U.S. Chamber of Commerces Small Business Nation

700 delegates from businesses, chambers and associations throughout the country assemble at the request of U.S. President William Howard Taft.

 “We want your assistance in carrying on the government in reference to those matters that affect the business and the business welfare of the country, and we do not wish to limit your discretion in that matter.  We wish that your advice should be as free and unrestricted as possible, but we need your assistance and we ask for it.”

 “I am confident that with your marvelous growth, the sound principles upon which you have established your association, and the great opportunities that present themselves, the future of this organization will show it to be one of the real non-official factors in the progress of our country.”

The Chamber supported the Federal Reserve System, but declared against congressional tinkering with credit policies and price maintenance. On February 19, 1934 the Chamber's membership urged that “immediate steps should be taken to produce a balance of expenditures and revenue by the fiscal year end.”

Legislation to create the Federal Trade Commission is passed on September 26, 1914.

World War I moved quickly, both for the country and the Chamber. When hostilities began in Europe, American business read the news dispatches carefully. The national business federation proposed an international court or council of conciliation, and recommended a conference of neutral nations to formulate rules for the protection of life and property from submarine attacks at sea. President Wilson addressed the 1915 Annual Meeting and later both he and former President Theodore Roosevelt publicly congratulated the Chamber on its efforts to bring the views of business on national issues to the attention of the government.

“It is very instructive and useful for the Government of the United States to have an organization such as you are ready to supply a sort of consensus of opinion which proceeds from no particular quarter and originates with no particular interest.”

“On more than one occasion I have expressed my hearty belief in what the Chamber of Commerce of the United States is doing.  Your referenda are both educative and useful in that they not only focus simultaneously the attention of business executives on a national question, but they lay before Congress and the authorities in Washington the opinion of American business in regard to national problems affecting industry and commerce.”