Date: September 2, 1927
Location: Rapid City, SD
(Original document available here)
So far as I am aware, I shall not have any conference with Chairman Green of the House Ways and Means Committee before I return to Washington. Have you had any communication, Mr. Sanders?
We have had none, Mr. President.
President: Yes. Of course, if he would like to come here to see me I should be very glad to see him, but so far as I know it will not be necessary before I return with anything I have in mind to see him. If he may wish to see me, and has something in mind which makes it desirable to see me, I should be glad to see him.
At the last conference I said that unless I got some information from the Navy Department which would change my opinion, I didn’t think it would be necessary to send a cruiser with Lieut. Williams to Venice to take part in the air races. I am advised by the Navy Dept. that it wouldn’t be possible to get him over there by public transportation and that if he goes it will be necessary to send him on a naval vessel.
Question: You have no objection to that then?
President: Oh, no.
I haven’t made any change in my opinion about a special session of the Senate or a special session of the Congress. I told Senator Jones that it had occurred to me that it would be well to explore the question of whether a special session of the Senate to take up certain contested elections cases might be helpful, but I haven’t had a chance to see any of the Senators to find out what their opinion would be about that. I don’t know just what the standing of the contested elections cases is at the present time.
I haven’t any plan for Labor Day. We are having some people at Hermosa come up to the Lodge, I think tomorrow afternoon. The band of the Cavalry Regiment that is located at Fort Meade is coming over to stay a few days at the Camp – the Lodge – and they will be there tomorrow to help entertain our guests.
Question: Is it your plan Labor Day to come to the office?
President: I think so. Yes. You see mail that is sent up here from Washington for me to look after would be here on Labor Day the same as any other day. Very likely I shall observe that, as I do other days, here in the office.
Question: The people from Hermosa. Is that any selected crowd or organization, or —
President: I think it is more especially the people connected with the church there.
I don’t know of any communications from the Filipino leaders asking for a change in the form of government of the Philippines. Possibly something of that kind may have been sent to the War Department. It would be given out, if anything of that kind had been sent. I don’t recall that any communication has come to me from the War Dept. on that subject, and I haven’t seen anything in the press.
I haven’t had any reports on China for some time from the State Dept., which would indicate that there was apparently nothing serious over there to report and no change in conditions. I think the plan is to have our Minister, Mr. Mac Murray, return to this country, I don’t know but that he is on his way now, to confer with him concerning conditions in the country to which he is accredited.
There has been quite a good deal of confusion in the press and in the minds of some of the members of the Congress relative to the so-called Bankers’ Manifesto, which dealt with what are referred to as economic barriers. There is a very good article on that in the Saturday Evening Post, of Sept. 3rd., an editorial, and the conclusion of it is this: The suggestion that discussions on trade barriers are directed at us in the same sense that they are directed at European countries is gratuitous.* * * . The sense of the article is what I always understood from the Bankers’ Manifesto and the various resolutions that have been passed at economic gatherings in Europe, that it referred to the intercourse between European countries and did not refer to America. One of them recommended that Europe ought to have substantially similar freedom in commerce and trade as exists between the 48 states.
Citation: Calvin Coolidge: Remarks by the President to Newspaper Correspondents
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