(July 4, 1872–January 5, 1933), was the 30th President of the United States, 1923–29, during the era known as the “Roaring Twenties”; Vice-President under Warren G. Harding, 1920–23, assuming the Presidency upon Harding’s death; Governor of Massachusetts, 1918–20, gaining popularity by refusing to allow the police to join unions and go on strike, which would jeopardize public security; Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts, 1915–18, Massachusetts State Senator, 1911–15; Mayor of Northampton, Massachusetts, 1910–11; Massachusetts State Representative, 1906–08; married Grace Anne Goodhue, 1905; Northampton City Solicitor, 1899–1901; Northampton City Councilman, 1899; admitted to bar, 1897; and graduated from Amherst College, 1895.
In 1914, as he delivered his first address as the president of the Massachusetts State Senate, Calvin Coolidge expressed:
Man has a spiritual nature. Touch it, and it must respond as the magnet responds to the pole. To that, not to selfishness, let the laws of the Commonwealth appeal, recognize the immortal worth and dignity of man. … 3170
On Memorial Day, May 31, 1923, Calvin Coolidge, then Vice-President under President Harding, spoke on the motives of the Puritan forefathers in his message entitled “The Destiny of America”:
If there be a destiny, it is of no avail to us unless we work with it. The ways of Providence will be of no advantage to us unless we proceed in the same direction. If we perceive a destiny in America, if we believe that Providence has been our guide, our own success, our own salvation requires that we should act and serve in harmony and obedience.
Throughout all the centuries this land remained unknown to civilization. Just at a time when Christianity was at last firmly established, when there was a general advance in learning, when there was a great spiritual awakening, America began to be revealed to the European world. … .
Settlers came here from mixed motives, some for pillage and adventure, some for trade and refuge, but those who have set their imperishable mark upon our institutions came from far higher motives.
Generally defined, they were seeking a broader freedom. They were intent upon establishing a Christian commonwealth in accordance to the principle of self-government.
They were an inspired body of men. It has been said that God sifted the nations that He might send choice grain into the wilderness. They had a genius for organized society on the foundations of piety, righteousness, liberty, and obedience of the law. They brought with them the accumulated wisdom and experience of the ages … Who can fail to see in it the hand of destiny? Who can doubt that it has been guided by a Divine Providence? …
There can be no peace with the forces of evil. Peace comes only through the establishment of the supremacy of the forces of good. That way lies only through sacrifice. It was that the people of our country might live in a knowledge of the truth that these, our countrymen, are dead. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”3171
On August 3, 1923, while visiting his birthplace and family’s farm in Vermont, Vice-President Calvin Coolidge received the news that President Warren G. Harding had died. He was immediately sworn in as President by the justice of the peace in that township, who happened to be his father, John Coolidge. Calvin Coolidge was the sixth Vice-President to become the Chief Executive at the death of a President.
On August 3, 1923, from Plymouth, Vermont, Vice-President Calvin Coolidge issued the statement:
Reports have reached me, which I fear to be correct, that President Harding is gone. … It will be my purpose to carry out the policies which he has begun. … I have faith that God will direct the destinies of our nation. …
It is my intention to remain here until I can secure the correct form for the oath of office, which will be administered to me by my father, who is a notary public.3172
On Saturday, August 4, 1923, from the White House, President Calvin Coolidge issued a Proclamation of a National Day of Mourning and Prayer:
In the inscrutable wisdom of Divine Providence, Warren Gamaliel Harding, twenty-ninth President of the United States, has been taken from us. The nation has lost a wise and enlightened statesman. …
Now, therefore, I, Calvin Coolidge, President of the United States, do appoint Friday next, August tenth, the day on which the body of the dead President will be laid to its last earthly resting place, as a day of mourning and prayer throughout the United States. I earnestly recommend the people to assemble on that day in their respective places of divine worship, there to bow down in submission to the will of Almighty God, and to pay out of full hearts the homage of love and reverence to the memory of the great and good President, whose death has so sorely smitten the nation.
In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, the fourth day of August, in the year of our Lord, one thousand nine hundred and twenty-three, and of the independence of the United States the one hundred and forty-eight. Calvin Coolidge.
By the President: Charles E. Hughes, Secretary of State.3173
In September of 1923, President Calvin Coolidge wrote to the Right Reverend James E. Freeman, the Bishop of Washington, regarding the workings of the church and the importance of religion in American life:
This work is to be commended because it represents the foundation of all progress, all government and all civilization. That foundation is religion. Our country is not lacking in material resources and though we need more education, it cannot be said to be lacking in intelligence.
But certainly it has need of a greater practical application of the truths of religion. It is only in that direction that there is hope of the solution of our economic and social problems.
Whatever inspires and strengthens the religious belief and religious activity of the people, whatever ministers to their spiritual life is of supreme importance.
Without it all other efforts will fail. With it, there lies the only hope of success. The strength of our country is the strength of its religious convictions.3174
In 1923, President Calvin Coolidge stated:
The foundations of our society and our government rest so much on the teachings of the Bible that it would be difficult to support them if faith in these teachings would cease to be practically universal in our country.3175
On Sunday, May 25, 1924, at the Confederate Memorial, Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia, President Calvin Coolidge stated:
If I am correctly informed by history, it is fitting that the Sabbath should be your Memorial Day. This follows from the belief that, except for the forces of Oliver Cromwell, no army was ever more thoroughly religious than that which followed General Lee. Moreover, these ceremonies necessarily are expressive of a hope and a belief that rise above the things of this life. It was Lincoln who pointed out that both sides prayed to the same God. When that is the case, it is only a matter of time when each will seek a common end. We can now see clearly what that end is. It is the maintenance of our American ideals, beneath a common flag, under the blessings of Almighty God. …
We know that Providence would have it so. We see and we obey. A mightier force than ever followed Grant or Lee has leveled both their hosts, raised up an united Nation, and made us partakers of a new glory.3176
On June 6, 1924, at Howard University, President Calvin Coolidge stated:
It has come to be a legend, and I believe with more foundations of fact than most legends, that Howard University was the outgrowth of the inspiration of a prayer meeting. … Here has been established a great university, a sort of educational laboratory for the production of intellectual and spiritual leadership. …
The accomplishments of the colored people in the United States, in the brief historic period since they were brought here from the restrictions of their native continent, can not but make us realize that there is something essential in our civilization which gives it a special power. I think we shall be able to agree that this particular element is the Christian religion, whose influence always and everywhere has been a force for the illumination and advancement of the peoples who have come under its sway. …
In such a view of the history of the Negro race in America, we may find the evidences that the black man’s probation on this continent was a necessary part in a great plan by which the race was to be saved to the world for a service which we are now able to vision. … This race is to be preserved for a great and useful work. If some of its members have suffered, if some have been denied, it some have been sacrificed, we are able at last to realize that their sacrifices were borne in a great cause. They gave vicariously, that a vast greater number might be preserved and benefitted through them. The salivation of a race, the destiny of a continent, were bought at the price of these sacrifices. … It is a great destiny, to which we may now look forward with confidence that it will be fully realized. …
We can not go out from this place and occasion without refreshment of faith and renewal of confidence that in every exigency our Negro fellow citizens will render the best and fullest measures of service whereof they are capable.3177
On July 4, 1924, at the Convention of the National Education Association, Washington, D.C., President Calvin Coolidge stated:
Our country has not ceased to glory in its strength, but has come to the realization that it must have something more than numbers and wealth, something more than a fleet and an army, to satisfy the longing of the soul. It knows that to power must be added wisdom, and to greatness must be added morality. It is no longer so solicitous to catalogue the power which it possess, as to direct those great forces for the spiritual advancement of the American people at home and the discharge of the obligations to humanity abroad. America is turning from the things that are seen to the things that are unseen. … which we must recognize as the guiding hand of Providence. …
Unless our material resources are supported by moral and spiritual resources, there is not foundation for progress. A trained intelligence can do much, but there is no substitute for morality, character, and religious convictions. Unless these abide, American citizenship will be found unequal to its task.3178
On July 25, 1924, in telephone message transmitted to a farewell meeting in New York for a group of Boy Scouts who were to set sail the next day to attend an international gathering in Copenhagen, President Calvin Coolidge stated:
The three fundamentals of scouthood:
The first is a reverence for nature. …
The second is a reverence for law. …
The third is a reverence for God. It is hard to see how a great man can be an atheist. Without the sustaining influence of faith in a divine power we could have little faith in ourselves. We need to feel that behind us is intelligence and love. Doubters do not achieve; skeptics do not contribute; cynics to not create. Faith is the great motive power, and no man realizes his full possibilities unless he has the deep conviction that life is eternally important, and that his work, well done, is part of an unending plan.3179
On September 1, 1924, to a group of Labor leaders, President Calvin Coolidge stated:
I want to raise the economic condition and increase the moral and spiritual well-being of our country.3180
On September 6, 1924, at the dedication of a monument to Lafayette in Baltimore, Maryland, President Calvin Coolidge stated:
The people who largely contributed to the early settlement of America came to escape the impositions of despotic kings. Many of the early inhabitants were separatists from the established church. They fled under the threat of the English King, that he would make them conform or harry them out of the land. Their descendants fought the Revolutionary war in order that they might escape the impositions of a despotic parliament.3181
On Sunday, September 21, 1924, in an address to the Holy Name Society, Washington, D.C., President Calvin Coolidge stated:
More than six centuries ago, when in spite of much learning and much piety there was much ignorance, much wickedness and much warfare, when there seemed to be too little light in the world, when the condition of the common people appeared to be sunk in hopelessness, when most of life was rude, harsh and cruel, when the speech of men was too often profane and vulgar, until the earth rang with the tumult of those who took the name of the Lord in vain, the foundation of this day was laid in the formation of the Holy Name Society.
It had an inspired purpose. It sought to rededicate the minds of the people to a true conception of the sacredness of the name of the Supreme Being. It was an effort to save all reference to the Deity from curses and blasphemy, and to restore the lips of men to reverence and praise. …
This is the beginning of a proper conception of ourselves, of our relationship to each other, and our relationship to our Creator. Human nature cannot develop very far without it. The mind does not unfold, the creative faculty does not mature, the spirit does not expand, save under the influence of reverence. It is the chief motive of an obedience. It is only by a correct attitude of mind begun early in youth and carried through maturity that these desired results are likely to be secured. It is along the path of reverence and obedience that the race has reached the goal of freedom, of self-government, of a higher morality, and a more abundant spiritual life. …
He who gives license to his tongue only discloses the contents of his own mind. By the excess of his words he proclaims his lack of discipline. … The worst evil that could be inflicted upon the youth of the land would be to leave them without restraint and completely at the mercy of their own uncontrolled inclinations. Under such conditions education would be impossible, and all orderly development intellectually or morally would be hopeless. I do not need to picture the result. We know too well what weakness and depravity follow when the ordinary processes of discipline are neglected. …
The very first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence asserted that they proposed “to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them.” And as they closed that noble document in which they submitted their claims to the opinions of mankind they again revealed what they believed to be the ultimate source of authority by stating that they were also “appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the rectitude of” … their “intentions.”
When finally our Constitution was adopted, it contained specific provision that the President and members of the Congress and of state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officials, should be qualified for the discharge of their office by oath or affirmation. By the statute law of the United States, and I doubt not by all States, such oaths are administered by a solemn appeal to God for help in the keeping of their covenants. I scarcely need to refer to the fact that the Houses of Congress, and so as I know the state legislatures, open their daily sessions with prayer. The foundations of our independence and our Government rests upon basic religious convictions. Back of the authority of our laws is the authority of the Supreme Judge of the World, to whom we still appeal for their final justification. …
All liberty is individual liberty. … The principle of equality is recognized. It follows inevitably from belief in the brotherhood of man through the fatherhood of God. When once the right of the individual to liberty and equality is admitted, there is no escape from the conclusion that he alone is entitled to the rewards of his own industry. …
America is not going to abandon its principles or desert its ideals. The foundation on which they are built will remain firm. I believe that the principle which your organization represents is their main support. It seems to me perfectly plain that the authority of law, the right to equality, liberty and property, under American institutions, have for their foundation reverence for God. If we could imagine that to be swept away, these institutions of our American government could not long survive. But that reverence will not fail. It will abide. …
By maintaining a society to promote reverence for the Holy Name you are performing both a pious and a patriotic service. …
The institutions of our country stand justified both in reason and in experience. I am aware that they will continue to be assailed. But I know they will continue to stand. We may perish, but they will endure. They are founded on the Rock of Ages.3182
On September 25, 1924, on the anniversary of the first Continental Congress in Philadelphia, President Calvin Coolidge stated:
It was no ordinary gathering. Among them were Jay and Livingston, Galloway and Mifflin, Biddle and Chase, Harrison, Lee, Randolph, the Rutledges, the Adamses, and finally, George Washington. They were men of faith. They believed in their cause. They trusted the people. They doubted not that a Higher Power would support them in their effort for right and freedom. …
After 150 years they still rank as a most remarkable gathering of men. Their deliberations and actions are worthy of the most careful study by the American people. If we could better understand what they said and did to establish our free institutions, we should be less likely to be misled by the misrepresentations and distorted arguments of the hour, and be far better equipped to maintain them. …
If we wish to maintain what they established, we shall do well to leave the people in the ownership of their property, in control of their Government, and under the protection of their courts. By a resolute determination to resist all these encroachments we can best show our reverence and appreciation for the men and the work of the first Continental Congress.3183
On October 4, 1924, at the dedication of the monument to the First Division of the American Expeditionary Forces, Washington, D.C., President Calvin Coolidge stated:
They did not regard it as a national or personal opportunity for gain or fame or glory, but as a call to sacrifice for the support of humane principles and spiritual ideals. …
If anyone doubts the depth and sincerity of the attachment of the American people to their institutions and Government, if anyone doubts the sacrifices which they have been willing to make in behalf of those institutions and for what they believe to be the welfare of other nations, let them gaze upon this monument and other like memorials that have been reared in every quarter of our broad land. Let them look upon the representative gatherings of our veterans, and let them remember that America has dedicated itself to the service of God and man.3184
On October 15, 1924, at the unveiling to the Equestrian Statue of Bishop Francis Asbury, Washington, D.C., President Calvin Coolidge stated:
As we review their accomplishments they constantly admonish us not only that “all things work together for good to them that love God,” but that in the direction of the affairs of our country there has been an influence that had a broader vision, greater wisdom and a wider purpose, than that of mortal man, which we can only ascribe to a Divine Providence. …
To one of them, Francis Asbury, the first American Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and his associates, made a tremendous contribution. Our government rests upon religion. It is from that source that we derive our reverence for truth and justice, for equality and liberty, and for the rights of mankind. Unless the people believe in these principles they cannot believe in our government. There are only two main theories of government in the world. One rests on righteousness, the other rests on force. One appeals to reason, the other appeals to the sword. One is exemplified in a republic, the other is represented by a despotism. The history of government on this earth has been almost entirely a history of the rule of force held in the hands of a few. Under our Constitution America committed itself to the practical application of the rule of reason, with the power in the hands of the people. …
It is of a great deal of significance that the generation which fought the American Revolution had seen a very extensive religious revival. They had heard the preaching of Jonathan Edwards. They had seen the great revival meetings that were inspired also by the preaching of Whitefield. The religious experiences of those days made a profound impression upon the great body of the people. They made new thoughts and created new interests. They freed the public mind, through a deeper knowledge and more serious contemplation of the truth. By calling the people to righteousness they were a direct preparation for self-government. It was for a continuation of this work that Francis Asbury was raised up.
The religious movement which he represented was distinctly a movement to reach the great body of the people. Just as our Declaration of Independence asserts that all men are created free, so it seems to me the founders of this movement were inspired by the thought that all men were worthy to hear the Word, worthy to be sought out and brought to salvation. It was this motive that took their preachers among the poor and neglected, even to criminals in the jails. As our ideal has been to bring all men to freedom, so their ideal was to bring all men to salvation. …
Just as the time was approaching when our country was about to begin the work of establishing a government which was to represent the rule of the people, where not a few but the many were to control public affairs, where the vote of the humblest was to count for as much as the most exalted, Francis Asbury came to America to preach religion. …
He was the son of a father who earned his livelihood by manual labor, of a mother who bore a reputation for piety. By constant effort they provided the ordinary comforts of life and an opportunity for intellectual and religious instruction. It was thus that he came out of a home of the people. Very early, at the age of seventeen, he began his preaching. In 1771, when he was twenty-six years old, responding to a call for volunteers, he was sent by Wesley to America. Landing in Philadelphia, he began that ministry which in the next forty-five years was to take him virtually all through the colonies and their western confines and into Canada, from Maine on the north, almost to the Gulf of Mexico on the south.
He came to America five years after the formation of the first Methodist Society in the city of New York, which had been contemporaneous with his own joining of the British Conference as an itinerant preacher and a gospel missionary. At that time it is reported that there were 316 members of his denomination in this country. The prodigious character of his labors is revealed when we remember that he traveled some 6,000 miles each year, or in all about 270,000 miles, preaching about 15,500 sermons and ordaining more than 4,000 clergymen, besides presiding at no less than 224 Annual Conferences. The highest salary that he received was $80 each year for this kind of service, which meant exposure to summer heat and winter cold, traveling alone through the frontier forests, sharing the rough fare of the pioneer’s cabin, until his worn-out frame was laid at last to rest. But he left behind him as one evidence of his labors 695 preachers and 214,235 members of his denomination. The vitality of the cause which he served is further revealed by recalling that the 316 with which he began has now grown to more than 800,000.
His problem during the Revolutionary War was that of continuing to perform his duties without undertaking to interfere in civil or military affairs. He had taken for the text of his first sermon in America these very significant words: “For I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” When several of his associates left for England in 1775, he decided to stay. “I can by no means agree to leave such a field for gathering souls to Christ as we have in America,” he writes, “therefore I am determined by the grace of God not to leave them, let the consequence by what it may.” …
He had no lack of loyalty to the early form of American government. When the inauguration of Washington took place April 30, 1789, the Conference being in session, Bishop Asbury moved the presentation of a congratulatory address to the new President. His suggestion was adopted, and the Bishop being one of those designated for the purpose, presenting the address in person, read it to Washington.
How well he fitted into the scheme of things, this circuit rider who spent his life making stronger the foundation on which our government rests and seeking to implant in the hearts of all men, however poor and unworthy they may have seemed, an increased ability to discharge the high duties of their citizenship. His outposts marched with the pioneers, his missionaries visited the hovels of the poor so that all men might be brought to a knowledge of the truth.
A great lesson has been taught us by this holy life. It was because of what Bishop Asbury and his associates preached and what other religious organizations, through their ministry, preached, that our country has developed so much freedom and contributed so much to the civilization of the world. …
The government of a country never gets ahead of the religion of a country. There is no way by which we can substitute the authority of law for the virtue of man. … Real reforms which society in these days is seeking will come as a result of our religious convictions, or they will not come at all. Peace, justice, humanity, charity—these cannot be legislated into being. They are the result of a Divine Grace. …
How many homes he must have hallowed! What a multitude of frontier mothers must have brought their children to him to receive his blessings! It is more than probable that Nancy Hanks, the mother of Lincoln, had heard him in her youth. Adams and Jefferson must have known him, and Jackson must have seen in him a flaming spirit as unconquerable as his own. How many temples of worship dot our landscape; how many institutions of learning, some of them rejoicing in the name Wesleyan, all trace the inspiration of their existence to the sacrifice and service of this lone circuit rider. He is entitled to rank as one of the builders of our nation.
On the foundation of a religious civilization which he sought to build, our country has enjoyed greater blessing of liberty and prosperity than was ever before the lot of man. These cannot continue if we neglect the work which he did. We cannot depend on the government to do the work of religion. I do not see how anyone could recount the story of this early Bishop without feeling a renewed faith in our own country.3185
On Thursday morning, October 16, 1924, to a delegation of foreign-born citizens at the White House, President Calvin Coolidge stated:
I suppose that if Methuselah were at this time an American in his period of middle life, and should drop in on our little party, he would regard us all as upstarts. …
It is my own belief that in this land of freedom new arrivals should especially keep up their devotion to religion. Disregarding the need of the individual for a religious life, I feel that there is a more urgent necessity, based on the requirements of good citizenship and the maintenance of our institutions, for devotion to religion in America than anywhere else in the world. One of the greatest dangers that beset those coming to this country, especially those of the younger generation, is that they will fall away from the religion of their fathers, and never become active to any other faith.3186
On October 26, 1924, in an address delivered via telephone from the White House to the Federation of Jewish Philanthropic Societies of New York City, assembled at the Hotel Pennsylvania, President Calvin Coolidge stated:
Your Federation for the Support of Jewish Philanthropic Societies in New York is the central financial agency, I am told, for no less than ninety-one various philanthropies, which receive annual support aggregating $7,000,000. Among them are hospitals, orphanages, a great relief society, a loaning organization, a home for Aged and Infirm. The Young Men’s Hebrew Association and the Young Women’s Hebrew Association do social and educational work of the greatest value. Especial attention is devoted indeed to educational effort for which technical schools are maintained. That is, of course, precisely what we should expect from a great Jewish organization; for the Jews are always among the first to appreciate and to utilize educational opportunities. …
The Jewish people have always and everywhere been particularly devoted to the ideal of taking care of their own. This Federation is one of the monuments to their independence and self-reliance. They have sought to protect and preserve that wonderful inheritance of tradition, culture, literature and religion, which has placed the world under so many obligations to them. …
I want you to know that I feel you are making good citizens, that you are strengthening the Government, that you are demonstrating the supremacy of the spiritual life and helping establish the Kingdom of God on earth.3187
On November 3, 1924, in a Radio Address from the White House to the Nation, President Calvin Coolidge stated:
I therefore urge upon all the voters of our country, without reference to party, that they assemble tomorrow at their respective voting places in the exercise of the high office of American citizenship, that they approach the ballot box in the spirit that they would approach a sacrament, and there, disregarding all appeals to passion and prejudice, dedicating themselves truly and wholly to the welfare of their country, they make their choice of public officers solely in the light of their own conscience.
When an election is so held, when a choice is so made, it results in the real rule of the people, it warrants and sustains the belief that the voice of the people is the voice of God.3188
In 1924, after the death of his son, Calvin Coolidge, Jr., President Calvin Coolidge wrote an inscription to a friend who had also lost a son:
To my friend, in recollection of his son, and my son, who, by the grace of God, have the privilege of being boys throughout eternity.3189
On January 17, 1925, to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Washington, D.C., President Calvin Coolidge stated:
The relationship between governments and the press has always been recognized as a matter of large importance. Wherever despotism abounds, the sources of public information are the first to be brought under its control. …
An absolutism could never rest upon anything save a perverted and distorted view of human relationships and upon false standards set up and maintained by force. It has always found it necessary to attempt to dominate the entire field of education and instruction. It has thrived on ignorance. While it has sought to train the minds of a few, it has been largely with the purpose of attempting to give them a superior facility for misleading the many.
Men have been educated under absolutism, not that they might bear witness to the truth, but that they might be the more ingenious advocates and defenders of false standards and hollow pretenses. This has always been the method of privilege, the method of class and caste, the method of master and slave. …
It is all the more necessary under a system of free government that the people should be enlightened, that they should be correctly informed, than it is under an absolute government that they should be ignorant. …
The press, which had before been made an instrument for concealing or perverting the facts, must be made an instrument for their true representation. … The public press under an autocracy is necessarily a true agency of propaganda. …
Propaganda seeks to present a part of the facts, to distort their relations, and to force conclusions which could not be drawn from a complete and candid survey of all the facts. It has been observed that propaganda seeks to close the mind. …
The great difficulty in combating unfair propaganda, or even in recognizing it, arises from the fact that at the present time we confront so many new and technical problems that it is an enormous task to keep ourselves accurately informed concerning them.
In this respect, you gentlemen of the press face the same perplexities that are encountered by legislators and government administrators. Whoever deals with current public questions is compelled to rely greatly upon the information and judgements of experts and specialists.
Unfortunately, not all experts are to be trusted as entirely disinterested. Not all specialists are completely without guile. In our increasing dependence on specialized authority, we tend to become easier victims for the propagandists, and need to cultivate sedulously the habit of the open mind.
No doubt every generation feels that its problems are the most intricate and baffling that have ever been presented for solution. But with all recognition of the disposition to exaggerate in this respect, I think we can fairly say that our times in all their social and economic aspects are more complex than any past period. We need to keep our minds free from prejudice and bias. Of education, and of real information we cannot get too much. But of propaganda, which is tainted or perverted information, we cannot have too little. …
Editorial policy and news policy must not be influenced by business consideration; business policies must not be affected by editorial programs. … Some people feel concerned about the commercialism of the press. They note that great newspapers are great business enterprises earning large profits and controlled by men of wealth. … that in such control the press may tend to support the private interests of those who own the papers, rather than the general interest of the whole people. …
Newspapers are controlled by men of wealth. … Our journalism, merely because it is prosperous, in likely to betray us. … There always have been, and probably always will be some who will feel that their own temporary interests may be furthered by betraying the interest of others. … Self-interest will always place sufficient emphasis on the business side of newspapers.3190
On Wednesday, March 4, 1925, in his Inaugural Address, President Calvin Coolidge proclaimed:
If we wish to continue to be distinctly American, we must continue to make that term comprehensive enough to embrace the legitimate desires of a civilized and enlightened people determined in all their relations to pursue a conscientious and religious life. …
We cannot barter away our independence or our sovereignty. … Unless the desire for peace be cherished there, unless this fundamental and only natural source of brotherly love be cultivated to its highest degree, all artificial efforts will be in vain.
Peace will come when there is realization that only under a reign of law, based on righteousness and supported by the religious conviction of the brotherhood of man, can there be any hope of a complete and satisfying life. Parchment will fail, the sword will fail, it is only the spiritual nature of man that can be triumphant. …
All owners of property are charged with a service. These rights and duties have been revealed, through the conscience of society, to have a Divine sanction. …
Under a despotism the law may be imposed upon the subject. He has no voice in its making, no influence in its administration, it does not represent him. …
Here stands our country, an example of tranquillity at home, a patron of tranquillity abroad. Here stands its Government, aware of its might but obedient to its conscience. Here it will continue to stand, seeking peace and prosperity, solicitous for the welfare of the wage earner, promoting enterprise, developing waterways and natural resources. Attentive to the intuitive counsel of womanhood, encouraging education, desiring the advancement of religion, supporting the cause of justice and honor among the nations.
America seeks no empires built on blood and force. No ambition, no temptation, lures her to thought of foreign dominions. The legions which she sends forth are armed, not with the sword, but with the Cross. The higher state to which she seeks the allegiance of all mankind is not of human, but Divine origin. She cherishes no purpose save to merit the favor of Almighty God.3191
On Sunday, May 3, 1925, at the laying to the cornerstone of the Jewish Community Center, Washington, D.C., President Calvin Coolidge stated:
We have gathered this afternoon to lay with appropriate ceremony and solemnity the cornerstone of a temple. The splendid structure which is to rise here will be the home of the Jewish Community Center of Washington. …
About this institution will be organized, and from it will be radiated, the influences of those civic works in which the genius of the Jewish people has always found such eloquent expression. …
This year 1925 is a year of national anniversaries, States, cities, and towns throughout all the older parts of the country will be celebrating their varied parts in the historic events which a century and a half ago marked the beginning of the American Revolution. … It will remind us, as a nation, of how a common spiritual inspiration was potent to bring and mold and weld together into a national unity, the many and scattered colonial communities that had been planted along the Atlantic seaboard. …
There were well-nigh as many divergencies of religious faith as there were of origin, politics and geography. … From its beginning, the new continent had seemed destined to be the home of religious tolerance. Those who claimed the right of individual choice for themselves finally had to grant it to others. Beyond that—and this was one of the factors which I think weighed heaviest on the side of unity—the Bible was the one work of literature that was common to all of them.
The Scriptures were read and studied everywhere. There are many testimonies that their teachings became the most important intellectual and spiritual force for unification. I remember to have read somewhere, I think in the writings of the historian Lecky, the observation the “Hebraic mortar cemented the foundations of American democracy.” Lecky had in mind this very influence of the Bible in drawing together the feelings and sympathies of the widely scattered communities. All the way from New Hampshire to Georgia, they found a common ground of faith and reliance in the Scriptural writings.
In those days books were few, and even those of a secular character were largely the product of a scholarship which used the Scriptures as the model and standard of social interpretation. It was to this, of course, that Lecky referred. He gauged correctly a force too often underestimated and his observation was profoundly wise. It suggested, in a way which none of us can fail to understand, the debt which the young American nation owed to the sacred writing that the Hebrew people gave to the world.
This biblical influence was strikingly impressive in all the New England colonies, and only less so in the others. In the Connecticut Code of 1650, the Mosaic model is adopted. The magistrates were authorized to administer justice “according to the laws here established, and, for want of them, according to the word of God.” In the New Haven Code of 1655, there were 79 topical statutes for the Government, half of which contained references to the Old Testament.
The founders of the New Haven, John Davenport and Theophilus Eaton, were expert Hebrew scholars. The extent to which they leaned upon the moral and administrative system, laid down by the Hebrew lawgivers, was responsible for their conviction that the Hebrew language and literature ought to be made as familiar as possible to all the people. So it was that John Davenport arranged that in the first public school in New Haven the Hebrew language should be taught. The preachers of those days, saturated in the religion and literature of the Hebrew prophets, were leaders, teachers, moral mentors and even political philosophers for their flocks.
A people raised under such leadership, given to much study and contemplation of the Scriptures, inevitably became more familiar with the great figures of Hebrew history, with Joshua, Samuel, Moses, Joseph, David, Solomon, Gideon, Elisha—than they were with the stories of their own ancestors as recorded in the pages of profane history.
The sturdy old divines of those day found the Bible a chief source of illumination for their arguments in support of the patriot cause. They knew the Book. They were profoundly familiar with it, and eminently capable in the exposition of all its justifications for rebellion. To them, the record of the exodus from Egypt was indeed an inspired precedent. They knew what arguments from holy writ would most powerfully influence their people. It required no great stretch of logical processes to demonstrate that the children of Israel, making bricks without straw in Egypt, had their modern counterpart in the people of the colonies, enduring the imposition of taxation without representation!
And the Jews themselves, of whom a considerable number were already scattered throughout the colonies, were true to the teachings of their own prophets. The Jewish faith is predominantly the faith of liberty. From the beginning to the conflict between the colonies and the mother country, they were overwhelmingly on the side of the rising revolution. You will recognize them when I read the names of some among the merchants who unhesitatingly signed the non-importation resolution of 1765: Isaac Moses, Benjamin Levy, Samson Levy, David Franks, Joseph Jacobs, Hayman Levy, Jr., Mathias Bush, Michael Gratz, Bernard Gratz, Isaac Franks, Moses Mordecai, Benjamin Jacobs, Samuel Lyon and Manuel Mordecai Noah.
Not only did the colonial Jews join early and enthusiastically in the non-intercourse program, but when the time came for raising and sustaining an army, they were ready to serve wherever they could be most useful. There is a romance in the story of Haym Solomon, Polish Jew financier of the Revolution. Born in Poland, he was made prisoner by the British forces in New York, and when he escaped set up in business in Philadelphia. He negotiated for Robert Morris all the loans raised in France and Holland, pledged his personal faith and fortune for enormous amounts, and personally advanced large sums to such men as James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Baron Steuben, General St. Clair, and many other patriot leaders who testified that without his aid they could not have carried on in the cause.
A considerable number of Jews became officers in the continental forces. The records show at least four Jews who served as Lieutenant Colonels, three and Majors and certainly six, probably more, as Captains. Major Benjamin Nones has been referred to as the Jewish Lafayette. He came from France in 1777, enlisted in the continentals as a volunteer private, served on the staffs of both Washington and Lafayette, and later was attached to the command of Baron De Kalb, in which were a number of Jews. When De Kalb was fatally wounded in the thickest of the fighting at the Battle of Camden, the three officers who were at hand to bear him from the field were Major Nones, Captain De La Motta, and Captain Jacob De Leon, all of the Jews.
It is interesting to know that at the time of the Revolution there was a larger Jewish element in the southern colonies than would have been found there at most later periods; and these Jews of the Carolinas and Georgia were ardent supporters of the Revolution. One corps of infantry raised in Charleston, South Carolina, was composed preponderantly of Jews, and they gave a splendid account of themselves in the fighting in that section.
It is easy to understand why a people with the historic background of the Jew should thus overwhelmingly and unhesitatingly have allied themselves with the cause of freedom. From earliest colonial times, America has been a new land of promise to this long-persecuted race.
The Jewish community of the United States is not only the second most numerous in the world, but in respect of its old world origins it is probably the most cosmopolitan. … The 14,000 Jews who live in this Capital City have passed, under the favoring auspices of American institutions, beyond the need for any other benevolence. They are planting here a home for community service. … Here will be the seat of organized influence for the preservation and dissemination of all that is best and most useful, of all that is leading and enlightening, in the culture and philosophy of this “peculiar people” who have so greatly given to the advancement of humanity.
Our country has done much for the Jews who have come here to accept its citizenship and assume their share of its responsibilities in the world. … Every inheritance of the Jewish people, every teaching of their secular history and religious experience, draws them powerfully to the side of charity, liberty and progress. … .This capacity for adaptation in detail, without sacrifice of essentials, has been one of the special lessons which the marvelous history of the Jewish people has taught. …
In advancing years, as those who come and go shall gaze upon this civic and social landmark, may it be a constant reminder of the inspiring service that has been rendered to civilization by men and women of the Jewish faith. May they recall the long array of those who have been eminent in statecraft, in science, in literature, in art, in the professions, in business, in finance, in philanthropy and in the spiritual life of the world. May they pause long enough to contemplate that the patriots who laid the foundation of this Republic drew their faith from the Bible. May they give due credit to the people among whom the Holy Scriptures came into being. And as they ponder the assertion that “Hebraic mortar cemented the foundations of American democracy,” they cannot escape the conclusion that if American democracy is to remain the greatest hope of humanity, it must continue abundantly in the faith of the Bible.3192
On May 30, 1925, at the Memorial Day Ceremony, Arlington National Cemetery, Washington, D.C., President Calvin Coolidge stated:
The leaders of the Nation have been supported by a deep devotion to the essentials of freedom. At the bottom of the national character has been a strain of religious earnestness and moral determination which has never failed to give color and quality to our institutions.3193
On June 3, 1925, before the graduating class of the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland, President Calvin Coolidge stated:
Not long ago I heard a Navy chaplain refer to the sage advice of the Apostle to put first things first. … If we are to heed the admonition to put first things first, a very little deliberation would reveal to us that one of the main essentials which lies at the very beginning of civilization is that of security.
It is only when people can feel that their lives and the property which their industry has produced to-day will continue to be safe on the morrow that there can be that stability of value and that economic progress on which human development has always rested. …
Independence of the mind and of the body, the works of charity and humanity, a broader culture, all mark a material and spiritual advance which follows in the progress of this development. …
Unless we lay our course in accordance with this principle, the great power for good in the world with which we have been intrusted by a Divine Providence will be turned to a power for evil.3194
On June 8, 1925, before the Norwegian Centennial Celebration, at the Minnesota State Fair Grounds, President Calvin Coolidge stated:
The generations of the earth treasure the rude hut that sheltered the infancy of Abraham Lincoln, seek out the birthplace of Shakespeare, and give the uninviting soil of Palestine the title of the Holy Land, all because certain obscure happenings in those places produced those who left a broad mark upon the future course of humanity. …
If one were seeking proof of a basic brotherhood among all races of men, if one were to challenge the riddle of Babel in support of aspirations for a unity capable of assuring peace to the nations, in such an inquiry I suppose no better testimony could be taken than the experience of this country. Out of the confusion of tongues, the conflict of traditions, the variations of historical setting, the vast differences in talents and tastes there has been evolved a spiritual union accompanied by a range of capacity and genius which marks this Nation for a preeminent destiny. …
America proved its truly national unity. It demonstrated conclusively that there is a spiritual quality shared by all races and conditions of men which is their universal heritage and common nature. …
The voyage of the little sloop Restaurationen, which in 1825 brought the first organized party of Norwegian immigrants to this country. … created a sensation among those inured to the sea. It was claimed that she was the smallest vessel that had ever made the trans-Atlantic crossing. The New York authorities threatened to deny her the privileges of the port on the ground that she carried too many passengers and too much cargo. She was ultimately released, apparently through the influence of the Society of Friends. Most of her passengers seemed to have been members of a Norwegian religious community intimately related to the Quakers, and it appears that one of their reasons for coming to this country was that they had not enjoyed entire liberty of religious opinion at home. …
Almost without money or supplies, the little company of immigrants were taken in charge by the New York Quakers who raised funds to send them to Kendall, Orleans County, New York. …
Man seems to have been from his beginnings the most migratory of animals. His earlier movements appear to have had their chief motive in adventure and the desire to find the regions where existence was most comfortable. … Some very early migrations were doubtless due to climate or other physical conditions. Later on political, social, religious, and economic reasons caused the movements. … The children of Israel migrated into Egypt to escape from famine. They left Egypt to escape from bondage and to recover their religious liberty. …
When I consider the marvelous results it has accomplished I can not but believe that it was inspired by a Higher Power. Here is something vital, firm, and abiding, which I can only describe as a great reality. … Our America with all that it represents of hope in the world is now and will be what you make it. Its institutions of religious liberty, of education and economic opportunity, of constitutional rights, of the integrity of the law, are the most precious possessions of the human race. … They come from the consecration of the father, the love of the mother, and the devotion of the children. They are the product of that honest, earnest, and tireless effort that goes into the rearing of the family altar and the making of the home of our country.3195
On July 3, 1925, at the celebration of the 150th anniversary of George Washington taking command of the Continental Army, Cambridge, Massachusetts, President Calvin Coolidge stated:
No occasion could be conceived more worthy, more truly and comprehensively American, than that which is chosen to commemorate this divinely appointed captain. The contemplation of his life and work will forever strengthen our faith in our county and in our country’s God. …
We shall hardly find one who in his own day achieved so much as Washington and left his work so firmly established that posterity, generation after generation, can only increase its tributes to his ability, his wisdom, his patriotism, and his rounded perfection in the character of a Christian citizen. …
We have come here because this day a century and half ago, in this place, Washington formally assumed command of the armies of the Colonies. His feet trod this soil. Here was his headquarters. Here was his place of worship. …
One in his position of leadership, authority, and independent fortune, living as a Virginia gentleman, might easily enough have felt that the troubles of the Massachusetts Bay Colony had small concern for him. High Churchman, conformist in most things, enjoying excellent repute in England and with English officials in America, his influence might logically enough have been thrown to the royalists.
Yet, as early as the spring of 1769, he wrote declaring, “Our lordly masters in Great Britain will be satisfied with nothing less than the deprivation of American freedom … ” And, inquiring what could be done to avert such a calamity, he added, “That no man should scruple or hesitate a moment to use arms in defense of so valuable a blessings is clearly my opinion. Yet, arms, I would beg to add, should be the last resource.”3196
On October 6, 1925, at the American Legion Convention, Omaha, Nebraska, President Calvin Coolidge stated:
If our country secured any benefit, if it met with any gain, it must have been in moral and spiritual values. It must be not because it made its fortune but because it found its soul. Others may disagree with me, but in spite of some incidental and trifling difficulties it is my firm opinion that America has come out of the war with a stronger determination to live by the rule of righteousness and pursue the course of truth and justice. …
It is not easy to conceive of anything that would be more unfortunate in a community based on the ideals of which Americans boast than any considerable development of intolerance as regards religion. To a great extent this country owes its beginnings to the determination of our hardy ancestors to maintain complete freedom in religion. Instead of a state church we have decreed that every citizen shall be free to follow the dictates of his own conscience as to his religious beliefs and affiliations. …
We shall have to look beyond the outward manifestations of race and creed. Divine Providence has not bestowed upon any race a monopoly of patriotism and character. …
We can not place our main reliance upon material forces. We must reaffirm and reinforce our ancient faith in truth and justice, in charitableness and tolerance. We must make our supreme commitment to the everlasting spiritual forces of life. We must mobilize the conscience of mankind.
Your gatherings are a living testimony of a determination to support these principles. It would be impossible to come into this presence, which is a symbol of more than 300 years of our advancing civilization, which represents to such a degree the hope of our consecrated living and the prayers of our hallowed dead, without a firmer conviction of the deep and abiding purpose of our country to live in accordance with this vision. …
We shall also be made aware of the still small voice arising from the fireside of every devoted home in the land seeking the things which are eternal. To such a country, to such a cause, the American Legion has dedicated itself.3197
On October 28, 1925, at the dedication of a monument to General Jose de San Martin given by Argentina to the United States, President Calvin Coolidge stated:
To the United States it has been a matter of pride and gratification that their ancestors were providentially chosen to initiate the movement for independence in the New World. …
The discovery of America to the world was providentially fixed in a time of spiritual and intellectual awakening. It was an epoch of new lights and new aspirations, of mighty clashes between the traditions of the old and the spirit of the new time. The New World proved a fruitful field for testing out of new ideas of man’s relations both to his Creator and to his fellow man. …
You can not expect that these new institutions will have adequate opportunity for development unless they grow in the light of human independence and spiritual liberty. …
As some distinguished military critics have described Washington’s campaign of Trenton and Princeton as a military exploit of unparalleled brilliancy, so in the annals of the southern wars of independence others describe San Martin’s passage of the Andes with his little patriot army as a more notable achievement than the crossings of the Alps by either Hannibal or Napoleon.3198
On November 19, 1925, before the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York, New York City, President Calvin Coolidge stated:
When government comes unduly under the influence of business, the tendency is to develop an administration which closes the door of opportunity; becomes narrow and selfish in its outlook, and results in an oligarchy. When government enters the field of business with its great resources, it has a tendency to extravagance and inefficiency, but, having the power to crush all competitors, likewise closes the door of opportunity and results in monopoly. …
America has disbanded her huge armies and reduced her powerful fleet, but in attempting to deal justly through sharing of our financial resources we have done more for peace than we could have done with all our military power.3199
On December 7, 1925, at the annual convention of the American Farm Bureau Federation, Chicago, Illinois, President Calvin Coolidge stated:
It is our farm life that is particularly representative of this standard of American citizenship. … It affects not only the material prosperity but reaches beyond that into the moral and spiritual life of America. …
In the old days there were some professional men and there were the clergy who exercised in a high degree an inspired leadership not only in the religious and educational, but to a marked extent in the political, life of their day. But the people were of the farm. …
Wherever there is a farm, there is the greatest opportunity for a true home. It was the loyalty and perseverance bred of the home life of the American farmer that supported Washington through seven years of conflict and provided the necessary self-restraint to translate his victory into the abiding institutions of freedom. It is the spirit of those homes that our country must forever cherish. …
Always in theory, and usually in practice, all land belonged to the Crown. It was the custom for the ruler to bestow upon his retainers not only landed estates, but to provide in addition the serfs who were attached to the soil, in order that they might supply the necessary labor for its productivity. The workers in the field were held in servitude, while their masters usually lived many miles from the land, sometimes in their castles, sometimes in towns and cities. This was the established condition all over the Old World. …
But America never fully came under this blighting influence. It was a different type of individual that formed the great bulk of our early settlers. They gained their livelihood by cultivating the soil, but there was no large and overmastering city or industrial population. The expansion of our country down to almost as late as 1880 was an agricultural expansion. A large majority of our inhabitants were engaged in that occupation. They not only tilled the soil, but they owned it. …
It is this life that the Nation is so solicitous to maintain and improve. … It has been the life of freedom and independence, of religious convictions and abiding character.3200
On April 19, 1926, before the Daughters of the American Revolution, President Calvin Coolidge stated:
By their abiding faith they inspired and encouraged the men; by their sacrifice they performed their part in the struggle out of which came our country. We read of the flaming plea of Hanna Arnett, which she made on a dreary day in December, 1776, when Lord Cornwallis, victorious at Fort Lee, held a strategic position in New Jersey. A group of Revolutionists, weary and discouraged, were discussing the advisability of giving up the struggle. Casting aside the proprieties which forbade a woman to interfere in the counsels of men, Hannah Arnett proclaimed her faith. In eloquent words, which at once shamed and stung to action, she convinced her husband and his companions that righteousness must win.
Who has not heard of Molly Pitcher, whose heroic services at the Battle of Monmouth helped the sorely tried army of George Washington! We have been told of the unselfish devotion of the women who gave their own warm garments to fashion clothing for the suffering Continental Army during that bitter winter at Valley Forge. The burdens of the war were not all borne by the men. …
Our success and prosperity have brought with them their own perils. It can not be denied that in the splendor and glamour of our life the moral sense is sometimes blinded. … Since 1880 there has been a marked increase in the tendency to remain away from the polls on the part of those entitled to vote. … Election day in the olden times was generally considered more or less sacred—one to be devoted to the discharge of the obligations of citizenship.
In the intervening years customs and habits have changed. Opportunities for recreation have increased. Our entire mode of life has been recast through invention, the great growth of our cities, and for other reasons. Undoubtedly, this has been responsible in no small measure for the widespread disregard on the part of so many on our citizens of the privilege and duty of voting. …
If the people fail to vote, a government will be developed which is not their government. … The whole system of American Government rests on the ballot box. Unless citizens perform their duties there, such a system of government is doomed to failure.3201
On May 1, 1926, before the National Council of the Boy Scouts of America, Washington, D.C., President Calvin Coolidge stated:
Development and character are not passive accomplishments. They can only be secured by action. … One of the greatest efforts in that direction is represented by the Boy Scout movement. It was founded in the United States in 1910. In September of that year the organization was given a great impetus by the visit of the man whom we are delighted to honor this evening, Sir Robert Baden-Powell. This distinguished British general is now known all over the world as the originator of this idea.
The first annual meeting was held in the East Room of the White House in February, 1911, when President Taft made an address, and each of his successors has been pleased to serve as the honorary president of the association. It has been dignified by a Federal charter granted by the Congress to the Boy Scouts of America in 1916, and thereby ranks in the popular mind with the only two other organizations which have been similarly honored, the Red Cross and the American Legion. …
If every boy in the United States between the ages of twelve and seventeen could be placed under the wholesome influences of the scout program and should live up to the scout oath and rules, we would hear fewer pessimistic words as to the future of our Nation.
The boy on becoming a scout binds himself on his honor to do his best, as the oath reads:
1. To do my duty to God and my country, and to obey the scout law.
2. To help other people at all times.
3. To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.
The twelve articles in these scout laws are not prohibitions, but obligations; affirmative rules of conduct. Members must promise to be trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. How comprehensive this list! What a formula for developing moral and spiritual character! … It would be a perfect world if everyone exemplified these virtues in daily life.
Acting under these principles, remarkable progress has been made. Since 1910, 3,000,000 boys in the United States have been scouts—one out of every seven eligible. Who can estimate the physical, mental, and spiritual force that would have been added to our national life during this period if the other six also had been scouts? …
Such service is service to God and to country. … Because the principles of this movement are affirmative, I believe they are sound. The boy may not be merely passive in his allegiance to righteousness. He must be an active force in his home, his church and his community. … Its fundamental object is to use modern environment in character building and training for citizenship.
Character is what a person is; it represents the aggregate of distinctive mental and moral qualities belonging to an individual or a race. Good character means a mental and moral fiber of high order, one which may be woven into the fabric of the community and State, going to make a great nation—great in the broadest meaning of that word.
The organization of the scouts is particularly suitable for a representative democracy such as ours, where our institutions rest on the theory of self-government and public functions are exercised through delegated authority. The boys are taught to practice the basic virtues and principles of right living and to act for themselves in according such virtues and principles. They learn self-direction and self-control.
The organization is not intended to take the place of the home or religion, but to supplement and cooperate with those important factors, in our national life. We hear much talk of the decline in the influence of religion, of the loosening of the home ties, of the lack of discipline—all tending to break down reverence and respect for the laws of God and man.
Such thought as I have been able to give to the subject and such observations as have come within my experience have convinced me that there is no substitute for the influences of the home and of religion. These take hold of the innermost nature of the individual and play a very dominant part in the formation of personality and character. This most necessary and most valuable service has to be performed by the parents, or it is not performed at all. It is the root of the family life. Nothing else can ever take its place. These duties can be performed by foster parents with partial success, but any attempt on the part of the Government to function in these directions breaks down almost entirely. The Boy Scout movement can never be a success as a substitute but only as an ally of strict parental control and family life under religious influences. Parents can not shift their responsibility. If they fail to exercise proper control, nobody else can do it for them.
The last item in the scout “duodecalogue” is impressive. It declares that a scout shall be reverent. “He is reverent toward God,” the paragraph reads. “He is faithful in his religious duties, and respects the convictions of others in matters of custom and religion.” In the past I have declared my conviction that our Government rests upon religion; that religion is the source from which we derive our reverence for truth and justice, for equality and liberty, and for the rights of mankind. So wisely and liberally is the Boy Scout movement designed that the various religious denominations have found it a most helpful agency in arousing and maintaining interest in the work of their various societies. This has helped to emphasize in the minds of youth the importance of teaching our boys to respect the religious opinions and social customs of others. …
There is a very real value in implanting this idea in our boys. When they take up the burdens of manhood they may be led to return to the simple life for periods of physical, mental, and spiritual refreshment and reinvigoration. …
We know too well what fortune overtakes those who attempt to live in opposition to these standards. They become at once rightfully and truly branded as outlaws. However much they may boast of their freedom from all restraints and their disregard of all conventionalities of society, they are immediately the recognized foes of their brethren. Their short existence is lived under greater and greater restrictions, in terror of the law, in flight from arrest, or in imprisonment. Instead of gaining freedom, they become slaves of their own evil doing, realizing the scriptural assertion that they who sin are the servants of sin and that the wages of sin is death.
The Boy Scout movement has been instituted in order that the youth, instead of falling under the domination of habits and actions that lead only to destruction, may come under the discipline of a training that leads to eternal life.3202
On May 15, 1926, at the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia, President Calvin Coolidge stated:
In March, 1773, the Virginia Assembly unanimously voted to establish a system of intercolonial committees of correspondence. As great an authority as John Fiske calls this “the most decided step toward revolution that had yet been taken by the Americans.” This original suggestion appears to have come from the eminent divine Jonathan Mayhew, who suggested to James Otis that the communion of churches furnished an excellent example for a communion of Colonies. …
On the 6th of May, 1776, that there assembled at Williamsburg a convention which was to become historic. It was presided over by Edmund Pendleton, who had opposed the stamp act resolutions of Patrick Henry, but eleven years and wanton cruelty of the royal governor had made a great change in the public opinion of the Colony, and he had become a loyal supporter of independence.
He now joined with Patrick Henry and Meriwether Smith in drafting resolutions to be proposed by Thomas Nelson, which refer to our country as “America,” and after setting out the grievances that it had endured and “appealing to the Searcher of Hearts for the sincerity of former declarations” and a discussion in which Mason and Madison, to be known to future fame, took part, on the 15th of May, 1776, it was “Resolved unanimously, that the delegates appointed to represent this Colony in General Congress be instructed to propose to that respectable body to declare the United Colonies free and independent States. …
But there is another element of recent development. Direct primaries and direct elections bring to bear upon the political fortunes of public officials the greatly disproportionate influence of organized minorities. Artificial propaganda, paid agitators, selfish interests, all impinge upon members of legislative bodies to force them to represent special elements rather than the great body of their constituency. When they are successful minority rule is established, and the result is an extravagance on the part of the Government which is ruinous to the people and a multiplicity of regulations and restrictions for the conduct of all kinds of necessary business, which becomes little less than oppressive. …
No method of procedure has ever been devised by which liberty could be divorced from local self-government. No plan of centralization has ever been adopted which did not result in bureaucracy, tyranny, inflexibility, reaction, and decline. Of all forms of government, those administered by bureaus are about the least satisfactory to an enlightened and progressive people. Being irresponsible they become autocratic, and being autocratic they resist all development.
Unless bureaucracy is constantly resisted it breaks down representative government and overwhelms democracy. It is the one element in our institutions that sets up the pretense of having authority over everybody and being responsible to nobody.
While we ought to glory in the Union and remember that it is the source from which the States derive their chief title to fame, we must also recognize that the national administration is not and can not be adjusted to the needs of local government. It is too far away to be informed of local needs, too inaccessible to be responsive to local conditions. The States should not be induced by coercion or by favor to surrender the management of their own affairs.
The Federal Government ought to resist the tendency to be loaded up with duties which the States should perform. It does not follow that because something ought to be done the National Government ought to do it. … I want to see the policy adopted by the States of discharging their public functions so faithfully that instead of an extension on the part of the Federal Government there can be a contraction. …
The principles of government have the same need to be fortified, reinforced, and supported that characterize the principles of religion. After enumerating many of the spiritual ideals, the Scriptures enjoin us to “think on these things.” If we are to maintain the ideals of government, it is likewise necessary that we “think on these things.”3203
On May 29, 1926, at the dedication of the statue of John Ericsson, Washington, D.C., President Calvin Coolidge stated:
We assemble here today to do reverence to the memory of a great son of Sweden … John Ericsson. … We honor him most of all because we can truly say he was a great American. …
Sweden is a country where existence has not been easy. Lying up under the Arctic Circle, its climate is tinged with frost, its land rugged, its soil yields grudgingly to the husbandman, so that down through the centuries its people have been inured to hardship. …
At an early period they were converted to the Christian faith and their natural independence made them early responsive to the Protestant Reformation, in which their most famous king, Gustavus Adolphus, “The Lion of the North,” was one of the most militant figures in the movement for a greater religious freedom. It was under this great leader that plans were first matured to establish a colony in this country for purpose of trade and in order that the native, as was set out in the charter, might be “made more civilized and taught morality and the Christian religion … besides the further propagation of the Holy Gospel.”
While it was under a new charter that a Swedish colony finally reached the Delaware in 1638, they never lost sight of their original purpose, but among other requests kept calling on the mother country for ministers, Bibles, and Psalm books. Forty-one clergymen came to America prior to 1779. One of the historians of this early settlement asserts that these colonists laid the basis for a religious structure, built the first flour mills, the first ships, the first brickyards, and made the first roads, while they introduced horticulture and scientific forestry into this Delaware region. … The building of nearly 2,000 churches and nearly as many schools stands to their credit. …
Always as soon as they have provided shelter for themselves they have turned to build places of religious worship and founded institutions of higher learning with the original purpose of training clergymen and teachers. …
Though few in number during the period of our Revolutionary War, they supported the Colonial cause and it has been said that King Gustavus III, writing to a friend, declared “If I were not King I would proceed to America and offer my sword of behalf of the brave Colonies.” …
Such is the background and greatness of the Swedish people in the country of their origin and in America that gave to the world John Ericsson. They have been characterized by that courage which is the foundation of industry and thrift, that endurance which is the foundation of military achievement, that devotion to the home which is the foundation of patriotism, and that reverence for religion which is the foundation of moral power. …
Born is the Province of Vermland in 1803, at the age of seventeen he entered the army. But the urge for a wider opportunity for his talents possessed him, and at twenty three he went to England. He entered an engineering firm and always preferred to be considered an engineer rather than an inventor. The developments of power interested him, and within a year his fertile mind had begun improvements of far-reaching extent upon boilers and engines.
With that boundless energy which was to characterize him through life he soon designed the fire engine and developed the screw propeller for marine use. It was this new invention which brought him to America in 1839. His hopes to interest the Federal Government in this method of navigation were not immediately realized, but he began constructing propeller boats on the Great Lakes and started a fleet on the canal between Baltimore and Philadelphia, which caused the railroad to cut its fare in two, and where the boat service stills keeps the name of the Ericsson Line.
He was soon building a small steam-boat, called the Princeton, which was the first man-of-war. equipped with a screw propeller and with machinery below the water line out of reach of shot. In 1876 he described this vessel as “the foundation of the present steam marine of the whole world. She revolutionized naval vessels.” President Tyler and his Cabinet made a trial trip down the Potomac on this boat. …
This great mechanical genius wrote to President Lincoln offering to “construct a vessel for the destruction of the hostile fleet in Norfolk and for scouring southern rivers and inlets of all craft protected by southern batteries.” He further declared: “Attachment to the Union alone impels me to offer my services at this frightful crisis—my life if need be—in the great cause which Providence has caused you to defend.” …
The Confederate ironclad Virginia, reconstructed from the Merrimac, began a work of destruction among 16 Federal vessels, carrying 298 guns. … When the ironclad Merrimac went out on the morning of March 9 to complete its work of destruction it was at once surprised and challenged by this new and extraordinary naval innovation. Speaking before the Naval Institute in 1876, Admiral Luce said that the Monitor “exhibited in a singular manner the old Norse element in the American Navy.” He pointed out that it was Ericsson “who built her,” Dahlgren “who armed her,” and Worden “who fought her.” And well might he add: “How the ancient Skalds would have struck their wild harps in hearing such names in heroic verse. How they would have written them in immortal tunes.
After a battle lasting four hours in which the Monitor suffered no material damage, except from one shell which hit the observation opening in the pilot house, temporarily blinding Lieutenant Worden, the commanding officer, the Merrimac, later reported to have been badly crippled, withdrew, never to venture out again to meet her conqueror. … The London Times stated that the day before this momentous battle England had 149 first-class warships. The day after she had but two, and they were iron-plated only amidships. Naval warfare had been revolutionized. …
[Ericsson] had a particular horror of slavery. In 1882 he wrote to a United States Senator: “Nothing could induce me to accept any remuneration from the United States for the Monitor once presented by me as my contribution to the glorious Union cause, the triumph of which freed 4,000,000 bondsmen.”3204
On May 31, 1926, Memorial Day, at Arlington Cemetery, President Calvin Coolidge stated:
While this day was legally established many years ago as an occasion to be devoted to the memory of our country’s dead, it can not but each year refresh the sentiment of respect and honor in which our country holds their living comrades. …
We all subscribe to the principle of religious liberty and toleration and equal rights. … Yet in times of stress and public agitation we have too great a tendency to disregard this policy and indulge in race hatred, religious intolerance, and disregard of equal rights. …
Our condition today is not merely that of one people under one flag, but of a thoroughly united people who have seen bitterness and enmity which once threatened to sever them pass away, and a spirit of kindness and good will reign over them all. …
While many other nations and many localities within our country are struggling with a burden of increased debts and rising taxes, which makes them seek for new sources from which by further taxation they can secure new revenues, we have made large progress toward paying off our national debt, have greatly reduced our national taxes, and been able to relieve the people by abandoning altogether many sources of national revenue.3205
On July 5, 1926, at a celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Philadelphia, President Calvin Coolidge stated:
At the end of 150 years the four corners of the earth unite in coming to Philadelphia as to a holy shrine in grateful acknowledgement of a service so great, which a few inspired men here rendered to humanity, that it is still the preeminent support of free government throughout the world. … It is little wonder that people at home and abroad consider Independence Hall as hallowed ground and revere the Liberty Bell as a sacred relic. That pile of bricks and mortar, that mass of metal, might appear to the uninstructed as only the outgrown meeting place and the shattered bell of a former time, useless now because of more modern conveniences, but to those who know they have become consecrated by the use which men have made them. They have long been identified with a great cause. They are the framework of a spiritual event. The world looks upon them, because of their associations of one hundred and fifty years ago, as it looks upon the Holy Land because of what took place there nineteen hundred years ago. Through use for a righteous purpose they have become sanctified. …
The Declaration of Independence represented the movement of a people. It was not, of course, a movement from the top. Revolutions do not come from that direction. … The American Revolution represented the informed and mature convictions of a great mass of independent, liberty-loving, God-fearing people who knew their rights, and possessed the courage to dare to maintain them. …
Adopted after long discussion and as the result of the duly authorized expression of the preponderance of public opinion, it did not partake of dark intrigue or hidden conspiracy. … Three very definite propositions were set out in its preamble regarding the nature of mankind and therefore of government. These were the doctrine that all men are created equal, that they are endowed with certain inalienable rights, and that therefore the source of just powers of government must be derived from the consent of the governed. …
The principles of our declaration had been under discussion in the Colonies for nearly two generations. … In the assertion of the Rev. Thomas Hooker of Connecticut as early as 1638, when he said in a sermon before the General Court that:
“The foundation of authority is laid in the free consent of the people.
“The choice of public magistrates belongs unto the people by God’s own allowance.”
This doctrine found wide acceptance among the nonconformist clergy who later made up the Congregational Church. The great apostle of this movement was the Rev. John Wise, of Massachusetts. He was one of the leaders of the revolt against the royal governor Andros in 1687, for which he suffered imprisonment. … His works were reprinted in 1772 and have been declared to have been nothing less than a textbook of liberty for our Revolutionary father. …
That these ideas were prevalent in Virginia is further revealed by the Declaration of Rights, which was prepared by George Mason and presented to the general assembly on May 27, 1776. This document asserted popular sovereignty and inherent natural rights, but confined the doctrine of equality to the assertion that “All men are created equally free and independent.”
It can scarcely be imagined that Jefferson was unacquainted with what had been done in his own Commonwealth of Virginia when he took up the task of drafting the Declaration of Independence. But these thoughts can very largely be traced back to what John Wise was writing in 1710. He said, “Every man must be acknowledged equal to every man.” Again, “The end of all good government is to cultivate humanity and promote the happiness of all and the good of every man in all his rights, his life, liberty, estate, honor, and so forth … ”
And again, “For as they have a power every man in his natural state, so upon combination they can and do bequeath this power to others and settle it according as their united discretion shall determine.” And still again, “Democracy is Christ’s government in church and state.” Here was the doctrine of equality, popular sovereignty, and the substance of the theory of inalienable rights clearly asserted by Wise at the opening of the eighteenth century, just as we have the principle of the consent of the governed stated by Hooker as early as 1638.
When we take all these circumstances into consideration, it is but natural that the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence should open with a reference to Nature’s God and should close in the final paragraphs with an appeal to the Supreme Judge of the world and an assertion of a firm reliance on Divine Providence. Coming from these sources, having as it did this background, it is no wonder that Samuel Adams could say, “The people seem to recognize this revolution as though it were a decree promulgated from heaven.”
No one can examine this record and escape the conclusion that in the great outline of its principles the Declaration was the result of the religious teachings of the preceding period. The profound philosophy which Jonathan Edwards applied to theology, the popular preaching of George Whitefield, had aroused the thought and stirred the people of the Colonies in preparation for this great event. …
When we come to a contemplation of the immediate conception of the principles of human relationship which went into the Declaration of Independence we are not required to extend our search beyond our own shores. They are found in the texts, the sermons, and the writings of the early colonial clergy who were earnestly undertaking to instruct their congregations in the great mystery of how to live. They preached equality because they believed in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. They justified freedom by the text that we are all created in the divine image, all partakers of the divine spirit. …
Placing every man on a plane where he acknowledged no superiors, where no one possessed any right to rule over him, he must inevitably choose his own rulers through a system of self-government. This was their theory of democracy. In those days such doctrines would scarcely have been permitted to flourish and spread in any other country. This was the purpose which the fathers cherished. In order that they might have freedom to express these thoughts and opportunity to put them into action, whole congregations with their pastors had migrated to the colonies. These great truths were in the air that our people breathed. …
In its main feature the Declaration of Independence is a great spiritual document. It is a declaration not of material but of spiritual conceptions. Equality, liberty, popular sovereignty, the rights of man—these are the elements which we can see and touch. They are ideals. They have their source and their roots in the religious convictions. They belong to the unseen world. Unless the faith of the American in these religious convictions is to endure, the principles of our Declaration will perish. We can not continue to enjoy the result if we neglect and abandon the cause. …
If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. …
The rights of the individual are held sacred and protected by constitutional guaranties, which even the Government itself is bound not to violate. If there is any one thing among us that is established beyond question, it is self-government—the right of the people to rule. If there is any failure in respect to any of these principles, it is because there is a failure on the part of individuals to observe them. We hold that the duly authorized expression of the will of the people has a divine sanction. But even in that we come back to the theory of John Wise that “Democracy is Christ’s government … ” The ultimate sanction of law rests on the righteous authority of the Almighty. …
Ours is a government of the people. It represents their will. Its officers sometimes go astray, but that is not a reason for criticizing the principles of our institutions. The real heart of the American Government depends upon the heart of the people. It is from that source that we must look for all genuine reform. It is to that cause that we must ascribe all our results. …
It was in the contemplation of these truths that the fathers made their declaration and adopted their Constitution. It was to establish a free government, which must not be permitted to degenerate into the unrestrained authority of a mere majority or the unbridled weight of a mere influential few. They undertook to balance these interests against each other and provide the three separate independent branches, the executive, the legislative, and the judicial departments of the Government, with check against each other. …
Before we can understand their conclusions we must go back and review the course which they followed. We must think the thoughts which they thought. Their intellectual life centered around the meeting-house. They were intent upon religious worship. While there were always among them men of deep learning, and later those who had comparatively large possessions, the mind of the people was not so much engrossed in how much they knew, or how much they had, as in how they were going to live.
While scantily provided with other literature, there was a wide acquaintance with the Scriptures. Over a period as great that which measures the existence of our independence they were subject to this discipline not only in their religious life and educational training, but also in their political thought. They were a people who came under the influence of a great spiritual development and acquired a great moral power. …
We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create the Declaration. Our Declaration created them. The things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to that, all our material prosperity, overwhelming though it may appear, will turn to a barren sceptre in our grasp.
If we are to maintain the great heritage which has been bequeathed to us, we must be like-minded as the fathers who created it. We must not sink into a pagan materialism. We must cultivate the reverence which they had for the things that are holy. We must follow the spiritual and moral leadership which they showed. We must keep replenished, that they may glow with a more compelling flame, the altar fires before which they worshipped.3206
In December of 1928, President Calvin Coolidge gave his last Annual Message to the Congress of the United States:
Our country has been provided with the resources with which it can enlarge its intellectual, moral, and spiritual life. The issue is in the hands of the people. Our faith in man and God is the justification for the belief in our continuing success.3207
President Calvin Coolidge, who was a member of the Congregationalist Church, expressed:
[It is my] conviction that our Government rests on religion; that religion is the source from which we derive our reverence for truth and justice, for equality and liberty, and for the rights of mankind.3208
If the bonds of our religious convictions become loosened the guaranties which have been erected for the protection of life and liberty and all the vast body of rights that lies between, are gone.3209
America was born in a revival of religion.3210
Bennard, George (1873–1958), wrote the hymn The Old Rugged Cross, 1913, which included:
I will cling to the old rugged cross,
And exchange it some day for a crown.3211