John Calvin Coolidge - Address to the General Court beginning the 2nd year as Governor of Massachusetts

Address to the General Court beginning
the 2nd year as Governor of Massachusetts

January 8, 1920

“It is preeminently the province of government to protect the weak. The average citizen does not lead the life of independence that was his in former days under a less complex order of society. When a family tilled the soil and produced its own support it was independent. When it produces but one article, and that in a plant owned by others, it is dependent. It may be infinitely better off under the latter plan, but it is evident it needs a protection which before was not required. Let Massachusetts continue to regard with the gravest solicitude the well being of her people. By prescribed law, by authorized publicity, by informed public opinion let her continue to strive to provide that all conditions under which her citizens live are worthy of the high estate of man. Healthful housing, wholesome food, sanitary working conditions, reasonable hours, a fair wage for a fair day’s work, opportunity full and free, justice speedy and impartial and at a cost within the reach of all, are among the objects not only to be sought but made absolutely certain and secure. Government is not, must not be, a cold impersonal machine, but a human and more human agency, appealing to the reason, satisfying the heart, full of mercy, assisting the good, resisting the wrong, delivering the weak from any impositions of the strong. Massachusetts is committed to this and will strive consistently for its complete realization. This is not paternalism. It is not a servitude imposed from without, but the freedom of a righteous self direction from within.”

Calvin Coolidge Comments: "To support the Constitution, to observe the laws is to be true to our own higher nature."

"To support the Constitution, to observe the laws, is to be true to our own higher nature. That is the path, and the only path towards liberty. To resist them and violate them is to become enemies to ourselves  and instruments of our own destruction. That is the path towards servitude."

Foundations of the Republic - Address to the Holy Name Society, Washington, D.C. 9/21/24 - "Foundations of the Republic" p 108

 "A police force administered on the assumption that the violation of some laws may be ignored has started toward demoralization. The community which approves such administration is making dangerous concessions...The conclusion is inescapable that laxity of administration reacts upon public opinion, causing cynicism and loss of confidence in both law and its enforcement and, therefore in its observance."

From The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, New York, Sunday, May 31, 1925

Calvin Coolidge Comments: On the Need to Decentralize the Federal Government

"No method of procedure has ever been devised by which liberty could be divorced from local self-government. No plan of centralization has ever been adopted which did not result in bureaucracy, tyranny, inflexibility, reaction, and decline. Of all forms of government, those administered by bureaus are about the least satisfactory to an enlightened and progressive people. Being irresponsible they become autocratic, and being autocratic they resist all development. Unless bureaucracy is constantly resisted it breaks down representative government and overwhelms democracy. It is the one element in our institutions that sets up the pretense of having authority over everybody and being responsible to nobody." - From: Calvin Coolidge, Foundations of the Republic p 410-411