R. S. Vessey to Joseph P. Tumulty

Through you I want to congratulate the President and his splendid speech before the Labor Convention at Buffalo, N. Y. I believe it will clear the atmosphere in the minds of many of the laboring class as to their responsibility and their duty during the period while this nation is at war. He has made this address at a most opportune time and I believe the beneficial results coming from it will be exceedingly large.

I am convinced that the mobilization for labor in this nation is the one thing that is going to make the war most effective and bring victory to our arms and to our allies at the earliest possible date, but we do not want victory only in the way that the President has so clearly outlined, that means a complete victory for democracy and a complete overthrow of autocracy and the Prussian Bismarck Military spirit.

I am convinced that if the manpower of the City of Chicago from eighteen to sixty was registered and made to account for their time, that you would find more than two hundred thousand men that should be doing productive work, and if this could be done, it would not only increase the manpower of the country to a large degree, but it would be the one thing more than any other that would reduce the criminal population and crime to a very very marked degree, I believe more than 50%. What is true of Chicago I believe is true of every other large commercial city.

Extend to the President my appreciation of the great work that he is doing.

With kindest personal regards, I am