Date: August 30, 1927
Location: Rapid City, SD
It doesn’t seem to me, unless I get some information from the Navy Department which would change my opinion, that the Government would he justified in assigning a fast cruiser to send Lieutenant Williams to Venice to take part in the air races. This country is maintaining a trans-Atlantic steamship service which I should suppose ought to be adequate to serve for any such purpose as is indicated here.
No final decision has been made about filling foreign posts that are now vacant.
I haven’t enough information to express any opinion about the Teton Mountains in the Yellowstone Park. Most of you went to the Park with me. I doubt if I could add anything to the knowledge you already possess about the value of the Park in its purpose to maintain intact the great natural wonders that happen to be located, in that vicinity and the advantages that accrue from the opportunity of the public to visit the Park and find there roads and accommodations for staying at hotel s or in camps, as they may desire.
I doubt if I shall be able to get to the Bad Lands. I have so much to do that it seems practically impossible.
I haven’t any information about any suggestions to out the Bureau of Efficiency under the Bureau of the Budget. It doesn’t seem to me offhand that any proportionate advantages could he secured from that.
Question: The idea was to use the Bureau of Efficiency as an investigating body as it does now to look into the efficiency and cost of the different departments.
President: Of course, we are doing that all the time. The information is open to the Bureau of the Budget. I think the Bureau of the Budget ought to he kept, in so far as it can, a distinctly financial bureau and not undertake to deal with other administrative features. There may be some reasons for that which haven’t come to my attention, but so far as I can see I think I should prefer to leave the Bureau of the Budget unencumbered with other duties.
I have never given any thought to the discontinuance of the official receptions. I don’t know of any reason why they should be discontinued. It is part of the social life of Washington and helpful in a great many directions. I don’t know why they should be discontinued any more than any other function of the Presidency.
I have understood from the State Department that the present Chilean Ambassador is to retire and would be succeeded by – I think this name is correct – Carlos Davila. I am expecting to leave here for Washington some time next week. Members of the press will get that information from Mr. Sanders in time to make their own plans.
I haven’t any particular policy relative to the Columbia River Basin, other than a general desire that I expressed I think in my messages to the Congress for the development of work of that kind as fast as the resources of the nation and the funds will permit. This is, as I understand it, a somewhat large and special project and will take a good many years for its completion. I have never made any careful study of it. Perhaps it would be better for me to wait until I hear what this committee has to say before expressing any definite opinion about it. I have known of it in a general way as something that” will probably be brought about some time, but I had understood that the cost of it was over $100,000,000 and would require a tunnel of some 75 miles. I think those figures are correct. They may not be. So that you can see it would be a very long task to put that project into operation.
I am expecting to dedicate the library at the South Dakota State College at Brookings, S. D., on my way to Washington. I have no other speaking engagements and do not expect to stop anywhere else on my return trip.
About all I could say about the trans-oceanic flight s that have been made recently is the very general statement that they have demonstrated that such flights can be made, but that they are not easy. Evidently we need to learn a great deal more of their difficulties and how to overcome them to be sure at all that when a plan leaves one shore it will reach its objective point on another shore. The more we see of other flights, the more the flight of Lindbergh stands out, because he started for a definite point and reached it. I don’t mean by that to detract from the effort s that others have made, but the others have generally demonstrated the difficulties.
Citation: Calvin Coolidge: Remarks by the President to Newspaper Correspondents
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