Who the Heck is Calvin Coolidge?

'No nation ever had an army large enough to guarantee it against attack in time of peace, or insure it victory in time of war.--Calvin Coolidge

'There is no dignity quite so impressive, and no independence quite so important, as living within your means.'--Calvin Coolidge

'I have found it advisable not to give too much heed to what people say when I am trying to accomplish something of consequence. Invariably they proclaim it can't be done. I deem that the very best time to make the effort.'--Calvin Coolidge

'When more and more people are thrown out of work, unemployment results.'--Calvin Coolidge

'Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery.'--Calvin Coolidge

'Little progress can be made by merely attempting to repress what is evil. Our great hope lies in developing what is good.'--Calvin Coolidge

'Politics is not an end, but a means. It is not a product, but a process. It is the art of government. Like other values it has its counterfeits. So much emphasis has been placed upon the false that the significance of the true has been obscured and politics has come to convey the meaning of crafty and cunning selfishness, instead of candid and sincere service.'--Calvin Coolidge

'Wherever despotism abounds, the sources of public information are the first to be brought under its control. Where ever the cause of liberty is making its way, one of its highest accomplishments is the guarantee of the freedom of the press.'--Calvin Coolidge

'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.'--Calvin Coolidge

'A display of reason rather than a threat of force should be the determining factor in the intercourse among nations.'--Calvin Coolidge

'One of the greatest dangers to peace lies in the economic pressure to which people find themselves subjected. One of the most practical things to be done in the world is to seek arrangements under which such pressure may be removed, so that opportunity may be renewed and hope may be revived.--Calvin Coolidge

'They criticize me for harping on the obvious; if all the folks in the United States would do the few simple things they know they ought to do, most of our big problems would take care of themselves.'--Calvin Coolidge

'The people cannot look to legislation generally for success. Industry, thrift, character, are not conferred by act or resolve.'--Calvin Coolidge

'It takes a great man to be a good listener.'--Calvin Coolidge

'It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones.'--Calvin Coolidge

'I sometimes wish that people would put a little more emphasis upon the observance of the law than they do upon its enforcement.'--Calvin Coolidge

'The only way I know to drive out evil from the country is by the constructive method of filling it with good.'--Calvin Coolidge

'There is only one form of political strategy in which I have any confidence, and that is to try to do the right thing and sometimes be able to succeed.'―Calvin Coolidge

'There is no force so democratic as the force of an ideal.'--Calvin Coolidge

'Wealth comes from industry and from the hard experience of human toil. To dissipate it in waste and extravagance is disloyalty to humanity.'--Calvin Coolidge

'About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. 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. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.'--Calvin Coolidge

'Teaching is one of the noblest of professions. It requires an adequate preparation and training, patience, devotion, and a deep sense of responsibility. Those who mold the human mind have wrought not for time, but for eternity.'--Calvin Coolidge

'Education should be the handmaid of citizenship.'--Calvin Coolidge

'We draw our Presidents from the people. It is a wholesome thing for them to return to the people. I came from them. I wish to be one of them again.'--Calvin Coolidge

'Governments do not make ideals, but ideals make governments.'--Calvin Coolidge

'Unfortunately the Federal Government has strayed far afield from its legitimate business. It has trespassed upon fields where there should be no trespass. If we could confine our Federal expenditures to the legitimate obligations and functions of the Federal Government, a material reduction would be apparent. But far more important than this would be its effect upon the fabric of our constitutional form of government, which tends to be gradually weakened and undermined by this encroachment.'—Calvin Coolidge

'Freedom is not only bought with a great price; it is maintained by unremitting effort.'—Calvin Coolidge

'Men do not make laws. They do but discover them. Laws must be justified by something more than the will of the majority. They must rest on the eternal foundation of righteousness.'—Calvin Coolidge

'We have got so many regulatory laws already that in general I feel that we would be just as well off if we didn’t have any more.'—Calvin Coolidge

'We need more of the Office Desk and less of the Show Window in politics. Let men in office substitute the midnight oil for the limelight.'--Calvin Coolidge

'Perhaps one of the most important accomplishments of my administration has been minding my own business.'--Calvin Coolidge

'American ideals do not require to be changed so much as they require to be understood and applied.'--Calvin Coolidge

'One with the law is a majority.'--Calvin Coolidge

'Under the attempt to perform the impossible there sets in a general disintegration. When legislation fails, those who look upon it as a sovereign remedy simply cry out for more legislation.

'A sound and wise statesmanship which recognizes and attempts to abide by its limitations will undoubtedly find itself displaced by that type of public official who promises much, talks much, legislates much, expends much, but accomplishes little.

'The deliberate, sound judgement of the country is likely to find it has been superseded by a popular whim.--Calvin Coolidge

'The government of the United States is a device for maintaining in perpetuity the rights of the people, with the ultimate extinction of all privileged classes.'--Calvin Coolidge

'I cannot repeat too often that America is a nation of idealists. That is the only motive to which they ever give any strong and lasting reaction.'--Calvin Coolidge

'These are the great charities of man on which civilization has rested. They cannot be administered by government. They come from the heart of the people or they do not come at all. They are for the redemption of man. There is no other. Civilization is always on trial, testing out, not the power of material resources, but whether there be, in the heart of the people, that virtue and character which come from charity sufficient to maintain progress. When that charity fails, civilization, though it "speak with the tongues of men and of angels," is "become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal." Its glory has departed. Its spirit has gone out. Its life is done.

'It is always easier to think of the part than of the whole. It is easier for men to remember that they work at the plough, the forge, the drill, the spindle, the bench, the desk, or that they follow transportation, the law, medicine, banking, or the ministry than it is to remember that into the life of every man there goes a part of all these activities, and many more, and that whatever his occupation, each is a part of the whole nation, and that the permanent prosperity of each will stand or fall with the permanent prosperity of the whole. No man is wise enough, no combination is strong enough, to transgress this law and long escape its penalties. All artificial privilege always has and always will destroy itself. The law of service is a law of action. No artifice can long circumvent it; no fraud can long cheat it. The United States Constitution is right. Titles to nobility cannot be granted or seized.'--Calvin Coolidge

'To the uncivilized all things are common. The measure of the strength and the enlightenment of a people is the measure of their appreciation of their great men, their devotion to their memory and the defense of the institutions which they have established. When the reverence of this nation for its great men dies, the glory of the nation will die with it.'--Calvin Coolidge

'The final solution of these problems will not be found in the interposition of government in all the affairs of the people, but rather in following the wisdom of Washington, who refused to exercise authority over the people, that the people might exercise authority over themselves. It is not in the laying on of force, but in the development of the public conscience that salvation lies.'--Calvin Coolidge

'The National Union which Washington and Hamilton had formed, which Marshall had declared, which Webster and Jackson and Clay had defended, Abraham Lincoln saved, and, saving, made free. He stands with those who believed in the righteous power and the just authority of a free government. He saw clearly that no free government could derive its just powers from anything less than a free people. What he saw, what he believed, when the time came he was ready to do. In all things he followed the truth to the end.'--Calvin Coolidge

'It was Lincoln who said of Grant, "I cannot spare this man. He fights." It was Grant himself who said, "Let us have peace."'--Calvin Coolidge

'This is the civilization which intelligence has created and which sacrifice has redeemed. We did not make it. It is our duty to serve it. Education ought to assess it at its true worth. It ought not to despise it but reverence it. If there be in education a better estimation of true values, it must be on the side of a great optimism. Under its examination human relationship stands forth as justified and sanctified. There is no place for the cynic or the pessimist. Who is he that can take no part in business because he believes it is selfish? Who is he that can take no part in religion because he believes it is imperfect? These institutions are the instruments by which an eternal purpose is working out the salvation of the world. It is not for us to regard them with disdain; it is for us to work with them, to dedicate ourselves to them, to justify our faith in them. It is a high calling in which to be even a doorkeeper is better than to rule over many multitudes of critics and philistines.

'The great service which education must perform is to confirm our faith in the world, establish our settled convictions, and maintain an open mind. The heritage of all the past is neither mean nor insignificant. It is a high estate. The work of the world is neither undignified nor degrading. It lacks neither character nor nobility. It is the means and measure of all real manhood. It is truly the creation and the redemption. Those who are worthily engaged in it are ministers of a holy cause, priests of a divine imposition.'--Calvin Coolidge

'So long as the National Government confined itself to providing those fundamentals of liberty, order, and justice for which it was primarily established, its course was reasonably clear and plain. No large amount of revenue was required. No great swarms of public employees were necessary. There was little clash of special interests or different sections, and what there was of this nature consisted not of petty details but of broad principles. There was time for the consideration of great questions of policy. There was an opportunity for mature deliberation. What the government undertook to do it could perform with a fair degree of accuracy and precision.

'But this has all been changed by embarking on a policy of a general exercise of police powers, by the public control of much private enterprise and private conduct, and of furnishing a public supply for much private need. Here are these enormous obligations which the people found they themselves were imperfectly discharging. They therefore undertook to lay their burdens on the National Government. Under this weight the former accuracy of administration breaks down. The government has not at its disposal a supply of ability, honesty, and character necessary for the solution of all these problems, or an executive capacity great enough for their perfect administration. Nor is it in the possession of a wisdom which enables it to take great enterprises and manage them with no ground for criticism. We cannot rid ourselves of the human element in our affairs by an act of legislation which places them under the jurisdiction of a public commission.'--Calvin Coolidge

'Along with the solemn assurance of freedom and equality goes the guarantee of the right of the individual to possess, enjoy, and control the dollar which he earns, and the principle that it shall not be taken away without due process of law. This necessarily goes with any theory of independence or of liberty, which would be only a mockery unless it secured to the individual the rewards of his own effort and industry.'--Calvin Coolidge

'There are two broad theories which have held sway in the world. One is the system of class and caste, the system of servitude of body and of mind, of a claim of divine right of the rulers by inheritance--a system where the individual is nothing and the government is all supreme. Under such a conception there can be no real freedom, no independent choice, and therefore no responsibility. The people look to the rulers. They do what they are told to do; they believe what they are told to believe. A bureaucracy will grow up under which will be rigid supervision of every activity, whether public or private. Paternalism will flourish in its worst form. Carried to its logical conclusion, such institutions might provide, for a short space of time, a machine of apparent great efficiency. But such a result could be but temporary. Either the life will go out of such a community, its initiative will vanish, and its society will fossilize into a state where there is neither hope nor progress, or undertaking to extend its dominion by aggression in accordance with its principle, it will be beset from without and overcome, or responding to an irresistible urge, its own subjects, casting down this artificial edifice, will assert their true nature in a declaration of their right to be free. Governments apparently stable and a seeming civilization have been reared on this theory, but always their end has been destruction.

'There is another system with which every American should be familiar, a system of equality and of freedom, not without the claim of divine right but recognizing that such right reposes in the people; a system where the individual is clothed with inalienable rights, the people are supreme, the government is their agent. Under this conception there is real freedom, real independence, and grave personal responsibility. The rulers look to the people. Their authority is the public will, ascertained in accordance with law. There will be the least possible interference with private affairs. Realizing that it is the people who support the government and not the government which supports the people, there will be no resort to paternalism. Under such institutions there may appear to be a lack of machine-like efficiency, but there will be no lack of character. Private initiative will be stimulated. Self-reliance and self-control will be increased. Society will remain a living organism sustaining hope and progress, content to extend its dominion not by conquest but by service. Such is the system of self-government, the orderly rule of the people, carrying within itself a remedy for its own disorders and the power of self-perpetuation. This is the ideal of America.

'No one would say that existence under these conditions is effortless. Independence is exceedingly exacting, self-control is arduous, self-government is difficult. Always there is the temptation that some element of these should be surrendered in exchange for security and ease. The appeal to passion and prejudice always lies in this direction. The proposal to despoil others of their possessions is a manifestation of the same spirit. This is the reason that to certain of our native-born, and more often to our foreign-born, the American Republic proves a disappointment. They thought that self-government meant the absence of all restraint, that independence meant living without work, and that freedom was the privilege of doing what they wanted to do. It has been a hard lesson for them to learn that self-government is still government, that the rule of the people does not mean absence of authority, that independence means self-support, and that complete freedom means complete obedience to law They are disappointed more than ever when they learn, as ever they do, that these are so, not because they have been decreed by some body of men, but that they are so by the very nature of things, and all the governments in the world are powerless to change them.'--Calvin Coolidge

'It is never the part of wisdom to minimize the power of evil, but it is far less the part of wisdom to forget the power of good.'--Calvin Coolidge

'One of the chief errors of the present day is that of relying too much on the government and too little on our own efforts and on the people themselves. This comes to pass by supposing that, when there is something which ought to be done, we can avoid all personal responsibility by a simple ordinance requiring that hereafter it shall be done by the government. We cannot divest ourselves of our burdens and responsibilities by any such easy method. Where the people themselves are the government, it needs no argument to demonstrate that what the people cannot do their government cannot do.'--Calvin Coolidge

'The country cannot be run on the promise of what it will do for the people. The only motive to which they will continue ready to respond is the opportunity to do something for themselves, to achieve their own greatness, to work out their own destiny.'--Calvin Coolidge

'We review the past not in order that we may return to it but that we may find in what direction, straight and clear, it points into the future.'--Calvin Coolidge

[The founding fathers] let slip their grasp upon conventionalities that they might lay a firmer hold upon realities.'--Calvin Coolidge

'It is necessary always to give a great deal of thought to liberty. There is no substitute for it. Nothing else is quite so effective. Unless it be preserved, there is little else that is worth while. In complete freedom of action the people oftentimes have a more effective remedy than can be supplied by government interference. Individual initiative, in the long run, is a firmer reliance than bureaucratic supervision. When the people work out their own economic and social destiny, they generally reach sound conclusions.'--Calvin Coolidge

'We do not need more government, we need more culture. We do not need more law, we need more religion. We do not need more of the things that are seen, we need more of the things that are unseen.'--Calvin Coolidge

'Although it is characteristic of Englishmen to have great love for a king so long as he respects the liberties of the people, yet the fact that they drove out one king, rebelled against two and executed three, shows clearly enough that there was always a strong idea of the divine right of the people as well as of kings.

'Precedents, then, are by no means wanting among Englishmen for the successful resistance of arbitrary despotism whenever it encroached upon their liberties.'--Calvin Coolidge

'Ultimately property rights and personal rights are the same thing.'--Calvin Coolidge

Now you've done it. You have given me more to read than I have the time for. I'll have to comment after I finally get some time off.

Silent Cal was notoriously impatient with chitchat. One time a young lady seated next to him at a dinner party told him, 'I have a bet with a friend that I can get you to say more than two words.'

He replied, 'You lose.'

I did know that. 

Band name idea: Cool Cal and the Silencers.

“We suffer most when the White House busts with ideas. With a World Saver preceding him (I count out Harding as a mere hallucination) and a Wonder Boy following him, he begins to seem, in retrospect, an extremely comfortable and even praiseworthy citizen. His failings are forgotten; the country remembers only the grateful fact that he let it alone. Well, there are worse epitaphs for a statesman. If the day ever comes when Jefferson’s warnings are heeded are last, and we reduce government to its simplest terms, it may very well happen that Cal’s bones now resting inconspicuously in the Vermont granite will come to be revered as those of a man who really did the nation some service”

H. L. Mencken