Excerpts of the President's News Conference

I have an inquiry about the chlorine gas treatment which I took. According to what they told me down there it affects different individuals in different ways. You sit down in the room where it is. You get a slight effect from it. It affects the eyes of some people. It did not affect mine that way. The first two treatments I felt immediate relief. The third treatment, which I took yesterday, they put in a considerably stronger dose for that treatment. I did not like the immediate results. It made my throat smart. I thought I felt an irritation; but this morning, when I got up I found myself quite free of the cold, and the treatment was practically a complete success. I was not suffering so much from my cold as I was from being tired out. I am working rather hard and get tired out, so I thought I had better go home and rest up, which I advise all of you to do.

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I expect to pass on the Immigration Bill very soon. It has not yet come back from the Secretary of State and while I don't know what I shall do with it, it goes without saying that I shall sign it if I can. There are a good many things in this Bill. There are many things which are favorable to us and some things which I would have preferred not to have in it. But that is the case with almost every bill of any particular importance. ... I don't think the State Department is taking any action in relation to the Immigration Bill with Japan. Nor would it be fair to suppose that Mr. Hughes has made anything like a personal issue of the immigration question. Of course the Secretary and myself are exactly in the same position about that. With my approval and with his approval, both he and I undertook to see if we could secure a satisfactory arrangement when the bill was being passed. We were not able to do this. We worked together on it and will work together on whatever there may be to do further about it. There is no reason for any suggestion that Mr. Hughes would resign, nor is there any reason for the suggestion that Mr. Mellon would resign, if either of them did not get exactly what they wanted from Congress; and I am not going to resign because I don't get what I want.

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I doubt if there is much hope of getting an agreement among the Republicans on the Foreign Relations Committee on the subject of the World Court at this session. They would not need all to be in agreement, I think, if they were to get action. There are two, four, six, eight, ten Republicans and one Farmer Labor, and two, four, six, seven Democrats. It won't be necessary for the Republicans all to agree. I have stated my decision on the matter, as you know, in my message to Congress, in several conferences and in one or two addresses I have elaborated my ideas. Secretary Hughes has made elaborate speeches on it. So it has not seemed necessary to make an address on the World Court. My position is favorable to the plan presented by President Harding.

I know the Foreign Relations Committee are working on it. I had a conference the other night with several of them in which they told me of several different plans that were before the Committee, and I told them that I had taken my position and virtually gone to the country on it. . . .