Message to the International Advertising Association's Convention.

[Released May 31, 1929. Dated May 21, 1929]

Gentlemen:

The economic, social and international values of advertising are now so generally understood that I need not enlarge upon them. But in conveying to you my cordial best wishes for a successful convention of the International Advertising Association, I should like you to know that I estimate its ethical value as of equal importance.

The reiterated act of placing one's commercial aims before the public in cold type, day after day, compels one to subject his own motives to a criticism as severe as that which he expects from the public scrutiny. Also, the agencies established by the advertisers themselves for checking up the truth of advertising in general, have produced most beneficial results. The noteworthy advance in the ethics of business, easily perceptible in the last twenty years, is in no small measure due to the self-examination cheerfully exacted of themselves by business men in their practice of the art of advertising.

Yours faithfully,

HERBERT HOOVER