Date: January 10, 1914
(Original document available here)
My dear Mr. Coolidge:-
I am much obliged to you for sending me the Journal of the Senate for January 7th because it has given me the opportunity to read again your speech which I had already read in the newspapers. I am more struck with it on the second reading even than I was with it on the first. It is not only able but you have put the propositions with epigrammatic force and often in a very original way. This is saying much, for you are stating what you and I believe to be fundamental truths. What I like best of all is the courage with which you state these fundamental truths which it is the fashion just now to put aside and hide. For some years past political leaders, great and small, have been talking to the people as if these truths did not exist. For example, directly or indirectly it has been continually declared that everybody could be made happy and successful by legislation, a most pernicious doctrine. Then again the whole trend of the national legislation and of the Democratic party has been toward the destruction of property, entirely forgetting the fact that the rights of property—and property as such possesses no rights in this country—and the human right to have property which are two totally different things. As a citizen of Massachusetts I congratulate myself that we have a President of the Senate who not only is able but who is ready to make such a speech.
With best regards. I am.
Very truly yours.
H.C. Lodge
Citation: Vermont Historical Society
The Coolidge Foundation gratefully acknowledges Lydia Stinnett, who prepared this document for digital publication.