It Takes a Mayor
By Kurt L. Schmoke
This article appears in the Winter 2024 issue of the Coolidge Review.
As a former mayor, I like to highlight the fact that Calvin Coolidge belonged to the small fraternity of people who were elected mayors before their service as president of the United States. The other two former mayors to reach the Oval Office were Andrew Johnson and Grover Cleveland.
Northampton, Massachusetts, is one of those fine New England cities whose founding dates back to the mid-seventeenth century. Currently a city of about thirty thousand residents, it was about a third of that size when Coolidge was elected as its mayor in 1909. Northampton’s motto is Caritas, Educatio, Justitia—caring, education, justice. These words seem quite appropriate for a city that would select Coolidge as its leader. Northampton was known in the nineteenth century as a center for antislavery advocacy and in the eighteenth century for its role in Shays’s Rebellion, a revolt by farmers and former Revolutionary War soldiers against burdensome taxes and unreasonable debt collections.
Coolidge decided to make his career in this environment. He relished the idea of practicing law there. He referred to the practice as an honorable profession, and he saw participating in local public affairs as a complement to that profession.
The residents of the city saw two important qualities in him that resulted in his election. First, he showed a genuine interest in local issues. He joined the Republican City Committee, served briefly on the City Council, and used his knowledge of the law as city solicitor.
Second, he conveyed a keen understanding and connection with the day-to-day struggles of the average family. This quotation from Coolidge’s Autobiography underscores what I mean:
I know very well what it means to awake in the night and realize that the rent is coming due, wondering where the money is coming from with which to pay it. The only way I know of escape from that constant tragedy is to keep running expenses low enough so that something may be saved to meet the day when earnings may be small.
Coolidge was very much a part of, not apart from, his community.
The Coolidge Appeal
The 1909 mayoral campaign revealed characteristics that the country would see during Coolidge’s presidency. Coolidge’s Democratic opponent in that election, businessman Harry Bricknell, was a personal friend. The candidates ran a campaign without vitriol. Coolidge knew that to win, he had to appeal to a broad spectrum of voters. He canvassed door-to-door, making a straightforward and low-key appeal: “I want your vote. I need it. I shall appreciate it.” Those words were effective in their simplicity: Coolidge won the election by 165 votes.
As one of his first actions, the mayor-elect penned this note to his opponent: “My dear Harry, my most serious regret of the election is that you cannot share the entire pleasure of the result with me.” That was a kind gesture, another demonstration of Calvin Coolidge’s character. By the way, Harry Bricknell was eventually elected mayor of Northampton.
An Effective Executive
Elected public life can be divided (roughly) into two categories: policy development and service delivery. The presidency is primarily on the policy development side of that distinction, while the mayoralty is primarily on the service delivery side.
As mayor, Coolidge showed himself to be a very effective executive, demonstrating traits that the nation would see later. He was careful with the management of public funds. When land from the town was sold to neighboring Holyoke, he invested those funds for the future benefit of his constituents. To attract and retain good teachers, he raised teacher salaries. He refused to go along with those who proposed building a new City Hall because of its cost. And he fought against mandates from the state legislature. In one case, the legislature sought control over alcohol licensing. Coolidge resisted this encroachment on local control, as the licensing revenue went to the city. Fighting legislative mandates is clearly something we would see from him later in his career.
The lessons Coolidge learned from his time as mayor positively affected the way he conducted himself as an executive at the state and national level. He saw in a direct way how government action can have both beneficial and detrimental impacts on people’s quality of life. He controlled spending, targeted investment, incentivized private-sector activity, maintained public safety, and operated in an inclusive manner.
Those Coolidge lessons should serve as a reminder to current leaders of how progress can be achieved when we focus on seeking consensus, not division.
The Honor of Serving
Even after a long and distinguished political career, Coolidge recognized the importance of his time as mayor. In his Autobiography he wrote, “On the first Monday of January, 1910, I began a public career that was to continue until the first Monday of March, 1929, when it was to end by my own volition.” He added, “Of all the honors that have come to me I still cherish in a very high place the confidence of my friends and neighbors in making me their Mayor.”
From service delivery to policy development, Calvin Coolidge exemplified some of the best qualities of servant leadership ever seen in our country.
Kurt L. Schmoke, the president of the University of Baltimore, served as mayor of Baltimore from 1987 to 1999.