I AM GLAD to receive you as the representatives of Pennsylvania unemployed. I have an intense sympathy for your difficulties.
I have considered that the vital function of the President and of the Federal Government was to exert every effort and every power of the Government to the restoration of stability and employment in our country which has been so greatly disturbed, largely from abroad. The Federal Government is spending now half a billion a year above normal to give employment. Worldwide depressions and their result in unemployment are like great wars. They must be fought continuously, not on one front but upon many fronts. It cannot be won by any single skirmish or any panacea. In the present and what I believe is the final campaign against the depression, I have laid a program before Congress, and I trust we will secure its early adoption. The real victory is to restore men to employment through their regular jobs. That is our object. We are giving this question our undivided attention.
Note: The President spoke at 12:30 p.m. in the White House to a delegation headed by Rev. James R. Cox of Pittsburgh, Pa.
On January 6, 1932, a group of 12,000 unemployed Pennsylvanians arrived in Washington, D.C., and on the following day petitioned the Congress for direct Federal aid to the unemployed.
Herbert Hoover, Remarks Welcoming Representatives of Pennsylvania's Unemployed. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/208403
