AFL Office of the President, political correspondence

This collection of miscellaneous political correspondence consists of letters from American presidents, secretaries and under-secretaries of executive departments and agencies, and from state governors. These letters were sent to American Federation of Labor Presidents Samuel Gompers and William Green. Inclusive dates are March 14, 1908 to April 7, 1924 for letters to Samuel Gompers and February 27, 1925 to February 28, 1944 for letters to William Green. Many letters are nothing more that acknowledgements of correspondence received from Gompers and Green, often on the occasion of the AFL Presidents sending copies of resolutions from annual conventions. Some letters contain information of more substance, such as one from Secretary of State Cordell Hull to William Green on August 25, 1938 about British policy towards prospective Jewish immigrants to Palestine (folder 12). Another significant letter was sent by Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins, to William Green on July 2, 1942. It concerned the relevance of the Walsh-Healy Act to production of goods in federal prisons (folder 16).

Correspondents include John Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Clark Hoover, Andrew William Mellon, Pat M. Neff, Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., William Howard Taft, and Thomas Woodrow Wilson.

Topics include: articles by the United Mine Workers; a decision against establishing a manufacturing plant in a Texas penitentiary; the awarding of Navy contracts to non-union companies; the suggestion that contractors observing the eight-hour workday be given special consideration in bids to furnish supplies for the War Department; investigation of labor conditions in Puerto Rico, and the additional cost associated with an eight-hour day.

Correspondents include Frank G. Allen, John Calvin Coolidge, Theodore Francis Green, Herbert Clark Hoover, Cordell Hull, Patrick Jay Hurley, Harold Leclair Ickes, Herbert Henry Lehman, Frances Perkins, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt Jr., Alfred Emanuel Smith and Sumner Wells.

Topics include: resolutions adopted by the 1929, 1930, 1935, 1940, 1941, and 1943 AFL Conventions; Rhode Island General Assembly action to establish a minimum wage for women and minors; a letter stating that Herbert Hoover did not approve of Senate Bill No. 3060; a letter from Cordell Hull responding to Green's support for Jewish immigration into Palestine; employees working overlong days at Camp Jackson, South Carolina; the salaries of school teachers in Puerto Rico; the New York State legislature's ratification of the Child Labor Amendment; 1933 Department of Labor conference agenda; the permanent improvement of labor and industrial standards; applicability of the Walsh-Healey Act to the production of goods in federal prisons; New York City resolution regarding higher pay for firemen; an AFL representative for a Prison Labor Commission; Panama Canal Commissaries; immigration restrictions; a regret that the AFL Executive Council opposed the reappointment of Donald Wakefield Smith to the National Labor Relations Board; labor applauding the United States Employees' Compensation and Civil Service Commissions; report of the sixty-third AFL Convention pertaining to the National War Labor Board; request to the AFL for someone to serve on the National Conference on Outdoor Recreation; and a message to the American workers from Mr. Leon Jouhaux in the name of the French workers regarding the American efforts towards French liberation.