Greeting to the American Federation of Labor.

I have been particularly glad to receive and discuss common problems with the Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor, and to congratulate them upon their enlarged Executive Council, bringing into cooperation more units of the labor movement. The American Federation of Labor has been helpful and cooperative in the development of the programs of the rehabilitation of industry and of our economic life over the past two years, and I hope their cooperation will continue active and effective.

Cooperation with labor as well as with business is essential to the continuation of the programs we are working out for a more stable and more satisfactory industrial life in this country. I have on a number of occasions urged the necessity, as well as the soundness, of furthering the principle of collective bargaining as between labor and management. This is my personal point of view, but it is also set forth in the National Industrial Recovery Act.

In pursuance of the policy referred to, we must fully understand the difficulties attendant upon its accomplishment by reason of the absence, in many respects, of a disciplined order as it refers to both labor and industry. Notwithstanding this, it must be obvious that the best possible results in rehabilitating our economic structure are to be found in the well-organized and highly developed organization of both employees and employers, with their relationship resting upon the foundation of conciliation and arbitration and the full and frank recognition of the inescapable community of interests to be found in the industry itself.

The Federal Government has indicated through the National Industrial Recovery Act its desire that labor and management organize for the purposes of collective bargaining and the furtherance of industrial peace and prosperity, but the Federal Government cannot, of course, undertake to compel employees and employers to organize. It should be a voluntary organization.

To you of the Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor, I wish to express my very definite appreciation and recognition of the Federation in the work of rehabilitating industry and in the protection of our country itself. No one can disregard the importance of the American Federation of Labor as one of the great and outstanding institutions of the country. It has been my purpose to recognize this in every practical and logical way, and I have no intention of changing my point of view.

My impression is that our difficulties are found largely in the heretofore totally unorganized field, as it affects both employers and employees. In such cases we must have patience.

Finally, permit me to say that we are seeking to promote peace, cooperation and understanding between labor and management in all of the industries of the United States, to the end that we can eliminate inequities and bring about practical and scientific stabilization for the common good of all those engaged in industry as well as of the Nation itself.