An Address to the American Library Association Conference at New Orleans, 1932

MADAM PRESIDENT, I ESTEEM it a compliment of a very high order that one of your first acts on assuming the high office which you hold was to ask Mr. Milam to transmit to me as President of the sister Association in Great Britain an invitation to be present at, and to address, this Conference. It was a most gracious act on your part, and a gesture of friendliness which the Carnegie Trustees whom I serve and my colleagues of our own Association very highly appreciate. There are inevitably subjects which lead to differences of opinion between our two great countries,—differences, however, which, under Providence, we shall continue to solve by amicable discussion,—but in the field of knowledge, for which the library service performs a function of ever‐growing importance, our aims and ideals are the same. We are able freely to exchange opinion on occasions like this and the Edinburgh Conference of 1927 at which so many of your colleagues were welcome guests. We are able to render to each other services which are invaluable not merely in the technique of librarianship, but also in the causes of the higher learning and international friendship. Community of knowledge is the surest guarantee of mutual respect and goodwill.