that needs reforming. It has a historical side.
I do not say “an” historical side, because I am speaking the American language. I do not see why our cousins should continue to say “an” hospital, “an” historical fact, “an” horse. It seems to me the Congress of Women, now in session, should look to it. I think “an” is having a little too much to do with it. It comes of habit, which accounts for many things.
Yesterday, for example, I was at a luncheon party. At the end of the party a great dignitary of the English Established Church went away half an hour before anybody else and carried off my hat. Now, that was an innocent act on his part. He went out first and, of course, had the choice of hats. As a rule, I try to get out first myself. But I hold that it was an innocent, unconscious act, due, perhaps, to heredity. He was thinking about ecclesiastical matters, and when a man is in that condition of mind he will take anybody’s hat. The result was that the whole afternoon I was under the influence of his clerical hat and could not tell a lie. Of course, he was hard at it.
It is a compliment to both of us. His hat fitted me exactly; my hat fitted him exactly. So I judge I was born to rise to high dignity in the church somehow or other, but I do not know what he was born for. That is an illustration of the influence of habit, and it is perceptible here when they say “an” hospital, “an” European, “an” historical.
The business aspect of the Fourth of July is not perfect as it stands. See what it costs us every year with loss of life, the crippling of thousandswith its fireworks, and the burning down of property. It is not only sacred to patriotism and universal freedom but to the surgeon, the undertaker, the insurance offices—and they are working it for all it is worth.
I am pleased to see that we have a cessation of war for the time. This coming from me, a soldier, you will appreciate. I was a soldier in the southern war for two weeks, and when gentlemen get up to speak of the great deeds our army and navy have recently done, why, it goes all through me and fires up the old war spirit. I had in my first engagement three horses shot under me. The next ones went over my head, the next hit me in the back. Then I retired to meet an engagement.
I thank you, gentlemen, for making even a slight reference to the war profession, in which I distinguished myself, short as my career was.
President Calvin Coolidge Affirms His Faith in Massachusetts
“Have faith in Massachusetts.”
“It appeared to me in January, 1914,” wrote Coolidge in his 1929 autobiography, “that a spirit of radicalism prevailed which unless checked was likely to prove very destructive…. What was needed was a restoration of confidence in our own institutions and in each other, on which economic progress might rest.”
In taking the chair of the Massachusetts senate, the Vermonter who would become the thirtieth president made what he described as “a shortaddress, which [he] had carefully prepared, appealing to the conservative spirit of the people.” The speech was widely remarked in Republican circles; it was circulated at the party’s national convention in Chicago in 1920, and helped get him on the Harding ticket.
“Keep Cool with Coolidge” was the slogan he ran on in 1924, having succeeded Harding; the reputation for taciturnity was a source of both admiration and scorn. Dorothy Parker declared him “weaned on a pickle,” and although President Reagan hung the Coolidge portrait in the Cabinet Room, his reputation today is that of an inarticulate sourpuss. Few of those who put him down, however, could write the sort of direct, powerful prose in the address that launched his national career, and which is printed here in its entirety.
The sentences are short and declarative. The argument marches steadily to its conclusion. The paragraph that begins, “Do the day’s work…,” is as punchy and sensible as any
I do not say “an” historical side, because I am speaking the American language. I do not see why our cousins should continue to say “an” hospital, “an” historical fact, “an” horse. It seems to me the Congress of Women, now in session, should look to it. I think “an” is having a little too much to do with it. It comes of habit, which accounts for many things.
Yesterday, for example, I was at a luncheon party. At the end of the party a great dignitary of the English Established Church went away half an hour before anybody else and carried off my hat. Now, that was an innocent act on his part. He went out first and, of course, had the choice of hats. As a rule, I try to get out first myself. But I hold that it was an innocent, unconscious act, due, perhaps, to heredity. He was thinking about ecclesiastical matters, and when a man is in that condition of mind he will take anybody’s hat. The result was that the whole afternoon I was under the influence of his clerical hat and could not tell a lie. Of course, he was hard at it.
It is a compliment to both of us. His hat fitted me exactly; my hat fitted him exactly. So I judge I was born to rise to high dignity in the church somehow or other, but I do not know what he was born for. That is an illustration of the influence of habit, and it is perceptible here when they say “an” hospital, “an” European, “an” historical.
The business aspect of the Fourth of July is not perfect as it stands. See what it costs us every year with loss of life, the crippling of thousandswith its fireworks, and the burning down of property. It is not only sacred to patriotism and universal freedom but to the surgeon, the undertaker, the insurance offices—and they are working it for all it is worth.
I am pleased to see that we have a cessation of war for the time. This coming from me, a soldier, you will appreciate. I was a soldier in the southern war for two weeks, and when gentlemen get up to speak of the great deeds our army and navy have recently done, why, it goes all through me and fires up the old war spirit. I had in my first engagement three horses shot under me. The next ones went over my head, the next hit me in the back. Then I retired to meet an engagement.
I thank you, gentlemen, for making even a slight reference to the war profession, in which I distinguished myself, short as my career was.
President Calvin Coolidge Affirms His Faith in Massachusetts
“Have faith in Massachusetts.”
“It appeared to me in January, 1914,” wrote Coolidge in his 1929 autobiography, “that a spirit of radicalism prevailed which unless checked was likely to prove very destructive…. What was needed was a restoration of confidence in our own institutions and in each other, on which economic progress might rest.”
In taking the chair of the Massachusetts senate, the Vermonter who would become the thirtieth president made what he described as “a shortaddress, which [he] had carefully prepared, appealing to the conservative spirit of the people.” The speech was widely remarked in Republican circles; it was circulated at the party’s national convention in Chicago in 1920, and helped get him on the Harding ticket.
“Keep Cool with Coolidge” was the slogan he ran on in 1924, having succeeded Harding; the reputation for taciturnity was a source of both admiration and scorn. Dorothy Parker declared him “weaned on a pickle,” and although President Reagan hung the Coolidge portrait in the Cabinet Room, his reputation today is that of an inarticulate sourpuss. Few of those who put him down, however, could write the sort of direct, powerful prose in the address that launched his national career, and which is printed here in its entirety.
The sentences are short and declarative. The argument marches steadily to its conclusion. The paragraph that begins, “Do the day’s work…,” is as punchy and sensible as any
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