Date: August 2, 1930
Location: Northampton, MA
(Original document available here)
This is the greatest business country in the world. The welfare of our people, especially the wage earners, is entirely dependent on prosperity. Yet we have the peculiar spectacle of business being in chronic fear of the government. A great apprehension is felt about the action of Congress and more or less about the attitude of the executive and regulatory departments.
This trouble arises because business men do not understand public relations and officeholders do not understand economic relations. They do not speak the same language. Many good business men in office do not know how to talk about business. Some men in business and some demagogues in office need to be restrained and controlled. But, in general, men in business and public office are trying to be fair.
Now that the people can see more plainly the great service that business renders, furnishing employment to dependent wage earners and supplying the public needs, they ought to make it plain that they are equally opposed to unfair practices in trade and demagoguery in office, and they ought to insist upon that co-operation between the government and legitimate business which will remove fear and distrust and promote good will and prosperity.
Citation: Calvin Coolidge Says: Dispatches Written by Former-President Coolidge and Syndicated to Newspapers in 1930-1931 (Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation)
The Coolidge Foundation gratefully acknowledges the volunteer efforts of Robert Manchester who prepared this document for digital publication.