Date: May 11, 1926
Location: Washington, D.C.
(Original document available here)
I haven’t made any final decision about my summer vacation. I am going to take that up as soon as I can. A number of places, as the conference already knows, have been suggested. I am considering them.
I think I already stated that the Railroad Labor Bill is not an administration bill. I was very much interested to see that there was an agreement between the employees and the managers of the railroads. My special suggestion about it was that it be so drawn that it would protect the public interests. It is a very intricate bill and the details of it of course need to be worked out as a result of committee hearings and discussions.
I don’t know what the plan of Congress is about when they will take up the matter of the French Debt. I only spoke of that incidentally with Mr. Mils this morning. I understood from him that the Ways and Means Committee of the House hadn’t made any decision about it. Possibly they might have some bearings on the bill in the near future. But what they are going to do about bringing it out and undertaking to pass it, I don’t think-has yet been determined.
There is not much of any effect in this country from the British general strike, so far as we have observed. Of course, if it was continued for some length of time the ultimate effect would be adverse to our commerce. If production stops in England, that means that they will not be in a position to buy our commodities or use our raw materials. It would be damaging to our market. The very immediate effect might possibly be that some of our industrial interests would be called on to fill some of the orders that the English had taken. But that would be a mere temporary thing and any continuation of the strike over there would be adverse to our interests commercially.
I shall not deliver any address at Camden, N. J. It is my expectation that I may be able to ride across the bridge that has recently been constructed and that some of the public officials of New Jersey and Camden will perhaps be assembled on the New Jersey side of the bridge to greet me on my arrival over there. I was talking with Senator Tyson this morning about a bill that he introduced. I think it is a bill to permit the reinstatement of some officer in the Army. He said he had put it in on request and suggested that I talk with General Taylor about it , but General Taylor is out of town and is not coming back until Thursday. I will speak to him then.
Mr. Kirkwood’s camp in the Adirondacks is one of the places that have been offered along with quite a number of others.
The date hasn’t been changed for the meeting of the Business Organization of the Government. According to the best information I can secure it is to be on the 21st of June. That was the date I think that General Lord and I tentatively agreed upon, and since this question came in suggesting that it was going to be on the 29th of June I have sent over to the Bureau of the Budget – while Mr. Lord didn’t happen to be in the man next in charge said that their memorandum still stood for the 21st of June.
No information has come to me as to any request of the Cuban Government about a reciprocity treaty in relation to bringing Cuban sugar into the United States. Of course any suggestion from any foreign government about a treaty matter would be considered, but it seems to me that the question of duties is pretty much a question for the Congress to decide on, so that I should doubt very much if this country would desire to go into any treaty in relation to the importation of sugar or any other articles on which there is a duty.
Citation: Calvin Coolidge: Remarks by the President to Newspaper CorrespondentsÂ
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