On Being Calvin Coolidge

October 31, 2013December 26, 2013 / gouverneurmorris / Leave a comment

While recent years have produced some fine performances of Lincoln, Washington, Adams, Jefferson and other “big names” in Presidential history, the thirtieth President and his beloved First Lady are not without a list of impersonators. Here Herbert A. Turner of Cohasset, deliberately emulating President Coolidge, campaigns through Quincy during the 1924 campaign.

For the President’s security, a body double was used from time to time. This man hailed from Springfield, Massachusetts.

Of course, Grace had a body double also. This woman was from Boston.

Then there were those, like actor Lucien Littlefield, who were persuaded to pose as the President after a fellow cast member observed the resemblance to Coolidge while they filmed Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1927. Littlefield gladly obliged to be Calvin Coolidge for the photographer.

Since then, Ian Wolfe took up the role of President Coolidge in The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell in 1955. Wolfe had portrayed a Chief Executive eight years before in California (1947), playing James K. Polk.

In 1979, a TV mini-series called Backstairs at the White House depicted life through eight administrations, including a brief look at the Coolidge era. Ed Flanders played the President and Lee Grant Mrs. Coolidge.

Last, but by far, the best portrayal of being Calvin Coolidge belongs to Jim Cooke. Having studied “Silent Cal” so devotedly over four decades, he proves how worthy his subject is for a renewed appreciation, perhaps now more than ever. He is not merely “another impersonator” but is a teacher, a dear friend and a good man. There is no quantifying the good influence he continues to exemplify for me and many others, through keeping the flame lit for so undeservedly an underrated President. His “More Than Two Words” presentation of a not-so-silent Cal restores a “lost” and worthy chapter of our history from an institutionalized neglect in far too many history classes. Please visit his fascinating page at http://www.crankyyankees.net.

Congratulations to the Red Sox!

October 31, 2013October 31, 2013 / gouverneurmorris / Leave a comment

Grace Coolidge, the “First Lady of Baseball,” as designated by the Washington Senators and Boston Red Sox in 1955, would be especially proud of her team and their victory in the World Series.

The first pennant brought home to Boston since 1918, the Red Sox could claim no more devoted fan than Calvin Coolidge’s wife. She truly loved the game but her husband also contributed to the thrill of it all in his own way.

After the 1924 Series ended, President Coolidge offered this inspiring tribute to America’s game,

“To those who devote themselves to this enterprise in a professional way and by throwing their whole being into it raise it to the level of an art, the country owes a debt of gratitude. They furnish us with amusement, with an outside interest, oftentimes in the open air, that quickens the step, refreshes the mind, rejuvenates and restores us. We pitch with the pitchers, we go to bat with the batters, and make a home run with the hard hitters. The training, the energy, the intelligence which these men lavish upon their profession ought to be an inspiration for a like effort in every walk of life. They are great band, these armored knights of the bat and ball. They are held up to a high standard of honor on the field, which they have seldom betrayed. While baseball remains our national game our national tastes will be on a higher level and our national ideals on a firmer foundation” (Foundations of the Republic, “Good Sportsmanship,” October 1, 1924, pp.131-2).

Boston fans cheer the Red Sox victory in 1915.

On Government in Business

October 30, 2013October 30, 2013 / gouverneurmorris / 2 Comments

The White House, over the past couple days, has gone in a direction that vividly illustrates why government does not belong in business. Beginning first with Valerie Jarrett’s tweet, then Jay Carney’s press conference, followed by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’ testimony before Congress and now President Obama’s speech at Fanueil Hall in Boston, all attribute the broken promises and failures of “Obamacare” to those irresponsible insurance companies who took their products out of the market. It is not the fault of government for first getting involved in business, they claim. The utter disingenuousness of this claim vindicates what former President Coolidge wrote in 1931 as he observed the same phenomenon by a Washington incessantly intervening in commerce,

“Another proposal to be made in the name of relieving unemployment will undoubtedly be an extension of government ownership. Healthy and normal employment consists of serving another for his personal satisfaction or profit. As the government is not personal, its proper business employment would be for those serving for its profit…For the wage earners to benefit in time of general depression it would be necessary to assume that government ownership would prevent fluctuations in the business in which it engages…” As the post office makes clear even now, that never happens. Conditions are anything but stable after government takes over.

“It is assumed,” Coolidge continued, “that payment of wages will go on without work, that is not employment, but relief. Then no one should work.” Any system relying on the work of a few to support the many cannot, nor ought, to succeed. It places an immoral burden on the individual to work that others may reap the rewards of his labor. In another era, that was not known as progress, nor even liberalism, but it was nothing less than slavery.

Finally, the insightful Mr. Coolidge comes to the heart of the issue: “The government has never shown much aptitude for real business.” The challenge of providing a competitive good or service, operating from a profit, making payroll, acquiring the best equipment, cutting expenses and hiring qualified people have never been concerns to government. It can ignore all of these components and still levy more taxes to cover its waste and pass stricter regulations to change the “rules of the game,” at its convenience.

Instead, Coolidge reminds his readers, “The most free, progressive and satisfactory method ever devised for the equitable distribution of property is to permit the people to care for themselves by conducting their own business. They have more wisdom than any government.”

The actions of insurance companies have not occurred in a vacuum. They directly correlate to what the White House has forced on everyone, outside the favored few. The administration’s latest string of ignorant invectives against business underscores yet again how little government understands about operating a company in the market and how much they are counting on our cluelessness when it comes to its oppressive involvement in the economy.