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anticipates or looks forward to a time when all labor legislation, and all social welfare legislation, will be at the federal level. I think it would be most unfortunate. One of the great activities of the U.S. Department of Labor, which I started, and which I'm glad to say is being carried on, is an activity for the stimulation of the states, and the guidance and leadership of the states, to establish some leadership and guidance in encouraging and urging the states to develop the laws that they need in the field of labor legislation or social justice. We've been very successful.
When I came into office, there were nine states that didn't even have a workmen's compensation law. Before I got out of office, there wasn't one. We got a workmen's compensation law in every state. That wasn't just by accident. It was planned. There were something like twenty to twenty-five states that had no labor department. There were many others that had a labor department that had no duties, no responsibilities and no functions - just kind of a sop to labor. We got labor departments and we got them with functions. The principal function was to investigate the conditions of labor and to make an annual report upon the same to the President and to the Congress.
During my labor work in New York under Al Smith I had
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