On Continuing with a Business Basis of the Government

June 22, 2014June 22, 2014 / gouverneurmorris / Leave a comment

When a young man named Ronald Reagan stepped up to the podium on October 27, 1964, to deliver the now-renowned “A Time For Choosing” speech on behalf of conservative Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, among the many fundamental points he made was the timeless challenge for government to actually “read the score to us once in a while.” By 1964, the country had experienced thirty years of justifications for redundant and ineffectual government programs yet an occasion to assess progress, determine results and eliminate failure never happened. Plans and initiatives never went away, they only increased, without a thought to whether any of them were effectively producing what they were intended to accomplish or simply making conditions worse than before. Having been a sports announcer in his WHO days, Reagan was making the case for what his predecessor, Calvin Coolidge, actually accomplished through the bi-annual meeting of the Business Organization of the Government. Coolidge did more than talk, he read the “score” of how our government was doing with our money. On nationwide radio hookup, Coolidge would review America’s balance sheet of receipts and expenditures, eying where improvement was needed, commending thrift, correcting wasteful habits and making his argument directly before those listening around the country to keep government on a business basis.

When the assembly of Cabinet heads, bureau chiefs, and agency directors met with the President and General Lord for its sixth meeting on January 21, 1924, the country had seen two and a half years of results from the Budget and Accounting Act. The central question was this: Should we keep going with a business administration of our Nation’s affairs or is there another way? As Coolidge would argue, the enormous good accomplished under these standards demanded persistence, refusing to allow a relapse to government as usual. The results obtained were reaching not just the top tier of Americans but raising the entire economic spectrum, improving the lives of the whole people, not merely a favored few. Coolidge knew this meeting, prone to all the form and facade of any government collaboration, was unprecedented. “It was a new kind of meeting,” Coolidge reminded his audience. Begun by Harding, his predecessor, Coolidge did more than continue it as another token tradition, he took up the heavy lifting of a relentless advocate and unwavering champion for keeping government within its means, accountable for its spending and faithful to its public trust.

Vice President Coolidge directing the Budget meeting in Harding’s absence, 1923.

Without the extraordinary leadership of Harding and then Coolidge, who cemented the Business Organization meeting as a fixture throughout his six years in office, the discordant pressures in Congress and his own Executive Branch would have quickly unraveled what work had been started, sidestepped the law, overwhelmed the President’s policy and turned every surplus into deeper and deeper deficits. There would have been no Roaring Twenties without these two Presidents bravely and consistently holding government to essential business practices.

The reasons to keep on course with government operating on a business basis were manifold. Not the least of which was the reality, Coolidge observed, that this “is the first mid-year meeting that has been held when the estimated income and expenditures did not show the expectation of a large deficit.” Not even Harding could lay claim to that astounding achievement. It was one thing to approach the end of the fiscal year, which would expire on June 30th, with enough political momentum to narrowly prevent the budget from dipping into a deficit. It was much more difficult to already experience a sizable surplus at the middle of the year and watch it increase, not diminish, by June.

“And the first thing he tackled was the lock on the chicken coop” by “Ding” Darling, Des Moines Register, December 11, 1923.

By the seventh meeting of the Business Organization, President Coolidge would announce that his estimate in January had grown another $10 million finally totaling $309,657,460 for 1923. The surplus of 1924, however, would be even greater, as Mellon, the Treasury Secretary, would report it to be the largest in our government’s history at $505,366,986. By every measure, keeping government working like a business was proving successful. The ordinary expenses percentage of the budget were to be kept down to $1.7 million, a goal reached to Coolidge’s satisfaction before the mid-year meeting in January. Neither had the sharp increase in the surplus been a fluke. The figures from the last three years, Coolidge would recount in June, verified that a “progressive and consistent reduction in expenditures,” thanks to the Budget Act, had hammered away at the growth of spending, actually cutting its advance. The decreases did not fluctuate, occurring merely one year or two, but steadily went down each year: $3,795,000,000 in 1922; $3,697,000,000 in 1923; and $3,497,000,000 in 1924. This was all the more impressive considering receipts were going down as well: $4,109,000,000 in 1922; $4,007,000 in 1923; and $3,995,000,000 in 1924.

Government Receipts and Expenditures, 1914-1924. Source: Annual Report of the Secretary of the Treasury 1924.

How could the government be taking in less overall but still be turning in larger and larger surpluses? As Coolidge had repudiated “Bargain Counter Government” in state politics, he refused to be misunderstood now. “I am not advocating parsimony, I want to be liberal. Public service is entitled to a suitable reward. But there is a distinct limit to the amount of public service we can profitably employ. We require national defense, but it must be limited. We need public improvements, but they must be gradual. We have to make some capital investments, but they must be certain to give fair returns. Every dollar expended must be made in the light of all our national resources, and all our national needs. It is here that the Budget system gets its strength as a method of fiscal administration.”

Of his Budget Director, President Coolidge said: "He is human. He hates to say no. But he is a brave man, and he does his duty without fear or favor. This Nation is his debtor."

Of his Budget Director, President Coolidge said at the seventh Business Organization meeting, June 30, 1924: “He is human. He hates to say no. But he is a brave man, and he does his duty without fear or favor. This Nation is his debtor.”

Spending today would only preclude the ability to spend more tomorrow. Coolidge and his team knew also that taxation “should not be used as a field for socialistic experiment, or as a club to punish success, but as a means of raising revenue to support the Government.” This would not be done by taxing the producers out of existence, killing the means of next year’s revenue. Coolidge, Lord and Mellon understood that the need for revenue, while important, would take care of itself once you removed the obstacles to freedom, protecting, not penalizing, “the right of the people to their own property” and the rewards of one’s own industry. Revenue was not the problem, “excessive taxes” were.

While tax reform was ultimately the objective, tax reduction had to be enacted first to make future improvements possible. “There is scarcely an economic ill anywhere in our country that cannot be traced directly or indirectly to high taxes. To increase that burden is to disregard the general welfare. Through constructive economy, to decrease taxes is to enlarge the reward of every one who toils.” Selecting who benefits and who suffers via taxation is a dereliction of our duty to all the people, the President warned. This was the single purpose of their bi-annual meetings. It was not to hear each other talk, to have their words enter the record full long on good intentions but short on action, it was to ensure maximum benefits “accrue to the whole people” from tax reduction. In all their efforts, all their sacrifices and savings, “you must bear in mind,” Coolidge admonished, “that you are making them for the people of our country. There could be no nobler cause or one showing higher patriotism. Bear in mind always that we are here as the servants of the people and that only as we serve them well and faithfully shall we succeed.”

Consequently, revenue rose while income tax rates fell again, with the new tax bill of 1924, a 27% drop from what had been a top marginal rate of 73% three years before under the Wilson administration. Many taxes had been slashed or eliminated altogether. The resulting economic recovery was not supposed to happen. Revenue should have continued to fall short when taxes were cut, so said conventional wisdom. It was through spending that we avoid deficits and depression, it was claimed. Yet, the “score” Coolidge was reading furnished hard proof of how false this mentality was. “The budget has been a success,” the President retorted. “You have demonstrated that there can be, and is, a business organization of the Government. With the easing of conditions, the time is at hand when we shall decide whether a business administration is to continue, or whether our Government is to lapse into the old unbusinesslike and wasteful extravagance.” The enemies of this “intensive campaign in behalf of the people” for economy were “extravagance and inefficiency,” after all, not tax reduction or business budgeting.

Courtesy of Frasier, http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/.

This is why these January and June meetings of Business Organization were so crucial. Once each department had submitted their requested appropriations to the President, that was all they would get that year. “Supplemental estimates” extracting additional funds later in the course of the year would find no sympathies from Coolidge. Genuine emergencies may warrant amounts unforeseeable beforehand, but Calvin would not countenance a regular deviation from the reality of living within one’s means. If you failed to plan ahead sufficiently, you would have to learn to do without. After all, since the Congress, as representatives of the people, had appropriated specific funds by law “we must confine our operation within the limit of these funds. We have neither the authority nor the right to incur obligations beyond these funds.”

The budget was not to become a political instrument meting out penalties against enemies and bestowing rewards to friends, it was to remain “impersonal, impartial and non-political” despite the intense pressures to show preferences. “I urge upon all of you,” Coolidge declared, “to view your requirements in the sole light of their necessity from a standpoint of the interests of the whole Government.” Such was the way the rest of the country lived. Why should there be a different set of rules for Washington?

Courtesy of Frasier, http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/.

President Coolidge saw the dangers of an open-ended and limitless rationalization for Federal subsidies to the States. Even then “ample precedent” existed for “unlimited expansion” of this troubling expansion of government activities into broader and broader spheres. It ran against a sound business basis to take from the states what properly fell within their duties. Neither was it right to take from Massachusetts to pay for Minnesota. Each state held a responsibility for its own direction. “Efficiency of Federal operations is impaired as their scope is unduly enlarged. Efficiency of the State Governments is impaired as they relinquish and turn over to the Federal Government responsibilities which are rightfully theirs.”

The success of the last three years would only continue if everyone coordinated efforts without assuming the responsibilities of others. The Congress must not abandon economy, the executive departments and bureau chiefs could not venture out with contradictory aims. The people had to be heard. The law had to be honored. Each subordinate must look to the Chief Executive for approval of each department’s share of the President’s singular budget laid before the Congress each December. Everyone must share that common goal and be heading in the same direction. This also meant everyone needed to save out of what was appropriated, not spend it all so that next year more could be requested. Anything less would be a regression from the advances secured the last three years and a return to the inefficient, wasteful chaos of government as usual.

The work that had commenced so boldly three years before, to introduce business practices in the operation of government was anything but certain as a policy for the future. It was not a foregone conclusion that sound budgeting and strict adherence to constructive economy would last. Without patient and disciplined leadership, the incredible record of the Coolidge era may never have happened. Without Coolidge’s determination, debt would likely have never been paid down roughly $1 billion a year plus $120 million annually in interest payments. Without a President resolved to keep moving forward, there would have been no $175 million in excess of his original estimate. Had it not been for the unifying abilities of Coolidge and his team, $55 million would never have been cut away from the budget estimates of 1925, a total $232 million smaller than the appropriations of 1924.

These were not mere numbers on a spreadsheet to Coolidge, they were real lives impacted for the better. As he closed each meeting of the Business Organization in January and then in June, he reminded the hundreds present what their work meant. “[I]f we remember that every dollar of public money which we pay out has to be earned. It represents the toil of the people. It is so much taken away from everything they produce–so much added to everything they buy. There will be no doubt about the result if we insist that for each dollar spent there be a dollar of value received.”

“What every head of the household can appreciate” by “Ding” Darling, Des Moines Register, May 18, 1924.

Therefore, “[w]e must have no carelessness in our dealing with public property or the expenditure of public money. Such a condition is characteristic either of an undeveloped people, or of a decadent civilization. America is neither. It stands out strong and vigorous and mature. We must have an administration which is marked, not by the inexperience of youth, or the futility of age, but by the character and ability of maturity. We have had the self control to put into effect the Budget system, to live under it and in accordance with it. It is an accomplishment in the art of self government of the very highest importance. It means that the American Government is not a spendthrift, and that it is not lacking in the force or disposition to organize and administer its finances in a scientific way. To maintain this condition puts us constantly on trial. It requires us to demonstrate whether we are weaklings, or whether we have strength of character. It is not too much to say that it is a measure of the power and integrity of the civilization which we represent. I have a firm faith in your ability to maintain this position, and in the will of the American people to support you in that determination. In that faith in you and them, I propose to persevere. I am for economy. After that I am for more economy. At this time and under present conditions that is my conception of serving all the people.”

Seizing the opportunity to read the “score” of government’s activities to a nation-wide audience, Coolidge showed why Washington needs to continue being held to sound business standards and that when Americans join together to be heard, government is forced to listen. America is better for having been led by so tenacious and resolute a President as Calvin Coolidge.

On the Road Again, August 4, 1926

En route back to the Homestead at Plymouth, the President and Mrs. Coolidge are reconnecting with family roots, leaving most of the artificial world of Washington behind and keeping closer to realities, where the country lives, works, worships and creates. Here rested the body of his father, recently buried in March, his youngest son, who passed two years before, his stepmother, sister and mother, surrounded by the generations who preceded them of the Coolidge family. Here was a wholesome relief from the political mentality of the District to the comfort of hearth, surrounded by the family he loved, the hills he cherished and the tasks awaiting solutions on the farm.

As much they desired to the contrary, they ceased to be “ordinary” citizens and could no longer “use the regular trains which are open to the public.” Looking back on the years, he once wrote, “While the facilities of a private car have always been offered, I think they have only been used once, when one was needed for the better comfort of Mrs. Coolidge during her illness. Although I have not been given to much travel during my term of office, it has been sufficient, so that I am convinced the government should own a private car for the use of the President when he leaves Washington. The pressure on him is so great, the responsibilities are so heavy, that it is a wise policy in order to secure his best services to provide him with such ample facilities that he will be relieved as far as possible from all physical inconveniences. It is not generally understood how much detail is involved in any journey of the President” (Autobiography pp.217-8). These intricate arrangements meant expense to the rest of the country, costs of going long distances with the Presidential retinue which made it prohibitive in Calvin’s high sense of propriety and moral obligation to the people for his office. It was not simply okay that gratuitous travel was chargeable to the public Treasury, even when prosperous times could have handled the burden. It was enough to escape from the National Capital every summer, to get away to Plymouth as often as possible and to keep other travel limited to specific destinations instead of the flagrant spending of continual cross-country tours or incessant vacations to luxurious places. It is telling that the Coolidges, who wanted to travel more, would not take that coast-to-coast trip until in retirement as private citizens again.

However, there is something more compelling than the singular dimension of a President morally committed to economy at its most practical, personal and ideal. What prompts him to support a government-owned private car for Presidential use is not to enhance official dignity, endorse government ownership in general nor is it to live grander than the hoi polloi, but it is to “secure his best services.” We have, after all, hired him to accomplish a task of leadership, we have delegated power for a limited time with specific ends, contractually obligating ourselves and the President to obtain the best within him while we exercise the best within us as citizens. It is for this reason he is compensated with such means of private travel, not to abuse it but in pouring it back into better and better public service, he is upholding the terms of that sacred agreement. By obtaining “the best of his ability” he upholds his oath to God and man and justifies the public faith entrusted to his care.

Leaving the social dramas and political flurries of Washington for the comfort of being at home surrounded by America’s people and countryside, is it any wonder that they are smiling?

On the Road Again, August 4, 1926

June 21, 2014June 22, 2014 / gouverneurmorris / Leave a comment

On Strengthening America’s Civic Participation

June 17, 2014June 18, 2014 / gouverneurmorris / 3 Comments

The Coolidges arrive in Hammond, Indiana, on Flag Day, June 14, 1927.

Arriving in Hammond, the Coolidges pause respectfully at Wicker Park

Arriving in Hammond, the Coolidges pause respectfully for the National Anthem at Wicker Park

The Coolidges at the rear of their train

When the enormous delegation from Hammond, Indiana, stepped off the train and went to make their request at the White House on March 11, 1927, little would anyone realize the significance their visit would have on the future or the power of the statement it represented. They had not come to request money, propose an appropriation or even lobby for Federal patronage. They had come with something far more altruistic and responsible in mind. Instead of what they could get from Washington, they were inspired by what they could give, how they could promote, not themselves, but the efficacy of solvent local governments, civic-minded neighborhoods and proactive citizenship. Ever determined to pay their own way, they arrived not with the expectation of political or monetary reimbursement but to approach the President as their equal in citizenship. Quietly honoring the sovereign balance between states, the people and their national government, the Hammond delegation invited President Coolidge, as their guest, to dedicate a 225-acre park they had already acquired, paid for and provisioned so that posterity, memorializing the veterans of World War I, would be able to enjoy both the beauty of the outdoors and the rejuvenation afforded by its opportunities for wholesome recreation.

Of course, the President’s travel would cost just as would the attendant expenses of his stay. However, they knew in Mr. Coolidge there was someone who could masterfully save public money, finding ways not only in avoiding debts but amassing surpluses on even the cheapest of trips. A negotiation ensued. Perhaps he could give the speech that morning and “save…the trouble of going out there,” Coolidge offered. Well, that would curtail their time to speak now on the merits of their park, their neighborhoods and their people. They were here to underscore the strength of local civic participation after all. Ever respectful of that sovereign principle, Cal deferred and as the plan for his visit to their town took shape in the coming months, he would endorse their example in word as well as deed.

By stopping in Hammond only two hours en route to his famous stay in the Black Hills that summer, leaving immediately after the simple ceremony, Coolidge avoided the costs of accommodations, food, and the endless parade of elaborate outlay expected to accompany a Presidential visit. He detested ostentatious displays, especially at the hands of government officeholders, in part because of his own self-effacing nature but also because it always exacted a tax for which people had to work longer hours for fewer wages, seeing less a reward for themselves and more for those who have not earned it. Even on the road, Coolidge would practice economy. He would stay in unassuming places, attend rural church services rather than the grand churches of the nearest city and exercise the powers of his office to serve, not be served.

The story is told of the strenuous efforts to provide a pristine washroom for the President during one of his stops on the road. Newly supplied with soap and clean, white towels, every corner of the room was ready for his arrival. Moments before being shown these facilities, however, a hot and dusty aide hurried to the room, drying his hands on one of those towels. Claude Fuess recounts what happened next, “When the President was escorted to the washroom, his companion noticed that one of the towels was streaked with dirt, and proffered him the remaining one, but Coolidge waved him aside, saying, ‘Why soil it? There’s one that’s been used. That’s clean enough.’ ” As Fuess aptly summarizes, the account would “hardly be worth relating” if not for the light that it sheds on Coolidge’s consistent sense of humility and economy (Calvin Coolidge: The Man from Vermont, pp.487-8).

The President faces his audience – 150,000 strong – at the dedication of Wicker Memorial Park, Hammond, Indiana

Looking out across the crowds past the baseball field, walking trails, tennis courts and 18-hole golf course, Coolidge saw something more as he began,

“Fellow Citizens:

“This section represents a phase of life which is typically American. A few short years ago it was an uninhabited area of sand and plain. To-day it is a great industrial metropolis. The people of this region have been creating one of the most fascinating epics. The fame of it, reaching to almost every quarter of the globe, has drawn hither the energetic pioneer spirits of many different races all eager to contribute their share and to receive in return the abundant rewards which advancing enterprise can give…Here are communities inspired with a strong civic spirit moving majestically forward, serving themselves and their fellow men. Here is life and light and liberty. Here is a common purpose – working, organizing, thinking, building for eternity.” This vibrant collaboration was not instituted by government mandate, it flowered under the care of the people themselves. Moreover, it was a structure built by all races, a legacy on which everyone had left an impression and contributed a part. Such is the nature of liberty. Coolidge could easily have said the converse is equally as possible: Without a constantly replenished civic spirit, a community soon experiences death, darkness and slavery.

As Coolidge kept his commitment to speak at the dedication of Wicker Memorial Park, the visit of that large delegation stuck with him. He likely saw many of those familiar faces among the 150,000 who were there that day. He was not there to honor himself, he was there to commemorate the sacrifice of those who, not unlike the engaged citizens of Hammond, had done more than simply talk about what needs to be done, they got busy and did what needed doing. The veterans of the World War took up the full burden of American citizenship. It is only fitting that they were in turn honored by those ready to partake in that higher kind of devotion. “Not the visionary variety,” Coolidge observes, “which talks of love of country but makes no sacrifices for it, but the higher, sterner kind, which does and dares, defending assaults upon its firesides and intrusion upon its liberty with a musket in its hands.” The men and women of Hammond were not lawless anarchists or violent deviants, but “orderly, peaceable people, neither arrogant nor quarrelsome, seeking only those advantages which come from the well-earned rewards of enterprise and industry.” As a result, the people of Hammond, like Americans all across the country, were simply demonstrating what it means to responsibly exercise American citizenship.

As he stepped to the podium, Coolidge’s mind would turn again to the astounding achievements of this region of Indiana, he would reflect on the rapid but substantial rise from wilderness to thriving neighborhoods, towns and metropolises. These were not developments over which to mourn, they exemplified the strength and progress of men and women engaged in their own communities, free to direct their own destinies and make their own decisions. They embodied self-government at its finest. With local obligations being met so proficiently, it made the intervention of national authority unnecessary, redundant and destructive. The better local institutions work, as the citizens of Hammond proved, the less room there remains for central government to justify its presence. This exemplary success of civic participation was not from some coincidental combination of factors in history, as if it were all by accident, it was directly a result of the daring spirit of Americans themselves. It came from the character they possessed. As the President would remark on that occasion, “It is inconceivable that it could take place in any land but America.” The very ground on which they stood was testament to that truth. It had once been a dry, sandy plain. Now it was a garden appealing not only to the mind but to the spirit of man. It was conceived and carried out not by the votes of politicians but through the effort and perseverance of citizens who recognized they had an obligation to give, not merely to take. Men like George Hammond, whose packing plant helped establish the town; or the 16 men of North Township who joined together to bequeath this large property to posterity for its practical usage in bettering people.

“Such a people always respond when there is need for military service.” The service Hammond was rendering was hardly the first time that area had known sacrifice. Every war down to the latest World War had seen Hammond give of its own to something greater than accolades or recognition. It had helped decide the “chief issue” of the Great War: “whether an autocratic form or a republican form of government was to be predominant among the great nations of the earth. It was fought to a considerable extent to decide whether the people were to rule, or whether they were to be ruled; whether self-government or autocracy should prevail. Victory finally rested on the side of the people…This park is a real memorial to World War service because it distinctly recognizes the sovereignty and materially enlarges the dominion of the people. It is a true emblem of our Republic.”

The President elaborated on this concept by looking back through history. Ancient gardens and Old World parks “had little to do with the public. Parks were private affairs for the benefit of royalty and the nobility.” Recent past had seen an outpouring of interest and investment “in our country…for these important functions.” But here, in stark difference from antiquity, these places of recreation are as important as where people work and live. They are just as essential as homes and workplaces in rearing a people “who are fit to rule.” It was uniquely and “triumphantly American” that places like Wicker Park take on such importance in the community. Since, Coolidge explains, “[i]in this country the sciences, the arts, the humanities, are not reserved for a supposed aristocracy, but for the whole of the people. Here we do not extend privilege to a few, we extend privilege to everybody. That which was only provided for kings and nobles in former days, bestow freely on the people at large. The destiny of America is to give the people still more royal powers, to strengthen their hand for a more effective grasp upon the scepter.”

The children of the Carmelite Orphanage enthusiastically receive the Coolidges.

Even with all the progress America has brought, “we are still a great distance from what we would like to be.” Education, religious devotion and economic opportunities need further improvement. Recognizing that we are far from perfection, these all deserve the best we can render to close that distance and “work toward…elimination” of our shortcomings in regard to God and man. “But we should not be discouraged because we are surrounded by human limitations and handicapped by human weakness. We are also possessors of human strength, intelligence, courage, fidelity, character – these, also, are our heritage and our mark of the Divine image.” We neglect that truth to our peril. “The conclusion that our institutions are sound, that our social system is correct, has been demonstrated beyond question by our experience. It is necessary that this should be known and properly appreciated.” The President then predicted what would happen should this fail to be done. “Unless it continues to be the public conviction, we are likely to fall a more easy prey to the advocates of false economic, political, and social doctrines. It is always very easy to promise everything. It is sometimes difficult to deliver anything. In our political and economic life there will always be those who are lavish with unwanted criticism and well supplied with false hopes. It is always well to remember that American institutions have stood the test of experience. They do not profess to promise everything, but to communities and to individuals who have been content to live by them they have never failed in their satisfactions and rewards. Here industry can find employment, thrift can amass a competency, and square dealing is assured of justice.”

Loretta Jablowski, age 6, welcomes the President and First Lady to Hammond

As Coolidge neared the end of his dedicatory message, he returned to the importance of what was not merely being said over the microphone, but what was being lived in the deeds of communities like Hammond and the people of North Township but in places all across America. It had to continue. Civic participation — the substance of an active, engaged citizenship — had to be nurtured and continually developed or else stagnation and decay would result. Crucial to the strength of that civic spirit are the unseen realities: the ideals of this country. “Amid all her prosperity, America has not forgotten her ideals,” the President testified. He saw their vigor and life at every stop along the tracks to South Dakota that summer. He saw them in the accomplishments of young men like Charles Lindbergh. He also saw them in the simple acts of kindness shown by the children the Coolidges met on that trip. Calvin would joyfully take up one of them, a little girl of six years, in his arms in appreciation for the bouquet she had for Mrs. Coolidge. It was Cal, welcoming all the children who had come with flags, flowers and tokens of their patriotism, dismissed the Secret Service’s well-intentioned efforts to prevent them. The love those children had for America was not something to shame and disparage but to keep kindled and encouraged. It was, after all, the seed of a greater and greater civic involvement that would preserve communities’ soundness and self-sufficiency by keeping governance nearest to those it concerned. “It is but a passing glance that we bestow upon wealth and place,” Cal would say as he closed his message at Wicker Park, “compared with that which we pour out upon courage, patriotism, holiness, and character. We dedicate no monuments to merely financial and economic success, while our country is filled with memorials to those who have done some service for their fellow men. This park stands as a fitting example of these principles. It is a memorial to those who defended their country in its time of peril. Through the benefits that it will bestow upon this community, it is an example of practical idealism.”

As Coolidge surveyed the hundreds of thousands of Americans who filled the park that day, he saw in our future not a sapping despair or delusion of cynicism but one bright with better things in store, a future resplendent with the potential of a free and actively engaged citizenry. That future, however, was conditional. If our country was to lead the way toward realizing “a world fit for the abode of heroes,” as Coolidge sincerely wanted, “it can only be through the industry, the devotion, and the character of the people themselves. The Government can help to provide opportunity, but the people must take advantage of it. As the inhabitants of the North Township repair to this park in the years to come, as they are reinvigorated in body and mind by its use, as they are moved by the memory of the heroic deeds of those to whom it is dedicated, may they become the partakers and promoters of a more noble, more exalted, more inspired American life.” He knew Americans, taking responsibility themselves rather than waiting for government to act, were more than up to this challenge. It remains for us to prove we are now.