Date: September 11, 1925
Location: Washington D.C.
(Original document available here)
I am glad to see you are all back. I had forgotten that we had so many in conference. The conferences at Swampscott were very much smaller than they are here.
I have got several inquiries here ahout aircraft. Nothing was done about that in the Cabinet. I learned from the War Department that, what was already public, that they are making an investigation. I don’t know of anything I could say about it until they have completed their investigation. What I mean by that is that the War Department is undertaking to ascertain the facts. When they have the facts they will take such action as the laws regarding the government of the Army may require.
I don’t know what is being done about the complaint made by a man named Lucius J. Malmin regarding the Virgin Islands. I think that has been referred to some Department for investigation. I think it went to the War Department, but it may have gone to the Navy Department. Whichever one of those Departments has jurisdiction over the Virgin Islands. My recollection is that this man has made quite violent complaints before which on investigation, as I recall, didn’t develop very much.
The Cabinet took no action about the coal matter this morning. The question wasn’t discussed. I took up general things with the different Departments. I inquired of every Department what they had been doing since the last Cabinet meeting and there was a general rehearsal to me of the different things that had been going on in the Departments since I have been away. Nothing especially new about it. It took quite a little time, I think everything reported there has already been in the press.
I haven’t seen the report of the action of Governor Pinchot, though I think I wont make any comment about that.
There isn’t anything further that I can say about the Shipping Board at the present time. The matter of the sale of ships is one of the things that interests me most, – trying to transfer our ships to private operation and ownership, always with the understanding that they are to keep up the service for a specified time and of course keep the ships under the United States flag,
I think I saw a suggestion in a Washington paper ahout two bathing beaches for Washington. Now I haven’t any information about that other than that which I had when I made my recommendation in the budget last year. The reason for the closing of the bathing beach that was here and failing to open another was because of the action of Congress in not making any appropriation. So far as I know I should be willing to recommend the same appropriation that I did last year, Whether I should want to go any further, I don’t know. I want to see first what the plan is and whether it looks to be practical. Of course the difficulty about bathing beaches in Washington is that we have no place that is adequate. We have the basin down here, but that wasn’t put in with the idea that it would be used for bathing. When you get over into the Potomac River then you run into other difficulties of current and so on. Now it is possible that they could make two bathing beaches that are satisfactory. I should want to wait and see what the plans are before making any definite determination about them.
Citation: Calvin Coolidge: Remarks by the President to Newspaper CorrespondentsÂ
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