Belated Birthday
I neglected to post that yesterday, in addition to being the 230th anniversary of the birth of our nation was also the 134th anniversary of the birth of our nation's 30th President Calvin Coolidge. (WikiPedia Article)
I've long thought that Coolidge has never gotten the respect he deserves and is a greatly underrated President. Historians, much like voters, prefer men of action and Coolidge by temperment who most definitely not. However, sometimes the best action to take is nothing, let problems sort themselves out rather than coming up with an imprefect solution.
He's often unfairly maligned for stating "The business of American is business." That's unfair for two reasons: 1) it's a miquote and 2) it's taken out of context, where he argues that our prosperity must serve a higher purpose. Here's the full quote:
After all, the chief business of the American people is business. They are profoundly concerned with producing, buying, selling, investing, and prospering in the world. I am strongly of the opinion that the great majority of people will always find these are moving impulses in our life. . . . In all experience, the accumulation of wealth means the multiplication of schools, the encouragement of science, the increase of knowledge, the dissemination of intelligence, the broadening of outlook, the expansion of liberties, the widening of culture. Of course the accumulation of wealth cannot be justified as the chief end of existence. But we are compelled to recognize it as a means to well-nigh every desirable achievement. So long as wealth is made the means and not the end, we need not greatly fear it. And there never was a time when wealth was so generally regarded as a means, or so little regarded as an end, as today. It is only those who do not understand our people who believe that our national life is entirely absorbed by material motives. We make no concealment of the fact that we want wealth, but there are many other things that we want very much more. We want peace and honor, and that charity which is so strong an element of all civilization. The chief ideal of the American people is idealism.
Far from promoting business as an end in itself, he argues it must serve higher goals.
Read more about him:
Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation (I'm a member!)
Biography by Robert Sobel