Calvin Coolidge: Is His Value System Relevant in the 21st Century?

Calvin Coolidge: Is His Value System Relevant in the 21st Century? Let's take a look at Calvin's own words regarding the ethics class portion of Charles E. Garman's four semester Philosophy course which all Amherst students were required to take in Coolidge's day. Coolidge writes,

"In ethics he taught us that there is a standard of righteousness. That might does not make right, that the end does not justify the means and that expediency as a working principle is bound to fail. The only hope of perfecting human relationship is in accordance with the law of service under which men are not so solicitous about what they shall get as they are about what they shall give. Yet people are entitled to the rewards of their industry. What they earn is theirs, no matter how small or how great. But the possession of property carries the obligation to use it in a larger service. For a man not to recognize the truth, not to be obedient to the law, not to render allegiance to the State, is for him to be at war with his own nature, to commit suicide. That is why the wages of sin is death.' Unless we live rationally we perish, physically, mentally, spiritually."

President Calving Coolidge
White House, 12 October 1924

It is a fact that Calvin Coolidge believed that a common core of values, which I have included and commented on in this article, are essential for any country, particularly a democratic one, to survive as an independent country in the world of the twenty-first century.

America's most basic set of common values, on which our nation was established and developed are enshrined in our foundational documents, The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution.

We are a nation of immigrants who brought with them the customs, religion and language of their native countries.

But up to and including immigrants of the Great Generation, coming to America meant subscribing to the American common core of values which in addition to what is in the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution, also included learning the common language of English and the basic laws and customs of America like our national holidays.

It did not mean that the immigrant had to give up his/her native language, customs or Judaeo-Christian faiths, though many felt so strongly about becoming "Americanized" that they even changed the spelling of their surnames to an anglicized version.

This kind of diversity has and does make America a stronger and culturally rich country because it stresses the common humanity of all races and peoples as basic. All the rest add variety and spice to the American Buffet!

Calvin Coolidge's value system would support all that I have written thus far.

From the very start of the twenty-first century and beginning even in the last quarter of the twentieth century we have been and are experiencing a growing support for extreme concepts of diversity that even reject the necessity for immigrants to accept the aforementioned basic set of American values which are foundational to our society.

We now are faced with dealing with some groups of immigrants who while wanting all the benefits of living in American society, also want to live in closed enclaves within that society. They even actively espouse the destruction of our basic value system and the imposition of their own system, a much milder form of which our forefathers rejected in the Declaration of Independence.

 

Calvin and Grace Coolidge
Riding to his Second Inauguration
4 March 1925

Calvin Coolidge would be considered a reactionary conservative by such groups — a man to be annihilated!

But for most Americans still, his values speak to the best in American society. They form the parameters of a just and merciful society, one nation out of many (e pluribus unum) under God.

Will our definition of happiness be "me first, me last, me always," or of self sacrifice "emptying self to serve others?" The first definition if lived out by a critical mass of our people will bring destruction and despair. The second will produce the fulfillment of the American Dream: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Endnote

1) The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge, Cosmopolitan Book Corporation, New York, N.Y., 1929, 1989 edition, p. 160. This and subsequent quotations from the Autobiography are used with the gracious permission of the Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation, Plymouth Notch, Vermont.