Date: August 22, 1930
Location: Northampton, MA
(Original document available here)
Few people not intimately connected with the clergy realize the additional burdens which are imposed upon that devoted profession by business depression. Being the natural repository for the troubles of the unfortunate, which strain their strength and resources for relief in ordinary times, any increase of such demands puts on them a very disproportionate share of the general distress. Yet they meet it effectively and cheerfully, with little regard for the needs of themselves and their own dependents.
Many of us regard the clergy as a natural blessing, always serving others, never seeking their own, self-sustaining like the sun and air. This attitude makes their compensation meager and provision for old age inadequate. That is the general lot of all teaching forces. They are to little appreciated.
In every generation the clergy have furnished the spiritual leadership on which has rested both the political and economic progress of the times. They are the main source of the best standards of civilization. Without their influence the nation would fall into a state of moral and material decay. If not for their sakes, certainly for our own we should give them more appreciation and better support.
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.