The Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation ‘ the Presidential Foundation for the thirtieth President of the United States ‘ announced today the establishment of the first annual Coolidge Prize for Journalism that honors authors who write in the spirit and style of President Calvin Coolidge.
The prize will be awarded on Tuesday, November 12, 2013, in New York City featuring special guest speaker, Paul Volcker, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve System.
"This prize represents an opportunity to expose the ideas of a forgotten leader, Calvin Coolidge. Coolidge's disciplined brevity, his civility, and his focus on networks, debt and the economy represent an astoundingly modern approach," said Amity Shlaes, chairman of the board of the Calvin CoolidgeMemorial Foundation based in Plymouth Notch, Vt, in the Coolidge birthplace. "And Coolidge's principles are ones that warrant more attention today."
The prize, the Coolidge, will be awarded to the author with the best submission of up to three published articles of fewer than 800 words each. The prize carries an award of $20,000.
A secondary prize called the Calvin will honor the writer under the age of 20 residing in the state of Vermont who produces a comment, published or unpublished, of 1000 words or fewer in the spirit of President Coolidge. The Calvin carries with it a scholarship of $1,500, plus expenses to travel to New York City to receive the award.
Award of the Coolidge and the Calvin are contingent upon the winners' ability to appear at a gala award dinner in New York City on November 12. All prize submissions must be received by October 20. Information here: www.calvin-coolidge.org.
The Foundation is grateful to the support of the Thomas W. Smith Foundation for the prizes.
President Coolidge's great emphases include:
Sustaining a balanced budget.
Cutting federal spending.
Reducing the top tax rate to 25% even as he balanced the budget. Coolidge labeled excessive taxation "a species of legalized larceny."
Fighting for restrained government and civility in discourse. Coolidge rarely criticized his opponents in public.
Ferociously defending states' rights: "The nation can be inviolate only as it is insists Arizona be inviolate," Coolidge commented at the dedication of the Arizona state stone.
Restraining the impulse to over-legislate. "It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones," he advised his father at one point.
Favoring international law over abrupt and arbitrary military intervention. Coolidge led a successful campaign to pass the Kellogg-Briand Pact, a treaty that outlawed war.
Leaving a space in American life for privacy and religious faith. Coolidge worried that government could impinge on what he called "things of the spirit." Coolidge also featured a great respect for natural law, writing: "Men do not make laws. They do but discover them."
Following his time in the White House, the thirtieth president embarked on a career as a columnist. Under a contract with the McClure syndicate, Coolidge agreed to file a column of 150 to 200 words by wire before 3:00 p.m. six days a week.
The Coolidge column, "Calvin Coolidge Says," proved enormously popular, reaching papers as far away asJapan. Coolidge stuck religiously to his short length, saying of the newspaper editors that if he wrote longer "it might put them out."
Among the topics of Coolidge's column were the flailing economy, the value of local charity, the value of military restraint, and the value of freedom, states' rights, and religion.
"The world wants certainty, not agitation," Coolidge wrote.
The Coolidge judges include:
Gov. Mitchell Daniels, Purdue University
Thomas Easton, The Economist
Steve Forbes, Forbes Media
James H. Ottaway, Jr., Newspaper Executive
Professor Cornelia Pillard, Georgetown Law
Trish Regan, Bloomberg Anchor
Douglas Schoen, Fox News Commentator
Amity Shlaes, George W. Bush Presidential Center
Richard Norton Smith, Presidential Historian
Cal Thomas, Syndicated Columnist
Fred Wainwright, Ledyard Financial Advisors
The Calvin judges include:
Patrick J. Alwell, Strategas Research Partners
Mimi Baird, Coolidge Foundation Trustee Emerita
Hendrik Booraem, Coolidge Biographer
Gov. James H. Douglas, Middlebury College
John Dumville, State of Vermont
Jennifer Sayles Harville, Great Granddaughter of President Coolidge
Sarwar A. Kashmeri, Norwich University
Leslie Keefe, Leslie Keefe Consulting
Diane Kemble, Coolidge Foundation Educator
Catherine Nelson, Rutland Herald
David Pietrusza, Coolidge Biographer
Nicole Serrano, Debate Institutes at Dartmouth
Owen J. Stearns, Excel Academy Charter Schools
SOURCE The Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation 9.26.2013