| 1923 State of the Union Address | |
| Venue: | House Chamber, United States Capitol |
| Location: | Washington, D.C. |
| Coordinates: | 38.8897°N -77.0089°W |
| Type: | State of the Union Address |
| Participants: | Calvin Coolidge Albert B. Cummins Frederick H. Gillett |
| Blank1 Label: | Previous |
| Blank1 Data: | 1922 State of the Union Address |
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The 1923 State of the Union Address was given by Calvin Coolidge, the 30th president of the United States, on Thursday, December 6, 1923, to the 68th United States Congress in the chamber of the United States House of Representatives.[1] It was Coolidge's first State of the Union Address and his first speech to a joint session of the United States Congress after assuming the presidency upon the death of Warren G. Harding four months earlier in 1923. Presiding over this joint session was House speaker Frederick H. Gillett, accompanied by President pro tempore Albert B. Cummins, in his capacity as the acting president of the Senate since the office of Vice President was vacant.
Coolidge opened his speech by paying tribute to recently deceased President Warren G. Harding:
Amongst the many issues facing the country that Coolidge addressed, his opposition to the practice of lynching is notable:
Coolidge closed his speech with a reflection on the emergence of the United States as a world power in the post-World War I era, in which he alluded to a line from Abraham Lincoln's Cooper Union speech:
This was the only State of the Union Address which Coolidge delivered as a speech. After 1923, Coolidge opted to restore the longstanding practice of delivering the State of the Union Address in writing. By word count, this address was Coolidge's shortest State of the Union Address, consisting of 6,706 words.[2]
This was the first State of the Union Address to be broadcast to a large radio audience.[3]
This speech was the last time that a Republican president would address a joint session of Congress to deliver a State of the Union Address until 30 years later, when Dwight D. Eisenhower gave his first State of the Union Address in 1953.