economy

Book Discussion on “Coolidge: An American Enigma,” August 11, 1998

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http://c-spanvideo.org/program/Enig

A superb presentation by the late, but great, Mr. Robert Sobel on Calvin Coolidge. While not a recent work, it is a fresh contribution to respect and appreciate the thirtieth president even now. It was my first read on Mr. Coolidge. Scholar Sobel presents him as he was, without apology, without pretense, without facade.

Though Mr. Coolidge may finally be gaining a semblance of regard for who he was and the principles he embodied, this interview, not that long ago in the grand scheme of events, reminds us that an unwarranted prejudice and close-minded suspicion has prevailed so long about Coolidge and his kind of leadership. The host’s almost awkward incredulity illustrates this engrained, yet mistaken, impression of who Coolidge was and is supposed to remain.

Sobel’s work demands that we open our minds to the profound value of Coolidge’s legacy, rejecting the utterly false perception of his weakness and ineffectiveness assumed as fact by an intellectually narrow and politically biased academia. Sobel expects us to reckon with this intricate, and even potent leader, instead of keeping our eyes closed for fear of seeing something that contradicts what we are now supposed to believe as irrefutable, politically, culturally and economically. He has much to teach us about leadership in general and the Presidency in particular. Don’t merely read the book and shelve it, take the time to study it in order to better grasp what makes Coolidge important now.

Sobel book

On the New Year

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Anonymous portrait of Calvin Coolidge held in the Coolidge Room of Forbes Library in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Portrait of Calvin Coolidge (by an anonymous artist) held in the Coolidge Room of Forbes Library in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Looking back over the previous year while thinking ahead to the new year, Calvin Coolidge wrote these thoughts on December 31, 1930: “The year…has been a sharp reminder that men cannot escape from the command that they shall earn their bread by the sweat of their brow. We cannot for long reap when we have not sown. We cannot hold what we do not pay for. The law of service cannot be evaded or repealed. Nor is it yet in the power of man under any system of government he can adopt or any organization of society he can form to make this a perfect world.

“But the ability to make the best of things, to secure progress, to learn from adversity is not to be disparaged or ignored. The creative energy of nature is not diminished but increased by the fallow season. Mankind requires a time for taking stock, for recuperation, for gathering energy for the next advance.

“That is the significance of the new year. We take a new inventory to see what we have, we take new bearings to see where we are, we correct our conduct by new resolutions. After all due allowance for error and relapse, such a course guarantees improvement. Perhaps the best resolve is to live so that next year new resolutions will be unnecessary.”

On Getting Back to First Principles

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Calvin Coolidge standing the old Cabinet Room of the West Wing.

Calvin Coolidge standing in the old Cabinet Room, established by President Taft, on the West Wing of the White House.

“We always have the defeatists with us. Washington had them…Lincoln had them…Wilson had them during the war to such an extent that he found it necessary to turn over the conduct of important legislation to Republican leadership. We have them at the present time doing their best to capitalize distress and preaching the overthrow of our system of economics and government. It is these forces more than depression which render our condition critical.

“If we have the courage and vision to maintain our governmental and social structure we can meet all other problems. The forces of discord always work in an insidious way. They often attempt to conceal the peril of their unsound proposals under the claim that they are liberal. When that is analyzed it usually means that they intend to give away the money which someone else has earned. Such a process, once started, is bound to increase until it lands the country in universal bankruptcy and general disintegration. It is a time when the great body of our people of common sense should not be stampeded, but should stand firm. In spite of all declarations to the contrary, of the professions of platforms and candidates, the record of two generations discloses that the safety of the country lies in the success of the principles of the Republican Party” — former President Calvin Coolidge, September 10, 1932.