“Silent Cal Speaks: Why Calvin Coolidge Is the Model for Conservative Leadership Today”

In this superb piece by Cal Thomas, which could have easily been written yesterday (not in 1996, as is the case), it is remembered that Coolidge was not merely an advocate of classical economics but he was a witness to an entire worldview of God, man and government. Mr. Thomas argues that it is Coolidge who stands as the pivotal and symbolic contrast to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s vision for America. It is this latter vision that has none of the mechanisms for solving human problems that its competitor, the spiritual worldview of Coolidge and the Framers, came closer to addressing than any other system has discovered. Coolidge’s worldview did not presume to be the voice of God in all matters social or political. It simply appeals to objective standards of right and wrong, to constitutional checks upon the destructive impulses of human nature and endorses the necessary philosophical foundations on which to build the best attainable civilization. In light of experience, the abandonment of this worldview has proven to be regression not progress. Roosevelt’s America takes people back to the barbarous days of imperial control, not republican liberty. Experience indicts this reactionary approach for a return to the practical wisdom of Coolidge’s worldview.