Message to the Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

I AM PREVENTED by press of public duties from being present at the 23rd Annual Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and I have therefore requested the Secretary of the Interior to convey this message of greetings to the Conference and to express my earnest hope that its deliberations may bear fruit in the well-being and advancement of the colored race in our country. Their progress in education, in wealth, in participation in agriculture, industry and civic life within the relatively short period since the Civil War, is an amazing story of courage and enterprise in which the colored people take a proper pride, and which their neighbors of other races view with satisfaction and admiration.

HERBERT HOOVER