In an excellent speech by Mick Wright, candidate for Alderman in Bartlett, Tennessee, to a local Rotary Club in the Memphis area, we are reminded that a Republic functions by our active participation. It does not run itself. It is not only the spirit of Elizabeth Powel that preserves and renews but also the outlook and wisdom of Calvin Coolidge, whose diligent and practical application of principle into genuine public service still speaks. We must not assume that someone else will exercise for us the unique and personal responsibilities already in our hands. Mr. Wright understands that if public affairs are going to change for the better, it starts with you and with me in our homes, our neighborhoods, our local governments. It demands a public service at its most practical and personal. There simply is no substitute for an informed and involved citizenship. As Coolidge once said, “Naturally the question arises, what shall we do to defend our birthright? In the first place everybody must take a more active part in public affairs. It will not do for men to send, they must go. It is not enough to draw a check. Good government cannot be bought, it has to be given…Unless good citizens hold office bad citizens will.” After all, we are not impotently at the mercy of circumstances as they are, “We are the possessors of tremendous power, both as individuals and as states. The great question of the preservation of our institutions is a moral question. Shall we use our power for self-aggrandizement or for service?” To which end are we exerting the tremendous power each one of us possesses?

The President’s desk at the White House, 1923

“When you substitute patronage for [instead of] patriotism, administration breaks down. We need more of the Office Desk and less of the Show Window in politics. Let men in office substitute the midnight oil for [instead of] the limelight” – Address at the home of Augustus P. Gardner, Hamilton, Massachusetts, September 1916.

This portrait of Calvin Jr., depicted sitting on the front porch rail at the Coolidge Homestead, by Ebin Comins, was presented in December of 1927 by Mrs. Coolidge to the Red Cross for display at Walter Reed Hospital, Washington, D. C., where young Calvin had spent his final week before tragically dying 90 years ago today.

Reflecting four years after the death of his younger son and namesake, Calvin Jr., President Coolidge wrote,

“He was boy of much promise, proficient in his studies, with a scholarly mind, who had just turned sixteen. He had remarkable insight into things…The ways of Providence are often beyond our understanding. It seemed to me that the world had need of the work that it was probable he could do…Sustained by the great outpouring of sympathy from all over the nation, my wife and I bowed to the Supreme Will and with such courage as we had went on in the discharge of our duties” — The Autobiography pp.189, 190, 191.

Calvin Jr.’s grave, where his body rests among those of his family at Plymouth Notch, Vermont.

In Memoriam Calvin Coolidge Junior, 1908 – 1924.