Date: September 2, 1930
Location: Northampton, MA
(Original document available here)
A good many hundred millions of the people of the earth are suffering from unrest and revolution. China and India include the larger part of Asia. Bolivia, Peru, Brazil and the Argentine occupy much of South America. The difficulties in Brazil and the Argentine are threatened rather than actual and happily may be averted. The underlying cause of this unrest appears to be chiefly economic. People find difficulty in making a living and turn on their government, which usually has not been responsible for their distress. Throughout the greater part of Europe and North America orderly government prevails.
In spite of a large amount of crime, the United States is most fortunate in the devotion of the people to the government. For two generations there has not been any open and serious challenge to public authority. Local disorders have not been important enough to raise any doubt about the supremacy of the law. We have prospered because we have been a peace-loving, law-abiding people able to redress our grievances through the ballot box and the jury box. That is the chief index of progress in sound government.
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.