In reaching the great decision to enter the war, in preparing the answer which speaks with so much authority, in the only language that despotism can understand, America has arisen to a new life.
Calvin Coolidge
The Public Record
Calvin Coolidge was the 30th President of the United States, serving from 1923 to 1929. A member of the Republican Party, he was known for his quiet demeanor and strong support for business and limited government. Coolidge's presidency is often associated with the economic prosperity of the Roaring Twenties, and he famously advocated for a hands-off approach to the economy, believing that government should interfere as little as possible in the lives of citizens and businesses.
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Such is our record and it cannot be forgotten.
Man for man they surpass any other troops on earth.
The soldiers and sailors who fight under the Stars and Stripes are the most magnificent body of men that ever took up arms for defence of a great cause.
But all this should not cause us to withhold the praise that is due our own Army and Navy, or to overlook the fact that our people have met every call that patriotism has made.
The more clearly we discern the beginning and the progress of the struggle, the more we must admire the great spirit of those nations by whose side we fight.
It is not won yet, but we have reached the place where we know how to win it, and if we continue our exertions we shall win it fully, completely, grandly, as becomes a great people contending for the cause of righteousness.
The great pretender to the throne of the earth thought the time had come to assert that we were his subjects.
We know that war had been decreed before the pretext on which it was declared had happened.
We have seen the studied effort to make perverts of sixty millions of German people.
This determination has arisen from no sudden impulse or selfish motive.
The country is united in the conviction that the only terms are unconditional surrender.
It is a revelation, but a revelation not of our weakness but of our strength, not of new principles, but of the power that lies in the application of old doctrines.
A new vision has come to the Nation, a vision that must never be obscured.
We see now that when the individual fails, whether it be from a despotism or the dead level of a socialistic state, all has failed.
By taking our place in the world, America is to become more American, as by doing his duty the individual develops his own manhood.
Both exist to pervert and enslave the people; both seek to break down the national spirit of the world for their own wicked ends.
We see now that Prussian despotism was the natural ally of the Russian Bolshevik and the I.W.W. here.
We are not going to overcome the Kaiser by becoming like him, nor aid Russia by becoming like her.
All argument about the efficiency of despotism and the incompetence of republics was answered at the Marne and will be hereafter answered at the Rhine.
The war has revealed to us their true greatness.
We are in this war to preserve the institutions that have made us great.
It must be the expression of self-government and not the despotism of a German military caste or a Russian Bolshevik state.
But this must not be done at the expense of the freedom of the individual.
The sacrifice necessary for national defence must hereafter never be neglected.
Politicians like Calvin Coolidge
