Date: August 24, 1928
Location: Superior, WI.
(Original document available here)
The Secretary of War, as the press knows, was sent to represent our Government at Hawaii, and that leaves General Summerall as the directing force of the War Department – though of course we have an Assistant Secretary – but General Summerall is the directing force and so I have had the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Hughes, up to visit me and talk of naval affairs and I am asking General Summerall to come up. He will be here tomorrow to talk with me about the Army situation. There isn’t anything special I expect to discuss with him, except the general situation in relation to the Army.
I haven’t set any time to return to Washington. Of course, I would not go to New England and then come back here. If I go to Vermont, it will be some time after I return to Washington. I do not know that John has made any final decision about the work he will enter on.
I haven’t any further expectation of making any address at the Tri-State Fair.in Superior. I may attend there. I expect to. I hope to some afternoon on some day that will be determined on later.
I am expecting that Eugene Meyer will call on me when he is up in this region. When is it that he is coming, about the 1st of September, Mr. Sanders?
Mr. Sanders: Well, about the 1st of September. He is coming through here in connection with his duties. That reminds me that I had a very interesting report this morning from Mr. C. E. Danielson, President of the Greater North Dakota Association, and Mr. Milloy, the Secretary of that Association, in relation to the situation in North Dakota. They are having one of the largest crops in the history of the State and he tells me that diversification has proceeded there very rapidly under the inspiration of the cooperation that I had set up I think in 1924 or 1925 for the purpose of making loans to provide capital for diversification such as cows, hogs and sheep. That is administered to quite an extent by Mr. Jaffrey, President of the Soo Line. Some of their Vice Presidents were in this morning and I was speaking to them of that and they said they would put 25,000 sheep next fall in South Dakota. They have already a great deal of livestock in there. But to get back to my story about Mr. Danielson he said that they would sell in the last year and this year about 2,000,000 acres of land at an average price of about $31 an acre, which of course goes a very long ways towards cleaning up their marketable land, or rather land that was on the market.
As the press knows, I am making a little trip down to Lewis, Wisconsin, to visit Mr. Lewis. I shall return tomorrow. I don’t know whether any of the press is going down or not. Are they Mr. Sanders?
Mr. Sanders: Yes, arrangements have been made for some of the press to go.
I had a very pleasant visit on the Apostle Islands the other day. It was a very interesting place to visit. I don’t know as I have ever commented on the remarkable reception that was given us during our visit to Wausau when I went down to attend the State Convention of the Wisconsin American Legion. Their arrangements were also very fine and I never went to a place where the arrangements were so perfect for the reception of the President and the carrying out of the plans for the day. My only regret I had down there was that I didn’t have enough time to stay longer and to have visited some interesting points around Wausau. I should like to have gone over to Stevens Point, which is the headquarters for making flies for fishing, and they have in their immediate vicinity a very celebrated fox farm that I should like to have seen.
I had an invitation this morning to visit the State Convention of the American Legion of the State of Illinois. That comes about the 10th or l 2th of September. I rather doubt if I could go there, but I told them I would take it under consideration.
Question: Where is it to be held?
President: It is somewhere this side of Chicago. Do you recall Mr. Sanders?
Sanders: I don’t know, Mr. President.
President: It seems as though it was Waukegan.
Citation: Calvin Coolidge: Remarks by the President to Newspaper Correspondents
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