Date: December 30, 1927
Location: Washington, D.C.
(Original document available here)
Here is a suggestion that I review the work of the United States Government for the year 1927. That doesn’t hardly seem to me a feasible thing to do in a newspaper conference and I rather think the members of the press could do that very much better than I could without my assistance.
I do not understand that the Secretary of the Treasury is making any suggestion about either delaying or putting forward the tax reduction bill. He made some answers to some queries that Mr. Smoot made to him as to what the result might be if the bill were delayed until after March 15th. The question of whether it ought to be delayed or not is of course entirely a matter for the Congress to decide, and I haven’t enough information about the situation in the Senate to give an opinion on it that would be of any particular value. If the bill could be taken out of the Committee and passed in the form in which it was suggested by the Secretary of the Treasury that it ought to be passed, I think everybody that is connected with the Administration would be glad to see that done at once. But I understand that there is a disposition to dispute the figures that were given by the Secretary of the Treasury, and if they are not to be taken and relied on then evidently some other method will have to be adopted of finding out what the exact situation is. That, I suppose, involves waiting until the returns for this year are made, in order that the Congress may be in possession of those figures when the matter is up for their action.
I haven’t examined the constitutional question, so that I would not want to venture a final and authoritative statement relative to our adhering to the treaty establishing the World Court by a resolution of Congress, instead of by a ratifying vote in the Senate. But I am of the opinion that adhering to it constitutes entering into a treaty, and in order to make the treaty it is necessary for the President and two-thirds of the Senate to concur.
I haven’t seen the reports which may have come to the State Department relative to the exact form of proposed legislation in Mexico concerning titles to land that are held there by United States citizens and corporations, so I don’t know to what extent the proposed action would settle the questions that have been in controversy. It was my understanding, though, that it would provide an answer to substantially all the questions involved relative to petroleum lands. I don’t think it has any relation to the other land laws, which are also important, but which may be adjusted by some other method.
I haven’t seen the address made by Governor Ritchie, so I can’t very well comment on it.
Citation: Calvin Coolidge: Remarks by the President to Newspaper Correspondents
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