In what was then-Governor Coolidge’s address to those gathered at Harvard University on May 30, 1920, the future President, channeling Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, observed:

We assemble here today on an occasion dedicated by law to the hallowed memory of those who, wearing the uniform of our nation, have given their lives in the cause of liberty. It is altogether fitting that this assemblage should come here under these auspices to pay our tribute of respect and reverence for those who have given their lives in this great cause.

What, – what, after all, was the object that they sought? It can be summed up in two words: the victory of righteousness, and righteous peace.

If this occasion is to have any meaning for us, if it is to bring any lesson to us, we must resolve that the lesson that their lives and their death have taught us is to be taken up and carried on and exemplified by those who come after. We come here as a result of war, but we come for the purpose of perpetuating, establishing, supporting; and maintaining peace – a peace of righteousness.

There are but two means by which that object can be accomplished. One is justice on the part of our nation toward all the other nations of the earth. And justice means action according to law, action according to the conscience of civilization and the edict of humanity. There is not authority from which we can secure peace unless it be accompanied by justice. There is no power great enough to guarantee it to us, no force strong enough to provide it for us. So that it is of the utmost consequence that we ascertain what our relationship one with another in our domestic affairs and in our foreign affairs may be, and see that it is administered, and that there is obedience to that law on our own part.

The other is the power to force obedience to that law on the part of anyone who may come against us. It was for that that these young men whose memory we come here today to hallow gave up their young lives. It was in a military preparation that our country might have the power to enforce a righteous peace, that they organized themselves from a military point of view and took up the great burden of civilization. Those are the two great leading points of carrying our civilization onward and upward; justice and preparation; obedience to law on our own part., and the enforcement of that obedience on the part of others.

May yours be a thoughtful and reflective Memorial Day this May 30, 2024. As Coolidge also once said, there remains a never fully paid Price of Freedom each generation owes. May ours meet its share in its own time and place. Thank you to all who give without an expectation of some future monetary or otherwise material return. Liberty lives because of you.