Calvin Coolidge

My grandfather was ill for a long time before he passed away and I used to read that chapter of the Bible to him when I was a small boy not more than four or five years old.

I shall take the oath of office tomorrow on a Bible that was given to me by my grandmother.

We are not going to get any farm legislation without opposition, and the opposition will apparently come from the farmer when of course those with experience know very well that it originates with others.

But there does seem to be a very determined opposition on the part of those who act as distributors, not all of them, but quite a number of them, to any assistance being rendered the farmer.

They made some recommendations about legislation.

I don't know enough about the details of these bills to discuss the details with any intelligence.

I am very glad to hand over to them the work of doing something for the farmer if they will do it, but they haven't been able to accomplish very much, and therefore I was hopeful that this farm conference recommendation would receive…

I don't think there would be anything in those recommendations that are likely to be harmful to the farmer.

I don't know what the reason for that is.

I have been going more particularly on my confidence in people that have made recommendations and not on my particular knowledge of the recommendations that have been made.

I have a good deal of sympathy with them and wish they would do more than they do.

And they don't come in themselves and say, 'I am dealing in farm produce.'

They seem to think that if the farmer is going to be helped that means they are going to be injured.

It gives the impression abroad that we are trying to coerce them, or something of that kind.

It isn't helpful in our foreign relations, nor is it helpful in securing a state of mind that will result in making payments to us.

I don't like constantly to talk about that.

There isn't anything that I can say about our European debts.

Let us apply to this creative task the boundless energy and skill we have so long spent in harvesting the free gifts of nature.

There must be a change in our national attitude.

Our forests ought to be put to work and kept at work.

For several years the nation has observed Forest Protection Week.

We have too freely spent the rich and magnificent gift that nature bestowed on us.

Now, therefore, I, Calvin Coolidge, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim and declare that an extraordinary occasion requires the Senate of the United States to convene at the Capitol, in the city of Washington, on…

Whereas public interests require that the Senate of the United States be convened at twelve o'clock on the fourth-day of March next to receive such communications as may be made by the Executive;

If you have had any experience at all with government experimentation you know it requires a good deal of money to carry on.