Under Coolidge's admistration America had insisted on having the war debts owed by the french and British and reparations from Germany be payed back to them. Some statesmen had proposed that war debts be scaled down or cancelled. Coolidge answred the suggestion with a terse question: " They hired the money, didn't they?" Coolidge recognized that the U.S. could not afford to just ignore the debts and actions must be taken to get their money back. The Dawes Plan of 1924 would have helped the U.S. get its money back. The idea was to give Germany private loans so they could afford to pay back the British and the French and they both inturn would pay their debts to the U.S. Unfortunately the plan depended on America's credit and when the stock market crashed in 1929 the plan did not work out. America never did get these debts repaid. Monet M. Source: The Amercan Pageant Twelfth Edition  comments:steel strike of 1919, Washington Disarmament Conference and Black Tuesday.