Herbert Hoover photo

The President's News Conference

November 28, 1930

SECRETARY OF LABOR

THE PRESIDENT. I have appointed William N. Doak, of the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, as Secretary of Labor. Mr. Doak has been identified with organized labor all his adult life. For the last 16 years he has been a general officer of the trainmen. He has taken part in most of the great labor negotiations. I have received endorsements for Mr. Doak from several score of labor unions, some of whom are members of the American Federation of Labor. I know that Mr. Doak will represent all labor in his public duties, and that he will reinforce the sympathetic attitude of the administration on the great problems of the wage earner.

While President [William] Green has publicly stated that he will oppose Mr. Doak's appointment because Mr. Doak's union is not affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, he has informed me that he holds Mr. Doak in the highest personal esteem.

I do not feel that I can consent to the principle of debarment of the railway employees, or other labor unions or associations, or any labor man in the United States, from the opportunity or the aspiration to attain any office in this land. I have the highest respect for Mr. Green and the American Federation of Labor, but Mr. Green's enunciation that appointments must come from one organization in fact imposes on me the duty to maintain the principle of open and equal opportunity and freedom in appointments to public office.

WORLD COURT PROTOCOLS

I am submitting the protocols of the World Court to the Senate at the forthcoming session. I, of course, have hoped that it could be dealt with at this time. It is for the leaders of the Senate, however, to determine if it should be brought up in the press of other business during the short session. Certainly it should not be made an instrument of obstruction in attempts to force an extra session. Both its friends and its foes ought to be able to agree on that.

That is all I have got today.

Note: President Hoover's one hundred and fifty-seventh news conference was held in the White House at 4 p.m. on Friday, November 28, 1930.

On the same day, the White House issued texts of the President's statements on the appointment of the Secretary of Labor (see Item 384) and the transmission of the protocols of the World Court to the Senate (see Item 385).

Herbert Hoover, The President's News Conference Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/212528

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