It was the best of times. It was the best of times.

The Roaring 20s were America’s Arcadia. Babe Ruth, the

rollicking Jazz Age, flappers, speakeasies, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and the
explosion of middle class prosperity.
Considering today’s endemic morass of federal overreach, The
High Tide of American Conservatism: Davis, Coolidge and the 1924
Election by Garland S. Tucker III is a liberty bell ringing in the distance.
Tucker revives Jeffersonian ideals of maximum individual freedom and
minimal government interference. The parallels between Calvin
Coolidge, the incumbent Republican candidate, and John Davis, the
Democratic candidate, are astonishing.
Both grew up in rural America. Coolidge was born in 1872 and
grew up in Notch, Vermont. Davis was born in 1873 in Clarksburg,
West Virginia. Both grew up on farms. Both had strict parents stressing
the importance of education. Both attended small renowned liberal arts
schools: Coolidge, Amherst; Davis, W&L. Both became successful
lawyers; Davis tried 140 cases before the US Supreme Court, a record
at that time. Both possessed unimpeachable integrity. Both became
gentlemen’s gentlemen; both became lawyer’s lawyers. Both were
Jeffersonian conservatives: like our Founding Fathers, less was more
when it came to government.
Why does this new title seem such a clarion call in our day? Is it
because of the impeccable timing with progressive overreach? Is it
because both John Davis and Calvin Coolidge are in a short historic line
of statesmen contrasted to a long gray line of American politicians? Or,
is it because of the acclaimed humility of both these true gentlemen
contrasted with our present era of the newly entitled corporate
chieftains and politicians in America? All mankind adores humble
hounds and despises haughty roaring lions.
Let it be concluded that Tucker has trumped the acclaimed
biography Alexander Hamilton, by Ron Chernow. The High Tide of
American Conservatism is appropriately written in Cal Coolidge’s
laconic style, with balanced insight into our Founders’ belief in the
wisdom of nose-out, hands-off government. Tucker’s historical
message in these pages will change the mind-set of many progressives
and perhaps even a smattering of liberals.
The genius of Tucker’s book is his straightforward, balanced
style blended with his insights through which the reader will see new
depth of meaning in the words of gentlemen, statesmen, and
conservatives where the governing class concedes that the world is too
complicated to be managed from the center, a rarity in America even
in the best of times.

J Phillips L Johnston, J.D.

Chairman and CEO
The Center for Board Excellence
Author of three business books. One, Success in Small Business Is a
Laughing Matter, Esquire magazine declared, “…the best book ever written
about small business.”