TWENTIETH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART III 247 



ciations within the bounds of the United States. I am not quite 

 sure, however, that your association, Mr. President, is a member 

 of the National Chamber. Are you, or not? 

 The Chairman : No, sir, we are not. 



Mr. Lieber: If you will take a gentle hint, I think you should 

 be ; but so far as I know nearly every association of every kind of 

 business is a member of the national chamber. The national cham- 

 ber, as I said before, represents about 700,000 business interests 

 throughout the country, and the efficiency with which it thus repre- 

 sents these interests may be indicated in a few words by what the 

 different departments of the national chamber has accomplished 

 since its organization. When the chamber was organized our for- 

 eign trade was almost nil as to the balance of trade in our favor, 

 but since the national chamber has been organized and is using its 

 influence for the building up of our foreign trade the balance of 

 trade at the present time runs up to two or three billion dollars a 

 year. It is true that some of this is due to war conditions, but 

 nevertheless the trade that is now established is so firmly estab- 

 lished that it is highly probable that our balance of trade will go on 

 and increase rather than decrease. 



The industrial production department of the national chamber 

 has been very instrumental in bringing about these conditions. 

 When the United States declared its purpose to participate in the 

 great war, it fell upon the industrial department of the national 

 chamber to furnish the government with the material to back it up 

 •and enable it to make its work successful. It was the industrial de- 

 partment of the national chamber which supplied the government 

 with the material to clothe our men, and with the men to equip our 

 army and navy in such abundance that we were able to close the 

 war six months before it was anticipated that we would be able 

 to do so. 



So this is but a hint, as I haven't time and you haven't time to 

 listen to a discourse upon all of the work of the national chamber ; 

 but the one work that the chamber has in mind and in hand at the 

 present time, gentlemen, is the bringing of business conditions at 

 home back to normal that our business interests and enterprises 

 of every kind may be able to proceed in its work of manufacturing 

 and of dispensing products of the manufacturer to the people of 

 the world. Therefore, they have assigned to the editorial depart- 

 ment of the chamber the work of propaganda, a propaganda of 



