Date: July 10, 1925
Location: Washington, D.C.
(Original document available here)
I haven’t any information about any conference between the representatives of the different powers to proclaim a new policy toward China. I doubt very much if there is going to be any such conference. There is a provision in the Washington Treaty relative to conditions in China that calls for some action, and that treaty has recently been ratified by France within two or three days. Now it is probable that whatever there is in the treaty that requires action will be carried out. Perhaps that is what this question refers to. I didn’t understand that there was anything in the treaty really that required anything like a new policy toward China. It was simply a question of how to deal with the present conditions there.
Question: Mr. President, can we say anything in that connection that it is planned to go forward with the Customs Conference?
Answer: I can’t say that. Undoubtedly the parties to that treaty will take up the question of what should be done to carry out its terms.
Question: Mr. President, Washington dispatches state that the State Dept. had suggested a conference of the nations to adopt a policy with reference to the present Government of China?
Answer: Well, I didn’t say that that wasn’t so, but I doubt if it is quite accurate. They may have made some inquiries as to what could be done under the terms of the treaty, now that it has been ratified. Perhaps something of that kind.
I expect Secretary Kellogg will come on here. It was arranged before I left Washington that he was to come up once in a while. Of course the question of the debts was pending that I would like to talk with him about and then there is this question to which I have already referred, as to what ought to be done by this country under the treaty to which we are a party relative to pending questions in China – the tariff question there – and the question of having mixed courts and the question of extra-territorial rights. I think all three of those are mentioned in the treaty.
I am quite sure there isn’t any foundation for any report that may be circulating in New York that Secretary of the Treasury Mellon has resigned.
I expect to see Ambassador Herrick while he is in this country. But that is merely a general expectation which I should entertain toward an Ambassador from any of the countries like France that might be coming home for a short vacation.
Question: Mr. President does that carry with it the understanding that he is positively going back to France?
Answer: I think so. No understanding – no reason to suppose that he isn’t going back. But I haven’t any arrangement at the present time to see him. Undoubtedly he will confer with me after he reaches this country to see when it will be convenient for him to come. I don’t think I am going out on the Mayflower over the week-end. It is quite a task to get the Mayflower out and in.
I had a letter from Dr. Coupal I should say it was written Tuesday or Wednesday, that he expected to return very soon. I left him up there because I thought it might be necessary for me to go back to Plymouth, but father is making such good progress that I don’t think it will be necessary to go back on account of his physical condition.
I haven’t any information about the candidates for Congress in the 2nd District. Of course it goes without saying that although that is my own district I should leave it to the people up there to decide what they want to do about the choice of a candidate.
Citation: Calvin Coolidge: Remarks by the President to Newspaper CorrespondentsÂ
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