Title: Flag Day Proclamation
Date: June 1, 1920
Location: Boston, MA
Context: Governor Coolidge proclaims Flag Day in Massachusetts in 1920. This was his second proclamation for Flag Day, the first was on May 26, 1919. He used the occasion to champion the cause of public order following the violence and disorder that came with the Boston Police Strike of September 2019, which necessitated the mustering of the State Guard for several months to restore order in the city.
Proclamation:
While the flag of America has become the oldest in design, it remains the newest in symbol. In certain fundamental principles it represents, there can be no advance for there is no beyond. It is the flag of a people who have arrived. It must be the flag who have the determination to remain. It stands for order and liberty, for freedom of the human hand and the human mind, free speech, free press, free church; it means that property and life and honor shall be inviolate, and it recognizes the duty of the people to protect each other in the security of these rights, and that all experience and all reason demonstrate that the sole source of such protection is in government according to law. Unless it be the symbol of the law administered by a government which has the disposition and the strength to be supreme, all the meaning and the glory of the flag fade away and all reverence for it perishes. It is time to realize that all those who disregard the law or resist the authority of government are disloyal to the flag. Whatever their motive or their station, they seek the destruction of all the flag represents.
That the people of the Commonwealth, in accordance with a holy admonition, may “think on these things,” that they may renew their determination to support and defend these most sacred rights, it has been provided that there shall each year be designated by solemn proclamation a Flag Day.
Now, therefore, by that authority, I, Calvin Coolidge, Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, hereby proclaim Monday, June 14, 1920, Flag Day and direct its observance by flying our national flag, by appropriate exercises in the public schools and among the people, that we may come to a fuller realization of our public duties, a renewed determination to maintain our rights that the increased glory of our citizenship may be reflected in the increased glory of our flag.