October 19

"Don't expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong."

Calvin Coolidge, 30th President, 1923-1929- from his "Have Faith in Massachusetts" Senate President Acceptance Speech, January 7, 1914. This speech, Coolidge's first as President of Massachusett's State Senate, is a tone setting "pep talk" for the legislature. At the time, Coolidge was forty two years of age and gaining prominence as he progressed from serving in the Massachusetts' House of Representatives to the Senate. Eventually he would be elected governor of Massachusetts and within ten year's time would be President of the United States. In his address, he thanks the Senate for the honor of being elected and recognized the obligations the came with the job. He goes on to state his philosophy of "law making", the chief function of any legislature..."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." He sees our successful representative form of government, even with its human weaknesses, "as one which secures to the people more blessings than any other system ever produced." As he does throughout his life and career, he shows his regard and affection for Massachusetts and New England in general, and his home state of Vermont. In later years he would remark, "Vermont is a state I love. I could not look upon the peaks of Ascutney, Killington and Mansfield without being moved in a way that no other scene could move me. It was here that I first saw the light of day, here that I received my bride. Here my dead lie buried, pillowed among the everlasting hills. I love Vermont because of her hills and valleys, her scenery and invigorating climate, but most of all, I love her because of her indomitable people." (Address September 21, 1928) Likewise, he sets high standards for his fellow senators- "...Representative government must be preserved...The courts of Massachusetts are known and honored wherever men love justice. Let their glory suffer no diminution at our hands." He goes on to say, "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..." He makes his main point. "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 demagogue, but don't be a demagogue...Don't expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong... 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." He concludes his remarks, saying, "To that, not to selfishness, let the laws of the Commonwealth appeal...Such is the foundation of liberty under the law. Such is the sublime revelation of man's relation to man, Democracy."