Have faith in Massachusetts Part 1

Have faith in Ma.s.sachusetts.

by Calvin Coolidge.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

There are certain fundamental principles of sound community life which cannot be stated too emphatically or too often. Few public men of to-day have shown a finer combination of right feeling and clear thinking about these principles, with a gift for the pithy expression of them, than has Governor Calvin Coolidge. It was an accurate phrase that President Meiklejohn used when, in conferring the degree of Doctor of Laws on him at Amherst College last June, he complimented him on teaching the lesson of "adequate brevity."

His speeches and messages abound in evidences of this gift, but in the main the speeches are not easily accessible. It has seemed to some of Governor Coolidge's admirers, as it has to the publishers of this little volume, that a real public service might be rendered by making a careful selection from the best of the speeches and issuing them in an attractive and convenient form. With his permission this has been done, and it is hoped that many readers will welcome the book in this time of special need of inspiring and steadying influences.

It is a time when all men should realize that, in the words of Governor Coolidge himself, "Laws must rest on the eternal foundations of righteousness"; that "Industry, thrift, character are not conferred by act or resolve. Government cannot relieve from toil." It is a time when we must "have faith in Ma.s.sachusetts. We need a broader, firmer, deeper faith in the people,--a faith that men desire to do right, that the Commonwealth is founded upon a righteousness which will endure."

THE EDITORS

_Boston, September_, 1919

I

TO THE STATE SENATE ON BEING ELECTED ITS PRESIDENT

JANUARY 7, 1914

Honorable Senators:--I thank you--with grat.i.tude for the high honor given, with appreciation for the solemn obligations a.s.sumed--I thank you.

This Commonwealth is one. We are all members of one body. The welfare of the weakest and the welfare of the most powerful are inseparably bound together. Industry cannot flourish if labor languish. Transportation cannot prosper if manufactures decline. The general welfare cannot be provided for in any one act, but it is well to remember that the benefit of one is the benefit of all, and the neglect of one is the neglect of all. The suspension of one man's dividends is the suspension of another man's pay envelope.

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. That state is most fortunate in its form of government which has the aptest instruments for the discovery of laws. The latest, most modern, and nearest perfect system that statesmanship has devised is representative government. Its weakness is the weakness of us imperfect human beings who administer it. Its strength is that even such administration secures to the people more blessings than any other system ever produced. No nation has discarded it and retained liberty. Representative government must be preserved.

Courts are established, not to determine the popularity of a cause, but to adjudicate and enforce rights. No litigant should be required to submit his case to the hazard and expense of a political campaign. No judge should be required to seek or receive political rewards. The courts of Ma.s.sachusetts are known and honored wherever men love justice.

Let their glory suffer no diminution at our hands. The electorate and judiciary cannot combine. A hearing means a hearing. When the trial of causes goes outside the court-room, Anglo-Saxon const.i.tutional government ends.

The people cannot look to legislation generally for success. Industry, thrift, character, are not conferred by act or resolve. Government cannot relieve from toil. It can provide no subst.i.tute for the rewards of service. It can, of course, care for the defective and recognize distinguished merit. The normal must care for themselves.

Self-government means self-support.

Man is born into the universe with a personality that is his own. He has a right that is founded upon the const.i.tution of the universe to have property that is his own. Ultimately, property rights and personal rights are the same thing. The one cannot be preserved if the other be violated. Each man is ent.i.tled to his rights and the rewards of his service be they never so large or never so small.

History reveals no civilized people among whom there were not a highly educated cla.s.s, and large aggregations of wealth, represented usually by the clergy and the n.o.bility. Inspiration has always come from above.

Diffusion of learning has come down from the university to the common school--the kindergarten is last. No one would now expect to aid the common school by abolishing higher education.

It may be that the diffusion of wealth works in an a.n.a.logous way. As the little red schoolhouse is builded in the college, it may be that the fostering and protection of large aggregations of wealth are the only foundation on which to build the prosperity of the whole people. Large profits mean large pay rolls. But profits must be the result of service performed. In no land are there so many and such large aggregations of wealth as here; in no land do they perform larger service; in no land will the work of a day bring so large a reward in material and spiritual welfare.

Have faith in Ma.s.sachusetts. In some unimportant detail some other States may surpa.s.s her, but in the general results, there is no place on earth where the people secure, in a larger measure, the blessings of organized government, and nowhere can those functions more properly be termed self-government.

Do the day's work. If it be to protect the rights of the weak, whoever objects, do it. If it be to help a powerful corporation better to serve the people, whatever the opposition, do that. Expect to be called a stand-patter, but don't be a stand-patter. Expect to be called a demagogue, but don't be a demagogue. Don't hesitate to be as revolutionary as science. Don't hesitate to be as reactionary as the multiplication table. Don't expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong. Don't hurry to legislate. Give administration a chance to catch up with legislation.

We need a broader, firmer, deeper faith in the people--a faith that men desire to do right, that the Commonwealth is founded upon a righteousness which will endure, a reconstructed faith that the final approval of the people is given not to demagogues, slavishly pandering to their selfishness, merchandising with the clamor of the hour, but to statesmen, ministering to their welfare, representing their deep, silent, abiding convictions.

Statutes must appeal to more than material welfare. Wages won't satisfy, be they never so large. Nor houses; nor lands; nor coupons, though they fall thick as the leaves of autumn. 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. Let the laws of Ma.s.sachusetts proclaim to her humblest citizen, performing the most menial task, the recognition of his manhood, the recognition that all men are peers, the humblest with the most exalted, the recognition that all work is glorified. Such is the path to equality before the law. Such is the foundation of liberty under the law. Such is the sublime revelation of man's relation to man--Democracy.

II

AMHERST COLLEGE ALUMNI a.s.sOCIATION, BOSTON

FEBRUARY 4, 1916

We live in an age which questions everything. The past generation was one of religious criticism. This is one of commercial criticism.

We have seen the development of great industries. It has been represented that some of these have not been free from blame. In this development some men have seemed to prosper beyond the measure of their service, while others have appeared to be bound to toil beyond their strength for less than a decent livelihood.

As a result of criticising these conditions there has grown up a too well-developed public opinion along two lines; one, that the men engaged in great affairs are selfish and greedy and not to be trusted, that business activity is not moral and the whole system is to be condemned; and the other, that employment, that work, is a curse to man, and that working hours ought to be as short as possible or in some way abolished.

After criticism, our religious faith emerged clearer and stronger and freed from doubt. So will our business relations emerge, purified but justified.

The evidence of evolution and the facts of history tell us of the progress and development of man through various steps and ages, known by various names. We learn of the stone age, the bronze, and the iron age.

We can see the different steps in the growth of the forms of government; how anarchy was put down by the strong arm of the despot, of the growth of aristocracy, of limited monarchies and of parliaments, and finally democracy.

But in all these changes man took but one step at a time. Where we can trace history, no race ever stepped directly from the stone age to the iron age and no nation ever pa.s.sed directly from depotism to democracy.

Each advance has been made only when a previous stage was approaching perfection, even to conditions which are now sometimes lost arts.

We have reached the age of invention, of commerce, of great industrial enterprise. It is often referred to as selfish and materialistic.

Our economic system has been attacked from above and from below. But the short answer lies in the teachings of history. The hope of a Watt or an Edison lay in the men who chipped flint to perfection. The seed of democracy lay in a perfected despotism. The hope of to-morrow lies in the development of the instruments of to-day. The prospect of advance lies in maintaining those conditions which have stimulated invention and industry and commerce. The only road to a more progressive age lies in perfecting the instrumentalities of this age. The only hope for peace lies in the perfection of the arts of war.

"We build the ladder by which we rise ...

And we mount to the summit round by round."

All growth depends upon activity. Life is manifest only by action. There is no development physically or intellectually without effort, and effort means work. Work is not a curse, it is the prerogative of intelligence, the only means to manhood, and the measure of civilization. Savages do not work. The growth of a sentiment that despises work is an appeal from civilization to barbarism.

I would not be understood as making a sweeping criticism of current legislation along these lines. I, too, rejoice that an awakened conscience has outlawed commercial standards that were false or low and that an awakened humanity has decreed that the working and living condition of our citizens must be worthy of true manhood and true womanhood.

I agree that the measure of success is not merchandise but character.

But I do criticise those sentiments, held in all too respectable quarters, that our economic system is fundamentally wrong, that commerce is only selfishness, and that our citizens, holding the hope of all that America means, are living in industrial slavery. I appeal to Amherst men to reiterate and sustain the Amherst doctrine, that the man who builds a factory builds a temple, that the man who works there worships there, and to each is due, not scorn and blame, but reverence and praise.

III

BROCKTON CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

APRIL 11, 1916