Warren G. Harding

It will be helpful to ourselves and it will improve conditions among our debtors if funding and the settlement of defaulted interest may be negotiated.

Our power to do so is not disputed, but power and ships, without comity of relationship, will not give us the expanded trade which is inseparably linked with a great merchant marine.

I can not too strongly urge in early completion of this necessary legislation It is needed to stabilize our industry at home; it is essential to make more definite our trade relations abroad.

More, it is vital to the preservation of many of our own industries which contribute so notably to the very lifeblood of our Nation.

We can not go far wrong when we base our tariffs on the policy of preserving the productive activities which enhance employment and add to our national prosperity.

Again comes the reminder that we must not be unmindful of world conditions, that peoples are struggling for industrial rehabilitation and that we can not dwell in industrial and commercial exclusion and at the same time do the just thing…

We do not seek a selfish aloofness, and we could not profit by it, were it possible.

We recognize the necessity of buying wherever we sell, and the permanency of trade lies in its acceptable exchanges.

In our pursuit of markets we must give as well as receive.

We can not sell to others who do not produce, nor can we buy unless we produce at home.

Sensible of every obligation of humanity, commerce and finance, linked as they are in the present world condition, it is not to be argued that we need destroy ourselves to be helpful to others.

I do not mean that partisan preferences should hinder any public servant in the performance of a conscientious and patriotic official duty.