Coolidge delivered this Annual Message to Congress just four months before his Inaugural Address. He'd just been elected in a landslide victory for him and the Republican party.

What a difference a year makes. Coolidge seems a lot more positive about the general state of the U.S. in this message than in his 1923 speech.

The Nation holds a position unsurpassed in all former human experience. This does not mean that we do not have any problems […] but we can provide an era of peace and prosperity, attended with freedom and justice and made more and more satisfying by the ministrations of the charities and humanities of life" (source).

Well, that sounds promising.

Then he changes tone to talk about what he sees as the biggest issue of the day: the economy. Yes, this was the prosperous 1920s, but Coolidge is still all business: "We have our enormous debt to pay, and we are paying it" (source).

Alright then.

We can see him reiterate a common theme throughout his speeches: running the federal government costs the people money, so the cost of the government must be reduced to save everyone some cash. He also sums up his perspective on the link between public prosperity and federal expenditures, which comes up in one way or another throughout his political career:

Anybody can reduce taxes, but it is not so easy to stand in the gap and resist the passage of increasing appropriation bills which would make tax reduction impossible […] I am convinced that the larger incomes of the country would actually yield more revenue to the Government if the basis of taxation were scientifically revised downward […] It is altogether likely that such reduction would so encourage and stimulate investment that it would firmly establish our country in the economic leadership of the world(source).

Similar to all his other speeches, Coolidge defends the lack of federal government intervention in the ongoing agricultural depression. He says, "The Government cannot successfully insure prosperity or fix prices by legislative fiat. Every business has its risk and its times of depression. It is well known that in the long run there will be a more even prosperity and a more satisfactory range of prices under the natural working out of economic laws […]" (source). This is pretty much what he said in 1923 and 1925, and what Harding said before him, and Hoover after him.

He reiterates his desire to work with the new Permanent Court of International Justice and reviews the state of the foreign debt, with numbers to back it up. Standard Coolidge fare.

He also claims that the situation of Black Americans has improved—but since there will be a giant KKK march in Washington the following year, we have to take that paragraph with a grain of salt.

With regard to international relations, which have been moved from the opening of the speech to the end, he establishes ideas that he'll echo in the Inaugural Address a few months later. He tells Congress, "Ultimately nations, like individuals, cannot depend upon each other but must depend upon themselves. Each one must work out its own salvation. We have every desire to help. But with all our resources we are powerless to save unless our efforts meet with a constructive response" (source). God and Calvin Coolidge, help those who help themselves.

The 1924 speech also includes the line, "While we desire always to cooperate and to help, we are equally determined to be independent and free […] we do not wish to become involved in the political controversies of others" (source). That one's almost exactly the same as the Inaugural Address, so bonus points for consistency, Mr. Coolidge.

Coolidge builds to a big finish with this line: "I want the people of all the earth to see in the American flag the symbol of a Government which intends no oppression at home and no aggression abroad, which in the spirit of a common brotherhood provides assistance in time of distress" (source).

Well, for Coolidge, it was a big finish.