Date: October 2, 1920
Location: Worcester, MA
Context: Coolidge speaks to the duties of citizenship and the particular duties of those who choose to become police officers. This speech took place a year after the violent Boston Police Strike.
(Original document available here)
Society rests on mutual obligations. We Americans talk a great deal about the “rights of men.” We talk all too little about the duties of man. It may not appear so pleasant a topic for discussion but it is none the less important for it is perfectly apparent that one man’s rights are another man’s duties. Unless duties are observed there can be no enjoyment of rights. There can be no freedom without corresponding restraint. This is no condition made or imposed by men, it is the result of the condition made or imposed by men, put in legal terms it is the constitution of the universe. Man cannot change it. His nature requires that he observe it or perish.
The duties which are required of men depend on their free choice. That choice is exercised by the adoption of a profession. It makes a great deal of difference what that profession is as to what duties are required. For a day laborer voluntarily to take a nap during the time of his employment the result would be loss of time. For a locomotive engineer to do the same thing the result would be manslaughter. We do not give the same treatment to men who have chosen different professions. Their duties are different, their rewards are different, their punishments are different. Yet they chose to have it so.
The duties which a police officer owes to the state are of a most exacting nature. No one is compelled to choose the profession of a police officer, but having chosen it, everyone is obliged to perform its duties and live up to the standard of requirements. To join in that high enterprise means the surrender of much individual freedom.
A policeman is the first line of public defence. His obligations follow those of a soldier. The chief one is submission to discipline. The rules and regulations of the department must be obeyed. There must be intelligence and courage and a firm loyalty to the force. The police officer has chosen a profession that he must hold to at all peril. He is the outpost of civilization. He cannot depart from it until he is relieved. A great and honorable duty, to be greatly and honorably fulfilled.
But there is toward the officer a corresponding duty of the state. It owes him generous compensation for the perils he endures for the protection of society. It owes him the knowledge of security that is to be his from want in his declining years. It owes him that measure of respect which is due to the great importance of the duties he discharges. Perhaps I have indicated why we have police. It is fundamentally to provide for the observance of the law. This is the whole measure of civilization. Where the law goes there civilization goes and stays. When the law fails barbarism flourishes. Whoever scouts the law, whoever brings it into disrespect, whoever connives at its evasion is an enemy of civilization. Change it if you will, that is to abide by it, but observe it always. That is government. And government is no less government because it is self-imposed. The “majesty of the law” is no idle phrase for it imparts sovereignty to him who observes it and servitude to him who violates it. The policeman is the outward symbol of the law.
Citation: Vermont Historical Society