“Bless Their Honest Irish Hearts” by Charles C. Johnson

March 17, 2014March 20, 2014 / gouverneurmorris / Leave a comment

Before St. Patrick’s Day comes to a close, it is useful to consider the contributions of one individual, not native to the Emerald Isle but, despite being a Congregationalist Yankee, did much toward welcoming and assimilating Ireland’s immigrants to a place of respect and honor in one of the most Irish-heavy areas of America, the city of Boston. Rather than enhancing racial or religious bigotry by demanding instant results, Coolidge diffused tensions through mutual respect and patient education. Treating the Irish no differently than anyone else who came here to work hard, live honestly and become citizens, he taught what being American is all about, free of hyphens, committed to liberty, grounded in Christian forbearance and confident enough to hold faith in our founding ideals. In this way, he did more to establish the Irish (and immigrants of all countries) as full-fledged Americans than most recognize. Coolidge would experience an unbroken series of political victories as a result, thanks in part to these “Coolidge Democrats” who understood that for immigration to benefit everyone, the responsibilities of citizenship must be taken just as soberly as its rewards. Character came first and it was that very insistence on standards, despite the career risks for Coolidge personally, that prevailed at the ballot box. Coolidge did not need a herd of consultants to validate the Golden Rule for him. As he would observe later in life: The person who is right makes his own luck. Cal points the way toward the Founder’s vision for an assimilated, prosperous and peaceful people preserved through an incremental, not immediate, process; a pathway to citizenship earned by obedience, not bestowed by political calculation for electoral advantage.

“A rarer specimen than Davis’ recent great discovery, Honesty” by “Ding” Darling, The Des Moines Register 8-31-1924

“Why America Will Stay On Top”

March 16, 2014March 16, 2014 / gouverneurmorris / 1 Comment

“Why America Will Stay On Top”

Interviewing the ever-insightful scholar Paul Johnson, Brian M. Carney discusses why ideas matter more than people and how the World’s deepest thinkers have been anti-intellectuals. Johnson, who has explained the substance behind Coolidge’s record in “The Last Arcadia,” chapter 6 of his book Modern Times, keeps an enduring confidence that Americans will find a renewed strength from the power of its founding ideals. This unshakable faith in the people of the country to summon both the will and the work to clean up the mess left by a self-anointed ruling class of intellectuals is right at home with the full assurance Calvin Coolidge held toward Americans as a people. Our thirtieth president, the last to earn a classical education, would firmly agree with Mr. Johnson. In fact, Coolidge would likely find himself quite at home with the most profound philosopher of civilization (a distant second to Christ, of course), the plain, simple-living, anti-intellectual Socrates.

Jacques-Louis David’s “Death of Socrates” depicting the ultimatum imposed on the philosopher to recant his ideas or be forced to drink hemlock. He continues to discourse on the truth of the eternal and spiritual. The painting dates from 1787, the year the Framers were thinking through the principles of sound, constitutional government.

“We do not need more of the things that are seen, we need more of the things that are unseen. It is on that side of life that it is desirable to put the emphasis at the present time. If that side be strengthened, the other side will take care of itself. It is that side which is the foundation of all else. If the foundation be firm, the superstructure will stand” — Calvin Coolidge, June 19, 1923, “The Things That Are Unseen,” delivered at Wheaton College, Norton, Massachusetts.

“We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create our Declaration. Our Declaration created them. The things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to that, all our material prosperity, overwhelming though it appear, will turn to a barren sceptre in our grasp” — July 5, 1926, spoken at the Sesquicentennial Stadium in Philadelphia.

On Science and Character

March 16, 2014March 16, 2014 / gouverneurmorris / 2 Comments

“The National Institute of Social Sciences is met to honor one of the great of the earth, not as the world has always counted greatness in the past, but as it must and will recognize greatness in the future. It is not to a soldier or a statesman who has won the acclaim of multitudes in a contest of peace or war; not to one who has acquired great material possessions, but to one who, passing by all these, with a true humility, by the benefactions she has conferred upon mankind, by her great service to humanity, has forever laid all civilization under tribute. In her gentleness, in her intelligence, in her devotion to the advancement of science, there is mark and warrant of progress of an enlightened society among men…

“But only the most casual observation tells us that something is lacking…We have just had the terrible experience when for more than four years pure science was let loose upon the world…There is something lacking in our science. It is not to be discarded, it is not to be blamed, it is not to be ignored, it is not to be cast aside. All science must be protected and fostered and advanced. But the plain truth is that science alone does not provide the salvation of the world…

“Along with our boasting of science there needs must go a greater humility. We cannot substitute science for character. Least of all can we substitute the superficial for exact scholarship…Unless there be national character, there can be no national progress and no national prosperity…

“This nation cannot pay for what is not earned, it cannot respond to a contribution which has not been made, whether supposed to be of capital invested or work performed. We must take up again the burdens of civilization. We must make of science the handmaiden of character. This appeal has never been made to America without finding an adequate response. It is an appeal not to give up pleasure, but to seek the greatest of all pleasure, the satisfaction that comes from achievement. It is an appeal to turn from pretenses to realities…

“When America is engaged in this struggle, no less hazardous than those crises which she has met in the past through her own efforts and through the sustaining sympathy and assistance of others, it seems almost providential that there should come to us the personification of what American and Americans should seek to be. Other crises have brought us men; there has come to us now a woman…Her presence here tells, as we look back over our history and its accomplishments, that there is no time to forget our friends, that there is no time to take counsel of our animosities, that there is no time to cease to do and to require justice.

“More than this, she comes bearing witness, not to riches she has secured for herself, but to the riches she has bestowed upon mankind, more solicitous to give than to receive. She comes not for glorification, but that there may be bestowed upon her the means by which to continue that service to which she had dedicated her life…

“Recognizing how worthily you represent the principles of the National Institute of Social Sciences…I am directed to bestow upon you this medal, Madame Marie Curie, as the testimony of its approval and satisfaction” — speech presented on behalf of Vice President Calvin Coolidge in honor of Madame Curie’s historic work in radium, May 19, 1921

To which Madame Curie responded with thank-filled brevity, “I am grateful to the National Institute of Social Sciences and I would like you to know how deeply moved I am by the words of Vice-President Coolidge.”