I happen to be reading Amity Shlaes' biography of Calvin Coolidge, and happened upon this speech by Coolidge to the Massachusetts State Senate in 1914, a hundred years ago. It's so good, with so many sound ideas and wisdom about politics and life that I thought I'd print the whole thing:
Honorable Senators:
I thank you, with gratitude for the high honor given, with
appreciation for the solemn obligations assumed, I thank you.
The commonwealth is one. We are all members of one body. The
welfare of the weakest and the welfare of the most powerful are inseparably
bound together. Industry cannot flourish if labor languish. Transportation
cannot prosper if manufactures decline. The general welfare cannot be provided
for in any one act, but it is well to remember that the benefit of one is the
benefit of all, and the neglect of one is the neglect of all. The suspension of
one man's dividends is the suspension of another man's pay envelope.
Men do not make laws. They do but discover them. Laws must
be justified by something more than the will of the majority. They must rest on
the eternal foundation of righteousness. That state is most fortunate in its
form of government which has the aptest instruments for the discovery of laws.
The latest, most modern, and nearest perfect system that statesmanship has
devised is representative government. Its weakness is the weakness of us
imperfect human beings who administer it. Its strength is that even such
administration secures to the people more blessings than any other system ever
produced.
No nation has discarded it and retained liberty.
Representative government must be preserved. Courts are established, not to
determine the popularity of a cause, but to adjudicate and enforce rights. No
litigant should be required to submit his case to the hazard and expense of a
political campaign. No judge should be required to seek or receive political
rewards. The courts of Massachusetts are known and honored wherever men love
justice. Let their glory suffer no diminution at our hands. The electorate and
judiciary cannot combine. A hearing means a hearing. When the trial of causes
goes outside the court room, Anglo Saxon constitutional government ends. The
people cannot look to legislation generally for success. Industry, thrift,
character, are not conferred by act or re solve.
Government cannot relieve from toil. It can provide no
substitute for the rewards of service. It can, of course, care for the
defective and recognize distinguished merit. The normal must care for themselves.
Self government means self support. Man is born into the universe with a
personality that is his own. He has a right that is founded upon the
constitution of the universe to have property that is his own. Ultimately,
property rights and personal rights are the same thing. The one cannot be
preserved if the other be violated. Each man is entitled to his rights and the
rewards of his service be they never so large or never so small.
History reveals no civilized people among whom there were
not a highly educated class, and large aggregations of wealth, represented
usually by the clergy and the nobility. Inspiration has always come from above.
Diffusion of learning has come down from the university to the common school,
the kindergarten is last. No one would now expect to aid the common school by
abolishing higher education. It may be that the diffusion of wealth works in an
analogous way. As the little red schoolhouse is builded in the college, it may
be that the fostering and protection of large aggregations of wealth are the
only foundation on which to build the prosperity of the whole people. Large
profits mean large pay rolls. But profits must be the result of service
performed. In no land are there so many and such large aggregations of wealth
as here; in no land do they perform larger service; in no land will the work of
a day bring so large a reward in material and spiritual welfare.
Have faith in Massachusetts. In some unimportant detail some
other States may surpass her, but in the general results, there is no place on
earth where the people secure, in a larger measure, the blessings of organized
government, and nowhere can those functions more properly be termed self
government. Do the day's work. If it be to protect the rights of the weak,
whoever objects, do it. If it be to help a powerful corporation better to serve
the people, whatever the opposition, do that. Expect to be called a stand
patter, but don't be a stand patter. Expect to be called a demagogue, but don't
be a demagogue. Don't hesitate to be as revolutionary as science. Don't
hesitate to be as reactionary as the multiplication table. Don't expect to
build up the weak by pulling down the strong. Don't hurry to legislate. Give
administration a chance to catch up with legislation. We need a broader,
firmer, deeper faith in the people; A faith that men desire to do right, that
the Commonwealth is founded upon a righteousness which will endure, a
reconstructed faith that the final approval of the people is given not to
demagogues, slavishly pandering to their selfishness, merchandising with the
clamor of the hour, but to statesmen, ministering to their welfare,
representing their deep, silent, abiding convictions.
Statutes must appeal to more than material welfare. Wages
won't satisfy, be they never so large. Nor houses; nor lands; nor coupons,
though they fall thick as the leaves of autumn.
Man has a spiritual nature. Touch it, and it must respond as
the magnet responds to the pole. To that, not to selfishness, let the laws of
the Commonwealth appeal. Recognize the immortal worth and dignity of man. Let
the laws of Massachusetts proclaim to her humblest citizen, performing the most
menial task, the recognition of his manhood, the recognition that all men are
peers, the humblest with the most exalted, the recognition that all work is
glorified. Such is the path to equality before the law. Such is the foundation
of liberty under the law. Such is the sublime revelation of man's relation to
man, Democracy!
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