Calvin Coolidge

It is only in accordance with these principles that we can establish any lasting foundations for an honorable and permanent peace.

We can not shirk the responsibility, which is the first requisite of all government, of preserving its own integrity and maintaining the rights of its own citizens.

While we are doing our best to eliminate all resort to war for the purpose of settling disputes, we can not but remember that the peace we now enjoy had to be won by the sword and that if the rights of our country are to be defended we can…

While we submit our differences with others, not to the adjudication of force, but of reason, it is not because we are unable to defend our rights.

We are eminently peaceful, but we are by no means weak.

We are strong enough to pursue that method, which will be a most wholesome model for the rest of the world.

No matter how much or how little some other country may feel constrained to provide, we can well afford to set the example, not of being dictated to by others, but of adopting our own standards.

While our policy of national defense will proceed in order that we may be independent and self-sufficient, I am opposed to engaging in any attempt at competitive armaments.

However, public money is expended not that some one may profit by it, but in order to serve a public purpose.

But the Army and Navy are not supported for the benefit of supply concerns; supply concerns are supported for the benefit of the Army and Navy.

If we wish to be able to defend ourselves to the full extent of our power in the future, we shall discharge as soon as possible the financial burden of the last war.

A country loaded with debt is a country devoid of the first line of defense.

No self-respecting nation would neglect to provide an army and navy proportionate to its population, the extent of its territory, and the dignity of the place which it occupies in the world.

The land and sea force of America, both in its domestic and foreign implications, is distinctly a peace force.

Our policy of national defense is not one of making war, but of insuring peace.

Any development of the islands must be solely with the first object of benefiting the people of the islands.

I am opposed to the promotion of any policy that does not provide for absolute freedom on the part of the wage earners and do not think we should undertake to give power for large holdings of land in the islands against the opposition of…

For their economic advantage, for the employment of their people, and as a contribution to our power of defense which could not be carried on without rubber, I believe this industry should be encouraged.

They ought not to be turned back to the people until they are both politically fitted for self-government and economically independent.

As we are attempting to assist this race toward self-government, we should look upon their wishes with great respect, granting their requests immediately when they are right, yet maintaining a frank firmness in refusing when they are wrong.

These are a proud and sensitive race, who are making such progress with our cooperation that we can view the results of this experiment with great satisfaction.

Although violence of this kind has very much decreased, while any of it remains we can not justify neglecting to make every effort to eradicate it by law.

Not only their remarkable progress, their devotion and their loyalty, but, our duty to ourselves under our claim that we are an enlightened people requires us to use all our power to protect them from the crime of lynching.

The social well-being of our country requires our constant effort for the amelioration of race prejudice and the extension to all elements of equal opportunity and equal protection under the laws which are guaranteed by the.

The States and the Nation should both realize that such action is to be adopted only as a last resort.