Greetings to the National Conference on Labor Legislation.

To the delegates to the Fifth National Congress on

Labor Legislation:

My dear friends:

I am asking the Secretary of Labor to extend my hearty greetings and felicitations to the delegates to the National Conference on Labor Legislation and to express my regret that it will be impossible for me to attend your meeting.

Previous sessions, such as this, have resulted in the formulation of a progressive program for the raising of labor standards in the interest of wage earners, employers and the general public. Moreover, since these conferences were inaugurated in 1933, they have been instrumental in the passage of many forward looking laws of benefit to workers in the States and the Nation·

In a message to your conference last year, I stressed the need of Federal wage and hour legislation in behalf of workers. The delegates adopted a resolution calling for the administration of such a law "by the United States Department of Labor, with participation and cooperation of State labor departments." Your views were adopted by the Congress and you are deserving of thanks for the yeoman service you rendered in helping to make the people of your States conscious of the need and desirability of legislation to put a floor under wages, a ceiling over hours and to end child labor in interstate industry.

I congratulate you upon the constructive work accomplished and I wish you all the success you so richly deserve in your work for a sound and well-rounded program of forward looking State labor legislation.

Sincerely yours,