Who said business of america is business

Here is the full paragraph:. I agree that the measure of success is not merchandise but character. But I do criticize those sentiments, held in too many respectable quarters, that our economic system is fundamentally wrong, that commerce is only selfishness, and that our citizens, holding the hope of all that America means, are living in industrial slavery.

I appeal to Amherst men to reiterate and sustain the Amherst doctrine, that the man who builds a factory builds a temple, that the man who works there worships there, and to each is due, not scorn or blame, but reverence and praise. So it turns out that in this instance, Coolidge is talking of the dignity of labor, not at all drawing a comparison between the workplace and the church.

There was nothing unusual about this; Coolidge delivered scores of such addresses before special interest groups. This one was better reasoned than any but a handful of his talks, and marked by several felicitous phrases.

In the middle of the speech, the President said:. There does not seem to be cause for alarm in the dual relationship of the press to the public, whereby it is on one side a purveyor of information and opinion and on the other side a purely business enterprise. Rather, it is probable that a press which maintains an intimate touch with the business currents of the nation, is likely to be more reliable than it would be if it were a stranger to these influences.

After all, the chief business of the American people is business [emphasis added]. They are profoundly concerned with producing, buying, selling, investing, and prospering in the world.

I am strongly of the opinion that the great majority of people will always find these are moving impulses of our life. A skeptical person might also have concluded that he approved of this stance.

The New York Times reporter who provided the lead for the story thought otherwise. The newspaperman covering the speech arrived at the conclusion expressed in the headline based on what Coolidge said immediately after that so-often paraphrased statement.

The President went on to assert that individuals who fear the press will betray the American people are mistaken. It is only those who do not understand our people, who believe our national life is entirely absorbed by material motives. We make no concealment of the fact that we want wealth, but there are many other things we want much more. We want peace and honor, and that charity which is so strong an element of all civilization. The chief ideal of the American people is idealism.

I cannot repeat too often that America is a nation of idealists. That is the only motive to which they ever give any strong and lasting reaction.

No newspaper can be a success which fails to appeal to that element of our national life. It is in this direction that the public press can lend its strongest support to our Government.

I could not truly criticize the vast importance of the counting room, but my ultimate faith I would place in the high idealism of the editorial room of American newspapers. So in the end Coolidge appears to be saying that while he knows newspapers are businesses and want to show profits, he had confidence such matters would not sway reporters and editors. What Coolidge expressed that day was a thought he explored often in his speeches. On July 5 of the following year, speaking in Philadelphia at the celebration of the th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, he said:.

We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create our Declaration. Our Declaration created them. The things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to that, all our material prosperity, overwhelming though it may appear, will turn to a barren scepter in our grasp. As Governor he had looked up to Senator Murray Crane, the Massachusetts paper tycoon; as President he looked up to Andrew Mellon, head of the aluminum monopoly.

When he entered the White House, Coolidge installed William Butler, a Massachusetts textile manufacturer, as head of the Republican Party; at the convention, Henry Cabot Lodge sat unnoticed and unconsulted. Crane was different from others in that he was scrupulously clean. Why should Coolidge consult Lodge? Coolidge was in the Crane camp, and Lodge was a rival. Is the author suggesting that just because they both came from Massachusetts there had to be an affinity? One final quotation, from John Blum, one of the authors of a best-selling college text, The National Experience.

Coolidge was devoted to the dominant values of his time, to business, materialism, elitism, and their corollaries. If only the rich were worthy, it followed that government should beware the counsels of the majority. Since poverty was the wage of sin, government should not tax the virtuous rich in order to assist the unworthy poor. And since the rich best understood their own interests, government should not interfere with the businesses they ran, though it should help promote them at home and abroad.

This is offered without a scintilla of evidence. Not tax the rich to assist the unworthy poor? Skip to content Home Social studies What did President Coolidge mean when he said the business of the American people is business? Social studies. Ben Davis September 29, What did President Coolidge mean when he said the business of the American people is business?

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Martin's Summer Rafael Sabatini. Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B. I cannot repeat too often that America is a nation of idealists. That is the only motive to which they ever give any strong and lasting reaction. But we are compelled to recognize it as a means to well-nigh every desirable achievement.

So long as wealth is made the means and not the end, we need not greatly fear it…But it calls for additional effort to avoid even the appearance of the evil of selfishness.

But it also appears that he did not believe that business alone, or self-interest and wealth accumulation, are what drives Americans and our society forward. Rather, it is the higher ideals such as peace, honor and charity that make up the core of American values.