Soon after Coolidge took office, the corruption that had riddled Harding's administration started to become public knowledge. Coolidge managed to distance himself from the scandals, partly by supporting the prosecution of the culprits and partly by his reputation for honesty and integrity. In 1924 Coolidge was re-elected on his own merits, running under the slogan "Keep Cool with Coolidge" and winning an impressive 54 percent of the popular vote.
Coolidge's laissez-faire approach (a policy of noninterference) was clearly in line with the times and with the beliefs of most U.S. citizens, as was the pro-business stance evident in this excerpt. But the speech is more than just pro-business. Coolidge highlights the importance of a free press in a democracy and, responding to fears that newspapers run by large, powerful corporations would not present the news in a fair, balanced manner, asserts that the business and editorial departments of newspapers can and should be kept separate. Coolidge is remembered for the famous line that "the business of America is business." Yet what followed was the claim that money is not everything, and that idealism is the most important characteristic of the American people.
Things to Remember While Reading This Excerpt from "The Press Under a Free Government" …
Even though this speech contains one of Coolidge's often-quoted phrases, it is not usually noted that he goes on to qualify the idea of business as the chief concern of the United States.
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