President Coolidge meets Sargeant Stubby, October 29, 1924

May 6, 2014May 7, 2014 / gouverneurmorris / Leave a comment

Having met this amazing Boston terrier twice before (in 1919 when Coolidge was Governor and 1921 as Vice President), Coolidge received a visit from Sargeant Stubby and his adopted owner, Robert Conroy, at the White House. Stubby not only accompanied Conroy to the Front during World War I, but the bold canine exhibited an extraordinary measure of courage, surviving a gas attack and wounds in battle, warning soldiers of incoming artillery, locating wounded troops stuck in “No Man’s Land” and even detaining a German long enough for Allied forces to catch up to his position. The blanket he is wearing, made for him by grateful French ladies, includes his unit badge, his sargeant stripes and an unprecedented array of medals from his service in combat. Coolidge would take time from an otherwise important day of military leaders, Congressional meetings, and even the visit of foreign diplomats to recognize the honor of service, the dignity of courage and the importance of fidelity, even when it is exemplified in one of our best of friends — the tough, little Sargeant Stubby.

Miss Louise Johnson and Stubby, May 13, 1921

Set for release on the 13th of this month, get ready for Sergeant Stubby: How a Stray Dog and His Best Friend Helped Win World War I and Stole the Heart of a Nation by Anne Bausum. The book includes Stubby’s meeting with President Coolidge and his collaboration in charitable work with Mrs. Coolidge.

Coolidge dedicating the Jewish Community Center, Washington, D. C., May 3, 1925

May 3, 2014May 3, 2014 / gouverneurmorris / Leave a comment

“The Jewish faith is predominantly the faith of liberty. From the beginnings of the conflict between the colonies and the mother country, they were overwhelmingly on the side of the rising revolution. You will recognize them when I read the names of some among the merchants who unhesitatingly signed the non-importation resolution of 1765: Isaac Moses, Benjamin Levy, Samson Levy, David Franks, Joseph Jacobs, Hayman Levy, Jr., Matthias Bush, Michael Gratz, Bernard Gratz, Isaac Franks, Moses Mordecai, Benjamin Jacobs, Samuel Lyon and Manuel Mordecai Noah.

“Not only did the colonial Jews join early and enthusiastically in the non-intercourse program, but when the time came for raising and sustaining an army, they were ready to serve wherever they could be most useful. There is a romance in the story of Haym Solomon, Polish Jew financier of the Revolution…Major Benjamin Nones has been referred to as the Jewish Lafayette…Captain De La Motta, and Captain Jacob De Leon…It is interesting to know that at the time of the Revolution there was a larger Jewish element in the southern colonies than would have been found there at much later periods; and these Jews of the Carolinas and Georgia were ardent supporters of the Revolution. One corps of infantry raised in Charleston, South Carolina, was composed preponderantly of Jews, and they gave a splendid account of themselves in the fighting of that section.

“It is easy to understand why a people with the historic background of the Jews should thus overwhelmingly and unhesitatingly have allied themselves with the cause of freedom. From earliest colonial times, America has been a new land of promise to this long-persecuted race…

“Our country has done much for the Jews who have come here to accept its citizenship and assume their share of its responsibilities in the world. But I think the greatest thing it has done for them has been to receive them and treat them precisely as it has received and treated all others who have come to it. If our experiment in free institutions has proved anything, it is that the greatest privilege that can be conferred upon people in the mass is to free them from the demoralizing influence of privilege enjoyed by the few. This is proved by the experience here, not alone of the Jews, but of all the other racial and national elements that have entered into the making of this Nation. We have found that when men and women are left free to find the places for which they are best fitted, some few of them will indeed attain less exalted stations than under a regime of privilege; but the vast multitude will rise to a higher level, to wider horizons, to worthier attainments.”

Black River Academy Graduating Class Photo, May 1, 1890

May 1, 2014May 1, 2014 / gouverneurmorris / Leave a comment

Coolidge attended B.R.A. from 1886 to 1890, where he would officially graduate on May 23rd of the latter year. As secretary of the class, he would deliver the first of many carefully written speeches during his long life in public service, this one aptly surveying the power of “Oratory in History.” Standing from L to R: Avvie L. King, Plymouth; Coolidge, Plymouth; Henry M. Hicks, Perkinsville; Clara S. Pollard, Ludlow and Amos K. Pollard, Ludlow. Sitting from R to L: Ellen M. Adams, Ludlow; Albert A. Sargent, Ludlow; Jessie Arminton, Ludlow and Rufus N. Hemenway, Ludlow.

It was on the occasion of his survey of oratory’s power on events that he observed, “In the history of our own country, the triumphs of oratory have been hardly less marked than those of the Old World. In the night of tyranny, the eloquence of the country first blazed up, like the lighted signal fires of a distracted border to startle and enlighten a community. Everywhere as the news of some fresh invasion of our liberties and rights was bourne on the wings of the wind, men ran together and called upon some earnest citizen to address them…” When James Otis rose in 1761 to denounce the British Writs of Assistance, “every man of the vast audience went away resolved to take up arms against the injustice.” Patrick Henry’s “Liberty or Death” speech “gave an impulse which probably decided the fate of America.” Young Calvin ended his oration in not too unfamiliar a fashion when he said, “The effects of sacred oratory on the history of the world would fill volumes…It would hardly be too much to say, that since the dawn of civlization, the triumphs of the tongue have rivaled, if not surpassed, those of the sword. Although some of the most fiery themes of eloquence may have passed away with the occasions of tyranny, outrage, and oppression that created them…yet so long as wickedness and misery, injustice and wretchedness prevail on the earth, so long as the millennium is still distant and Utopia a dream, the voice of the orator will still be needed to warn, to denounce, to terrify, and to overwhelm.”

For Coolidge, the education of the mind and soul never stopped. There were no graduates when it came to real education — the finishing of character and the constant preparation of not merely the intellect but the spirit of the individual. As he would write, looking back on his life at fifty-seven years of age, in The Autobiography, “My education began with a set of blocks which had on them the Roman numerals and the letters of the alphabet. It is not yet finished.”