaring economy?
Tucker: Certainly that was very much in his favor, but Coolidge was a very interesting politician. He personally had many traits that we would say do not bode well for someone going into a political career. He was a man of very few words. [He] really didn’t like to talk at length. It’s hard to imagine a successful politician like that, but he projected an image that was actually very accurate — an accurate portrayal of his personality. He was a New Englander. It was said of him that he never wasted any words and never wasted any time, and he certainly never wasted any taxpayer’s money. He was very tight-fisted on spending. He lowered taxes three times during his administration. When he came in, income tax rates were over 70 percent. When he left office, they were 24 percent, so he did a great job of cutting taxes and cutting spending. And the result was a very strong economy in the ’20s and a very popular presidency. He could have easily been re-elected in 1928 but chose not to run.
Kokai: For those of us who have followed history, we see that Herbert Hoover, in fact, became the president and presided over the beginning of the Great Depression. How things might have been different.
Tucker: That’s exactly right. I think the popular impression of Hoover has been that he was pretty conservative. In reality, he was from the progressive wing of the Republican party, was not held in very high esteem by Coolidge or Andrew Mellon, Coolidge’s Treasury secretary. And in fact, when Hoover came in as president and the stock market crashed, and what was then at that time a very serious recession started, Hoover moved to raise taxes and increase government spending, and there’s no question that Coolidge would not have done that if he had been president.
Historians and economists can certainly debate what the results would have been, and there’s a pretty healthy debate going on right now. There’s some recent historical and economics reports that argue forcefully that Hoover and FDR’s policies extended a bad recession and turned it into the Great Depression. Amity Shlaes’ book that’s out [The Forgotten Man] is an exceptional book, I think. And it’s refreshing. Back when I was in school, there wasn’t any debate on this. It was just sort of handed to you that nothing good happened between Wilson and FDR, and I wouldn’t say the debate has been settled, but at least there’s a debate now.
Kokai: You mentioned Amity Shlaes’ book, and let’s get back to your book. In putting together The High Tide of American Conservatism, did you learn anything in particular that you think readers will find very interesting?
Tucker: I would say two or three things. The policies of the ’20s, I think, really bear close examination by Americans today because they were implemented against the backdrop of a very severe recession in 1920. And so the times were similar to what we’re in right now, and I think if you see the results of the Coolidge-Mellon tax policies, it would give you pause to consider what we’re doing right now. The other thing I would say is Coolidge and Davis were exemplary public servants, and it’s my hope that … even die-hard liberals would agree that they are two men who deserve more coverage than they’ve gotten in the past.