Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-07-01
Hoover's Radio Address
President, Greeting Governors Conference at Salt
Lake City, Declares Governmental Construction
Policy Proved Worth as Unem bloyment Relief.

| In radio speech to the Governors
/ Conference at Salt Lake City, from his
| STUDY In the White House last night
! President Hoover said:
IL gives me great pleasure to greet
| TINS TWenty-second Annual Conference
| OF Governors. I especially welcome the
opportunity at this time to express my
appreciation for the cooperation that
the Governors and their associates in
county and municipal affairs have
given TO me in organizing the eXpan-
sion OF public works to alleviate the I'M
employment which has resulted from
the stock market crash of last No
Vember.
Request Brought Results.
The request for such cooperation
which I issued to the Governors and
mayors at the end of November last
met not only with immediate hearty
assurances from almost all State Off
Gals. but has been followed by action
productive of most important results.
l feel that some report of the results
OF that cooperative effort is not only
OF interest but is due to your body.
To organize definitely so as to pre-
vent the activity in public works from
recedlng like other activities in de-
preston, and to speed them up in an
tlclpatlon of future needs so as to al
leviate unemployment in such time is
a new experiment in our economic life
OF the first Importance. and the success
which has attended this effort, the en-
larged understanding of its vital impor-
lance. the new paths of organization
which 1t has opened represent an ad
vance in economic thought in gov
eminent and in service to our people.
We have hitherto regarded great
business depressions with their inevi-
table train of unemployment and hard
ships as an inevitable fever which must
run its course, and in former times if
public works were undertaken in allevi-
alton OF unemployment it has been in
the sense of Semi-charity. This time
the Nation has realized it as a sound
economic policy that prudent expedi-
ton of construction could be to an i'm
portant degree used as a balance wheel
to maintain security of employment to
maintain consumption of goods, to con-
tribute thus to economic stability, and,
above all, to relieve hardship.
State Has Previously Retrenched.
I'VE have since the first of January
a full six months Of organized effort
from which we can begin to appraise
results. In all previous depressions,
the volume of public works has dimin-
ished, because the State and municipal
governments, feeling the effects of such
depression in taxes, in problems of
finance, and in the general psychology
of retrenchment, have themselves fol-
lowed the general trend. In the great
depressions of 1908 and 1921, we wit
messed such a decrease in public works
Had matters followed their previous
course, we should during the past six
months have undoubtedly seen dimi-
mutton in volume of employment in
public works over normal times. But
on this occasion we witness a large in
crease.
THE Department of Commerce in
forms me that the totals expended or
contracted for in new public works and
betterments by National, State and local
governments in these last six months
have not been less than $l,700, 900 900
and that this exceeds even the boom
year of 1929 by over $200,000,000, and
the organized efforts to which you have
contributed so much in creation will, /
am confident, go still further in its &C
complishmentS. 1t takes time to plan
public works, to legislate, to finance
them, to assemble materials, to enter
contracts so that the second half of
the year promises even greater results
Is this true for our Fed
eral appropriations, and our plans for
roads, buildings, ships and other Fed
eral improvements are much enlarged
in our fiscal year beginning today.