Date: November 13, 1928
Location: Washington, D.C.
(Original document available here)
Senator Reed of Pennsylvania spoke to me about increasing the tariff on glass. I have a report from the Tariff Commission that is in process of the rounds in the President’s office and the other offices that I submit those reports to. So I haven’t decided yet what action should be taken on it.
I shall have the short address that I am to make before the Grange next Friday in the hands of the press later this afternoon or early tomorrow morning.
I have a communication this morning from Colonel Tilson. He is coming in to see me very soon and he will return to Washington to look after the preliminaries to the opening of Congress. Also, I understand that Speaker Longworth will be back here very soon.
I spoke to the conference, I think last Friday, about the report that came in from the Post Office on the sale of stamps, and I get a similar report this morning from the Secretary of Labor that there has been quite a marked increase in the demand for labor, especially during October, that pretty much removes the fear that the Labor Department had very early in the season that the coming winter might show quite a number of people out of employment. The indications are now that the seasonal unemployment will not be as heavy as sometimes is. The situation in that respect I looks very encouraging.
I am expecting, as newspaper men know, to be at Swanannoa over Thanksgiving. I had an invitation from Dr. Alderman, President of the University of Virginia, to attend a buffet luncheon at the President’s house Thanksgiving Day and go to the football game there in the afternoon. I haven’t decided yet whether I can do that. It is possible that I might go to the luncheon and go to the field for a short time.
Question: You don’t happen to know what teams are playing?
President: No, I don’t know. Do you know, Mr. Sanders?
Mr. Sanders: No, I don’t.
President: I would hardly care to sit out the entire game and I don’t know whether it would be good for Mrs. Coolidge on a cold afternoon looking at a football game.
I am also of course starting to prepare my Annual Message to the Congress. I have reports from practically all the Departments and Bureaus sending such suggestions that they want to make. I want to get the Message out, so that there will be plenty of time for the press to distribute it. Always at the beginning of a Message, I hope it will he short, but there are so many things that the different Departments want reported to the Congress that usually before I get finished it becomes a document of considerable length.
Citation: Calvin Coolidge: Remarks by the President to Newspaper Correspondents
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