Date: June 17th, 1924
Location: Washington, D.C.
(Original document available here)
Glad to see you all back at this end of the Avenue. I expect that General Dawes will be down to make me a visit within a week or ten days. I had a telegram from him and an indirect communication with him inquiring if he could come down, and I have sent him word to come whenever his plans are convenient. I understood he would be down very shortly.
Mr. President, will he be your guest at the White House?
Yes, I invited him and Mrs. Dawes to make us a visit, and I told him I presumed the newspaper men would like to get some pictures.
I haven’t any plans about going out of Washington during the summer. The weather gets rather hot here in July and August, and personally I don’t like the hot weather so well as I like the cool weather we have been having during the last six weeks. It may be that we can find a chance to go away for a short time, though of course I have the privilege of going out on the water in the Mayflower, which gives me a great deal of relief, but doesn’t relieve the newspaper men so much. I haven’t, as I say, any plan about it. We will have to see what develops and what the season brings forth.
Nor have I any specific plans about taking part in the campaign in the way of making speeches. I suppose I would make about the usual number that a President in office makes. There will be the speech of acceptance, and probably some speeches besides that, but very few. There may be some special occasion when I shall go somewhere to make an address, perhaps not entirely political, on some public occasion or other. I am expecting to speak to the teachers’ gathering that is having a convention in Washington, and I expect to address them on the 4th day of July. There will be the usual business session of the Government departments held in the latter part of June, the last week or perhaps the 30th – I think General Lord has set a specific date. I am not certain whether it has been given out. Of course, I shall address that gathering as usual. There will be various occasions of that kind, and as you have already noticed in the newspapers, there will be the usual Advisory Committee for the Chairman of the National Committee, but I do not want to have that misinterpreted. Of course, the conduct of the campaign will be where it always is, and where the rules of the National Committee provide it shall be, under the direction of the Chairman of the National Committee and in the hands of the National Committee and the various state and local committees. I think the rules provide that the Chairman may appoint other committees in addition to the executive committee, and it has always been customary, I think, to pick different men of ability and experience in political affairs to act as an advisory committee. That will be done this year the same as it is usually done, and it has no different significance from that which it always has had. I indicated to Mr. Slemp some weeks ago that I wanted him to act on that Committee, so I could confer with him constantly because of his long experience in such affairs. He has been in the headquarters two or three times during national campaigns, and will be very helpful to me. He as you know has gone to Cincinnati on account of an operation that his cousin, or business partner has to undergo today, and as soon as he recovers he will be back here as usual. I haven’t any plan about the duties of the Advisory Committee; they will be the same as they always have been. Its members take part in the campaign from time to time as advisors to the Chairman of the National Committee. I may desire to suggest to him different people that can help, after he and I make up our minds after conference with each other that such action would be helpful.
No time has been set for the notification ceremonies, and I think we better consider that they will be held here in Washington, until there is some further information. If my residence were away somewhere, quite naturally they would be held there. But I haven’t any plan of that kind. Where there has been some residence, notification has been there, but where there has been none, it has been here at the White House. Whether this will be here in the White House, or the White House grounds, or in some assembly hall here in Washington, I do not know. No plan has yet been made about it.
I have just had a conference with the Secretary of the Treasury relative to the appointment of the new tax law Appeals Board, and just as soon as the personnel of that body can be made up the appointments will be made. They will really conduct proceedings as they are conducted in court proceedings, and will sit as judges. I think the law provides that they be public. I suppose evidence will be presented as evidence usually is presented to a court. For that reason, and on account of the oftentimes large sums involved, it will probably be necessary to have men of legal ability and experence that can take these very important positions. The pay is not large, $7500 I believe, and you can’t go out and pick twenty-eight men who will serve in a position of that kind, without careful investigation. That takes time, but it is proceeding and I think we can get a decision soon. The policy will be to take some men from the Department, but also we realize that it is helpful to a Department and helpful to the administration of the Government generally to bring in fresh blood, if I may so speak of it, from the country, who have not only the point of view of the Department, but who have the point of view of the public towards the Department, and get action from them that will better insure the administration of their duties, and that will be in accordance with public desires, as well as that that develops in the Department.
The work on the Tacna and Arica question between Peru and Chile is going on. It is being done under the immediate direction of the Secretary of State. I don’t know just how much longer it will take. I had expected that we would get a decision by the middle of the summer.
I haven’t heard anything about the desire of Ambassador Warren to retire, other than that which I saw in the paper yesterday morning. Mr. Hughes was speaking of it yesterday, and said he had received no information about it. You know that when Mr. Warren took that position he took it at a good deal of self-sacrifice, and with the understanding that he wouldn’t be able, probably, to stay in the position for a long time, but that when he had finished some preliminary work and after getting into running order, or working order, the arrangement that was made in the treaty which he had negotiated relative to the claims, that he then was to have the privilege of retiring.
I think that covers everything.
Citation: Calvin Coolidge: Remarks by the President to Newspaper Correspondents
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