On Political Parties

September 22, 2013September 22, 2013 / gouverneurmorris / Leave a comment

The campaign song, “Keep Cool with Coolidge,” underscored the steady leadership and calm reliability of the 1924 Republican team and its Party platform.

As the train wrecks converge of “Obamacare” and the Federal Government’s refusal to account for its criminally reckless spending habits — except by the “band-aid” of Continuing Resolutions and debt limit increases, Americans are more and more proving to be the last constituency with any political representation in Washington. This is a grave disservice, especially to those who backed the party platforms for “tough budgetary decisions across the board” (for Democrats) and passing a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution that would make it so “future Congresses cannot balance the budget by raising taxes” (for Republicans).

Realizing, as the Supreme Court confirmed last summer, “Obamacare” is an overt tax, at least for everyone who does not reside in the District of Columbia. The costs about to fall upon everyone across the Country, especially the poorest among us, are still multiplying as the contents of its regulations begin implementation in less than two weeks.

This is why political parties, as expressions of the sovereign people’s will, serve an imperative purpose in our Republic. Ours is not a mere democracy of simple majorities deciding every political question for us. Ours is a representative Republic, setting two fundamentally opposing agendas before the people who express their support or disapproval through the ballot box. These agendas are implemented by political parties and outlined in platform promises every four years.

Calvin Coolidge recognized the obligation of that party system to carry out the pledges and policies for which each Party stands, declaring, “…[I]t is necessary under our form of government to have political parties. Unless some one is a partisan, no one can be an independent. The Congress is organized entirely in accordance with party policy. The parties appeal to the voters in behalf of their platforms. The people make their choice on those issues. Unless those who are elected on the same party platform associate themselves together to carry out its provisions, the election becomes a mockery. The independent voter who has joined with others in placing a party nominee in office finds his efforts were all in vain, if the person he helps elect refuses or neglects to keep the platform pledges of his party…”

It is the reason why he did not immediately overturn the Cabinet or alter the policy direction started under Harding until the people voted again in 1924. Even then, he conscientiously upheld the Party platform, despite some in his own Party abandoning him for political convenience. For Coolidge, Party platforms were serious contracts between the voter and the candidate. The candidate is not empowered to break his promises when he gets to Washington. Facing unforeseen circumstances, the principles of the Party define the fixed channels and hazardous shoals wise leaders must navigate to accomplish the goals of one’s Party. The principles are not to be jettisoned when storms hit, they are the compass to reach harbor.

The House vote to defund “Obamacare” and the efforts by Senator Cruz in the Senate are simply attempts to keep the Republican Party honest about its own platform, carrying out the political promises made to those who supported the issues of repeal and balanced budgets last year. Republicans who want to help implement the Democrat Party’s platform are in the wrong business. It is no different in any other area of life: If everyone agrees, something is seriously missing. Ours is not a one-party system for that reason.

Real legislators, contrary to the wishes of David Brooks, are those who furnish principled opposition to the other Party’s agenda in order that the expressed will of the other side has a voice in the direction the Country is to take. Our system is not a pure democracy of mere majorities settling every political question, be it Democrat or Republican.

Senators like Cruz are doing what much of the GOP is too timid to do — uphold Party principles. Republicans were not supported last year to rubber stamp the other Party’s agenda, they were sent to be Republicans, a Party in opposition to the agenda of Obama and his small majority in the Senate. Republicans, like Cruz, are expected to represent those who chose them to obstruct and defeat the Democrat Party’s persistent commitment to spending, avoid actual budgeting and expedite the outright conquest of one-sixth of America’s economy by government control of our health care.

This means Republicans are obligated and expected to act in unison, especially on so fundamental an issue as now stands before the Senate — the defunding of “Obamacare” linked with the long overdue halt on government spending. Coolidge affirmed this as a principle for any party which intends to remain effective for long,

[i]f there is to be responsible party government, the party label must be something more than a mere device for securing office. Unless those who are elected under the same party designation are willing to assume sufficient responsibility and exhibit sufficient loyalty and coherence, so that they can cooperate with each other in the support of the broad general principles of the party platform, the election is merely a mockery, no decision is made at the polls, and there is no representation of the popular will. Common honesty and good faith with the people who support a party at the polls require that party, when it enters office, to assume the control of that portion of the Government to which it has been elected. Any other course is bad faith and a violation of the party pledges.

By “Ding” Darling November 14, 1924

The Democrat Party, conveniently ignoring the “tough budget decisions” it promised last year are not winning issues, they are silencing any effective opposition through fear and intimidation, counting on our ignorance to blame Republicans for others’ actions. Instead of joining Democrats in this evasion of who they are and what they really believe, Republicans need to be boldly and unashamedly Republican. Instead, the “experts” are urging Republicans to just stop being Republicans and conform to a one-party system so that the White House can achieve Utopia for us all.

Coolidge knew better. He knew that, “[s]ince its very outset, it has been found necessary to conduct our Government by means of political parties. That system would not have survived from generation to generation if it had not been fundamentally sound and provided the best instrumentalities for the most complete expression of the popular will.” Neither party perfectly represents, nor can it, the popular will in everything. Opposing parties serve as an indispensable check upon political power (whichever Party is in office), continually reminding both sides that principles (not holding government powers) matter most and no majority however strong can defy the people’s will indefinitely.

It serves a continual reminder that parties are not empty vessels to be shattered and remade on the whim of politicians for the expediency of the moment but rather they are the instruments through which the people speak, enacting the principles we expect of our government. They are to stand for very specific and irreconcilable directions. To silence, deny and dispense with that difference is a betrayal of every last one of us, every time we vote and every choice we make, Republican, Democrat, or otherwise.

On Pancakes

September 15, 2013September 15, 2013 / gouverneurmorris / Leave a comment

President Coolidge’s pancake breakfasts were a trademark of his five and a half years in the White House. As a frequent visitor of the kitchen, he expected much from the housekeeper, Miss Riley. Her papers, kept by the Vermont Historical Society, are well worth renewed interest and study. The President, long the conscientious manager of household expenses, approached the White House no differently. He understood that the best results did not come from costly purchases or elaborate meals. Yet, as long-time Washington journalist Frances Parkinson Keyes notes, “the general atmosphere of state receptions was never more brilliant than when the Coolidges were in the White House” (Capital Kaleidoscope, p.132-3).

He never forgot he was just the man who lived temporarily on the third floor. Regarding himself no better than any of his fellow White House tenants, he once went to the housekeeper’s office to have a word with Miss Riley about the pancakes. Holding the dainty cake carefully between his thumb and index finger he wanted to know, “Why can’t I have big ones like they have down downstairs?” Ishbel Ross, in her book Grace Coolidge and Her Era, notes how the kitchen staff saved time by making their cakes as large as dinner plates (p.104). The President saw no reason why any exception should be made for him. He expected thrift not only in public money but also in the use of time.

This Calvin and Hobbes strip by Bill Watterson printed August 1986 humorously illustrates the attitude of economy when it comes to pancakes. It may have amused President Coolidge to see this duo’s attempt at thrift when it came to making breakfast.

On Reverence

September 9, 2013September 9, 2013 / gouverneurmorris / Leave a comment

Few individuals had as remote a likelihood of reaching the highest position of leadership in America as Calvin Coolidge. He enjoyed none of the privileged connections of Franklin D. Roosevelt. He had little of the physical charm of a John F. Kennedy or Ronald Reagan. He never led armies to battle like Washington or Eisenhower did. Yet he understood that leadership is more than these. Leadership is not held by birthright. Leadership is not being served, but serving, as Christ made clear. Coolidge looked back over his public life and recognized that it was not his own greatness on display, for “[a]ny man who has been placed in the White House can not feel that it is the result of his own exertions or his own merit. Some power outside and beyond him becomes manifest through him. As he contemplates the workings of his office, he comes to realize with an increasing sense of humility that he is but an instrument in the hands of God” (The Autobiography, p.235).

To acknowledge such a truth is not the indication of weakness. Weakness is the hubris of far too many of our sitting politicians who have come back to their states and districts with something more dangerous than deluded self-importance. Passionately voicing our will, be it in phone calls, emails, or now in town halls is a personal affront to their superior ability and judgment. Senator McCain’s recent town hall comments about “not needing to be lectured to” (be it by the very people he is supposed to represent) reiterates the arrogance of the Washington culture. What is missing in nearly every area of culture is reverence. It is mocked and assaulted, but it anchors us to the solid foundation of our first principles.

Coolidge’s abiding sense of humble perspective is more than a cynical political calculation, it was a genuine attitude of reverence for the source of our nation’s power, success and future — none other than God Himself. Speaking to the Holy Name Society gathered in Washington eighty-nine years ago this September, a grateful President recognized something greater than he or the almighty establishment was there. He said, “The foundation of our independence and our Government rests upon our 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…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…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.”