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The Union League chefs had outdone themselves. Dinner was sumptuous. Afterwards, the diners removed to the Club's auditorium, Lincoln Hall, where some 3,000 persons and personages were packed in a space designed for 1,200. President Sproul brought all to their feet when he said to President Coolidge:
"I wanted you to see what these worthwhile people think of you, how they trust you, how they approve of you and your works, how they ratify your judgment and believe in things you believe, how they respect your prudence, admire your courage, and how they stand by you as a national leader in whatever course you may choose to outline for your future course."
Mr. Sproul presented President Coolidge with the Union League Club's medal for distinguished public service. Only three other presidents (Lincoln, Johnson, Taft) had been thus honored before.
President Coolidge thanked Mr. Sproul, praised the Union League Club* and reviewed recent U. S. history.
The U. S. President Coolidge told how much more the U. S. meant to him than a geographical location. ". . . At present our land is the abiding place of peace, universal freedom and undoubted loyalty, holding the regard of all the world as a mighty power, stable, secure, respected. The people are prosperous, the standards of social justice were never so high, the rights of the individual never so extensively protected. . . . No one would claim that our country is perfect. . . . Yet . . . a nation, which has raised itself from a struggling dependency to a leading power in the world, without oppressing its own people and without injustice to its neighbors, in the short space of 150 years, needs little in the way of extenuation or excuse."
Economic Welfare. The U. S. population, said the President, has been swelled by immigrants "almost always without money and too often without learning. . . . To form all these people into an organization where they might not merely secure a livelihood, but by industry and thrift, have the opportunity to accumulate a competency, such as has been done in this country, is one of the most marvelous feats ever accomplished by human society.
"The object of this economic endeavor has not been the making of money for its own sake. It certainly has not been for the purpose of endowing an aristocracy with wealth. It has been fostered and encouraged by the Government in order to provide the people at large with sufficient incomes to raise their standards of living to a position worthy of a free and enlightened nation."
Government Regulation of business has protected individual rights, ousted privilege. "It is the very antithesis of Communism." Let it be continued.
Prosperity, a Test. "The test which now confronts the nation is prosperity. There is nothing more likely to reveal the soul of a people. History is littered with stories of nations destroyed by their own wealth. It is true that we have accumulated a small but a blatant fringe of extravagance and waste, nourished in idleness, and another undesirable class who seek to live without work.
". . . But . . . the great mass of our people, . . . know that the doctrine of ease is the doctrine of decay. . . . The heart of the nation is sound.