Calvin Coolidge photo

Excerpts of the President's News Conference

November 13, 1923

The class doesn't seem to be so inquisitive this morning as it sometimes is. There isn't a very large crop of questions.

* * * * * * *

An inquiry as to whether I shall deliver my message to Congress in person. I rather expect that I shall. For a great many years that was not the practice. I believe that Washington went up and delivered his message in person, and then after his administration it seems that practice fell into disuse clear up to the time that President Wilson came into office. Then he took up the ancient practice and it was continued for the most part by President Harding. I should be inclined to do what I thought the Congress liked about it. If they like to have the message delivered in person, well then I should want to try to do that. If they indicate that they very [much] preferred the message should be sent up in the way that was established between Washington and Lincoln, then very likely I should concur in their preference.

Source: "The Talkative President: The Off-the-Record Press Conferences of Calvin Coolidge". eds. Howard H. Quint & Robert H. Ferrell. The University Massachusetts Press. 1964.

Calvin Coolidge, Excerpts of the President's News Conference Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/349014

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