DAY BY DAY.

Waikato Times, Volume 96, Issue 15360, 8 October 1923, Page 4

DAY BY DAY.

Mr Calvin Coolidge does not seem to have added anything to

Idealism and Politics.

tho sum of human wisdom by his first public address since assuming the office of President

of the United States (remarks an Otago contemporary). He has been catalogued by an American writer as one of the five "Presidents of chance," only one of whom, Mr Roosevelt, afterwards became President by choice. Of course, President Coolidge may prove to be the second, and may also prove himself to be a distinguished ruler, but in the hurlyburly of politics he has so far achieved only a place of secondary importance. His speech to the American Red Cross Convention was, if we may judge from the cabled summary, somewhat contradictory and slightly platitudinous. America, he informed the delegates, will "remain unencumbered, independent, unattached, and unbought." There is nothing very courageous or inspiring about that declaration, but as tho new President has a reputation as a coiner of "Coolidge brevities" he may on this occasion have been indulging his fancy. America can never stand so high as she might in the world's regard unless and until she assumes her fair share of the world's burdens. Especially is this true at the present juncture, when, following her intervention in the European conflict, she refuses to assist in the more intricate but less spectacular task of adjusting the peace. The interested nations—and assuredly America is one —must combine to bring about order, remembering that God has no machine '

For punching perfect worlds out of cakes of chaos. President Coolidge expressed the belief that the world is coming more and more to rely on moral forces and less on physical, but his nation will nevertheless "remain unencumbered, independent, unattached, and unbought." He is attracted by the ideals of human brotherhood and scrvioe, which he regards as idle dreams unless they can bo translated into practical action. That can, of course, only happen when the spirit of brotherhood and the ideal of service become the dominating force in human character. .But that can hardly be possible while the President's dictum is aocepted |hat "each individual and each nation' owes its first duty to itself, and each must work out its own destiny." The individual and the nation build their respective characters largely by helping others, and nations cannot live exclusively unto themselves. America isolated and selfishly individualistic cannot be as great as America shouldering her share of international responsibilities, endeavouring by counsel and wisdom "to restore its true balance to a world that threatens'to topple over and striving to the end that the weak and misguided may be made strong and wise.