“The whole country, from the national government down, had been living on borrowed money. Pay day had come, and it was found our capital had been much impaired. In an address at Philadelphia I contended that the only sure method of relieving this distress was for the country to follow the advice of Benjamin Franklin and begin to work and save. Our productive capacity is sufficient to maintain us all in a state of prosperity if we give sufficient attention to thrift and industry. Within a year the country had adopted that course, which has brought an era of great plenty…

“In these two years [1921-1923] I witnessed the gigantic task of demobilizing a war government and restoring it to a peace-time basis. I also came in contact with many of the important people of the United States and foreign countries. All talent eventually arrives at Washington…” — Calvin Coolidge, Autobiography

Colonel Edmund “Will” Starling, native of Hopkinsville, Kentucky. Photo credit: Hoptown Chronicle.

Jennifer P. Brown of the Hoptown Chronicle has written a great piece highlighting the largely forgotten life and legacy of Colonel Edmund William Starling, native of Hopkinsville, Kentucky, who served in five administrations, protected six Presidents, and served faithfully in the White House Detail of the Secret Service from 1914 to 1943. TR was the first President he met and helped protect but he would go on to defend Presidents Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, and FDR. It was with the Wilsons and Coolidges, though, that he retained particularly close friendships.

It is a timely reminder that without the letters he sent home and the diary entries he kept, his memoirs, Starling of the White House — one of the best life stories of one so connected from those years — brought together with the wonderful talents of Thomas Sugrue, would not have been possible. The Colonel’s remarkable life deserves renewed appreciation and we are happy to see the folks of Hopkinsville feature a distinguished fellow townsman. Stay tuned as more will be forthcoming in the Salient Cal Project to remember and honor the man on the Detail Chiefs Moran and Jervis once called “Starlight.”

To the Boy Scouts, Lone Scouts, and 4-H Clubs

The White House, December 21, 1925

“As you are representatives of the organizations of the boys and girls of America who live in or are interested in the open country, with which I come into an official relation, I want to extend to all of you a Christmas greeting. It seems very short time ago that I was a boy and in the midst of farm life myself, helping to do the chores at the barn, working in the corn and potato fields, getting in the hay and in the springtime doing what most of you have never had the opportunity to see–making maple sugar.

     “I did not have any chance to profit by joining a Scout organization or a 4-H Club. That chance ought to be a great help to the boys and girls of the present day. It brings them into association with each other in a way where they learn to think not only of themselves, but of other people. It teaches them to be unselfish. It trains them to obedience and gives them self-control.

     “A very wise man gave us this motto–‘Do the duty that lies nearest you.’ It seems to be me that this is the plan of all your organizations. We need never fear that we shall not be called on to do great things in the future if we do small things well at present. It is the boys and girls who work hard at home that are sure to make the best record when they go away from home. It is the boys and girls who stand well up toward the head of the class at school that will be called on to hold the important places in political and business life when they go out into the world.

     “There is a time for play as well as a time for work. But even in play it is possible to cultivate the art of well-doing. Games are useful to train the eye, the hand and the muscles, and bring the body more completely under the control of the mind. When this is done, instead of being a waste of time, play becomes a means of education.

     “It is in all these ways that boys and girls are learning to be men and women, to be respectful to their parents, to be patriotic to their country and to be reverent to God. It is because of the great chance that American boys and girls have in all these directions that to them, more than to the youth of any other country, there should be a merry Christmas.

CALVIN COOLIDGE

24 Dec 1927, Washington, DC, USA — 12/24/1927-Washington, DC- Photo shows the President and Mrs. Calvin Coolidge (Mrs. Grace Coolidge), standing in front of the national Christmas tree, lit by the President, officially starting the Christmas holidays in the nation. — Image by © Bettmann/CORBIS