Herbert Hoover photo

Message to the Convention of the American Trade Association Executives.

April 30, 1931

[Released April 30, 1931. Dated April 29, 1931]

IN 1927 as Secretary of Commerce, I wrote the foreword to a bulletin on "Trade Association Activities" in which I said: "While our industry and commerce must be based upon incentive to the individual, yet the national interest requires a certain degree of cooperation between individuals in order that we may reduce and eliminate industrial waste, lay the foundation for constant decrease in production and distribution costs, and thereby obtain the fundamental increase in wages and standards of living.

"Trade Associations, like many other good things, may be abused, but the investigation of the Department of Commerce shows that such abuses have become rare exceptions. Within the last few years trade associations have rapidly developed into legitimate and constructive fields of the utmost public interest and have marked a fundamental step in the gradual evolution of our whole economic life."

No facts have come to my attention which would cause me to change the opinions expressed at that time, rather every development of industry renders trade associations more essential to sound development of our economic system.

HERBERT HOOVER

[Mr. Leslie C. Smith, Convention of American Trade Association Executives, Atlantic City, New Jersey]

Note: The message was read at a dinner of the association in the Ambassador Hotel in Atlantic City, N.J. The dinner was held in conjunction with the annual convention of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States.

Herbert Hoover, Message to the Convention of the American Trade Association Executives. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/212420

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