Destructive criticism is always easy because, despite some campaign oratory, some of us are not yet perfect. - Calvin Coolidge

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Destructive criticism is always easy because, despite some campaign oratory, some of us are not yet perfect.

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About Calvin Coolidge

John Calvin Coolidge Jr. (4 July 1872 – 5 January 1933) was the 30th president of the United States (1923–29). A Republican lawyer from Vermont, Coolidge worked his way up the ladder of Massachusetts state politics, eventually becoming governor of that state. His response to the Boston Police Strike of 1919 thrust him into the national spotlight and gave him a reputation as a man of decisive action. Soon after, he was elected as the 29th vice president in 1920 and succeeded to the presidency upon the sudden death of Warren G. Harding in 1923. Elected in his own right in 1924, he gained a reputation as a small-government conservative.

Biography information from Wikiquote

Also Known As

Birth Name: John Calvin
Alternative Names: John Calvin Coolidge Jr. John Calvin Coolidge President Coolidge J. C. Coolidge C. Coolidge
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Additional quotes by Calvin Coolidge

Newspaper men, therefore, endlessly discuss the question of what is news. I judge that they will go on discussing it as long as there are newspapers. It has seemed to me that quite obviously the news-giving function of a newspaper cannot possibly require that it give a photographic presentation of everything that happens in the community. That is an obvious impossibility. It seems fair to say that the proper presentation of the news bears about the same relation to the whole field of happenings that a painting does to a photograph. The photograph might give the more accurate presentation of details, but in doing so it might sacrifice the opportunity the more clearly to delineate character. My college professor was wont to tell us a good many years ago that if a painting of a tree was only the exact representation of the original, so that it looked just like the tree, there would be no reason for making it; we might as well look at the tree itself. But the painting, if it is of the right sort, gives something that neither a photograph nor a view of the tree conveys. It emphasizes something of character, quality, individuality. We are not lost in looking at thorns and defects; we catch a vision of the grandeur and beauty of a king of the forest.

As Commander of the National Guard, again he might have made himself dictator. Instead he was pleading with the Assembly to adopt the preamble of the American Constitution as the foundation of its declaration of rights. When alien armies were brought to France to crush her liberties he was put at the head of the Army of the North, but treachery and suspicion overcame him. He was retired from his command and was seeking to leave the country when he was captured and held for five years in imprisonment. Tradition has it that he was released through the joint efforts of Washington and Napoleon.

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All these problems constantly come in the work of political and social development. But they stand for a vast progression toward better conditions, a better society, a better economic system. In approaching them, we need to have in mind the Federalist's analysis of our constitutional system: — The powers delegated to the Federal Government are few and defined; those to remain in the hands of the State government are numerous and indefinite.

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