How a Boston police strike made Calvin Coolidge presidential material, and still teaches us today

Calvin Coolidge's handling of a public-sector strike put him on the path to the presidency, and showed how a governor can shift political culture nationwide.

Amity Shlaes, the author of Coolidge, chairs the board of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation.

The year was 1919, and rebellion was in the air. In Russia, revolutionaries were winning the civil war against the White Army. In America, strikes plagued cities everywhere. In Seattle that February, workers from 101 unions had idled every industry–public or private – in a general strike so thorough that across the city "nothing but the tide moved," as someone commented.

In Boston, the mutiny came in the form of a plan to strike by the Boston police. The policemen suffered from genuine grievances. Inflation so shrank their pay packets that they struggled to cover family expenses: "Can a man, single or married, even live on such a wage? He manages to exist, that is all," concluded the Boston Labor World. Rats prowled the shelves of police station houses, chewing through the leather of their helmets. Policemen or their families had given their all in the recent war.