Date: June 6, 1924
Location: Washington, D.C.
(Original document available here)
I have two or three inquiries here about the Vice Presidency. I made a statement about that Tuesday, in which I undertook to announce that I had no candidate, and I adhere to that statement. Any reports contrary to that statement are, as perhaps some of you men know, without foundation. I usually keep my word for at least four days, and I can tell four days before the Convention what I am going to do. A good many very excellent men are mentioned for the Vice Presidency. Many of them are perfectly acceptable to me, but I am not undertaking to approve one above another. Let the convention select the man that after deliberation they think is best equipped to meet the situation. If I was going to pick out a candidate, I should want to go to Cleveland and talk with the various delegations when they come in, and find out what they think the requirements are, and what the sentiment is in the neighborhood in which they reside. In that way, I presume I could make up my mind what would be best. I am not as you understand making the slightest criticism of anybody, nor am I undertaking to promote any candidate. I am sorry that there are any reports that I am picking a candidate, and if there are any more of them they will be without any foundation.
I rather expect to go to the Capitol tomorrow evening to be there to sign bills as they pass. I am not certain whether it is necessary to go up, excepting at the final wind-up of a Congress. There is a difference between the end of a session and the final adjournment of a Congress which would take place on the 4th of March.
I don’t know enough about the Red River Appeal bill to pass any particular judgment on it. I thought it was a matter that deserved very careful investigation.
I don’t know as I know just how to answer this . It is an inquiry as to whether the approval by the German Government of the Dawes report has facilitated the execution of that report. Of course it has to that extent. What effect that may have on the other Governments, I do not know. I think Germany’s approval would probably facilitate its approval by the other interested governments. I can’t tell whether it has increased the chances of a German loan in this country. This country I think – I don’t mean the Government, but private sources – would make a loan to Germany, as I stated in my address I made in New York before the Associated Press. I assume they would want enough assurance that it would be a real benefit, not a mere temporary expedient that would last for a short time and then Germany would be in the same difficulty again. They would want to know whether their loan would effect a permanent remedy as far as it could. I had expected that if the Dawes report would be accepted by the Governments that there would be a favorable response from private sources in this country to any suggestion for a loan to carry out the proposals in the Dawes report.
There hasn’t been any report of the oil conservation committee, other than a communication that they are about to make a report. The gasoline report of the Federal Trade Commission I have sent to the Attorney General. It is a document about that thick, so that I didn’t have an opportunity personally to digest it. If I had, I doubt whether you would want to listen to a disposition of it. I sent it there for whatever action might seem to be appropriate to take care of the rights of the public.
Mr. President, do you feel inclined to tell us anything about the nature of the Federal Trade Commission report? I can’t give you any idea about it. As I say, I didn’t examine it with any care. There was nothing I could do about it except to submit it to the Attorney General.
Does it make possible cheaper gasoline, Mr. President?
I can’t tell that. The idea I had in mind was that complaints had been made that there were conditions existing that tended to make an unreasonably high price to gasoline, so I asked the Federal Trade Commission to make an investigation. They made it and I submitted their report to the Attorney General.
I do not think I have any report from the Attorney General on the proposal to create naval oil reserves on Indian lands. I have had more or less correspondence in relation to that subject, but nothing in the way of a report and nothing that undertakes to deal with the subject as a whole. I am not certain that there is anything that deals specifically with this proposal here.
Mr. President, do you think you are to take a trip on the Mayflower this Sunday? I hope to get away for a little time in the afternoon.
Citation: Calvin Coolidge: Remarks by the President to Newspaper CorrespondentsÂ
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