“Too often the world turns its eyes to the high places, thinking that from them will come its revelations and its great events, forgetful that a greater wisdom is in those who ‘mind not high things, but condescend to men of high estate.’ The greatest epoch in all human history began in a manger. This great American [speaking of Abraham Lincoln], the foremost world figure of the nineteenth century, came out of a frontier clearing and spent his early manhood in a village of a few hundred souls.
“In the memory of these facts there lies a solid basis for our faith. There is in the people themselves the power to put forth great men. There is in the soul of the nation a reserve for responding to the call to high ideals, to nobility of action, which has never yet been put forth. There is no problem so great but that somewhere a man is being raised up to meet it. There is no moral standard so high that the people cannot be raised up to it. God rules, and from the Bethlehems and Springfields He sends them forth, His own, to do His work. In them we catch a larger gleam of the Infinite” — Calvin Coolidge, February 12, 1922, at the Lincoln Birthplace, Springfield, Illinois.
While frequently on the speaker’s circuit as Vice President, Mr. Coolidge is here articulating an assurance that under God’s rule solutions to our problems do not come by Washington’s decree but, being spiritual in their essence, it takes righteous standards to address them. It is God, not people, who elevate individuals for the times through moral character. God even now prepares men and women of integrity who are being prepared for the problems confronting us. By looking to heavenly principles rather than the material accumulations of affluence, security and progress, a nation turns back to the foundations that stand. Ultimately, all problems are spiritual ones.
As Coolidge knew, like the Founders before him, a “nation that is morally dead will soon be financially dead.” Sound economics mean nothing without a firm grasp of moral principles. In the haste to cut away all reliance upon God and His moral order for society, we are simply hastening our own destruction. We are denying the eternal means of redemption when we live in defiance of our nature’s spiritual needs. The redefinition of marriage into something it has never been, the systematic denial of rights belonging to the smallest and weakest of society, and the refusal to acknowledge our Creator, our Lord and our Savior, will not spare us from reaping what we now sow. The fruits of our optimism will forever elude us if they do not rest in the clear moral standards originating from our Lawgiver and Lord.
Quotes
On the Jews
“It is easy to understand why a people with the historic background of the Jews, should thus overwhelmingly and unhesitatingly have allied themselves with the cause of freedom. From earliest colonial times, America has been a new land of promise to this long-persecuted race…whatever their origins as a people, they have always come to us, eager to adapt themselves to our institutions, to thrive under the influence of liberty, to take their full part as citizens in building and sustaining the nation, and to bear their part in its defence, in order to make a contribution to the national life, fully worth of the traditions they had inherited…
“Our country has done much for the Jews who have come here to accept its citizenship and assume their share of its responsibilities in the world. But I think the greatest thing it has done for them has been to receive them and treat them precisely as it has received and treated all others who have come to it. If our experiment in free institutions has proved anything, it is that the greatest privilege that can be conferred upon people in the mass is to free them from the demoralizing influence of privilege enjoyed by the few. This is proved by the experience here, not alone of the Jews, but of all the other racial and national elements that have entered into the making of this nation. We have found that when men and women are left free to find the places for which they are best fitted, some few of them will indeed attain less exalted stations than under a regime of privilege; but the vast multitude will rise to a higher level, to wider horizons, to worthier attainments” — President Coolidge, portion of remarks at the laying of the cornerstone of the Jewish Community Center, Washington, May 3, 1925.
Cited in Slemp, C. Bascom, compiler, “The Mind of the President.” New York: Doubleday, Page and Company, 1926, pp.288-9.
Remembering Abbie
“In March of my senior year my sister Abbie died. She was three years my junior but so proficient in her studies that she was but two classes below me in school. She was ill scarcely a week. Several doctors were in attendance but could not save her. Thirty years later one of them told me he was convinced she had appendicitis, which was a disease not well understood in 1890. I went home when her condition became critical and stayed beside her until she passed to join our mother. The memory of the charm of her presence and her dignified devotion to the right will always abide with me” — Calvin Coolidge, remembering March 6, 1890 in ‘The Autobiography’ (1929)
As we remember Abbie today, it is clear from this revealing statement that her brother’s outlook was enriched by her influence. May we exemplify the same qualities as brothers and sisters.
The Importance of the Obvious 