Click here to see the National Weather Service’s Description of the Flood.

"Vermont Is A State I Love"
75th Anniversary (2003) of the 1928 Speech

September 18-21, 2003: Vermont Humanities Council and the Coolidge Foundation sponsored a series of public and school events commemorating President Calvin Coolidge's 1928 tour of Vermont to survey damage from the devastating 1927 flood.

Coolidge first-person interpreter, Jim Cooke, visited schools in several Vermont communities, and the tour culminated in the re-enactment of Coolidge's magnificent "Vermont is a state I love" speech in Bennington on September 21, the 75th anniversary of the speech.

The Coolidge Foundation, in collaboration with the Council, sponsored a "Vermont is a state I love" speech/essay/fiction/poetry/video contest for students grades 4-6 and 7-8.

My Fellow Vermonters:

For two days we have been traveling through this state. We have been up the East side, across and down the West side. We have seen Brattleboro, Bellows Falls, Windsor, White River Junction and Bethel. We have looked toward Montpelier. We have visited Burlington and Middlebury. Returning we have seen Rutland.

I have had an opportunity of visiting again the scenes of my childhood. I want to express to you, and through the press to the other cities of Vermont, my sincere appreciation for the general hospitality bestowed upon me and my associates on the occasion of this journey.

It is gratifying to note the splendid recovery from the great catastrophe which overtook the state nearly a year ago. Transportation has been restored. The railroads are in a better condition than before. The highways are open to traffic for those who wish to travel by automobile.

Vermont is a state I love. I could not look upon the peaks of Ascutney, Killington, Mansfield, and Equinox, without being moved in a way that no other scene could move me. It was here that I first saw the light of day; here I received my bride, here my dead lie pillowed on the loving breast of our eternal hills.

I love Vermont because of her hills and valleys, her scenery and invigorating climate, but most of all because of her indomitable people. They are a race of pioneers who have almost beggared themselves to serve others. If the spirit of liberty should vanish in other parts of the Union, and support of our institutions should languish, it could all be replenished from the generous store held by the people of this brave little state of Vermont.

 

Calvin Coolidge said the above after viewing the ravages of the 1927 flood in the State of Vermont. He traveled through the State of Vermont in September of 1928 and spoke from the back of a train in Bennington. He had been invited to the state of Vermont and came despite the fact that he "did not choose to run again". This was not a campaign trip. He was coming to connect with friends and observe the results of federal and state efforts to clean up and repair the state.