Letter to the Chairman of the United States Tariff Commission Requesting an Investigation of Certain Tariff Schedules.

My dear Mr. O'Brien:

In extension of my recent verbal instruction as to the necessity for investigation of certain tariff schedules due to depreciation of currencies in foreign countries, I enclose herewith a list furnished me by the Department of Commerce of industries and localities where there has been actual increase of unemployment or alternatively where it is inevitable that it will increase from importations arising out of this cause unless they be halted.

You recognize that currencies in thirty countries have now depreciated from 5 to 55%, which has reduced the standards of living in those countries and greatly widened the difference in cost of production between the United States and those localities.

I would therefore be obliged if the Tariff Commission would expedite this matter in order to afford all possible relief to unemployment in these communities. I urge this expedition because of this possible retardation of increasing employment of our people. If it shall prove that the differences in cost of production between here and abroad in these industries have altered the basis of the tariff duties, I wish to receive recommendations of the Tariff Commission at the earliest possible moment.

Yours faithfully,

HERBERT HOOVER

[Hon. Robert L. O'Brien, United States Tariff Commission, Washington, D.C.]