Title: The Salvation Army
Date: November 5, 1923
Location: Washington, DC
Context: Coolidge gives remarks to a delegation of Salvation Army officers at its thirty-eighth anniversary congress at the White House.
Coming out here to greet some one is becoming to be almost a daily occurrence with me. Some of the others that have come here have, perhaps, felt that it was a little awkward. But I am sure that you, who are accustomed to holding your own meetings out of doors and the affairs in which you are engaged under the open sky, shall feel no embarrassment in coming here, despite the threatening clouds and perhaps the impending rain.
I am glad to greet you, because I am deeply and sincerely interested in the work that you are doing, in what you represent, and in the hope that you hold out to humanity. It is very easy to be discouraged. It is very easy to think that men and women are all wrong; that there is no disposition on their part to pursue the right course and do the right thing. Your success demonstrates beyond anything else that such is not the case.
I think it is a leading principle of that which you represent, that none has become so degraded, so lost to the better things of life and to the inspiration that comes from implanting in their hearts the knowledge of the better things, as to suppose that they are beyond redemption. You are bringing the world to better things. You are holding out a great hope; demonstrating that there is in all of us, from the highest to the lowest, a hope that is never crushed out, a spirit that abides forever.
Citation: The Evening Star, November 5, 1923.