[Address to the American Federation of Labor Convention, Buffalo, New
York, November 12, 1917.]
MR. PRESIDENT, DELEGATES OF THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR, LADIES AND
GENTLEMEN:
I esteem it a great privilege and a real honor to be thus admitted to
your public counsels. When your executive committee paid me the
compliment of inviting me here I gladly accepted the invitation because
it seems to me that this, above all other times in our history, is the
time for common counsel, for the drawing together not only of the
energies but of the minds of the Nation. I thought that it was a welcome
opportunity for disclosing to you some of the thoughts that have been
gathering in my mind during these last momentous months.