President Coolidge
THE COMMONWEAL A Weekly Review of...
...You may travel all over the world, and you may find cities without walls, without a king, without a mint, without theatre or gymnasiumn...
...The extraordinary complexities his administration must face will draw from F Mr...
...THE COMMONWEAL A Weekly Review of Literature, The Arts and Public Affairs...
...They will know that without law and order and authority no civilized statc may exist...
...Added to this new burden and opportunity, demand...
...Sooner may a city stand without foundations, than a state without belief in the gods...
...Yet the statement of this formidable case fills us with neither alarm nor pessimism...
...To Cavmj COOLIDGE, as thc PresIdent of the United States, whose icadership will largely determine the springs of our action, and whose secret trials of mInd and soul no one of us can measure or foresee, we gladly pledge—as we should with equal sincerity havc plcdgcd to either of the other candidate...
...Theodore Maynard Louis Veullioc Henry Lougan Stuart Science Sees the Light...
...This in itself is a momentous revolution...
...We would say to the American people, and to the man chosen by them as their Chief Magistrate, a few words, proffered with humility, and in the spirit which is the guiding intention of this new journal —the spirit of Faith, of Hope, and of Chancy...
...Iicving thc party or the school of their choice to be the best way, the most congenial method for achieving human bettenneut, but they will not scam or condemn the parties or the schools to which others give a!legiance...
...They, we believe, are our best, our most useful, and, in the truest sense, our most patriotic dtizens...
...They might take for their motto the words of Plutarch— There never was a state of atbeists...
...ing an entirely new technique of government, he must face problems of unparalleled intricacy and magnitude —moral, economic and internationaL The conduct of a war is simple in comparison, for war is direct, unified...
...As agencies of government, the spilt in their ranks between radical and conservative has paralyzed their power of united action...
...COOLIDGE the utmost capacity of his physical ~urance, his mental firmness, his judpzenti patience, Six Poems rhe Play R. Dana Skinner 21 2z The Quiet Corner 24 Briefer Mention 25 COOLIDGE and tolerance...
...So, too, of Hope—and, above all, of Charity...
...In its wont aspect, it promises long vistas of deadlocks, log rolling and shirked responsibility, delays, vexations and painful compromises...
...ligious liberty into a colonial charter, from the God...
...The man who will direct our government during the next four years, to whom the people, through lawfully ordained methods, have entrusted the supreme executive power and the headship of the army and navy of a mighty nation, finds that nation troubled and perplexed by most serious and highly perilous pmblems, complicated by the fact chat this nation must in one way or another play a leading part among the other nations of the world at a time when all peoples are facing a crisis graver than any recorded m the annals of humanity...
...New York, Wednesday, November 12, 1924 Numberi CONTENTS President Coolidge Week by Week An Introduction...
...It will demand a man of superb equipment and courage and judgment to master the span of tho four years ahead...
...Man does not yield himsclf to the forces of darkness or of light save only through the consent or the weakness of his wilL Mcix and women who believe in God, and know Him through faith to be the Good, the True, and the Beautiful, and who in that belief strive eatrestly to unite thc warks of their own wIll to the will of God, know that in pro...
...World Business 3 S £ x The Founder of California...
...In essentials unity—in non-essentials liberty— in all things charity...
...Add to these the possibilities of labor disturbance in the key industries of coal and transportation, the possibility of organized atta& upon the Fcdcral Reserve systcni, and thc agitation of the numerous blocs in Congress...
...fcaring and loyal Jew, to the childlike faith of the black...
...The President must seek support from men of like minds in all parties...
...mating the humane and higher intcrests of their own nation through justice and charity, with the fullest possible rcspect and sympathy for the just aspirations of all other nations, they are in the truest and best sense working in harmony with the Father of all mankind...
...Thosc members of our assodation who are not Catholics believe equally firmly that it is unquestionably a dcar social duty for Catholics to contributc to the ciforts now being made by all men and women of good will, to bring peace upon cant, brotherhood among men, happiness to all peoples, and prosperity, good order, and the fruits of civilization.—.art, beauty, culture-.-to our own nation...
...had the people chosen another man—what strength we have, that through him, in fair day...
...They will not be extremists, fanadcs, and, above all, they will not be lawless...
...He no longer faces divided party counsels, for this situation has been greatly bettered by the increase of Republican representation...
...COOLIDGE is a descendant, to the fervent Catholic founders of Maryland who first wrote re...
...They will place above all panics or schools the common weal...
...To increuc their number, to bring about among them a closer union, a more prac~ tied coipcration, a truer understanding of dacir cornmon purposes, and to canalize the streams of their beneficent influence, would be the greatest of all works of social utility...
...For THE Col~m1oNwnx...
...We have an abiding faith in the power of this nation to meet and waster its problems provided only it approaches them with a true humility—the dear knowledge that the best we have achievcd in the past and the best we shall achieve is based on the simplest of all virtues, the inborn reliance on God...
...They will spare no recess of his soul...
...but you will nowbere find a city without a god, without prayer, without oracle, without sacrifices...
...For we believe that it is the will that is chc main instrument of all human action...
...Such a belief permits men to join parties, or various and different schools of sodal thought, honestly be...
...and foul, the spIrit of this country striving for justicc may still cry out as in the past and with simple faith—"Erpect the Lord, do manfully and be of good heart...
...Of Faith, because we exercise it not only in itligion but also in matters that concern the nation...
...Our national roots ding to this simple Faith, from the nobly stem Puritans of New England, of wham Mr...
...But it remains true that our parties have become little more than nominating machines...
...He must have a national rather than a local support to put through any paramount measure...
...flcrtran C. A. Windle Memoirs of a Nobody Helen Walker 19 On Alliance with Rome...
...Changes in the laws or hi the mechanism of the state may be and often are desirable, even impentively necessary, but arc to be achieved only through education, and legal political action...
...In its best aspect—and this is where the President's test will become acute—it will force the Executive to achieve in fact as well as on paper the headship of the entire nation...
...is not the organ of any political party, or of any single school of economic or sodal theory...
...And the Calvert Associates, who publish it, whether they are members of onc or another of the great political parties, or whether they profess different farms of religious belief, or whether they accept nrious formB of economic or social theorizing, are firmly united in the belief, and in the practice of the belief, that rcligion is at once the foundation and the only sure guarantee of the highest forms of civilizadon and culture...
...But what of harrassing tasks such as these: restoration of confidence in the integrity of government officials, alleviation of religious and racial Volume 1 12 '5 'PT 2 THE COMMONWEAL November it, 1924 animosities, the agitation for and against federal control of education, consolidation of railroads and equitable adjustment of rates, the probable entire rcviskn of revenue sources, the rearrangement of government departments, progressive reduction of the national debt, decision on the participation of the United States in the League and ira various world conferences, further international reduction of anua~ ment, settlement with our foreign debtors, the sane administration of the Dawes plan and its probable frequent modificatIons...
...Hoffman Nickerson Religion and Sex G. K. Chescerton Last Words of A Happy Man Maurice Frauds Egan 6 8 10 PRESIDENT AS THIS, the first number of TUE COMMONWEAL, goes to press, the election returns are far from complete Rut it is known that CAlviN CoOLIDGE has been decisively chosen as the next President of the United States...
...God, Himself, said an old mystical writer, is a great Will pervading all things by reason of its intentness...
...Men and women of good will...
...So long as we hold fast to these roots, we cannot engulf ourselves in that overweening pride of self, that colossal ego of the would-be supcrrnan and supernation which is the conspicuous moral disease of the world today and of the vcry essence of its unrest and turmoil...
...This is the bond of all society, and the pillar of all legislation...
Vol. 1 • November 1924 • No. 1
