The Republican Ideal
Mark Steyn
Happy Presidents Day to all our American readers. It's a diminished holiday since it was re-designated from Washington's Birthday, and, with the usual deft touch of Congress (in the Uniform Monday Holiday Act), scheduled so that it can never even fall on Washington's actual birthday. If we are meant to celebrate the grand accumulation of chief magistrates, include me out. I find the imperial excess of the modern presidency utterly revolting, and I mean that in a bipartisan sense, too. It's both unaffordable in the Brokest Nation in History, and also largely useless - as most recently demonstrated when America's money-no-object citizen-executive flew Air Force One to South Africa, accompanied by the "decoy" Air Force One, and a zillion aides, and the 40-car motorcade or whatever it's up to by now, and a bazillion Secret Service guys with reflector shades and telephone cords hanging out their ears, who dutifully "secured" the venue for the President so it was safe for him to enter, and then stood him on stage three feet from a fake interpreter for the deaf with a rap sheet that included rape, kidnapping, and membership of a murderous "necklacing" gang. The bigger the "security", the more holes in it.
Presidents are thin on the ground in my corner of New Hampshire. There's Franklin Pierce down south, and Chester Arthur over in western Vermont (or, for believers in the original birther conspiracy, southern Quebec), but neither is any reason for a jamboree. So, for a while around Presidents Day, I'd drive my kids over the Connecticut River and we'd zig-zag down through the Green Mountain State to the Coolidge homestead in Plymouth Notch. And there, with the aid of snowshoes, we'd scramble up the three-foot drifts of the village's steep hillside cemetery to Silent Cal's grave. Seven generations of Coolidges are buried there all in a row – including Julius Caesar Coolidge, which is the kind of name I'd like to find on the ballot one November (strong on war, but committed to small government). The 30th president is as seemly and modest in death as in life, his headstone no different from those of his forebears or his sons – just a plain granite marker with name and dates: in the summer, if memory serves, there's a small US flag in front, and there's no snow so that, under the years of birth and death, you can see the small American eagle that is all that distinguishes this man's gravestone from the earlier Calvin Coolidges in his line.
I do believe it's the coolest grave of any head of state I've ever stood in front of. It moves me far more than the gaudier presidential memorials. "We draw our presidents from the people," said Coolidge. "I came from them. I wish to be one of them again." He lived the republican ideal most of our political class merely pays lip service to.
I came to Plymouth Notch during my first winter at my new home in New Hampshire, and purchased some cheddar from the village cheese factory still owned by his son John (he sold it in 1998). So, ever afterwards, the kids and I conclude our visit by swinging by the fromagerie and buying a round of their excellent granular curd cheese.
The Republican Ideal :: SteynOnline
Mark Steyn
Happy Presidents Day to all our American readers. It's a diminished holiday since it was re-designated from Washington's Birthday, and, with the usual deft touch of Congress (in the Uniform Monday Holiday Act), scheduled so that it can never even fall on Washington's actual birthday. If we are meant to celebrate the grand accumulation of chief magistrates, include me out. I find the imperial excess of the modern presidency utterly revolting, and I mean that in a bipartisan sense, too. It's both unaffordable in the Brokest Nation in History, and also largely useless - as most recently demonstrated when America's money-no-object citizen-executive flew Air Force One to South Africa, accompanied by the "decoy" Air Force One, and a zillion aides, and the 40-car motorcade or whatever it's up to by now, and a bazillion Secret Service guys with reflector shades and telephone cords hanging out their ears, who dutifully "secured" the venue for the President so it was safe for him to enter, and then stood him on stage three feet from a fake interpreter for the deaf with a rap sheet that included rape, kidnapping, and membership of a murderous "necklacing" gang. The bigger the "security", the more holes in it.
Presidents are thin on the ground in my corner of New Hampshire. There's Franklin Pierce down south, and Chester Arthur over in western Vermont (or, for believers in the original birther conspiracy, southern Quebec), but neither is any reason for a jamboree. So, for a while around Presidents Day, I'd drive my kids over the Connecticut River and we'd zig-zag down through the Green Mountain State to the Coolidge homestead in Plymouth Notch. And there, with the aid of snowshoes, we'd scramble up the three-foot drifts of the village's steep hillside cemetery to Silent Cal's grave. Seven generations of Coolidges are buried there all in a row – including Julius Caesar Coolidge, which is the kind of name I'd like to find on the ballot one November (strong on war, but committed to small government). The 30th president is as seemly and modest in death as in life, his headstone no different from those of his forebears or his sons – just a plain granite marker with name and dates: in the summer, if memory serves, there's a small US flag in front, and there's no snow so that, under the years of birth and death, you can see the small American eagle that is all that distinguishes this man's gravestone from the earlier Calvin Coolidges in his line.
I do believe it's the coolest grave of any head of state I've ever stood in front of. It moves me far more than the gaudier presidential memorials. "We draw our presidents from the people," said Coolidge. "I came from them. I wish to be one of them again." He lived the republican ideal most of our political class merely pays lip service to.
I came to Plymouth Notch during my first winter at my new home in New Hampshire, and purchased some cheddar from the village cheese factory still owned by his son John (he sold it in 1998). So, ever afterwards, the kids and I conclude our visit by swinging by the fromagerie and buying a round of their excellent granular curd cheese.
The Republican Ideal :: SteynOnline
