ALEX LEGGE - TYPED LETTER SIGNED 07/05/1929 - HFSID 317487

ALEXANDER LEGGE
As President of International Harvester, he responds to congratulations from fellow farm equipment manufacturer J. D. Oliver, on his appointment to the new Federal Farm Board.
Typed Letter signed: "Alex Legge", 1 page, 8½x11. Chicago, Illinois, 1929 July 5. On letterhead of International Harvester to J. D. Oliver, South Bend, Indiana. In full: "Thanks most sincerely for your kind message from London. The job is a difficult, if not impossible one, but it is a comfort to know that I have the support of men like yourself in the undertaking. Yours very truly". Attached are two press clippings, one reporting Legge's appointment to the Farm Board (July 2, 1929), the other reporting his death (December 3, 1933). ALEXANDER LEGGE (1866-1933) was President of International Harvester from 1922 until his death. His successes included standardization of farm implements, and victory in an anti-trust law suit. President Hoover appointed him to the newly created Farm Board (1929-1931). (Although the Great Depression is dated in popular mind from the Wall Street crash of October 1929, America's agricultural sector was in severe difficulties earlier, prompting Hoover's creation of this board.) Legge had served previously on the War Industries Board during World War I, and was an advisor to President Wilson to Versailles on the economic sections of the Treaty of Versailles. Legge and Frank Louden, former Governor of Illinois, endowed at their deaths the Farm Foundation, a nonprofit agribusiness research organization. James Doty Oliver (1865-1933) was the President of Oliver Chilled Plow Works in South Bend, Indiana, a farm implements company which was forced into reorganization in 1929 by the same slump in farm sales and prices which prompted Hoover's creation of the Farm Board. Normal mailing folds. Top edge creased, corrected with adhesive. Corners creased. Otherwise, fine condition.