liberty

Reflecting on the significance of the flag a couple days in advance, the former President had these stirring thoughts to offer on Friday, June 12, 1931,

“National Flag Day has been observed for some years by official direction on June 14. It is the anniversary of the adoption by the Congress of the flag of the United States. We do honor to the Stars and Stripes as the emblem of our country and the symbol of all that our patriotism means.

“The stars and the red, white and blue colors have a significance of their own, but when combined and arranged into the flag of our nation they take on a new significance which no other form or color can convey. We identify the flag with almost everything we hold dear on earth. It represents our peace and security, our civil and political liberty, our freedom of religious worship, our family, our friends, our home. We see in it the great multitude of blessings, of rights and privileges, that make up our country.

“But when we look at our flag and behold it emblazoned with all our rights we must remember that it is equally a symbol of our duties. Every glory that we associate with it is the result of duty alone. A yearly contemplation of the meaning of our flag strengthens and purifies the national conscience.”

Governor Coolidge raising the flag with members of the Washington Senators team at Fenway Park, Boston, Massachusetts. General Clarence R. Edwards and others stand with salute.

“It is senseless to boast of our liberty when we find that to so shocking an extent it is merely the liberty to go ill-governed. It is time to take warning that neither the liberties we prize nor the system under which we claim them are safe while such conditions exist.

“We shall not correct admitted and grave defects if we hesitate to recognize them. We must be frank with ourselves. We ought to be our own harshest critics. We can afford to be, for in spite of everything we still have a balance of prosperity, of general welfare, of secure freedom, and of righteous purpose, that gives us assurance of leadership among the nations.

“What America needs is to hold to its ancient and well-charted course.

“Our country was conceived in the theory of local self-government. It has been dedicated by long practice to that wise and beneficent policy. It is the foundation principle of our system of liberty. It makes the largest promise to the freedom and development of the individual. Its preservation is worth all the effort and all the sacrifice that it may cost” — President Calvin Coolidge, Arlington National Cemetery, May 30, 1925.