Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-10-07
CAL COOLIDGE SHOWS US
HOW TO EARN OUR BICYCLES
The Rule He Laid Down for His Boys
Will Show Men How to Dissipate the
Shadow Of Bolshevism

=
Th" boys are 1oha. fourteen years old
and Calvin, twelve years old sons of the
Republican candidate for the vice presi-
dcncy.
They told their father in the summer that
they wanted BICYCLES He told them they
could have them if they would earn the
money to pay for them.
Calvin has earned SO working for n
farmer hId John has earned &27 working
on the country roads. They now have their
bicycles.
If these were the only boys who have got
what they wish because they have earned
the money to pay for it there would be little
TO say about them
The Coolidge boys acted in accordance
with the principles Of Il school Of economic
thought which it has been popular in certain
quarters to dcnounce. not only in recent
years, but ever since Adam was cxilcd from
the garden in which hc got his meals by
reaching out his hand for them. and was
compelled 10 exert himself or Starvc.
The law of the survival of the fttcst
EogaD to operate in human relations when
the door of Eden closed on the first pair.
Then began the struggle for food and shelter
which has continued to the present day.
Those who struggle TO the best effect get
the best shelter and the most food.
Those who struggle with little effect damn
the whole system and demand that the state
intervene to equalzc matters. They arc the
Socialists and the Communists. What hap
pens when they have their way is being
demonstrated in Russia. where Socuistic
nutoCracy has taken the place of military
bureaucracy and the common man is made
slave
The place once occupied by the devils cast
out of Russia is occupied by spirits more
malignant than those exercised by the rcvo-
luton.
The world cannot progress by ignoring the
immutablo laws. 1t is the business Of all
social rcformcrs and of all legislators to
discover by earnest investigation what the
laws Of progress are and then to conform So
ciety to them as far as possible.
Cal Coolidge. the father Of the two boys
who have secured their bicycles by proving
that they are worthy Of them. informed the
members of the Massachusetts Legislature
some wears ago that their function was not
to create laws. but to discover Them Then
when they had discovered the processes BY
which men living in communities progressed
they might formulate them into laws with
some confidence that they would hc benC-
fetal.
Coolidge elaborated on this idea before the
Massachusetts Republican convention last
year when he said that no progress would
bc made toward brttcring conditions by
shouting "Rolshcviki" and ''protitccr.'
"proftablc employment" he said, "is the
dcathbIow to bol~hcvsm and abundant pro
duction is disaster to the protitrpr. Our
salvation lies in putting forth greater effort,
in manfully assuming our own burdens.
rather than in cntortaining the pleasing dc
hsion that they can he shifted to some other
shoudcrS.'
This is tho law and the gospel, without
the acceptance Of which there is no economic
salvation.
Cal Coolidge has begun to teach it to his
boys in their early youth.
IT is writ so large over the face Of the
worlds history that many man seeking
with a microscope for the secret formula
which is to solve all human troubles is un-
able to find il.
II is like the skyscrapcr which the man
ia the street cannot see because he is too
near it.
It is like the spcctaclos Of the absent
minded old man who pushed them up ON
li~ forehead and then hunted all over the
house for them.
The way to get things done is to do them.
Automatic as this may seem. it is not always
perceived
The ancient Jews bcwaicd for years the
destruction of the walls of their sacred city
and mndr a number of Intellectual attempts
to rebuild them. Finally there came man
who had discovered the law Of achievement.
lie told his fellow rOuntrymcn of Jerusalem
! to rebuild the walls each over against his
| own house, and showed them how to do it.
| And the walls were rebuilt before any carp
! ing critics had time to persuade the people
| that this was not tho way.
/ l. ntp.t
orator Of his time? 1t was not the state
nor was it any of the teachers of oratory.
| The man himself mastered the arts of public
address.
Who taught NcnoDhon how to lead his
| soldier. on their famous Tctrcatt 1t was a
man named Xenophon, who faced every diff
| Guilty and resolved it into its elements and
| rOnuucrrd it.
But this is ancient history, it may be said,
and things have changed.
We'll, how about Abraham Lincoln?
Did he bewail his humble heritage! Did
he say he could do nothing bccause he could
not afford to go to college? Did he COM
plain because he lived in a backwoods COM
munity where there were no opportunities
for advanccmentF
4 single instance will show the stuff he
was made Of. When he was told that he
could be appointed county surveyor if he
wanted the job he did not say that he knew
nothing about surveying, but he studied al
zebra and geometry till he had mastered kthe
subject sufficiently to hold the place, and
then he began to make surveys.
Cal Coolidge has begun to teach his boys
the fundamentals of that self reliance with
out which no one can maintain his independ
! ence. And he has done 1t by having them
act in accordance with the laws of human
progress.
The United States has reached its present
stage of development because its citizens
have believed that every tub must stand on
it's own bottom and that a union of such
| lf-reliant tubs is much more powerful than
X. u