Date: February 17, 1931
Location: Northampton, MA
(Original document available here)
The nervous exhaustion of the Congress always becomes apparent near the end of a short session. It is felt that something or perhaps many things must be done to establish a political record.
If the country itself is in an uncertain condition, business distracted, people suffering reverses, these are reflected in the official attitude at Washington.
In the pressure and confusion the normal relation of things becomes obscured.
At the same time that the House of Representatives is besought to abolish such an abuse as it conceives to be revealed by a committee expenditure of 50 cents for a corkscrew, it passes, by a tremendous majority, a bill to pay to the veterans a sum estimated from half a billion to a billion dollars.
No one questions the national duty to help distressed veterans. But this bill gives them access to the Treasury without regard to their distress. The business reaction which it will cause is likely to harm more veterans than are helped. The country will have to make the best it can of the outcome which is now uncertain. It is part of the war. The cost of that conflict will go on for generations.
Citation: Calvin Coolidge Says: Dispatches Written by Former-President Coolidge and Syndicated to Newspapers in 1930-1931 (Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation)
The Coolidge Foundation gratefully acknowledges the volunteer efforts of Khan who prepared this document for digital publication.