Remarks at the American Federation of Labor's Samuel Gompers Centennial Dinner.

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Vice President, members of this great organization:

I have been over at the house all evening, working on two more messages on the state of the Union. One of them is ready to go down tomorrow. It is the Economic Message. And then I have one that is creating a great deal of conversation, known as the Budget Message. Everybody seems to know all about it but me, and I am the only one that knows all the figures in it.

But I was sitting over there thinking about this celebration in honor of one of labor's greatest statesmen, and I couldn't stay away.

I knew that anything I would say would be a surplus remark after the Vice President, and Matthew Woll, and William Green had paid tribute to the great Samuel Gompers; but I want you to understand that I remember him distinctly as the originator of the great movement which set labor free. And I wanted to come over here and pay tribute to him.

I remember when he passed away. He passed away in 1924, the year in which I was defeated for reelection--and they never succeeded in doing that to me since.

I was one of Samuel Gompers' great admirers when I was a very young man on the farm. Everybody in that day and age considered him a labor statesman. He was not only a labor statesman in a bipartisan sense, but he was just as good a Democrat as I ever was.

I remember very distinctly his support of Woodrow Wilson when Woodrow Wilson needed that support worse than anything he ever needed in his life. That was when California decided the election for Woodrow Wilson in 1916.

Samuel Gompers made a great contribution to the welfare of this great Nation of ours, and I consider it a very high honor that Mr. Green and the people who are holding this meeting tonight should ask me to come over and pay this very slight tribute to one of your greatest leaders who ever lived.

And I thank you for that privilege.