[Released August 10, 1931. Dated July 31, 1931]
My dear Mr. Young:
I am interested to learn that a Conference of Smaller Industries has been called at Silver Bay, New York, to promote charting of industrial courses in the light of an exchange of thought and experience by the representatives of the moderate sized units in our industrial structure. Such stock-taking of the factors of management, planning, labor, safety, costs, production and distribution, should make for sound practices and stabilization in the smaller industries and likewise have a substantial effect on industry generally. When it is realized that the smaller industries employ more than half of the nation's industrial labor the significance of your conference is clear. Business stability will be built not only on the foundations of the individual efficiency of industrial units, large and small, but upon their united efforts in analyzing their common problems and their cooperation in a sound program. I shall appreciate it if you will express to the participants in your conference my interest in their problems and my earnest hopes that your meeting will be a successful one.
Yours faithfully,
HERBERT HOOVER
[Mr. Arthur H. Young, Chairman, The Industrial Institute, Silver Bay, Lake George, N.Y.]
Note: The message was read at the opening session of the conference, sponsored by the Industrial Institute to consider the problems of small manufacturers. The conference was attended by approximately 200 businessmen.
Herbert Hoover, Message to the Conference of Smaller Industries Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/211825