OPINION:
This year, my wife and I celebrated a traditional Fourth of July in Plymouth Notch, Vermont, the birthplace of Calvin Coolidge, the only U.S. president born on Independence Day. After learning of President Warren Harding’s death, then Vice President Coolidge was sworn in as our 30th president by his notary public father in the early hours of Aug. 3, 1923, in the parlor of the village home in which he and earlier generations of Coolidges had been raised.
One of those, his great grandfather, had in an earlier day grabbed his musket and rushed off to join fellow colonists to keep the British regulars headed to Lexington and Concord from seizing the gunpowder stored near there to essentially disarm them.
After finishing Harding’s term and almost one of his own, Coolidge went trout fishing in South Dakota. While there, he called reporters to a press conference in Rapid City. Aides distributed slips of paper with the words “I do not choose to run for President in 1928.” typed on them. Expecting a different announcement from the wildly popular president, reporters were in an uproar. One asked him to comment. True to form, Coolidge said “no” and that was that.
Years later, the former president observed that one of his reasons was his distaste for something that happens all too often to elected officials:
It is difficult for men in high office to avoid the malady of self-delusion … They are always surrounded by worshippers. They are constantly, and for the most part sincerely assured of their greatness. They live in an artificial atmosphere of adulation and exaltation that sooner or later impairs their judgment. They are in grave danger of becoming careless or arrogant.
Coolidge was neither. He lived humbly, worked hard and was true to his principles as governor, president, or in any other role. He is buried near his family home in Plymouth Notch in a small cemetery above the restored village where admirers gather every July Fourth to honor the Coolidge legacy and the only president born on Independence Day. At noon there is a walking procession to the cemetery where local dignitaries and members of his family place a wreath on his grave, read from one of his speeches on the importance of the founding and the Declaration of Independence, and listen as a member of the Vermont National Guard plays Taps at the end of the simple but moving ceremony.
Coolidge’s legacy was ignored or demeaned by progressive historians enamored by Woodrow Wilson before him or the activist presidents who followed and expanded the powers of the president beyond anything the Founders or Coolidge found reasonable. But when Ronald Reagan became president, he installed the 30th president’s portrait in the White House Cabinet Room and spoke often of Coolidge as his role model. Since then, biographies have shined a light on the man, his values and the success of the policies adopted during his time in the White House.
Coolidge was known during his presidency as “Silent Cal,” but when he had something to say, he spoke clearly and wisely. Today as part of Plymouth Notch’s celebration, high schoolers proclaim excerpts of those speeches and honor Coolidge’s ability to articulate his views without rancor as part of his legacy. The Coolidge Foundation hosts high school debates around the country each year and on Independence Day brings the hundred best to Vermont to compete for the Coolidge Cup. The cup is awarded to the winner of the final debate at the close of the July 4th celebration.
The debaters are joined in a large tent erected in the center of the village by other students who proudly read excerpts from many of Calvin Coolidge’s speeches. Anyone doubting that America still produces bright, involved, and patriotic young people need only visit Plymouth Notch around Independence Day to renew one’s faith in the possibilities created by the men who signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and a realization that as in the past the roadblocks and challenges a free people encounter can be overcome in the future as they have in the past.
Former Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas and I were enjoying the performance of high school students reading excerpts from some of Coolidge’s speeches in the big tent when a rainstorm complete with thunder and lightning trapped us for a time. Governor Douglas reminded me that Coolidge was once trapped at a public gathering by a similar storm that went on and on. A woman asked the former president if he thought the rain would ever stop. He looked at her and replied, “Always has.”
As we wonder if we as a nation will overcome our current divisions and problems, those words are worth remembering because we “always have.”
• David Keene is editor-at-large at The Washington Times.
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