Ladies and Gentlemen: It is my privilege as President of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce to welcome you to this luncheon honoring Printing Week on behalf of the Chamber and Junior Chamber, the San Francisco Commercial Club and the San Francisco Printing Week Committee. It is most appropriate that these leading organizations of business people pause in the course of their usual pursuits to pay tribute to the graphic arts industry and to evaluate its importance to the community. For printing, both as an art and as a profession, lies close to the heart of San Francisco. Statistically, the printing industry is a giant among giants ... surpassed only, the statisticians tell us, by the combined food and beverage industries. Some 12,000 San Franciscans find their livelihood in the printing industry, whose more than 420 units contribute a payroll of approximately $60 million a year to our economy. San Francisco is a national leader in the printing of labels for food products, and every printing art, including letterpress work, lithography, rotogravure, photo-engraving, bookbinding and other processes finds here exponents of national repute and unexcelled craftmanship. On the artistic side, San Francisco printers have repeatedly won the Industry's equivalent of the "Oscars" of the motion picture world in national and international competitions. I like to think of printing as the show window of a community, for almost every item printed by the industry serves in some degree as a silent salesman of the city.