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Excerpts of the President's News Conference En Route to Washington from Northampton

November 06, 1928

I don't expect to make any statement. Election day is a day when the people of the country speak. It will be particularly becoming for the President on that day to keep silent and let the people do the speaking.

Of course, I don't know whether I shall return to Northampton to live. That is my place of residence and likely to continue to be. I moved some of my bricabrac and tilings that have accumulated that we don't use up to Northampton today, because I suppose after the 4th of March I couldn't very well keep it in the White House. It has to be kept somewhere.

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The press has noted somewhat the very important events that have taken place in Nicaragua, but they have been buried up so in our election here and probably will continue to be for several days, so that I do not know that comment of mine on it would be likely to get very much space. But the outcome down there has been particularly successful and particularly agreeable to the United States Government. I think it demonstrates clearly that we were pursuing the right course. I suppose everyone knows and recalls that the Marines had been in there for a number of years. I was anxious to withdraw from a contact of that kind and took the Marines out. They hadn't been out only about 30 days when revolution started and even then we withheld any action in relation to it as long as we could. Finally our citizens and their property were in so much jeopardy that at the earnest solicitation of the government of Nicaragua we sent Marines there to protect our interests. There was a very terrible warfare going on between the people of the country, the loss of life was very great, and in order to compose that I sent Colonel Stimson down, who made the plan which we have been carrying out and which was successfully consummated last Sunday. They held a peaceable and orderly election which apparently is an expression of the will of that country. Our policy there, of course, has been very similar to our policy in Mexico and China, of trying peaceably to compose our differences.

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Our policy there [in Nicaragua], of course, has been very similar to our policy in Mexico and China, of trying peaceably to compose our differences. We are succeeding admirably in Mexico, and the situation in China which was very ominous in the winter and spring of 1926 has also been composed, so much so that we now have under consideration the question of raising our legation there to an embassy. We were besought to take very strong military action against China, which I all the time refused to do, thinking that it was much more likely that they would be able to adjust their own differences if we refrained from interfering or doing any more than was necessary to protect the lives and interests of our people there.

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 En Route to Washington from Northampton Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/349276

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