Calvin Coolidge - Thrift, Industry and Other Echoes of Adam Smith

Democrats have always been the party of radical trends and fads. Once it was slavery, Jim Crow and segregation. Now it's authoritarianism, totalitarianism and fascism. - @michaeltruegrit on Twitter:

"Sometimes it is difficult to get the public to understand, not only the necessity but the benefits and the blessings that flow from thrift, industry and the saving disposition, not only to those who happen to put their money in banks, but to the conduct of all kinds of business enterprises. It is not too much to say that almost the whole of what we call civilization is the difference between saving what we make today for use on the morrow, and exhausting it at the time we receive it. And wherever we find a people with sufficient self-control, sufficient balance, sufficient thrift and industry to save their money and increase their capital, there you may be altogether certain that civilization will make progress. Where you find capital being dissipated, where you find a thriftless and improvident population, there you will be equally certain of decline setting in that will end the advance of civilization."

-- Governor Calvin Coolidge, Boston, April 23, 1920

"The people cannot look to legislation generally for success. Industry, thrift, character, are not conferred by act or re solve.
Government cannot relieve from toil. It can provide no substitute for the rewards of service. It can, of course, care for the defective and recognize distinguished merit. The normal must care for themselves. Self government means self support. Man is born into the universe with a personality that is his own. He has a right that is founded upon the constitution of the universe to have property that is his own. Ultimately, property rights and personal rights are the same thing. The one cannot be preserved if the other be violated. Each man is entitled to his rights and the rewards of his service be they never so large or never so small."

- Calvin Coolidge, from Have Faith in Massachusetts: Senate President Acceptance Speech Jan. 7, 1914