On Memorial Day

May 26, 2013June 2, 2013 / gouverneurmorris / Leave a comment

Addressing those gathered in his Northampton to observe Memorial Day, May 30, 1923, Vice President Coolidge delivered one of his most eloquent expositions of the day’s meaning and significance,

“Our country does not want war; it wants peace. It has not decreed this memorial season as an honor to war, with its terrible waste and attendant train of suffering and hardship which reaches onward into the years of peace. Yet war is not the worst of evils, and those days have been set apart to do honor to all those, now gone, who made the cause of America their supreme choice. Some fell with the word of Patrick Henry, ‘Give me liberty, or give me death,’ almost ringing in their ears. Some heard that word across the intervening generations and were still obedient to its call. It is to the spirit of those men, exhibited in all our wars, to the spirit that places the devotion to freedom and truth above the devotion to life, that the nation pays its ever-enduring mark of reverence and respect. It is not that principle that leads to conflict but to tranquility. It is not that principle which is the cause of war but the only foundation for an enduring peace. There can be no peace with the forces of evil. Peace comes only through the establishment of the supremacy of the forces of good. That way lies only through sacrifice. It was that the people of our country might live in a knowledge of the truth that these, our countrymen, are dead. ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.’

“This spirit is not dead, it is the most vital thing in America. It did not flow from any act of government. It is the spirit of the people themselves. It justifies faith in them and faith in their institutions…It is to that spirit again, with this returning year, we solemnly pledge the devotion of all that we have and are.”

Writing in recognition of this day eight years later, he would summarize the abiding import of this Day with these words, “No lapse or diminution should be permitted in the yearly devotion which the people pay to the memory of those who have served in our armed forces…The principle involved must not be obscured. The day is sacred to the memory of all the dead who wore our uniform, from the earliest Indian wars to the present hour. In honoring their memory we are not glorifying war. We are a peaceful nation…But we honor their memory that we may glorify citizenship. They were the antithesis of selfish individualism, merging freedom and even chance of life in the common welfare of country. In danger, choosing the course that really counts, they preserved their rights by discharging their duties. No nation can live which cannot command that kind of service. No people worthy of such service will fail to do it in reverence.”

President Coolidge with Secretary of War, Dwight Davis (left), and Secretary of the Navy, Curtis Wilbur (right).

President and First Lady Coolidge meeting Civil War veterans, August 1924.

President Coolidge saluting the Unknown Soldier with Secretary of War, John Weeks; Assistant Secretary of Navy, Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., and Naval Aide to the President, Captain Wilson Brown, (1923?).

On the Boy Scouts

May 25, 2013May 25, 2013 / gouverneurmorris / Leave a comment

Reflecting on the purpose of this long-standing private organization, especially in light of the recent change in admission standards, it is important to recall what Calvin Coolidge had to say about them. Writing in his daily column on February 9, 1931, he said,

“Millions of our young men have had the benefit of the physical, mental and moral discipline that results from Scout training. When the evil reports of a few gangsters make us wonder if society and government are about to disintegrate and revert to the law of the jungle, we can turn with assurance to the humanizing and civilizing effect of the Boy Scouts. Under the old life in the country every boy was something of a Scout. But in the modern city many boys live on a narrow street or alley. The buildings make it impossible for them to see; in the constant roar they cannot hear. With the lack of healthful and life-giving impulses from without they are turned back on themselves. When they need action and companionship in order to secure a natural growth of body and mind, they are unable to find anything but an artificial, dwarfing substitute. The profitable and patriotic remedy for these conditions is the Boy Scout movement. Under the influence of a considerable body of citizens so trained our republic is fairly secure.”

Considering the Boy Scouts accomplished all of this for decades before the latest round of complaints against it, the policy change rings hollow. Volunteer and civic-minded organizations, like what the Scouts have been, represent certain moral standards and no force in the world can rightfully tell them to abandon that ennobling purpose in order to enact the amorphous values of someone else. The Boy Scouts are not about sexual orientation, but about instilling character and competence in our young men. That used to be an asexual blessing to society–not anymore. Sexual identity trumps all other values. Now, one by one, organizations like the Boy Scouts have to concede their purpose to an intolerant minority unwilling to grant the existence of any organization that chooses its own standards of membership. So much for the good old fashioned virtue of living and letting live. This latest coerced participant in reordering society to please a few is only the most recent effort to keep Pandora’s box open, whatever it will cost (in lives or public morals) down the road.

On Broadcasting and the Movies

May 21, 2013May 18, 2019 / gouverneurmorris / 1 Comment

While it is better known that President Coolidge proficiently used the medium of radio, it is far lesser known what he thought of other forms of broadcasting, such as film and television, the latter in its earliest stages of potential. He was the first among Chief Executives to effectively employ the potential of radio communication. Long before the “fireside chat,” the voice Americans knew and liked was that of Calvin Coolidge.

As for the potential of movies, Coolidge hosted “movie previews,” both as Vice President and President for both friends and family, ranging from documentaries to entertainment pieces (Leab, “Coolidge, Hays, and 1920s Movies,” in Haynes 103). It was here that Coolidge’s realism built on faith manifested itself strikingly. He would navigate between the forces calling for outright censorship and those marketing and enthusiastically promoting D. W. Griffith’s pro-Klan picture, “Birth of a Nation,” steering legislation to decide by majority vote through commission whether the film should stand alone or include counterbalancing footage of black progress, like that at Tuskegee and Hampton Institutes. The latter prevailed in Massachusetts and served as a clear repudiation to the Klan and a rebuke of President Wilson, who was in favor of the movie as it stood. Coolidge’s bold act won respect, helped push the Klan into the margins and upstaged Wilson. It would not be the last time.

On the other hand, he recognized that moving pictures had great potential for good. The serious and educational served their purposes, of course, but so did comedy. Coolidge appreciated the need for balance between both. People need to be able to laugh, he would once remark. It is recalled by a regular guest to those “previews” that when a Harold Lloyd comedy was shown at the White House in 1925, he “never saw the President laugh more.” That potential for good was conditional, however, as he explains in his column on February 13, 1931, “The time may not be far away when it will be possible to have a receiving set in the home that will produce a sound motion picture. Central stations may be able to receive and broadcast to the eye and ear events taking place all over the world. It is difficult to comprehend what an enormous power this would be. New forces are constantly being created for good or for evil. When primitive people come in contact with civilization usually they use its powers for their own destruction. Unless the moral power of the world increases in proportion to its scientific power there is a real danger that the new inventions will prove instruments of our own destruction. If moral development keeps step, peace and good will have gained new allies.”

Given the general condition of modern film and television, can it be said that morality and goodness have kept pace with them? In small, isolated pockets broadcasting lives up to that noble alliance with morals, in praise of what is good and wholesome, and when it does, it exemplifies faithful stewardship and true progress. It is not coincidental that the best pictures appeal to timeless ideals.

Top: Harold Lloyd in Safety Last! (1923); Middle: The Coolidges meeting Al Jolson and company, 1924; Bottom: Jean Dujardin and Uggie in The Artist (2011). Further Reading: chapter 4 “Coolidge, Hays, and 1920s Movies” by Daniel J. Leab in Calvin Coolidge and the Coolidge Era, Edited by John Earl Haynes. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1998.