Date: September 12, 1930
Location: Saranac Inn, NY
(Original document available here)
The coming yacht race is the apex of international sport. It will attract universal attention, although but few can participate in it.
We are not generally considered a nation interested in sports, yet in no other country is the outlay for that purpose anywhere near so great. The yearly expenditure for baseball, football, golf, fishing and hunting is hundreds of millions of dollars. Conservation and propagation of wild life mainly for the benefit of sportsmen is a large item in our government budgets.
For the last season nearly six and one-half million licenses were taken out to hunt and fish, for which almost nine and one-half million dollars were paid. The manufacture and distribution of sporting goods is a large business.
All of the varied sports activities take people out of doors where they relax, recuperate and gain new interests that broaden and sweeten life. They afford an outlet for primitive instincts which otherwise tend to turn in upon themselves, with disaster to the normal development of the individual and at a cost to society. Plenty of playgrounds and games is the best cure for youthful delinquency. Plenty of outdoor sports is a wise investment in good citizenship.
Citation: Calvin Coolidge Says: Dispatches Written by Former-President Coolidge and Syndicated to Newspapers in 1930-1931 (Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation)
The Coolidge Foundation gratefully acknowledges the volunteer efforts of Robert Manchester who prepared this document for digital publication.