[115]

Industry and trade
See also: Radio Act of 1927, Federal Radio Commission, Equal-time rule, and Lochner era

"[I]t is probable that a press which maintains an intimate touch with the business currents of the nation is likely to be more reliable than it would be if it were a stranger to these influences. After all, the chief business of the American people is business. They are profoundly concerned with buying, selling, investing and prospering in the world.""President Calvin Coolidge's address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors", Washington D.C., January 25, 1925[116]

During Coolidge's presidency, the United States experienced a period of rapid economic growth known as the "Roaring Twenties". He left the administration's industrial policy in the hands of his activist Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover, who energetically used government auspices to promote business efficiency and develop airlines and radio.[117] Coolidge disdained regulation and demonstrated this by appointing commissioners to the Federal Trade Commission and the Interstate Commerce Commission who did little to restrict the activities of businesses under their jurisdiction.[118] The regulatory state under Coolidge was, as one biographer described it, "thin to the point of invisibility".