GREETINGS TO ROOSEVELT

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19519, 29 December 1937, Page 5

GREETINGS TO ROOSEVELT

MESSAGE FROM DOMINION GIFT OF TRAVELLING RUG (Per Press Association.) AUCKLAND, this day. As a gesture of friendship from New Zealand to the United States of America a letter of greeting, accompanied by a gift of a New Zealand travellingrug, is being sent by the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. M. J. Savage, to the President of the United States, Mr. Franklin D. Roosevelt, through the medium of the first trans-Pacific admail which will be carried from Auckland by the Pan-American Airways Samoan Clipper. In his recent public utterances in Auckland the Prime Minister has stressed the significance of having on the waters of the Waitemata at one time flying boats of both Imperial Airways and Pan-American Airways. He has made it clear that New Zealand values highly the air link with the United States and this sentiment is fully expressed in his message to President Roosevelt, which states:-

“By this first direct air mail from New Zealand to the United States of America, being carried by the PanAmerican Airways Samoan Clipper, I have pleasure in sending to you my personal greetings. I welcome the establishment by this air service of more rapid communication across the Pacific as a further means of bringing the great American people and the people of this country into closer relationship and strengthening the ties of friendship and goodwill which rightly and happily exist between them.

“May I ask you to accept, as a memento of this occasion, a rug of New Zealand manufacture which accompanies this letter, and also my good wishes for a bright and prosperous New Year?”

Arrangements for the dispatch of the letter and the travelling rug were made last night and on arrival in Son Francisco they will be speedily forwarded to Washington for delivery to the President.