THE CAPITAL CITY

We are embarking on an ambitious building program for the city of Washington.  The Memorial Bridge is under way with all that it holds for use and beauty.  New buildings are soon contemplated.  This program should represent the best that exists in the art and science of architecture.  Into these structures which must be considered as of a permanent nature ought to go the aspirations of the Nation, its ideals expressed in forms of beauty.  If our country wishes to compete with others, let it not be in the support of armaments but in the making of a beautiful capital city.  Let it express the soul of America.  Whenever an American is at the seat of his Government, however traveled and cultured he may be, he ought to find a city of stately proportion, symmetrically laid out and adorned with the best that there is in architecture, which would arouse his imagination and stir his patriotic pride.  In the coming years Washington should be not only the art center of our own country but the art center of the world.  Around it should center all that is best in science, in learning, in letters, and in art.  These are the results that justify the creation of those national resources with which we have been favored.

AMERICAN IDEALS

America is not and must not be a country without ideals.  They are useless if they are only visionary; they are only valuable if they are practical.  A nation can not dwell constantly on the mountain tops.  It has to be replenished and sustained through the ceaseless toil of the less inspiring valleys.  But its face ought always to be turned upward, its vision ought always to be fixed on high.

We need ideals that can be followed in daily life, that can be translated into terms of the home.  We can not expect to be relieved from toil, but we do expect to divest it of degrading conditions.  Work is honorable; it is entitled to an honorable recompense.  We must strive mightily, but having striven there is a defect in our political and social system if we are not in general rewarded with success.  To relieve the land of the burdens that came from the war, to release to the individual more of the fruits of his own industry, to increase his earning capacity and decrease his hours of labor, to enlarge the circle of his vision through good roads and better transportation, to lace before him the opportunity for education both in science and in art, to leave him free to receive the inspiration of religion, all these are ideals which deliver him from the servitude of the body and exalt him to the service of the soul.  Through this emancipation from the things that are material, we broaden our dominion over the things that are spiritual.

***

State of the Union Address
Calvin Coolidge
December 6, 1927

Members of the Congress: