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• [ Selected Records of the Wage Hour Division ]
 
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• [ The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 ]
 
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• [ Introduction and Approval of the FLSA ]
 
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Testimony in the Congressional Record - Senate

Congressional Record, Proceedings and Debates of the First Session of the Seventy-Fifth Congress of the United States of American, Volume 81 - Part 7, July 14, 1937, to August 6, 1937. (Pages 7153 to 8480)

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  Page 7218             CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES             May 23, 1937             (81 Cong. Rec. 7218, 1938)

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PETITIONS AND MEMORIALS

House Resolution 478

Resolved, That upon the adoption of this resolution it shall be in order to move that the House resolve itself into the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union for the consideration of S. 2475, an act to provide for the establishment of fair labor standards in employments in and affecting interstate commerce, and for other purposes, and all points of order against said bill are hereby waived. That after general debate, which shall be confined to the bill and continue not to exceed 4 hours, to be equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on Labor, the bill shall be read for amendment under the 5-minute rule. It shall be in order to consider without the intervention of any point of order the substitute amendment recommended by the Committee on Labor, and such substitute for the purpose of amendment shall be considered under the 5-minute rule as an original bill. At the conclusion of such consideration the Committee shall rise and report the bill to the House with such amendments as may have been adopted, and the previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill and the amendments thereto to final passage without intervening motion except one motion to recommit with or without instructions.

The SPEAKER. The question is whether the House will discharge the Committee on Rules from the further consideration of the resolution.

Under the rules the gentlewoman from New Jersey [Mrs. NORTON] is entitled to 10 minutes and some member of the Committee on Rules opposed to the resolution is entitled to 10 minutes.

Does the gentleman from New York, chairman of the Committee on Rules, desire recognition in opposition to the resolution?

Mr. O'CONNOR of New York. Mr. Speaker, I cannot qualify in opposition because I am whole-heartedly in favor of the bill.

The SPEAKER. The gentleman from Georgia?

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  Page 7397        CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE        July 22, 1937        (81 Cong. Rec. 7397, 1937)

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BILL AND RESOLUTION PASSED OVER

The bill (S. 2475) to provide for the establishment of fair labor standards in employments in and affecting interstate commerce, and for other purposes, was announced as next in order.

SEVERAL SENATORS. Let the bill go over.

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  Page 7465        CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE        July 23, 1937        (81 Cong. Rec. 7465, 1937)

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ESTABLISHMENT OF FAIR LABOR STANDARDS IN EMPLOYMENTS — AMENDMENTS

Mr. LODGE submitted amendments intended to be proposed by him to the bill (S. 2475) to provide for the establishment of fair labor standards in employments in and affecting interstate commerce, and for other purposes, which were ordered to lie on the table and to be printed.

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  Page 7596        CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE        July 26, 1937        (81 Cong. Rec. 7596, 1937)

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FAIR LABOR STANDARDS IN INTERSTATE COMMERCE

Mr. BLACK. I move that the Senate proceed to the consideration of Senate bill 2475. The motion was agreed to; and the Senate proceeded to the consideration of the bill (S. 2475) to provide for the establishment of fair labor standards in employments in and affecting interstate commerce, and for other purposes, which had been reported from the Committee on Education and Labor with an amendment.

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  Page 7645        CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE        July 27, 1937        (81 Cong. Rec. 7645, 1937)

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PAGE 7645                  CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE                  July 27

FAIR LABOR STANDARDS IN INTERSTATE COMMERCE — AMENDMENT

Mr. McNARY submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by him to the bill (S. 2475) to provide for the establishment of fair labor standards in employments in and affecting interstate commerce, and for other purposes, which was ordered to lie on the table and to be printed.

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  Page 7648        CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE        July 27, 1937        (81 Cong. Rec. 7648, 1937)

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FAIR LABOR STANDARDS IN INTERSTATE COMMERCE

The Senate resumed the consideration of the bill (S. 2475) to provide for the establishment of fair labor standards in employments in and affecting interstate commerce, and for other purposes.

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, it is my intention at this time to discuss Senate bill 2475. I shall not go into any great detail in the discussion of the measure. If, however, I fail to discuss any features which any Senator thinks should be presented, I shall be glad to answer any inquiries in connection with them.

The general purpose of the bill, legislatively speaking, is a threefold one:

It provides a method of obtaining the objective of minimum wages and maximum working hours in industries throughout the Nation which engage in the transportation of their goods in interstate commerce. It is not intended to, and does not, attempt to provide by Federal legislation the fixing of minimum wages and maximum hours of employment in all the varied peculiarly local business units of the Nation.

There is one provision of the bill which not only would authorize action with reference to the production of goods which actually move in interstate commerce but, under the doctrine of the Shreveport decision — with which, I am sure, every lawyer in this body is familiar would authorize action in connection with those businesses and industries that are seriously competing with and having a substantial effect upon the flow of interstate commerce.

The third objective of the bill is to prohibit the transportation in interstate commerce of goods which are produced by the work of children.

The bill specifically and unequivocally excludes certain industries and certain types of business from its scope and effect. It specifically excludes workers in agriculture of all kinds and of all types. There is contained in the measure, perhaps, the most comprehensive definition of agriculture which has been included in any one legislative proposal.

We have placed together in the bill definitions of agricultural work which have been fixed from time to time in other legislative enactments, and in addition to that we have drawn liberally from Mr. Webster's definition of agriculture.

So the bill, insofar as it relates to maximum hours of employment and minimum wages, is limited, except to the small extent I have heretofore indicated, to goods which are actually manufactured for transportation and are transported in interstate commerce. We therefore eliminate in the beginning any idea that this is an effort to regulate wages and hours in the various service employments throughout the Nation.

That is done for two reasons. In the first place, the bill rests squarely upon the interstate-commerce clause of the Constitution. In the second place, I believe it was the prevailing sentiment of the committee, if not the unanimous sentiment of the committee, that businesses of a purely local type which serve a particular local community, and which do not send their products into the streams of interstate commerce, can be better regulated by the laws of the communities and of the States in which the business units operate.

With reference, however, to the regulations covering business units that ship their goods in interstate commerce, the bill is offered with the belief that it is impossible today to expect that any one local community can tend to bring about the proper regulation of the business of producing such goods to be scattered throughout the entire 48 States.

The bill is built upon the principle that we cannot depend, if I may paraphrase the expression which appeared in the Democratic platform of 1936, upon the diverse laws of 48 different States, enacted by the legislatures of all those States, and approved by the Governors of all those States. We cannot, if we are to obtain any action, fail to recognize the fact that, as was stated in that platform, the establishment of minimum wages and the regulation of working hours, insofar as they relate to goods shipped in interstate commerce, are matters for legislation by the Federal Government.

I know of no better way to call attention to this problem than by reading a letter which came to me this morning from a sawmill operator in the State of Alabama. In spite of the fact that, stimulated by certain Washington representatives, certain policies enunciated by the National Chamber of Commerce and others, meetings have been held in all the Southern States from town to town in an effort to defeat this measure, there are some who have not been deluded and have not been deceived. I know of no better way to point this out than to read at this time a letter from a sawmill operator in Alabama and to read in a moment a letter from an operator in the State of Mississippi.

The letter I shail now read is dated July 24, 1937. Since I have not been given permission to give the name, although there is nothing secret in the letter, and I shall be glad to have any Senator see it if he desires, I do not wish to state the name of the operator for the RECORD:

There have been a good many meetings of lumber manufacturers in the South within the last few weeks, called ostensibly for the purpose of discussion of the Black-Cannery wage and hour bill. I attended two of these meetings, which seemed to me to be called only for the purpose of arousing opposition and not for a fair discussion of the merits of the bill. You no doubt have heard from them by letter, wire, and a few personal visits.

Perhaps some of the other Senators have also.

I want to assure you that not all the lumber industry in the South is opposed to this legislation, and my observation is that not a small percent but a fair percent is in favor of a reasonable hour and wage law.

Industry that is now paying a fair wage and observing reasonable hours are not opposed to an hour and wage measure, and, as I believe, most of them favor it.

There is prevailing in the lumber industry in the South today a variance in wages of common labor in sawmills and the lumber industry of 10 cents per hour to 27^1/2 cents per hour and weekly hours of 40 to 60 per week.

I interpolate here to say that I have numerous other letters, which show that, unfortunately, the 60-hour week is not the maximum week. I have one here on my desk from a gentleman in Mississippi, a father, who is unable to work because he is an invalid, and his son is working in a sawmill in the State of Mississippi 12 hours per day, 6 days per week, for 15 cents per hour.

I continue reading from the letter of the Alabama sawmill operator:

This difference in wages and hours make a very unfair competition between producers and has a tendency to lower wages and increase hours per week. It makes hard competition for the mill that wants to shorten hours and pay good wages.

No lumber organization has ever been set up, and I doubt if it can be, within the industry itself, and to function, with the objective of control of production, stabilizing of values, and providing for regular and continuous employment of labor at a fair wage.

For the past 20 years the lumber business has been sporadic, with a skyrocketing of prices, overproduction, and then a slumping of prices, with low wages and idle labor, and each operator trying as best he can to extricate his plant from the abyss. This condition

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not only affects the mills but makes a. very ugly condition for the consumers of lumber.

From September 1, 1936, to March 1, 1937, hardwood lumber prices advanced an average of 50 percent, mill value, and in the last 5 months they have receded 25 percent, mill value.

These severe fluctuations in so short a time, when the consumption of lumber has been fairly regular, disrupts the industry, and is unfair and disrupting to the consuming plants.

A variation of 50 percent in the cost of raw products in so short a time will disorganize most any consuming plant. The plant that has a large working capital and can buy its raw product to cover 12 months' operation, usually buying at the low price, has too much advantage over a lot of our crippled industries that are trying to come back and have only sufficient working capital to buy from month to month.

I believe that an hour and wage law, properly applied, will tend to stabilize the value of products and wages, and do more to place crippled industry on its feet again than any legislation that can be made now.

There is a lot of lumber-using industries throughout the country, with fine plants and good organization, that are being financed largely by their bank creditor that can and will come back if given an equal opportunity. Some of them have been and are now our good customers.

I do not know the gentleman who wrote this letter, but he is familiar with the business in which he is engaged, and he has given a very clear picture of the situation.

Mr. McGILL. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. BLACK. I yield.

Mr. McGILL. The Senator stated that the bill, in its definitions, exempts agriculture from its operations. Will the Senator tell me in what part of the bill I may find the definitions?

Mr. BLACK. If the Senator will look at the beginning, under "Definitions", he will find the definition of the word 'employee."

Mr. McKELLAR. On page 51.

Mr. BLACK. Yes; on page 51. I read now a letter from another company, a very large lumber company, located in the State of Alabama. This writer says:

I have been very much interested in your hour and wage bill now befoce your committee. I believe it is what the country needs.

I will not read all the letter, because it does not all apply to the exact point I am discussing at this time.

I am enclosing a letter and circular from a lumberman in Mississippi, which, I think, are pertinent to the subject and shows how others feel about the pauper wages paid in the South. Nothing but a wage and hour law will ever correct this.

I digress here to say that the evidence before the committee demonstrates that so-called pauper wages are not limited to any one section of the United States. They are widespread throughout the entire Nation. They are found in every State in the Union. I have picked up at random a few letters from various States I may use later to illustrate that fact.

Without either approving or disapproving the letter of the lumber manufacturer from the State of Mississippi, which I shall now read, I quote from it as follows:

In this connection I have long been an advocate of higher wages in the South. I do not see how the South can ever become prosperous when we give our principal resources away, namely, cotton, lumber, and labor. Our cotton, lumber, and labor is based on 10 cents and 15 cents an hour wages. Whereas everything we buy from the North is based on 75 cents to $2 labor. The prices we pay for mill supplies and machinery parts is based on labor which is paid 5 to 10 times more than our labor. There can be no real prosperity in the South until there is a leveling of wage differential. And the unfortunate part of the whole thing is that most of us in the South have an inferiority complex and do not believe our labor is worth any more.

I may state parenthetically that the pending bill recognizes that it would be wholly and completely impossible at this time, without a complete disarrangement and dislocation of industry and business, to bring about overnight a complete leveling of the wage scale throughout the Nation. It also recognizes the fact, however, that wherever a man may live, whether it be in the South, the North, the East, or the West, when he is compelled to work in order to obtain food and clothing for himself and his family, he is entitled to receive a minimum wage sufficient to prevent him from dying from slow undernourishment and slow starvation.

Perhaps the gentleman from Mississippi who wrote this letter was somewhat familiar with the history of the lumber business in Mississippi. Perhaps he had traveled over that great State. Perhaps he had seen the stumpage that was left, and how the winds would come and blow the dust about from place to place. Perhaps he had read the article in last week's Saturday Evening Post about unknown multimillionaires. Perhaps he read about one of those who had taken the timber from the State of Mississippi, not, however, to enrich the State of Mississippi, not to enrich the laborers who worked in his mill from 10 to 14 hours per day. If Sentors will read the article in the last week's Saturday Evening Post, they will find where Mississippi's virgin forests went, and in whose pocket the proceeds from them were finally found.

I do not mean to indicate by what I have just stated that all those engaged in the lumber business have been guilty of such practices. Such is not the case. Some of those engaged in that business are as honest and patriotic as any other men in the world. Many, like the man whose letter I just read, do not want to continue to pay wages which are too low to afford a man a decent livelihood. The man from Mississippi whose letter I read, and who himself is today engaged in the lumber business in the State of Mississippi, states the wages which are paid in the lumber business; but he does not desire to continue to operate upon such a wage schedule. His hands are tied, however. What can he do, when he desires to pay a decent wage, and finds that others with whom he comes in competition can take his business a way from him because they work their labor such long hours and at such low wages? He finds it impossible to sell a foot of lumber unless he produces his lumber upon the same scale of hours and wages as his competitors.

I shall not read many other letters, but I desire to read one which came to me this morning from the State of Tennessee. It is from a hosiery mill located in Nashville, Tenn.:

We wish to take this opportunity to endorse your attitude on the matter of wage and hour legislation. We are hopeful that something could be done to secure the enactment of a law during this session of Congress. Our plant has remained on the basis of the N. R. A. and we hope to continue indefinitely. The pressure, however, from chiselers is getting stronger all the times and makes the position of mills anxious to maintain a high standard more difficult. We believe that wage and hour legislation is necessary if we are to preserve a decent standard of living for the masses of workers in the South, particularly, and feel mighty proud of your leadership in this.

I hold in my hand quite a number of pay vouchers of workers engaged in making shirts in a sister State to the State of Alabama. Let us examine one or two of them. These are the originals. Here is one dated July 3, 1937, 4 ^1/2 days, wages $3.57. Another, July 3, 1937, 4^1/2 days, wages $4.48. Another, July 3, 1937, 4^1/2 days, wages $3.38. As I recall the voucher for $4.48 represents the highest wage paid. I will look through the vouchers and see. I find that my recollection is correct.

Here is another voucher, 4 days, wages $2.68. That figures up, as I recall, to about 8 cents an hour.

Mr. President, these people are engaged in the manufacture of shirts. Other people are engaged in the manufacture of shirts. Are we to drive down to 8 cents an hour the wages of all those who make shirts? Low wages control the wage scale, not high wages. What is the standard that is proper?

I hold in my hand a letter from Mobile, Ala., from a worker in that city. I shall quote from it, but I do not give the names of the companies. I shall refrain from doing that, as I have heretofore.

As the sawmill laborer has not had any consideration, I want to give you some first-hand information as to hours and wages. We are supposed to work 10 hours a day on the pay of 10 cents to 15 cents per hour for common labor and 70 cents per hour for high skilled labor. We are forced to work with poor equipment, and lose more or less time every day, which time has to be made up in addition to the 10 hours regular time without any added compensation.

A great deal of timber has been taken from the virgin forests of the South and of the West, but originally in the main it was not taken out for the benefit of those who lived in that section. The dividends went North. The wages

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stayed South. The wages were very small indeed. All over that section one may find ghost villages. Some of those who lived there had worked for wages so low that they were helpless to take care of themselves for a week after the trees were gone and the plants were closed. The dividends went North. The people stayed South.

Mr. President, this bill in the matter of its regulation of hours and wages, as I stated, follows the recommendation which was given by the President in his message.

Mr. WALSH. Mr. President —

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Does the Senator from Alabama yield to the Senator from Massachusetts?

Mr. BLACK. I yield.

Mr. WALSH. When it is convenient, in the course of the Senator's speech, I should like to ask him a series of questions, the answers to which I think will bring to the attention of the Senate the vital features of the bill.

Mr. BLACK. I shall be glad to have the Senator ask them now.

Mr. WALSH. First of all, does the bill give the labor standards board, which is to be set up under its provisions, any jurisdiction whatever over hours of employment below 40 hours per week?

Mr. BLACK. The bill does not give the labor standards board jurisdiction under any circumstances or conditions to fix hours below 40 per week.

Mr. WALSH. So that any industry that is working its employees now 36 or 30 hours per week would be in no way affected by this proposed legislation, and the labor standards board would have no jurisdiction over it?

Mr. BLACK. The Senator is correct.

Mr. WALsH. Next, does the bill give the labor standards board any jurisdiction over wages in excess of 40 cents per hour?

Mr. BLACK. It does not.

Mr. WALSH. So that any employer who has in his employ no one receiving less than 40 cents per hour would be in no way within the jurisdiction of the bill?

Mr. BLACK. That is correct insofar as the minimum wage feature is concerned.

Mr. WALSH. Next, does the bill affect collective-bargainlng agreements already made or hereafter to be made between employers and employees?

Mr. BLACK. It does not.

Mr. WALSH. There is one exception to that, is there not? The bill does not affect collective-bargaining agreements where the hours are less than 40 per week, or where the wages are more than 40 cents per hour?

Mr. BLACK. That is correct.

Mr. WALSH. But if a collective-bargaining agreement has been entered into at 36 cents per hour wages, the board would have jurisdiction to set that agreement aside and to fix if the facts warrant it, a minimum wage of 40 cents?

Mr. BLACK. The board would have jurisdiction to do it, but under the provisions of the law it would be my judgment that the board would be very reluctant, indeed, to attempt to interfere with a bona-fide agreement made between employer and employee.

Mr. WALSH. I think the Senator is correct; but the situation might well exist that the board, in fixing a minimum wage in a case where the wage of the employees was less than 40 cents, after a survey and study of the question, and taking into consideration some factors that it must take into consideration in fixing the wage, might decide, let us say, upon 38 cents per hour. If it is found that in some other industry of like character and nature there was a collective-bargaining agreement providing for the payment of 36 cents an hour it would, would it not, take jurisdiction and set aside that collective-bargaining agreement insofar as the facts showed that 38 cents was a fair rate?

Mr. BLACK. It would.

Mr. WALSH. The next question —

Mr. BORAH. Mr. President, let me understand the Senator from Massachusetts. Will the Senator from Alabama permit me to ask the Senator from Massachusetts a question?

Mr. BLACK. Yes.

Mr. BORAIL I did not understand the statement of the Senator from Massachusetts as to the jurisdiction of the board. Did I understand correctly the Senator to say that the board would have no jurisdiction over the question of minimum wages in cases where the employer was paying 40 cents an hour?

Mr. WALSH. According to my interpretation of the bill, wherever and whenever there are employees working in an industry which is engaged in business of an interstate character any employee, or any group of employees, receiving less than 40 cents an hour can petition the board to have a minimum-wage standard fixed, or any group of employees who are now working 56 or 48 hours can petition the board to have a weekly hour standard fixed by the board. So the jurisdiction is entire and complete over every employee who is receiving less than 40 cents an hour and over every employee who is working over 40 hours per week. Does the Senator agree with my interpretation?

Mr. BORAH. I think I do. The board may fix any minimum wage that it sees fit below 40 cents?

Mr. WALSH. Absolutely. As the Senator from Alabama knows, the first proposal was that the bill should incorporate a definite minimum wage. It was recommended by the head of the American Federation of Labor, and by the Secretary of Labor, that the bill incorporate a definite minimum wage of 40 cents per hour for all employees or, rather, $16 per week for all employees. The committee did not accept that recommendation. Another recommendation was made that the committee fix definitely, so as to limit the jurisdiction of the board, a graduated wage of not less than $12 and not more than $16. That was objected to. So the committee finally recommended a bill which makes the objective, the end sought and desired the fixing of a minimum wage of 40 cents per hour, but leaves the board absolute freedom to fix it at any amount it chooses less than that sum. Are the Senator from Alabama and I in accord on that interpretation?

Mr. BLACK. We are, with a supplementary statement that, in my judgment, the board would certainly have no jurisdiction to go below the prevailing wage in the community or in the locality of the industry. In other words, while there is no money limitation below which the board could not go, there is an actual limitation, because they could not, under the terms of the bill, fix a minimum wage below the prevailing wage in the industry or business.

Mr. WALSH. I take it the Senator will agree with me there is an invitation, an urge, through the language used in the bill to have the board reach as soon as possible a minimum wage of $16?

Mr. BLACK. A minimum of 40 cents per hour, but the point I was making was that while we do not say in the bill that the jurisdiction of the board should not be above 40 cents and should not be below a certain number of cents, there is a limitation below which they could not go, even though it is not expressly stipulated in cents per hour.

Mr. WALSH. From my experience with such boards and I think the Senator will agree with me in this statement-the tendency will be to go in the direction of $16 rather than reducing the rate below the prevailing wage.

Mr. BLACK. Of course the entire bill is written upon the theory that the board should not go below the prevailing wage, and it would be wholly contrary to the entire philosophy and principle of the bill if such a step should be taken.

Mr. WALSH: Now, may I ask the Senator another question?

Mr. BORAH. Mr. President, may I ask the Senator a question?

Mr. BLACK. I yield.

Mr. BORAH. To what language does the Senator refer when he says the board may not fix a wage rate below the prevailing wage?

Mr. BLACK. If the Senator will look at the standard to be used in fixing the minimum wage, he will find a provision that the board must take into consideration the action of a court of law. What would be the action of a

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court of law in fixing what the lawyers call the quantum meruit? If a civil action is brought for wages in a court of law on what is known as the quantum meruit, where no fixed agreement has been made, certainly no court would ever go below the prevailing wage rate. That would be the standard which the court would most likely follow in fixing the wage. Therefore, it seems to me that that particular standard is one of the best that could be provided in order to assure that the board would not go below the prevailing wage in the community.

Mr. WALSH. Is there any language to that effect?

Mr. BLACK. Yes.

Mr. WALSH. Where is it?

Mr. BLACK. It is in section 4.

Mr. WALSH. Certainly, I do not believe that there is any danger of the board fixing any wages below the prevailing wage.

Mr. BLACK. There is no provision in which the words "prevailing wage" are used.

Mr. WALSH. Has the Senator in mind all the circumstances that should be taken into consideration in fixing the minimum wage?

Mr. BLACK. Certainly.

Mr. WALSH. And it is assumed that the board would take them into consideration?

Mr. BLACK. They would have to do so if they took into consideration the evidence which would be admissible in a court of law on a quantum-meruit suit for wages.

Mr. WALSH. May I ask the Senator further does the bill make any provision for differential treatment in relation to minimum wages and hours of employment in the different sections of the country?

Mr. BLACK. I did not understand the Senator's question.

Mr. WALSH. Does the bill make any provision for a differential treatment of employers or employees in relation to minimum wages and hours of employment?

Mr. BLACK. The bill does contemplate that the diversities of location and the diversities of industries shall be considered; also the cost of living. A suit on a quantum meruit, to which I have referred, would require that such matters be taken into consideration.

Mr. WALSH. As I understand the bill, the board is to have in mind at all times in fixing minimum wages not so much the fact that an industry is located North, South, East, or West, but that the goods produced by an industry located north, south, east, or west are to move in interstate commerce and that one industry is in competition with another, and therefore the factor of differentials is practically a minimum consideration. Does the Senator agree with me in that respect?

Mr. BLACK. I do not understand that the factor of a differential would be a minimum consideration by the board under the circumstances to be considered in fixing the minimum wage.

Mr. WALSH. We are dealing with goods in interstate commerce. The theory of the bill is that it will lower hours of employment and raise wages, so far as possible, and that the high-standard employer or the progressive employer who requires fewer working hours of his employees and pays them high wages shall not be subjected in the markets of the country to the competition o! goods produced in a location or environment or place where lower wages are paid and the employees are worked a greater number of hours than in the case of the employer who has a higher standard.

Mr. BLACK. The Senator is correct insofar as other circumstances and conditions do not offset the wage-and-hour conditions. For instance, there might be conditions under which, in order to get to a market, one particular business would be required to pay from two to three times as much freight transportation as another. The board, in my judgment, would be compelled to take that into consideration until that matter was adjusted. There might be conditions where general expenses of operation such as the interest rate, which frequently is a very important consideration, would require that that be taken into consideration in order to reach a fair conclusion.

Mr. WALSH. Let me interrupt the Senator a moment at that point. Is there a provision in the bill that the board shall take into consideration the value of the lodgings or the housing that some employers, in addition to paying a definite wage, provide for their employees?

Mr. BLACK. That is correct; and also the cost of living in the various places would be taken into consideration. Furthermore, with reference to the cost of housing, the employees might be renting houses in a place where the rent would be four times what it was in another.

Mr. WALSH. One of the objectives of the bill is to give a degree of protection, a degree of security against ruthless competition to the employer, no matter where he is located, who is paying high wages and requiring his employees to work fewer hours than is the case with his competitors.

Mr. BLACK. The bill is intended to prevent, so far as wages are concerned, the payment of wages which are below a necessary subsistence level. The bill is written upon the principle that the Congress should not attempt to make itself a wage-fixing body. We believe that wages should be fixed by agreement between employer and employee, except that the bill has as its objective withdrawing from competitive conditions the wage level necessary for a person to live on, wherever he may be.

Mr. WALSH. In other words, one of the objectives of the bill is that the progressive employers in good standing will not be subjected in the public market to competition with chiselers and sweatshop operators. Therefore, the board will seek to correct such a condition by compelling competitive employers to reach the same or better labor standards.

Mr. BLACK. The Senator is correct. I think I can show that better by an illustration. I received a letter from a manufacturer stating that the passage of this bill would close his plant. Of course, it has always been stated with respect to every bill of this character that its passage would close up many businesses. I am going to read into the record a little later what Charles Dickens said about that matter.

The writer of this letter told me it would close up his business and absolutely destroy it. I wrote back and asked, "What wages are you paying and what hours are you working your employees?" He did not give me his hours, but he wrote that he was paying $6 a week to young ladies who were working in his factory; that they could get board for from $3 to $5 per week, which was ample, and therefore the wages were ample to take care of them. It will be noted that those young ladies were receiving $52 net per year with which to buy their clothes, go to moving-picture shows, and to do everything else in the world necessary for young ladies to live in comfort. He said that if we should pass the bill and he was required to pay the young ladies more than $6 per week to make silk clothing for other people in the country to wear, it would close up his silk-manufacturing plant.

Mr. WALSH. May I proceed to a further inquiry?

Mr. BLACK. Certainly.

Mr. WALSH. What limitation, if any, is fixed in the bill with reference to the number of employees in an industry engaged in interstate commerce over which the board will have jurisdiction?

Mr. BLACK. There is none. There was a belief on the part of some members of the committee that there should be a limitation. There was a belief on the part of some members of the committee that it should be three or five or eight or some other number. However, the committee, after consideration, included all businesses engaged in interstate commerce without exempting employers who had less than a certain number of employees.

Mr. WALSH. I agree that is a wise provision. The Senator will recall evidence before the committee to the effect that a large number of lumber mills scattered throughout the country employ only five or six or seven persons, and that if all industries employing less than eight employees were exempted, they could go into the market in large numbers and

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compete with lumber mills which would be subject to the provisions of the bill.

There is another question which I think very important, and I should like to have the Senator give his views upon it. Are there any provisions in the bill which will tend to bring about with rapidity the limitation of the hours of labor as fixed in the bill to 40 per week and the minimum payment of wage of 40 cents per hour?

I have asked these questions more for the RECORD than anything else, because I want the board to proceed in orderly fashion, with wisdom, with care, and not through hasty action destroy many small industries which are not now meeting the standards fixed in the bill.

I should like to have the Senator's views or a statement pointing out the provisions in the bill which may impress upon the board, so far as we can, that this movement toward a 40-hour week and a wage of 40 cents per hour is not to be accomplished immediately, next week, or next month, or next year, but is to be developed gradually without injury to any existing industry and without creating additional unemployment.

Mr. BLACK. On page 58 of the bill is a very clear expression with reference to the manner in which the provisions shall be carried out. It is there provided as follows:

Whereas it is impossible to achieve such results arbitrarily by an abrupt change s:o drastic that it might do serious injury to American industry and American workers, and it is therefore necessary to achieve such results cautiously, carefully, and without disturbance and dislocation of business and industry: Now, therefore,

It is declared to be the policy of this act to maintain—

And so forth. In other words, the board is admonished clearly in the bill that it is the object and purpose to proceed with care and caution in approaching a condition which I believe the overwhelming majority of people are favoring.

Mr. WALSH. I also call attention to another provision which I had incorporated in the bill suggesting to the board what the policy of the Congress is. On page 59 of the blll it is provided:

That the board's jurisdiction in declaring minimum wages shall not include the power to declare minimum wages in excess of 40 cents per hour, but higher minimum wages fixed by collective bargaining or otherwise shall be encouraged, it being the objective of this act to raise the existing wages in the lower-wage groups so as to attain as rapidly as practicable a minimum wage of 40 cents per hour without curtailing opportunities for employment and without disturbance and dislocation of business and industry.

It seems to me that that, together with the provision read by the Senator, is very helpful in presenting the matter clearly to the board.

My questions are directed simply to answering the inquiries of many people who have made objections, many of them through misinformation, to the provisions of the bill. May I ask the Senator a further question? Is not the Senator in accord with me in the belief that the chief merit the bill possesses is based upon the assumption that there are millions of employees or wage earners in the country who have no facilities for collective bargaining? They are small in number, working in small industries. We think too often, in speaking of the wage earners, of those who are organized in unions and employed in the great units of industry. As a matter of fact, a very large percentage of all the wage earners of the country are working in industries where fewer than 200 people are employed. Only a comparatively small percentage of them are employed in the large units of industry.

The thing about the bill which impressed me as being of particular value is that the Government is attempting to set up machinery which, if administered wisely and prudently, ought to be helpful in providing collective bargaining through a Government agency for the men and women who are not organized; who are working in small industries, who are subject to the tyranny and oppression of sweatshops and chiselers. One of the benefits of the bill is that the board, in the absence of unions, in the absence of organizations of employees, shall be this collective-bargaining agency and fix for the lowest wage groups a decent, reasonable minimum wage and the number of hours per week such empployees should be required to work. I believe the Senator will agree that that is one of the distinctive merits of the bill and represents the philosophy behind it.

I fear, as many other Senators do, the manner of administering the power which we are creating. I can see the possibility of it operating to great disadvantage and harm, but we cannot fix, here on the floor of the Senate, what ought to be the minimum wage in each and every industry in the country. The alternative is no action, and leaving these many millions of wage earners to a continuance of past exploitation. As one of the Senators favoring legislation of this kind, I want to say that I pray that the bill may be administered with the care and caution, as one of the witnesses said before our committee, "of a physician and not with the club of a policeman." If it is so administered, I believe it will be helpful in providing agencies for collective bargaining for many employees who do not now have the advantage of such agencies.

I thank the Senator from Alabama, and hope our colloquy has been enlightening.

Mr. TYDINGS. Mr. Presidentp will the Senator yield to me?

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. TRUMAN in the chair). Does the Senator from Alabama yield to the Senator from Maryland?

Mr. BLACK. I yield.

Mr. TYDINGS. I should like to ask the Senator two or three questions in order to set myself right.

I read the bill last night; and, as I understand, agricultural products — that is, products of the farm and labor in connection therewith — are not included in the bill. Is that correct?

Mr. BLACK. The Senator is correct.

Mr. TYDINGS. And the limitation affecting hours does not apply to the canning or packing of perishable agricultural or fishery products; is that correct?

Mr. BLACK. I will explain that to the Senator by referring him to page 63 of the bill.

Mr. TYDINGS. I read that page of the bill.

Mr. BLACK. I call attention to the fact that there are some occupations which are of a peculiarly seasonal nature, as the Senator has said. For instance, in the case of tomatoes it is necessary that the work of canning or packing them be done quickly and rapidly or else they will spoil. There is another type of canning, however, which is not seasonal. It is a matter of practical impossibility to define legislatively the line of demarcation between the two types of canning. For that reason the bill specifically gives to the board the right to exempt from the labor-standards provision seasonal activities of that type.

Mr. TYDINGS. That would include fishing?

Mr. BLACK.. That would include any seasonal activity as to which it is necessary to have quick, speedy work and where it is impractical, if not impossible, to secure labor in the community in large quantities without providing for some exemption of that type.

Mr. WALSH. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. BLACK. I yield.

Mr. WALSH. I understand that the bill exempts the fishing industry as such. In other words, fishermen who go out to sea and who are employed by others for the purpose of fishing, are exempt; but when the fish come ashore, and are packed and canned and prepared for market, the bill applies.

Mr. TYDINGS. Mr. President, my question was directed to one of several situations upon which the Senator has touched. For example, we all know that the tomato crop ripens perhaps at one particular time and frequently comes into the market all at once. So men go out to catch fish, and sometimes there is a large run of fish on a particular day, due to a flood or a freshet or what not, and the fish have to be canned. My reading of the bill leads me to believe that it is the intention of the bill that where a bona-fide case is made out for putting up perishable goods. whether they be products of the orchard

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food otherwise would be lost if it should apply. Am I correct in that understanding?

Mr. BLACK. The Senator is absolutely correct in his assumption that, in cases of that kind and type, the board would have the right to exempt such activities from the operation of the bill.

Mr. TYDINGS. I suppose it would be impossible to make application and get permission to put up a pack within a short enough space of time to keep the pack from spoiling.

Mr. BLACK. I may say to the Senator that it is not contemplated that exemptions shall be of a personal nature for a particular unit of work, because that would be an impossible task. It is contemplated, however, that, that shall be done by a general regulation or rule, after a study of the situation.

Mr. TYDINGS. I suppose there would have to be inspectors to go around and see whether or not a particular industry was violating the hours limitation.

Mr. BLACK. I should assume so.

Mr. TYDINGS. So, I should imagine that if an inspector came to a canning house and saw the physical evidence that a large pack had been produced there at a certain time, and that it was necessary for the employees to work overtime to prevent its spoiling, in that case the inspector would not report it; whereas if it were a normal pack which could be handled otherwise and overtime hours were used to put up the pack, in that case the inspector would report it. Is that the Senator's conception of the matter?

Mr. BLACK. That would be a reasonable and commonsense action to be anticipated in the enforcement and administration of the act.

Mr. TYDINGS. The threshing of wheat and similar crops on the farm would be classed as coming within the agricultural exemption; would it not?

Mr. BLACK. I so understand.

Mr. TYDINGS. What I am thinking of is that quite often the threshing crew is not a part of the farmer's organization. There are men who make a business of going around with threshing and baling machines with enough help to come upon a farm and make a contract with the farmer to thresh his wheat. I should like to know if in such a case it is the Senator's opinion that the threshing crew would be exempt, or whether they would be under the operation of the hours provision of the bill.

Mr. BLACK. I will say to the Senator that I should not wish to attempt to draw the lines in the shadowy regions that might divide one condition from another.

Mr. TYDINGS. Let me clear up my question. As I understand the bill, its purpose is to exempt agriculture from its provisions, both as to hours and as to wages.

Mr. BLACK. The Senator is correct.

Mr. TYDINGS. I am asking this question because I believe, inadvertently, a loophole has been Jeft which I am sure the proponents of the bill do not mean to leave.

The-Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. LA FOLLETTE] has just been kind enough to put in my hand the exact language of the bill at the appropriate place. The exemption, found on page 51, is as follows:

Or any other agricultural or horticultural commodity, and any · practices ordinarily performed by a farmer as an incident to such farming operations.

In the case of threshing wheat, which would apply particularly to the wheat fields of Kansas, there, as a general rule, the farmers do not do their own threshing, as I am advised. They hire threshers who go about and come on the farm and make a contract to thresh the wheat. I suppose the thresher would be classed as a farmer within the spirit of the bill, but under the wording of the bill it is my opinion that he would be under the wage and hour provision.

I wanted to bring this matter to the attention of the Senator from Alabama simply because. as I unaerstand, farming in all its operations, from the time the grajn is put into the ground until it leaves the farm, is to be exempted from the provisions of the measure; but under the bill such a man as I have indicated is not exempt.

Mr. McNARY. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a moment upon that matter?

Mr. McKELLAR and Mr. BORAH addressed the Chair.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Alabama yield; and if so, to whom?

Mr. TYDINGS. I desire to get an answer from the Senator. Probably the Senator from Oregon can give it to me.

Mr. McNARY. I have no doubt of that.

Mr. TYDINGS. In other words, the bill says:

or any other agricultural or horticultural commodity, and any practices ordinarily performed by a farmer as an incident to such farming operations.

Would a thresher be under the provisions of this bill, threshing wheat on another man's farm? That is the question.

Mr. BORAH. Mr. President, if I may be permitted to say so, I think threshers clearly would come within this language.

Mr. TYDINGS. That is what I think.

Mr. BORAH. In other words, they are a part of the agricultural program. Wheat is not worth very much unless it is threshed.

Mr. HUGHES. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a moment?

Mr. TYDINGS. Mr. President, along that line, if the Senator from Alabama will permit me—

Mr. BLACK. I yield.

Mr. TYDINGS. I should like to point out to the Senator from Idaho that I rather like the philosophy of the bill, and I am not attacking it, but I am trying to clarify what it means in my own mind, and for the sake of those who have written it.

The language of the bill, on page 51, is:

or any other agricultural or horticultural commodity, and any practices ordinarily performed by a farmer as an incident to such farming operations.

Those things are exempted. In the case I visualize, however, the farmer is not performing the service. The man to whom I refer makes a business of doing nothing but threshing. He owns his own machine, and hauls it from farm to farm, and enters into contracts with farmers to thresh their crops; the point being that while he is dealing with an agricultural commodity, he is not necessarily a farmer, and he is not doing work ordinarily done by a farmer.

Mr. BORAH. He is doing the exact work which the farmer did before he took it up.

Mr. TYDINGS. That is true; but I do not think the bill is drawn in sufficient detail to bring the man to whom I refer under its provisions of exemption. Does the Senator from Alabama think it is?

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, if a case of that kind should develop, that would clearly be a seasonal activity.

Mr. TYDINGS. That is true.

Mr. BLACK. It would be nothing but a seasonal activity.

Mr. TYDINGS. As to hours.

Mr. BLACK. Yes.

Mr. TYDINGS. How about as to wages?

Mr. BLACK. If it is a seasonal activity, both apply, because with reference to seasonable activities the board is given power to exempt both wages and hours.

Mr. TYDINGS. Yes; the board may do that. On the other hand, if the flow of wheat or the contracts for threshing wheat come to the thresher in a normal quantity, there would be no seasonal condition present. It would be normal work for him, and, in my opinion, not being a farmer, but I being a thresher, he would be under the wage and hour provisions of. the bill. Perhaps he should be, but as I see the matter, I think definitely he is.

Mr. BLACK. That would raise for consideration the question of what is ordinarily farming, as some one would raise the question of a cotton gin. I recall that we had that question up at great length when we had another bill before us. I cannot imagine that any board with common sense, such as it is anticipated boards of this kind would have, would ever handicap the operation of a law by attempting to bring within its scope actiVities that are purely and wholly seasonal.

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Mr. TYDINGS. That is not my question.

Mr. BLACK. I know; but I am raising the point with reference to that entire type of operation where the action of the board would actually do an injury instead of doing good. For instance, in the case of a cotton gin it might be necessary to go for some distance to get half a dozen persons to come in and work, and they might have to work very long hours for a few days, and then quit and not work again for weeks, and perhaps when their work was over they might not work again for 9 or 10 months. Those would be seasonal activities; and even if there should be border-line cases, I may say to my friend from Maryland, insofar as definition is concerned, they would not be border-line cases insofar as the application of the seasonal provision is concerned.

Mr. McNARY. Mr. President—

Mr. BLACK. I now yield to the Senator from Oregon.

Mr. McNARY. I do not want to draw the able Senator away from the thread of his remarks.

Mr. BLACK. I shall be glad to discuss any feature of the bill in which the Senator from Oregon is interested.

Mr. McNARY. Inasmuch as the question has been raised in regard to the processing and canning of fruits, vegetables, and fish, I have an amendment which I desire to offer. Of course, I appreciate it is not appropriate at this time, but I ask unanimous consent that I may have the privilege of offering the amendment and that it may be read by the clerk.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? The Chair hears none, and the clerk will read.

The CHIEF CLERK. On page 51, line 3, after the word "agriculture", it is proposed to insert a semicolon and the following:

or any person employed in connection with the canning or other packing or packaging of fish, sea foods, sponges, fruits, or vegetables, when the services of said employee are o! a seasonal nature and do not extend over total periods of more than 6 months in any 1 year.

Mr. AUSTIN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. McNARY. I yield.

Mr. AUSTIN. Will the Senator be willing to include maple sugar in the amendment?

Mr. McNARY. Yes; at the proper time I shall be delighted to add that. I was challenged to bring this matter up at this time, not for the purpose of getting the Senator from Alabama to decide whether he would accept the amendment or not; but there are two kinds of exemptions, one is statutory, to be written into the law, and the other is discretionary, left to the board. I desire that these matters not be left to the discretion of the board but to have them in the act so that there will be no mistake about the exemption of seasonal work in connection with perishables of the nature described and defined in the amendment. That covers to a large extent the canning and the processing of fruits, vegetables and sea foods.

I have prescribed in the amendment that the "season" shall not be more than 6 months, so that no advantage could be taken of even the definition of "season." This would reach all the products of the soil and of the water which are necessary to be processed immediately so that no deterioration will take place in their flavor or in their physical condition. At the proper time I shall discuss the amendment more at length. I merely desired to apprise the Senator at this time of my view as expressed in the amendment, before the matter was brought to his attention by others.

Mr. McKELLAR. Mr. President, will the Senator from Alabama yield to me for a question?

Mr. BLACK. I yield.

Mr. McKELLAR. The Senator from Alabama has made a splendid exposition of his bill, and one in which I am greatly interested; and I have great sympathy with the bill. The Senator stated a while ago that in declaring minimum wages the board might consider among other things such questions as freight rates. There are parts of our country which are very greatly discriminated against in freight rates, for instance, the territory in which the Senator lives and the territory in which I live; the freight rates are nearly double one way what they are the other. Did the Senator say that the question of freight rates was to be taken into consideration?

Mr. BLACK. I said that, in my judgment, it would be necessary to take into consideration the cost of transportation to the market, which, of course, would include freight rates.

Mr. McKELLAR. But it is not stated specifically in the bill. Would the Senator object to an amendment in which that was stated?

Mr. BLACK. I may say to the Senator that it is my judgment that the inclusion of definite elements of a broad subject might and could result, in the long run, in a limitation instead of an expansion.

Mr. McKELLAR. I understand that, and I am quite sure the Senator is correct about it. On the other hand, I think the Senator is exactly right in his statement that transportation rates should be taken into consideration by the board.

Mr. BLACK. I may say, in addition to what I have stated, however — and I am sure the Senator will agree with me that we do not want to give any legislative recognition to any unfair freight-rate system.

Mr. McKELLAR. That is true.

Mr. BLACK. It would be too bad, in my judgment, if, where freight rates are unfair and unjust, we should write into law something which might permanently require that that burden be borne by the men who do the work. We want to bring about a change in the freight-rate system.

Mr. McKELLAR. We certainly do.

Mr. BLACK. The Senator from Tennessee has been very active for a long time in aiding an effort to accomplish that purpose, and a fight is now being made by representatives of my State in an attempt to prevent unjust freight rates. There was evidence before the committee, given by Mr. Aldrich, of the Tennessee Valley Association, in which the Senator will be greatly interested, illustrating the unfairness of the freight-rate structure. That appears in the printed hearings. Until that situation is corrected, however, \ it is necessary, in my judgment, that every element be taken into consideration.

Mr. McKELLAR. I think it would aid tremendously in securing from the Interstate Commerce Commission an adjustment of freight rates so as to make them absolutely fair to all sections and areas of the country if the board should take into consideration that fact in fixing a minimum wage. It was for that reason that I desired to call the special attention of the Senator from Alabama, who is making such an able argument, to that particular factor which we must consider. It is very important to his State and to my State and to others in that locality.

Mr. BLACK. I appreciate very much the suggestion of the Senator.

Mr. WALSH. Mr. President, will the Senator Yield?

Mr. BLACK. I Yield.

Mr. WALSH. Of course, the question of raising cotton and employing people in the cotton-raising industry is not ccvered in the pending bill at all. The only reason why freight rates would have any consideration would be in determining the minimum wage in an industry where cotton was used, for the purpose of determining the cost of production.

Mr. McKELLAR. I am not talking about cotton at all; I was speaking of the general subject of transportation.

Mr. WALSH. If the industry were far away from the cotton field, it would be expected, I assume, that the Board would take into consideration the cost of the raw materials to the industry and the cost of transportation when the finished product was far away from the central market. That is part of the cost of production. It would be an element to consider in fixing the minimum wages.

Mr. BLACK. The Senator is correct, in my judgment. I might call his attention to a very interesting piece of evidence which came from a cotton-textile man who operates mills both in the South and in New England.

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Mr. WALSH. Which many of them do.

Mr. BLACK. That is correct. Many of them come south with a mill which has sometimes been considered unfit for human use in New England, and when the get down into the South they seem to consider that a southerner is worth only about one-fourth of what a man is worth who lives in New England. I myself never fully subscribed to that doctrine. I rather subscribe to the gospel that a man who is born in Alabama, and who can do as much work as a man born in any State in New England, or in any country across the water who emigrates to New England, is entitled to the same pay if he does the work.

Mr. WALSH. I also subscribe to the views expressed by the Senator. I have had much evidence presented to me by industrialists in the North to the effect that the wage earners of the South are efficient and competent and their producing capacity equals that found among workers in the North. I say this because of the feeling some people seem to have that a southern wage earner does not produce as much as is produced by a northern wage earner.

Mr. BLACK. There are elements which enter into the question, such as length of service, skill, and the opportunities for training, wherever a man is born. The manufacturer to whom I have referred has a mill in Georgia which is the largest cotton textile mill in that State, as I was told, and as I believe, Representative RAMSPECK having made the statement. The manufacturer in answer to a question as to the cost of cotton in the South and the cost of cotton in New England, stated, as I recall, that he found he could transport cotton from Texas to New England cheaper than he could transport it from Texas to Georgia. That is the type of freight rate to which the Senator from Tennessee was referring.

Mr. McKELLAR. Exactly.

Mr. HUGHES. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. BLACK. I yield.

Mr. HUGHES. If the Senator will permit me I should like to return to the provision of the bill as to seasonal operations, such as the canning business. Do I understand correctly the Senator to say that in the pending bill there is no provision other than that giving broad powers to the board to deal with that class of industries?

Mr. BLACK. The Senator is correct.

Mr. HUGHES. If the Senator will permit me, I should like to make a remark along that line. I have considerable acquaintance with that line of business. The State of Delaware, in fact, the whole Delmarva Peninsula, is very greatly interested in the canning business and seasonal canning. I do not recall that there are any canneries which do other canning business than that. Some of those canneries are very good ones, very large ones, and I think they treat their labor very well.

I have been somewhat troubled as to whether the bill should be amended so as to make provision, beyond leaving it to the discretion of the board, that those canneries should be treated as we hope the board would treat them; in other words, to lay down a definite provision that they should be exempted because of the seasonal nature of their business.

We also know that a number of the canneries, both in my State and in other States, do not pay a living wage. We are therefore confronted with two propositions. We slould like to have seasonal canneries exempted from the provisions of the bill, but if that is done a number of them, I am sure, will go on paying less than a living wage. That would be the result in some of the smaller canneries. It seems to me the situation should not be left in that condition.

A great number of canneries would not come under the regulation of the board, and would go on with the same practice, which would result in the same evil that the Senator was talking about earlier in the day when he spoke of the sawmill business. They would cause unfair competition by reason of the fact that they would not only work their employees long hours, but they would also pay a wage lower than should be paid. In fact, they would not provide their employees with a decent wage sufficient for them to live upon.

I ask the Senator from Alabama, and I ask other Senators the same question, whether the bill, which provides for leaving that matter in the hands of the board, should not be amended so that we could be assured that the board would deal with that question fairly. But is not the board the best place in which to leave it?

I have received many communications from almost all the larger canneries in my State, and from other persons who are interested in this subject, demanding that an amendment be placed in the bill which would provide that this matter should not be left to the board, but that seasonal canneries should be entirely exempted.

Mr. WALSH. Mr. President, I should like to ask the Senator from Delaware if he is speaking exclusively of seasonal canneries?

Mr. HUGHES. Yes; I am speaking entirely of seasonal canneries, which in our State can corn, beans, and tomatoes.

Mr. WALSH. There are a number of canneries in my State which produce and operate the year around. The Senate would not wish to exempt them?

Mr. HUGHES. I should not want them exempted.

Mr. WALSH. It seems to me that if any preference is to be given to the seasonal canneries, it ought to be in eliminating the provision in the bill which may require them to pay more wages after employing workers more than 40 hours a week. I am sure the Senator agrees that 40 cents an hour is not too large a wage.

Mr. HUGHES. Perhaps in some cases it is.

Mr. WALSH. It seems to me the difficulty these canneries have can be removed by not requiring the penalty of paying more wages if they work their employees more than 40 hours a week.

Mr. HUGHES. I should have no objection to paying even less than 40 cents an hour, but I certainly do object to leaving the canneries at liberty to pay 10 cents an hour, and that is what some of them will do. Some will continue to pay 10 cents, 12 cents, and 15 cents an hour.

Mr. WALSH. If they are put under this bill, they cannot do so.

Mr. HUGHES. No; but if they are taken out of the bill by exempting them, they are left at liberty to pay these low wages.

Mr. WALSH. It is difficult to distinguish, in the matter of wages, between the temporary cannery concern that is seasonal and the all-year-round cannery.

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, I desire to say to the Senator from Delaware that I greatly appreciate his viewpoint.

I have been interested to some extent in laws of this type for several years. I very soon discovered, from what numerous persons told me, that the canners were the most active, the most energetic, the most alert, perhaps, of any group in America when it came to trying to secure exemption from a law. I am fully sympathetic with the canner who is engaged in a seasonal business, and who does not take advantage of the seasonal situation by gross abuse of the conditions so as to drive people down by employing them for hours that are beyond the capacity of a human being to serve, and for wages that are inexcusably low. I recognize the fact that industries engaged in seasonal activity should not be included in a law of this kind. However, the Senator from Delaware has placed his finger exactly on the distinction between the two lines of thought. There are other canners, as is well known, who should not be exempt from this proposed law.

About 2 years ago, when we had a hearing before the Committee on Finance on matters related to this subject, testimony was adduced as to the profits of some of the canners. They were engaged in a large business throughout the entire Nation. The profit they made was absolutely phenomenal in proportion to the amount of their investment. On investigation it developed that it was largely because, as usual, the laborers were being paid too low a wage. Monopolies existed in certain types of products. The profits, also, were too high.

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So it developed that from both ends, labor wages being entirely too low and prices being entirely too high, this group was making profits which were entirely out of line with proper business operations under our system, thereby placing an unfair burden both on those who produce and on those who consume the commodity.

If there is an attempt to put in this bill an exemption for canners, then they are out from under its provisions. I am opposed to their being left out. I want them to stay in.

Mr. HUGHES. Mr. President, I ask the Senator to permit me to add that we have canners in our State and in our peninsula who are most excellent men, and who do not drive down their labor, who pay fair wages, treat their employees fairly, and have excellent health conditions and regulations in their canneries. However, there is an entirely different class of canners. I am interested in the canners of the first class I mentioned. They are excellent citizens. Because I myself am a farmer to some extent, I am vitally interested in farmers having their products canned in the producing season. However, I am more deeply interested in the persons who labor not only in my State but everywhere. I am deeply interested in seeing that in some way the canners, as well as other persons who employ labor, pay fair wages. When I view the subject I am convinced that it is not well to exempt seasonal industries and leave entirely to the discretion of those engaged in seasonal industries the determination of what hours their employees shall work and what wages they shall pay them. That does not meet with my views of what is right and fair to the great number of persons who work in those industries.

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, I appreciate the Senator's view. I stated in the beginning that I thanked him for his contribution because it was a real contribution, and called attention to the inadvisability of particularly eliminating the canners from the provisions of the measure within the terms of the bill itself. What we do is to leave to the board charged with this responsibility the power to distinguish between the two types. In other words, the bill authorizes the protection of employees who should be protected. It also authorizes the protection of employers who are genuinely entitled to protection. Protection should be afforded to each equally as each equally deserves it.

Mr. POPE. Mr. President—

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Alabama yield to the Senator from Idaho?

Mr. BLACK. I yield.

Mr. POPE. In the definition of agriculture, which appears on page 51, there will be found in line 6 the word "dairying." Will the Senator generally define the word "dairying"? It would not include a cheese factory, I take it?

Mr. BLACK. I should hope not.

Mr. POPE. Would it include the bottling of milk by a concern whose business it was to produce milk? In my neighborhood many farmers bottle milk and cream and distribute it and sell it.

Mr. BLACK. No; I should not call such a person a farmer. I should call him a processor.

Mr. POPE. Would the definition include the farmer who bottles his own milk and cream and sells it?

Mr. BLACK. Unquestionably.

Mr. POPE. In other words, what he did would be included in the definition "dairying"?

Mr. BLACK. Yes.

Mr. POPE. But it would not include the company or concern whose business it is to bottle the milk, but which does not produce it?

Mr. BLACK. It would not include a processor who is not a dairyman. He is a processor.

Mr. POPE. Would processing include the bottling of milk and cream and selling it when the one who did it did not produce the milk?

We have a number of very small farms in my State which employ a few people to bottle milk or cream and dispose of it. They may produce a part of the milk themselves, but often they do not; they simply purchase the milk from the farmers; then put it up in bottles and distribute it. I was wondering what "dairying" would include in that situation?

Mr. BLACK. I myself would construe dairying to include the handling or processing of milk after it left the dairy farmer. There are a great many who indulge in that business who are not employers of small numbers, but who are employers of quite a large number of people.

Mr. POPE. Of course, there are a number of farmers who are engaged in dairying, who produce their own milk, and who also have equipment to bottle it and distribute it right on the farm. I am wondering if it would include those farmers who have such equipment and bottle their own milk on their farms and sell it?

Mr. BLACK. I have no doubt that a dairy farmer who bottles his own milk is still a dairy farmer. The fact that he bottles it would not change his characteristics from that of a farmer.

Mr. POPE. Even though he might do it in considerable quantity? The line I suppose would be drawn as between the one who did not produce the milk but who engaged, practically, at any rate, in bottling milk and distributing it as a business?

Mr. BLACK. I think the Senator 1s correct.

Mr. COPELAND. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. BLACK. I yield.

Mr. COPELAND. If the Senator will bear with me for a moment, I have just received a telegram from the secretary of the International Apple Association from Rochester in my State.

Mr. BLACK. May I ask what is his name?

Mr. COPELAND. His name is Phillips.

Mr. BLACK. It is not Mr. Fraser?

Mr. COPELAND. Mr. Fraser is of the same group. Does the Senator have any comment to make upon Mr. Fraser?

Mr. BLACK. I have no comment. He testified, as I recall, before the committee.

Mr. COPELAND. I regard Mr. Fraser as a very capable, sensible man, as I have no doubt the Senator from Alabama does. But, anyway, this is the suggestion made—

Mr. DAVIS. I am sure the Senator from Alabama regards Mr. Fraser very highly.

Mr. COPELAND. I think he said so.

Mr. BLACK. I think he is a very capable man. I agree with the Senator.

Mr. COPELAND. Very good. He is capable, as well as having all the other fine qualities which I mentioned. At any rate, it is the desire of the International .hpple Associatjon to provide an exemption by inserting on page 51, line 14, after the word "operations", the words:

Or by an employee in connection with preparing for market, in their raw or natural state within the area of production, fresh fruits and vegetables, including packing, packaging, storing, transporting, and marketing of said commodities.

That is the proposed amendment. The argument is this:

This amendment applies only to fresh fruits and vegetables in their raw and natural state within the area of production and does not extend to canning or processing or any operations which change them from their raw or natural state. The amendment would then make paragraph 7 the same in principle as recognized by N. R. A. and A. A. A. and under which the fresh fruit and vegetable industry operated. Under modern conditions, developed by necessity, it is of utmost importance to multitudes of small growers from coast to coast that packing-house operations and storing within the area of production be exempted; otherwise, community packing and unlform!ty of grade will be disrupted and, moreover, small individual growers are not in position to equip themselves with highly expensive washing and grading machinery. All of these costs come out of growers' pockets. Bear in mind we are asking that the amendment apply only to fresh fruits and vegetables which are highly perishable and in their raw and natural state only, and within the area of their production. There is well-established precedent for this under the carefully considered position taken by N. R. A. and A. A. A.

May I ask the Senator from Alabama for his comments upon this proposed amendment?

Mr. BLACK. I will state to the Senator from New York that representatives of the organization referred to appeared before the committee. The committee, after careful consideration, reached the conclusion that the definition of

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employee as given in paragraph (7), of section 2, and which is the broadest definition that has ever been included in any one act, was sufficient to include every genuine, bona-fide farming activity.

So far as I recall, no member of the committee favored exempting, for instance, meat-packing houses. I use that as an illustration and not that it is connected with the suggestion made by the Senator from New York. The committee was not in favor of exempting the packing business as it related to many agricultural products. I refer to packing as a business. The farmer or the apple grower has a perfect right, of course, to pack his own apples either alone or in cooperation with his farming neighbors, I should say.

Mr. OVERTON. Mr. President, in that connection, will the Senator from Alabama yield to me?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Alabama yield to the Senator from Louisiana?

Mr. BLACK. I yield.

Mr. OVERTON. If a farmer gins his own cotton is the ginning process exempt from the provisions of this bill?

Mr. BLACK. Certainly, if he gins his own cotton.

Mr. OVERTON. It is his own cotton; he has it on his farm or plantation and gins it.

Mr. BLACK. I may say to the Senator that until the board shall act no one can say that cotton ginning as a business will be included in the law as it may operate.

Mr. OVERTON. May I interrupt the Senator further?

Mr. BLACK. Certainly.

Mr. OVERTON. I am not talking about it as a business; I am not talking now about the man who engages in the business of ginning cotton and gins the cotton of others; I am talking about the farmer who gins and bales his own cotton that he produces upon his own farm.

Mr. BLACK. I just started to say to the Senator that so far as cottori ginning at large is concerned, it comes within that broad class of peculiarly seasonal occupations, which, doubtless, would be considered by the board in the application of the law relating to hours and wages in its entirety.

Mr. OVERTON. It will be a question for the board to determine what is a seasonal occupation and what is not. The question I am propounding to the Senator is whether or not, as this bill now reads, the farmer who gins his own cotton will be exempt from the provisions of the measure?

Mr. BLACK. I may say to the Senator that I do not want to place myself in the attitude of responding directly to that question, because until the board acts, after the bill shall have become a law, cotton ginning as cotton ginning is neither under the law or out of the law; but the bill does provide that those things done with reference to commodities produced on the farm by the farmer on the farm are not included in the possible application of the act by the board.

Mr. OVERTON. I assume after the cotton is matured and is being picked the picking would be considered a part of an agricultural pursuit, would it not?

Mr. BLACK. Certainly, it would be so considered.

Mr. OVERTON. I am going just one step further. After the cotton is picked it has to be ginned. Suppose a farmer has a gin on his own farm and gins his own cotton — not the cotton of others — is that a process in the agricultural handling of cotton?

Mr. BLACK. As defined by this bill, yes; unquestionably.

Mr. OVERTON. So that he will be exempt from the provisions of this bill if he gins his own cotton?

Mr. BLACK. On his own farm.

Mr. OVERTON. On his own farm. The smaller farmer who does not have the benefit of a gin, who has to take his cotton to a public gin, would have to pay for the ginning of his cotton, would he not?

Mr. BLACK. Yes; just as he does now.

Mr. OVERTON. That ginning would not be exempt, would it? The owner who has a large cotton plantation would be exempt, because he would have his own cotton gin on his own plantation, but the cotton of the small farmer who has not a large enough farm to come within the exemption has to take his cotton to a public ginnery, and that public ginnery would be subject to the provisions of this bill.

Mr. BLACK. The cotton-ginning business might or might not be considered by the board as of a nature to justify it being brought under the proposed act. As I said in the beginning, it is my judgment that the business is seasonal. I will also say that the big compressing business, which is the one that has been sending many telegrams to me and others, will come under it. I do not know in how many instances the farmers in Louisiana own their own gins. There may be some in Alabama at the present time. If so, I am not familiar with them. Cotton ginning in my State is generally done by ginners who gin for the public. If there happen to be any farmers there who own their own gins, certainly their number is so small as to constitute probably less than one-half of 1 percent, which is the old familiar percentage we remember away back in the days of sometime ago.

Mr. OVERTON. Let me invite the attention of the Senator to another agricultural industry in connection with which the processing, if it may be so called, by the farmer of his own product is much more general than in the case of the farmer ginning his own cotton. I refer to the sirupcane producer who processes his own cane, grinds it, and makes it into sirup. Does he come within the provisions of the bill?

Mr. BLACK. I am not sufficiently familiar with that particular business to say.

Mr. OVERTON. As a rule they process their own sirup. Mr. BLACK. The Senator can read the definition in the bill and note that those things ordinarily done by farmers on the farm do not come under the provisions of the bill.

Mr. PEPPER. Mr. President, I wonder if the following language would not answer the question of the Senator from Louisiana. It is found on page 51 of the bill, lines 13 and 14, being a part of the agricultural definition:

And any practices ordinarily performed by a farmer as an incident to such farming operations.

Mr. OVERTON. It may and it may not. I was asking the Senator from Alabama because he is the author of the bill, and I was giving a concrete case. I think we would have a better understanding of the terms of the bill if we should take up a few such cases. I have taken the case of a farmer who plants his sugarcane; gathers it, and who on his own farm has a sirup mill and converts the juice of the cane into sirup. Does he come within the provisions of the bill?

Mr. BLACK. The definition provides that those things done by the farmer ordinarily on his farm constitute a part of his farming business. It would depend upon whether or not that was an ordinary incident to that type of farming business in the State where sirup is made. If so, that would be agriculture under the definition of the bill.

Mr. OVERTON. I do not want to occupy too much of the Senator's time, but I should like to ask a further question.

Mr. BLACK. I am delighted to have the Senator ask questions.

Mr. OVERTON. It would not be considered an ordinary practice performed by a farmer as an incident to his farming operations for the reason that we also have large sirup mills. Such sirup mills gather in the cane produced by the different farmers and process it into sirup. But it is of frequent occurrence that a farmer has a mill on his own farm and converts his own cane juice into sirup. With that explanation, would the Senator say the practice of such a farmer is one ordinarily performed by a farmer as an incident to his farming operations?

Mr. BLACK. If the Senator says it is a practice not ordinarily performed by a farmer as incident to his farming operations, I would necessarily say it was a practice not ordinarily performed by a farmer as incident to his farming operations, and therefore would not come under the definition. I am assuming it is a practice which is not ordinarily engaged in, by farmers.

Mr. OVERTON. Not altogether engaged in, but frequently engaged in by farmers.

Mr. BLACK. For instance, a farmer might build on his farm a factory for the purpose of manufacturing shirts and

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sending them throughout the United States. Since that is a practice not ordinarily engaged in by farmers on their farms, naturally that would not be considered a farming activity.

Mr. OVERTON. Let us take the sugar manufacturer. On some plantations there are mills in which the planters may manufacture their own cane into sugar. Would they come within the provisions of the bill?

Mr. BLACK. As I said, it would depend upon whether or not that comes within the definition under the facts of operation, whether it is a necessary incident to that type of cane fanning. I am not sufficiently familiar with it as it exists in the Senator's State of Louisiana to be able even to venture an opinion.

Mr. OVERTON. As I understand the Senator, in cases where some farmers process their own products and other farmers carry their products to some processor to be processed, then by reason of the fact that some farmers carry their products to a processor to be processed, the farmers who process their own products would not be considered as engaging in a practice which is ordinarily incident to farming operations.

Mr. BLACK. I could not say as to that. It depends altogether on the facts as to what is a necessary incident to farming. As I said, there are some things so far removed from farming that all of us would know instantly they did not constitute a farming operation. The illustration I gave was of a farmer erecting on his farm a factory and manufacturing anything you please, whether something he grows or not, who employs many people to manufacture it, and then ships it in interstate commerce. The mere fact that he has such a plant on his farm would not make the manufacturing of shirts, for instance, a farming operation. It would still be a manufacturing operation. The same reasoning would apply to any other process of manufacturing.

Mr. COPELAND, Mr. BONE, and Mr. POPE addressed the Chair.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Alabama yield; and if so, to whom?

Mr. BLACK. I yield first to the Senator from New York because I promised him some little time ago that I would do so. Then I shall be glad to yield to the Senator from Washington [Mr. BONE].

Mr. COPELAND. In the first place, let me congratulate the Senator upon his perspicuity and ability in preparing the bill.

I want to go back to the apple business for a moment. It happens that the county in which I live is an applegrowing county. Our farmers are orchardists. We have in the country, wheat farmers, corn "farmers, hog farmers, tobacco farmers, cattle farmers, but our farmers, to a large degree, are apple farmers. An apple farmer who has a good-sized orchard during the season of production hires extra people, puts them in the orchard to pick the fruit, to draw it to the sorting house, to sort and pack it, and then to place it in the storage house. Later when there is a demand for it his own men draw the fruit to market, transport it to market, and sell it in the produce markets of New York.

Are all such activities brought within the operation of the exemptions relating to the farmer in the operation of his farm? The farmer I have in mind does not handle other men's fruit. He does not process it in the sense of canning it. He simply handles his product as the wheat farmer handles his wheat or as the pork farmer may perhaps kill his pigs and handle them. He simply handles his apples in the way I have said, his own crop, puts it in packages and stores it, and in due time transports it to market and sells it. What about him?

Mr. BLACK. I may answer the Senator by illustrating a type of farming with which I am familiar and which I think will answer his question. In mY State if a man raises watermelons, ordinarily when he lives close to a city he takes his watermelons into town and sells them. He may sell them to a broker or he may sell them from door to door. Under such circumstances I would say he was engaging in farming from the beginning to the end of that transaction because that is an incident to that type of farming. That is an ordinary incident to the sale of watermelons, we will say. The same thing, of course, would apply under this definition to farmers, including fruit growers actually engaged in that occupation.

Mr. COPELAND. I think that is a fair statement, because the watermelon farmer might pack his fruit in crates, might he not? That would be equivalent to placing apples in a package.

Mr. BLACK. The Senator is correct.

Mr. COPELAND. I should say, then, that the Senator and I are in agreement that the apple farmer who gathers his product, sorts it, puts it in packages, puts it in storage, and in due time takes it to market is operating as a farmer, and would be exempt from the provisions of the bill.

Mr. BLACK. I simply state to the Senator that the committee reached the conclusion that agriculture in all its phases should be exempted. Therefore, they attempted to draw up a comprehensive definition which would accomplish that purpose.

Mr. COPELAND. In general terms?

Mr. BLACK. That is correct.

Mr. BONE. Mr. President—

Mr. BLACK. I yield to the Senator from Washington.

Mr. BONE. The Senator from Oregon [Mr. McNARY] has offered an amendment, to appear on page 51, which, among other things, exempts canners and the work of canning and packaging fruits or vegetables. That exemption, of course, would be added to the list of exempted operations and activities set out on page 51. Assuming that the bill is enacted, and that the activities and operations mentioned on page 51 are not brought within the scope of the bill so far as hours are concerned, are they also exempted in the matter of minimum wages, or is the exemption purely an exemption as to hours of labor, the time of labor, the tour of labor?

Mr. BLACK. As the bill is written?

Mr. BONE. Yes

Mr. BLACK. As the bill is written, it is intended to give, and I believe does give, to the board the right to exempt from both phases of the bill employees in activities that are seasonal and which by reason of the particular circumstances of their seasonal nature it is inadvisable to include under the measure.

Mr. BONE. Then they do not come under the measure either with respect to hours or with respect to compensation?

Mr. BLACK. As I stated, under the exemption which is authorized on page 63, the board would have the right to exempt such employees from both phases of the bill.

Mr. BONE. There is another question I had in mind. Does the bill in any wise impinge upon prison labor, or attempt in any way to deal with that particular activity?

Mr. BLACK. lt does not.

Mr. BONE. Was that subject ever considered by the committee?

Mr. BLACK. I do not recall that anyone mentioned it. It may be that someone did; but the committee reached the conclusion that it would be unwise and improper to attempt to deal in this bill with anything except minimum wages, maximum hours, and child labor. I make that statement to the Senator because I think it is proper for me to do so at this time.

Mr. BONE. I am not complaining, because I think the bill very properly should deal with one subject, and if it does a good job in doing that, it is a fine thing.

Mr. BLACK. I should like to go ahead on that line, because I want to make one thing clear right here. The bill originally contained provisions which would have been, in effect, amendments to the Wagner Act. The committee reached the conclusion that we should not enter into that field in this measure. We reached the conclusion that entry into the field to the limited extent which was originally provided in the bill would make it necessary, if we proceeded along that line, to extend our hearings further, and to add to the bill any and all conclusions that might be reached as to changes in the Wagner Act. We therefore unanimously agreed that we would exclude from the bill any amendments

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to that act, and that we would limit the bill strictly to minimum wages, maximum hours, and child labor, and that is what we have done.

Mr. BONE. This discussion of processing operations is an interesting one, because it will open up a field of interpretation for the board; but I think the business experience of us all will justify the conclusion that if a man operates a threshing outfit, and goes from one farm to another farm, such a man is an independent contractor. He is not a farmer. That is not an operation incident to farming, because the man is engaging in a cold-blooded business operation, going from one farm to another, precisely as a huckster goes around and sells tinware to farmers.

I realize that in trying to meet that sort of an issue we get into a twilight zone. It is like the suggestion of the Senator from Idaho [Mr. POPE] about the farmer bottling milk. There comes a point where we have to draw a line somewhere; and if a man is running a big threshing outfit, a gigantic combine out West in the State of the Senator from Montana [Mr. MURRAY], and he hires a large number of men, and they go on a farm with tractors and engage in an operation resulting in threshing thousands of bushels of wheat in a day, it seems to me that sort of an operation, which is in the exclusive control of the contractor, could hardly be called farming; and when he is hiring men and just being an employer, I am wondering how he could be called a farmer, or his operation an incident to a farming operation. He does not own a farm. He has not any connection with it except to take his threshing apparatus there and thresh the wheat and then get off the land.

I know that matter was pretty thoroughly discussed by the Senator from Maryland [Mr. TYDINGS]; but it seems to me that if there is any way of meeting that issue in the bill by a little further clarification, it might be advisable, and might avoid trouble in the future.

Mr. POPE. Mr. President; will the Senator from Alabama yield to me?

Mr. BLACK. I promised the junior Senator from Washington [Mr. SCHWELLENBACH] to yield to him first.

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. Mr. President, on line 10, page 51, there is a reference to "subdivision (g) of section 15 of the Agricultural Marketing Act, approved June 15, 1929, as amended." I have here the latest compilation of the document room of these amendments, and I cannot find any subdivision (g). Does the Senator know what subdivisian (g) is?

Mr. BLACK. Yes; I will tell the Senator exactly what it is. I may not be able to find it at this moment. It is an amendment which included under the definition of farming the business of turpentine production. An amendment to the Agricultural Marketing Act approved June 15, 1929, classified the turpentine business as a farming business. Considerable evidence was given before the committee in connection with this subject; and the committee, in defining agriculture and in seeking the definitions that have been given to agriculture from time to time, found this amendment to the Agricultural Marketing Act, which related to the business about which testimony had been given, and included that definition.

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. There is nothing in that amendment which would help apples?

Mr. BLACK. So far as I recall, there is nothing there; but the apple business and the apple farmer are certainly included in this definition.

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. If I may, I should like to follow through some of the questions asked by the Senator from New York [Mr. COPELAND] which the Senator from Alabama answered by reference to the growing and sale of watermelons. When an apple grower picks his apples and takes them into his own warehouse, as the Senator from New York has described, and in that warehouse packages them and then stores them, or perhaps first stores them and then packages them, the work being done by the farmer on his own farm. there is no dispute about the fact that it is an agricultural operation. I should like to say frankly, however, that when he takes the apples into market and sells them on the streets of New York City, as the Senator points out, I cannot see that that is an agricultural operation.

What I am interested in is the small apple producer who has a ranch so small that he cannot afford to maintain upon his own ranch a warehouse with the necessary machinery and equipment which such warehouses now must have, under the rules and regulations of the Department of Agriculture on the question of spray tolerance. It seems to me that the bill, under the definitions as they now stand, places at a considerable disadvantage the man who is too small an operator to perform these operations upon his own farm, and who must send his apples to a central warehouse to have the same processing done--by "processing" I do not mean canning; I mean the removal of the spray-and the same sort of storage, and who must bear all those increased costs, as compared with the larger operator who can do these things upon his own place of business.

I cannot see anything fair about that sort of a discrimination. It seems to me the point of difference should be when the agricultural operation stops.

The picking of the apples is an agricultural process. If the man does it on his own ranch, the storing of the apples and the washing of the apples and the packing of the apples are all agricultural processes. If we leave the bill the way it now stands, it is going to mean that the large producer on the large ranch who can afford to maintain the equipmenton his own ranch is going to have an unfair advantage over the small man who has only 5 or 10 acres, and who has to send his crop to a central warehouse, or who may join with others in a cooperative warehouse and there have the same processes performed.

I think — and I should like to ask the reaction of the Senator from Alabama to the suggestion — that the line of distinction might be made at the point of agricultural . operation; that so long as the operation is purely an agricultural one, it should come within the exemption. When it becomes a processing operation, a canning operation, it ceases to be an agricultural operation. When it becomes a marketing operation, and the product gets to the railroad station, or leaves the warehouse for the purpose of going to the railroad station, it ceases to be an agricultural operation.

I should like to have the Senator's reaction to that suggestion.

Mr. BLACK. I think perhaps I can give the Senator an illustration which will demonstrate how difficult it is to draw the line at the point he mentions.

Going into another phase of farming, let us take the man who raises hogs. A great many farmers who raise hogs kill their hogs on their own farms. They prepare the hogs for market on their own farms, and then send out the product. As the bill is framed, there would be no possible manner in which their employees could be included under the provisions of the bill, because that would clearly be farming; but if we should attempt to draw the line of distinction which the Senator has mentioned we would find that we should have to exclude the meat packers, whom I know the Senator would not believe it desirable to exclude, and we should thereby step into a field which we do not wish to enter.

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. Mr. President—

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. GREEN in the chair) Does the Senator from Alabama yield to the Senator from Washington?

Mr. BLACK. I yield.

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. I think it could be very easily done. Following the history of the N. R. A. and the Social Security Acts, in each of those acts the definition was simply of "agricultural labor." The N. R. A., after an investigation, which happened to be of the apple industry, adopted a regulation such as I have suggested. They sent a man out to the West, who made a complete investigation. The Social Security Board refused to do that. They had to deal with the same expression, "agricultural labor", with no attempt to define it, leaving it to the board. The Social Security Board adopted the rule that if the work was done upon the farm,

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if the employee whose wage was involved was working on the farm, or working somewhere else upon the products of the particular farm and paid by the farmer, then it would be exempt under the act. I have never been satisfied with that definition, and I think it should go one step further, the step which I include, taking it up to the point of processing.

Let us get back to the hog case now. If we exempt all work done on the farm by the farmer, plus other work up to the point of processing, up to the point where it ceases to be agricultural work and becomes a processing or a marketing work, then it woUld meet the objection. Certainly these meat packers would not be exempted, because they do the processing; their work is not of an agricultural nature. Let the farmer on the farm who does his own processing on his own farm still be exempt; but where the work is done off the farm, then there should be an exemption of everything that is purely agricultural in its nature.

Mr. PEPPER. Mr. President, is not that exactly what this agricultural definition does? What is there in this definition, in the Senator's mind, inconsistent with that idea?

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. With all due respect to the committee and the definition, so far as this particular question is concerned, it does not define the term "agricultural labor" any more than the Social Security Act did. What I am afraid of is that the board under this proposed act would accept the definition adopted by the Social Security Board rather than the definition which was adopted by the N. R. A. and the A. A. A.

Mr. PEPPER. Mr. President, will the Senator from Alabama yield to me to make a comparison to illustrate that there is a distinction recognized?

Mr. BLACK. I yield.

Mr. PEPPER. In the turpentine industry, for instance, one way of producing spirits of turpentine is by the harvesting of oleoresin gum from the tree, and then transporting it to a still operated by two or three men, in most instances upon the land of the man who conducts the turpentine operation. That is recognized as agriculture because they are harvesting a product that comes from the tree in its natural state, and putting it through a simple process of distillation.

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. But it is a processing operation. It goes further than I want to go in this definition.

Mr. PEPPER. That is true, but that kind of a processing operation would be exempted under the provisions of the proposed act, because it is something ordinarily done by the farmer as an incident to his operation.

There is another way of producing spirits of turpentine, that is by means of a wood process. The men go out in the field and dig up the pine stumps and transport them to a sort of crucible, where the stumps are ground up into small particles and processed in such a way that eventually a product comes out which is also called turpentine. That is generally regarded, and it so appeared in the testimony of the experts before the committee, as an industrial operation, because the owner of the industrial process is also the owner who sends his agents out into the field and digs up the stumps and brings them back to the factory.

There is a distinction between agriculture as defined in the exemption here and an industry which is an entirely different operation. So, when we come to the man who is running a canning plant, everyone would know that he is not engaged in the cultivation of the soil or the transportation of a farm commodity, but is conducting an industrial enterprise. He takes the materials to the factory, puts them through a process, and turns out a product. That is an Industrial enterprise.

I wonder whether we will not do better, perhaps, to leave a fair range of discretion to the understanding of the board, than to try to make a rigid definition, which might not accomplish the purpose desired and help our people as much as we intended?

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. All I am asking for is the same provision with reference to apples the Senator has with reference to turpentine. The Senator has had the turpentine business placed under subsection (g) of section 15 of the act of 1929. All I am asking for the apple industry is precisely the same sort of an exemption the Senator has specifically under that section of the old act, the 1931 amendment, which refers to turpentine.

Mr. PEPPER. Yes; but in the turpentine case the one who harvests the gum from the tree also conducts the distilling operation. If that were true in the apple case, the apple industry would be exempt under this definition. But if a third party puts up a distillery for gum turpentine, and everyone who produces gum anywhere in the country brings it to him and he distills it and provides a market, that is not the same.

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. If the apple growers take their apples to a cider plant, certainly the man who runs the cider plant is engaged in an industrial operation: he is processing. If the apples are taken to a cannery where they are mashed and put into cans that, to my mind, is an industrial operation, it is a processing. I think that if the growers take the apples to market, that is not an agrtcultural operation. I am not asking to go so far as that.

But it seems that, so long as they remain in their natural state and all of the work that is done upon them is the ordinary agricultural operation up to the point of processing, whether they are handled on the farm or by a group of men gathered together in a cooperative, or turned over to a central warehouse, they should be exempt, because of the fact that if we do not exempt them, we are giving the large producer a very distinct advantage over the small producer, and I am certain it is not the purpose of the bill and is not within the economic theory of the bill to give the large producer an advantage over the small producer.

Mr. PEPPER. Mr. President, I quite agree with the Senator, and that is exactly what I want; but I think it is very clear that under the pending bill they would be exempt even if they were a cooperative, just as the farmer would if he did the work on his own land.

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. He may not do it himself.

Mr. PEPPER. It would be the same if some of his hands did it.

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. No; I am referring to the article until it reaches the point of processing, while it is still an agricultural operation, even if it is done by someone else. Under the rules of the Department of Agriculture, it is necessary to install machinery, which costs from $20,000 to $30,000, to wash the apples. I stated here a short time ago that it was almost necessary to turn them out as baked apples in order to get by the rules of the Department of Agriculture. The little man, with 5 or 10 acres, cannot afford to buy that sort of machinery, and he has to send his apples to the warehouse. The big concern, with 50 or 60 or 100 acres, can afford to buy machinery, and, under the terms of the proposed act, the big man would be exempt, while the man who could not afford to buy the machinery would be subject to whatever disadvantages might come as a result of differences in compensation.

Mr. BLACK. Let me ask the Senator from Washington whether or not the wages in his State are ordinarily under 40 cents an hour.

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. No; I do not think the wages are below 40 cents an hour.

Mr. BLACK. Of course, the board would have no jurisdiction of any wages over 40 cents an hour in any line of business. In addition to that, there axe exemptions for seasonal activities. I may also say that the board would likely exercise the same degree of caution and wisdom in connection with matters of this particular type relating to agriculture that seems to have been exercised under the N. R. A., according to the Senator's statement.

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. Does the Senator think the board appointed under the proposed act would exercise the judgment the N. R. A. board did, or the judgment the Social Security Board exercised? There are two boards. One of them exercised judgment, the other did not.

Mr. BLACK. It is clear that we wish to exclude everything that is a bona-fide agricultural activity. I am not sure about the particular business to which the Senator refers.

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

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Mr. BLACK. I yield.

Mr. HATCH. I have not been present during an the crossexamination of the Senator—

Mr. BLACK. For about an hour and a half I have been seeking an opportunity to yield the floor; but I am very glad, indeed, to answer any questions I can answer.

Mr. HATCH. There is one question in my mind which is really not a question, because, from the way I interpret the bill, I think the bill itself answers the inquiry. In the definition of agriculture on page 51, which has been discussed, the term is said to include livestock. The question which comes to my mind arises because under another act, the Bankruptcy Act, some of the courts have held that farm operations did not relate to large cattle and sheep ranches which were not connected with the actual tillage of the soil. I am just wondering whether such an interpretation as that could be placed on this measure.

Mr. PEPPER. Mr. President, if I may make a suggestion, I think Senators will find that the word "livestock", as used in this definition, comes literally from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, and is included within the word "agriculture."

Mr. HATCH. I know that; but the courts have interpreted it otherwise. I happen to know that courts have interpreted the word "farming" to mean anything relating to the tilling of the soil. The courts do not always follow Webster's Dictionary.

Mr. PEPPER. I think the Senator will observe that the committee, not wishing to take a chance with the courts in the matter of the interpretation of the term "stock raising" or "cattle raising", in defining the term "agriculture" specifically inserted the word "livestock" so that there could not be any doubt about it.

Mr. HATCH. That is what I want to know. The Senator's interpretation is the same as mine, .and I believe the committee has made a correct interpretation.

Mr. PEPPER. That is what happened in the committee.

Mr. COPELAND. Mr. President—

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Alabama yield to the Senator from New York?

Mr. BLACK. I yield?

Mr. COPELAND. I ask the Senator to yield to me just once. It is quite unfair to keep the Senator on his feet so long. I promise him I will not interrupt him again.

Mr. BLACK. I am delighted to answer any question I can answer.

Mr. COPELAND. Did the air-transport representatives appear before the committee?

Mr. BLACK. I do not recall that they did.

Mr. COPELAND. They have asked me to offer an amendment on page 51, line 2, after the semicolon, to insert:

Or any air-transport employee subject to the provisions of title II o! the Railway Labor Act, approved April 10, 1936.

I find, by reference to that act, that it gave a new title to the Railroad Labor Act, and it included those engaged in air service. I do not know why they need to be worried about it, because I have been given a schedule of the wages paid, and really they are quite remarkable. Pilots, for example, get $9.12 an hour. That is for an hour. Copilots receive $1.51. Hostesses receive $1.05. I find that chief mechanics are paid the same amount that they are paid on railroads. Dispatchers are paid the same amount—$1.22.

What would be the reaction of the Senator from Alabama to the acceptance of that particular amendment?

Mr. BLACK. I should be very glad to look into it.

Mr. COPELAND. I thank the Senator. I appreciate it. I will state to him that I have material with reference to it.

Mr. OVERTON. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. BLACK. I yield.

Mr. OVERTON. The Senator, in his opening remarks in connection with his presentation of the bill, referred to some letters which he had received from lumbermen. I have received a number of letters from lumbermen in Louisiana and various portions of the South. The situation with reference to the lumber industry in the South is that on account of the nature of the timber and the character of the logs, very much less timber can be produced by manpower there than in other sections of the United States, as, for instance, on the West coast; and if the wage scale in the southern lumber industry were approximately the same or nearly the same as that of the West coast, it would be impossible for the southern lumber industry to compete with western production.

Does the bill take care of a situation such as that?

Mr. BLACK. The bill recognizes the fact that in fixing a minimum wage—which, as I stated in the beginning, is a living wage—there must be taken into consideration the diversities in industry which exist throughout the country; the cost of living in various places, for example.

Mr. OVERTON. Diversities in the same industry?

Mr. BLACK. Certainly. I may state to the Senator that the western lumber people—that is, the vocal part of them that can be stimulated to action by their Washington representatives are also strenuously objecting to the bill. It is not merely the lumber people or part of the lumber people in any one section of the country that are objecting to the bill. It is some of the lumber people and some of the textile manufacturers and some of the other manufacturers in various sections. The bill does provide, in accordance with the President's message, for fixing differences under the standards set out in the bill throughout the Nation and throughout the diversified industries.

Mr. OVERTON. One more question: There is, and I assume the Senator realizes it, a difference in the cost of production on the part of a small mill, say a portable mill, and a large lumber company which may be operating alongside it in the same territory. Will the board have authority to fix a different wage scale in the case of the portable mill as against the large company?

Mr. BLACK. Am I to understand that the small mill produces at a greater cost than the large mill?

Mr. OVERTON. Either way.

Mr. BLACK. If there is a difference, I should like to get the idea, because I do not know it.

Mr. OVERTON. I understand that there is a difference in the cost of production.

Mr. BLACK. Which has the greater cost of production?

Mr. OVERTON. It is my understanding that the production costs of the small mill are greater than those of the large mill.

Mr. BLACK. Then I suggest to the Senator that an easy way to obviate that difficulty, if the Senator will fight for it, is to offer an amendment which will exempt such industries and manufacturing enterprises as employ only a small number of persons. I may state that personally I shall not be altogether unfavorable to such an amendment. The large lumber people have strenuously objected to such a provision, and the bill at present does not exempt them; but if the Senator will offer an amendment which will exempt the small lumbermen, I believe he will get a great deal of support in this body, although the committee has taken the other course.

Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. President, will the Senator from Alabama yield to me on that particular point?

Mr. BLACK. I yield.

Mr. REYNOLDS. I am glad that question arose at this time, because I have been somewhat worried in reference to a number of letters I have had from North Carolina in particular relation to the small lumber mills.

I see here this afternoon a large number of Senators from the Southern States. Earlier today, when I was in the Chamber, I heard the Senator from Alabama read a letter from a gentleman who is evidently the head of one of the larger lumber mills in the South. I assume that the letter which the Senator from Alabama read was written by the head of that mill, who employs a great number of men; and at that time the question arose in my mind as to whether or not the enactment of this bill would be to the advantage of the large mill operator and to the disadvantage of the small mill operator. The Senator from Alabama has suggested that the Senator from Louisiana prepare an amendment exempting the smaller enterprises that employ, we will say, for the sake of the argument, approximately 10 men; and I want to say that I would view such an amendment with considerable favor.

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Mr. OVERTON. I may say that I am not in charge of the bill, and I rose simply to get information from the Senator in charge of the bill.

Mr. REYNOLDS. I made that statement to the Senator from Alabama, who is in charge of the bill.

Mr. OVERTON. While we are on that subject let me call the attention of the Senator, if he is interested in lumber production, to the fact that if there are two.lumber mills of the same size, both employing the same number of men, but one is engaged in virgin-timber operations and the other is not, the one engaged in virgin-timber operations will produce much more lumber per man than the mill engaged in cutting old-field pine and loblolly pine and other inferior quality pine.

Mr. REYNOLDS. In that connection I may say that the man who is lumbering the virgin timber has prQbably paid less for timber rights than the other.

Mr. OVERTON. No; he can afford to pay a great deal more than the one who is engaged in operating on lumber of an inferior quality. I was about to ask the Senator whether the board would have authority to make a distinction in the wage scale between two operators so situated.

Mr. BLACK Personally I should not be in favor of the board having power to authorize any lumber mill to continue to pay as little as 10 cents an hour for 12 or 13 hours a day. I do not believe such employment is conducive to the best interests of any part of the Nation. I think it is a practice which is indefensible. I do not believe our civilization requires any such sacrifice on the part of any large percentage of our people. So far as I am concerned, I do not welcome any such hours of work and low wage, even if someone should say they were necessary in order to continue a business, because I do not believe in any business which is dependent upon any such hours and wages.

Mr. OVERTON. But that is not the question I propounded to the Senator. I am not here to defend a wage of 10 cents an hour. I merely wish to know whether, under this bill, if enacted, the board will have authority to provide a different wage scale as between, we will say by way of illustration, a lumber company that is operating an inferior kind of timber in connection with which the cost of production is much greater than that of a lumber company that is operating in virgin timber and whose cost of operation is much less?

Mr. BLACK. I will say to the Senator that it is my judgment the Board would not have the power to fix one wage scale for one unit of industry and another wage scale for another unit of industry, because there are tens of thousands of such units, and the bill does not contemplate any such individual action with reference to individual business units.

Mr. OVERTON. That is the information I desired to obtain from the Senator.

Mr. HARRISON. Mr. President—

Mr. BLACK. I yield to the Senator from Mississippi.

Mr. HARRISON. The question of the Senator from Louisiana and the answer to it cause me to ask a question. The same rate, then must be fixed by the board for sawmills, say, or textile industries, even though one might be located in a very large center where the cost of living would be higher and another in a rural settlement where the cost of living might not be so high, even though both operated in the same State?

Mr. BLACK. No; I did not say anything by which I intended to leave such an impression. That is quite a different thing. What I said was that there could not be given to the board the power to pick out individual business units and to fix the wage for every individual business unit in America. That would be an impossible task.

Mr. GEORGE. Mr. President, right on that point, I desire to ask the Senator whether the board would not have the power to classify or to create a classification?

Mr. BLACK. The Senator is correct.

Mr. GEORGE. So that whatever order was put into effect as to wages and hours would apply to every one included in the classification?

Mr. BLACK. The Senator is correct.

Mr. GEORGE. That is my interpretation of the provision.

Mr. BLACK. That is the correct interpretation, but I was answering a question with reference to the individual business unit.

Mr. PEPPER. Mr. President, is not the authority particularly referred to by the Senator from Georgia found in clause (5) on page 64 of the bill, which reads:

And ( 5) suitable treatment of other cases or classes of cases which, because of the nature and character of the employment, justify special treatment.

Mr. BLACK. The Senator is correct. I do not assume that that would be construed as meaning the power to take up cases of individual business units throughout the Nation, but, as the Senator from Georgia so very aptly pointed out, it would give the power to create classifications along such lines as the business exigencies and necessities required in order to reach the desired result.

Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. BLACK. I yield to the Senator from North Carolina.

Mr. REYNOLDS. Am I to understand that the Senator would accept an amendment to exclude from the provisions of the bill any individual firm. association, or corporation employing, we will say, for instance, 10 or a less number of employees?

Mr. BLACK. I would have no authority to accept such an amendment, because the committee voted to report the bill in its present form.

Mr. REYNOLDS. Would the Senator look upon such an amendment with favor?

Mr. BLACK. I will simply state to the Senator that from the comments I have heard he would probably receive a great deal of support for such an amendment. Whether be would receive sufficient support to adopt such an amendment I cannot say.

Mr. REYNOLDS. I made mention of that initially for the reason that I had in mind a great number of small sawmills operating in North Carolina which employ fewer than 10 men.

Incidentally, in that connection, someone this morning made mention of the canning business and referred to farmers who, with a few employees, engaged in canning fruit which, in many instances, moves in interstate commerce, and, therefore, would be subject to the provisions of this bill. If an amendment were accepted to eliminate from the provisions of the bill those who employ 10 or fewer number, farming interests that were made mention of by someone this morning need have no fear about the operation of this bill.

Mr. BLACK. I may say to the Senator there is quite a difference in viewpoint as to whether or not that should be done. From an examination of the testimony before the committee it appears there was quite a difference of opinion as to the number of employees a company might have to entitle it to an exemption. Some thought there should be an exemption for those employing fewer than 15, some 10, some 8, some 5.

Mr. REYNOLDS. It is my understanding, in that connection, that there is no specific number of employees referred to in the bill.

Mr. BLACK. The Senator is correct. It is one of the strange paradoxes of the situation, if I may be allowed so to state, that those who first objected to the bill chiefly upon the ground that it did provide an exemption of the smaller companies, now object to the bill on other grounds. They originally stated that they would be destroyed by the bill chiefly on account of the fact that it exempted smaller groups. They have now found that they will be destroyed by the bill, anyway. It reminds me, if I may be permitted to read at this juncture, of a statement written a little over a hundred years ago by a very well-known writer. I am going to close; I would have finished about 2 hours ago, except I was asked questions. I am very happy that they have been asked, and I hope I have answered them. However, about a hundred years ago there was a considerable controversy in England about wages and hours. A great controversy arose over whether or not children of 8 years of age should be permitted to work for 15 hours a day, and whether or not women

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should work 15 hours a day. There were those who said that if the hours of labor were reduced below 15 it would destroy English business; it was said it would reduce England's production; that it would make England poor. So they had qUite a fight over it. The first fight was about 1833. It came up again in 1845, and Lord Mccaulay made a very excellent speech on it at that time calling attention to the arguments which had previously been made. A historian writing about the movement in England to reduce the hours of labor from 15 to 12 or from 12 to 10 for children working in factories, said:

This movement enjoyed the sympathy of all men except the manufacturers and the political economists of the day. • • •

At each further curtallment of the workingday, the latter demonstrated in the most positive manner that the proposed new limitation could not fail to rob them of all possible profit, to raise the price of goods, to lower wages, and to ruin the export trade.

Senators may have had such sentiments expressed in their mail.

Let me read next a quotation from Charles Dickens. He said:

Surely there never was sueh fragile chinaware as that of which the millers of Coketown were made. Handle them never so lightly and they fell to pieees with such ease that you might suspect them of having been tlawed before. They were ruined when they were required to send laboring children to school; they were ruined when inspectors were appointed to look into their works; they were ruined when such inspectors considered it doubtful whether they were quite justified in chopping people up with their machinery; they were utterly undone when it was hinted that perhaps they need not always make quite so much smoke. Whenever a Coketowner felt he was ill-used—that is to say, whenever he was not left entirely alone, and it was proposed to hold him accountable for the consequences of any of his acts—he was sure to come out with the awful menace that he would "sooner pitch his property into the Atlantic." This had terrified the Home Secretary within an inch of his life on several occasions. However, the Coketowners were so patriotic, after all, that they never had pitched their property into the Atlantic yet, but, on the contrary, had been kind enough to take mighty good care of it. So there it was in the haze yonder, and lt increased and multiplied.

I call attention of the Senate to that in view of the numerous epistles we have received to the effect that business will close up the day this bill is passed and will cease to function.

Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. President, may I remind the Senator that ultraconservative statesmen in 1837, 100 years ago, were just as fearful of the future as some of us are today?

Mr. BLACK. The Senator is correct.

Mr. REYNOLDS. So times have not changed much after all.

Mr. BLACK. No. Time marches on. [Laughter.]

Mr. REYNOLDS. Yes. Time marches on.

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, I had intended to discuss some of the other details of the bill, but I assume that Senators have asked me the questions about the particular phases of the bill in which they are interested. So, if there are no further questions, I surrender the floor.

Mr. JOHNSON of Colorado. Mr. President, I have listened with a great deal of interest to the splendid presentation or explanation by the able Senator from Alabama [Mr. BLACK] of his bill concerning wages and hours of labor and child labor. In this connection it has been quite significant that almost nothing has been said of one phase of the bill, and that is the portion of it dealing with and concerning child labor. Not a single question has been asked upon this subject by any Senator. That does not indicate, however, by any means, Mr. President, that child labor is not an important subject, that it is not of deep concern to our country, but, rather, it indicates that this phase of the bill has been entirely submerged because of the importance and the interest of the other phases of the bill. I, therefore, wish to make a motion to strike from the bill—

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair will remind the Senator from Colorado that there is pending before the Senate an amendment offered by the Senator from Oregon [Mr. McNARYJ.

Mr. JOHNSON of Colorado. I propose to offer an amendment to the amendment.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment of the Senator from Oregon is an amendment to the committee amendment.

LXXXI--484.

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, if the Senator from Colorado will yield, I may state that the Senator from Oregon has offered an amendment to another phase of the bill, and, as stated by the Chair, the amendment of the Senator from Colorado will not be in order until after the amendment of the Senator from Oregon shall have been disposed of. I shall be glad to have the matter come up at any time which will be satisfactory to the Senator, but it cannot come up until after the other amendment shall have been disposed of.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is no reason why the Senator from Colorado should not proceed with his remarks.

Mr. JOHNSON of Colorado. I shall proceed with what I have to say on the subject.

Mr. JOHNSON of California. Mr. President, I should be very pleased to hear the remarks the Senator from Colorado desires to submit with relation to what it is he is desirous of accomplishing. Whether it be in order at the particular time or not I do not assert, but it may be in order at some time and I would prefer to have the Senator from Colorado elucidate his particular desire at this time.

Mr. VANDENBERG. Mr. President, a parliamentary inquiry.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator will state it.

Mr. VANDENBERG. My understanding is the Senator from Oregon submitted an amendment and that it is on the table but is not pending, in which event the amendment of the Senator from Colorado would be in order.

Mr. McNARY. Mr. President, the Senator from Michigan has stated the parliamentary situation correctly. It is the usual practice, however, to consider committee amendments first.

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, the committee has offered one amendment in the nature of a substitute for the entire bill, and therefore there will be no series of committee amendments. The amendment of the Senator from Oregon would be appropriate to be offered to the amendment of the committee in the nature of a substitute.

Mr. McNARY. I am willing to offer my amendment in order that we may have one pending.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair understands the Senator from Oregon has already offered an amendment to the committee amendment.

Mr. McNARY. No, Mr. President; I did not offer it. I said I would do so at an appropriate time, and I am willing to do so now if this be an appropriate time.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair understood the Senator had offered the amendment to the committee amendment.

Mr. JOHNSON of Colorado. Mr. President, I wish to submit an amendment to the committee amendment. Is that in order at this time?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Oregon withdraw his amendment?

Mr. McNARY. I do not offer it at this time in view of the statement of the Senator from Colorado. I withhold my amendment so that he may proceed.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado will proceed.

Mr. JOHNSON of Colorado. Mr. President, I move to strike from the Pending bill every word, phrase, part of sentence or sentence, part of paragraph or paragraph, part of section or section, refering to child labor. If the amendment should prevail it is my expectation to submit a motion that Senate bill 2226, known as the Wheeler-Johnson bill, shall be made a special order to come before the Senate for consideration.

Mr. President, no subject is more endowed with national interest than the welfare of the Nation's children. The Nation's future existence, the intelligent use of its resources, the role it will play in world affairs, depend upon its children—upon whether they are physically fit, whether they are trained in self-control, in holding a proper respect for the rights of others, and in understanding their own rights and their own duties and responsibilities as citizens.

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Such fundamentally important characteristics are not promoted by submitting their undeveloped bodies to working for long hours at the factory bench or at the machine, or in the sweatshop. England learned a hundred years ago that sending young children into the mines and factories to work for long hours was undermining the English race.

Nevertheless, the child-labor problem in America is a growing one. The depression brought about a general break-down of labor standards, particularly child-labor standards, resulting in the revival of the sweatshop, in long hours of work, and in low wages for child workers. N. R. A. set up a general 16-year minimum age for full-time employment in industry and trade, effective throughout the entire country. This met with the widespread approval of employers, employees, and the public alike, and during the time the codes were in effect, the employment of children under 16 in these occupations was practically eliminated. After N. R. A. was declared unconstitutional there was an immediate increase in child labor, which has since continued to grow. In the last 7 months of 1935, the number of children leaving school for work was 53 percent greater than during the whole 12 months of 1934. During the first 5 months of 1936, the number of 14- and 15-year-old children certified for work increased 150 percent over the corresponding 5 months of 1935 when the codes were in effect.

Early in this year, the President, in a letter to the Governors of certain States, made this significant observation:

It is clearly inclicated that child labor, especially in the lowpaid unstandardized types of work, is increasing. I am convinced that Nation-wide minimum standards are necessary and that a way should be found promptly to crystallize in legal safeguards public opinion in beha.l1 of the elimination of child labor.

The President has spoken well and timely. It should be remembered that the States now have full power and authority to deal with child labor within their own boundaries.

However, they cannot protect themselves against child-labor competition from outside of their boundaries. Only Congress can do that. In order to be rid of child labor. in America, then, there must be action by the States and by the Congress. The States have been continually addressing themselves to this worthy objective, but Congress has done very little with it since its Child Labor Act of 1919 was declared unconstitutional. The burden is now upon us to move forward. Shall we accept.the challenge? There must not be a no man's land in America in child-labor regulation.

Child-labor legislation can very well be separated into two distinct classifications: Child labor engaged in the production of goods that find their way into interstate commerce is presumed to be subject to the regulation of the Congress under its constitutional powers to regulate commerce; all other child labor with all other results and for all other purposes is subject to the police powers of the respective States and under the Constitution is the sole responsibility of the States.

Generally speaking, 75 percent of child labor—not including child labor in agriculture—comes under this second classification and is permitted to exist in whatever degree it does exist by the States, leaving only 25 percent subject to regulation by Congress.

The interest of so many Senators in child-labor legislation in this session is most gratifying. The Supreme Court has pointed the way to a new approach to this problem in the decisions approving the regulation of prison-made goods. On January 6, the Senator from Washington [Mr. SCHWELLENBACH] introduced S. 26, to divest goods, wares, merchandise, products, and commodities of their interstate character in certain cases, which was referred to the Commtitee on Education and Labor. On January 11, the Senator from Missouri [Mr. CLARK] introduced S. 592, for the same purpose, and it also was referred to the Committee on Education and Labor; but on May 11, at the request of the Senator from Missouri, it was referred to the Committee on Interstate Commerce. On January 12, the Senator from Kansas [Mr. CAPPER] introduced his child-labor bill (S. 668), which was referred to the Judiciary Committee. On March 24, the Senator from Montana [Mr. WHEELER] introduced S. 1976, which was referred to the Committee on Interstate Commerce. On March 29, he introduced an amendment in the nature of a substitute to this bill. On March 29, I had the honor to introduce S. 2068, which was referred to the Committee on Interstate Commerce. On April 19, the Wheeler and Johnson bills were consolidated into Senate bill 2226. On May 6, the Senator from Kentucky [Mr. BARKLEY] introduced Senate bill 2345, a bill similar to my original bill. On May 13, the Senator from Alabama [Mr. BLACK] introduced Senate bill 2454 almost in the identical form of the Johnson and Barkley bills. On May 24, after the Interstate Commerce Committee had held extensive hearings, considered, amended, and submitted the Wheeler-Johnson bill, the Senator from Alabama [Mr. BLACK] introduced Senate bill 2475, to provide for the establishment of fair labor standards in employments in and affecting interstate commerce, including a child-labor rider, which was referred to the Committee on Education and Labor. Rather extended hearings have been held by that committee, and their report is now before you, and the Black bill is up for your consideration.

Many of the States have assumed their full responsibility, and have enacted legislation regulating, curtailing, and prohibiting child labor. Every State now has a child-labor law. As would be expected, these State laws are not uniform, nor are they, in a majority of States, at all adequate. There is wide variation between States in standards and in the occupations covered. Agriculture and domestic service are, as a rule, excepted from regulation.

In 33 States the minimum-age standard is 14 years, and in 4 States 15 years, but in a number of these States exemptions of various kinds cut under the minimum age specified. Ten States have a basic minimum-age standard of 16 years which applies to factory and related employment and to all work during school hours. One of these 10 States extends this minimum-age standard to all industrial and commercial employment at any time, but the remaining 9 States have exemptions permitting nonfactory work outside school hours, usually at 14 years.

Most States have recognized the need for protecting young workers from employment which is dangerous to life or limb or injurious to health or morals. The laws of 43 States establish a higher minimum age for hazardous work than is fixed for general employment. These provisions of the State laws are very uneven, some States prohibiting employment in a comprehensive list of hazardous occupations, while others specify only a few. Seventeen States have substantial prohibitions extending up to 18 years, 1 State to 17 years, and 25 to 16 years of age.

The maximum work week established for minors under 16 years of age varies from 40 to 60 hours. Two States have a 40-hour week for minors under 16 years, and in one other all industrial and commercial employment is barred under 16 years. Six States have a 44-hour week, and 32 a 48-hour week. In the remaining States the maximum weekly hours' limitation for minors under 16 years is still 54 hours or longer. Forty-six of the 48 States prohibit night work of minors under 16 years, the prohibited period covering from 7 to 14 night hours.

It is the opinion of many students of this problem that in order to have uniform laws and uniform standards, the police powers of the several States to regulate child labor should be surrendered to Congress; and, to bring this to pass, they favor either the ratification by eight more States of the original amendment to the Constitution submitted for that purpose 13 years ago, or, if that is out of the question, the submission by the Congress of a new amendment that the States will ratify. We have on the calendar at this time another proposed amendment to the Constitution reported by the Judiciary Commitee and sponsored by the senior Senator from Michigan [Mr. VANDENBERG], which it is hoped by some will overcome many of the objections that have caused the first amendment to fail of ratification.

Recent polls taken of the Senate have disclosed the fact that the Members of this body apparently are overwhelmingly

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in favor of the enactment of child-labor legislation at this session of the Congress. Two bills for this purpose are before you now.

Regarding the need of getting rid of child labor, there is no serious disagreement among the Members of the Senate; and if you will accept a clear-cut bill specifically designed to achieve such an objective, not involved with other highly controversial questions, it will, in my opinion, be promptly passed by Congress by an overwhelming vote.

The real question before the Senate is: Shall it consider the very important child-labor problem in a separate bill, such as the Wheeler-Johnson bill, well and carefully written; or shall it attach a child-labor measure as a rider to the very complex and deeply involved Black bill, which, according to some of the newspapers, has a very poor chance of receiving favorable consideration by the House. If childlabor legislation is defeated by this Congress, the responsibility for that defeat will rest upon Senators who stubbornly resist an honest effort to separate into two bills two distinctly different problems.

The Washington Herald on Tuesday, June 29, carried this interview with Mrs. Roosevelt:

To a remark that prospects for child-labor legislation were brightening, she stated: "I don't much care how we get rid of child labor just so we do."

It seems to me that Mrs. Roosevelt has given the Senate the right cue for settling the controversy that is before us. If the Black bill has a chance to pass, and if child labor can better be eliminated by it, then the child-labor rider in it should be retained. If, however, we can get rid of child labor better by a separate measure solely devoted to its elimination and regulation, then the Wheeler-Johnson bill should prevail, and the child-labor provisions, which form only a minor part of the Black bill, should be eliminated from that ambitious measure.

President Roosevelt, in his address before a joint session of the two Houses of Congress on January 6, 1937, made this statement, which is especially pertinent at this time:

Sober second thought confirms most of us in the belief that the broad objectives of the National Recovery Act were sound. We know now that its difficulties arose from the fact that it tried to do too much. For example, it was unwise to expect the same agency to regulate the length of working hours, minimum wages, child labor, and collective bargaining.

If it was unwise to expect one agency to regulate the length of working hours and ininimum wages and child labor under the National Recovery Act, then for the same good reason it is not logical to lump them all together in the Black bill, making the same fatal mistake over again.

As a matter of fact, child-labor regulation is an important subject of legislation in itself. It has received much consideration by the Congress, by the courts, and by the several States. It is neither fair to the courts nor to the States to tie it up with fair labor standards legislation on wages and hours, espionage, and strike breaking.

I may say that the original Black bill had two other phases besides the three phases we are considering today. It dealt with the regulation of strike breaking, for instance, and a part of it dealt with espionage. Some of the witnesses before the Committee on Education and Labor recommended to the committee that they take out of the bill the features of the bill dealing with espionage, strike breaking, and child labor. The committee very wisely, it seems to me, acted upon that advice insofar as espionage and strike breaking were concerned, but they failed to follow that very good advice in separating the child-labor features from this wage and hour bill.

Donald R. Richberg, who had great responsibility in the administration of the N. R. A., in his testimony before the joint committee on the Black bill, had this to say:

N. R. A. showed graphically the danger of overloading an administrative body with too many tasks of great complexity and vesting 1t with too much discretion in their performance.

I have studied the Black bill thoughtfully, and I have carefully read all of the testimony given in the extended hearings upon that bill In my humble opinion the measure's objecives are sound and desirable; and, while the bill is shrewdly drawn, it has some serious weaknesses, most of which the committee has attempted to correct. If there ever was a bill that needed to be checked and double-checked, if there ever was a bill that needed to be gone over with a fine-toothed comb, it was the original Black bill. When this bill has been amended by the adoption of the committee's report in accordance with the suggestions made at the hearings, I expect to support it; and it is not now my desire. in my efforts to separate the child-labor rider from it, to emasculate or weaken it in any respect. It is my desire to be constructive and helpful to the whole cause of labor in the changes which I seek.

However, I greatly fear that the Committee on Education and Labor is not sufficiently impressed with the staggering administrative job confronting the board created by the Black bill with reference to minimum wages and maximum hours, a job that it is estimated will require 100,000 persons to administer. The so-called "oppressive child labor" practices should go to the Children's Bureau. experience having proved that they can be dealt with most efficiently by this splendid and experienced agency. It is unjust to exploited children to insist that their regulation shall be provided for in an omnibus measure that is headed straight for a prolonged controversy, not only in Congress but before the courts as well.

Under the Black bill, child-labor regulation is placed in the hands of a quasijudicial board and the Children's Bureau, to act with divided authority, which is most unfortunate. It is generally conceded that the Black bill must travel an almost uncharted course so far as the courts and public opinion are concerned. It faces many difficulties and court hazards that child-labor regulation does not now have. It undertakes a new approach to the solution of an old problem, and it is not fair to let such an experiment ride upon the backs of exploited children.

The broad and extended delegation of power to a new bureau under the Black bill looms large as a most formidable constitutional hurdle. The whole measure is based upon the theory of arbitrary rule by men, and most completely circumvents the democratic theory of rule by law. Such theories have always been difficult to fit into the Constitution of this American democracy.

Under the committee's substitute for the child-labor provisions, the Chief of the Children's Bureau alone determines whether or not the products of child labor shall be denied the privilege of interstate commerce. I want Senators to get this, for it is important. Under the committee's substitute, she has a right to permit child labor in Texas and rule it out in New York, or to sanction it in a Ford factory and stop it in a General Motors factory. Under the committee's substitute the Chief of the Children's Bureau becomes without restraint the dictator over child-labor products in interstate commerce. I wonder if the courts will hold such delegation of power constitutional. I do not say that the present Chief of the Children's Bureau, Miss Katherine Lenroot, will abuse that power, because I have great admiration for and implicit confidence in this able and distinguished woman, but I do say $at Congress has no constitutional right to delegate its legislative powers to any person. Ours is presumed to be a Government by laws enacted by Congress and not a Government of persons empowered by Congress to not only enforce laws but to enact them as well.

The committee substitute bill provides for Federal payment of State and local agencies, officers, and employees, notwithstanding any other provisions of law. That is a startling, new, and unique use for Federal funds. Man cannot serve two masters, but local officers, agencies, and employees are to become the hirelings of the Federal Government and are to be tempted by Federal cash. How will the States like that?

Again, on page 65 of the committee substitute, we find this very drastic proviso:

It shall be unlawful for any person directly or indirectly to employ any employee 1n violation of any term or provision of an order of the board made under this section.

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This section deals with goods that are not actually in interstate commerce, so I say this is very drastic power that is delegated to a board by this bill.

Why should the Congress inject the regulation of child labor, which is relatively simple, into all the complexities and uncertainties of the wage and hour bill? Is it possible that child labor has been added to this wage and hour bill to obtain public sympathy for a program over which there is great di1Ierence of opinion and controversy, and to which there is no small amount of opposition? If that be the purpose, then I say with all the force at my command that it is not fair to pillory the elimination of child labor in such a cause or to sacrifice the determination by America to be rid of child labor for such an objective. Let each proposal stand on its own feet. Child labor does not belong in a wages and hours bill.

The original Black bill does contain some glaring inconsistencies which are not in line with the objectives of this administration. I feel certain that the Senator from Alabama did not write the original Black bill. In fact, I doubt whether any Member of this body had even read it before it was introduced and sent to a Senate committee. According to rather widespread rumors, the original Black bill, Senate bill 2475, is the production of a legislative canning factory that specializes in canned legislation and still employs childish labor in its awful "brain trust" productions. The Congress, the courts, and the country are sick and tired of that kind of foolishness. I shall point out just a few of the queer things in the original Black bill as an illustration. It sets up a quasijudicial board consisting of five members, with the peculiar provision that two of its members shall constitute a quorum. Boards are seldom harmonious; factions and di1Ierences naturally occur. Under this most unusual quorum provision the ridiculous situation will doubtless arise wherein two meetings of this board, each legally constituted, will be held simultaneously, and our two good horses will be pulling each other all over the field to be plowed.

Other parts of this bill are equally strange. Under the provisions of the bill, oranges from a Florida orchard could not enter interstate commerce if a boy under 16 years of age had anything to do with their production. Butter and cheese from Wisconsin would be barred from interstate commerce if a child under 16 years of age had milked the cow or had driven the dairy herd to pasture. Flour manufactured from Kansas wheat and cornmeal from Iowa com must remain in those States because boys and girls under 16 years of age had a part in their production, and these commodities so vital to our existence become unfair goods because they were produced in part by so-called oppressive child labor, and therefore cannot enter the flow of interstate commerce.

Another provision of the original Black bill which is really startling makes all foreign goods subject to all of the restrictions placed upon domestic commerce, and while I personally am enthusiastically in favor of such a foreign policy, I fear that the distinguished secretary of State, Mr. Hull, will not subscribe to it. This provision will upset every reciprocal trade agreement in the land. It is claimed that the Black bill is an administrative measure; I cannot believe it because, as I understand it, the administration is pledged to a policy of foreign importations regardless of the labor conditions used in the production of foreign-made goods.

There is a general opinion out over the country, and often spoken of by the Members of the Senate, that the major difficulty in recent years in having the acts of Congress upheld by the Supreme Court has resulted from the practice of having inexperienced persons, not familiar with the country's needs and who are not Members of Congress, draft our bills. After a careful study of the original Black bill I, too, must frown upon such careless, dangerous, and subservient practices.

There are two bills before us at this time. One represents the efforts and study of the Committee on Interstate Commerce, the other is a child-labor rider on the wages and hours bill. Our course should be clear.

I say it is a rider. I looked through the bill very carefully. I thought they had perhaps left out the child-labor provision. When I reached almost the last page of the bill, under the title of "Penalties" I found the child-labor provision. The child-labor provision that was under "Penalties" had nothing to do with penalties, yet it was inserted there as a rider.

The President in his letter to the Senator from Kentucky [Mr. BARKLEY] on Thursday a week ago said:

On the Congress of the United States falls the primary responsibillty for the adoption of methods. On the President falls the responsibility of recommending objectives.

The President has asked for child-labor legislation as a proper objective. The method will be left entirely to us, as it should be.

The Wheeler-Johnson bill, which I earnestly hope the Senate will choose as the bill to be enacted, has been drawn with a carefUl consideration of three important Supreme Court decisions: Hammer against Dagenhart, Kentucky Whip & Collar Co. against illinois Central Railroad, and Whitfield against Ohio. It has been drawn with the firm conviction that there should not be a "no man's land" in child-labor legislation between the police powers exercised by the States and the authority over commerce that is manifestly vested in the Federal Government. The Hammer against Dagenhart decision of nearly 20 years ago is squarely challenged in the pending bill, as it should be. If that decision can be overcome, child-labor legislation immediately becomes a very simple proposition.

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. Mr. President, I do not wish to interrupt the Senator if he does not want to be interrupted, but I should like to have him yield for a moment.

Mr. JOHNSON of Colorado. I yield.

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. I should like to ask whether in the Senator's bill he has proceeded upon the basis of an assumption that the Whitfield case overruled the case of Hammer against Dagenhart, or on the assumption that it did not overrule it, and that the rule in Hammer against Dagenhart is still in existence.

Mr. JOHNSON of Colorado. I will reach that point in a very few minutes. We challenge the Hammer against Dagenhart decision in a separate section of our bill. We set out a provision separately as a challenge to that decision. If that part of our bill is upheld, as we believe it will be upheld, then the Wheeler-Johnson bill becomes a very simple measure. If it is not accepted by the Court, then we have something in our bill which undoubtedly they will accept.

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. In other words, the Senator goes upon the assumption that the Supreme Court now will overrule the decision in Hammer against Dagenhart, and if they do not, then the Senator proceeds upon the basis of the decision in Whitfield against Ohio, and other cases?

Mr. JOHNSON of Colorado. That is correct.

Mr. WHEELER. Mr; President, will the Senator from Colorado yield?

Mr. JOHNSON of Colorado. I yield.

Mr. WHEELER. In further answer to the Senator from Washington, we took the position that the old law was flying in the face of the decisions of the Supreme Court. We drafted the bill so as to try so far as possible to get around some of the objections laid down by the Supreme Court in the original child-labor case, Hammer against Dagenhart. Then we drafted a provision so that if they did hold the first provision unconstitutional, the bill would come under the decision in the so-called prison-made-goods case.

In my judgment, and in the judgment of many others who have given a great deal of time and a great deal of thought to the child-labor movement, and to an effort to eliminate child labor, including some very eminent liberals in this country, either one or both of the provisions would for all practical purposes put an end to child labor.

If I may be permitted further, our bill would prevent the shipment of goods made by child labor into a State such as New York, which is a large user and consumer of goods, or into the State of Pennsylvania, or into the State of Massachusetts, where the goods happened to be made in some State where there was no provision equivalent to that of the law of the State of Massachusetts or of Pennsylvania or of New York. After all, it is the large industrial States which are large consumers of prison-made goods, and likewise they are

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the ones which generally have the best laws with reference to prison-made goods.

In addition to that, we sought to include, and feel that we did include, a provision, which was very carefully drafted, to prevent goods being shipped out of New York, as is being done at the present time, and processed by child labor in some other State and brought back into New York for the purpose of evading the State law.

I feel a good deal as the Senator from Colorado feels, that the pending bill is flying directly in the face of the Supreme Court decision in Hammer against Dagenhart, and also flying in the face of the Supreme Court, in my judgment, with reference to the question of whether or not the Congress can properly delegate the power attempted to be delegated to the Children's Bureau to say what is oppressive child labor in one particular case and what is not oppressive child labor in some other case.

If I may further interrupt the Senator, I wish to say that I appreciate the fact that at the moment I introduced a Child-labor bill, because of the particular stand I had taken on the Court bill, immediately the Department got busy and sent down a bill of its own. Representatives of the Department came before the Committee on Interstate Commerce and actually said they did not want any child-labor bill at all enacted, that they did not want any child-labor legislation passed, and they did not want it because they felt It would defeat the proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Of course, that is a perfectly ridiculous statement for them to have made, and a perfectly ridiculous position for them to have taken. But they made the record, and the statement stands in the records of the Committee on Interstate Commerce and in the testimony before that committee.

Mr. BARKLEY. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. WHEELER. I yield.

Mr. BARKLEY. I think that in fairness it ought to be said that actually the position of the Department was that if legislation, either of the prison-made-goods type or the type of legislation which had previously been enacted and had been nullified by the Supreme Court, would retard the ratification of the child-labor amendment they preferred not to have legislation. They did not make the fiat statement that they did not want any legislation, but they did not want anything that would interfere with the ratification of the child-labor amendment, or would hold out a false hope that it was not any longer necessary to urge the ratification of the amendment.

Mr. WHEELER. I have not the testimony before me, but I think the Senator will find in the record that they not only came here themselves, but they sent out telegrams to a large number of people to come before the committee and testify against both the bill of the Senator from Colorado, which was drafted in conjunction with Mr. Edward Keating, the publisher of Labor, who originally in the other House introduced and had passed the child-labor law, and the other proposal, and they were opposed to a combination of all, because they said they felt it would stop the amendment to the Constitution.

What I have in mind is that I want to put an end to child labor in this country. I have been in favor of stopping child labor, and I worked in my own State when I was in the legislature, in 1910, to that end, and I have been constantly in favor of such legislation. I took that position from a practical standpoint, because of my experiences when I was in the State of Massachusetts, working for a producer of textile machinery. They were selling a great deal of textile machinery in the Southern States, and when I was there working for that firm I came in contact with correspondence from chambers of commerce and others in the South urging this manufacturing firm to come into the South and set up factories in some of the Southern States, saying, You can come down here and exploit cheap white labor.

As the result of that, many manufacturers moved down there for that purpose. I felt that we ought to have a national child-labor law and we ought to have a national law affecting wages and hours of labor; and if the manufacturing interests of the country want to compete, let them compete on the basis of such laws. First, we should fix a minimun wage and maximum hours and provide that standards of labor and hours of labor must be virtually the same throughout the country, and the manufacturers can compete in the matter of efficiency from that point on.

Mr. President, I submit that a careful reading of the child-labor provisions of the pending bill shows that they are not going to do the work. The provisions may be declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States on the ground of unwarranted delegation of power or because the proposed legislation is flying straight in the face of the Supreme Court's decision in the case of Hammer against Dagenhart.

I thank the Senator from Colorado [Mr. JoHNSON] for permitting me to interrupt him. I apologize to him for having taken so much of his time. However, I did desire to make that statement at this time.

Mr. BARKLEY. Mr. President, will the Senator yield to me for a moment?

Mr. JOHNSON of Colorado. I yield.

Mr. BARKLEY. I am sure the Senator from Montana would not intentionally make an inaccurate statement with respect to the testimony before the Interstate Commerce Committee. Inasmuch as he referred to Mr. Edward Keating, who has probably been interested in child-labor legislation longer than any of us, it may be well to state just what he said at the time.

I introduced one of the bills that was under consideration by the committee. Numerous bills had been introduced. Finally a bill was introduced jointly by the Senator from Montana [Mr. WHEELER] and the Senator from Colorado [Mr. JOHNSON] which incorporated the principles of the previous act of Congress which had been declared unconstitutional, which was the sole basis of the first bill introduced by the Senator from Colorado, but which was later combined with and became known as the Wheeler-Johnson bill, carrying out almost identically the original act of Congress of 1916, and also incorporating the prison-made goods idea. It was a double-barreled bill. It was on all these measures that we held hearings.

In his testimony before the committee Mr. Keating started out by quoting from a speech I made in 1916 in the House of Representatives in behalf of the bill then known as the Keating bill. I asked him the specific question whether he thought the enactment now of legislation of either type or both types would retard the ratification of the child-labor amendment. I frankly stated that, so far as I was concerned, I should prefer not to have any legislation on the subject now if it would make it impossible to ratify the child-labor amendment, which had been ratified by 28 States, and lacked ratification by only 8 more States. My recollection is that Mr. Keating most emphatically stated, in reply to a question from me, that he took the same position, and that if he thought the enactment now of either bill would retard the ratification of the child-labor amendment, he would oppose both of them.

Mr. WHEELER. Mr. President, I have his statement right in front of me. I shall read it. It was the position not only of Mr. Keating but of anyone who had any sense at all that they would not urge the passage of any legislation which would retard the ratification of the child-labor amendment.

In answer to the question, Mr. Keating said quite frankly:

Mr. Chairman, 1f I imagined that the passage of this legislation would in any serious measure interfere with the ratification of the child-labor amendment, my advice to this committee would be to toss the legislation out of the window, because, as I stated 1n the beginning, I fully agree with Senator BARKLEY that the problem of protecting the American child is not a State matter exclusively.

That, of course, was not only the position of the Senator from Colorado and my position, but, as I understood, it was the position of the Senator from Kentucky [Mr. BARKLEY]. The position of those who came down here at the instigation ·of the Labor Department, however, was that they did not want any child-labor legislation passed because they said

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that in their opinion ft would delay the amendment of the Constitution.

Mr. BARKLEY. That was not the language. I think their position was very much similar to that taken by all of us. What the Department feared was that a false sense of security would be injected into the situation if legislation were enacted now. While I do not want to go into that proposition, I did not want any misapprehension as to the attitude of those who came before the committee.

Mr. SGHWELLENBACH. Mr. President, will the Senator from Colorado yield?

Mr. JOHNSON of Colorado. I yield.

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. In view of the fact that the Senator from Montana felt that it was because of his attitude upon other legislation that this position was taken by the Department of Labor, I think I should include a statement in the RECORD.

Last year, very shortly after the opinion was handed down by the Supreme Court in the case of Whitfield against Ohio, which, as I remember, was on April 4 of last year, I introduced a bill dealing with prison-made goods on the same basis as previous legislation dealing with child labor. That was before the Court measure was submitted. Then I introduced a similar bill this year, immediately after Congress convened, which was also before any proposed Court legislation came up. The attitude of the Department of Labor toward my bill was precisely that described by the Senator from Montana as having been the attitude toward his bill. There certainly was not any motive upon the part of the Department of Labor of being unfriendly to me because of my attitude on the Court legislation, because it was prior to the time that the Court bill was proposed. I may say that they had the same attitude last year toward me and my bill that they had toward the Senator and his bill.

Mr. WHEELER. I thank the Senator very much. If I misstated, I withdraw the statement.

Mr. WHEELER subsequently said: Mr. President, I wish to say to the Senator from Kentucky [Mr. BARKLEY] that I desire to correct a statement which I made a moment ago. I said that representatives of the Department of Labor had made the statement that the Department was afraid that the passage of a child-labor bill would defeat a constitutional amendment on the same subject. I have read the testimony since then, and find no statement of that kind by representatives of the Department. I found in the record a statement by someone else to that effect, and I confused the testimony. In fairness to the Department, I wish to correct what I said.

Mr. JOHNSON of Colorado. Mr. President, I appreciate the contribution of the Senators who have spoken.

Senators will recall that in Hammer against Dagenhart, the Supreme Court held by a 5-to-4 decision that the Child Labor Act of 1916 was not a regulation of interstate commerce, although it was admitted that the Constitution, giving Congress the right to regulate commerce among the several States, included the right to prohibit certain products from interstate commerce entirely. In fact, the Court had so held in a number of previous cases. Thus, the Lottery Act of 1895 had prohibited the interstate shipment of lottery tickets. The pure-food law of 1906 prohibited the interstate transportation of adulterated foods. The Webb-Kenyon Act of 1913 proluoited the interstate shipment of liquor in violation of any State law. More recently, Congress has prohibited the interstate transportation of diseased plants, stolen automobiles, and kidnaped persons. All these acts have been held constitutional. Section 6 of the Sherman anti-trust law of 1890 prohibits the interstate transportation of trust-made goods. This was held valid in the American Tobacco Co. case in 1911.

Why there should be a difference between trust-made goods and child-made goods, so that Congress may regulate one and not the other has never been pointed out. The commodities clause of the Interstate Commerce Act makes it unlawful for a railroad to transport in interstate commerce any commodities in which it has an interest, direct or indirect. This was held constitutional in 1918 in a case involving coal. It was held legal to prohibit the transportation of coal because a railroad was involved in mining it. Had children been used to mine the coal, is it logical that Congress could not prohibit its transportation for that reason?

Also, since 1894 there has been a Federal act prohibiting the importation of convict-made goods. The Court within the past 2 years has upheld both State and Federal legislation prohibiting interstate commerce in prison-made goods, saying that such legislation proceeded upon the view that free labor, properly compensated, cannot compete successfully with the enforced and unpaid or underpaid convict labor of the prison. Is not the same thing true of child labor? Since the competition of convict labor with free labor is a proper matter for the concern of Congress, most certainly the competition of child labor with the labor of adults with families to support should also be the concern of Congress.

If, for the sake of argument, we consider the rule laid down by the Court in the first Child Labor case as sound and accept the distinction between the prohibiting the transportation of goods which are harmful and those which are not harmful, still the decision in the case that child-made goods are not harmless in themselves was all wrong.

States cannot maintain high child-labor standards if other States with lower standards are allowed to flood the market with cheap child-made goods. Progressive businessmen might well say, We deplore the use of child labor; we would favor a State law raising the age at which children shall be permitted to work; but we cannot do so as long as our neighboring States continue to use child labor, and ship their products into this State in competition with our goods.

Mr. WALSH. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. JOHNSON of Colorado. I yield.

Mr. WALSH. I have not been able to hear all the able argument being made by the Senator from Colorado. I know the Senator's extensive studies of this subject, and I am especially interested to know his view concerning what he thinks should be the age limit in connection with any child-labor legislation.

Mr. JOHNSON of Colorado. In the Wheeler-Johnson bill we have placed the same limit that is provided in the Black bill, the limit being 16 years except in the case of hazardous occupations. Those employed in such occupations shall not be under 18 years of age.

Mr. WALSH. I am pleased to know that the Senator entertains those views, because they are my own. I desire to add that in the so-called Walsh-Healey Act a provision was made to prevent those engaged in Government contract work from employing males under 16 and females under 18 years of age. That provision has developed a very unsatisfactory situation. The Labor Department has had considerable trouble in connection with it. The Labor Department has had to make exceptions in the case of females under 18 years of age. The situation exists in this country today, which we ought to face, that there are just as many females over 16 years of age who want employment as there are males, and we ought to try to equalize the age limit for both. I am pleased to know that the Senator is in accord with the suggestion that the age limit for both males and females should be 16 years.

Mr. JOHNSON of Colorado. I thank the Senator from Massachusetts for his contribution.

The Supreme Court, in 1936, and again in 1937, decided that the competition of prison labor with free labor brought about a harmful result which might be corrected by regulating commerce in prison-made goods. I submit that the Court bas thereby, in effect, overruled the Child Labor case, for the competition of child labor with the labor of the breadwinner in the family is identically the same problem. If one is valid, so is the other.

I cannot believe that the Supreme Court of the United States today would refuse to see what all the civilized world has long known. I believe that the Court today would agree that interstate commerce in child-made goods is at least as harmful as is interstate commerce in prison-made goods harmful to the members of industry trying to operate without child labor; harmful to States which are trying to maintain higher stanclards of labor; harmful to the future safety of

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the Nation, which tomorrow must depend upon the physical and mental competence of the children of today to protect its shores and govern its affairs.

In his decision in the Minimum Wage case the Chief Justice propounded a query, which I interpret to be a direct invitation for a new Child Labor Act. Chief Justice Hughes asked the question:

What can be closer to the public interest than the health of women and their protection from unscrupulous and overreaching employers?

The answer is written in the heart of every parent in the land. Only one thing is closer—the preservation of the health, the morals, and the general welfare of the children of America.

The Court has reversed itself in order to protect working women. I predict that, if given the opportunity, it will do as much for exploited children.

I therefore most earnestly believe that if given the opportunity, the Court, in the light of present-day knowledge of the effect of child labor upon the labor market and upon the physical and mental development of the race, would overrule its decision in the first Child Labor case and uphold the power of Congress to prohibit the facilities of interstate commerce to products made with child labor.

The President, in his message to Congress on May 24, urged that the Hammer-Dagenhart decision be challenged. He said:

A majority of the Supreme Court, however, decided 5 to 4 against Mr. Justice Holmes and laid down a rule of constitutional law which has ever since driven into impractical distinction and subterfuges all attempts to assert the fundamental power of the National Government over interstate commerce.

In the Wheeler-Johnson bill this unfortunate decision is squarely challenged. In the light of all the Supreme Court decisions of the past 20 years it is hardly conceivable that the majority opinion in the Hammer-Dagenhart case will continue to be sustained. But if section 4 of the Wheeler·Johnson bill, which squarely challenges that unfortunate decision and boldly adopts the principles of the invalidated Child Labor Act of 1916 and prohibits the shipment of the products of child labor in interstate commerce, is declared unconstitutional, all will by no means be lost. The separability clause of the act specifically singles out section 4 by number as an independent and separate approach to this problem. If section 4 is upheld, this bill will be very simple. If section 4 is not upheld, then the bill proceeds on other theories which, while more complicated and awkward as to administration, will without doubt be effective in eliminating child-labor goods seeking to move in interstate commerce.

This composite bill presents the consolidation in a single bill of several approaches to constitutionality, each unique in itself so that if one or more fails to receive the approval of the Court, the balance of the bill is still effective. It makes the laws of every State governing the sale of childlabor goods apply to such goods shipped in interstate commerce when they enter that State from the outside. It prohibits the transportation of child-labor goods into States which forbid their sale. It requires an informative label to be attached to child-labor goods when offered for transportation in interstate commerce.

That the Members of the Senate were much impressed by the Supreme Court decision rendered on January 4, 1937, in the case of Kentucky Whip & Collar Co. against Illinois Central Railroad Co. is evidenced by the immediate introduction of child-labor laws on the part of five Senators, working independently, and each adopting the theory and the language of the Ashurst-Sumners Act that was upheld by that opinion. To these Senators it pointed the way to a solution to the problem of child labor with which the Congress had for a long time concerned itself. The Whitfield against Ohio case, upholding the Hawes-Cooper Act that convict-made goods transported into any State shall upon arrival be subject to the operation and effect of the laws of such State as though such goods had been manufactured in such State, provided still another approach to the regulation of child·labor goods.

The Wheeler-Johnson bill represents in its provisions the efforts of Senators ScHWELLENBACH, CAPPER, CLARK, WHEELER, BARKLEY, BLACK, and JOHNSON, and the members of the Committee on Interstate Commerce who considered it. It is most decidedly the result of the thought and study of many Senators. That is the proper way to write laws. Furthermore, these men had the benefit of the constructive criticism and suggestions of the following outstanding citizens:

Miss Grace Abbott, professor of public welfare administration, University of Chicago.

John Brophy, director of the Committee for Industrial Organization.

Mrs. LaRue Brown, director, National League of Women Voters.

J. Wallace Bryan, attorney at law, representing the Bureau of Catholic Charities of Baltimore.

Henry Root Stern, attorney at law, New .York City.

John T. Corbett, assistant grand chief engineer and national legislative representative, Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers.

W. D. Johnson, vice president and national legislative representative, Order of Railway Conductors.

James A. Farquharson, national legislative representative, Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen.

William F. Montavon, director, legal department, National Catholic Welfare Conference.

James A. Emery, general counsel National Association of Manufacturers.

Alfred P. Thorn, Jr., assistant to the general counsel, Association of American Railroads.

E. L. Oliver, executive vice president of Labor's Nonpartisan League.

James Emory Brooks, civil engineer.

Frieda S. Miller, director of the division of women in industry and minimum wage, New York State department of Labor.

Edward Keating, editor of Labor, former Member of the House of Representatives from Colorado.

Dr. Oscar F. Blackwelder, pastor, Lutheran Church of the Reformation, Washington, D. C.

Manfred W. Ehrich, attorney at law, New York City.

Lee Merriweather, representing National Committee for the Protection of Child, Family, School, and Church, St. Louis.

Arthur J. Lovell, vice president and national legislative representative, Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen.

E. J. Manion, president, Order of Railroad Telegraphers.

Joseph D. Nunan, Jr., member of the Senate of the State of New York.

Miss Katharine Lenroot, Chief, Children's Bureau, Department of Labor.

Courtney Dinwiddie, general secretary, National Child Labor Committee.

William H. Davis, representing National Consumers' League.

Because the Wheeler-Johnson bill is a composite of all the child-labor bills introduced by seven Senators, there can be no individual pride of authorship. The Interstate Commerce Committee, considering this bill, held extended public hearings on the whole subject of child labor where everyone interested was given an opportunity to present testimony. Every constructive suggestion and every reasonable theory made at those hearings was incorporated in the amended form of this bill. It is only fair to ask that since the Interstate Commerce Committee, acting in good faith and by diligent and earnest labor, has worked out the bill's technical difficulties, the splendid measure which they have by their industry created be accepted as the proper child-labor bill to be passed at this time by the Senate. The decision is for the Senate to make.

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  Page 7671        CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE        July 27, 1937        (81 Cong. Rec. 7671, 1937)

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FAIR LABOR STANDARDS IN INTERSTATE COMMERCE

The Senate resumed the consideration of the bill (S. 2475) to provide for the establishment of fair-labor standards in employments in and affecting interstate commerce, and for other purposes.

Mr. BARKLEY. Mr. President, I desire to make a brief statement with reference to the pending measure.

In conformity with the desire of everybody, as I said yesterday, to finish the business of Congress at the earliest possible date consistent with the performance of our duty, it is desirable that we hold sessions as late as possible. It is now only 25 minutes after 4 o'clock, and there are amendments pending to the bill which we might dispose of. I see no reason why we should quit at this hour, with amendments pending which we might dispose of. I think, therefore, the Senate ought to remain in session at least until 5 o'clock in order to dispose of such amendments as are ready to be voted upon.

Mr. McNARY. Mr. President, the distinguished Senator from Michigan [Mr. VANDENBERG] desires to discuss the bill, and would like to start tomorrow. For that reason I suggested to the leader of the majority that the Senate probably would adjourn earlier today than normally it would adjourn. However, I am willing to comply with his request and offer the amendment that I suggested sometime ago, if it is now in order.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment is out of order. The amendment was offered by the Senator from Oregon this morning, and later withdrawn. The matter now before the Senate is the amendment of the Senator from Colorado [Mr. JOHNSON] to the committee amendment in the nature of a substitute.

Mr. McNARY. If the Senator from Colorado has formally offered his amendment, of course my amendment is not 1n order; but if he is not ready to offer his amendment now, I should be willing to go forward with the one I suggested earlier in the day.

Mr. BARKLEY. I suggest, then, that the Senator irom Colorado formally offer his amendment at this time, if he wishes to do so, and that the Senate take a vote on it.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment has already been offered.

Mr. BARKLEY. Then let us vote on it.

Mr. McNARY. Mr. President, may I be permitted to make an inquiry? Is the Senator from Colorado at this time prepared to go forward with the further discussion of his amendment?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado has already discussed his amendment.

Mr. McNARY. I appreciate that, of course, but there may be other Senators who desire to discuss the amendment. If so, and they are not prepared to do so now, I suggest that the Senator withdraw his amendment, and then I shall offer mine. I suggest that the Chair address the inquiry to the Senator from Colorado.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado has heard the inquiry. What is his reply?

Mr. JOHNSON of Colorado. Mr. President, so far as I am personally concerned, I have no further discussion of the pending amendment unless there are questions. I do not

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know whether or not the senior Senator from Montana [Mr. WHEELER] cares to discuss the amendment.

Mr. BARKLEY. I understood that the Senator from Colorado, having offered his amendment and having discussed it, was willing that the Senate vote on it without further discussion unless some other Senator wanted to discuss it.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. If there is no further discussion, the question is on agreeing to the amendment offered by the Senator from Colorado to the amendment in the nature of a substitute.

Mr. WHEELER. Mr. President, I did want to discuss the amendment for a short time, but I did not know it was to be brought up at this time. I was called at my office and told that the amendment was coming up. I did not intend to discuss the amendment for more than a very short time; but I should prefer to do so tomorrow, if the matter could be put over until tomorrow.

Mr. McNARY. Mr. President, I can meet that situation.

Mr. BARKLEY. I suggest that the Senator from Colorado temporarily withdraw his amendment in order that the Senator from Oregon may offer his amendment, so that we may dispose of that, with the understanding that the amendment of the Senator from Colorado may be offered again tomorrow, and the Senator from Montana may then discuss it, and tben we will take a vote on it.

Mr. JOHNSON of Colorado. That is perfectly agreeable to me.

Mr. WHEELER. I understand that the Senator from Colorado is not going to insist upon a roll-call vote on his amendment, but simply wishes to offer it and explain it, and I desire to call attention to some of its provisions tomorrow.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is the Senator from Colorado willing to withdraw his amendment temporarily for that purpose?

Mr. JOHNSON of Colorado, I am, Mr. President. I withdraw the amendment temporarily.

Mr. McNARY. Mr. President, if the amendment of the Senator from Colorado has been withdrawn by unanimous consent, I offer the amendment which I discussed briefly this morning.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment offered by the Senator from Oregon to the amendment in the nature of a substitute will be stated.

The LEGISLATIVE CLERK. In the committee amendment, on page 51, line 3, after the word "agriculture", it is proposed to insert a semicolon and the following:

Or any person employed in connection with the canning or other packing or packaging of fish, sea foods, sponges, fruits, maple sugar, or vegetables, when the services of said employee are of a seasonal nature and do not extend over total periods of more than 6 months in any 1 year.

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, we have discussed that amendment rather extensively today. So far as I am concerned, I do not care to engage in any further discussion of it. The committee went into the matter very carefully, and unanimously, so far as I recall, reached the conclusion that canners should not be wholly exempted from the bill, but that the bill should be left in its present condition, which, in our judgmnt, will take care of the seasonal conditions which the Senator from Oregon mentions in his amendment.

Personally, I sincerely hope the amendment will not be adopted.

Mr. WALSH. Mr. President, I should be disposed to agree to the amendment if it were confined to hours of employment; but I see no reason why a person who is employed for only a few weeks or months' work in a canning factory should get a smaller minimum wage than a man who works all the year around. As a matter of fact, I think he ought to get more. The trouble with the amendment is that it leaves out of the bill any provision which would give these poorly paid workers an opportunity to get a decent minimum wage by a collective bargain through a Government agency.

I agree that the provision limiting the working hours might well be changed so far as temporary canning industries are concerned, but I cannot for the life of me see why a person who works only a few weeks a year should be deprived of the opportunity to go before some organization of the Government in an effort to get a decent minimum wage.

Mr. WHITE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. WALSH. I yield.

Mr. WHITE. Is it not a fact that the very temporary character of the work, the emergent character of the work, is a pretty definite assurance of a reasonable wage for the short period of time during which the men are employed?

Mr. WALSH. That is not the evidence we have in regard to many industries, particularly the sugar-beet industry, with which I am sure the Senator is familiar.

Mr. WHITE. I am not familiar with the sugar-beet industry, but I had assumed that in many of these temporary and emergent works in many sections the very fact that they were temporary in and of itself assured a reasonable wage.

Mr. WALSH. The fundamental theory of the bill, as I gather it, is that the poorest-wage workers, who are not organized, who have no means of asserting their rights to a living wage, are now to have the benefit of a Federal commission to hear their claim to a living wage, and to be granted one by the power and authority of a board created by the Federal Government. It seems to me that the hundreds of thousands who work only temporarily and in seasonal work ought to have the benefit of that agency. It may be that the board will find they ought to get a lower minimum wage than is received by those who work the year around, but they certainly ought not to be left out in the cold. If the bill has any merit at all, it is in the protection it would afford sweatshop workers and the wage earners employed by chiselers, and to have the Federal arm of protection extended to them to see that they get something approaching a living wage. If that merit is not in the bill, then the bill is not worth anything. It is the first time any attempt has been made to give the unorganized, unprotected, forgotten men and women receiving low wages and working long hours an opportunity to have some agency other than a labor union to see that they get a living wage.

Mr. McNARY. Mr. President, I am not familiar with the practice which obtains throughout the country, but I am sure that in the West the hourly wage is reasonably higher than the minimum prescribed by the bill. I quite agree with the philosophy of the Senator from -Massachusetts. No one wants a sweatshop wage paid, and that is not the practice in the West. It might be well if we would limit the amendment to hours of labor rather than include wages, but certainly the hours of labor in the field covered by the amendment should be exempted from the operation of the provisions of the bill.

It will be noted that I speak in the amendment of seasonal employment and have inserted a maximum period of 6 months, which is a conservative estimate of what would be called seasonal labor. It is a definition within the amendment.

I do not know whether I can state for those who are supporting the amendment whether they are interested in the canning of vegetables and fruits and berries and fish. It might be well to let this amendment go over until tomorrow so that some Senators may confer about it. I know the Senator from Maryland is very much interested in the amendment I have offered, and he is absent, having gone home for the day, I understand. Personally, I would not have any objection, believing as I do now that we should take the wage element out of the amendment, but I think it should be the purpose of the modified amendment to exempt the industries named from the provisions of the bill with reference to the hours of employment. I hesitate to assume the responsibility of making the suggestion at this time of modifying my own amendment without a further consultation with those who are as interested in it as I am. I suggest to the very able and amiable leader of the majority that probably the amendment I have offered should go over until tomorrow at 12 o'clock.

Mr. BARKLEY. Mr. President, inasmuch as I think I stated to the Senator from Maryland before he left that

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there probably would be no vote on an amendment at this time, I am perfectly willing that the amendment should go over until tomorrow. In view of the fact that two or three Senators have matters they desire to have disposed of, I think we might suspend consideration of the pending bill at this time and take up two or three other measures.

Mr. MALONEY. Mr. President, I desire to offer an amendment to the pending bill, with a request that it be printed. I prefer not to discuss it this evening, because it is in the nature of a substitute for the bill, and it will take considerable time. I think it fair to Senators that they have a chance to read it.

Mr. WALSH. Does not the Senator desire to present the amendment, have it printed and lie on the table?

Mr. MALONEY. I make that request, Mr. President.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?

There being no objection, the amendment was ordered to be received, to be printed, and to lie on the table.

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  Page 7719        CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE        July 28, 1937        (81 Cong. Rec. 7719, 1937)

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FAIR LABOR STANDARDS IN INTERSTATE COMMERCE

FAIR LABOR STANDARDS IN INTERSTATE COMMERCE-AMENDMENTS

Mr. ANDREWS, Mr. BAILEY, Mr. BRIDGES, Mr. CONNALLY, Mr. DIETERICH, Mr. HARRISON, Mr. McADoo, Mr. McNARY, Mr. MOORE, Mr. SCHWELLENBACH, and Mr. VANDENBERG each submitted an amendment, and Mr. DAVIS and Mr. MURRAY each submitted three amendments, intended to be proposed by them, respectively, to the bill (S. 2475) to provide for the establishment of fair labor standards in employments in and affecting interstate commerce, and for other purposes, which were severally ordered to lie on the table and to be printed.

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  Page 7720        CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE        July 28, 1937        (81 Cong. Rec. 7720, 1937)

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FAIR LABOR STANDARDS IN INTERSTATE COMMERCE

The Senate resumed consideration of the bill (S. 2475) to provide for the establishment of fair labor standards in employments in and affecting interstate commerce, and for other purposes.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The question is on the amendment offered by the Senator from Oregon [Mr. McNARY] to the amendment in the nature of a substitute reported by the Committee on Education and Labor. The amendment of Mr. McNARY was, on page 51, line 3, after the word agriculture, to insert a semicolon and the words or any person employed in connection with the canning or other packing or packaging of fish, sea foods, sponges, fruits, maple sugar, or vegetables, when the services of said employee are of a seasonal nature and do not extend over total periods of more than 6 months in any one year.

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to present three amendments intended to be proposed by me to the pending bill, and ask that they be printed and lie on the table.

The VICE PRESIDENT. Without objection, the amendments will be received, printed, and lie on the table.

Mr. HARRISON. Mr. President, I offer, for the purpose of having printed, an amendment which I desire to offer to the pending bill at some time during its consideration.

The VICE PRESIDENT. Without objection, the amendment will be received, printed, and lie on the table.

When the Senate took a recess last evening the Senator from Michigan [Mr. VANDENBERG] had the floor and Yielded to the Senator from Kentucky [Mr. BARKLEY] to move an executive session. The Senator from Michigan is entitled to the floor this morning and is recognized.

Mr. VANDENBERG. Mr. President, the pending measure is vitally important not only in its text but in its very serious implications. The able Senator from Alabama [Mr. BLACK], the chairman of the Senate Committee on Education and Labor reporting the bill, made a very patient, persuasive, and temperate presentation yesterday of the entire subject, and; as I intend partly to indicate, I think that he and his committee are entitled to substantial credit for the great improvement they have made in respect to the bill. But many fundamental phases of the question of maximum hours and minmmm wages were not explored in the address of the Senator from Alabama, nor in the discussions and debate upon the floor of the Senate.

I emphatically concur, as I am sure all other Senators will concur, in the notably humane objectives the Senator from Alabama voiced and to which this bill is addressed. But, Mr. President, good intentions and high motives alone are not enough. Practical legislators must ask themselves practical questions in respect to a practical matter of this nature. To begin with, will the bill do what it purports to do? Then, in the attempt to do what it purports to do, will it not create more problems than it solves? Does it not involve bureaucratic hazards suggestive of a tyrannical industrial dictatorship which threatens more harm than good? These are some of the fundamental questions to which no attention has as yet been directed and to which I wish briefly to address myself before introducing another and even more imminent phase of our contemporary industrial problems.

If by the magic of a vivid wish or by the mandate of a pious statute I could universally give American labor—all American labor—a 40-hour maximum workweek and a 40—cent minimum hourly wage, I would do it with unrestrained enthusiasm and approvaL American workers are entitled to this advantage. But that is not what happens under this bill. True, these objectives are painted as an incentive and a goal. But what actually happens is that five men, within these boundaries and according to certain vague criteria and subject to many degenerating exemptions, are delegated the authority to decide for themselves what they conclude to be the proper minimum wage and maximum workweek for all the varied interstate industry of a vast, diversified nation.

Manifestly this can be a power of incalculable portent. It can hurt quite as easily as it can heal. It can hurt labor itself. Indeed, on the basis of erroneous wage and hour differentials as set by these five men, no matter how nobly editated, it can build up one section of an industry to the estruction of another section and it can decimate one community to the advantage of another.

I doubt if Congress was ever asked to delegate a larger, wider, more potentially dangerous power to a bureaucracy. The glory of its dedication, the virtue of its purpose-these commendable values are not entitled to blind us to these Ultimate implications nor to dismiss these fundamental considerations of democracy.

Let me hasten to one or two other preliminary statements. So far as these prospective and controlling differentials are concerned, I think my own State of Michigan, which I have the honor in part to represent on this floor, would stand to gain from such a law. I doubt if our interstate industry, in any appreciable degree, falls short of the 40-cent wage minimum and the 40-hour maximum workweek. But I am not entitled to assess the measure from this provincial viewpoint. The national welfare is the thing at stake. Indeed the national system, which has been known as the American system of industry, may well be at stake.

Let me hasten to say another thing. It seems to me the committee and its able chairman are entitled to great praise for the prudent statesmanship which is represented in the substitute which has been recommended for the original bill. In rewriting the original bill an excellent piece of work has been done. If any such bill were feasible at the present time this one would be.

But the bill frankly recognizes its own menace and courageously seeks to circumscribe it. It recognizes its own menace in its own text. We do not often find such frank admissions, in any piece of legislation. I read from page 58 of the bill, beginning at line 5. I quote the text of the bill:

Whereas it 1s impossible to achieve such results—

Referring to the development of American cominerce and the protection of American workers described in the previous paragraph—

Whereas it is impossible to achieve such results arbitrarlly by an abrupt change so drastic that it might do serious injury to American industry and American workers, and it is therefore necessary to achieve such results cautiously, carefully, and without disturbance and dislocation of business and industry.

Mr. WALSH. Mr. President—

The VICE PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Michigan yield to the Senator from Massachusetts?

Mr. VANDENBERG. I yield.

Mr. WALSH. Did I correctly understand the Senator to say in the earlier part of his remarks that he would favor a bill providing for a 40-hour week and 40 cents per hour minimum wage?

Mr. VANDENBERG. The Senator from Michigan made no such statement. He favors the objective heartily. But the Senator is about to develop the theme that he does not believe sufficient information is available at the present time to determine what the appropriate limitations should be; that when such limitations can be determined they should be permanent limitations and should not be subject to the vicissitudes and whims of bureaucracy down Pennsylvania Avenue.

Mr. WALSH. I must have misunderstood the Senator.

I thought in the earlier part of his address he said he would favor a law which would specifically and definitely, so it would be known to all industry, fix a limited number of hours per week and a minimum wage per hour.

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Mr. VANDENBERG. The Senator from Michigan said he would be glad to do it whenever possible, but that it is impossible under the existing proposal, as I shall presently undertake to prove.

Mr. WALSH. My reason for rising at this time was to seek to have the Senator correct me if I had misunderstood him, and also to point out that whatever dangers may be left in the bill because of bureaucratic control and management there would be brought about overnight the collapse of hundreds of thousands of small industries in the country if any attempt should be made suddenly and quickly to establish a minimum wage of 40 cents per hour.

Mr. VANDENBERG. I completely agree with the Senator's observations.

Mr. WALSH. In my own State of Massachusetts—and this is why I agree with the Senator that great caution must be exercised in the administration of the provisions of the bill if it should become a law—there are tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of men and women who are working more than 40 hours per week at wages from $8 to $12 per week.

Mr. VANDENBERG. The only difference between the Senator from Massachusetts and me is that he thinks he has circumscribed or eliminated that hazard by permitting this bureaucracy a wide latitude to approach gradually to the goal. I am unwilling to trust the bureaucracy. I think it is equally fatal. That is the difference between us.

Mr. WALSH. I am in sympathy with the difficulty to which the Senator has given consideration, but I am concerned with another alternative, of leaving the millions of human beings employed in industry without any agency or any effort being made to relieve them from the conditions under which they have been forced to live.

Mr. VANDENBERG. We will discuss that a little later and in greater detail.

Mr. MALONEY. Mr. President—

Mr. VANDENBERG. Just a moment, if the Senator please. The distinguished and able Senator from Massachusetts, in whose sound judgment I have tremendous confidence, himself very frankly said in yesterday's debate, at page 7652 of the RECORD—and I quote the Senator's exact words:

I fear, as many other Senators do, the manner of administering the power which we are creating. I can see the possibility of it operating to great disadvantage and harm.

Then he said further:

As one of the Senators favoring legislation of this kind, I want to say that I pray that the bill may be administered with the care and caution, as one of the witnesses said before our committee, "of a physician and not with the club of a policeman."

The problem which confronts the able Senator from Massachusetts and me is one of frank concern respecting the manner and form in which this bureaucratic control shall be exercised. The Senator from Massachusetts has resolved his doubts in favor of bureaucracy for the reasons he has indicated. I have resolved my doubts against the bureaucracy for the reasons which I shall now present.

I yield now to the Senator from Connecticut.

Mr. MALONEY. Having in mind the Senator's colloquy with the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. WALSH], in which he was asked concerning the 40-hour week and 40-cent per hour minimum wage, in his answer the Senator from Michigan referred to limitations, and I presume he meant the 40-hour week. I gathered from that, in the absence of any reference to the 40-cent per hour wage, that the Senator probably would be willing to support a simple bill favoring the 40-hour week?

Mr. VANDENBERG. Upon the base of available information, and with a complete lack here of sustaining data, I am unable to say what the week should be or what the wage should be. I am unable also to say at the present time whether it is a wise proceeding to attempt nationally to standardize hours and wages, whether or not it might be preferable to use the formula, let us say, of the Johnson-Wheeler Act to attempt to develop a stronger interstate protection of hours and ·wages fixed by State statutes. I shall undertake to demonstrate, at least to my own satisfaction, that there is not as yet a sufficient conviction in the country as to the methods that can be appropriately pursued at the present time.

Mr. MALONEY. Mr. President, will the Senator yield further?

Mr. VANDENBERG. I yield.

Mr. MALONEY. I think I appreciate the Senator's feeling and his 1~:~sition; and I seriously doubt, with him, that there is sufficient information available on which to draw at this time. I should like to call the Senator's attention, however, to the fact that I have offered an amendment in the form of a substitute which will provide the information which the Senator has so long desired, and which will leave to the economic force of labor the matter of wage adjustment. The amendment, as so drawn, is designed to give labor an economic force based upon a proper investigation by the board before it undertakes to do anything.

Mr. VANDENBERG. I thank the Senator for his observations. I have not seen his amendment. I am familiar with his general theory of the need for an authentic unemployment census and the related information that would flow from it; and I do not need to testify that I completely and cordially agree with his feeling as to the necessity for this authentic information. I have been vainly trying for many sterile months to get it, but it always has been denied.

Mr. LEWIS. Mr. President—

Mr. VANDENBERG. I yield to the Senator from lliinois.

Mr. LEWIS. I seek information from the Senator from Michigan. When he remarked but a moment ago that he found himself in disagreement with the provision of tha bill which indicates varying, shifting action by a temporary board constantly repeating the process of adjustment, did the Senator mean that he favors, as a permanent policy of our Government, that there should be a permanent board for such objects as are described in the bill?

Mr. VANDENBERG. Mr. President, I favor no board at all with a delegation of fatal discretion to deal with this fundamental industrial factor in the United States.

Mr. President, before I was interrupted—and I am very happy to be interrupted at any time— I was undertaking to say that the bill itself textually confesses the existence of the menace in attempting to proceed down this new road. I desire to repeat my quotation from page 58 at line 5 of the bill, so that the continuity of the observation may not be destroyed.

I repeat that the bill says that it is impossible to achieve the development of American commerce and the protection of American workers—

Arbitrarily, by an abrupt change so drastic that It might do serious injury to American industry and American workers, and it is therefore necessary to achieve such results cautiously, carefully, and without disturbance and dislocation of business and industry.

I assert that this quotation from the bill is an exact statement of the thing with which we are dealing. No critic of the bill could more candidly define the issue. I commend this candor and caution; but the textual assertion in the bill cannot relieve the Senate itself from the necessity of applying the same rule to its consideration of what the bill subsequently proposes and implies.

Again, from the text of the bill, the same page 58, line 18: The new board must find, before it acts—

That the application of the minimum-wage provisions of this act to any occupation or occupations will not curtail opportunities foremployment.

Mr. President, there are the danger signals in the text of the bill itself. Here is a Federal industrial control which, improperly administered, according to the text of the bill itself, could do serious injury to American industry and American workers and could curtail opportunities for employment.

Will it do these things, Mr. President? Manifestly, the committee thinks not and hopes not; but manifestly the real answer cannot be given until this new bureaucracy determines the manner of the use of these enormous new powers.

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For myself, Mr. President, I cannot accept these risks. Frankly, I do not believe it is humanly possible, granted a commission free from all bias and rich with wisdom and equity, for any five men successfully and satisfactorily to make the thousands of decisions which will govern the tens of thousands of industries and the hundreds of thousands of workers that must receive separate affirmative action from the commission under this proposal. It is more power than any bureau should have, and it is much more power than any bureau could hope appropriately and equitably to use. The country is simply too big, and so is the contemplated job.

Mark you, the passage of the bill really settles nothing. It does not create a minimum wage and a maximum workweek. It creates a commission to create a minimum wage and a maximum workweek. Nothing actually happens until the commission acts. No American worker can know, by consulting the text of the bill, what his minimUm. wage or maximum hours will be.

Grant—and I repeat it again and again—grant the bill all credit for asserting a noble, worthy, infinitely just and desirable objective; but the objective is not reached until this new bureau has exhausted all of its discretions. The commission, not the law, finally decides. The commission may, if it pleases, go lower than 40 cents as a minimum wage, and as much lower as its judgment indicates, within the definitions of the bill.

Mr. WALSH. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. VANDENBERG. I yield.

Mr. WALSH. Is not the criticism which the Senator is now making one which may be leveled against every State minimum-wage law?

Mr. VANDENBERG. No; I think not.

Mr. WALSH. Namely, is it not a fact that all the State minimum-wage laws set up a commission to take into consideration certain factors, t,tudy conditions, and fix a minimum wage suitable to particular industries

Mr. VANDENBERG. Mr. President, the Senator from Massachusetts will be the first to agree with me that the problem of an intrastate commission in Massachusetts, intimately related to and familiar with Massachusetts, and intimately responsive to Massachusetts necessities and repercussions and reactions, is a totally different contemplation from five men brought to Washington from across this great Nation and expected to be familiar with the varying, diversified conditions and requirements in all the 48 States of this great, broad land. I see no analogy whatever.

Mr. WALSH. There is no disagreement between the Senator and myself that a commission set up in Massachusetts, such as we have, can deal very much better with the question of fixing minimum wages in the industries of Massachusetts than could a Federal commission. The Senator, however, is criticizing the elastic power that is given this commission; and I point out that it is the same character of power that is given to every State commission. It is true that a Federal commission will have more difficulty, because it has a Nation-wide scope of activities and industries to take into consideration; but the same elasticity that is provided for in this bill applies in every State.

Mr. VANDENBERG. There is not any doubt in the world about that; but I again respond that elasticity within the boundaries of one State and elasticity extending to the , boundaries of 48 States are as different as day from night.

Mr. TYDINGS. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. VANDENBERG. I yield

Mr. TYDINGS. As one who would like to see the jurisdiction kept in the States, and not placed in the hands of a Federal Government commission, nevertheless this thought occurs to me:

Suppose a State has high minimum standards. Is it not at a disadvantage when it sends out its goods in competition with those produced in another State which has low minimum standards? I should like to know whether there is any way short of Federal action by which a State having high labor standards will not be penalized by having its products come in competition with those of States that have low labor standards.

Mr. VANDENBERG. The able Senator from Maryland has presented the unanswerable question. The correction of this competitive difficulty finally may be impossible without Federal action; but that is no reason why we should rush pell-mell into Federal action before there is any settled conviction as to the formula which should be pursued. There is such a thing as making haste too rapidly, as we found out when we wrote N. R. A.; and I am undertaking to develop, and I shall presently attempt to prove to the Senate, that there are some forward steps that we can take immediately, but that we should not undertake to move into this utterly tyrannical field of dictatorial bureaucracy in the name of the fine ideal which the bill contemplates.

Mr. TYDINGS. The Senator has answered the question I had risen to ask by saying that he is going to point out, later in his remarks, how the situation which I present may be dealt with. My own position is that I do not like this way of doing the thing; I do not like the elasticity that is provided for in the bill, and I do not believe that a commission of five men in Washington can handle this problem satisfactorily in many respects. On the other hand, I should like to do something to protect the State which has a fair minimum-wage law from being penalized for its progressive and forward-looking position.

Mr. VANDENBERG. I am inclined to agree with the Senator.

Mr. WALSH. A point of order.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator will state it.

Mr. WALSH. There is so much confusion in the Chamber that we cannot hear the very able speech of the Senator from Michigan on one of the most important subjects that has been before the Congress at the present session. I hope we will have an opportunity to hear the splendid and exceptionally able presentation that is being made.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senate will be in order.

Mr. VANDENBERG. I thank the Senator. When I was diverted by the last exchange of interruptions, which were quite welcome, I was undertaking to demonstrate that the bill settles nothing; that the commission settles everything. I repeat that the commission can, if it pleases, within the instructions of the bill, go lower than 40 cents as a minimum wage; it can, if it pleases, go higher than 40 hours; it can exempt industries; it can exempt individuals; it can regulate overtime; it can set up all-controlling differentials as between sections and cities.

This power is vastly more than a power to deal abstractly with hours and wages; it becomes, in its lengthened shadow, a power involving commodity prices and price fixing, and a power of life and death over industry itself, if improperly or ill-advisedly administered. Therefore, the power involved is a power over the very creation and existence of jobs. Long before it can be a boon to labor it may be a deadly threat to labor.

I submit that the substitute bill itself demonstrates in its own text the extreme difficulty of nationally standardizing these industrial factors. and confesses the inadequacy and incompleteness of our present thinking upon the subject, because, in the final analysis—and I make this observation with the greatest respect for the zeal of the authors—it practically says, "We just could not put it down on paper, so we have created another Federal bureau to put it down on paper for us."

Mr. President, it seems to me that the basic trouble at the moment is that there is no conclusive thinking on the subject as yet. We are not ready to proceed, however much we wish to proceed. If there were any way that I could completely emphasize my wholehearted sympathy with the objectives so eloquently described upon yesterday by the Senator from Alabama, I should like to do so. But this is a situation, it seems to me once more, as I have already indicated, where haste may well make waste, as we found, I repeat, in N. R. A.

Speaking of N. R. A., Mr. President, I think those who read the section of the bill on page 69, which creates

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[PAGE 7723]

commodity advisory committees, will find therein a substantial reminiscence of N. R. A., and those who remember the way in which the commodity code committees operated in N. R. A. will recall that when the big fellows in an industry were able to control the committee they were able to control the code and the net result of the law, to the everlasting devastation of the little fellow and the independent fellow in the field of business.

I do not know whether the same hand that wrote the code section of N. R. A. may have had something to do with writing the advisory committee section of the pending bill.

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. VANDENBERG. I yield.

Mr. BLACK. I can inform the Senator very definitely that the same hand did not. It happens that I voted against the N. R. A, and that at the time we were considering it I pointed out this particular objection, and offered an amendment on the floor of the Senate to obviate it; and I hope the Senator voted with me.

Mr. VANDENBERG. I hope so.

Mr. BLACK. I have forgotten how the Senator voted. I know the Senator wants to be fair in the discussion—

Mr. VANDENBERG. Entirely so.

Mr. BLACK. And if there is any better method of framing a provision so as to develop the information from various groups than the particular method proposed, I should be glad to have it suggested, because the committee gave a good deal of thought to that.

I also desire to call the attention of the Senator to the fact that the proposed commission would not have the power, as I am sure he will agree, that was lodged in the committees under the old N. R. A.

Mr. VANDENBERG. I thank the Senator from Alabama for his statement, and I shall welcome any other statement from him at any time, because if I have one anxiety more than another today it is to deal with this problem literally within the facts, because it is too important to be submitted to any passion or idle conversation.

Let me confirm what the Senator from Alabama says to the effect that the advisory committees would not have the power the code authorities under N. R. A. had. Let me completely accept his statement that the same hand did not write both sections, but let me add that it could well have written both sections, from my point of view, because I find at least substantially the same power and the same hazard in the advisory committees that I found in theN. R. A. code authorities.

Mr. TYDINGS. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. VANDENBERG. I yield.

Mr. TYDINGS. I should like to ask the Senator if he has considered whether or not it would be advisable to write a simple penal statute prescribing maximum hours of employment, with proper exemptions, as contained in the philosophy of the pending bill, and stating definitely a minimum wage, as against the proposal to leave those questions to the commission.

Mr. VANDENBERG. I wish I could answer the Senator conclusively. I am very frank to say that I do not know. I would wish it might be done, and that is all I can say in reply.

Mr. TYDINGS. I think we could with comparative ease write a bill dealing with maximum hours, with proper exemptions, and one that would not bear unfairly upon anyone. The difficulty would be to write a minimum wage bill. But it seems to me that is what the commission is going to do anyway, and I would much prefer to have Congress do it than to have the commission do it. Certainly we can get every bit of information which the commission can get, and we might eliminate a bureau and much expense for inspectors by doing the job ourselves, as we used to do it, rather than have a commission do it for us.

Mr. GEORGE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. VANDENBERG. I yield.

Mr. GEORGE. May I suggest that we might at least require that no order of the commission respecting hours or wages should become effective until it had been referred to and approved by the Congress? It seems to me that would be a very simple answer to the difficulty in which the Senator from Maryland finds himself.

Mr. BORAH. Mr. President, the senator from Michigan is now discussing what the committee discussed for many hours and many days. As the chairman of the committee knows, I was of the opinion that we ought to write a general minimum-wage law, basing a minimum wage upon what we would call a fair, decent standard of American living. It was my view that whether North or South, East or West, there was a standard of American living, and we ought to recognize that and fix a minimum wage upon that basis, and write it into the law. But I was met by the proposition that it was impractical, impossible to do that thing.

I wish to say that, in my opinion, the logical discussion of the pending bill will range around the question of whether it is practicable to do that thing, or whether it is necessary to have a board such as that provided for in the bill. The committee divided on that proposition. I know that members of the committee who were at once in favor of such a general law changed their minds because they thought it was utterly impracticable. I should like to have the Senator from Michigan discuss that as fully as he feels he ought to. Do the conditions with which we have to deal necessitate a board? I have contended for a general law, but I am told conditions are so varied we must have a board.

Mr. TYDINGS. Mr. President, will the Senator from Michigan yield?

Mr. VANDENBERG. I yield.

Mr. TYDINGS. I wonder whether the Senator from Idaho—if the Senator from Michigan will yield the necessary time—would care to make an observation as to whether or not it is as impracticable to write a law dealing only with hours as it is to write one dealing with both hours and minimum wages.

Mr. BORAH. I do not know that I understand the question. I think we could write a law dealing with hours without very much difficulty, but I am frank to say that I think when we come to deal with the question of minimum wages there are strong arguments against it generally applying to the entire United States. I have not yet surrendered my view, but I must say that I have great respect for and have had some difficulty in answering the arguments presented by those who think it cannot be done, that it is not practicable.

Mr. WALSH. Mr. President, will the Senator from Michigan permit me to make an observation?

Mr. TYDINGS. I should like to conclude my colloquy. I have made no particular study of the matter, and am merely seeking information, but from a review of the situation, and listening to the debate, it seems to me we could very definitely write a bill at least touching the question of the hours of labor; and if we could do that, I see no reason for leaving that part of it up to a board. We should at least give the board no more authority than we have to give it, and if we can write a maximum-hour bill with the proper exemptions, we ought to take the hour provision out of the pending bill and not have that feature subject to the regulation of a board here in Washington.

Mr. WALSH. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. VANDENBERG. I yield.

Mr. WALSH. I wish that could be done. I wanted it done. However, I was confronted with evidence that in some States every small industry would go out of business, because there are States in which there are large numbers of employees working from 40 hours a week to 56 hours a week, and even 72 hours a week in a few cases, which were called to the attention of the committee. We were confronted with the proposition of passing a law which overnight would compel such industries, now working their employees 48, 52, and 56 hours a week, to come down to 40 hours a week; and, of course, with that situation we would be enacting a law which would mean immediate destruction to those industries.

Mr. TYDINGS. Mr. President, will the Senator yield to me?

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[PAGE 7724]

Mr. VANDENBERG. I yield to the Senator from Maryland.

Mr. TYDINGS. Why could not provision be made that where concerns are now working their employees more than 40 hours a week there should be a gradual reduction every 3 months until the 40-hours-a-week basis was set up?

Mr. WALSH. That is the language we have provided in this bill. That is why we have issued warnings to the commission that it should not act hastily, that it should proceed with caution, and that its ultimate aim should be to bring all wage earners employed in industry to a basis of 40 hours a week, but only by gradual reductions covering a reasonable period of time.

Mr. TYDINGS. Mr. President, will the Senator again yield for one observation?

Mr. VANDENBERG. I yield to the Senator from Maryland for one observation.

Mr. TYDINGS. I have heard nothing in this debate as yet which would show the impracticability or impossibility of writing a definite law pertaining to hours of labor. I appreciate that when we come down to the question of wages the matter is more difficult; but I think I can see how we could write a bill dealing with hours and providing a sliding scale in cases where the situation which the Senator from Massachusetts suggests exists and gradually eliminate such conditions and have a national standard-hours bill.

Mr. WALSH. It would be much easier.

Mr. VANDENBERG. I doubt whether we are going to be able to rewrite this bill on the floor of the Senate.

Mr. BRIDGES. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. VANDENBERG. I yield to the Senator from New Hampshire.

Mr. BRIDGES. I should like to call the attention of the Senator from Maryland to a bilL known as Senate bill 2776, which I introduced at this session, which, in a straightforward manner, and with no delegation of authority, does expressly what he desires to have done. I propose to discuss it before the debate is ended.

Mr. VANDENBERG. Mr. President, before this most recent skirmish interrupted me, I was about to observe that our difficulty is that there is as yet no conclusive thinking upon the problem which we are addressing. There has not yet developed a conclusive conviction as to the best legislative method of dealing with maximum hours and minimum wages. This fact is amply illustrated by the sharp differences of opinion developed in the Senate committee hearings on the pending bill, even among the most earnest advocates of legislation of this character; and it was illustrated again in the action of the committee itself in almost completely rewriting the original proposal between the time it was introduced on May 24 and the time it was reported back on July 8. It is further illustrated by what appears to be an equally sharp division of opinion between those who advocated the bill recommended by the Senate committee and the reported viewpoint of the House committee of similar jurisdiction. There simply is no meeting of minds, and as a result we are necessarily speculating in the destiny of American labor and commerce.

This fact is again illustrated by the basic controversy over differentials, to which the Senator from Illinois [Mr. LEWIS] adverted a few moments ago. Some high administrative spokesmen insist that industrial advantages incidental to geography and climate must be recognized and preserved; but other high administrative spokesmen—and I understand that this largely includes the dominant influence in the Department of Labor—insist that these standards must take one Nation-wide level, regardless of the sectional casualties which would be thus produced. Indeed, the whole problem still rests in controversy, and I am talking about sincere, good-faith controversy which has the ultimate welfare of labor directly at heart.

For example, there is a strong case to be made for the theory of a uniform basic Federal standard to equalize competitive conditions; but there is an equally strong case to be made against a national strait jacket in these matters, and a still stronger case against the creation of a new and additional Federal bureaucracy with large discretionary and dictatorial powers. There is doubt even of the effect upon labor itself, I repeat, and labor itself is divided in its opinion respecting it. Yes, and there are other doubts.

Before we may proceed with prudence and reasonable security to establish wages and hours by Federal fiat, the whole related economic problem must be painstakingly explored, lest our zeals lead us unwittingly astray. These related economic problems include new dislocations in relative agricultural parity, for example. They include the deadly menace of an ultimate consumer who will one day himself strike against commodity prices which are driven too swiftly upward by artificial means. They include the probability that Federal wage fixing, once initiated, may lead to Federal price fixing, which, as a general proposition, never worked and never will. They include the probability that Federal wage fixing and price fixing together will lead to compulsory arbitration in labor relations, not voluntarily but by sheer force of necessity as we are driven closer and ever closer to the centralized, authoritarian state with its tyranny of oppressive government-blessed monopolies. They include the probability of an enforced return to the exploded economics of controlled scarcity which vainly promises more wealth by producing less wealth—a sort of share the poverty movement.

There are other equally vital relationships which require to be thought through to their ultimate conclusion before we set our feet upon these even newer roads. The whole fabric of the Nation is ultimately involved. When we have thought these things through, I bespeak the willingness and the courage to proceed, though it be an undiscovered country. But we have not yet reached any such degree of conclusive or persuasive exploration.

But, Mr. President, there are social and economic advances in this field which we can safely make immediately. I am referring back now primarily to the able address made in the Senate yesterday by the distinguished junior Senator from Colorado [Mr. JOHNSON], supported as he was in it by the distinguished senior Senator from Montana [Mr. WHEELER]. Here is the so-called Johnson-Wheeler bill resting upon the calendar of the Senate, bearing the approval of a standing Senate committee, and generally conceded to be a measure which will substantially reach the child-labor problem through interstate controls and substantially cure it. There is not any speculation about it. There is not any geography in it. There is not any delegation of power in it. There is not any administrative discretion in it. It is a cold, blunt mandate which in its ultimate net result is calculated to do precisely what the able Senator from Colorado indicated, namely, stop child labor.

Not only that, Mr. President, but there is pending upon the Senate Calendar a new antichild labor constitutional amendment. It has the unanimous approval of the Senate Judiciary Committee, regardless of party. I have the honor to be its author. I know about the negotiations which proceeded its introduction. I know that in its terms it substantially achieves every desire to curb the commercial exploitation of children in industry, and I know, further, that practically all the organized opposition which has prevented previous action upon constitutional amendments of this character is prepared to be withdrawn, and that this constitutional amendment, waiting on the calendar of the Senate at this hour for action, in all human probability could be ratified within 12 months and go into the Constitution of the United States.

It seems to me that if we want to deal with the childlabor problem, at least the Senator from Colorado [Mr. OoHNSON] has pointed the primary way, that the thing to do is to pass the Wheeler-Johnson bill, and I should be delighted to vote for it this afternoon, and to pass the constitutional amendment which I have proposed and, of course, I should be delighted to vote for that.

But, Mr. President, the particular phase of the labor relationship which I wish especially to emphasize today lies in a dillferent but definitely related field. We have already committed labor relationships, including hours and wages,

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[PAGE 7725]

to the legalized process of collective bargaining under Federal direction; and until this process is standardized in practice and perfected in statute, I submit that it is unwise to attempt to inject a new and added Federal formula.

The question of hours and wages is at the true base of collective bargaining insofar as this process at the moment is not a sheer and naked reach for arbitrary power. It is involved in today's whole problem of equitable labor peace, which is antecedent to labor prosperity or prosperity for anybody else. It is a grave question of public policy whether this latter sector is not already so belligerently or so bewilderingly complicated that no good purpose for anybody is to be served by opening up new and added legislative regulations and resultant controversies at the moment, no matter how inherently persuasive.

There is such a thing, unfortunately, as economic indigestion; there is also such a thing as economic suicide. In the final analysis, the prosperity of the Nation, the provision of jobs for its workers, does not rely upon statutory formula; it relies upon the genius and ability and the capacity of American business itself to provide the jobs. I sometimes wonder how American business is going to find any time left to provide jobs if we are to persist in loading upon it these everlastingly multiplying governmental mandates and delivering it to the mercies of multiplying and hampering Federal bureaucracy.

I repeat, Congress has recently committed hours and wages to a statutory code of collective bargaining, and the Supreme Court has recently validated the process. The best welfare of collective bargaining, and of labor under it, calls for a period of adjustment to this new process before a new and additional code dealing with some of the same industrial factors is precipitated upon American industries.

The committee itself, in the initial stages of its consideration, recognized the close relationship between this bill and the so-called Wagner Act. It later decided upon a severance of the two propositions. But I revert to its earlier wisdom. It seems to me that the greatest present service we can render is to review a few fundamental phases of the so-called Wagner Act, not only to expand its equities but also to protect it against excessive reprisals if some existing vicissitudes much longer persist. The basic theory of collective bargaining, under statute, and of outlawing employer coercion and employer exploitation is, and should be, here to stay. I would not consciously weaken it. But it will fatefully weaken itself, Mr. President, unless it is speedily protected upon its own exposed flank. There are still employer practices and attitudes which are wrong, and there is law with which to deal with them. But it would be folly, so far as legitimate organized-labor progress is concerned, not equally to recognize that there are labor practices which cannot persist, which will not be condoned, and which threaten the best welfare of organized labor itself and the perpetuation of statutory collective bargaining.

Mr. President, the right to conclusive written contracts, after a voluntary process of collective bargaining, must be established; but, equally and simultaneously, some tangible degree of subsequent contractual responsibility must be established with it. The two things go together, and it is silly to pretend otherwise. The right to strike must be protected, but no less the right to work must be protected. The employees' right to initiate collective-bargaining elections must be preserved, but the employers' right and the public's right to invoke this peaceful instrumentality must be comparably recognized. And all the time, Mr. President, first, last, and always, the voice of government must be the voice of impartiality, the voice of equality under law, and there must be no doubt left in anybody's mind about it.

I believe these things, properly evolved, mean infinitely much to labor itself. Labor is entitled to a constantly broadening share of the fruits of its own production, but it does labor no good to achieve these benefits if an orderly society and a profitable economy in which to enjoy them is destroyed.

The labor relationship under the so-called Wagner Act is a four-party affair. These are the four parties: A majority of employees, a minority of employees, the employer, and the public. The Wagner Act speaks effectively for the first. It ignores the other three. It should deal equitably with all. Until it does it is in jeopardy itself.

Mr. President, I regret the unavoidable absence of the distinguished junior Senator from New York [Mr. WAGNER], for whom I have the highest possible regard. He holds a unique position of his own in the confidence of American labor, and in many aspects he richly deserves his prestige. Last Sunday, in the magazine section of the New York Times, the able, distinguished junior Senator from New York contributed a brilliant defense of the Wagner Act and a most persuasive and temperate reply to the critics of the act. The article is entitled WAGNER Challenges Critics of His Act. The subhead is, The Senator replies to charges of unfairness and to demands for amendment of the law.

The chief text of his discussion is the series of amendments which I offered to the Wagner Act in the Senate on June 15 and which since that time have been lingering in the pigeonholes of the Senate Committee on Education and Labor. Therefore, I have especial interest in this particular exhibit. I intend to quote from it, Mr. President, but, in fairness to my friend the Senator from New York, and in his absence—

Mr. LA FOLLETTE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. VANDENBERG. I yield.

Mr. LA FOLLETTE. Will the Senator yield to me for the purpose of suggesting the absence of a quorum?

Mr. VANDENBERG. If the Senator from Wisconsin thinks that would bring in the Senator from New York, I will yield, but my understanding is that the Senator from New York is not available.

Mr. LA FOLLETI'E. My information is that he is in the city. Will the Senator yield for the purpose indicated?

Mr. VANDENBERG. Let me finish what I was saying, and then I will yield.

Concluding what I was saying, I think, in complete fairness to the Senator from New York, so that the full text of this exhibit may be available for subsequent consideration, and furthermore, because of the fact that on its own merits it is well entitled to study, I am going to ask unanimous consent that the full article by the Senator from New York [Mr. WAGNER] be inserted in the Appendix to the RECORD.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. LA FOLLETI'E. Mr. President, will the Senator from Michigan now yield in order that I may suggest the absence of a quorum?

Mr. VANDENBERG. I yield.

Mr. LA FOLLETTE. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.

The legislative clerk called the roll, and the following Senators answered to their names:

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Eighty-nine Senators having answered to their names, a quorum is present. The Senator from Michigan has the floor.

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  Page 7731        CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE        July 28, 1937        (81 Cong. Rec. 7731, 1937)

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The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the letter will be read.

The legislative clerk read the letter, as follows:

AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR,

Washington, D. C., July 27, 1937.

Hon. ALBEN W. BARKLEY,

United States Senate, Washington, D. C.

DEAR SENATOR BARKLEY: According to press reports, Senator VANDENBEBG proposes to submit from the floor amendments to the fair labor standards bill which is to be considered by the Senate this afternoon. These reports indicate that the amendments proposed by Senator VANDENBEBG are designed to modify the National Labor Relations Act and are substantially the same as those incorporated in S. 2712 introduced by Senator VANDENBEBG on June 28.

The American Federation of Labor regards these amendments as a bold attempt to restrict the freedom of self-organization of the workers, to enhance rather than mitigate the inequality of bargaining power between the employers and the workers, and to nullify the effectiveness of democratic self-government of our unions through Government interference.

The unfair labor practices contained in section 3 of the Vandenberg bill are clearly designed to carry out such a purpose. The first unfair labor practice is identical in purpose with the language of the amendments sponsored by the National Association of Manufacturers prior to the passage of the Wagner-Cannery Act, the language which Congress had rejected without reservation.

Next, the amendment makes it an unfair labor practice for any person to interfere with rights secured by the Constitution or to damage or destroy property. I submit that under the American system of law enforcement this is a matter under the jurisdiction of our courts and not of the National Labor Relations Board.

The unfair labor practices (3), (4), and (5) provide for an extent of regulation of unions by the Government that falls little short of the example set by Fascist Germany. The amendment next makes it an unfair labor pradice for any person to engage in any strike for the purpose of inducing or forcing any person to violate any contract or any law of a State or the United States. Here again we find that such matters as the breach of contract and the breach of law are taken from the jurisdiction of our courts, where they properly belong, and placed in the hands of the Board.

The last unfair labor practice prevents any person from refusing to sign a written contract embodying the terms and conditions of any agreement between an employer and employees, or their representatives, reached as the result of collective bargaining, or to violate the provisions of any such written contract or agreement. This makes it possible for employers, under the guise of collective bargaining, to freeze the existing wages, hours, and conditions in his establishment by compelling their employees to sign agreements negotiated with dummy company unions.

When collective bargaining is carried on in good faith between a union and an employer, the mutual objective of both parties is an agreement. Such an agreement protects the rights and imposes duties on both the employer and the union. When an employer bargains collectively in good faith there is no reason for him to refuse to sign the union agreement. Any agreement, however, signed as a result of legal compulsion would be of questionable validity in law and of little usefulness in cementing a lasting industrial peace and good will. And again, as I already have pointed out, the breaching of a contract is a matter for judicial determination that does not fall within the jurisdiction of an administrative agency operating under a Federal statute.

Section 4 of the amendment makes it possible for the Board to determine representation or hold elections at the request of the employer. Such a provision would nullify section 8 (1) of the National Labor Relations Act, which forbids the employer to interfere with the rights of self-organization and collective bargaining guaranteed by section 7 of the Wagner Act. Union affiliation of his employees is not a matter for determination or interference by an employer.

The amendments proposed by Senator VANDENBEBG are but a first step toward Government control of unions—a step similar to that which led to the elimination of free trade-unionism in Germany, Italy, and Soviet Russia. A justification of these amendments is attempted on the ground that they give the needed protection to employers and correct the alleged one-sidedness of the National Labor Relations Act. Only a minority of employers have contended that the Wagner-Cannery Act is biased in labor's favor. The people of America today have been given an unchallengeable answer to the question of whether or not the National Labor Relations Act is equitable. The answer was given them in the decisions of the United States Supreme Court rendered April 12.

We protest the proposed amendments because we cannot accept restrictions jeopardizing the future freedom and democracy of the membership of the American Federation of Labor—restrictions which result from a reaction to sporadic acts of irresponsible alleged labor organizations. The American Federation of Labor stands for freedom, democracy, and the principle of voluntarism in every relationship of life, and it is our duty to resist any infringement upon democratic ideals and institutions.

Very truly yours,

WILLIAM GREEN,

President, American Federation of Labor.

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  Page 7744        CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE        July 28, 1937        (81 Cong. Rec. 7744, 1937)

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Mr. LODGE. Mr. President, I have offered an amendment which attempts to protect American workers against competition of substandard goods made in foreign countries. My amendment provides that the average imports of all classes of goods for the past 5 years shall be determined, and then no imports above that amount shall be allowed into the United States unless such imports are manufactured under conditions equivalent to those set up in the bill. In other words, the amendment proposes the mildest and, I think, the most practical system I have yet seen advanced in the effort to afford protection against substandard foreign competition.

This is the thought, as I think was generally known, which was uppermost in the mind of the late Representative Connery, of Massachusetts, who was chairman of the House Committee on Labor and who had prepared an amendment to the same effect. It is advocated in a communication which I think every Senator has received today from America's Wage Earners' Protective Conference, and I ask to have inserted in the RECORD a copy of that letter as a part of my remarks.

There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the REORRD, as follows:

AMERICA's WAGE EARNERs' PROTECTIVE CONFERENCE,

Washington, July 27, 1937.

Hon. HENRY CABOT LODGE, Jr.,

United States Senate, Washington, D. C.

HONORABLE Sir: The following amendment to the Black wage and hour bill, S. 2475, is requested on behalf of the organized workers afiiliated with the American Federation of Labor, the products of which workers compete in the American market with the products of workers in foreign countries, which foreign workers, in many cases, are employed under what may well be defined as substandard labor conditions, as defined in the pending wage and hour bill.

This amendment is supported also by the National Grange, the National Cooperative Council, National Cooperative Milk Producers' Federation, Farmers' Union Federations, represented by E. E. Kennedy, as well as other farm and labor groups.

Page 65: Substitute the following in place of section 8:

"SEC. 8. The Labor Standards Board shall notify the Secretary of the Treasury of those substandard labor conditions which have been defined as oppressive, and the Secretary of the Treasury is thereafter directed to refuse or deny entry to goods wares or merchandise produced under such substandard labor conditions, which goods, wares, or merchandise are comparable to or competitive with similar goods, wares, or merchandise produced in the United States under fair labor conditions as herein defined. In the event of any complaint or dispute arising as to whether such goods, wares, or merchandise seeking entry were produced under substandard labor conditions, as herein defined, the Labor Stanards Board shall make a thorough investigation, and the decision of said board shall be conclusive, shall be in writing, and shall be a matter of public record and open to public inspection."

We do not believe that permitting the distribution of foreignmade goods, produced under substandard labor conditions in the American market in competition with comparable or competitive American-made goods, produced under fair labor standards, will, in any way, enlarge the employment opportunities of American workers.

As illustrated herein, the protection suggested in section 8, as at present written, based on actual experience wtth similar so-called protection contained in the N. R. A., affords no protection at all, as shown below.

ANALYSIS OF TARIFF PROVISION OF WAGE AND HOUR BILL AS REPORTED TO THE SENATE

The wage and hour bill, as reported by the Senate Committee on Education and Labor, proVides, 1n section 8, that the United States Tariff Commission, under one of five stipulations, shall invesigate the differences resulting from the operation of the act in the costs of production of any domestic article and of any like or similar foreign article, with a view to determining whether or not an increase should be made in the dutY upon such foreign article for the purpose of equallzmg such differences. All provisions of law applicable with respect to investigations under section 336 of the Tariff Act of 1930, as amended, are to be applicable to investigations under this section.

That this proVision is little more than an empty gesture follows from the long delays which have always been involved in the application of the flexible tariff provisions of the tariff law. Section 336 requires prolonged investigations of both foreign and domestic costs of production for comparative purposes. The time required for final action by the President, after the filing of a complaint, is usually well over a year. In most instance foreign costs are not available, and then foreign invoices must be consulted. The accuracy of foreign invoics as evidence of foreign cost is very questionable, especially in view of foreign-trade manipulation by various nations during the past few years, notably Germany, Russia Italy and Japan.

Therefore, to rely on section 336 of the tarltf act for relief against foreign competition arising as the result of increased wages brought about by the wage and hour bill, is to rely on a most unsatisfactory remedy.

Under the National Industrial Recovery Act, section 3 (e) provided for tariff increases when an industry, because of higher costs ansmg from shorter hours and higher wages, was menaced by foreign competition. That section was administered by a special division set up under the N. R. A. for the purpose. From July 1933 to May 27, 1935, when the act was invalidated by the Supreme Court, 56 formal complaints and some 220 informal complaints were lodged with the division. The informal complaints were those (to quote from the official report of the division charged with the administration of sec. 3 (e)) with respect to which the limited data available either indicated clearly that no basis for action existed or were entirely insufficient to establish a prima-facie case for action. In other words, these complaints were not followed out but dismissed.

The formal complamts were those with respect to which sufficient information was submitted or available to indicate existence of problems or competition which appeared to justify a preliminary investigation.

Of the 56 formal complaints only 6 received relief by executive action. The commodities covered by these cases were : (1) cotton oriental rugs, (2) cotton rugs, (3) matches, (4) wood-cased lead pencils, (5) red cedar shingles, and (6) rice. The number of employees in the industries involved in the investigations were: In cases one and two combined. 767; in case 3 (matches), 3,722 (but only 800 in the portion of the industry affected); in case 4 (pencils), 2,800 (but only 700 in the portion of the industry affected); in case 5 (cedar shingles), 3,900; in case 6 (rice), 1,636 (1,468 in the portion affected).

As for the total number of employees in the industries covered by the 56 formal complaints only 127,000 out of 549,000 were in that part of the industries affected by the investigation of foreign competition.

When the N. R. A. was invalidated, nearly 2 years after the division administering section 3 (e) was established, 30 of the 56 cases were still pending. Five were dismissed by the Tariff Commission after investigation; 7 were dismissed without investigation. Eight complaints were withdrawn by complainants after preliminary investigation. As already stated, executive relief was granted in only 6 of the cases, or 3 percent. Only 7,500 employees were covered by the portion of the industries affected.

In View of the results obtained, affecting fewer than one-tenth of 1 percent of those employed in industry, it is interesting to read from the division's report of March 1936: That the import problem represented by the formal complaints under section 3 (e) affected practically every important branch of American industry is indicated by the fact that the complainant industries represented every major industrial group listed in the census of manufacturers. The problems were most serious in those groups, such as textiles and miscellaneous industries, where the bulk of the commodities necessitated a large amount of fabrication or processing.

This admission throws a revealing light on the relief actually given in the six cases where executive action was taken: Industries in which the number of affected employees numbered 7,500. Yet, the formal complaints covered industries representing every major industrial group listed in the census of manufactures.

Inasmuch as section 3 (e) provided for special treatment of tariff complaints whereas the wage and hours bill would simply throw them into the Tariff Commission, a still more delaying and evasive program could be expected. For that reason, the inclusion of that provision in the bill, is merely an empty gesture.

Several foreign countries protect their workers against unfair foreign competition of the products from low-wage countries—products produced under substandard labor conditions—by requiring that duty be paid on the basis of what the imported goods are worth after landing in said countries, including all charges. Thus the United Kingdom—Great Britain—lays down the following requirement on all goods seeking a. market in that country:

The value of any imported goods for the purpose of the act shall be taken to be the price which an importer would give for the goods if the goods were to be delivered to him, freight and insurance paid, in bond, at the port of importation, and the duty shall be paid on that value as fixed by the commission.

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Even Japan requires that duties be levied according to the vaiue of the article on arrival at the time of importation.

Canada requires that the fair market value of imports shall in no case be lower than the selling price thereof to jobbers or wholesalers generally at the time of shipment direct to Canada.

Belgium requires that the value may be not less than the normal wholesale value of similar goods on the Belgian market at the time of importation, less the duty they pay on importation.

Austria has a similar clause in her tariff law. Australia makes the current domestic value of (imported) goods or the price actually paid for them (imported goods), whichever is higher.

In other words, these countries protect their markets and assure their workers opportunities of employment and eliminate unfair competition of goods produced under what they might term substandard labor conditions, by assessing customs duties on the domestic value of similar goods, or on the landed cost, including duties, whereas we accept foreign invoices as to the value of these foreign-produced goods.

We respectfully request your active support in securing the adoption of the amendment herein suggested to the wage and hour bill in the Senate.

Sincerely yours,

M. J. FLYNN, Executive Secretary.

Mr. LODGE. I have received a letter from John F. Gatelee, president of the Massachusetts State Federation of Labor, which reads as follows:

On behalf of organized labor in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I am writing to request that you use your infiuence and vote to have a provision included in the Black-Connery wage and hour bill that will effect the elimination of sweatshop products in interstate commerce, whether such products are produced in the United States or elsewhere. This pertains particularly to manufactured articles and the processing of materials by certain competing countries, which are able to land these foreign-made products on the shores of this country at a price less than the actual manufacturing cost to produce the same in the United States.

We believe a proper check of this ruinous substandard competition can be produced by a proper provision within the BlackCannery wage and hour bill.

Trusting for your cooperation in this matter and assuring you of our appreciation of your efforts, we are,

Sincerely and respectfully yours,

JoHN F. GATELEE,

President, Massachusetts State Federation of Labor.

I believe this is such a self-evident matter that it is not necessary for me to take the time of the Senate to give elaborate statistics and facts. Every State in the Union today has industries, and every State, therefore, knows the importance of having its industries protected against substandard competition from abroad.

The bill now before us, on page 50, defines interstate commerce as meaning trade, commerce, transportation, transmission, or communication among the several States or from any State to any place outside thereof. I do not quarrel with that language at all, but it is noteworthy that the way the bill now stands, substandard products made in Massachusetts may not be sold in Alabama, but substandard products made in Czechoslovakia or in Japan may be sold in Alabama or any other State.

We have read in newspapers about the situation; every now and then we read stories about little girls 14 or 15 years old working at night in the textile mills of Japan for a few cents an hour. The choice confronting us is perfectly obvious. Either we can reduce American wages to conform to such a level—and to that I am unalterably opposed, as I am sure every other Senator is—or else we can use the great power of the United States Government to enact a law which will stop that kind of thing. That is what I favor and that is what I am advocating in offering the amendment.

We cannot go in two different directions at once. At the present time through one agency of the Government attempts are being made to eliminate tariff barriers, and through other governmental activities attempts are being made, which I think are praiseworthy, to raise wages and raise the American standard of living. We cannot do both. We have to choose the path which we want Arilerica's destiny to follow. In my judgment, the amendment which I have offered is indispensable to the success of the bill and the achievement of the ends which the bill seeks to attain.

Mr. BORAH. Mr. President, I desire to offer for printing in the RECORD as a part of my remarks a letter written bY the chairman of the Committee on Education and Labor, the senior Senator from Alabama [Mr. BLACK], on the bill now before us. The letter appeared in last Sunday's New York Times. I offer it for publication in the RECORD because of its thorough discussion of the bill. I disagree with some of the views expressed, but it is a most excellent presentation of the measure which is before the Senate at this time.

There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:

From the New York Times of July 25, 1937]

WIDE BENEFIT SEEN IN WAGE AND HOUR LEGISLATION—PENDING MEASURE IS VIEWED AS A MODEST BEGINNING OF A BROAD EFFORT TO INCREASE PRODUCTION AND OUR CAPACITY TO CONSUME THE PRODUCTS

The proposed Federal minimum wage and maximum hour legislation is frequently referred to as labor legislation. It is intended to, and I am confident that it will, benefit workers in industry. But it is intended to, and I am confident that it will, benefit not only the industrial workers but the whole of American industry and agriculture.

In years past the rapid natural growth of our population, the influx of immigrants, and the availability of new lands constantly opened new opportunities for employment and new and enlarged markets for the products of our farms and factories. But in more recent years the natural growth of our population has slackened, the flow of immigration has abated, the frontier of new lands has disappeared. These changed conditions have made it much more difficult than in times past for workers to find a market for their labor and much more difficult for industry and agriculture to find a market for their products. Tariff barriers and other complications have whittled away our foreign customers, making us more and more dependent on domestic trade.

TECHNOLOGY A FACTOR

These conditions have also been aggravated and accentuated by recent developments in technology which have led to the introduction of machines which enable 1 worker to do the work previously done by 10 and sometimes 100. Workers displaced by machines have found it increasingly difficult to find employment. Deprived of purchasing power, the unemployed are not able to buy the products of farm and factory which they need, and they have even become a serious charge upon the community.

With the frontier gone, with the population ceasing to expand, with millions unemployed, the markets for industry and agriculture can be stabilized and strengthened only if we find ways and means of utilizing the productivity of industry and agriculture to raise the standard of living of our existing population. As President Roosevelt has said, We cannot achieve lasting prosperity or political stability in this country so long as one-third of our people earn less than a decent living and many millions are unable to find work in private industry and business. Having conquered and overcome our geographic frontiers, we must extend the frontiers of social progress. A higher standard of living for the average man and woman is certainly desirable for humanitarian reasons; it is necessary for the future of American agriculture and American industry.

THE SUBMERGED THIRD

When business is good for those whose incomes come within the upper income-tax brackets there are some who forget that one-third of our population is ill-nourished, ill-clad, and ill-housed. There are some who are even irked by being constantly reminded of these unpleasant facts. It is important, however, that we face the facts without flinching. Over 42 percent of our American families have an annual income of less than $1,500 a year. Actually more than one-fifth of the families in rich America are forced to eke out a bare existence on less than $1,000 a year.

The budgets for such families will allow them little else than an unbalanced diet of potatoes, bread, and pork. For such city families green vegetables and fresh fruit are luxuries rarely to be had and even an adequate supply of milk for their children is too costly to be obtained. The meager incomes of such families afford the head of the family only one new suit of clothes in 3 years and a new overcoat only once every 5 years. Their budget cannot stand more than $20 a month for rent. Only one out of three families in typical American cities can afford gas or electricity for cooking, and electric refrigeration and steam heat are luxuries which few can afford. As the bill reported out by the Senate Committee on Education and Agriculture recites, some adult workers are earning as little as $5 a week and some adult workers are obliged to work as long as 80 or more hours a week.

BUYING POWER LAGS

As President Roosevelt stated in his recent message to the Congress, recommending wage and hour legislation: Today you and I are pledged to reduce the lag in the purchasing power of industrial workers and to stabilize the markets for the farmers' products. The two go hand in hand. Each depends for its effectiveness on the other: Both working simultaneously will open new outlets for productive capital. Our Nation, so richly endowed with natural resources and with a capable and industrious population, should be able to devise ways and means of insuring to all our able-bodied working men and women a fair day's pay for a fair day's work. A self-supporting and self-respecting democracy can plead no justification for the existence of child labor, no economic reason for chiseling workers' wages or stretching workers' hours.

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The proposed wage and hour legtslation is but a modest beginning of a much-needed effort to increase America's capacity to consume. Such increase means increased production.

The proposed legislation recognizes the practical necessities which make it impossible to prescribe for all goods which enter into interstate commerce any single minimum fair-wage standard or any single maximum workweek standard. We all know that it is impractical to ignore the difference and diversities among industries and localities. We all know that unitorm national standards cannot suddenly be imposed upon many and diverse industries without causing industrial dislocations which might seriously curtail the earning power of the workers and their opportunities for employment.

REALISTIC LEGISLATION

The proposed legislation deals realistically with the tough reallties of American industry. It states clearly and definitely the objectives to be achieved and the standards to be applied. But it leaves the application of these standards and the progressive real1zation of these objectives to an administra.tive board, because that is the only practically feasible way that such legislation can be enacted and administered. As Justice Cardozo has stated, the industries of this country are too many and diverse to make it possible for Congress in respect to matters such as these to legislate directly with adequate appreciation of varying conditions (Schechter case, 295 U. S. 495, 552).

The proposed bill contemplates that the different parts of the United States shall be recognized in the appointment of these members, so that the board shall be famlliar with the industrial, commercial, and agricultural problems of all parts of the United States. The board is given a flexible power' to fix minimum wages industry by industry, craft by craft, locality by locality, after separate investigations and hearings and according to certain directions or standards written in the bill. Those standards require, for instance, that in determining what shall be a minimum wage the board shall take into consideration the cost of living; the wages established for work of a like nature by collective labor agreement; the wages paid for work of a like character by employers who voluntarily pay a fair wage; and facts which would infiuence a court in determining a fair and reasonable value of services rendered. There are similar standards for the establishment of the basic workweek.

The proposed legislation 1s radically d11Ierent from the old N. R. A. First, it applies only to interstate industries and those local industries which substantially and mater1ally compete with interstate industries. It does not affect local service trades or local retail stores or agricultural workers. Second, it deals with labor conditions only—it has nothing to do with fixing prices, with trade practices, with production controls, and with monopolies. Third, all the wage and hour regulation is done by the Government labor board itself—not by private code authorities in the industry. Under the bill one group in an industry cannot gang up on the others or run up expenses on the others. The Government labor board must consult industry and be guided by the industrial facts, but a dominant group in private industry is given no right to write its own ticket.

SCOPE LIMITED

Fourth, as reported by the Senate Committee on Education and Labor, the jurisdiction of the bill has stopped short at the equivalent of an annual worker's income of $800. The jurisdiction of the bill as so reported also stops short when hours are reduced to 40 per week. But the bill makes it clear that the attainment of shorter hours and higher wages by individual or collective bargaining is not to be obstructed.

Fifth, the new labor board is instructed under the bill to put the new labor regulations into effect slowly enough so that industry will not be dislocated and men thrown out of work in the process and to put them into effect in such a way that they will help rather than supplant collective bargaining.

How many workers are affected? Evidence given at the hearings on the bill indicated that something over 8,000,000 people are getting less than 40 cents an hour, and these 3,000,000 would be directly affected by the bill. The evidence also indicated that at least 6,000,000 people are now working more than 40 hours a week in industries affected by the bill, and these 6,000,000 would stand to benefit directly from its provisions.

The-net effect of this bill for labor as a whole will be incalculable. By shortening hours it will create new jobs in the unskilled categories for mUllons of our unskilled unemployed. By setting up better standards of wages in the interstate industries directly affected, it will indirectly create competition for labor which should affect wages in all industries where the labor is interchangeable between interstate and local industries. The Federal standards will also stimulate State legislation for local industry, and bring about better labor standards for all workers. And finally the bill will underpin the whole wage structure, by law, at a point from which collective bargaining can bulld more surely and which wlll be a bulwark against the collapse of higher wages in the event of a business recession.

BROADLY BENEFICIAL

With comparatively little direct administrative application to industry, therefore, the effect of the bill and of action by the board will have indirect repercussions all through the labor market to the great benefit of all workers now employed—to the benefit of milllons on relief who want private employmentto the great benefit of the purchasing power supporting industry and agriculture throughout the country on which the permanence of all employment depends—to the great benefit of the Budget and the taxpayers of the United States; to the greater benefit of the health, comfort, and happiness of overworked and underpaid employees.

There are some who loudly cry that reasonable working hours and fair wages will decrease production and result in an economy of scarcity. I deny this. If all our factories were running to capacity and if every able-bodied worker in the land were now working to produce as much as he could, and the goods produced were being distributed as rapidly and as equitably as possible there might be some basis for this theory. But when for years many millions of our working population have been unemployed and their capacity to work and produce has been wasted, and even those lucky ones at work get wages too low to enable them to buy the things which they would like to have and which the unemployed could produce, there is obviously some catch in a theory that tells us higher wages and shorter hours will hurt our working population.

That theory ignores the two most important facts of our business life—the growing displacement of industrial workers by machines and the growing dependence of a cash-crop agricultural population upon the purchasing power of the industrial worker. We are suffering today not from a scarcity of goods, not from a scarcity of factories, not from a scarcity of labor, but a scarcity of purchasing power among the underpaid and unemployed for the products of farm and factory.

Specialization and subdivision of labor have enormously increased man's abillty to produce. It is estimated that individual productivtty—an individual's abillty to produce if given the chance—has increased more than 70 percent in the last 25 years. Yet there has been no comparable increase in the standard of living of the average man. Not only has this great increase in productivity brought no economy of abundance to the average man but it has thrown millions of workers out of work. And, what is even more disturbing, this great increase tn productivity has been accompanied by a growing sense of insecurity among an our people, employers, workers, and farmers alike. Most Americans who only a few short years ago prided themselves on their confidence, enterprise and optimism, now reluctantly confess a great fear for the fUture. All of us share insecurity 1f not poverty 1n the midst of plenty.

EAGER TO BUY

Our present economy of scarcity is not due, as I have pointed out, to a scarcity of goods, or a scarcity of labor, but to a scarcity of purchasing power among the farmers and the underpaid and the unemployed industrial workers. There are plenty of workers now unemployed wi11ing and anxious to produce more goods from farm and factory. The d1fficulty is that there are not enough workers who have the money to purchase the things they need. The absence of purchasers able to buy American goods has brought us to a curiously unstable condition—with great prosperity at the top, millions of unemployed at the bottom, and a tax burden for the support of the purchasing power of those unemployed which can permanently threaten the Budget.

We have been gradually, but all too slowly, reducing hours and raising the real standard of living Df our lowest-paid workers for years. But if we would keep pace with the changes which the improvement of machines is now making upon the balance of our economic system, upon the number of men who can find work in the city which permits them to buy the surplus on the farms, farmers' earnings, and workers' wages must be sufficient to enable them to buy the output of our economic system.

THE MATTER OF COST

There is no reason why the price of goods, commodities, and services should rise in a vicious circle merely because the poorest paid wage earner gets part of the benefit of a machine civilization in increased leisure and a fair return for his work. The wages of the lower-paid ranks of labor are becoming less and less important in the final cost of the machine-made product as compared with the return on the capital represented by the machine. Labor costs do not average more than 25 percent of the costs of the things we buy.

While no law proposes such a result if wages were doubled, the cost of living would not at most experience an average rise of more than 25 percent, and the workers with their wages doubled would be able to buy three-fourths as much again of the products at farms and factories as they are now able to buy. In fact, however, increased efficiency and greater mass production would part1ally offset the rising cost of labor. And it should be remembered that doubling the labor costs of those particular producers who are chiselers and undercutters would not by any manner of means double the labor costs of all producers.

ECONOMIC THEORIES

Economic theories are sound only when they work. In the last 4 years a small group, both powerful and noisy, has insisted that everything that worked was theoretically unsound. We are wisely beg1nning to trust our own common sense rather than the charts and tables of that group. That common sense tells us that unless we solve the practical and moral problem of unemployment—unless we find ways to create jobs in private industry for those now supported against their will out of the Public Treasury—

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our economic problems will steadily grow worse for farmer, for city dweller, for laborer, and employer alike.

That common sense also tells us that in addition to improving the health and happiness of the worker, it will help create those jobs and supply necessary purchasing power, if we shorten unreasonably long hours and if we raise the income of the whole lower-income third of our industrial and farm population to an American standard of living. And the common sense of the farmer tells him that his interests, here as elsewhere, lie with the welfare of the farmer's best customer and natural economic ally—the workingman of the city.

Federal wage and hour regulation is not the complete answer to the unemployment problem, nor to the problem of keeping our economy in balance. But it is a part, and a large part, of the answer—and a part that we can no longer delay putting in operation.

HUGO L. BLACK.

WASHINGTON, D. C., July 23, 1937.

Mr. McNARY. Mr. President, I have no desire to hold the floor. I simply announce that when the discussion of the amendment offered by the able Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. LODGE] shall have been concluded, I desire a yea-and-nay vote on it.

Mr. BORAH. Mr. President, I understand that the amendment now pending and upon which we are about to vote is the amendment offered by the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. LODGE].

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.

Mr. BORAH. I am aware, of course, that the Senator from Massachusetts spoke on it, but I think it has not been debated by other Senators. It provides:

The United States Tar11I Commission is authorized and directed (1) to compute for each foreign country the average annual volume of each class of goods which were produced, manufactured, mined, handled, or in any other manner worked on in such country, and which were imported into the United States during the 6-year period immediately preceding the enactment of this act; and (2) to cert1fy to the Secretary of the Treasury the computations so made. Thereafter no goods of any class shall be allowed to be imported into the United States from any foreign country during any calendar year in excess of the average annual volume of that class of goods so computed and certified by the Commission unless it is shown to the satisfaction of the Labor Standards Board that the labor standards in such countries which are applicable to the class of goods to which such computation applies are at least equal to the labor standards under which like or similar goods of that class are produced in the United States.

Is this amendment satisfactory to the chairman of the committee?

Mr. BLACK. It is not. I am very much against it.

Mr. BORAH. I was going to say that I do think there is a sound principle involved in it, but the question which occurs to me is how would it be possible for us to know that the law had been complied with in the other countries. Undoubtedly, as the able Senator from Massachusetts has said, we ought to have protection against substandard conditions in other countries; but with the duties already provided for the board, I doubt whether it could possibly ascertain that the law had been complied with in other countries. I wish it could be possible for us to know that the law had been complied with.

Mr. LODGE. Mr. President. will the Senator yield?

Mr. BORAH. I yield.

Mr. LODGE. My thought in connection with the amendment was that before any imports were permitted to come into the United States the party responsible for the imports would certify to the board that the products had been manufactured under the conditions specified.

Mr. BORAH. That is precisely what I had in mind. I could mention countries whose certificate I would not regard as of any importance whatever.

Mr. LODGE. I can quite understand that point of view. I realize that a great deal of work would be required of members of the board, but if by any chance the amendment should be adopted, I believe we could provide the necessary personnel and the necessary facilities to insure that the policy would be carried into effect.

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, each time a bill has been presented relating to wages and hours this very question has arisen. Of course, without any criticism of anyone who has ever offered such a proposal, it has always been true that on each occasion the Manufacturers' Association, which is always against every piece of progressive legislation of this type, has initiated movements of this kind, and backing them up have been Mr. Matthew Woll and an association with which he is connected.

It is known to all who are familiar with the history of the first effort to pass a working hours bill that the bill was defeated on account of a provision of this kind being tacked on in the House committee. There is a provision in the bill already which applies the regular tariff law and the flexible tariff provision of the law to the operation of the economic system in this country. We now have a flexible-tariff provision which relates to all imports into this country. Under that flexible-tariff provision, upon a hearing before the Tariff Commission and a report by the Tariff Commission, the proper action can be taken by the President of the United States.

Mr. VANDENBERG. Mr. President, I understood the Senator to say that the flexible-tariff provision applied to all imports. Is it not true that it does not apply to a third of the imports, which are on the free list?

Mr. BLACK. It applies to those imports which are in such a substantial amount as to cause Congress to believe there should be any tariff at all, and I think every person who is familiar with the tariff and with the pressure that is put on the Members of Congress every time a tariff measure is brought up is well aware of the fact that there is nothing a person can use in life or that can be used after his death that has not already had a tariff put on it if the imports represent as much as one one-thousandth of 1 percent of the domestic production.

Mr. BORAH. And may I say that nobody undertakes to take the tariff off?

Mr. BLACK. The Senator is correct; the tariffs rarely are taken off. When they start, they keep going up.

Let me state what the proposed amendment would do. There may be some who desire to enact such a provision into law, though I cannot believe there are many. This amendment would say in effect, We are going to stop any importations of goods into this country in excess of the average for the last 5 years. It would further say that none of those goods may come from any other country in the world unless that country adopts the minimum wage which we adopt and unless it adopts the maximum hours which we conclude fit this Nation.

We must remember it is a truism that a nation does not export unless it imports. Trade is not all on one side. It is a beautiful and wonderful theory to assume that we may export all we want to sell abroad and import nothing, but as a matter of fact the theory does not work out in practice. If we desire to put into effect an embargo which would prohibit the importation of any goods in the future, the proper thing to do would be to put an embargo on all goods coming into the United States. It amounts practically to an embargo when we attempt to enact legislation which says that no country in the world may ship any goods into the United States unless it works its labor tmder the identical wage standards that we do.

Mr. President, at the instance of the junior Senator from Louisiana [Mr. ELLENDER], who was very much interested in this particular subject. and who desired to see that no injustice should be done to the people of the United States in connection with imports or exports, the committee adopted the amendment which he offered.

That amendment applies the provisions of the flexible-tariff law. I note that a substitute for that particular amendment has been offered by the senior Senator from North Carolina [Mr. BAILEY]. His amendment, however, apparently is based, as I read it hurriedly, upon the same principle as the regulation which is proposed in the bill.

The amendment offered by the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. LODGE], however, departs completely from the time-honored method of attempting to provide protection; and, instead of considering the amount imported from year to year and all the other elements which are provided in the

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flexible-tariff provision, It freezes imports at the average of importations for the past 5 years. Are we ready to legislate now in such a way as to make it against the law to import into this country any more goods of a certain type than the average of our importations for the past 5 years? If so, why not go the full length and make it against the law to export any automobiles? Why not make it against the law to export any cotton? Why not make it against the law to export any wheat? Why stop with any one thing?

I say it would be just as reasonable to attempt to stop importations of all types, or to freeze them on the basis of what they have been for the past 5 years, as it would be to attempt to freeze exports.

Mr. President, this is a very vital question in connection with this bill. The committee, desiring to take such action as would assure that no injustice should be done to American industry by the bill, if it should be enacted, and realizing that it only touches the lowest-paid labor so far as wages are concerned, adopted the suggestion of the junior Senator from Louisiana, and provided what I believe to be a fair amendment to the flexible-tariff law. In other words, after the enactment of this bill, upon a request made to the Tariff Commission, in accordance with the conditions that have previously existed and under some additional contingencies, the Tariff Commission is to hold a hearing. It is to take into consideration not merely an imports for the past 5 years, but all the elements that enter and should enter into consideration as to whether or not there should be any further tariff upon imports.

Are we to place ourselves in a situation where the law absolutely freezes the status quo in an industry, irrespective of the fact that it might be shown to be wholly and completely controlled by monopoly, irrespective of the fact that a very small percentage of the product involved might be imported into this country?

Mr. President, I sincerely hope the Senate will not vote to hang onto this measure a tariff provision which goes far beyond anything that has ever been suggested, and which in practical effect amounts to an embargo, a freezing of the status quo with reference to imports; a freezing, if we follow it to its logical conclusion, of the trade that we have with the other countries of the world.

I trust that the Senate will permit to remain in the bill the amendment which has already been placed in it at the suggestion of the junior Senator from Louisiana, who was on the alert from the very beginning with reference to this particular point and that the pending amendment may be rejected.

Mr. LODGE. Mr. President, I think the distinguished Senator from Alabama was not in the Chamber when I began my remarks. 1 made it clear at that time that I was offering the amendment at the instance of the Massachusetts State Federation of Labor.

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. LODGE. I yield.

Mr. BLACK. I may state that I received one letter from a labor organization in Alabama making the same request. I wrote them and asked them who had urged them to make the request. I told them of experiences we bad previously bad in being urged to accept such amendments. It was found that the suggestion had been made to the labor organization by an organization in Washington, of which Mr. Matthew Woll is a member. I make no crtticism of Mr. Matthew Woll, but we all know that in each instance where tariff bills have been considered he has been the sponsor of the very high tariff measures, including the Smoot-Hawley-Grundy tariff bill, as I recall.

Mr. LODGE. I thank the Senator for that information; but my experience with the State federation of labor in Massachusetts has convinced me that they can do their own thinking, and they always have. I also understand that an amendment which is much more drastic than mine is contained in the House bill, and that the late Representative Connery, whose constituent I was for many years, had an amendment in the House counterpart of this bill which would have stopped all imports. So that is why I said my amendment was mild.

The Senator says the amendment would freeze imports. It would freeze imports, because it seemed to me it would be better to freeze them at the 5-year average than to destroy them.

I also should like to call the attention of the Senate to the fact that the tariff provision now contained in this bill, to my mind, does not give definite protection. It provides that the Tariff Commission shall investigate the differences with a view to determining whether or not an increase of the tariff should be made. Of course, it is self-evident that if we are to have foreign trade, if we are to export, we must import. I would be the last person to deny that such is the fact. That is why the amendment protects our import trade to the extent that it does. But is it not equally self-evident that if we raise the cost of living and raise prices and raise standards, which we are in favor of doing, and do not protect ourselves against substandard foreign competition, we shall destroy our own standards?

That is the issue I should like to leave with the Senate.

Mr. McNARY. Mr. President, I stated a few moments ago that I desired a yea-and-nay vote on the amendment proposed by the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. LODGE] to the amendment of the committee.

I wish to invite the attention of the Senator from Alabama [Mr. BLACK] to the recommendation of the National Grange, the national cooperative organizations, and several kindred farm organizations, with reference to the amendment offered by the Senator from Massachusetts. I have a letter which I received during the middle of the afternoon from these organizations commending, not the amendment by name, but language similar to the amendment proposed by the Senator from Massachusetts. So we certainly have the backing of the farmers of the country as well as many of the labor organizations.

Mr. President, upon the amendment of the Senator from Massachusetts to the amendment of the committee, I ask for the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The clerk will call the roll.

The Chief Clerk called the roll, and the following Senators answered to their names:

The VICE PRESIDENT. Seventy-eight Senators having answered to their names, a quorum is present. The yeas and nays have been ordered on the amendment of the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. LODGE] to the amendment of the committee.

Mr. McNARY. Mr. President, I appreciate that was the order made just before the absence of a quorum was suggested, but at this time I suggest, before the yeas and nays are called, that the amendment be reported from the desk.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The clerk will again report the amendment of the Senator from Massachusetts to the amendment of the committee.

The CHIEF CLERK. In the amendment of the committee it is proposed, on page 53, lines 24 and 25, to strike out "in any

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State;"; on page 54, line 5, to strike out the comma and the words in any State; and on page 66, between lines 12 and 13, to insert the following new subsection:

(e) The United States Tariff Commission ts authorized and directed (1) to compute for each foreign country the average annual volume of each class of goods which were produced, manufadured, mined, handled, or in any other manner worked on in such country, and which were lmported into the United States during the 5-year period immediately preceding the date of enactment of th1s act, and (2) to certify to the Secretary of the Treasury the computations so made. Thereafter no goods of any class shall be allowed to be imported into the United States from any foreign country during any calendar year 1n excess of the average annual volume of that class of goods so computed and certified by the Commission unless it is shown to the satisfaction of the Labor Standards Board that the labor standards 1n such country which are applicable to the class of goods to which such computation applies are at least equal to the labor standards under which like or simi1ar goods of that class are produced in the United States. The Commission and the Secretary of the Treasury are authorized, respectively, to make such rules and regulations as may be necessary to carry out the provisions of this subsection, and the various agencies of the Government are authorized and directed to cooperate to the fullest practicable extent with the Commission and the Secretary of the Treasury in carrying out their functions under this subsection.

Mr. BONE. Mr. President, I wonder if the Senator from Massachusetts would agree to an amendment to his amendment that not only would include foreign countries but would include the Philippine Islands, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico; for if there is any section of the globe where subnormal labor standards exist, it is under the American flag in our island possessions. I know no more reason why Americans should be protected from other forms of foreign labor than why they should be protected from that which exists under the American flag. Let us make either fish or flesh of this thing.

I have had the most bitter protests from my State against importations from the Philippine Islands. At the same time business interests and some farmers have assured me that trade with the Philippine Islands was the very breath of life for the Northwest. I do not believe in making fish of one thing and fowl of another. We have island possessions out in the Pacific where the lowest type of labor is employed at wages which in this country would be regarded as a disgrace. If the Senator from Massachusetts wants to protect American labor from the competition of cheap labor, then I think the Senator ought to be willing to have the bill amended to exclude competition that comes from labor which now operates under the American flag at starvation wages.

Again, let it be said that if we are to abolish foreign trade, if we are to do anything to injure it, let us be honest with ourselves and repeal the American Merchant Marine Act of 1936. Congress is about to vote millions and millions and millions of dollars to build ships almost as a gift for Americans to haul foreign trade. Of what avail is it to build those ships and sweat Americans in taxation to build them, only to do here something which negatives the very doing of that thing; that is to say, giving this money to American ship operators?

I wonder if the Senator will bring these subnormal workers under the American flag within the scope of his amendment.

Mr. LODGE. Mr. President, I shall be very glad to see the labor standards provided in this measure extended to all persons under the flag.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The question is on agreeing to the amendment offered by the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. LODGE] to the amendment, in the nature of a substitute, reported by the committee. On that question the yeas and nays have been demanded and ordered. The clerk will call the roll.

The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.

Mr. BAILEY (when his name was called). I have a general pair with the junior Senator from New York [Mr. WAGNER]. I do not know how he would vote on this question if he were present. Therefore I withhold my vote.

Mr. SHIPSTEAD (when his name was called). I have a general pair with the senior Senator from Virginia [Mr. GLASS]. I am informed, however, that if he were present he would vote as I intend to vote. I therefore feel at liberty to vote, and vote nay.

The roll call was concluded.

Mr. DAVIS (after having voted in the affirmative). Has the junior Senator from Kentucky [Mr. LOGAN] voted?

The VICE PRESIDENT. That Senator has not voted.

Mr. DAVIS. I have a general pair with the junior Senator from Kentucky. I understand that if he were present he would vote "nay." I, therefore, withdraw my vote.

Mr. MINTON. I announce that the Senators from New York [Mr. CoPELAND and Mr. WAGNER] are absent on their way to attend the funeral of an intimate friend, the late Mr. James J. Dooling.

The Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. DUFFY] and the Senator from Georgia [Mr. RUSSELL] are members of the committee to attend the dedication of the battle monuments in France and are therefore necessarily detained.

The Senator from Arizona [Mr. ASHURST], the Senator from Michigan [Mr. BROWN], the Senator from Virginia [Mr. GLAss], the Senator from Iowa [Mr. HERRING], the Senator from Illinois [Mr. LEWIS], the Senator from Kentucky [Mr. LOGAN], the Senator from California [Mr. McADOO], the Senator from North Carolina [Mr. REYNOLDs], and the Senator from Maryland [Mr. TYDINGS] are absent on important public business.

Mr. AUSTIN. I announce the general pair of the Senator from Vermont [Mr. GIBSON] with the Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. DUFFYJ.

The result was announced—yeas 19, nays, 57, as follows:

YEAS—19

NAYS—57

NOT VOTING—57

So Mr. LODGE's amendment to the amendment in the nature of a substitute reported by the committee was rejected.

Mr. HARRISON. Mr. President, I offer an amendment so that it may be pending.

Mr. McNARY. Mr. President, I desire to reoffer my amendment in modified form.

Mr. HARRISON. If the Senator from Oregon desires to offer his amendment now, I will withdraw mine.

Mr. McNARY. Yesterday I offered an amendment covering fresh vegetables and fruits. I withdrew it so that the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. LODGE] might offer his amendment. Now I should like to offer my amendment in modified form.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The Chair will state to the Senator from Oregon that the Senator from Mississippi told the Chair he desired to offer his amendment so that it might be printed and lie on the table.

Mr. HARRISON. I withdraw my amendment.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The amendment of the Senator from Mississippi will be printed and lie on the table subject to his call. The Chair understands that the Senator from

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Oregon now desires that the Senate consider his amendment.

Mr. McNARY. I offer it. I suppose it will not be considered until tomorrow, when the Senate reconvenes at 11 o'clock a. m.

The VICE PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Oregon desire to have the amendment pending?

Mr. McNARY. Yes.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The Senator's amendment will be pending.

Mr. McNarys amendment was, in the committee amendment, on page 60, line 20, before the period, to insert a colon and the following:

Provided further, That the provisions of this subsection shall not be applicable with respect to any person employed in connection with the canning or other packing or packaging of fish, sea. foods, sponges, truits, maple sugar, or vegetables when the services of such person are of a seasonal nature and do not extend over total periods of more than 6 months in any one year.

Mr. CONNALLY. Mr. President, I present an amendment for printing. I do not desire to offer it at this time; but I ask unanimous consent that it may be printed in the RECORD, and I should like to have it read from the desk for information.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The Chair understands that the Senator from Texas desires unanimous consent that his amendment be read for the information of the Senate.

Mr. CONNALLY. That is correct.

The VICE PRESIDENT. Is there objection? The Chair hears none, and the amendment will be read for the information of the Senate.

The CHIEF CLERK. In the cpmmittee amendment, on page 66, it is proposed to strike out lines 18, 19, and 20 and in lieu thereof to insert the following:

(2) Shall be published in the Federal Register and shall not take effect until the Congress has been in session at least 60 calendar days after the date of such publication.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The amendment of the Senator from Texas will be printed and lie on the table. The amendment now before the Senate is the one offered by the Senator from Oregon [Mr. McNary].

Mr. MURRAY. Mr. President, I send to the desk an amendment to be proposed to the pending bill, which I ask to have printed and lie on the table.

The VICE PRESIDENT. Without objection, the amendment will be printed and lie on the table.

Mr. WALSH. Mr. President, I ask to have printed in the RECORD, in connection with the debate on the pending bill, an analysis of the bill paragraph by paragraph, prepared by the Department of Labor, which I think will be helpful.

The VICE PRESIDENT. Is there objection?

There being no objection, the statement was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:

ANALYSIS OP S. 2475 (REPT. No. 884, 75TH CONG., 1ST SESS.), KNOWN AS THE FAIR LABOR STANDARDS ACT of 1937

S. 2475 was introduced in the Senate by Senator BLACK and referred to the Committee on Education and Labor. The committee held joint public hearings with the House Committee on Labor upon the original bill, and then reported an amended bill. The present analysis is of that amended bill. It 1s composed of 5 parts and 25 sections. For the sake of convenience it is analyzed by part and section.

PART I. LEGISLATIVE DECLARATION; DEFINITIONS; LABOB. STANDARDS BOARD

Legislative declaration

Section 1, the legislative declaration, points out that the employment of workers under substandard labor conditions in occupations in and directly affecting interstate commerce 1s detrimental to such commerce and the workers therein, and that the correction of this unhealthy condition requires that Congress should both prohibit the shipment in interstate commerce of goods produced under substandard labor conditions and provide for the elimination of such conditions.

Definitions

Section 2 defines various terms used 1n the bill. The most important committee amend.Inents are as follows:

"Employee" is defined to include all employees with the exception of any person employed in a bona-fide executive, administrative, professional, or local retailing capacity, or as a seaman, fisherman, or railroad employee subject to the Hours of Service Act, or any person employed 1n agriculture, including poultry or dairying.

Oppressive child labor" means the employment of a person under 16 in any occupation, or the employment of a person between 16 and 18 in an industry which the Chief of the Children's Bureau declares to be hazardous or detrimental to the well-being of the employee, unless the employer is a parent of the employee.

The definition further provides that there is no oppressive child labor if the employer has a certificate from the Chief of the Children's Bureau that the employee is above the oppressive child-labor age, or if the Chief of the Children's Bureau declares that the employment of certain persons under 16 shall not constitute oppressive child labor because he has found that such employment does not interfere with their schooling or well-being.

Substandard labor condition means a condition of employment under which (a) an oppressive workweek exists; (b) an oppressive wage is paid; or (c) oppressive child labor exists.

(This 1s a significant change from the earlier bill, inasmuch as the double standards of the old bill, i. e., the nonoppressive wage and minimum fair wage and the nonoppressive workweek and a maximum reasonable workweek have been merged into a single wage and hour standard, namely, a minimum wage and a maximum workweek. The other substandard labor conditions mentioned in the prior blli, namely, such oppressive labor practices as strike breaking and utilization of labor spies, have been stricken from the substitute.)

Labor Standards Board

Section 3 creates a Labor Standards Board, composed of five members, to be appointed by the President, with the consent of the Senate, for staggered terms of 5 years each, at $10,000 per year.,

Subsection (d) of this section broadens the number of employees exempt from civil service so that they now include an executive secretary, attorneys, examiners, regional director, accountants, special consultant, and experts. Other employees are to be appointed subject to the civil-service laws.

PART II—ESTABLISHMENT OF FAIR LABOB STANDARDS

Minimum-wage and maximum-hour standards

Section 4 is a substitute section, and authorizes the board to fix minimum wages and maximum hours. It takes the place of the former controversial section 4 (nonoppressive standards) and section 5 (fair labor standards) of the bill. The most strik1ng feature of this section is the llmitation of the board's jurisdiction to wages not in excess ot 40 cents an hour or of hours below 40 in 1 week. It contains an expression of policy encouraging higher wages by collective bargaining (but not, it appears, giving them the force of law) and of discouraging abrupt changes which might dislocate American industry.

Section 4 (b) provides that in fixing the minimum wages the board must find that such action will not curtail opportunity for employment and that the wage will be as nearly adequate as economically feasible to maintain a minimum standard of living necessary for general well-being. However, the board cannot fix a minimum wage in excess of 40 cents an hour. In declaring minimum wages the board is to consider (1) the cost of living; (2) facts relevant in a court in a suit for value of services rendered; (3) the wages established for comparable work by collective agreement; and ( 4) the wages paid for comparable work by employers maintaining minimum standards.

Section 4 (c) provides that in fixing a maximum workweek the board must find that such action w111 not curtail earning power and that the workweek w1ll be as nearly adequate as economically feasible to maintain health, emciency, and general well-being. However, the board cannot fix a maximum workweek of less than 40 hours per week. In declar1ng a maximum workweek the board is to consider (1) the relations of the work to the well-being of the employees; (2) the number of persons available for employment in the industry; (3) the hours of employment established for comparable work by collective agreement; and (4) the hours of employment in comparable work established by employers maintatning a maximum standard.

Collective-bargaining agreements protected

Section 5 saves the rights of employees to bargain collectively and dispels any doubt as to the legallty of wages or hours so obtained which are more advantageous to the employees than the standards fixed under the act.

Exemptions from labor standards with respect to wages and hours

Section 6 (a) allows an employer to maintain an oppressive workweek if he pays his employees time and a half for overtime, unless the board determines that such employment is substandard in order to prevent a circumvention of the act.

Section 6 (b) authorizes the board to declare exemptions for (1) apprentices and learners; (2) those of impaired capacity due to age or physical or mental deficiency or injury; (3) deductions for food, lodging, or other facilities necessarily furnished by the employers; (4) overtime in case of peak activities or emergency works; and (5) other cases or classes justifying special treatment.

PART III—UNFAIR GOODS BARRED FROM INTERSTATE COMMERCE AND INTERSTATE COMMERCE PROTECTED FROM THE EFFECT OF SUBSTANDARD LABOR CONDITIONS

Prohibits shipments and employment conditions tn interstate commerce and production for interstate commerce

Section 7 makes it unlawful to sell or ship in interstate commerce any unfair goods, or to employ under any substandard labor conditions employees engaged in interstate commerce or in the production at goods for sale or shipment in interstate commerce.

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Protection of interstate commerce from effect of substandard labor conditions

Section 8 (a) authorizes the Board to eliminate substandard labor conditions existing in the production of goods not sold in interstate commerce which compete with goods produced under fair labor standards, which are sold or shipped in interstate commerce.

Section 8 (b) makes it unlawful to employ any employee in Violation of an order under this section.

Section 8 (c) authorizes the United States Tariff Commission to investigate the differences resulting from the operation of this act in the costs of production of any domestic article and of any similar foreign article, with a view to determining whether an increase in duty on the foreign article should be made.

(It will be noticed that the constitutional basis for these provisions rests upon the theory that the Government can regulate the labor conditions in the factories using the channels of interstate commerce. The other titles of the original bill which have such alternative bases as the prison-made-goods theory, the unfairtrade-practice theory, the fluctuation-of-price theory, and the labor-disputes theory have been discarded.)

PART IV. GENERAL ADMINISTRATIVE PROVISIONS

Labor standard orders

Section 9 requires that a labor-standard order be made only after a hearing and that it define the occupation, place, class, craft, or industrial unit to which it relates.

It provides that an order may classify employers, employees, and employments according to locality, population, number of employees, nature and volume of goods, or other circumstances, but declares a policy to avoid excessive classification.

A labor-standard order may contain such conditions as are necessary to prevent the circumvention of the act, or the minimum wage from becoming the maximum wage.

Hearings

Section 10 provides that the hearings to be held before any order can be made shall be public and held only after notice.

Advisory committees on fair labor standards uith respect to wages and hours

Section 11 directs the board to appoint an advisory committee of employer, employee, and public representatives to report to it on value of service and hours of employment in an industry before establishing a minimum wage or maximum workweek. However, the board is not bound by the report.

Investigations-testimony

Section 12 (a) authorizes the board to investigate to determine whether there has been, or is about to be, a violation of the act or any labor-standard order

Section 12 (b) authorizes any member of the board to administer oaths, subpena witnesses, and require the production of books in pursuance of its investigatory powers.

Section 12 (c) authorizes the board to invoke the aid of the courts to compel testimony.

Enforcement

Section 13 authorizes the board to institute suits in the courts, enjoin violations of the act or a labor-standard order.

Records; labels

Section 14 (a) requires employers to keep records of employment, wages, and hours.

Section 14 (b) authorizes the board to require that goods be labeled.

Section 14 (c) authorizes the board to issue certificates of compliance to employers.

Powers of the Secretary of Labor and of the Children's Bureau

Section 15 directs the board to utilize the Department of Labor for all investigations and inspections under section 12 (a), and gives the Secretary of Labor the powers enumerated thereunder to conduct such investigations.

Section 15 (b) directs the board to utilize the Chief of the Children's Bureau for investigations under section 12 with respect to the employment of minors, and to bring actions under section 13 to enjoin oppressive child labor.

(This section might also be strengthened by consideration of the amendment submitted by the Secretary which provides that all the procedural powers related to investigations contained in section 12 should be conferred upon the Department in the performance of the duties imposed by this section, and that the Secretary should also have authority to issue regulations relating to officers and employees of the Department, including the Children's Bureau, in the performance of work pertaining to this portion of the act.)

Section 16 authorizes the board to issue appropriate regulations and orders.

Validity of contracts

Section 17 makes any contract in violation of this act void. and any contracts to waive compliance with this act void.

Reparation; release of goods

Section 18 (a) provides that employees employed under substandard labor conditions are entitled to receive as reparation the amounts that they should have received less the amounts actually received.

Section 18 (b) gives the employee the right to recover such reparation in a civil action, together With costs and a reasonable attorney's fee. Such action must be brought by the employee or by the board for the employee.

Section 18 (c) authorizes the board to exempt goods from the prohibition against interstate shipment, if the owners had no reason to believe that substandard labor conditions existed in the production of those goods, or such exemption is necessary to prevent undue hardship and is not detrimental to the public interest. However, such exemption cannot be granted unless provision is made for the payment of the reparation due to the employees producing the goods.

Relation to other laws

Section 19 provides that no provision of this act, or order of the board shall justify noncompliance with any other Federal or State law or ordinance imposing more onerous standards.

(This section contains an important proviso which was adopted by the committee at the suggestion of the Secretary of Labor which modifies this sentence by providing that any contractor who was subject to this act and who has a Government contract in excess of $2,000 is also subject to the Walsh-Healey Act, except that to the extent that the standards required under the Walsh-Healey Act differ from the wages, hours, and child-labor standards required by the bill, that the standards under this bill shall govern.)

Common carriers not liable

Section 20 provides that the act shall not impose any liability upon a common carrier for the transportation of goods which it did not produce.

Court review of orders

Section 21 (a) makes the orders of the board reviewable in the circuit courts of the United States on questions of law.

Section 21 (b) provides that the commencement of proceedings under subsection (a) shall not operate as a stay of the board's order. The court may grant such a stay if the complainant files an undertaking for the payment to the employees of the reparations which might be due to them under section 18.

Jurisdiction of offenses and suits Section 22 confers jurisdiction on the district courts over any civil or criminal proceedings arising from violations of the act or the orders of the board.

Penalties

Section 23 makes any willful violation of the act a misdemeanor, and provides a fine of $500 or imprisonment for 6 months, or both for such violation.

Section 23 (e) prohibits the shipment in interstate commerce of goods produced in an establishment in the United States in which, within 30 days prior to removal of such goods, any oppressive child labor has been employed.

Separability

Section 24 is a separability clause.

Effective date of act

Section 25 provides that the act shall take effect immediately, except that no provision requiring the maintenance of any fair-labor standard or giving effect to any substandard condition is effective until 120 days after the enactment of this act. No labor standard order is effective until that date.

Mr. BRIDGES. Mr. President, I offer an amendment to the pending wage and hour bill, and ask to have it printed and lie on the table.

The VICE PRESIDENT. Without objection, the proposed amendment will be printed and lie on the table.

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  Page 7778        CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE        July 29, 1937        (81 Cong. Rec. 7778, 1937)

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FAIR LABOR STANDARDS IN INTERSTATE COMMERCE

Mr. BONE, Mr. McCARRAN, and .Mr. REYNOlDS each submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by them, respectively, to the bill (S. 2475) to provide for the establishment of fair labor standards in employments in and affecting interstate commerce, and for other purposes, which were severally ordered to lie on the table and to be printed.

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  Page 7778        CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE        July 29, 1937        (81 Cong. Rec. 7778, 1937)

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FAIR LABOR STANDARDS IN INTERSTATE COMMERCE

The Senate resumed the consideration of the bill (S. 2475) to provide for the establishment of fair labor standards in employments in and affecting interstate commerce, and for other purposes.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The question is on agreeing to the amendment offered by the Senator from Oregon [Mr. McNARY].

Mr. AUSTIN. Mr. President, I support the amendment offered by the Senator from Oregon [Mr. McNARY] to add a proviso on page 60, line 20, reading as follows:

Provided further, That the provisions or this subsection shall not be applicable with respect to any person employed in connection with the canning or other packing or packaging of fish, sea foods, sponges, fruit, maple sugar, or vegetables when the services of such person are of a seasonal nature and do not extend over total periods of more than 6 months in any one year.

I ask the Senator from Oregon if any other amendment of his is now pending?

Mr. McNARY. Mr. President, I assume that is the amendment which I offered for consideration last evening prior to adjournment?

The VICE PRESIDENT. The Chair is advised that the pending amendment is one offered by the Senator from Oregon on page 60, line 20. The Parliamentarian informs the Chair it is the amendment offered by the Senator from Oregon yesterday afternoon.

Mr. McNARY. Is it the amendment which I modified and offered late yesterday afternoon?

The VICE PRESIDENT. The clerk will report the amendment for the information of the Senator from Oregon.

The LEGISLATIVE CLERK. In the committee amendment, on page 60, line 20, before the period, it is proposed to insert a colon and the following proviso:

Provided further, That the provisions of this subsection shall not be applicable with respect to any person employed in connection with the canning or other packing or packaging of fish; sea foods, sponges, fruits, maple sugar, or vegetables, when the services of such person are of a seasonal nature and do not extend over total periods of more than 6 months in any one year.

Mr. AUSTIN. Mr. President, I support the amendment and hope it will be adopted, so that in the event the bill should pass this part of the burden contained in the bill may be lifted from those affected by the exception.

Mr. BORAH. Mr. President—

The VICE PRESIDENT. Does the senator from Vermont yield to the Senator from Idaho?

Mr. AUSTIN. I yield.

Mr. BORAH. Is the Senator going to discuss the question why they should be excepted?

Mr. AUSTIN. Yes; I intend to do so.

Mr. BORAH. I should like to know why they should be excepted.

Mr. AUSTIN, Mr. President, my understanding of the bill is necessarily limited to such study as could be made by a Senator not on the committee which considered the bill. Of course, in my own case I had the experience of hearing practically every word of testimony that was introduced on the Black 30-hour bill in 1935, which was reported favorably to the Senate, and relative to which I submitted a minority report which is quite complete, being Report No. 367, part, II, Seventy-fourth Congress, first session.

It seems to me there are so many outstanding objections to the bill which come within the scope of the study made 2 years ago that I cannot lend it my support. I think every Senator should ask with reference to this proposed legislation, What is the price of it? Assuming there are benefits, assuming there is a certain element of security which might be enforced upon the people from on high here in Washington, what is the cost of it? What does the farmer pay for it? What does the laborer pay for it? What do all the inhabitants of the United States pay for it?

As I discuss the matter, I want it understood that I assume every Senator as well as every other thinking person in the United States recognizes without debate the cost in dollars and cents, the cost in additional debt, and the cost in increased taxes; and that is the reason why I do not debate those elements of cost involved in the proposed program.

What I intend to discuss is the direct immediate economic loss to labor, the restrictions and limitations upon labor's right to contract and right to work or not to work, the curtailment of labor's opportunity to sen the only thing that labor has to sell for the number of hours that labor is willing to sell it, and for the price that labor is willing to ask for it. I shall discuss, if I can, that other cost to higher values, that cost cf so great importance, the consideration of which, I think, has split this country politically and divided the thinking people of the United States into two camps, one of which is for the revolution of American institutions and American Government, and the other of which is for the preservation of the fundamentals, the retention of that division of sovereignty between the Central Government and the several States, and the perpetuation of that separation from each other of the different departments of Government.

I shall try to emphasize that great cost which all citizens of the United States must pay for this program in the loss of protection, in the loss of freedom, in the loss of independence, in the loss of incentive, in the loss of nearly all those spiritual values which have contributed to the superb achievements of the American people in business. in culture, in art, and in those social virtues which we have dubbed during the New Deal as social justice. They are unequaled anyWhere else on earth, and they have been acquired by virtue of those higher values which have been held dear to the hearts of all Americans and have inspired every individual in the country to be a rugged individualist and to contribute the best that God has helped him to give for the building up of a great nation, a leader among nations.

With respect to the price paid by agriculture, the enforcement of the industrial regulation imposed by the bill will adversely affect the agricultural industry of America. The farmer will not be exempted as the bill pretends that he will be from the effects of its provisions. When the board fixes codes of wages and hours for grain elevators, creameries, cotton gins, canning plants, compressors, packing plants, oil mills, and like character of plants throughout the agricultural sections of the country, it will be impossible to keep the action from extending directly or indirectly to agricultural employment in such sections.

Furthermore, the increased cost of operating all industries which handle agricultural products will be passed on to the farmer and will be reflected in reduced prices to him for his products.

Mr. BILBO. Mr. President, will the Senator yield to me?

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Does the Senator from Vermont yield to the Senator from Mississippi.

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Mr. AUSTIN. I yield to the Senator.

Mr. BILBO. With the Senator's permission, I should like to offer an amendment to the pending amendment, so that the Senator may discuss it at the same time with the original amendment.

Mr. AUSTIN. I yield for that purpose.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Mississippi offers an amendment to the amendment of the Senator from Oregon [Mr. McNARY], which will be stated.

The LEGISLATIVE CLERK. It is proposed to amend the pending amendment on line 4 by inserting, after the word with, the words the ginning of cotton.

Mr. AUSTIN. I assent to that, Mr. President. In fact, I think it is obvious to those who are interested in this measure that I would assent to the addition of every industry in the United States, because I believe the principle of the pending bill has been tried out and has failed. I am talking about the economic benefits that are sought for labor and industry.

Is there any difference in principle between this bill and the N. R. A.? Probably somebody can answer that question. It contains the centralized power of fixing codes and placing upon labor a strait jacket. The very first price that labor will realize here, in my opinion, is that it is in a strait jacket. Labor may work only so long as a Government at Washington tells labor it may work. No matter what the wages may be, is it not apparent that this element of the pending bill is identical with the N. R. A.? It fixes a limit to the pay envelope, regardless of the height of the rate of pay. It tends to destroy hope of progress.

By the operation of a statute through the executive department of the Government of the United States it effectually freezes the opportunity of labor to sell its services. You may assume whatever price per hour you wish to assume; I say labor will rue the day that it got itself or was forced into the position of a statutory monopoly of the right of labor to work.

Mr. President, is it possible that labor does not see this thing? I say no laborer in America should be so far degraded that he must submit to a supreme authority in Washington the question of how many hours he may work; and let no man undertake to say that this power is not given by the pending bill.

Mr. BORAH. Mr. President, may I ask the Senator a question?

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Does the Senator from Vermont yield to the Senator from Idaho?

Mr. AUSTIN. Certainly.

Mr. BORAH. The Senator says labor should not submit to an authority prescribing the hours labor may work, or the wages it should have, referring now to minimum wages. The Senator would not carry that statement to its logical conclusion and say that labor should not be protected in some way against long hours or low wages, would he?

Mr. AUSTIN. Mr. President, I think the Senator from Idaho expanded my statement to include wages, did he not?

Mr. BORAH. Yes.

Mr. AUSTIN. I limited it to hours. I assumed in my statement the highest imaginable wages. I say, no matter what the wages may be, the fatal thing, the high price economically that labor pays for security, which we all want labor to have, is a freezing of the hours of the laborer's valuable life that may be used for the service of his fellow man and for the benefit of himself and his own family. That is what I said.

Mr. BORAH. Mr. President, when I came to the Senate the steel industry was employing labor 12 hours a day and 7 days in the week. That, I am sure, the Senator would not advocate.

Mr. AUSTIN. Not at all.

Mr. BORAH. There had to be some way to stop it.

Mr. AUSTIN. As a matter of fact, there probably is no more glorious story of progress in humane relations between employer and employee anywhere else on earth than there has been in this free country; and how has it been done? By a supreme power, a fascistic power here in Washington bludgeoning labor and capital together? Or has it been done by the evolutionary process which is the result of intelligent cooperation and of intelligent competition—in other words, freedom; the right and the dignity of the laborer on his own part to say, My service shall command such a price. I am willing to work so many hours. I have the right to say how long I will work and what price I shall get?

It is through that process that progress in labor relations has been made, employer competing with employer all the time, a difficult and complex process, and a slow one, to be sure, but, nevertheless, steadily advancing and gaining all the time, reducing hours and increasing wages, until the men of this country are the finest laborers in all the world, and the women of this country are the smartest women in the world.

I have studied this problem, not merely by sitting here in the United States and looking around among my neighbors but also by examining the problem in Asia and in Europe under all kinds of governments and conditions; and I know as an eyewitness that there is no place on earth where the laborer and his wife are so fortunate as right here in the United States. They gained that wonderful position by virtue of free trade among the several States of the United States and a protected trade abroad.

Now, however, we are confronted by this fallacy, as I claim, of restricted, limited, regimented trade among the several States, and free trade abroad. Let us increase our business with the rest of the world. Let us invite here the products of the coolie, and set them up in our shops in competition with the products of men who are chattels, men who may not work more than a certain number of hours a day and a certain number of days a week. Put the products of cheap labor, rendered cheaper by the amazing generosity of the present administration, against the expensive and costly and well-made products of the United States, which will be made more costly, if the bill passes, by its restrictive clause reducing production.

Mr. WALSH. Mr. President—

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Does the Senator from Vermont yield to the senator from Massachusetts?

Mr. AUSTIN. I yield to the Senator from Massachusetts.

Mr. WALSH. I assume that the Senator believes in collective bargaining between labor and capital?

Mr. AUSTIN. That is a fair assumption. He does.

Mr. WALSH. And collective bargaining can be successfully carried on, and to the welfare of the worker, only through the organization of workers. Is that correct?

Mr. AUSTIN. The second premise is also correct.

Mr. WALSH. Very well. Then those workers and wage earners who are not organized, if they are to enjoy the benefits of collective bargaining, must organize and form unions or organizations of labor of one kind or another, or be assisted in collective bargaining and in preventing substandards by some governmental agency. Is not that correct?

Mr. AUSTIN. Perhaps that is the solution. Certainly, however, it is not a solution for them to turn over to a government here at Washington the matter of bargaining for the sole thing of value they have to sell, and at the same time recognize the fundamental principle which this bill does recognize, that in this vast country of ours, spread over a whole continent, there are localities which differ from each other in respect of the kind of products that are produced; that they differ from each other in respect of the standards of living and the cost of living; that they differ from each other in respect of the advantages of transportation from them to their market and other things. I know the Senator from Massachusetts recognizes that the pending bill says to all the world that which the 30-hour bill of 2 years ago did not say: We do not try to make a horizontal, level standard of hours and wages that is arbitrarily laid down over tbis vast continent, because it is absolutely unworkable; and so we say, Let this power at Washington adapt these hours and wage standards to the local conditions. There can be a set of codes and rules up in New England of one standard and another set in Louisiana. of a different standard.s

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So the bill has done what in that respect? Te bill has recognized what always ought to be recognized in the United States of America, as it was when we founded this Government, that for a great continent, with diverse interests. diverse cross sections of civilization, diverse products, there cannot be a centralized government at Washington applying one rule and one regulation over the entire country. We must recognize these diversities. Therefore I say that the aid which should come to the call of labor is the power and sovereignty of the several states. The bill has recognized that principle. The bill has no excuse for transgressing it, and it is a transgression of fundamental law to do it, as I hope to point out.

Mr. WALSH. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. AUSTIN. I yield.

Mr. WALSH. I should like to call the Senator's attention to a benefit which, in my opinion, the bill gives to employers, leaving aside, now, possible benefits to the millions of unorganized wage earners working in sweatshops and under other substandard labor conditions.

The Senator agrees with the principle of collective bargaining, and that it is operating successfully and beneficially to wage earners who are organized. This means that all employers who have organized wage earners working for them are compelled, by reason of the pressure of collective bargaining, to reduce their hours of employment and to increase their wages. Yet those very employers are compelled in the markets of the country to compete with employers who do not pay the wages the advanced and progressive employers do, and who require their employees to work long hours. So it seems to me one of the benefits of the pending bill is to raise the wages and to lower the hours of workers in the substandard industries, to the end that the industrialists who have good labor standards will not have to be subjected to ruthless competition from substandard industries.

Mr. AUSTIN. Mr. President, I think the premise of the Senator from Massachusetts is perfectly accurate, and I wish to say to him that I know, from conversations with some industrialists in New England, that they would love to have the bill passed.

Mr. WALSH. I think that may be true of the larger units of industry that do not work their employees over 40 hours and have no wage under 40 cents per hour and that are now obliged, by collective bargaining, to meet these conditions, and it may be true of the units in large industries which are monopolistic and have not the fear of sweatshop competition and competition from industries which are substandard; but it is my judgment that most of the small industries, in every part of the country, New England included, are fearful of the bill, and they have some justification for that fear, because of lack of confidence in the inefficient administration of any law by a bureau. So I cannot agree with the Senator that there is a uniformity of approval of the bill among the the industries, even of New England. In fact, all industrials everywhere are opposed to subjecting their labor conditions to a Federal bureau.

Mr, AUSTIN. I do not claim that. I do not think we disagree about the facts.

Mr. WALSH. I agree with the Senator. too—and he is pointing it out in his speech, as he has a right to do—that if the bill is not carefully administered, the net result will be injurious to the small industries of the country and promotive of the movement of all industry into monopoly, and as the next step in order to protect the consumers, as prices and wages go up and hours go down, there might have to be some legislation to control prices.

Mr. AUSTIN. Mr. President, I appreciate the judicial attitude of the Senator from Massachusetts. Of course, I should like to fight shoulder to shoulder with a man who takes the position he bas indicated is his with respect to controversial matters. I cannot quite go with him,. however, in this matter, as I am sure he understands.

Mr. WALSH. I do.

Mr. AUSTIN. I have no doubt that what the Senator from Massachusetts says may be a cansequence of this bill will occur, because it has occurred ln another instance. We are not talking here about a theory which has never been tried. This principle was tried under the N. R. A., and the small industries went out of business. I can tell of a number of small manufacturers on our shining rivers up in the Green Mountains who had to break the law in order to live, and I can tell of others who complied with the law and died as an actual result thereof, obeying the terms of codes fixed by a centralized government under the advice of the big fellows, the conditions of whose operations were wholly and entirely different from the conditions of operation of the small industries.

For an example, there was a little mill which manufactured wooden golf tees on one of our small streams. Surrounding this mill were 20 small houses. There was nothing there at all for those people save that manufactory. I do not know the number of people there, but I guess there were a hundred altogether whose livelihood depended on that mill running.

The operator of the mill had no operating capital. He was operating on his contracts. He had contracts which required the delivery of the goods on time, because these goods are seasonal in character, and he had taken his contract to the bank, and the bank, out of a great deal of liberality to him, had taken that type of security and given him, by loan, the capital with which to operate. Along came the N. R. A. and commanded him, by virtue of codes that were made by his great competitors, to limit the hours of the work of those poor people, who were thoroughly satisfied with their condition, who loved their liberty and their ability to keep their heads aloft. The N. R. A. compelled him to turn those people out of the mill and lock the door at a certain hour of the day.

What was the effect? Had that man obeyed the law he would have locked his door permanently, because he could not find the capital wherewith to get the additional employees to come there and fulfill the contracts, in which time was of the essence of the contract, and on the breach or failure of which a penalty was imposed.

I wish to finish what I had started to say when I was interrupted. I started to point out that the bill is like the N. R. A. in respect of its capacity to freeze the opportunity of labor to work. I will read section 6 (a) found on page 62 of the bill;

Unless an applicable order of the Board under this act shall otherwise provide, the maintenance among employees of an oppressive workweek shall not be deemed to constitute a substandard labor condition if the employees so employed receive additional compensation for such overtime employment at the rate of one and one-half times the regular hourly wage rate at which such employees are employed.

Why not leave that alone? Labor, do you hear my voice? Do you not want that opportunity to get time and a half? Can you get it? Hear the next sentence:

But the Board shall have power to make an order determin1ng that such overtime employment in any occupation shall constitute a substandard labor condition if and to the extent the Board finds necessary or appropriate to prevent the circumvention of this act.

It puts the power right in the fist of this great central Government, which, if we had passed the court reorganization bill, would have had nobody to stop it.

Time and a half? It may be enjoyed by you, Labor, if this centralized power in Washington does not deprive you of it by a finding, which cannot be meddled with, that it is appropriate to cut it off to prevent the circumvention of the act.

Let me say to labor, this measure is so tyrannical that if a laborer should happen to be on the premises after the hour when it has been determined by the Federal statute that he shall cease work, that would be prima-facie evidence that the act was being circumvented.

Mr. President, let us face this thing. In this country we depend on a market in Russia.; we depend on a market in France; we depend on a market in Japan and in China. In fact, labor has had that foreign market as one of its most stabilizing assets. What will this bill do to that?

One of the prices labor will pay for the security proposed to be provided by tbe bill is its liberly "I lay down my liberty

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in order that I may buy the security which a benign master at Washington can give me." In a sentence that is the spirit of all legislation which undertakes to tamper with economic laws and to give the Federal Government the power to say what may be done in production, manufacture, and mining. It is proposed to give the Federal Government the power to violate the Constitution—not merely to regulate commerce among the several States but to reach within the State. Every one of these bills, by an artful device of language, undertakes to break through the barriers that our forefathers erected against the Central Government, and to reach into the State and undertake to regulate production and manufacture and mining,

Let me say, Mr. President, that this is not merely a price paid by labor; it is a price also paid by the employer, because if there is any one sure way of destroying capital, recognized by the Bolsheviks from the beginning, it is to get control of labor. A statutory control is better than any other, of course; but any kind of control of labor by government will ultimately enable government to seize capital by the throat.

Of course, it is better at the same time to have a breakdown of credit. That condition always expedites the process, because if a candidate for dictator wants to make speed toward his dictatorship he will get there a great deal faster if he can invent two crises where one crisis existed before. He is likely to be successful if he can beat the other fellow to two crises instead of one. So we always see devised for this purpose emergency—emergency!

Within a few months after the candidate for President was out on the stump bragging about the economic progress and recovery of this country, he was broadcasting that a tremendous emergency had arisen; and today, within 24 hours after his Postmaster General and chairman of the Democratic National Committee bragged in Wisconsin about the continued advancement in prosperity of the country, we have this bill brought in here under the guise of emergency—of a crisis!

I may call attention to the testimony given on the 30-hour bill, which is applicable in principle to this bill, by Professor Saxon, who then was not in the employ of the Republican National Committee, as I understand, but was teaching in Harvard, and who had had business experience, and had made a special study of industry throughout the world. He said:

I might say that unemployment in Great Britain is today at the lowest stage that it has been at any time since 1920, with the exception of the year 1926.

All this has been effected without wage increases, reduction in hours of work, drastic price increases, limitation of production, et cetera. As a matter of fact, since the spring of 1933 our average price rise has been approximately 25 percent in finished goods and 38 percent in raw materials, while in England the maximum rise since the fall of 1921, when they suspended gold, has not exceeded 11 percent and for 3 years has held at not over 3 percent. In fact the trend has been toward lower real wages.

Mr. President, that is another price that labor must paylower real wages. That is to say, how much can be put in the market basket at the end of the period for the consideration found in the pay envelope? It makes very little difference how high wages may be in money denomination if the clothes the wage earner must wear, the food he must eat, the shelter he must have, cost so much more than they did before that the pay envelope will not buy as much of those things necessary for a good diet and a comfortable living.

Senators will study the record, I believe, in vain in an effort to prove from it either that the cost of production will not be increased, or that the price of living will not be increased; and labor will pay that price. There is a sales resistance on the part of every market to increases in the prices of goods offered for sale. It is followed by the taking of a diminished quantity. How will labor be affected by that?

I pointed out that I claim it will be affected by the price it has to pay; but it will also be affected in a worse and more serious way than that. It will be affected by the loss of employment, because in order to compete in the markets the producer, the manufacturer, must employ mechanization to reduce his costs, and mechanization to reduce costs drops men off the pay roll. Men are dropped off the pay roll in order to make it possible to lower costs, so that the goods may flow in the markets in competition with those that come here from countries where manufacturing is cheap.

With respect to our export trade, upon which a great many of our laborers depend for their employment, is it not obvious that a change of 33 ^1/3 percent in the price Russia has to pay for the goods it buys of us would slow down the business; that Russia might go elsewhere than here to buy; that the Russians themselves might even develop manufacturing which would compete with us? I have used the figure ^1/3 percent because that was what the testimony showed the adoption of a 30-hour week would add in cost to the production of this country. Of course I recognize that the adoption of a 40-hour week would not involve so large an increase in cost; but, Mr. President, I have been unable to find in the present hearings evidence which would show what this increase of cost will be.

Against the export of goods we have the goods that we import. The goods that are imported, if they are of a similar character to the goods we produce in this country, represent labor. For example, a certain quantity of wheat imported would represent a certain number of farm laborers' work in this country to produce. That is so simple a proposition that anyone on earth will recognize it to be so. A shipload of shoes produced in a foreign country and brought in here would be in competition with American laborers making shoes. There is not any doubt about that, is there? And for every hour of work on that shipload of shoes it may be said that the laborers of this country have lost that hour of work.

Now we enter upon the fallacious plan, part of the New Deal, that we will reverse the system, we will reverse the plan and the policy that has made us great among the nations of the earth. Instead of having free trade among the several States, unregimented and flowing freely, but well regulated as interstate commerce, we will now regiment, we will now control it here at Washington. We will say that when goods cross a State boundary they shall conform to certain codes. And, so far as our foreign trade is concerned, we will reverse that, too, and instead of protecting labor here in America by a protective tariff, representing the difference between the cost of production at home and abroad, we will now enter into that benevolent relationship of inviting more importations to our shores from foreign countries. In other words, we will soak it to labor in America, and we will bestow the benefits of the great American market to labor in Europe and in Asia. I am not for that, I am against it, and I shall continue to be against it just so long as I have the power to speak and to act.

But, Mr. President, however earnest I may be about that, what I claim is that the greatest cost to all the inhabitants of this country is the destruction of that higher value, a free government, a government that encourages the individual and incites him to do the most and the best that he can. The masses of the people are individuals. They are great; they are noble; they are productive if the individual is great and noble and productive, and they are just the reverse if they sell their liberty and their individuality and merge themselves in a mass and bow down to a centralized authority at Washington. That is what this bill and other bills of the New Deal contemplate. Why not be frank about it. There is a group in this country that do not like our Government. They want it changed; they are bound to change it. They know full well that if they went before the people of this country with a constitutional amendment designed to effectuate their purposes and offered it to them the people would emphatically say No. So what do they do? They introduce a bill here providing just one little step in that direction and a bill over there making another step in that direction. If they could have secured the enactment of the court bill the Constitution could have been subverted and no citizen of this country would have had any sanctuary to which to resort for the

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protection of his civil rights or his economie rights or his liberty.

In this bill we find this language, appearing on page 55, section 8 (a).

Sec. 8. (a) Whenever the Board shall determine that any substandard labor condition exists in the production of goods in one State and that such goods compete to a substantial extent in that State With other goods produced in another State and sold or transported in interstate commerce, in the production of which such substandard labor condition does not exist, the Board shall make an order requiring the elimination of such substandard labor condition and the maintenance of the appropriate fair labor standard in the production of goods which so compete.

Mr. President, if that is not an artful, insidious, and cunning way of subverting the Constitution of the United States, tell me what it is. Senators, we have no business doing that. We have no power save the powers the people have given us by the Constitution. They have given us the power to regulate interstate commerce. Let us not by these sly and artful methods try to reach over that limitation and go into the States and regulate the production of goods, in the State of Vermont, for example. The board to be created, sitting here at Washington, is to tell a manufacturer in the State of Vermont, whose business is limited to the confines of that State, who does not sell a dollar's worth outside the state of Vermont, but all of whose business is intrastate, how many hours he may operate his plant and how many hours he may require his employees to labor. Why? Because when some big fellow from another State ships some goods into the State of Vermont he discovers, Oh, the standard of living in Vermont is high. Why? Because the price of goods made by the manufacturer in Vermont is low and the contents of the wage envelope of his employees will buy more and fill the market basket higher than in the place where the big fellow operates his plant; and so the board at Washington says to him, You have got to shut your doors at a certain hour of the day, and says to the laboring man there, You cannot sell your time; you cannot sell your services beyond a certain length of time. Therefore, he has to ask in the State of Vermont a higher price for his goods, and he finds himself in impossible competition With the local manufacturer. Then, what happens? Under this tyrannical bill, if enacted, the Federal Government can go to the State of Vermont and undertake to regulate a purely domestic affair and impose a code on the manufacturer in the State of Vermont, who does not step outside of the State, just because he is in competition With the manufacturer from another state. Yes, we have got to roll up our trousers when it rains in Washington. That is the point of the program. That was the point of the court bill.

The only thing in the wide world that has preserved us from destruction as a free government has been the judiciary department. Yet the attempt was made to capture that department. Mr. President, if the court bill had passed and the Supreme Court had been packed and those members of that Court had passed upon the question of the constitutionality of the very act that seated them, where would we be? It would accomplish a coup d'etat as perfect and complete as if the United States Army was enforcing it.

Mr. LOGAN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. AUSTIN. I yield.

Mr. LOGAN. I understand from the remarks of the Senator from Vermont that he is looking now for safety to the Supreme Court so far as this proposed legislation is concerned, and he evidently expects the Supreme Court to say that Congress cannot regulate minimum wages and maximum hours. Is that the position of the Senator?

Mr. AUSTIN. Mr. President, I would never be so intemperate as to take such a position. I am expressing my own opinions, and the opinions of no one else. I am praising a great court for a good record. Time after time it has stood as a barricade against crazy waves of emotionalism and suggestions of revolution and efforts to change and override the Constitution without submitting the question to the people. It has been the only sanctuary to which the laboring man could resort in order to be saved from having just what proposed by this bill being brought about, namely, a statutory monopoly of him and his time and his wages. Strikes! Reserve the right to strike, and how long do you think, Mr. President, that it will operate? Once this step is taken, and the centralized Government here in Washington has obtained control of the hours as well as the wages of labor, do you think there will be any freedom left to labor to say whether or not it will work or not work?

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. AUSTIN. Do you think there will be any safety in a strike which the centralized Government thinks ought not to take place? I say, once you start this thing you will destroy all elements of freedom that labor now enjoys. I now yield to the Senator from Alabama.

Mr. BLACK. The Senator has made a very forceful argument upon his side of the case on the destruction of liberty of the worker if he is protected by law from unfair wages and conditions. I have thousands of letters from workers throughout the country. I have one very short letter from the city of New Orleans from a worker himself. I wonder if the Senator would object to my sending that letter to the desk and having it read in order that we may get the viewpoint of one of the workers?

Mr. AUSTIN. I have no objection at all; but I wish, Mr. President, if it is not out of order and unseemly, to say to my colleague from Alabama that I recognize his idealism and broadmindedness; I know he has studied this problem with sincerity and that he has achieved a wonderful improvement in the bill. I will say that I think, from his point of view, that the proposal now being considered is far superior to the original plan of a horizontal fixation of hours and wages, as conceived in the original hour and wage bill. I compliment the Senator from Alabama upon that service.

Mr. BLACK. I appreciate the Senator's statement.

Mr. AUSTIN. I do not agree with him, but we do not have to be unfriendly because of that.

Mr. BLACK. I thoroughly understand that, and I agree With the Senator, and I appreciate his statement. I wanted to get in the RECORD the letter at this point on the other side of the question of liberty, and for that reason only.

Mr. AUSTIN. I am quite ready to have the Senator do it. I will be glad to have the letter read.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, the clerk will read.

The legislative clerk read as follows:

NEW ORLEANs, LA., July 19, 1937.

Senator BLACK,

Washtngton, D. C.

GENTLEMEN: After reading your wonderful talk on your policy to aid workers in the Times-Picayune, I thought about writing you and telling you some of the working conditions in New Orleans. I have been a baker all my life and never have seen conditions as they are now. The majority of the shops work long hot hours with very little pay. They work on an average of 13 or 14 hours per day, and on week ends work 18 hours or over. I cannot say anything under this corruption, as we poor will lose our slaving jobs. I want to continue to exist. We have to take it and like it, as there is hundreds of other starving men with families waiting to take our job for a salary of $10 to $15 a week or even less. Some of the expenses we have to meet on that small sum: Rent, $18; water, $1.75; gas and light, $4 to $5; food, clothes, medical care, carfare, lunch—if there is anything to take along. As for amusement and recreation, it is out of the question. We are too tired, weak, and penniless. Its from work to bed and from bed to work. I firmly believe the life of a mule is better than the one of a poor working man, because they at least have their Saturday night and Sunday off, while we work 7 days a week and no days off—no rest, very little to eat, underweight, and undernourished, health ruined and life shortened. So unless something is done for the laboring people, and done soon, Heaven will be our only hope.

Mr. AUSTIN. Mr. President, I believe that letter was written from Louisiana?

Mr. BLACK. Yes.

Mr. AUSTIN. Wherever it is from, I should not like to consider that picture as accurate of all laborers in that State. I hardly believe the Senator from Alabama regards that as typical. I have no doubt he could produce a great many letters from all over the United States picturing very sad conditions which we all desire to alleviate and expect to alleviate. In doing so, however, we must consider the

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cost. My whole argument has been in favor of improving and ameliorating the conditions of labor. It has been against paying the price which this bill would make labor pay. That is the point.

Let me read a statement from another laborer which I think bears on the principle we are here discussing. I take this from an editorial published in the Burlington Free Press and Times of February 5, 1935. I invite particular attention to the following excerpt from the editorial:

This point of view is well set forth in an article by Matthew Woll, vice president of the American Federation of Labor, published in The Magazine of Wall Street.

Mr. President, I am firmly of the belief that the American Federation of Labor believes in what I am about to read:

Mr. Woll declares most emphatically that labor does not want any form of dictatorship. He said:

"Yet it is apparent that we are drifting toward some form of radical collectivism which seems to be a mixture of German Hitlerism and Italian fascism. If some of the present tendencies are not checked, if we do not regard more seriously essential principles Which have been traditional since the founding of the Nation, we may find in the very near future that most of us are working directly for the Government or under orders from Washington."

That is what I am saying. I say when the Government at Washington, an executive department, can be vested with judicial power forbidden by the Constitution, when power can be handed out by the Congress of the United States to a department to step over the State lines and exercise the judicial function of finding facts and judging upon them with reference to labor within the States, labor engaged in nothing more than production, manufacturing, or mining, then labor will already have put itself within the powerful arm of despotism.

I desire to call particular attention also to this statement in the editorial, being a quotation from Mr. Wall:

Organized labor reserves the right to bargain collectively with employers without interference by government unless there be unusual violence in connection with a strike-then it becomes a matter for local or State pollice.

Not the Federal Government, not a board here at Washington appointed by the President of the United States, subject to removal by the President of the United States and under his control.

For the past 2 decades the relations between workers and employers have been steadily improving.

This is a quotation from a laborer that all the world knows well and in whom all the world has confidence.

But for the past year and a half, with government taking a hand and undertaking to settle all disputes by governmental fiat, bas produced a record of unsual disputes and strikes.

Is not that according to facts? Every listener is a witness to that fact.

Organized labor and employers should be encouraged to settle their disputes as between themselves and without any assistance by commands and prohibitions devised by academic theorists in or out of Government service.

Mr. President, I ask that the entire editorial may be incorporated at this point in the RECORD as a part of my remarks.

There being no objection, the editorial was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:

[From the Burlington Free Press and Times of Feb. 5, 1935]

LABOR AND CAPITALISM

Organized labor is a stanch defender of capitalism, because it is realized by well-informed labor leaders that the moment capitalism gives way to fascism, communism, or any other system of a similar nature the Government w1ll become the master and the worker will be its slave, without bargaining power. That is the case in Russia today, and to a lesser degree in Italy and Germany.

This point of view is well set forth in an article by Matthew Woll, vice president of the American Federation of Labor, published in the Magazine of Wall Street. Mr. Woll declares most emphatically that labor does not want any form of dictatorship. He said: Yet it is apparent that we are drifting toward some sort of radical collectivism which seems to be a mixture of German Hitlerism and Italian fascism. If some of the present tendencies are not checked, if we do not regard more seriously essential principles which have been traditional since the founding of the Nation, we may find in the very near future that most of us are working directly for the Government or under orders from Washington.

Organized labor, in the second place, does not want any form of inflation, Mr. Woll declared. Inflation is the inevitable outcome of a steadily increasing public debt.

Our public debt—national, State, and local—is increasing at a terrifying rate. It must not be forgotten that the easiest way to turn a democratic government into some form of dictatorial collectivism is by running it so deeply into debt that business and industry can no longer carry the burden. This is the road along which we are traveling and will continue to travel unless and until the voters take the matter into their own hands and see to it that campaign promises of balanced budgets, economy in the conduct of government, and a gradual lessening of the economic burden under which taxpayers are staggering are kept.

Mr. Woll declared that what the working people of the United States want more than anything else is not charity but work. He said Government relief must be paid eventually by the people through taxes. It makes no difference whether these taxes are paid in the first instance by big business, industry, the public utilities, the banks, or insurance companies, it is the ultimate consumer who pays them in the end, for they must be reflected in the price of everything which he has to buy for himself and his family.

Organized labor wants to see a check placed on the further extension of Government into our economic life. By this I do not mean that business should not be regulated by certain forms of restrictive legislation. Natural monopolies such as the public utilities and the railroads must be regulated with a firm hand in the interests of both the public and the security holders in these enterprises. Insurance companies must be regulated in the interests of their policyholders for whom, after all, they act in a purely fiduciary capacity. Banks must be regulated in the interests of their depositors, their stockholders, and their customers for credit.

But when I say that labor wants to see a very definite check placed on undue Government interference in business, I mean, first of all, the rapidly growing tendency on the part of Government to compete with its own citizens which, if carried out to its logical conclusion, must eventually lead to political ownership and operation of all of the processes of production and distribution. This may satisfy the aspirations of the average foreign worker but is entirely foreign to the aspirations of the average American worker.

Mr. Woll said electric utillities have done many things for which they should be condemned, resulting in rates out of all proportion to the service rendered, but added:

I wonder, however, if they are seeking the solution of public utility problems in quite the right way. The Government is spending hundreds of mlllions of dollar—which will eventually run into billlons—of the taxpayers' money in order to engage in a constructive competitive battle with its own cltizens, and I sometimes wonder if the public really knows what the Government's hydroelectric policy, coupled with its policy of stimulating municipalities to go into the electric-light and power business in competition itth local plants, really means to every man, woman, and child in the United States.

First, it is bringing about the destruction of billions of dollars of security values, representing tangible operating enterprises in which millions of people have a very definite stake. These people are not confined to the security holders themselves. Every owner of an insurance policy is atfected, because thiS scheme of polltical sabotage must affect insurance-company reserves established for the protection of the policyholder. In the same manner every man or woman who has a savings-bank account is affected, for the banks have hundreds of millions of dollars invested in public utility bonds. Organized labor is no more in favor of political sabotage than it is in favor of industrial sabotage.

Mr. Woll declared he believed regulation of ut111ties in the public interest, so that the public will receive a maximum amount of service at a minimum cost, is preferable to Government competition to drive out the private utilities. He did not believe successful Government regulation to be impossible, as some say. With courageous officials appointing courageous and fair-minded men to public-service commissions, regulation can be made successful.

Mr. Woll is concerned over what will happen to the workers 1n privately owned and operated public utilities, such as coal, oil, gas, and transportation industries, if Government competition continues. He foresees the Government moving large industrial establishments where they can use the power developed in its hydroelectric plants, without regard to the effect on the community or workers in the industry, or else building factories of its own to enter into destructive competition with private industry.

Organized labor reserves the right to bargain collectively with employers without interference by government unless there be unusual violence in connection with a strike—then it becomes a matter for local or State police. For the past two decades the regulations between workers and employers have been steadily improving. But for the past year and a half, with government taking a hand and undertaking to settle all disputes by governmental fiat, has produced a record of usual disputes and strikes. Organized labor and employers should be encouraged to settle their disputes as between themselves and without any assistance by commands and prohibitions devised by academic theorists in or out of Government service.

If this viewpoint represents the majority opinion of labor in the United States, New Deal theorists had better watch their step.

Mr. AUSTIN. Mr. President, I think the statement by Mr. Woll contained in the editorial to which I have just

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referred is entitled to more consideration than the letter placed in the RECORD by the Senator from Alabama [Mr. BLACK]. I think the unfortunate condition described in the letter must excite the pity of every person hearing it. I also think the great State of Louisiana is more competent than centralized power here in Washington to assist labor with benign statutes which are adapted to the genius of the people of the State of Louisiana.

They are more likely to adopt a method of assistance to labor that is so adapted than are we here in Washington. They should know their own conditions, and I believe they do know them.

I feel, with respect to the State of Vermont, just as Ethan Allen did when he walked out and said to Congress, at a time when Congress was trying to force Vermont into the State of New York, I am as determined to preserve the independence of the State of Vermont as Congress is that of the United States, and rather than fail I will retire with my hardy Green Mountain boys into the caverns of the mountains and make war on all mankind.

I feel that way. I feel that earnest about it. Although I would not incite any such consequences as implied in that remark I feel as earnest as that remark expressed Ethan Allen's earnestness, that we should, if possible, prevent the passage of this bill modified in any form, whether by amendment as offered by the Senator from Oregon [Mr. McNARY] or in any other form that can be conceived. I regard the bill as pernicious and dangerous, and a great step in the direction of a dictatorship in the United States.

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, in view of the fact that I placed in the RECORD a letter from Louisana, I send to the desk and ask to have read a letter which came with it, in the same envelope. It is very short. It bears the title of the Louisiana Manufacturers' Association. I call particular attention to the interest of the Louisiana Manufacturers' Association in the farmer. It will explain many of the arguments which have been made in connection with the farmer and this bill, because the same suggestions have been sent out by manufacturers from every other State and by the United States Chamber of Commerce with reference to the argument in regard to the farmer.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Chair hears no objection, and the letter will be read.

The legislative clerk read the letter, as follows:

LOUISIANA MANUFACTURERS' ASSOCIATION,

New Orleam, La., J11Jy 16, 1937.

QUICK ACTION IMPERATIVE

Do these things at once:

1. Wire Senators ELLENDER and OVERTON your opposition to Black wage and hour bill, S. 2475. This modification of original bill does not remove objections. If you have already written or Wired them. do tt again.

2. Wire your Congressman.

3. Talk to the farmers in your community. Point out to them that if this bill passes fertilizer will cost $2 a ton more, that there will likely be a shortage of farm labor in peak periods, that ginning costs will be greater, that articles they buy w1ll cost more, and urge them to write or wire their Congressman and Senators.

4. Talk to your banker. You know what this bill will do to you. He has a definite interest in your successful operation. Get his help.

5. Your merchants are interested. Enlist their help.

6. Talk to your newspaper editors. Get them to run editorials on this.

Takes time? Of course, it will. But it will take less time and less money than it will 1f the bill passes and you have to go to Washington and beg an arbitrary board for dtlferentials in hours and wages.

The time element is important. Don't put this off. Don't depend on the other fellow—it's important to you, too.

SAM B. DUNBAR, Manager.

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. Mr. President, in view of a statement made yesterday very bitterly criticizing an official of the Government, Mr. Edward McGrady, Assistant Secretary of Labor, for his activities in reference to the strike at the Apex Manufacturing Co. of Philadelphia, I should like to have the RECORD show that this morning, exclusively through the efforts of Mr. McGrady, the strike and the labor controversy at the Apex Manufacturing Co. of Philadelphia have been settled.

Mr. GEORGE obtained the floor.

Mr. HARRISON. Mr. President—

Mr. GEORGE. I yield to the Senator from Mississippi.

Mr. HARRISON. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.

The legislative clerk called the roll, and the following Senators answered to their names:

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. GERRY in the chair). Eighty-six Senators having answered to their names, a quorum is present.

Mr. GEORGE. Mr. President, I think it would be well to inquire who is included in and affected by the bill as it now stands.

Broadly speaking, and without any attempt to cover every person who may be affected by the bill, it is proper to say that under the recent decision of the SUpreme Court and under a provision of the bill to which I shall later refer, interstate and intrastate commerce employees and employers come directly within the purview and terms of the bill; so that virtually every worker who is in any way concerned with the production, distribution, or sale of any commodity may be considered to be engaged in interstate commerce or intrastate commerce, which is actually and substantially affected by the transportation and sale within the State of any article produced outside of the state under conditions fixed in the bill.

With the exception of local retail employees, who are specifically exempted, transportation and farm workers, practically all other workers in the country are within the terms of the bill.

On the question of who are exempted as farm workers, or what businesses affecting agriculture may be said to come clearly within the terms of the bill, let me say that I have no doubt that any primary processor of cotton, for instance, such as the operator of a cotton gin, certainly a cotton compress, certainly a cotton warehouse in the local community, and every employee in the cotton warehouse, is directly within the terms and purview of the bill.

Similarly, every peanut picker who goes from farm to farm to pick the farmer's nuts when they are ready for market is within the purview and terms of the bill.

Practically the whole operation from the time fruit is removed from the tree, and oftentimes the removal of fruit itself from the tree, are covered by the terms of the bill. Certainly the preparation of fruit for packing, its precooling, its storage in the packing plant, and its actual packing are steps in the processing or marketing of most fruits and most vegetables not performed by the farmers themselves.

The threshing of wheat and of oats, when done by the farmer or done by someone else for the farmer, but not by someone else under contract, is, of course, not within the purview and scope of the bill; but the threshing of oats or the threshing of wheat when done by someone other than the farmer for hire or for toll unquestionably falls within the terms of the bill as it stands.

Seamen, people who take sponges and fishes from the ocean and from other waters, are not within the bill. Girls who work—and if there are any underpaid, if there are any people who are worked excessively long hours in

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the United States, they are to be found in the department stores and in the chain stores operating throughout this country—are not given the protection of the bill. Certainly farm labor is low-paid labor in most parts of the country. So that the three classes of labor which may be said to fall within the lowest bracket-fishermen, including sponge fishermen, girls in department stores and employees in the chain stores, and farm labor—are not under the bill. All retail clerks and helpers in retail establishments and all agricultural labor are out of the bill.

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. GEORGE. I yield.

Mr. BLACK. May I ask the Senator whether he believes that under the definitions which have been given of interstate commerce it would be possible for the Congress to regulate the hours of those working in the retail stores throughout the country? I am interested in the Senator's viewpoint, in connection with his statement.

Mr. GEORGE. If the Senator will forbear, I will get to that in just a little while. I hope to discuss that phase of the subject.

In order to popularize the bill with agriculture it is said, for instance, to the cotton farmer, You are not affected by the bill. He is affected by the bill when his cotton goes to the gin, because the ginnery and everyone working thereabouts is clearly within the terms of the bill.

He is affected by the bill when his cotton goes to his county or town warehouse, because the warehouseman and everybody working in and around the warehouse is within the terms of the bill.

He is affected by the bill in the increased cost of every tool and of every implement and of every piece and particle of machinery used upon his farm.

Mr. PEPPER. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. GEORGE. I decline to yield for the moment, but I will yield in a little while.

The farmer is affected by the bill in the increased cost of every bag and in the increased cost of every cotton tie.

He is affected by the bill in the increased cost of every yard of cotton bagging or jute bagging with which his cotton is wrapped.

He is affected by the bill in the increased cost of every pound of commercial fertilizer that goes to make his cotton crop, because all of these industries are within the terms of the bill, clearly and unmistakably within the terms of the bill.

Finally, he is affected by the bill, of course, by such general increase of wage levels as must result from the operation of the bill, if the bill is successful, as it is hoped by its proponents it will be.

Mr. President, I will not describe how other farmers are affected by the bill; but they are affected similarly.

Mr. President, what does the bill undertake to do? First it provides for the appointment of a board of five members, who are to be given jurisdiction over practically all the employers and employees in the country, except as stated heretofore. I, of course, have made no reference to the fact that employees of a city or of a State or of the Federal Government fall outside of the terms of the bill. They are not included in it. I have made no reference to the fact that the employers and employees of common carriers, who are affected by other law already, are not within the terms of the bill.

The bill authorizes the President to appoint five members to the board, who, incidentally, of course, are to receive $10,000 a year. The bill authorizes the President, moreover, to change from time to time, without restriction, the chairman of the board. Under the terms of the bill the chairman of the board may be changed overnight. Under the terms of the bill the chairman of the board may be changed whenever the President sees fit to order the change.

What may this board do in the first instance? The board may employ without limitation any number of people to carry into execution the powers vested in the board. There is no limitation upon the number of people who may be employed, whether attorneys, or people possessing executive experience, or clerks, stenographers, or what not. The number is unlimited. They may employ them to carry out the provisions of the law.

The board may sit at Washington; in fact, the bill provides it may sit at Washington; but it may sit anywhere else in the country. It may carry on its activities not only through its membership but through any agency selected by it. Through any person or agent selected and created by the board it may carry on its activities in any part of the country.

I dare say that we have given to few boards broader power to employ a large army of Federal employees, and I dare say, also, that we have given to few boards, if to any, the power to carry on its activities simultaneously through such agencies and through such instrumentalities as it may elect in any part of the country.

The board is called upon by the bill to utilize certain agencies of the Government in gathering the information which it is authorized to gather, and that includes everything that an employer may do in any line of business which comes within the measure. The board may examine his private papers, and it may publish them to the world, under the very terms of the bill. They may go into his books and they may publish them to the world. They may publish anything they find. They may do this through agencies and agents selected or utilized by the board.

Particularly, Mr. President, they are authorized to make use of the Secretary of Labor in the gathering of all of the information deemed by the board essential in the administration of the act. I have no criticism to offer of the Secretary of Labor, save as her public acts justify criticism. One thing is very clear—that the present Secretary of Labor does not believe in any differentials in the wages of industry in different sections. She has manifested that from time to time, and I dare say that no one will undertake to controvert the statement. If any differential is to be allowed, in the opinion of the Secretary of Labor, then the differential is inconsequential, wholly inadequate, at least, to preserve great systems of industry, which have not grown up under theories but which have grown up under competitive conditions and circumstances under which they were obliged to survive, if they survived at all. But the Secretary of Labor does not think so.

While I am on that point, let me say that the bill provides for the creation of an advisory committee, and it is entirely useless. It is an appendage which has little place in the bill. The committee authorized is all right, and the committee is to function in a very orderly way, and, presumably, the committee is to be of some service to the board; but what are the powers of the committee? When the committee has done all that it is authorized to do under the act, when it had made its investigation and submitted its report to the board, the board, quoting from the act, section 11, may accept or reject, in whole or in part, the recommendations of an advisory committee.

I do not care how fairly the committee may organize; it is immaterial with what words and language the committee is brought into being and what fair and just and obviously proper things the committee may do; when it is written into the law that the board may reject the report of any advisory committee in any industry, in whole or in part, I know that the advisory committee is out of the window, and this country knows it.

There is no need for anyone to take refuge back of the advisory committee. There is no need for anyone to point to this committee and say, Before we put hours and wages on you we are going to appoint an advisory committee, and that committee is going to protect you. It is wholly immaterial what that committee may think, what it may find, what it may report, what it may recommend; it is out of the window when the board says, We reject it in whole or in part. Under the terms of the bill as it now stands the only recourse open to anyone who is aggrieved is to take an appeal to the circuit court. The report of the advisory committee is not affirmatively made a part of the record. None of its recommendations becomes a part of the record by virtue of

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the report itself. It may be made a part of the record, of course, by the board.

Mr. President, we now come to what the board may do. It may fix the maximum hours and it may fix the minimum wages within the limitations of the bill, and for the sake of brevity, at least, there is no need to go into that again.

Again, the language of the bill is very clear; that is, how it shall arrive at the maximum hours and how it shall arrive at the minimum wages. There is some poetry in the bill, poetry of the same kind as the poetry written into the bill for the purpose of creating an advisory committee.

The board may take into consideration, of course, the cost of living in one section of the country as compared with the cost of living in another section of the country. It may take into consideration a great many things as enumerated in the bill in fixing the maximum hours or the minimum wages.

But, Mr. President, we must look a little further than that if we want to see what the board is, and what, under the terms of the bill, we are asking of the board and what we charge it with doing.

In the bill it is textually stated that the objective of the bill is the fixing of hours not to exceed 40 and the fixing of minimum wages not less than 40 cents per hour. In language it is said that that is the objective of the legislation. That is the purpose of it. Indeed, it has no other purpose here, and can have no other, if that is not the purpose. It does not make any difference what we may say about taking into consideration the cost of living in one section as compared to the cost of living in another, the difference in the freight charges from one section to the consuming markets as compared to freight charges on the same goods from other sections to the same consuming markets. It matters not a whit what may be said about those matters. The legislative declaration is made in the bill that the objective of the board is to fix the maximum hours and the minimum wages at a given point; and everything else in the discretion of the board must yield to that declared public policy of the Congress. That the board will yield to it must be accepted by an open-minded Americans as beyond the peradventure of a doubt.

What has the National Labor Relations Board done? I am not going to say that it is not administering the National Labor Relations-Act. I am going to say that the objective of that act is written in the act, and that the National Labor Relations Board is administering it with a view to the expressed public policy contained in the act itself. Everyone knows that. If we were running an industry in any part of the country, we would know it. If we have any experience with industries, large or small, big or little, in any State in the Union, we know that the National Labor Relations Board is administering the act in accordance with the declared purpose stated in the act as they interpret it.

There is no mistaking the objective of the bill, because the word objective, when we come down to the final power of the board, is expressly used with reference both to hours and to wages.

Mr. President, under the terms of the bill the power of life or death over industry is to be given to the present Secretary of Labor, who long ago had the idea that the children in the South and the people of the South were without shoes, who long ago had the fixed and settled conviction that there was no sense in having a different wage in the same industry in the South as compared with similar industries in other parts of the country, although in reaching that conclusion the good souls who generally have written bills of this kind seem to have closed their eyes to all the facts of our economic life. They do not understand why there should be one wage paid in the far South and another wage paid in closely knit and thickly popuiated New England. They cannot understand it save on one theory, which ought to be repudiated by every southern man, and that is that both our employers and our employees are in the one instance without conscience, and in the other instance without a love of liberty and the power to protect themselves.

The industrialists of the South are as honorable as the industrialists of any section of the Nation. They are as wise; they are as well informed. The labor in the South is made up of as pure blood as can be found in the arteries of American men and women in any section of the Nation. Why, then, is there a different wage? We may account for it on a theoretical basis, but the hard fact is that wages in every section, by and large, in the long run are fixed by economic, natural conditions that we cannot change, drastically as it is proposed to be done in this legislation, without great injury to our whole business structure.

I want to repeat that I think the men who own and operate all of our industries, from the paper plant up through all the lumber interests of the South to all the naval-stores interests of the South, all of our iron and steel industries, all our textile plants of every kind and description are as good—they are not any better, but they are as good—as men engaged in similar business in any State and in any section of the country.

I repeat, they are as well informed, they are as humane, they are as honest, they are as decent, they are just as much Americans as men who own and engage in like business in any other part of this country. I warn southerners who defend this bill that those who write this kind of laws cannot understand the existing difference in wage except upon the ground that in the South we are deliberately guilty of exploiting the labor of our fellow men. The men who labor in the South and the women who labor in the South are just as honest, they are just as decent, they have the same love of liberty, they are doing their dead level best just as the men and the women in every other section of the country.

How are we going to fix this minimum wage and these maximum hours? Obviously, we cannot do it by considering individual cases. We would never get through with the task if we did that. Obviously, that is an impossibility. The bill recognizes that. The bill recognizes that it must be done through classification into groups of the persons who come under its terms, and who are affected by it. In no other way could it be accomplished. In no other way can anyone conceive of any board exercising the vast powers and meeting the vast responsibilities placed upon the board by this bill. So I am not quarreling with that provision of the bill; but it must be done by groups. It must be done by industries, with the power in the board, to be sure, to note particular cases and instances, but in the nature of things the board cannot give consideration to particular industries, nor to particular instances of hardship.

The proponents of the measure may think so. It does their humanitarian purposes very great credit to say that they do sincerely think so. But the board will not do it; the board eannot do it; and if it could, in the very nature of things, it would not be able to do it throughout a country that occupies a half continent and that has industrial conditions as variant and as divergent a8 are the industrial conditions in sections of the country itself.

So hours must be fixed with reference to groups, with reference to industries as industries. Even if the standard should be varied as between sections it would be a very remarkable performance upon the part of the board. But will the board do it? With the express objective set forth in the bill will the board do it, when the language of the bill is that the five members of the board must be appointed with reference to industrial and geographic conditions? How many members of the board will that give to the entire South? Not more than one. And what will one man do on the board? He cannot do a great deal; whatever his wisdom and his honesty and whatever his desire to be of service, he can do nothing under the bill which presents as its express objective the fixing of hours and wages at particular and given points and figures.

The Secretary of Labor may administer this bill through labor organizations. That provision is in the bill. I am not going to make any assault on labor organizations; I support organized labor in all its legitimate endeavors and activities; but when it is understood that the Secretary of Labor may march into a department store in Atlanta or in Oklahoma City or in Waco, Tex.; when it is understood that the Secretary of Labor may send down her agents to a little

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packing plant in southern Georgia or southern Mississippi or southern Virginia or North Carolina; when it is understood that into every industry in the country she may send her representatives, and that under the bill she may also send a representative of organized labor, what sort of a picture is presented? What will the bill do to the country?

Suppose, let us say, that the Secretary of Labor should send Mr. John L. Lewis down into a rayon plant in North Carolina; suppose, let us say, that she should send Mr. Lewis down into a little cotton mill in Alabama or Georgia; suppose that she should even send Mr. Sidney Hillman, a close associate of Mr. Lewis—I am using them merely as examples—suppose she should send them into the mills and factories of the South to look at the books, to examine the private correspondence, to go into all the intimate details of the business, and to make those things public in America—think of it!

I do not understand how maximum hours and minimum wages may be fixed on any ·fair basis by people who all during their existence have been fighting upon one side or the other of a given issue. I am not overstating what this bill provides.

I do not say that the Secretary of Labor will do so, but suppose, let us say, that she should send John L. Lewis or Sidney Hillman down into Georgia and into a little mill where for days and days a strike had been in progress, where, until the Secretary of Labor suddenly discovered it was illegal to carry on a sit-down strike, a sit-down strike had once been inaugurated. Is that going to do labor any good? Is it going to do the men and women who work in our mills and our factories and our warehouses and our jobbing houses any good? Is it going to do business any good? Is it going to do America any good? That is the question, Mr. President, that ought to be asked in the consideration of this bill.

Mr. WALSH. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. BROWN of Michigan in the chair). Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Massachusetts?

Mr. GEORGE. I will yield in just a moment.

The distinguished Senator from Alabama [Mr. BLACK] read into the RECORD during the course of the first day's discussion of the bill certain letters from large sawmill operators. The letters were entirely proper, and those operators had a right to send the letters. I believe that any citizen has the right to approve or disapprove pending legislation. I am not going to quarrel with them; but I am not surprised that some large sawmill operators should have written here approving this bill.

Mr. President, the big sawmill operators approved the N. R. A. They approved it when the little mill was being closed. They approved the quota system which it was attempted to put on the little mill, and under which the little mill could cut only so many thousand feet of lumber per day or per week or per month. They approved it for the express purpose of driving out competition; they approved it for the express purpose of establishing a monopoly, and in the South they did establish a monopoly. Wherever the little sawmill operators and lumbermen were frightened by the N. R. A. and screams of the eagle, they took to the woods. Down in my State, in the very beginning, I stated to a sawmill man, Do not pay any attention to it. The agents of the N. R. A. went out into the woods and found a little sawmill man who had paid all his money, all his earnings of a lifetime, for a tract of timber, and they said, You have got to pay a certain wage, you cannot work your employees more than a certain number of hours, and, moreover, you cannot cut more than so many thousand feet of lumber per month. One such sawmill operator came to me and said, Here is my timber tract; in it are invested the earnings of a lifetime, but under the hour and wage scale they have prescribed I cannot earn a penny out of it, and on the quota they give me my lease will have expired before I can cut one-third of my timber. I said, Do not pay any attention to them; you bought that timber; go ahead and cut it within the terms of your contract. You have a 12 months' or a 24 ·months' or a 36 months' lease on your timber. It is yours. I do not care what kind of quota they put on you; go ahead and cut it.

But what happened? The little mills closed up all through the Carolinas and all through Georgia; small lumbermen went out of business, and literally hundreds of them who did not go out of business went up to the very door of bankruptcy, and today they are bankrupt because they undertook to comply with the requirements and conditions fixed by the N. R. A. That is not theory; that is fact; and everyone familiar with the situation knows it to be a fact.

The finishers of lumber came day after day and said, We want to sell the lumber at a certain price, flooring and ceiling and finished lumber; but the N. R. A. says we must sell it at a higher price. We do not want to ask a higher price, because our customers cannot buy it at a higher price, but they can buy at a price at which we are willing to sell and at which we can make a reasonable profit. But right then the big lumbermen were saying that the N. R. A. was a godsend. Of course, it was a godsend, because the big lumbermen had created a monopoly through the very agency of the Government and had driven the little competitor out of the field. So the big operator could put his prices up to anybody's code; indeed, he helped to make the code; he wrote it. The same big lumberman thinks he is in sight of another N. R. A., and so he likes this bill. But the hundreds of little lumbermen do not like this bill, and the thousands of men who work for them do not like this bill, because they believe, as I believe, that yielding to economic conditions their employers are willing to meet them half way and to deal with them on a fair basis.

Mr. President, let me reply to another thing that has been injected into the debate. It has been said that in all the great industries of the country labor is organized—and it should be. It is said that through organization labor is enabled to assert its rights. In a measure that is true, and I am glad that it is true. But it is said that in a large number of other industries labor is not organized and there is, therefore, no collective bargaining in a very true or real sense.

Answering for the industries of the South, and I believe it is largely true everywhere, labor is organized or will organize whenever there is any real reason for organization. But in the little industries, where a fine personal relationship exists between the employer and the employee, labor organizations have not been able to make much headway for the very substantial reason that there is no actual necessity for an organization of the type that exists in the large key industries of the country in such businesses or such enterprises.

Labor has the right to organize down to two men, down to three men, down to a minimum. Labor may do it if it wishes, and it may affiliate with a national organization. I think it should in all industries where the industry is large enough to make impossible that intimate relationship which exists in the smaller enterprises of the country. Wherever labor desires to organize it may do so, and labor will organize in the smaller industries of the country when there is any substantial reason for it, because all of our people are one; they are moved by much the same motives and purposes; they are controlled by much the same sentiment in consideration of self-interest and advancement; and labor in large and in small enterprises now unorganized will organize whenever there is the necessity for it.

Mr. President, I am no apologist for cheap labor. I do not desire cheap labor. I am no apologist for unusual hours of labor. I do not desire long hours for labor. Locally I have said many times, sometimes when it cost a little to say it, that I thought the labor in the community was not paid enough—the labor on the farm, in the store, in the little manufacturing plant. That is my sentiment and that is my view.

I know that through legislation we can do much so far as excessively long hours are concerned, particularly in hazardous enterprise and industry, particularly in an industry which presents any element of danger or any factors which produce or ordinarily produce unhappy results either in the

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physical or mental or moral character of the people employed in those industries. Much can be done through proper regulation of hours. Much can be done, unquestionably, through legislation in the fixing of reasonable hours, or at least outlawing unreasonable hours.

But when we undertake to fix either a fiat minimum of wages or maximum of hours through any board at Washington for all the industries of the country under a law that will not admit in actual practice of any real differential or any substantial differential or any peculiar consideration of special hardship cases—when we undertake to do that we undertake to do what nature, what economic laws, what the development that has gone on in this country simply say we cannot do unless we want to disrupt and disorganize the industries in some parts of the country.

Mr. BYRNES. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from South Carolina?

Mr. GEORGE. I yield.

Mr. BYRNES. I believe the minimum wage paid by the Government through the Works Progress Administration is approximately $22 for common labor in Georgia, and for the same labor in New York City approximately $52. If the Senator is correct in the statement he made a moment ago, that, in his opinion, there would be no differential, how could we reconcile the action of the Government through the W. P. A. making a differential of $30 in the minimum wage for Government employees and through another department of the Government striving to see that there is no differential?

Mr. GEORGE. We would not be able to reconcile it. The Secretary of Labor would probably reconcile it on the theory that Works Progress Administrator Hopkins had done it, and therefore it must be all right. That is the only basis on which it could be reconciled.

Mr. President, I want to refer to some of the things the board is authorized to do by way of investigation. I invite the Senate to keep in mind the fact that under the terms of the bill the board is specifically directed to carry on, wherever feasible or possible or practical, these investigations through the Secretary of Labor:

The board in its discretion may investigate and gather data regarding the wages, hours, and other conditions and practices of employment in any occupation subject to this act, and may inspect such places and such records (and make such transcripts thereof) and investigate such facts, conditions, practices, or matters as it may be deemed necessary or appropriate to determine whether any person has violated or is about to violate any provision of this act.

In a subsequent section, section 15, the board is specifically charged in this language:

So far as practicable, the board shall utilize the Department of Labor for all the investigations and inspections necessary under section 12 (a).

I read only a part of the things that could be investigated under section 12.

The Secretary of Labor shall have the powers enumerated therein in the conduct of such investigations and inspections and shall report the results thereof to the board.

The Secretary of Labor may, if she wishes, select one of the branches into which organized labor unhappily finds itself divided at this moment, may select one branch of the great labor group in this country, and send them down to make investigation, to go into the places of business and to find out all these facts, making transcripts of records, and subsequently publishing them as the act itself provides.

Let us suppose the Secretary of Labor did, in all of the investigations, take only one division of organized labor as it exists today. Let us suppose, for instance, that she never sought any agent except an agent of Mr. Lewis and those associated with Mr. Lewis, for all the purposes of investigation under the provisions of this bill. What would be the situation in this country? Would we not be inviting labor troubles and labor difficulties? Would we not be disorganizing labor and industry? Would we not actually be retarding progress in the United States?

Mr. President, there are many other phases of the bill that ought to be discussed. I shall refer to one. Recourse is given to any party aggrieved, whether an employee or an employer, to the courts, as I have just said, to the circuit courts. Obviously that should be amended so that any aggrieved person should have a right to make appeal to the district court of the district in which he resides.

But passing that by, what may the court do after the appeal is taken? The court may correct errors of law, and it may correct a finding of fact if there is no evidence on which the finding is based; that is, if the finding is arbitrary and capricious.

What does that mean? It means that an aggrieved person has an appeal only on error of law, because if there be any fact or any evidence on which the board fixes its finding, the court cannot say that it was an arbitrary and capricious ruling by the board.

Every lawyer understands that principle. Every lawyer knows it. Not only is that true, but in the bill itself it is declared textually that the board shall not observe or be bound by technical rules of evidence or procedure. The bill takes the board as far away as it can from the finding of legitimate facts which are subject thereafter to review by any impartial tribunal. It gives to the board the power to find all the facts on which the industry of the country may be raided by the board without a right of appeal to any court of the land, save on a question of law or on a finding of fact which was so obviously unsupported by any evidence, which does not have to comply with technical rules of evidence or procedure in its presentation, as to enable the court to say, Here is an arbitrary and a capricious finding by the board.

Not only is the board here at Washington, the chairman of which may be changed overnight, given the power of life and death over the industry of the country, but it is charged with one objective. It has before it constantly one objective, and all the poetry with which it has been clothed may be thrown to the winds.

Not only that, but its finding of fact based on the conclusions of Secretary Perkins and of such labor organizers as she wants to select to conduct the investigation never can be called in question in any court of law or of justice in America if there is a single line of evidence to support it. Will not partial investigators always find some evidence to support it? Is there a single employer who cannot get one man in his mill to swear that the employer is an angel in disguise? Is there a single business in all the Union that cannot find in its list of employees one who will swear that the employer is a devil in human form?

So there is no appeal. There is no right of appeal. This thing is bureaucracy run mad, with power of life and death over every industry in America, with minor exceptions. This thing, within 12 months after it is set up, will be the right hand of some partial labor group favored by the Secretary of Labor.

I am speaking plainly, Mr. President, because I owe it to my people to speak plainly. Down there in the South we have over 70 percent of the actual spindles in this country in our textile mills, and we consume more than 80 percent of the cotton produced and consumed in America. Will that condition be allowed to go on under a Secretary of Labor who has said in effect that the people of my section are incapable of asserting their rights? Will that condition be allowed to continue under a Secretary of Labor who, time after time, has said that the South was not entitled to any material wage differential in any of her industries; under a Secretary who can close her eyes to all the facts that actually exist in this country, and account for them only on the supposition of lack of character and conscience upon the part of our employers, and lack of character and strength and decency on the part of our employees?

I subscribe to no such doctrine. This is the wildest dream that was ever presented to the American Congress. The N. R. A. was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, but before it was declared unconstitutional it was falling of its own weight; and that is what will happen to any law of

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this kind whenever the Government commits itself to the folly of trying to regulate all the industry and all the wages and all the labor in a country with such divergent interests, stretching over so vast an area as ours.

Will that be healthy? Will it be good for America? Let no one say that those of us who oppose this thing want to see low wages continued. We do not; but we know very well that wages must keep pace with economic conditions. We know very well that the cost of property, the cost of taxes, the cost of transporting or carrying goods to the consuming market, are all matters that must be considered when industry is established anywhere, in any part of this or any other country; and we know very well that those things will not be considered by this board. I state deliberately that no appeal has penetrated the minds and hearts of the men who compose the National Labor Relations Board save an appeal that they wanted to hear and wanted to entertain; and no appeal will ever reach the hearts and souls of this board that it does not want to hear and does not want to entertain.

Mr. President, no group of men in all the long stretches of human history has ever been entrusted with absolute power over any long period of time without abusing that power. I know what this means. In my own conscience, I know what it means. The people of the South know what this thing means; but let not southern industry and southern labor think this measure will affect them alone.

Through the mechanism provided for in this bill the ax will fall more swiftly and more certainly and with greater force upon the neck of the South, upon the industry and business of the South; but back of this thing is something far greater than the crucifixion of the industries of a single section. Back of this thing is the same steady encroachment upon the liberties of the citizen that has actuated those who have written much of the law we have been called upon to pass during the past 4 years. Back of this thing stands the almost undisguised purpose of putting into the hands of a board at Washington all the industry, all the labor of America, with all its economic and political consequences. That is far more important than the crucifixion and burial beyond possibility of resurrection of every little mill and factory and place of business in all the South that would come within the jurisdiction of the bill.

Mr. President, let me read section 8 (a) to see the breadth of the operation of this bill on industry:

Whenever the board shall determine that any substandard labor condition exists in the production of goods in one State and that such goods compete to a substantial extent in that State with other goods produced in another State and sold or transported in interstate commerce, in the production of which such substandard labor condition does not exist, the board shall make an order requiring the elimination of such substandard labor condition and the maintenance of the appropriate fair labor standard in the production of goods which so compete.

There is the end of State lines. Here is the doctrine of the Shreveport case carried to an extreme, carried into every little cotton warehouse, carried into every store, save as the retail stores have been excepted by the terms of the bill; carried into every little sawmill, carried into every little manufacturing plant of every kind, character, and description. There is the end of State authority and of State power, the doctrine of the Shreveport case carried to its utmost limit.

What happened under the Shreveport case? I see about me Members of the Senate who have occupied positions as chief executives of their respective States. What happened to the freight-rate structure in this country under the Shreveport decision? The State commission was stripped of its power. The State commission could not put in a sidetrack on a little railroad that had its beginning and ending within a single State without the approval of the Interstate Commerce Commission here in Washington. They lost all power to say at what cost an intrastate railroad, with both ends of its line within the State, never having traversed a State line, must carry the perishable fruits and vegetables of the farmer to a near-by market within the State. The State commission lost all power over it, and they have not gotten the power back, and will not ever get it back.

If section 8 (a) is written into the law, there will be written into the law a provision giving power to the Federal Government to regulate practically all business, because pretty nearly every business will be included within this broad declaration in section 8 (a) of the bill. Once that power of the State is lost, it will be lost for good; that will be the end of it; it will be gone.

Mr. President, there is a statement I do not care to make, and yet I think I should make it. Our friends would disclaim any purpose or intention of regulating labor on the farm, with regard to either hours or wages. I would favor a higher minimum wage on the farm if it could be accomplished by law and safely and properly provided by law. The friends of this measure would disclaim all purposes of regulating wages on the farm.

Let me remind the farmers, however, that already in one bill having to do with and relating to agriculture in the Congress it is textually provided that no benefits, benefits which come out of the taxpayers' pockets can be paid to any producer of a particular commodity unless that producer has complied with the age, wage, and hour restrictions and limitations fixed by the Secretary of Agriculture or his administrator.

As certainly as that the day follows the night, and even upon a basis of justice and equity, if the pending bill shall be passed and shall stand with this provision in it, it will ultimately, and at no distant date, include those excepted classes of labor, at least, which now fall outside of the terms of the bill, and it will also be ultimately extended even to agriculture itself.

Mr. President, I have just one other observation to make. There is an observable tendency on the part of some of those expert in the drafting of legislation, who have had far more consideration during the last few years than they ever deserved, and far more than they deserve in and of themselves—there is evidence of a tendency to include within the legislative scheme which has been constantly developing the vast populations in the industrial centers in America. I acquit the administration entirely as not desiring to be unfair or to deal unequally with agriculture, but there are unmistakable signs, as I have seen them—and I have tried to see them fairly—of an intent and purpose to bring under Washington, under a bureau at Washington, under an agency at Washington, with vast power, virtually unrestricted and unrestrained, the great populations in the industrial and commercial centers.

What does it mean? I hope I am wrong, but I think I have seen in it the possibility at least of controlling America through a group of industrial and commercial cities in America, and not the least effective means of control will be agencies at Washington which possess a power which should never be vested in any board or any bureau, or delegated by any Congress, conceding that Congress has all of the power that is sought to be given by the bill.

Whenever that day comes, Mr. President, in one way or another, through these agencies, and through the power which may be exerted by these agencies and bureaus, it will be quite possible to control a majority of the people of the United States through the control of the great American centers of population. Indeed, it will be quite possible for government in power to exert a political control which ought not to be desired by any party, and which can never be safely delegated or given by the people to any political party in America.

Mr. President, the pending bill should go back to the committee. It demands an impossibility. It assumes that a board, wise enough, well informed enough, disinterested enough, may be found and organized to exercise safely, and even wisely, all of the vast power given this board. It assumes it is necessary to give that power directly to the board, when no Senator knows how many people within his own State would actually come within the operation of the measure, when no Senator here can tell what the average minimum wage in his own State is today,

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Moreover, Mr. President, it assumes this at a time when there is no emergency, at a time when business is on the upgrade, and for many months has been steadily on the upgrade. It assumes it at a time when we are faced by no necessity for prompt and unconsidered action.

The bill should go back to the committee, and the committee should be given ample time to find out all of the essential and pertinent facts upon which this kind of legislation should be based, if it is to be passed by this Congress, or by any subsequent Congress.

When the N. R. A. was enacted we were at the depths of the depression. There were many in this body who supported the N. R. A.. probably who did notapprove it. But, with few exceptions, we recognized the necessity for immediate emergency measures and action. That condition does not obtain now, there is. no excuse for hasty action at this time. In my opinion, there can be no justifying cause for keeping the pending bill here, after the Congress has been in session for 7 months, when it is literally worn out with its labors and ought to be permitted to go home. Above all, Mr. President, the people of this country should have time to consider and weigh this bill and to understand fully its meaning, if they wish the Congress to pass it.

Mr. BILBO. Mr. President, I am as anxious to go home as is any other Member of the Senate, but I want to announce that I am willing to stay here until Christmas Eve, if necessary, in order that some definite legislative action may be taken to relieve the cotton farmers of the South from the bankruptcy which faces them. When we view the present condition of the cotton market we find there is something wrong somewhere. There is a dead cat on the line somewhere. The cotton farmer of the South seems to be the unfortunate member of the great agricultural family.

By examination of the reports from the markets of the country it will be found that today all the major crops are enjoying parity prices. The wheat farmer has had a bounteous yield, and he is getting parity for his wheat, as figured by the experts in the Department of Agriculture. Corn is bringing a parity price. Hogs are bringing a parity price. Cattle are bringing a parity price. But when it comes to cotton we find a different condition. The parity price of cotton today is estimated to be between 16 and 17 cents a pound, yet cotton is selling now for 11 and 12 cents a pound, or between 5 and 6 cents a pound below its parity price. There is something mysterious about it. It cannot be the result of the surplus that exists, because the surplus is low. It cannot be the threatened cotton yield, beeause thirteen or fourteen million bales, the estimated yield, is not an abnormal yield. If we were to have a possible yield of eighteen or twenty million bales of cotton the situation might be different.

Mr. President, I think the Congress owes it to the cotton farmer of the South, who is getting the raw end of the deal, to do something before it adjourns, and I call upon my colleagues of the Cotton Belt to take some interest in and make some move to have a resolution adopted or some legislation passed to relieve the cotton farmer. I specially call upon the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture and Forestry of the Senate to answer to the cotton growers of the South why something has not been done, and what is going to be done.

I am not advised whether the Secretary of Agriculture or the President himself has the right to peg the price of cotton. If it can be done, that fact should be announced promptly to the farmers of the South, who are now beginning to pick and market their cotton. They should be notified of that fact. If the fault lies with the speculators in the cotton market, they should have notice that they are not going to be allowed to beat down the price of cotton and then sell the market short.

Mr. President, something ought to be done for the cotton farmer. I beg of my colleagues to object to every suggestion of an adjournment sine die until something is done to guarantee at least a parity price to the cotton farmers, when all the other major crops that have been protected and helped by the Government are today enjoying the parity prices.

It has been suggested that one reason why the price of cotton is low is because of the overproduction of cotton in foreign countries. I do not agree with that suggestion. I know that our exports of cotton have been cut short, but, my friends in the Senate, the crop in prospect today will not justify the present price.

Mr. OVERTON. Mr. President, I send to the desk four amendments which I intend to offer to the pending bill. I will ask the clerk to read them, and then I should like to have the amendments printed and lie on the table

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will read the amendments submitted by the Senator from Louisiana.

The Chief Clerk read the amendments intended to be proposed by Mr. OVERTON to the amendment reported by the committee, as follows:

On page 51, line 2, after the word in to insert the following: the ginning and baling of cotton:

On page 59, line 13, after the word living to insert the following: in the particular locality wherein the person is employed.

On page 60, line 2, to insert the following new paragraph: The difference between various localities and sections of the costs of transportation to market.

On page 60, line 20, to insert the following: Provided further, That the provisions of this subsection shall not be applicable with respect to any person employed in connection with the processing of beets, cane, and maple into sugar and sirup.

Mr. BRIDGES. Mr. President, inasmuch as I wish to address myself partially to the amendment which I yesterday submitted, I ask now that the amendment be read.

Mr. McNARY. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. TRUMAN in the chair). The clerk will call the roll.

The Chief Clerk called the roll, and the following Senators answered to their names:

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Eighty-six Senators having answered to their names, a quorum is present.

The clerk will read the amendment intended to be proposed by the Senator from New Hampshire [Mr. BRIDGES] to the amendment reported by the committee.

The CHIEF CLERK. In the amendment reported by the committee at the proper place it is proposed to insert the following:

That it shall be unlawful for any person to employ in interstate commerce or in the production of goods to be shipped in interstate commerce any person for more than 40 hours in any week and to pay to any person so employed a wage of less than 40 cents an hour.

SEc. 2. It shall be unlawful for any person to transport any goods in interstate commerce in the production or processing at which goods in the United States any person was employed for more than 40 hours in any week or any person was paid a wage of less than 40 cents an hour.

SEc. 3. No provision of this act shall supersede or justify noncompliance with any State law or municipal ordinance establishing a minimum wage higher than that wage established by this act or a maximum workweek shorter than that established by this act.

SEc. 4. No provision of this act shall impose any liability or penalty upon any common carrier for the transportation in interstate commerce in the regular course of its business of any goods not produced by such common carrier, and no provision of this act shall excuse any common carrier from its obligation to accept any goods for transportation.

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SEC. 5. Any person who willfully performs or aids or abets in the performance of any act declared to be unlawful by any provision of this act shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction shall be fined not more than $5,000 or imprisoned for not more than 1 year. As a part of the judgment of the court in any criminal proceeding for a violation of this act the court may issue a permanent injunction prohibiting further violations of this act by the defendant.

SEC. 6. (a) This act shall not apply to agricultural laborers as defined by the Department of Agriculture, nor to executive, administrative, and professional employees.

(b) It shall be lawful to employ any person for 48 hours in any week if such person is paid for any work in excess of 40 hours but not exceeding 44 hours in any week at a wage for each hour equal to one and one-quarter times his normal hourly wage, and for any work in excess of 44 hours but not exceeding 48 hours in any week at a wage of one and one-half times his normal hourly wage.

(c) In the case of any industry covered by this act that normally operates less than 26 weeks per year, it shall be lawful for an employer to employ workers for more than 48 hours in any week if such hours of employment and the rate of pay therefor are arrived at by collective bargaining between the employer and his employees.

(d) It shall be lawful to pay any person less than the minimum hourly wage provided for by this act if the department of labor of the State (or its duly appointed representative) wherein such person resides certifies that be is an apprentice or a learner.

(e) It shall be lawful to pay to any person less than the mini mum hourly wage provided for by this act if the public-welfare agency of the town, city, county, or State wherein he resides certifies that his earning capacity has been impaired by physical or mental injuries or defects.

SEC. 7. No person receiving relief or work relief which is financed in whole or in part from funds appropriated by Congress shall be paid a weekly wage in excess of 80 percent of the weekly minimum wage fixed under this act as applicable in the State wherein the relief is being given.

SEc. 8. Section 336 of the Tariff Act of 1930, as amended, shall be administered in such manner, without regard to the limitation imposed by such section upon the total increase or decrease in the rates of duty expressly fixed by statute, as to equalize the differences in the increased costs of production or processing of any domestic article resulting from this act and the cost of production or processing of any like or similar foreign article, including any article with respect to the importation of which into the United States a foreign-trade agreement bas been concluded.

SEc. 9. (a) There is hereby established a joint congressional committee to be known as the Committee on Sectional Wage Differentials (hereinafter referred to as the joint committee).

(b) The joint committee shall be composed of six Members of the Senate, to be appointed by the President of the Senate, and six Members of the House of Representatives, to be appointed by the Speaker of the House of Representatives. A vacancy in the joint committee shall not affect the power of the remaining members to execute the functions of the joint committee, and shall be filled in the same manner as the original appointment.

(c) It shall be the duty of the joint committee to investigate and determine the advisability of establishing sectional wage differentials in different parts of the country, and to report to the Senate and the House, within 6 months after the date of enactment of this act, its recommendations, if any, for necessary legislation.

(d) The joint committee, or any subcommittee thereof, shall have power to bold hearings and to sit and ad at such places and times, to require by subpena or otherwise the attendance of such witnesses and the production of such books, papers, and documents, to administer such oaths, to take such testimony, to have such printing and binding done, and to make such expenditures as it deems advisable. Subpoenas shall be issued under the signature of the chairman of said joint committee, and shall be served by any person designated by him. Amounts appropriated for the expenses of the joint committee shall be disbursed one-half by the Secretary of the Senate and one-half by the Clerk of the House. The provisions of sections 102 to 104, inclusive, of the Revised Statutes shall apply in case of any failure of any witness to comply with any subpena, or to testify when summoned, under authority of this section.

(e) The joint committee shall have power to employ and fix the compensation of such officers, experts, and employees as it deems necessary in the performance of its duties, but the compensation so fixed shall not exceed the compensation fixed under the Classification Act of 1923, as amended, for comparable duties. The joint committee is authorized to utilize the services, information, facilities, and personnel of the departments and agencies in the executive branch of the Government.

(f) There is hereby appropriated, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, the sum of $250,000 to carry out the provisions of this section.

SEC. 10. Sections 1 to 8, inclusive, of this act shall take effect upon the expiration of 1 year after the date of enactment of this act.

Mr. BRIDGES. Mr. President, at the proper time I propose to offer to the so-called Black bill the amendment which has just been read by the clerk, which, if agreed to, would strike out the entire substance of the pending measure and substitute what has just been read.

LXXXI--492

I am approaching the wage-hour problem and wage-hour legislation from a little different angle than most of the other Members of this body. For a long, long time I have believed in minimum-wage and maximum-hour legislation. In the State of New Hampshire, during the period when I served as Governor, I advocated and put into actual operation a minimum-wage department, which is operating successfully in that State. I have long advocated the principle of a shorter workweek and a higher minimum pay. I think those principles are sound.

I am opposed to the Black bill, so-called, because I believe it is unsound and un-American in its approach to the problem. I am opposed to it primarily because of the vast delegation of power conferred upon one board, a board composed of five members, to be appointed by the Chief Executive.

Mr. WAlSH. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from New Hampshire yield to the Senator from Massachusetts?

Mr. BRIDGES. I yield.

Mr. WALSH. As I understand, the Senator's proposal is that he prefers fixing by law an absolute workweek of 40 hours per week for the employees of all industries whose products enter interstate commerce, and an absolute minimum wage of 40 cents an hour, the law to become operative 1 year after the date of passage?

Mr. BRIDGES. That is the substance of my proposal, with certain exceptions.

Mr. President, as I was saying, I am opposed to this delegation of power to a five-man board, first, because I have no confidence in the board that will be appointed, based upon the evidence of past appointments to similar bodies, such as the National Labor Relations Board. The bill as drawn proposes an absolute delegation of power and will make the men constituting the board virtually czars of all American industry and labor.

Industry and labor are not unanimous for the pending bill. This morning the president of one of the great unions affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, Mr, John Frey, head of the United Metal Workers of Am-erica, called at my office and told me very frankly of his opposition to the pending measure. His sentiments are expressed by others, both leaders of industry and leaders in the labor movement.

My judgment is that the pending bill, if enacted into law, will result in a millstone being hung about the necks both of American labor and industry in the years to some. Such discretionary power as is proposed should be given to no board and to no individual in this land for any purpose.

The power given to the board would involve the economic life or death of American industry and the rights of American labor. The board could make its own ru1es. Justice could very well become a mockery. It wou1d discriminate against small businesses, because small businesses would be unable to lobby and present their rights to a board having such wide discretionary powers as would big businesses.

When Mr. Roosevelt took office as the Chief Executive of this land we had approximately 583,000 Federal employees. Today we have approximately 835,000 Federal employees. The bill, if enacted into law, would vastly increase this number.

I agreed with the distinguished Senators from Montana [Mr. WHEELER] and Colorado [Mr. JoHNSON] when they, in the first day of the debate, advocated separation of the childlabor features of the bill from the measure as a whole. It is important that child labor should receive individual consideration, and legislation regarding it should stand on its own feet. I believe the child-labor features should be segregated from the bill and enacted separately.

Mr. MINTON. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. BRIDGES. I yield.

Mr. MINTON. Will the Senator support the child-labor provisions of the Wheeler-Johnson bill?

Mr. BRIDGES. I will.

Mr. President, briefly I want to analyze the differences between a direct approach to wages and hours of labor legislation and an indirect approach to the same objectives by means of a board given wide discretionary power, a board as

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to whose personnel no one knows anything, but as to which many may be suspicious of the influences which may be brought to bear upon the appointments to be made.

In section 3 of the Black bill provision is made for the creation of a board of five persons, to hold office for a period of 5 years. The board will be vested with wide discretionary power, and it will require an extensive staff of probably more than 10,000 employees. The amendment which I have offered provides for no board and no administrative staff. The provisions of my amendment, if enacted into law, would be enforced by the United States district attorneys and by the Federal courts. No discretion would be involved in the application of its provisions. It is a straightforward attempt to place upon the statute books of the country minimum wage legislation and maximum-hour legislation. It is as simple and straightforward an approach as it is possible to make.

The Black bill provides that the board can fix a minimum wage of not more than 40 cents an hour, but that this wage may be varied from industry to industry, from plant to plant, and from region to region at the discretion of the board. The amendment which I have offered provides a mandatory minimum wage of 40 cents an hour applicable to all industries subject to the bill. There is no discretion involved in the application of this provision of my amendment.

Relative to hours of labor, the Black bill provides for the fixing of a maximum workweek of not less than 40 hours. This can be varied from industry to industry, from region to region, from plant to plant, at the discretion and whim of the board. My amendment provides for a uniform maximum workweek of 40 hours applicable to all work falling under the authority of the statute, with no variation.

Overtime: The Black bill allows overtime at the rate of time and a half, but the labor standards board can prohibit all overtime if it so desires. The amendment which I have offered permits overtime at the rate of time and one-fourth up to 44 hours per week, and time and one-half above 44 hours to a maximum of 48 hours.

Occupations exempted: The Black bill exempts executive, administrative, and professional employees, persons engaged in local retailing, seamen, railway workers, and persons employed in fishing and agriculture. My amendment would exempt executive, administrative, and professional employees and persons engaged in agriculture.

Applications: The Black bill applies to interstate commerce and to intrastate commerce so far as goods produced in intrastate commerce compete with goods produced in interstate commerce. My amendment would apply only to interstate commerce.

Employment of apprentices: The Black bill would permit the employment of apprentices at less than the minimum wage fixed by the bill. The licensing of such persons would be conducted by the board itself. My amendment provides for the payment of less than the minimum rate of pay to learners and apprentices certified by State departments of labor.

Employment of physically or mentally incapacitated persons: The Black bill allows the employment of physically or mentally incapacitated persons at less than the given rate of pay, and the existence of such incapacity to work is to be determined by the board. My amendment would permit the employment of physically and mentally incapacitated persons at less than the rate of pay when such incapacity is certified by the welfare society of the town, city, county, or State.

Penalties: The Black bill provides for a fine of $500 or imprisonment for each offense, and each person employed would constitute a separate offense, which would be a tremendous penalty to inflict and one that would ruin almost any industry or any business if applied. My amendment would provide a fine of $5,000 or imprisonment for 1 year, but each person hired would not constitute a separate offense.

Discretion: The Black bill confers upon the board absolute discretion to classify employers regionally, by occupations, by industries, by size of plants, size of communities, and so forth. This would give the board almost unlimited power to discriminate against any plant or employer, making it a lobbying proposition. Under my amendment no discretionary power would be allowed.

Labels and licenses: Under the terms of the Black bill labels and licenses may be required by the board. This is comparable to the blue eagle of the N. R. A. Under my amendment none would be required.

Regional differentials: The Black bill would permit a board of five men to allow regional differentials, or would give them the power of economic life and death over industries in different sections of the country. My amendment provides for a congressional committee of 12 members to make a thorough study from a scientific and economic viewpoint of wage differentials and report to the next session of Congress.

Tariff: Both bills had the same effect as to tariff, but I may point out that with Secretary Hull's policy of reciprocal trade agreements the provisions of the Black bill would be nullified.

Seasonal industries: The Black bill makes no exemptions in this respect. My amendment provides that seasonal industries that normally operate less than 26 weeks a year may be exempted.

Relief work: A very important consideration involved is the question of wages on relief work. The Black bill contains no provision on that subject. My amendment provides that persons on relief may not be paid more than 80 percent of the minimum wage provided by the bill. It is a very constructive step in the direction of removing from relief rolls some of those names now found upon them.

Mr. President, I approach wage and hour legislation from the viewpoint of a friend of such legislation, but I am not content to give discretionary power to a board to sit here in Washington and determine the life or death of the industries of the people of my section of the country or the life or death of the people working for a livelihood in my section or the industries and workers employed in industries all over this great Nation.

such action is not based on sound public policy. Congress is dodging the issue when it delegates that responsibility. Let us have minimum-wage and maximum-hour legislation, but let us meet the responsibility. Let us put it upon our statute books as a straightforward statute that is clearly definable. Let us not create any more executive boards with wide discretionary powers in view of the fact that probably, with some of the influences that may be brought to bear upon the Chief Executive in making the appointments, we may have another biased board. From the point of view of labor and from the point of view of industry, they have everything to gain and nothing to lose by having written upon the statute books an out-and-out standard of minimum-wage and maximum-hour legislation. The small industries and isolated groups of labor have a great deal to gain by such a type of legislation. Let us provide definite standards, both as to minimum wages and as to maximum hours, but preserve the right of collective bargaining above those standards.

I should like to see this bill recommitted to the Committee on Education and Labor and a thorough study given to this problem, and after due consideration a sounder measure brought forth having the same objectives, but not the same objections.

Mr. McNARY. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. HATCH in the chair). The clerk will call the roll.

The legislative clerk called the roll, and the following Senators answered to their names:

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The PRESIDING OFFICER. Eighty-six Senators have answered to their names. A quorum is present.

Mr. BORAH. Mr. President, when this body assigned to the Committee on Education and Labor the task of presenting a bill on the question of minimum wages and maximum hours, it assigned it a most difficult task. As difficult in many respects as any measure coming before the Senate since I have been a Member. This measure involves principles as far reaching, economically and politically, as any bill which could be presented upon a question of this nature.

I am a member of the Committee on Education and'Labor. During most of the time when the committee was considering this bill I was deeply interested in another question; but I found time to read all the hearings, and I attended the sessions of the committee when the measure was being framed. I desire to say that I think the committee as a whole recognized the great difficulty of the problem, and I am sure it earnestly labored to find a solution for it. The bill which came from the committee itself, as contradistinguished from the bill which was first introduced, discloses the earnestness and ability with which the committee dealt with the measure. I have only commendation for the ability and sincerity of my colleagues on the committee.

Mr. President, to me this problem is one of method. The question is, How shall we reach the problem of minimum wage and of maximum hours? I feel that every man or woman who is worthy of hire is entitled to sufficient compensation to maintain a decent standard of living. It is upon that theory that I proceeded to the consideration of the measure, and upon that theory I now consider it.

We are not undertaking to fix a full wage; we are not dealing with that question at all. We are not undertaking to fix a maximum wage; we are not dealing with that subject at all. We are dealing with one question, so far as wages are concerned, and that is a minimum wage. I associate the question of a minimum wage with whan I call a minimum standard of decent living. I think every part of the country North or South, East or West is prepared to pay a sufficient wage to maintain workmen in a standard of decent living. As a nation we must do that.

I do not think any business has the right to demand the labor or to employ the labor of another at a wage below that on which the employee can live, and live in a fairly decent way. It must be that our industries can take care of that kind of a standard. If we were dealing. here with the question of a full wage or maximum wage, I could understand perfectly that it would be impracticable to deal with it without taking into consideration questions of differentials and questions of location, environment, and all conditions. But it costs just about so much to live fairly decently in every part of the United States, and it seems to me that we ought to be prepared, as we are moving out of the depression which we have suffered, to pay a wage which will maintain the workman upon a standard of decent living.

Therefore, I felt that we could establish a uniform minimum wage in the United States. I would recognize immediately, as I have said, that if we were dealing with the full wage question no such uniform rule could be established, but when we are dealing purely with the question of a minimum wage, which must not be lower than that upon which the workman can live, and as it costs about the same to live in different parts of the United States, I thought we could approach a reasonable minimum wage and write it into the law. That was my view as I entertained it after studying the hearings and talking with my colleagues. I recognize the arguments against a uniform minimum wage but after considering the matter from all angles I favor writing the minimum wage into the law. I look upon a minimum wage such as will afford a decent liVing as a part of a sound national policy. I would abolish a wage scale below a decent standard of living just as I would abolish slavery. If it disturbed business, it would be the price we must pay for good citizens.

I am unable to get away from that theory. I feel, as a legislator, that I owe a duty to the minimum-wage employees in the United States, and that I ought not to shift that responsibility to a board over whom I have no control, who may take care of the mihimum-wage employees according to my conception of what is right and wrong, or who may not.

Mr. President, I cannot forget that during the days of the N. R A. the small-business man, or what we might call the little man in the industrial world, did not have a fair chance to present his cause, and that was not necessarily by reason of the fact that anybody desired to deny him a fair opportunity; it was by reason of conditions and circumstances which no one could control, and over which no one had control. The small man would come here to Washington, stay a day or so, or a week, if he got here at all and then be compelled to return to his home. The men of great means, of powerful industrial organizations, were here all the time. They had their agents and representatives here all the time. They had their case complete and thorough, ready to present, and in the end it was their view which prevailed, necessarily.

I have. a very strong feeling that the employees of this country, who most need protection, will never see the proposed board, and the board will never see them and never hear of them. If the members of the board take trips over the country, they may see where the employees are at work; but so far as the real facts of the employment and the conditions which confront them are concerned, the facts with which the board has to deal, I have a feeling that as a practical proposition the board will never be able to reach them, never be able to see them, never have their case before them.

The question of a minimum wage will be presented by the employer. He will have the case thoroughly organized and thoroughly fixed for presentation. He will come here to Washington, or meet the board at the office of the leading citizen of the local town or city, the meeting place of the community where the board goes, and he will present the case. Then, associated with this employer will be the business concerns of the city, the business concerns of the community, those who are opposed to increasing wages, fearing it will hurt business or close up business. All the facts, all the arguments, all the pressure will come from those who will say these industries cannot pay higher wages; if you increase wages they will have to quit. The man or woman working for 15 or 20 cents a day will not have much to say. As a legislator, I feel it is my duty to write his protection in the law.

Mr. President, I feel from experience and observation that the man who most needs attention will not get attention from the board. I am not one of those who are concerned with or feel uneasy about the board jacking up the minimum wage too high. I do not feel concerned about that. The tremendous pressure which will be brought to bear on the board to leave things as they are in the different parts of the country will prevent any radical uplifting of the minimum wages. But I do fear that these wages will be left almost indefinitely where they are.

I would, therefore, fix a minimum wage. I would fix it upon the basis of the reasonable cost of decent living. No one has a right to call upon labor on any other basis. I would write it into the law. I would make it uniform, so far as minimum wages are concerned. throughout the United States. For this reason I hesitated to follow the committee in establishing a board.

Another reason why I hesitated to support the proposition of establ1shing a board was that if we give the board sufficient power to do what it is necessary for it to do, we have to grant it a power which I hesitate to grant to any board.

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I am of the opinion that the proposed board would practically control and determine the industrial interests of the different communities of the United States if it should exercise the power proposed to be granted it, and undoubtedly it would do so.

It is entirely too much power to grant to any five men. If they should exercise the power unwisely or inefficiently, it would be disastrous. If they should undertake to exercise it efficiently, it would take 1,000 men instead of 5 men in order to survey this entire situation, get the conditions as they say they must have them, and understand the different situations in which the people work. If you depart from a uniform wage based on a decent standard of living and undertake to examine into all questions touching possibility of injury to this or that business, it is an impossible task.

So we are imposing upon them a task which in the first place, in my judgment, will be governed largely by those who are interested in maintaining the wage at its present level. All the powerful influence of newspapers in the community, and the business in the community, and the employers in the community, and everyone else concerned with the community, will be telling the board how it will break up business if you increase wages in this community. I prefer to write it into the law. I think it can be done, and I think that was the view of a number of the labor leaders, although not of all of them.

Mr. President, if we establish this precedent of giving to a board the power to fix minimum wages and the power to fix maximum hours, what does that precedent mean when we come to follow it up throughout the course of the years and consider how it may be used in other instances? We will be used to justifying things now now contemplated. When you establish a precedent in a new field we ought to hesitate long, and try to think out where we are going.

I recall under Mr. Hoover's administration that we established the precedent of permitting Mr. Hoover, through his Tariff Board, to increase or decrease tariff's 50 percent up or 50 percent down. It was said on the floor of the Senate at the time that that precedent would be spread over the entire subject of tariffs and revenues, but the power was granted. I recall that when the succeeding administration came in it availed itself of the precedent established by Mr. Hoover and extended it to international tarifi's, and today, my friends, the Congress of the United States sits on the side lines and has not a thing on earth to do with the question of exports and imports or with tariffs and revenues from that source.

That is the way it spreads. And when we establish the precedent of giving to a board the power to fix minimum wages and maximum hours it must inevitably follow in years to come that prices will be fixed in respect to other matters.

Yesterday there was a spirited debate on the floor of the Senate for a few minutes on the question of dictators and dictatorships. Mr. President, ordinarily when we speak of a dictator we think of some strutting colonel at the head of a ragamuffin army, or of street barricades, or regimented shirts. We may have in mind some person of extraordinary ability who, appealing to the homeless and the hungry, undertakes openly to seize the reins of arbitrary power. But that is not the way that arbitrary government will come in the United States. That is not the way by which arbitrary power will be established. For myself, when I think of dictator in the United States, I think of precedents rather than persons. I think not of individuals but of systems. I do not think of some adventurer whom the assassin's dagger might remove, but I think of institutions set up, often for a perfectly good purpose, which secretly, silently, remorselessly undermine and sap the character and the stamina, the self-reliance, and the self-governing capacity of the people. I think of governmental institutions superimposed upon the people, but which the people are powerless to change. And what power could the people have over these five men? Who could control them so far as the people are concerned? They are not elected by the people. They are not subject to their recall. They are created from another source, and you have to travel many different ways to reach them at all.

It is precedents of which I am afraid. Washington might have been President as long as he lived had he desired. As conditions then were it would have been as well, but it would have established a precedent upon which personal government might have been and probably would have been established in this country. Abraham Lincoln is the only man in the history of the world, so far as I, from my limited reading, have discovered, who at the head of a vast army, devoted to him, in the midst of civil war, permitted his continuance in power to rest upon the result of a popular election. Doubtless no thought of doing otherwise ever entered his mind, or, if it did, it did not linger long enough to taint the loyalty of his steadfast soul. But we know he was surrounded by able men, leaders and statesmen, who contended that the Constitution was suspended, that he could not be elected, and that if he was not elected the cause would be lost. So we can hear them say to him, It is your duty to save the Union, and after you are through with the emergency restore to the people whatever rights they may have left.

We know, my friends, that when Bruening appealed to article 48 in the Weimar Constitution he established a precedent which enabled his successor to walk in and without even the violation of law wipe out the last vestige of liberty of a great people.

It is easy to establish precedents and to do so with the best of faith, but we certainly ought to stop, when we are establishing a precedent, and see in what respect it will ultimately work as to the interest or to the disadvantage of the American people.

I noticed the other day in the press dispatches that beginning in September and continuing for 1 year Rome is to celebrate the two-thousandth anniversary of Augustus Caesar. That calls up a wealth of precedents. It tells the story of how the Roman Republic passed into the Roman Empire through precedent, never by acknowledged violation of law—always under color of law, never in avowed violation of law, but by establishing precedents having the appearance of loyalty.

When Julius Caesar was assassinated in the senate chamber his great-nephew, young Octavius, was 18 years of age. When Mark Antony read Caesar's will over the body of the dead chieftain it was discovered that the great-nephew was also his adopted son. Immediately young Octavius desired to raise an army of 3,000 men, composed of his uncle's veterans, and place himself at the head of the army. But under the constitution of Rome no private citizen was permitted to place himself at the head of an organized force. To do so would bring him speedily to the Tarpeian Rock. Young Caesar appealed to Cicero, the greatest authority on the constitution in Rome, the defender of the constitution, and asked Cicero to find him a way by which he could be permitted to raise an army of 3,000 men, he agreeing to pay the expenses himself. There was no precedent for it. There was no law permitting it. But Cicero finally engineered a plan by making Caesar praetor, which was also in violation of the constitution, and permitted him to raise an army of 3,000 men. Two years after that, both consuls being killed upon the field of battle, young Caesar desired to stand for the consulship, but the constitution of Rome required that the consul be 40 years of age, and Caesar was only 20. So Caesar sent word to the senate that he desired to stand for the consulship. The senate promptly rejected the proposal. Thereupon Caesar sent a deputation from this little army which he had been permitted to raise advising the senate that he desired to stand for the consulship.

The senate—rather reluctantly, but finally—rejected the proposal. The next news which reached the senate was that the little army which he had been permitted to raise was on the march to Rome. Thereupon the pusillanimous senate began to hunt for precedents which would justify permitting young Caesar to stand for the consulship. They could find no precedents; but, their courage giving out, they permitted

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him to stand, and he was elected consul. Immediately upon his election he procured the election of his cousin, a complacent and rather inconsequential person, to the other consulship. Thereupon caesar made friends with Mark Antony, with whom he had been in conflict, and they formed the first triumvirate. Immediately upon forming the first triumvirate they established a court composed of their own friends to try their enemies, and there began the bloodiest proscription that Rome ever knew. The first head to come off its shoulders was that of Cicero, who had helped to establish the precedent 2 years before which enabled Caesar to raise his own army.

It is by establishing precedents, oftentimes in perfect good faith, that we encroach further and further upon the rights of the people, possibly not intending and not desiring to do so, but nevertheless effectively limiting their rights and their powers. I say that when we place all the minimum-wage employees of the United States under the control of a board at Washington we have placed them at the mercy of a board over which they have no control and against which they can exercise no power. It is a precedent almost startling in its significance. It will be relied on to do things we have no thought of justifying by our action at this time. I do not want to place the wage earners of this country under control of a bureau.

Mr. ELLENDER. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. BORAH. I yield.

Mr. ELLENDER. Will not the board be appointed by the President, and must not the nominations of members of the board be confirmed by the Senate under the bill?

Mr. BORAH. That is correct.

Mr. ELLENDER. What distinction does the Senator from Idaho make between the board selected in that way and the method that is now employed in appointing the judges of the Federal courts?

Mr. BORAH. I do not make any distinction at all. The judges of the Federal courts, however, are confined to the duty of deciding only such matters as the citizen brings before them and according to law written by the people or the representatives of the people.

Mr. ELLENDER. But they are appointed for life, whereas in the case of the board its members would be appointed only for a short tenure, 1 year to 5 years under this bill, and they could be removed, could they not?

Mr. BORAH. I suppose they could be, but not at the instance of the minimum-wage worker. The man or woman dissatisfied with their wage would have no say, no appeal— they are powerless.

What I am contending is that it is attempted to give the board a power which is supreme with reference to the rights of the workers. Suppose the board should fix a minimum wage that is unsatisfactory to the people in the Senator's State, what would he do about it?

Mr. ELLENDER. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. BORAH. Yes.

Mr. ELLENDER·. Suppose, under the plan of the Senator from Idaho, the Congress should fix a wage that was unsatisfactory; how would the workers get relief?

Mr. BORAH. The Members of the Congress, both in the Senate and in the House, have to be elected, and the people could express themselves at an election and remove them from office if they desired.

Mr. ELLENDER. In the same way, I say that a board which fixes wages which were unsatisfactory could be kicked out.

· Mr. BORAH. They could not be kicked out by the power of those who would be affected by the minimum wage which had been fixed. They would have no control over that situation.

Mr. ELLENDER. Would their retention not form the same issue at an election?

Mr. BORAH. I suppose one could say that if he thought it was the best he could do. I do not say that. I say that when we place over the workers a power which they cannot remove, which they cannot control, and which I cannot conrol, then I have shifted my responsibility. I contend that it is my duty, as a legislator, to say what the minimum wage should be, and it is no more difficult for me to find that out than it is for the board to find it out, and I am directly responsible to my constituents. I do not for my part propose to speculate with human misery or procrastinate with human needs. Who knows when this board will act; who knows what it will do when it does act? Who knows what relief it will give to those working at pauper wages? No, no; we cannot shirk our responsibility,

Mr. McADOO. Mr. President—

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. HATCH in the chair). Does the Senator from Idaho yield to the Senator from California?

Mr. BORAH. I yield.

Mr. McADOO. I am very much interested in the argument of the Senator from Idaho, and I should like to ask him whether he has in mind any minimum wage which he would incorporate in the proposed legislation?

Mr. BORAH. I would provide in the first instance 30 cents an hour. I would give time to readjust and then I would increase. We are in session every year.

Mr. McADOO. And what would the Senator provide as to maximum hours?

Mr. BORAH. I would leave the provision concerning maximum hours as it is now. I do not think there is so much trouble about maximum hours. There are instances where maximum hours of 40, perhaps, would work some injury; but if we are going to establish the rule of minimum wages and maximum hours, we have got to consider that it will be necessary to pay something for it somewhere in order to be right in this matter.

Mr. PEPPER. Mr. President—

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Idaho yield to the Senator from Florida?

Mr. BORAH. I yield.

Mr. PEPPER. I should like to ask the Senator from Idaho if he would impose such a rigid minimum wage as that upon an industry which could not possibly continue to exist and pay such a wage?

Mr. BORAH. That brings us right back to the proposition of which I have just spoken. Are we going to select a commission of five who will permit employers to pay a wage upon which the workers cannot live? That is what we are selecting them for. The truth of the business is that we are turning this job over to a board which is going to do what we do not want to do; namely, leave wages where they are. The whole argument in favor of the board is in favor of letting these low wages stand.

Mr. PEPPER. Mr. President, will the Senator yield to a further question?

Mr. BORAH. I yield.

Mr. PEPPER. Is the Senator from Idaho not overlooking the fact that in respect to the board exercising the power conferred by this bill they will act as a fact-finding body, in the first place, and raise the existing wage up to 40 cents, when such a raise of an existing wage can be made without curtailing opportunity for employment, without reducing production, in the case of a reduction of hours, and without disturbing or dislocating business? In other words, the power of the board is to require a fair division of profits when it can be done, so as to raise the existing wage, whereas the Congress—

Mr. BORAH. Mr. President—

Mr. PEPPER. If the Senator will allow me to conclude, whereas the Congress, in fixing an arbitrary minimum, would exercise no discretion whatever and could not possibly have the facts before it to justify the exercise of such judgment?

Mr. BORAH. The Congress has one fact before it, which is easily ascertainable and easily demonstrable, and that is what it costs to live.

Mr. PEPPER. Does the Senator expect a private individual to pay other private individuals the necessary cost of their living out of the employer's business when he cannot afford to do that?

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Mr. BORAH. I take the position that a man who employs another must pay him sufficient to enable the one employed to live.

Mr. PEPPER. What if he cannot afford to pay it?

Mr. BORAH. If he cannot afford to pay it, then he should close up the business. No business has a right to coin the very lifeblood of workmen into dollars and cents.

Mr. PEPPER. What becomes of the constitutional guaranty against taking property for private use without just compensation?

Mr. BORAH. I do not understand that that would have any application.

:Mr. PEPPER. We entrust boards with the power to regulate public utilities. Can any board require a public utility to put into effect a rate which will not give it a fair return on its investment without violating the due process of law provision of the Federal Constitution?

Mr. BORAH. No. A public utility is a public carrier, and, of course, being a public carrier, it is impressed with a public interest and we can control it. But we are not even attempting to do that with business concerns. We simply say that a certain wage shall be the minimum wage, the lowest upon which a person can sustain a decent standard of living. We are not calling upon John Jones or John Smith to employ any man; we are not compelling them to employ anyone at all; we are simply saying that the worker is entitled to so much, and if they want to employ him they must pay him that wage. They need not employ him if they do not desire to do so. Let us not make the mistake of assuming that the employers own these people and that we are taking their property without just compensation.

Mr. PEPPER. What difference is there between the Senator's position as he is now expressing it and the position he would be taking if he said the Congress and not the Interstate Commerce Commission should fix freight rates

Mr. BORAH. Undoubtedly it would be a more difficult proposition for the Congress to fix freight and passenger rates, but we would have the power to do it, and it is our primary duty to do it. I recognize that there are times when administrative boards are necessary but not here. I would never extend bureaucracy beyond absolute necessity. We selected a commission to do it but fixing freight rates is a wholly different proposition in my mind from fixing the wage the man must receive in order to live.

Mr. ELLENDER. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. BORAH. I yield.

Mr. ELLENDER. At that point, let me ask the Senator what would be the difference? In one case the effect would be upon industry and in the other the effect would be upon labor. What other difference would there be?

Mr. BORAH. One affects human life, human existence, and the right to live. I insist that American industry can pay its employees enough to enable them to live.

Mr. ELLENDER. Without exception?

Mr. BORAH. Yes; without exception. If it cannot do so, let it close up. I say that we have not any right to work slaves in this country, either white or black. I am opposed to peon labor, whether it is employed by one man or another. I start with the proposition that the right to live is higher than the right to own a business.

Mr. ELLENDER. I agree with the Senator, except as to the method of accomplishing the purpose.

Mr. BORAH. I do not want a board created to which big lumber companies can come and control, and leave unprotected the poor devil who must live upon a wage that :would be less than he could actually sustain life upon.

Mr. ELLENDER. Of course the Senator from Idaho is assuming that the board would be controlled by big business.

Mr. BORAH. I have never seen many bureaus in Washington that were not. [Laughter.]

Mr. BARKLEY. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. BORAH. I will yield in a moment. I know that one of the brainiest men and one of the most candid men at the head of the N. R. A. said to one of my colleagues, I feel sorry for the poor devil, but the time has come when the little man must go. Our economic system does not fit in with him. I do not want the little man to get into that kind of a situation.

I now yield to the Senator from Kentucky.

Mr. BARKLEY. Mr. President, is not the Senator from Idaho now making the same argument against the creation of a proposed board to carry out a congressional function that was made against the creation of the Interstate Commerce Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Reserve Board, and all the other boards and commissions that have necessarily been created in order to administer acts of Congress because the Congress could not do the necessary work itself without assuming to do it as a town meeting and undertaking to go into the details with respect to all matters of freight rates, and passenger rates and practices on railroads, and also into the functions of finance and banking, and undertaking to do the same thing with respect to illegal practices that are now corrected or regulated by the Federal Trade Commission? All these boards and commissions have been created because the Congress, from time immemorial, ever since it realized it had to enter such fields, recognized the fact that it could not sit continuously and do the things that were necessary to be done without the intervention of some board as its agent.

Mr. BORAH. I was not here when the Interstate Commerce Commission was created. Very likely I would have said something like I am saying now, but it would have presented a different case entirely to my mind. I am not misled about what is happening here. I know perfectly well we are creating a board for the purpose of having these things to continue. The whole argument in favor of a board seems to be that we must raise wages. A board gives delay.

Mr. BARKLEY. If that is true, though I am sure the Senator does not mean to do so, yet by implication he impugns the good faith of the committee which has tried to work out this matter. At least by implication he undertakes to convince the Senate that the committee and the Senate and the Congress, if they passed this bill and create the board, are doing it deliberately in order that the status quo may be maintained with respect to low wages.

Mr. BORAH. I am not impugning my colleagues at all. I discussed this matter in committee. I am not impugning my colleagues at all. I have a high respect for my colleagues, as they well know.

Mr. BARKLEY. The implication is that this is being done in order to maintain the status quo.

Mr. BORAH. I do not go into men's motives. I have been here too long to inquire into men's motives. I cannot find out anything about what their motives are. I do not question the motives of anyone. I am dealing with a fact, and I say the creation of this board will result in millions of these people never being helped at all.

Mr. MINTON. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Idaho yield to the Senator from Indiana?

Mr. BORAH. I yield.

Mr. MINTON. I am sure the Senator is quite familiar with the much-talked-of case of Adkins against Children's Hospital and the opinions rendered both by the Court and the dissenting Justice in that case. In connection with the argument the Senator is now making about minimum wages, in the dissenting opinion which was rendered in that case Mr. Justice Holmes, as I am sure the Senator will recall, had this to say:

I see no greater objection to using a board to apply standards fixed by the act than there is to the other commissions with which we have become familiar or than there is to the requirement of a license in other cases.

Mr. BORAH. I have a very profound respect for Justice Holmes, but with some of his opinions I thoroughly disagree.

Mr. MINTON. And that is one of them?

Mr. BORAH. No; I might agree with him in that opinion. They were fixing it for the District of Columbia. He was a great Justice, a very great Justice. I wish we had more of his like.

Mr. ELLENDER. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

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Mr. BORAH. I yield.

Mr. ELLENDER. As I understand the Senator from Idaho, he would have Congress fix the rate of pay. How would that be enforced?

Mr. BORAH. It could be enforced in numerous ways.

Mr. ELLENDER. What would be the Senator's suggestion?

Mr. BORAH. We could provide a penalty for its violaUon.

Mr. ELLENDER. To the same extent as has been provided in the bill now before the Senate?

Mr. BORAH. I do not remember the penal offense provided.

Mr. ELLENDER. The bill provides a penalty if the regulations of the board are violated.

Mr. BORAH. I have no objection to that.

Mr. ELLENDER. The Senator would follow the penal clauses contained in the bill?

Mr. BORAH. I have not looked into the penal clauses in this bill, and I am not familiar with them. I would make it a penal offense. I do not know whether I would use the language contained in the bill. The committee was very fortunate in its use of language and very likely I would adopt it.

Mr. ELLENDER. Suppose the district attorneys throughout the country failed to do their duty, or suppose they were dominated to the same extent as the Senator apprehends the members of the board may be, what then, may I ask the Senator, would happen—would not labor be penalized to the same extent, following your same line of argument?

Mr. BORAH. In the first place, any private citizen could file a complaint and have the violator prosecuted. He would not have to depend on the district attorney for the filing of the complaint. I am not assuming that district attorneys would likely disregard it if anybody filed a complaint.

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Idaho yield to the Senator from Washington?

Mr. BORAH. I yield.

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. For my own benefit I want to get a statement from the Senator to enable me to determine whether I correctly construed the answer of the Senator in which he made the remark, concerning the Adkins case, that the wage was fixed for the District of Columbia. As I understand, practically all the minimum-wage laws we have, in Oregon, New York, the Distlict of Columbia, and elsewhere, provide for the creation of a board and give that board the power either upon the first standard which we had in our Washington and Oregon laws to fix a standard of living, or upon two standards, as in the New York case, where they said the job was worth that amount as well. Almost uniformly in the passage of minimum-wage laws by the States that power has been given the board.

In answering the Senator from Indiana [Mr. MintoN] the Senator from Idaho said it was all right because it was for the District of Columbia. I should like to know at this point whether or not the Senator's objection is to the fact that there is one national board governing the whole country or whether his objection is to the giving of the power to the board itself.

Mr. BORAH. In the first place, I think the fact that the national board covers the whole country makes it practically impossible of application. Fundamentally, I am opposed to creating these boards which deal with the most vital matters of human life and, we might say, with practically no power upon the part of those who are directly affected to control the board. It may be that I am all wrong. I am perfectly satisfied the other way is all wrong.

We are up against the proposition of whether we are prepared in this country to pay a reasonable wage based upon the standard of a reasonable minimum decent standard of living. Are we ready to do it? If we are, let us put it in the law as we do in democracies. Let us enact a law which shall serve as a rule and a guide for every citizen so he may know where he stands, what he has to do, and that he does not have to come to Washington to find out that he will not have to take the ipsi dixit of a board; that he may know as a citizen that his country has laid down the rule, and that guides him. That is democracy.

I am just as much opposed to bureaucracy as I am to dictatorship. I am not nearly so much concerned about dictatorships, which we ordinarily speak of, as I am about bureaucracy.

The Senator from Kentucky [Mr. BARKLEY] said I would be oppooing other propositions of this kind. I have always done so. I presume it does not make any difference, but it is a conviction which I carry with me, and I have always done so. I may not live to see the day when it happens, but I am just as well satisfied as that I am living that the time will come when the people will uproot and throw out of existence a vast number of these bureaus. The most burdensome, the most demoralizing system of government on earth is the bureaucratic system of government.

Mr. BARKLEY. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. BORAH. Certainly.

Mr. BARKLEY. Would the Senator, therefore, abolish the Interstate Commerce Commission? Would he abolish the Communications Commission, that brought order out of chaos in the air?

Mr. BORAH. If the Communications Commission continues along its present course I certainly would abolish it without the slightest hesitation.

Mr. BARKLEY. Even though it restored the atmosphere to the chaotic condition which existed when the Commission was first created?

Mr. BORAH. It would not follow that the air would have to be restored to chaos if the Commission were abolished.

Mr. BARKLEY. Would the Senator vote to abolish the Federal Trade Commission?

Mr. BORAH. No; I think that exists on an entirely different basis. I favor the Federal Trade Commission. It is wholly difierent from this.

Mr. BARKLEY. Or the Federal Power Commission?

Mr. BORAH. Yes; I would. I would make radical changes it in, although that board is wholly different from this.

Mr. BARKLEY. The Federal Reserve Board?

Mr. BORAH. Yes. I voted against the Federal Reserve Board.

Mr. BARKLEY. The Senator did?

Mr. BORAH. Yes; I did. I was opposed to it and I have never been more proud of any vote in my life than of that one.

Mr. BARKLEY. If there had been no Interstate Commerce Commission, if there had been no Federal Trade Commission, no Communications Commission, no Federal Reserve Board, no Power Commission, what would have been the condition of the people of the country with an unregulated monopoly in the fields with which those agencies were set up to deal?

Mr. BORAH. Let me ask the Senator a question. Does he contend that there was no way by which to deal with those matters except through commissions?

Mr. BARKLEY. I contend that Congress, by detailed legislative regulation, cannot deal with them. There may be some other way to deal with them besides the creation of a board. It may be that one man could be set up to do it, and in that event we should not have a board, but should just have one man, and would approach nearer a dictatorship than with a board. But in a vast region like the United States of America, where our country has been knitted together by rail and wire and by every form of modern transportation, where business seeks its own level as water seeks its own level, without regard to artificial or natural barriers, I do not see how Congress could attempt, by detailed legislative regulation, to protect the American people not only from injustice and from monopoly, but from chaos in carrying on our great economic and industrial enterprises and in the adjustment of our labor relations.

Mr. BORAH. The Senator assumes that the commissions do protect the people, that the commissions do protect their

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rights. I do not agree with that. Many of them spend the people's money and waste the people's savings.

Mr. BARKLEY. I assume, and I think it is true, that the only protection the people get is through the commissions.

Mr. BORAH. Oh, yes; what they get! What justice they get they get through the commissions. That shows how little they get. [Laughter.] I do not admit that the Congress of the United States cannot establish rules which will govern these cases to a very large extent. I do not say at this time that I would abolish the Interstate Commerce Commission, but there are a number of commissions which I should unhesitatingly abolish.

Let me ask the Senator from Kentucky whether he believes in turning over the entire money power and the entire regulation of the money power of the United States to a board.

Mr. BARKLEY. I voted for the Federal Reserve System and for the creation of the Federal Reserve Board; and while I have not always agreed with the policies which it has adopted in the exercise of its authority, I know of no way by which the so-called money power—by which, of course, we mean not only the control of the issue and circulation of money, but also the means by which the banking institutions of our country, which are known as money institutions, are regulated and controlled—can be regulated and controlled except through the creation of an agency which has the power and the necessary coherence of organization to do that. In other words, I do not think Congress, sitting as a Congress all the time, could do that efficiently, or at all. Therefore, we must create these agencies to carry out the policies of Congress, because Congress itself cannot do anything more than to lay down broad rules and regulations which must be followed by the boards.

Mr. BORAH. Would the Senator be willing to write into this bill a provision that all goods produced by monopoly shall be excluded from interstate commerce?

Mr. BARKLEY I should want to think that over before I committed myself to it. Who would exercise the right to determine what goods were produced by monopoly?

Mr. BORAH. This omnipotent board of five men.

Mr. BARKLEY. The Senator, then, is in favor of a board to do that?

Mr. BORAH. No, I am not; but I say there is just as much reason for putting the monopoly-controlled interests of the country under a commission as there is for putting these other things under a commission; but we have never done it.

Mr. BARKLEY. Considering the various geographical situations and the differences in conditions of the whole country, does the Senator think Congress could intelligently write into the law a rigid requirement that there should be a minimum wage paid in all industry, to be the same in all sections of the United states, so that nobody could change it, and nobody could make any variation in it, and nobody could make it flexible, depending upon the conditions which might exist in various sections of the country?

Mr. BORAH. I take this position, Mr. President, which I have stated once, and I state it again:

When we are fixing a minimum wage we are undertaking to determine what is a minimum standard of decent living in the United States; and that is all we are undertaking to determine. We are not undertaking to determine what a full wage should be or what the different conditions may be which affect wages in different circumstances. We are simply determining what it costs to live; and, in my opinion, that can be determined with a fair degree of certainty; and it is much more desirable to undertake it than it is to leave its determination where it will be uncertain, because those who will suffer most will be those who need protection most.

Mr. BARKLEY. Does the Senator think Congress knows what it costs to live in various parts of the country?

Mr. BORAH. I think some Congressmen do.

Mr. BARKLEY. Have we the information which would enable us to fix an inflexible standard which would not work injustices in various communities?

Mr. BORAH. Some of the great labor leaders and some of those who have studied the labor question most say we have.

Mr. BARKLEY. And some say we have not; so there is no agreement there.

Mr. BORAH. Well, I do not know; I think it is very generally agreed. I do not think it requires very much investigation to determine the cost of living in the different parts of the United States. I should not expect the figure to be exact, but I should make it high enough so that a person could live.

Mr. TYDINGS. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. CLARK in the chair). Does the Senator from Idaho yield to the Senator from Maryland?

Mr. BORAH. I yield.

Mr. TYDINGS. How will the board know what the standard of living is, or how to fix the minimum wage? It will have to make an investigation in order to do it. It seems to me, if a board can do it, Congress can do it. Certainly, if Congress cannot find it, I do not believe a board can.

Mr. BARKLEY. The board would be in perpetual session and not subject to seasonal or long adjournments, to which Congress is subject.

Mr. WALSH. Mr. President, today there is scarcely a human being in the United States of America who does not believe in collective bargaining. That was not so a few years ago. That was not so until very recently. The approval of collective bargaining between capital and labor has been brought about by education, and by law recently enacted by the Congress; namely, the National Labor Relations law.

A great deal has been said about the National Labor Relations law. It has been very extensively criticized. The objective has not been criticized. The criticism has related to its mechanism and the methods of enforcement. I think it appropriate, because it is interlocked with the proposal now before the Senate, that we ask ourselves just what the National Labor Relations law provides; but before asking ourselves what that law provides, and before asking ourselves what this bill provides, let us recall the fundamental fact that virtually all laws are the result of evils or abuses practiced upon human beings through some irresponsible elements of human society.

There is no reason for a law to regulate the relations between honest and humane and conscientious employers and employees. There is no need of a law guaranteeing the right of collective bargaining to honest and conscientious employers and employees. There is no need of a motor-regulation law to regulate the speed at which motorcars shall be run by careful and conscientious motorists. There is no need of a law against larceny upon those who are honest and conscientious, and do not covet the property of others. Laws, as a rule, are enacted to eliminate and eradicate abuses. We are dealing here with human abuses and inequalities and we are confronted with the problem how and in what way we should eliminate these abuses.

Let us revert to the National Labor Relations Board. What was the abuse there? We all believe in collective bargaining. Honest and conscientious employers recognized it, and dealt with their employees; but here and there, when a small group of employees sought to organize, the economic pressure that employers possess was exercised, and one by one the employees were marched out from the factory and sent into the ranks of the unemployed because, forsooth, they were seeking to organize their fellow employees in order to engage in that which all of us conceded, and the Supreme Court said in its decision, is a "fundamental" right inherent in labor.

Not only was there that abuse, but abuses existed in other ways. Some employers even refused to recognize committees of their workers for purposes of collective bargaining. They did not think the workers had any right to consult with them as a group about the terms of their employment and the terms of their occupation. To eliminate these abuses and to define the rights of wage earners in their relationship

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[PAGE 7799]

as human beings in partnership with their employers in the production of goods and profits, we enacted a law which permitted employees to knock on the door of their employer and say, Mr. Employer, will you please sit down with us and talk over problems of mutual interest and mutual concern?

That is all we did. We provided the right of an employee, without pressure from his employer, without being discharged, without being intimidated, to join an organization of his own choosing, and to send free, independent agents to negotiate with the employer as to the labor conditions under which he should work.

There is nothing in that law which compels a workingman to join any union. There is nothing in that law which compels or permits any one union more than another to be used as an agency of collective bargaining by employees. There is nothing in that law which compels an employer to sign any agreement whatever with his employees. It does suggest to the employer, Mr. Employer, your employees have the right to asemble and gather together and organize for the right to talk to you about the things that concern their and your mutual welfare, about the things that concern their social rights.

That is, in brief, the law called the national labor relations law. I am frank to admit that the enactment of that law led to a tremendous rush, a tremendous movement into organized labor unions in this country. It was not our purpose to bring this about. We were trying to remove the evils that prevented wage earners from freely organizing. I frankly concede that it did have that effect. Many new unions sprang up overnight, new and untried and inexperienced leaders reached leadership that they were not equipped to assume. Rivalries between different labor organizations followed; and, unfortunately, nearly every one of the strikes and other labor troubles we have had has been due to rivalries between different labor groups, inexperienced leadership, and not to fundamental differences between employer and employee.

We now realize that it was inevitable, as the result of the enactment of this law, that millions of workers and wage earners should enlist to enjoy the privilege of collective bargaining by joining some form or organization of organized wage earners.

I will frankly make another concession. I do not think the Federal agency created has functioned to perfection. A host of diffiiculties has followed. The board is sailing through uncharted waters. I think there has been a failure somewhere in officialdom to execute some of the fundamental laws of this country in order to stop some of the abuses which have followed as a result of the enactment of the law.

Officials are as much, if not more, to blame than misled wage earners for much that has occurred in recent months. I think that we can rely, as we always have to in the last analysis, on the public conscience. In the last analysis the public conscience will say to labor and to capital. You shall not continue these abuses and lawlessness which are in violation of the public interest.

Every human being has at stake an interest in every strike which takes place in any part of the Nation. The strike in the glass factory on the far western coast affects the automobile industry in every part of the country, and the workers in that industry. There is not a strike that can occur in this country that does not vibrate its consequences all over the country, and as time goes on, and as capital and labor and these new leaders come to realize their responsibility, in my judgment the public conscience is going to settle this matter by compelling labor to exercise its rights in an orderly way and not in violation of law and compelling capital to respect the law and do justice by its employees. So much about the National Labor Relations Board.

Did we by that law solve all the evils suffered by men and Women who toil and work? The act gave them a right to go to their employer; it demanded that the employers should hear them, with no compulsion as to what the result would be. It left the employer free, as he must be left free, to close his shop and factory when he sees fit; and leaving the employee, however small or large the group, the right to refuse to work whenever they saw fit to. Unless we are going into the business of legalizing slavery, we cannot compel any man to work when he does not want to work, and we cannot compel any employer to keep his factory open when he does not want to continue to operate and carry on his business.

Oh, yes; you may point out abuses of the power we entrusted to the National Labor Relations Board. It has not insured industrial peace. It was intended to promote and facilitate peaceful settlements of disputes in industry by encouraging collective bargaining thereby minimize strikes, but it does not preclude them. Temporarily it might appear to have the opposite effect. The law is a safeguard to labor, but it is not a cure-all, and as to the question of hours and wages, it has no application whatsoever except by providing the means intended to facilitate collective bargaining to that end. It is possible that some of the members of the board have not performed their functions conscientiously and honorably. I do not know about that. It is possible they have been dominated or controlled by one side or the other in the performance of their ofllcial duties. But the principle that a man or a women is free to join their fellows for the purpose of negotiating agreements with their employers for their general welfare no one can deny. We might have to reform the administration of the law, but the principle stands as almost one of the inalienable rights defined in the Constitution.

Nor is that all. What is the next abuse? The workers have the right to organize; but there are millions of wage earners in the United States who are not organized, who have no way of organizing. Shall we say to them, by direction or by statute, Go out and organize and take advantage of the National Labor Relations Act and we will guarantee you the right to enjoy collective bargaining-organize and exercise your right to negotiate?

This in many small industries is impractical—it is impossible. As soon as it is whispered in the little factory that John Brown is seeking to organize his men, John Brown is dismissed, and the next leader of the employees is dismissed.

Let us be practical. We are talking perhaps about the few and extreme cases, but they exist. All the evils in human nature are the result of selfishness and greed. Men organize themselves into corporations and industries for the purpose of getting more profits through organized units. That is the fact. Instead of investing our $5,000 in some undertaking, four of us come together with $20,000 in order that we may get more by putting $20,000 together than by investing $5,000 as an individual. We are dealing with human nature, and it is inherent in human nature to be selfish and greedy, and when these large units get together and treat men and women like machines, as they have done, selfishness knows no limit. Unless they can meet this urge to increase profits as organized resistance upon the part of the wage earner, the wage earner is the victim of injustice and economic exploitation.

What are we to say to the group of workers in the lowest scale of wages and who are the most exploited? Are we to tell the workers to form a labor union? We have told them we would protect them if they did.

Let me give the Senate some figures which have been handed me by the Senator from Louisiana [Mr. ELLENDER]. Unfortunately, when we talk about the problems of the wage earner with the employer we think we are talking about the steel industry, and the automobile industry, and the textile industry, and the other great industrial units in the country. We might eliminate them all in the consideration of the bill. The wage earners in those industries can take care of themselves. They are organized. They are winning, in a very effective and emphatic way, the benefits of collective bargaining. But what percentage of the wage earners in this country do these big units represent? Let us see.

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[PAGE 7800]

Where the average number of employees is between one and five there are 57,152 establishments.

Where the average number of employees is between 6 and 20 there are 40,176 establishments.

Where the average number of employees is between 21 and 50 there are 18,576 establishments.

Where the average number of employees is between 51 and 100 in an industry there are 9,262 establishments.

Where the average number of employees is over 100 and under 500 there are 10,304 establishments.

Where the average number of employees is between 500 and 2,500 there are only 1,661 establishments.

Where the number of employees in an establishment is over 2,500 there are only 120 establishments, which represents an insignificant percentage of all the wage earners of this country.

These millions in small industries are unorganized; they are in competition with industries and employees that are organized. They are in competition with employers who have accepted the principle of collective bargaining, and who have lessened the hours of employment and raised wages. They are in competition with the organized employees, because when such an employee goes to the door of his employer and presents his requests and demands, his employer presents to him the long hours of employment and the low wage scale in these establishments that are unorganized. He won realizes that his unorganized fellow wage earners are retarding his efforts for better working conditions. To be sure, to this mass of unorganized wage earners working in these small establishments we have given the right to engage in collective bargaining, but for purposes apparent to all, they are not in a position to organize. The national labor relations law is ineffective so far as they are concerned. The organized wage earner is now handicapped by his fellow wage earner who cannot enjoy collective bargaining.

The pending bill does nothing more nor less than say, You will not be left helpless. You few wage earners in the most remote part of this country, you 200 wage earners in a mill along the Canadian border, far from the centers of population, who cannot organize, you in sections of this country unable to exercise the right of collective bargaining-we will not leave you helpless. We will not permit your plight to injure the progress made by other employees who have acquired better working conditions. We will not punish the employer who bas yielded to them. We will see to it that you, too, are given some of the benefits and some of the privileges of collective bargaining.

The bill does nothing more nor less than reach down to the lowest-paid wage earners in this country and provide machinery to enable them to engage in collective bargaining. That is all there is to the bill. The machinery is not composed of the representatives of a labor organization but the machinery is the Federal Government seeking to control and undertaking to regulate wages and hours of employment in the industries engaged in interstate commerce.

There is nothing more to the bill except the administrative features of it. The purpose and intent of the bill is that the poorest, the lowest, the humblest wage earner in this coun- try shall not be left helpless because he has not the facilities of a labor organization to help him enjoy social justice. The Federal Government will study his plight, examine his situation, determine what are the conditions under which he works and lives, and seek to provide for him a limited number of hours of work and a minimum wage. This bill is not concerned about wage earners that can protect their rights through collective bargaining. It ex- cludes them from its provisions. It is only the lowest unprotected and unorganized wage earner that it seeks to protect from exploitation.

I appreciate more than any man on this floor the reluctance which we all have to delegating this great power to a Federal bureau. When I listened to the masterful speech of the Senator from Georgia [Mr. GEORGE] and the powetful and, as always, effective speech of the great Senator from Idaho [Mr. BORAH] I could not help but feel that the argument which they made—and I do not criticize it—must have teen made against every effort to establish regulation of social abuses in this country. It must have been made when the Interstate Commerce Commission was being established. It must have been made when the Federal Trade Commission was being established. It certainly was made when the National Labor Relations Board was being established. We have never set up a commission here when the force and power of that argument could not be made and has not been made. I do not resent it, for it might possibly result, in case this bill shall be enacted into law, in restraining and checking the purposes or desires of boards and commissions to exercise functions and powers that the Congress never intended to give them.

Mr. President, what is the practical question? As a member of the committee dealing with the question, I have come to believe that we could not provide for having all these protective rights settled and provided for in the bill. I sought in the first instance to have the bill provide that every industry in this country should limit its workweek to 40 hours. What was the result? Every large industry in this country welcomed the suggestion. Every organized industry welcomed the suggestion. Why? They already have a 40-hour week. They do not need the law. The law does not reach them. The law does not reach in any way, shape, or form or manner any industry in this country that is working its employees 40 hours or under. So the big industries were not disturbed and were not concerned about it.

Suppose we wrote a 40-hour week provision into the law, what would happen? What would happen to the 5 or 8 or 10 small industries in my home town in Massachusetts that are working their employees more than 40 hours a week, and paying their employees from eight to twelve and thirteen and fourteen dollars a week? What would happen if with one fell swoop we enacted a iaw cutting down hours of employment which in some instances are as high as 72 hours, to 40 hours a week? It would ruin and bankrupt every small industry in this country. In our desire to help the small-wage earners we would put them out on the street. The improper enforcement of this law may yet do it. But I am talking now about how we are going to meet this problem, whether we are going to leave the exploited wage earners alone, or whether we are going to endeavor to find some method which will be of assistance to them.

Mr. President, think of the proposal to enact a law that will become operative abruptly, in which every single little operating plant, and in which every person engaged in interstate commerce must go on a 40-hour-per-week schedule. How is it to be done? It ought to be done. There ought to be some way for these millions of men and women, wage earners who happen to be in small industries and have not got the power or influence of organized labor, to be enabled to get the 40-hour-per-week schedule. This bill does the only thing that can be done—it leaves it to a bureau to determine and fix the schedules. Realizing as I do all the arbitrary methods, the mistakes, and all the shortcomings of bureaucracy, yet I see no other way of dealing with the problem effectively. The board will not be in a position for weeks and months and years to get all the industries of this country down to 40 hours per week, to say nothing about the objective minimum wage of 40 cents per hour.

Mr. President, the other proposal in this bill relates to wages. There is nothing in this bill which requires this board to fix any minimum wage whatever that would injure any existing business or that would cause any unemployment. It is emphatically expressed in the bill that the objective of this Government is to express through its Congress that we shall reach, as soon as practical, for all wage earners, 40 hours per week and that we shall reach, as soon as practical, a minimum wage of at least $16 per week. But there is nothing to prevent this board from fixing the wage for the next year in many of the industries of this country at $12, at $10, at $15 or less.

Mr. President, with this background, what is the problem before us, so well stated by the Senator from Idaho [Mr. BORAH] today? We want to help these poor unfortunates. We cannot in justice to many employers do it by specific and definite hour-and-wage provisions in the law.

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What defense have we to offer when we go back to these wage earners and look them in the face? Can we explain to them and their families by asserting, I did not trust a bureau. I did not rely on a commission. I believe you are working too long. I believe you ought to have some rights as unorganized workers. I believe your pay is low and miserable and I would give it to you if there were any way of doing it, but the country is so diversified, with so many industries, we could not pass one general law in Congress, and we were afraid, we were frightened to entrust your rights to a bureau, lest it be too arbitrary?

As for me, I have reached the conclusion that my duty in helping to improve the working conditions of these classes of wage earners is fulfilled by writing into this bill every limitation, every suggestion, every condition that we can think of, and then leave all question of final adjudication and judgment as to maximum hours and minimum wages to this board.

Mr. President, I have not made this argument for the purpose of influencing anyone. I want the RECORD to show my position, and this position I have come to after long study, after long consideration of this measure, after trying to find some way under heaven that we could get rid of another bureau or could find some other way of handling this problem. I confess that I have failed to find any other way without immediate ruin and destruction that would accomplish this most important desideratum.

Mr. President, I have said all I care to say. I ask unanimous consent to have inserted in the RECORD at this point as part of my remarks the table to which I previously referred.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

The table is as follows:

[NOTE: Insert table]

Mr. WALSH subsequently said: Mr. President, in connection with the remarks I made sometime ago I ask permission to have printed in the RECORD certain tables which were submitted to the Committee on Education and Labor during the hearings on the bill now under consideration. These tables will show that in 71 industries employing a total of 784,000 employees, 287,582 were receiving less than 40 cents per hour. The percentage of the number of employees receiving less than 40 cents per hour is 36.7 percent of all employees.

There being no objection, the tables were ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:

[NOTE: Insert table titled Employees with hourly wages less than 40 cents, classified, by industries (prior or during N. R. A.)

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[PAGE 7802]

Mr. MALONEY. Mr. President, I desire to discuss briefly an amendment which I have submitted in the form of a substitute for the committee amendment, and I ask that it be read.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the amendment to the amendment will be read.

The CHIEF CLERK. In lieu of the matter proposed to be inserted by the committee it is proposed to insert the following:

That (a) there is hereby created a Board, to be known aa the Labor Standards Board, which shall be composed of five members who shall be appointed by the President and with the advice and consent of the Senate and in such appointment industrial and geographic regions shall be given consideration. The President shall from time to time designate one of the members of the Board to act as chairman. One of the original members of the Board shall be appointed for a term of 1 year, one for a term of 2 years, one for a term of 3 years, one for a term of 4 years, and one for a term of 5 years, and their successors shall be appointed for terms of 5 years each, except that any individual chosen to fill a vacancy occurring prior to the expiration of the term for which his predecessor was appointed shall be appointed for the remainder of such term.

(b) A vacancy in the Board shall not impair the right of the remaining members to exercise all the powers of the Board. The Board shall adopt its own rules of procedure including provision as to the number of members necessary to constitute a quorum but no order establishing a working week shall be made except by a majority of the Board. The Board shall have an official seal which shall be judicially noticed.

(c) Each member of the Board shall receive a salary of $10,000 a year, shall be eligible for reappointment, and shall not engage in any other business, vocation, or employment.

(d) The Board may select, employ, and fix the compensation of an executive secretary and such attorneys, examiners, regional directors, accountants, special consultants, and experts as it deems necessary to carry out the functions and duties of the Board, without regard to the provisions of other laws applicable to the employment and compensation of officers and employees of the United States. The Board may, subject to the civil-service laws, appoint such other employees as it deems necessary to carry out the functions and duties of the Board and shall fix their salaries in accordance with the Classification Act of 1923, as amended. The Board may establish and utilize such regional, local, or other agencies, and utilize such voluntary and uncompensated services, as may from time to time be needed. Attorneys appointed under this section may at the direction of the Board appear for and represent the Board 1n any case in court. In the appointment, selection, classification, and promotion of officers and employees of the Board, no political test or qualification shall be permitted or given consideration, but all such appointments and promotions shall be given and made on the basis of merit and efficiency.

(e) The principal omce of the Board shall be in the District of Columbia, but it may meet or exercise any or all of its powers at any other place. The Board may, by one or more of its members or authorized representatives, or by such other agents or agencies as the Board may designate, prosecute any inquiry necessary to its functions 1n any part of the United States.

(f) The Board shall submit annually a report to the Congress covering the work of the Board for the preceding year and including such information, data, and recommendations for further legislation in connection with the matters covered by this act as it may find advisable.

SEC. 2. (a) The Board shall take a census of unemployment, as hereinafter provided, for the purpose of determining the number of unemployed persons in the United States over 16 and under 65 years of age who are physically and mentally employable. Said unemployed persons shall be classified by race, sex, age, customary occupation, and the causes and duration of their unemployment.

(b) The Board shall establish throughout the several States and the District of Columbia local agencies and, where practicable and desirable, shall establish one such agency in each county and one for approximately each 30,000 of population in each city of 30,000 population or over, according to the last census taken or estimates furnished by the Bureau of the Census of the Department of Commerce. Such agencies shall consist o! three members, who shall be appointed by the Board without regard to the civil-service laws or the Classification Act of 1923, as amended.

(c) All said unemployed persons shall register with such local agencies in such manner and at such times and places as the Board shall direct. Upon the completion of such registration, the local agencies shall report promptly the results, classified as provided for in paragraph (a) of this section, to the Board and such local agencies shall then be abolished.

(d) Beginning on January 1, 1938, and every 8 months thereafter, said persons, so long as they remain unemployed, shall register at the nearest office of the United States Employment Service in accordance with such rules and regulations as the Board shall prescribe. The Director of the United States Employment Service shall report promptly the results of each such registration to the Board.

(e) No part of any funds heretofore or hereafter appropriated for relief or work relief shall be used or expended, directly or indirectly, for the benefit of any person who willfully fa1ls or refuses to register as provided for in this section.

SEC. 3. (a) Upon the receipt of the registration report provided for in paragraph (c) of section 2, the Board shall establish working weeks as follows: (1) If more than 8,000,000 such persons are found to be unemployed, a 30-hour working week; (2) if more than 6,00Q,OOO but not more than 8,000,000 such persons are found to be unemployed, a 82-hour working week; (3) if more than 4,000,000 but not more than 6,000,000 such persons are found to be unemployed, a 34-hour working week; ( 4) if more than 2,000,000 but not more than 4,000,000 such persons are found to be unemployed, a 36-hour working week; or (5) if 2,000,000 such persons or less are found to be unemployed, a 40-hour working week.

(b) The working weeks established by the Board shall continue in force until the subsequent registration reports provided for in paragraph (d) of section 2 show a sufficient change in the number of such persons unemployed, in which event the Board shall establish a new working week in accordance with paragraph (a) of this section.

SEC. 4. On and after January 1, 1938, no article or commodity shall be shipped, transported, delivered, or received in interstate or foreign commerce which was produced or manufactured under conditions which are inimicable to the public interest in any mine, quarry, mill, cannery, workshop, factory, or manufacturing establishment, in which any person, except officers, executives, and superintendents, and their personal and immediate clerical assistants, was employed for a longer period of time than that provided for in the working week established by the Board, or in which child labor was employed: Provided, That upon the submission of satisfactory proof of the existence of special conditions in any industry included herein, making it necessary for certain persons to be employed for a longer period of time than that provided for in the established working week, the Board may issue exemption permits with respect to such persons, relieving the employer from the provisions of this act with reference to such persons.

SEC. 5. (a) No article or commodity shall be purchased by the United States, or any department or organization thereof, from any business enterprise operating contrary to any provision of this act, or if such article or commodity was produced or manufactured in any mine, quarry, mill, cannery, workshop, factory, or manufacturing establishment, in which any person, except officers, executives, and superintendents, and their personal and immediate clerical assistants, was employed on and after January 1, 1938, for a longer period of time than that provided for in the working week established by the Board, or in which child labor was employed on and after such date.

(b) Each contract made with a contractor for any Federal public work shall contain a provision that the contractor will buy no article or commodity to use on or in any public work from any business enterprise violating any of the terms or provisions of this act, and will buy no article or commodity which was produced in any mine, quarry, mill, cannery, workshop, factory, or manufacturing establishment, in which any person, except officers, executives, and superintendents, and their personal and immediate clerical assistants, was employed on and after January 1, 1938, for a longer period of time than that provided for in the working week established by the Board, or in which child labor was employed on and after such date.

SEC. 6. (a) No Federal governmental agency shall make or renew any loan to any employer of labor in any mine, quarry, mill, cannery, workshop, factory, or manufacturing establishment, in which any person, except officers, executives, and superintendents, and their personal and immediate clerical assistants, was employed on and after January 1, 1938, for a longer period of time than that provided for in the working week established by the Board, or in which child labor was employed on and after such date.

(b) On and after January 1, 1938, any such employer of labor who applies for a loan from any such governmental agency shall agree at the time of making application for such loan that so long as he is indebted to the United States he will not permit any person, except officers, executives, and superintendents, and their personal and immediate clerical assistants, to work for a longer period of time than that provided for in the working week established by the Board and that he will not employ child labor. In the event that there is a violation by any such employer of his agreement, the full amount of the unpaid principal of the loan made to such employer shall be immediately payable.

SEC. 7. On and after January 1, 1938, it shall be unlawful to sell, ship, transport, deliver, or receive into any State any goods or commodities produced or manufactured in any mine, quarry, mill, cannery, workshop, or manufacturing establishment, in which any person, except officers, executives, and superintendents, and their personal and immediate clerical assistants, was employed for a longer period of time than that provided for in the working week established by the Board, or in which child labor was employed, if the State into which such goods or commodities are delivered or proposed to be delivered has in effect a statute prohibiting the employment in such business of employees for a longer period of time than that provided for in the working week established by the Board, or a statute prohibiting the employment of child labor.

SEc. 8. On and after January 1, 1938, it shall be unlawful for any employer subject to any of the provis!ons of this act to reduce, directly or indirectly, the daily, weekly, or monthly wage rate in effect on such date (or, in the case of an applicant for a loan from a governmental agency, on the date his application is submitted) with respect to any of his employees until a reasonable opportunity has been afforded to his employees, through

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[PAGE 7803]

representatives of their own choosing by a majority vote, to meet with the employer or his representatives and to discuss and consider fully all questions which may arise in connection with the reduction of such wage rate.

SEC. 9. Any person who violates any of the provisions of this act, or who fails to comply with any of its requirements, shall, upon conviction thereof, be fined not more than $1,000, or be imprisoned for not more than 3 months, or both.

SEC. 10. (a) This act shall not apply to commodities or articles produced or manufactured prior to January 1, 1938.

(b) Nothing 1n this act shall be construed to apply to agricultural or farm products processed for first sale by the original producer.

SEC. 11. As used in this act-

(a) The term 30-hour working week means a period of time in any calendar week consisting of not more than 5 days 1n any one of which not more than 6 hours of work is required or permitted.

(b) The term 32-hour working week means a period of time in any calendar week consisting of not more than 5 days in any one of which not more than 6^1/2 hours of work is required or permitted.

(c) The term 34-hour working week means a period of time a period of time in any calendar week consisting of not more than 5 days in any one of which not more than 6^1/2 hours of work is required or permitted.

(d) The term 36-hour working week means a period of time in any calendar week consisting of not more than 5 days in any one of which not more than 7^1/2 hours of work is required or permitted.

(e) The term 40-hour working week means a period of time in any calendar week consisting of not more than 5 days in any one of which not more than 8 hours of work is required or permitted.

(f) The term child labor means the labor of any person less than 16 years of age.

SEC. 12. If any provision, clause, or paragraph of this act, or the application thereof to any person or circumstance, is held invalid, the remainder of the act, and the application of such provision, clause, or paragraph to other persons or circumstances, shall not be affected thereby.

SEC. 13. There is hereby authorized to be appropriated such sums as may be necessary to carry out the provisions of this act.

Mr. MALONEY. Mr. President, I shall not trespass long upon the time of the Senate nor impose upon its patience. Mine is a simple amendment, written in simple language.

No one appreciates more than I do the handicap I suffer by speaking after the sincere oration of the Senator from Alabama [Mr. BLACK], the enlightening address of the Senator from Georgia [Mr. GEORGE]. the educational and penetrating speech of the Senator from Michigan [Mr. VANDENBERG], the devastating speeech, as it seems to me, of the brilliant Senator from Idaho [Mr. BoRAH], and the impassioned plea for distressed people made by the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. WALSH].

There is not much new in the amendment I have offered.

Sometime ago, before the introduction of the so-called Black-Cannery bill, I introduced a bill which is in large part the same as the amendment about which I speak at the moment. The pending bill came rather suddenly upon me out of the committee, and I felt a need for a hurried preparation of an amendment. Just a little while ago we observed the experience of one piece of proposed legislation which the President of the United States vetoed because it developed that the Congress had undertaken to usurp the executive power.

In my original bill, in an attempt to avoid bureaucracy completely, and in a further attempt to avoid any unnecessary expenditure of money, I proposed that a Federal unemployment commission should be created. It was my suggestion in that bill that the commission be composed of the Attorney General, the Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary of Labor, the Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, and the Chairman of the Social Security Board. I was of the opinion that those officials, high among those in administrative circles of the Government, were, and should be, more closely connected with this subject than anyone outside of Congress. But, fearful that this was trespassing upon the powers of the Executive, and anxious to submit an amendment to a bill which it seemed to me was to be hurried through the Congress, I adopted in part a proposal which came originally from the Committee on Education and Labor. A large part of the amendment which I have offered is in the exact language of the proposal which came from that committee.

I am perfectly willing that there should be a board, a salaried board, to administer the provisions of the bill if it should be enacted into law. I am willing to give some power to a board or a bureau, but I am not willing to put into the hands of any bureau or governmental agency the power to punish or the opportunity to make grave mistakes. In the very simply phrased amendment which I have offered, which contains little that is new, there is afforded the power to a board to relieve industry, to answer some of the questions raised by members of the Senate from various parts of the country, to take care of the canner who might be affected, to take care of the farmer who is engaged in a seasonal processing of his own product, or to take care of any emergency that might arise, in order that industry might not be penalized by too exacting a law.

Mr. President, since the beginning of the depression I have favored regulation of working hours. It has always seemed to me that we were challenged by inventive genius, and that it became the responsibility of the Government and the Congress to meet that challenge. I say this lest someone have the mistaken notion that this proposal of mine is an attempt at sabotage. I want the Senate to adopt my amendment. I want my substitute for the Black-Cannery bill to be adopted. If I may be sure of a reading Of the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD tomorrow morning by the Members of the Senate and of the House of Representatives, I am sure it will get more than passing attention.

I have no particular pride about it, but long before the regulation of working hours was considered by anyone in the Congress I considered and made such a proposal. I believe—and I say this with some hesitancy, but for the purpose of impressing upon my colleagues my sincerity of purpose and intensity of feeling—that I was the first public official in this country to propose a Federal regulation of working hours.

I have in my hand a pamphlet that I published on May 16, 1932, and sent to every Member of Congress at that time, entitled Governmental Regulation of Working Hours and Permanent Relief. I have not changed my mind a bit since that time. I have thought that a 30-hour bill might be drastic, but in the dark days I would have favored it.

I voted to regulate Wall Street and voted for the death sentence on holding companies, and have tried to aid in attempts to restrain unfair monopolistic abuses. I would join in an effort to banish investment trusts, because they represent something worse than monopoly. There will be no trouble in getting me to give my probably feeble assistance in any attempt to regulate any public utility, and I think my record of 5 years in Congress will prove it. I could not vote a day or two ago for the so-called 70-car bill, sponsored by the Senator from Nevada [Mr. McCARRAN], because I personally felt that it was a kick at the railroads when they were down. A vote for the bill appeared to me to be a vote against labor, and a vote against collective bargaining, and a vote against safety; for under constant pressure the railroads cannot survive as independent transportation systems, and we shall see them pass to governmental ownership and operation.

I want to avoid that. I am opposed to the Government being in business, although I think it is a governmental responsibility to regulate certain kinds of business. In New England our largest railroad is in process of reorganization. The stockholders are being wiped out. The railroads cannot of their own desire raise rates to meet new expenses. The added millions they would be forced to expend under the 70-car bill, in my opinion, might well mean a curtailment elsewhere that would hurt labor. If they felt compelled to raise rates—and recently they were lowered—some of their business would go elsewhere. That would afford little comfort to railroad men and their families.

I may say parenthetically, however, that I had no hesitancy in voting for another proposal presented by the very able Senator from Nevada [Mr. McCARRANJ. I remember that it was decided by one vote. I voted for the McCarran prevailing-wage amendment because it seemed to me it was of great concern and need to labor.

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I voted for the Wagner Act. I voted for the first Agricultural Adjustment Act, and I voted for the N. R. A. at the same time, and for the same reasons, because there was distress, Mr. President. We were then staggering helplessly and blindly, and some persons were staggering hopelessly, in the wilderness.

I can vote for almost any kind of a regulatory bill: The amendment that I propose in the form of a substitute bill this afternoon is not anything more than a 40-hour-week bill. That is all it provides, unless there are millions of men out of work. After that, it is intended to give labor economic force by creating a little competition for labor. I am willing that there should be a minimum wage, although I make no provision for that in the amendment; but to me it seems a farce to propose a minimum wage of $16 a week. I want to give labor a position of strength by keeping apace with inventive genius. My amendment is intended to do that, and will do it.

The original bill may have the effect of retarding wages. There is a ceiling for wages in the bill, but there is no floor, Mr. President.

My amendment cannot be laughed off or brushed aside by those who want to help labor. As I said a few moments ago, I introduced it in the form of a bill before the pending original bill came to the attention of the Senate; and I should like to take just a moment to say that I experienced a pleasant feeling just a little while ago when the so-called Black-Cannery bill was under consideration before the combined committees of the House and Senate.

I noticed that the proposal which I now offer was submitted to the House by no one other than the able, brilliant, generous, self-effacing, and self-sacrificing chairman of the Committee on Labor of the House. I did not ask Reprerentative Billy Connery to introduce that bill. I do not know why he did it, Mr. President; but I assume that he must have seen some possibilities in it, that he must have recognized some plausibility in it, when of his own accord he presented it to Congress in order that it might be before his committee.

In fairness to him and in fairness to my own feelings, I think I ought to take just a moment here—and I am sure the Senate will not deny me this—to pay a word of tribute to that great chairman. There used to be a practice here, Mr. President, as you (the President pro tempore in the chair) will remember better than some other Members, of setting aside in the Senate a day each year when Members of this body might digress from their regular labors to give expression to their sentiment and their admiration and their feelings for Members of the body who had been called away. It seemed to me a noble and a beautiful practice. I am sorry it has been abandoned, because while all of us here have the right to get up and pay any kind of tribute we may desire, there is a feeling on the part of some of us who do not speak often that it is trespassing a little bit on the regular business of the Senate. Such a practice exists in another body. A great many Members there have paid tribute to this man who worked so untiringly and successfully on behalf of labor; and for my own sake and comfort, and because of the great admiration and affection I had for him, I should like to pay a word of humble tribute to my former colleague in the House.

Mr. President, I said that this is a simple amendment, but I want to point out that it approaches the subject of unemployment in a way that seems to me most important. It has been said on the fioor of the Senate this afternoon that no member of the Committee on Education and Labor can know how many industries will be affected if the pending bill becomes law. There is a great difference of opinion concerning how many persons are out of work. We use different figures at different times. We do not know how many industries will be involved. We do not know how many persons who are without employment are physically and mentally able to go to work. It seems to me that even at this late day Congress should assume its responsibility and take steps to find out what is the true situation concerning the greatest problem that has ever confronted the American people except in time of war.

Recently Members of Congress suffered great mental anguish because of a proposal concerning the Supreme Court. We have been torn almost apart many times because of unusual proposals which have come before us concerning agriculture and concerning industry.

I come from an industrial neighborhood. I hope not, but perhaps I am a little partisan in that direction. I like to believe that I am just as much concerned with the sharecropper of the South and the tenant farmer of that section, and just as much concerned with the little man who lives in a dimly lighted home on the plains or on a hillside inVermont, as I am interested in the people of my State. But most of our problems, most of our legislative proposals of serious importance, go back to one thing—the subject of unemployment, the need for taking care of those people who are out of work.

I was stirred, as were other Members of the Senate, by the eloquence and the sentiment of the speeches of the Senator from Alabama and the Senator from Massachusetts. I remember the campaign pledges of my party in 1932 and 1936. I am concerned with the forgotten man, the forlorn woman, and the forsaken children. All because of unemployment we are here this late, and experiencing a great difference of opinion.

The proposal I make provides for a census of unemployment, not one that will take months, not one that will require a great army of men, but a census just like that taken during the uncertain days of another period, the uncertain days of 1917, when millions and millions of the young men of this country went to the school houses to enroll, on one day, the 5th of June, I think it was.

There is now scattered all over this country almost enough machinery to start such a proposal. In every district are the reemployment offices of the Department of Labor, manned by those familiar with unemployment, men who to a considerable extent are familiar with the details which go with unemployment.

The proposal I make intends to set up boards comparable to the draft boards of another day, not compelling, but inviting people who are unemployed to register, with an additional provision; and I ask the attention of those Senators who are concerned with balancing the Budget, and I ask the attention to those Senators who were willing to submit the residents of my section to the necessity of a pauper declaration in connection with the relief roll. I call attention to the proposal in this amendment that if men willfully refuse to register in this voluntary census with purpose or intent, they be denied the opportunity to further obtain work on governmental relief rolls.

I might say, as I made an appeal for this proposal, that it will get little applause from industry. I cannot honestly believe that industry wants this suggestion of mine carried out. I did notice in the press, however, that one man who operates three factories in this country suggested to the chairman of the combined committees of the Senate and the House that they discard the proposal they were considering and accept the proposal I had made.

I did not in person ask labor how it felt about this proposal. The idea is my own. It probably needs correction and revision, even if it can work; but I have not had a word of opposition from any of those concerned with labor, and I have sent copies of the proposal far and wide among laboring men. I have heard of no opposition from the heads of any large labor organization.

I ask permission to insert in the RECORD at this point, in connection with my remarks, a letter wbich came to the offices of Senators yesterday from Mr. John Possehl, general president of the International Union of Operating Engineers. I commend it to the attention of Senators. It is a most interesting analysis of the matter now under consideration.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?

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There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:

INTERNATIONAL UNION OF OPERATING ENGINEERS,

Washington, D. C., July 23, 1937.

Subject: Fair Labor Standards Act of 1937 (as reported with an amendment).

Mr. WILLIAM GREEN,

President, American Federation of Labor, Washington, D. C.

DEAR SIR AND BROTHER: On date of June 3, 1937, I addressed to you an analysis of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1937, as originally introduced in the Senate and the House of Representatives by Senator BLACK and Representative CONNERY, respectively. I am taking the Uberty of sending you now an analysis of the amended bill as it is at present before the Senate:

On May 24, 1937, the President sent to Congress a special message in which were discussed methods for the establishment of fair labor standards. On the same day two bills—S. 2475 in the Senate and H. R. 7200 in the House, and together known as the Black-Connery bill—designed to fix such standards by law, were introduced and referred to appropriate committees. Hearings were held before a joint committee and on date of July 8, 1937, Senator BLACK reported S. 2475 to the Senate with an amendment in the nature of a substitute and a report, No. 884.

The bill and hereafter that term refers to the blll as amended and reported, exhibits marked changes in a comparison with that originally introduced. It is less devious. More important, it does not carry, providing it 1s enacted into law, so sweeping an assumption of authority. On the other hand, it does include elements which are faulty and which should be discussed.

From the legislative declaration part I, section 1 (a) have been eliminated two clauses: (4) Which states that the employment of workers under substandard conditions causes industrial dislocations directly burdening and obstructing interstate commerce; and (6) causes undue price fluctuations impairing the stability of prices of goods in interstate commerce. It seems a reasonable conclusion that the clause last quoted was excluded with the thought that in it were to be read potentialities if not necessities of price fixing. An assignable reason for the omission of the first of the two quoted clauses does not as easily come to mind. Its principle appears to be clear and if it was the truth in the original, it probably is also the truth in the amended bill.

Whatever may have been the motives or the reason on the broad ground that the phrasing of legislation should be made as simple as possible, the result of the two exclusions is doubtless salutary. The opening sentence of the section, however, remains unchanged, and it still stands as the declaration of the evils of employment under substandard labor conditions in the production of goods for interstate commerce or otherwise directly affecting interstate commerce.

But little commerce exists which does not directly affect interstate commerce. In a nation woven into as solid as unit as are the several States of the United States through all the varied systems of communication that part of commerce which is so purely intrastate as to have no direct effect on interstate commerce is relatively unimportant. In those few words last quoted the pending bill holds a device which opens the way for Federal regulation of all commerce.

In the section given over to definitions one commendable change is to be noted. The offending definition of a labor organization which made possible the legal recognition of the company union has been omitted. Others have been excluded, including that perfect rhetorical gem which stated that The singular includes the plural and the plural includes the singular.

Other definitions are broadened. That, for instance, of employees includes workers in agriculture, as in the original bill, and then proceeds to define agriculture as including cultivation and tlllage of the soil, dairying, market gardening, poultry, and so on through a substantial list of activities. In respect of that definition a single thought is expressed, that in some branches of agriculture, particularly the last three of those named above, are employed workers of exactly the same trade classifications as those to be found in other forms of industry who are presumed to benefit under the terms of this bill.

The definition of child labor is also greatly broadened. That, however, is not discussed here, nor are any of the effects of the bill upon the employment of child labor given discussion. It is felt that those parts of the bill can be treated much more effectively by those whose field of endeavor brings them more clearly into contact with that form of employment.

In no important particular does that section devoted to the Labor Standards Board vary from the corresponding section in the btll as originally introduced. Indeed, with the single exception that the amended measure includes a statement giving to the board authority to adopt its own rules of procedure, the two are identical. That fact does not indicate, though, that the section is not open to critical comment.

The truth is quite the opposite. In the matter of the appointment of the board there is no lessening of the evil, no shrinkage 1n its impracticabilities. The difiiculty of reconciling industrial areas with geographical reasons is present in the same language as before; the same complete lack exists of expressed qualifications which shall be possessed by those who may be appointed to membership on the board.

The failure to define requirements satisfactorily for service makes that section of the bill objectionable to organized labor. It is not necessary, it will be observed, that members should be acquainted with even the most simple rudiments of industrial practice. No requirement is introduced that members shall possess any specialized skills. There is no suggestion that there should be demonstrated any degree of interest in the problems of labor, whether organized or unorganized.

Parenthetically, it should perhaps be said that at the convention of the American Federation of Labor held in 1936 at Tampa, Fla., the question of legislation covering various aspects of labor relations held the attention of the committee on resolutions. That committee reported a resolution, unanimously adopted by the convention, which assumed the position that the American Federation of Labor would not support legislation which did not provide for direct representation of labor on any administrative body to be established by the measures under discussion. The pending blll carries with it no such provision.

The fourth section is opened with a series of propositions followed by a declaratory paragraph which concludes subsection (a) of that section of the bill. Of those premises there are six with some of which complete agreement comes swiftly and quite without effort. Others require thought before full accord can be reached and in one instance it is difficult to give much more than a somewhat qualified assent.

There is but little hesitation in saying that a weekly wage of $5 or less is unconscionably low. There is none at all in a further statement that if the conditions of the business are so unstable, if its debit and credit relationships are so precarious or its margin of profit so narrow as to compel the payment of a $5 wage, then the time is at hand for that business to conclude its affairs and to turn its capital into other channels of investment. To those industrial organizations which, operating under normal conditions, find it essential to engage in a workweek of 84 hours, the same thoughts, though perhaps somewhat modified, are applicable.

No doubt can be entertained that such low schedules of wages and such high schedules of hours create unfair competition among employers of labor. The necessity that workers in the United States be protected by the elimination of substandard wages and hours will not be denied. General agreement will be found in the expression of an opinion that the changes necessary to achieve the results must be developed carefully and cautiously without disruption or dislocation of business and industry.

On that last a word may be offered. It must not be construed as a defense of low wages and high hours when it is said that the resulting change, if the bill becomes law, is bound to be drastic. No matter how careful and cautious may be the procedure, disturbance and dislocation of industry are certain to occur. It is impossible through mandate having the force of statute, to impose new schedules of wages and hours upon an industry without disturbing that industry. The disturbance may or may not be far reaching; it may or may not be particularly grave. It may extend over a long period or be only temporary, but disturbance will follow.

Against the premise which says that those workers whose wages are the lowest and whose hours are the longest and who are unable to improve their condition through the medium of collective bargaining, a certain dissent must be laid. There are organizations ready and qualified to give them aid. There have been such organizations in the past. On that single point nothing further need be said.

The series of propositions having been stated, it is declared to be the policy to maintain minimum-wage and maximum-hours standards at levels which shall be conducive to the general wellbeing of workers and, at the same time, operate to the profitable operation of business. It is all notably praiseworthy.

The text plunges, then, into the details of the measure. First to be noted is that it is mandatory upon the board to declare minimum wages, whereas in the original bill that was a qualified authority; that is, only when the board had reason to believe that wages lower than fair minima were paid was it obliged to make investigation and determination and to issue corrective orders. Until the board had been persuaded of a substandard condition nothing could happen.

Providing, then, that opportunities for employment shall not be curtailed, the board shall from time to time declare minimum wages which shall be adequate for the occupation or occupations to which they are applicable. From the context the word occupation obviously refers to the means of livelihood pursued by the worker. There is no reference to industry.

The omission is important. An occupation in one industry may command a different scale or wages, may differ widely in its requirement of skill from the same occupation when pursued in another industry. The tool maker in the precision-instrument industry is in every way, excepting only in the knowledge of the fundamentals of his craft, a different mechanic from the tool maker in an industry where the principal requisite of the tool is that it be sufficiently rugged to withstand long service under hard and not particularly intelligent usage.

It is not necessary to confine illustration to skilled trades. Common labor, for example, employed in the foundry industry is

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not the same as common labor employed in, say, the knitted-fabric industry. The differences are both quantitative and qualitative.

Still speaking of common labor, the same differences persist in the separate units of the same industry: In the machinery and machine-tool industry both quantity and quality vary as between the foundry, the several contributive divisions, and the machine shop proper. One of the conspicuous characteristics of common labor is that, in the sense ordinarily accepted, it is not common.

So, if minimum wages for an occupation are to be declared without regard to the varying requirements demanded of that occupation by different industries, the problem, insofar as the board is concerned, is comparatively simple—that is taken strictly in a comparative and not an absolute sense. Great inequities and grave injustices to large groups of workers will result, but those do not affect the problem as it is before the board. If minimum wages are fixed with full consideration of all the differing qualifications for workers in the craft imposed by each one of the employing industries, the board has before it a problem of great and widely ramifying perplexities. If attention is extended not only to occupational characteristics as modified by the needs of the different industries, but beyond those to the distinctions of those characteristics within each industry taken by itself, perplexities multiply beyond ready imagination.

Notwithstanding the enormous maze of detail, how, indeed, can minimum wages otherwise be declared than with full regard to the refinements of differences in occupational employment. If a workman is so unfortunate, so hapless in his birth, family, training, education, ambition, and mentality as to be incorporated into the great mass of common labor, is he to be deprived by statute of the scant advantage in earning power which is his by reason of the fact that he is the possessor of the narrowest of margins of intelligence, physical strength, and willingness over his fellow workers? Whether or not it is easily believed, the fact is that even in the great body of common labor are gradations of ability. They would not be visible to the collective regulative mind of a board but they are clearly apparent to direct employers and to the other workers in the group. It is no denial of the principle of minimum wages to say that those degrees of difference should be recognized and their rewards protected.

Perhaps something of that sort is rather vaguely contemplated by the bill, for it reads that minimum wages shall be declared for the occupation to which they are applicable from time to time. The meaning is not clear. Does it mean that a minimum wage will be fixed for an occupation in one industry at one time and for the same occupation in a dtlferent industry at another? Or does it mean that wages for the same occupation in the same industry will be subject to frequent change, or again does it mean that adjustments will be made so carefully and so often as to take account of all or many of the different individual gradations of ability? The last question is probably not the correct one, and yet if it is not, how small a degree of equity, in last analysis, resides in the bill

After all, the industry in which the occupation finds expression is a most important factor. To the industry, as before mentioned, there is no reference. Apparently, it is not considered necessary that the members of the board should be acquainted with the peculiarities of requirement of the different industries. To it, no matter where or how employed, a laborer is a laborer and that is all there is to it.

It may be the intent to compensate for the failure, to mention industry or the board's conceivable lack of knowledge of industry through the appointment of advisory committees as provided by section 11. There once more is a departure from the original bill, for the measure now pending makes mandatory the use of advisory committees. In the bill, as first presented, the use of such committees was discretionary with the board.

Even in that section of the bill no mention is made of industry. The personnel of advisory committees—equal numbers of persons representing the employees and the employers in the occupation under investigation—justifies a hope that the minimum wage determined Will be declared for the occupation in a specific industry, but that is pure assumption. The b111 does not so state. The reference is solely to the occupation. By the composition of the advisory committee the difficulties above discussed may be reduced, but not necessarily so. They will not be eliminated.

The minimum wages to be declared by the board shall be as nearly adequate as is economically feasible, without curtailing opportunities for employment, to maintain a standard of living necessary for health, emciency, and general well-being. Excellent. But in the minds of the authors of the amended bill as in those who drafted the original measure, although not so clearly apparent, is the same haunting fear that effectuation as law will reduce opportunities for employment.

The feeling is not without justification. How could the fact be otherwise? Again, without defending the low-wage industry or a section—either producing or geographical—of an industry which is definitely substandard in the matter of wages, how is a new-wage structure to be imposed without affecting employment? It cannot be done.

If such an industry employing, for example, a labor force made up in large proportion of unskilled or common labor has reason to believe its average hourly rate of wages is subject to sharp increases ranging upward to perhaps 100 percent, what is likely to be its attitude toward immediate business relationships? Obviously it could well be one of caution. It will be slow to accept orders or contracts involving any considerable volume because of an apprehension that increasing wage costs under law will bring positive loss instead of anticipated gain. It will be reluctant to make substantial commitments for raw materials lest increased cost succeeded by an increased selling price will cause goods to remain unsold or to become stagnant and unmoved until the market shall have had time to adjust itself and become accustomed to the change. So delicate is the mechanism of the market that once out of balance it does not always move back rapidly to a state approximating equilibrium.

Those two conditions out of many which could be recited are not offered in opposition to the adoption of schedules of minimum wages. They are presented merely as indexes of a certain decrease in the employment of labor. Hesitancy in the solicitation of new business and slowness in making commitments for necessary materials can result only in the curtailment of opportunities for employment.

That is not all. What of the workers In the occupational wage brackets next above those for which minimum-wage schedules are declared? Suppose the minimum wage fat an occupational group were to be advanced by order of the Board to 40 cents per hour. What happens to those who received that rate before the increase was ordered?

Will the wages of those be correspondingly increased? Probably not. Indeed, from the viewpoint of the employer why should they be increased? If the services they rendered before the enactment of the statute were worth only 40 cents per hour, why should they be worth more after the passage of a law which admittedly does not apply to them? They are not, of course, worth more.

Occurs, then, a congestion of labor around the 40-cent level or at the level to which the board has advanced minimum wages for the occupational group. The employer notes a decided bulge at the declared level and as he believes should be the case with an overexpansion in any particular group of workers at any specified wage rate, he proposed to himself that it be reduced. Let those who have been benefited under the law earn their increased wages. If 40-cent men must be employed, let them earn 40 cents per hour.

The possibilities of curtailment of employment through numerical reduction of occupational groups extend much more widely and in far greater detail than can possibly be recited here. Those constitute a study in themselves. Merely as an index of the evils inherent in the fixation of wages by statute a single and altogether obvious illustration w111 sumce.

Three workmen, one at 35 cents and two at 30 cents have been employed on a particular job—-a total wage cost of 95 cents per hour. Why not speed up a bit—two 40-cent men required under statute—and drop one of the others. The result is both interesting and, as the employer sees it, extremely practical: one man less, a reduced wage cost of 15 cents per hour, and complete obedience to the law. The scheme is sound and it will be followed.

As earlier suggested, the b1ll carries no price-fixing provisions. It is not argued that such requisites should be included, but in their absence increased wage costs are extremely likely to be translated into increased costs to the consumer. Evidently the authors had that rather strong possibility in mind when the b111 was drafted, for in section 8 is found a provision which authorizes the United States Tariff Commission to investigate increased costs resulting from its operation should it become law, and to propose adjustments in rates of duty which would not hold domestic goods in a position of disadvantage in relation to foreign goods.

In identical language, excepting only that the words maximum workweek are substituted for the words minimum wages, the board is placed under mandate to declare a maximum workweek for any occupation or occupations which shall be as nearly adequate as possible to maintain the health and well-being of the workers. The discussion directed toward the minimum wage provisions of the bill does not require any very substantial modification to render it applicable to the subsection devoted to maximum hours. No new points of consideration are raised.

One fact coming from the combination of maximum hours with minimum wages does require brief mention. A maximum of 40 hours of work per week applied to a minimum wage of 40 cents per hour above and below which, respectively, the board cannot function, brings a wage of $16 per week. On the basis of 50 weeks of work—under present conditions a hope rather than a conviction—the return to the individual would be $800 tor the year's work. It is not much money.

That is not written scornfully. Any advance that can be secured to labor is worth a great deal. On the other hand, it must be noted that according to the Statistical Abstract of the United States for 1936, the average wage paid common labor in the United States in 1935 in several different industries, all of which come within the terms of the bill, was slightly in excess of 45 cents per hour. The inadequacy of that figure and the data which support it is admitted, but it does point to the strong probability that the benefits of the legislation, if completed, will not extend as widely as its supporters have hoped.

Succeeding that section given over to the establishment of minimum wages and maximum hours is section 5, by which agreements consummated by collective bargaining are presumed to be afforded protection. Apparently a satisfactory measure of protection is granted, but by some who have analyzed the bill it has been pointed out that the inclusion of the phrase allowed by law in the opening sentence of the section extends its protective features to the

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company union. If that ls true, then nothing has been gained by omitting from the amended text section 2 (a) (8) of the original bill, which opened the way to legal recogmtion of that form of organization.

Even in the face of the probable intent of the language it is difficult to resist a feeling that the bill operates to weaken the structure of collective bargaining. There seems to be evident no reason why employers should enter into agreements with those labor groups which come within the scope of the bill. They will observe the law, if passed, and stop short with observance, excepting only as some unforeseen or uncontrollable factor forces them into a more advanced position. Certainly there is no reason why employers should make collective agreements, for example, 42 cents if under statute they can secure equally good labor at a legalized rate of 40 cents per hour. More and more labor will be brought within the wage schedules fixed by the Board—increases in wages will be met, in large part, by reductions and the strong tendency will be to delay collective-bargaining agreements and to permit existing agreements to lapse without renewal, until by each employer the limit of regrouping labor within declared schedules has been reached.

In section 9, where are recited the general administrative provisions of the bill, it is required that a labor standard order shall define the occupation or occupations, the territorial limits within which such order shall operate, and the class, craft, or industrial unit or units to which such order relates. In that language the objection that no reference is made to industry appears to be answered. That, in truth, is precisely not the case.

What is meant by the term industrial unit? Does it mean one industry—the steel industry, for example—as differentiated from another, say, the leather goods industry? Or does it mean the manufacture of shoes taken apart from the basic leather industry. Or further, could it mean without regard to other materials, the manufacture of fabric shoes. Or once more, could it mean only the foundry division of the machinery industry, and if that is the event, what community of basis will be discovered between the commercial foundry and the foundry as a single unit included in any broader industry?

In that is perplexity, in what follows is real danger, for not only must the board define the class or craft covered by its order, but it has permissive authority to classify employers, employees, and employments. A host of questions immediately arises. They are so many and so varied that they cannot even be suggested here.

Let it be stated briefiy that the classification of employers and employees or employments constitutes a task of enormous, if not insurmountable difficulties. So far as this analysis is concerned, employers may be left to speak for themselves and this paragraph will be limited to employees. By whom are they to be classified? Classifications made heretofore by bodies organized for that purpose have wandered so far from fact and practicability as to reduce quickly to absurdity. Most industrial plants, whether they employ many or only a few, have among their workers some whose duties are such as to defy classification by employer, by the employee himself, or by other employees. Even accurate classification, if it were possible, would not satisfy the basic question: the real criterion of the wage lies in the value of the work and not in the classification to which he may be assigned.

In that section of the bill no matter how conscientiously administered, lie certain injustices and an incalculable harm which cannot be avoided. Classification of employees and employments inevitably will rob great numbers of individual workmen of the fruits of their aptitudes. It will take away the rewards of lesser skills and reduce all workmen in the lower wage occupational groups to the level of the mass.

In many respects the bill holds no improvements over the measure as originally introduced. The exempting paragraphs include all the evils, particularly those respecting the employment of learners which were apparent in the bill as first drawn. The full use and meaning of the union label is endangered now as it was before. Probably it is genuinely the intent to limit the operation of the big strictly to interstate commerce, but ambiguities of language suggest possible confusion in that direction. If anything, the time element 1s given even less consideration than before. In the bill, as it now reads, almost any period can be devoted to investigation before declaration need be made by the board. That stands as the most serious kind of fault, for it is still a truth—without meaning to be at all cryptic—that the best time to adjust a labor issue is before it arises.

In the bill as it is today before the Senate, appears but little of positive good to labor. It holds even less of positive good for industry. It may be argued that 1t represents a start toward better ccnditions for labor and that very likely is true, but any gain which may be accomplished must accrue at such tremendous cost to all, excepting only the comparative few who will benefit directly—to the great numbers of the workers, to the employers, to industry, and to the Nation—that it seems better to postpone those scant advantages until through further time and considerable study, a bill may be introduced which will be demonstrably utilitarian in its scope.

It is but a cold and cheerless argument to say that a poor bill is better than no bill at all. A poor bill is altogether unnecessary. A bill hurriedly prepared is equally unnecessary. The possibilities of positive harm are too grave and far-reaching; the potentialities of danger too apparent to justify hurry. In this case time should not be of the essence.

With kindest regards. I am,

Fraternally yours,

JOHN POSSEHL, GeneraZ President.

LXXXI--493

Mr. MALONEY. Mr. President, I do not know Mr. Possehl, but I should like to take the time to read a telegram which came to me at noontime in the Senate. A part of this I should like to disregard, that part making personal reference to me, but I want to show the opinion of at least one labor organization. I have since been advised that this is the opinion of other labor organizations about the country on the proposal I have made. The telegram reads:

WASHINGTON, D. C., July 29, 1937.

Hon. FRANCIS T. MALONEY:

This organization heartily supports your effort to substitute your amendment for the Black wage and hour bill now pending in the United States Senate. Your efforts to secure a 30-hour workweek, to our knowledge, was in full force 5 or more years ago when you were mayor of Meriden. We trust your efforts will be successful.

This telegram is signed by John Possehl, a gentleman I have not met, general president of the International Union of Operating Engineers, and Frank A. Fitzgerald, general secretary and treasurer of the organization.

Mr. President, I have pointed out that this proposal sets up machinery for the purpose of finding out how many physically and mentally able people who are seeking work are without employment. It seems to me that if we are to regulate working hours—and I am committed in that direction, and active as I can be in the movement—we should regulate working hours on the basis of unemployment and need, not by guesswork, not hoping that we can find out by rubbing Aladdin's lamp, or looking into a crystal ball, what the facts are. This is too exalted a stage on which to play that kind of a drama. We should regulate working hours on the basis of the existing situation, and I maintain that this census proposal I have made will furnish to the board which we would create to administer the law the necessary information in a very short time.

I would not stop there, however, because I would not give that board the power to set the hours. So this proposal makes provision that there shall be a fiexible and a fiuctuating scale of working hours.

I said before that my amendment was really a 40-hour bill. It provides that if 8,000,000 or more able-bodied, physically and mentally efficient people are out of work, we shall have a 30-hour week. It further provides that if there are 6,000,000 and less than 8,000,000 of that type unemployed, we shall have a 32-hour week. It makes the provision that if there are 4,000,000, but less than 6,000,000 of that kind of people without gainful occupation then we will have a 34-hour week, and so on. It seems to me that this provision is most fair. It does not seem to me that those who believe in the regulation of working hours and the. need for them can successfully make argument against this suggestion. Mr. President, I am going down the pathway of the chairman, the very able and brilliant chairman of the Committee on Education and Labor. He wrote a mandatory proposal a long time ago. He proposed a 30-hour week bill. It cannot be said that my suggestion is more drastic than that. Happily the need now is not so great, but I build on his suggestion; I accept his idea and his philosophy, a philosophy that he abandons with his present proposal and I do it—and I say this with a feeling of humility, of course—upon the economically and scientifically sound suggestion that we have a census to determine what the situation might be.

Mr. President, if Senators want to try to help, if they want to avoid the danger of bureaucratic power, if they want to keep unto themselves the control that belongs to the Congress of the United States and they still want to vote to regulate the hours of labor within reason, they can do it within my proposal.

A little while ago the distinguished Senator from Idaho [Mr. BORAH] made an interesting statement. Perhaps I will not use his exact language, but he began his remarks by the citation of a precedent that was established under the administration of President Hoover, when the Congress delegated its power, within limitations, concerning the tariff. He said he made the prediction here at that time—and I

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was then a distant admirer of his—that a precedent was being established which would some day come back and haunt the Congress and the American people. This afternoon he said, I told you so, because in recent days a law was enacted concerning reciprocal tariff treaties, and now Congress sits on the side line.

That can happen here, Mr. President. We can delegate this authority if we so desire. I question the constitutionality of the delegation. I question very much the wisdom of the procedure. I do not say the board will cause havoc. I do not say that this board under any circumstances will create chaos. I cannot be certain that it will not work just as well as the great-hearted chairman of the committee, the senior Senator from Alabama [Mr. BLAcK], hopes it will work. But I know the inherent danger that lies in it. I have been a long time with this proposal. I know the possibilities that may result from it. I know the uncertainty that it gives to men in an industry. I know that they will wonder today, as they like to plan for tomorrow, what may be in store for them.

So I say again, Mr. President, that those who want to give economic force to labor, who want to do something for labor, for that kind of labor which gets more than $16 a week, as well as for the unfortunate and abused and exploited labor that gets less than $16 a week, cannot do it through this proposal, and I seriously doubt that they can do it through the original bill. I cannot see that this proposal is helpful to the vast majority of men and women who work in this country, because most of them get more than $16 a week. There is no protection there for them, excepting the possibility that by taking care of some of the fewand I hope they are few-underneath, we can add to the spending power.

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. MALONEY. I yield.

Mr. BLACK. The Senator does not understand, does he, that the bill under consideration is limited, insofar as hours is concerned, to those who make under 40 cents an hour?

Mr. MALONEY. No; if I understand the bill correctly, however, the board can set hours at 68 hours a week, if it so desires.

Mr. BLACK. The board bas the right to fix hours down to 40; the Senator is correct. I do not understand the Senator, do I, to believe that the Government should attempt to fix wages in the higher brackets? I understood it was an implied criticism of the bill, because the bill does not attempt to fix wages over 40 cents an hour.

Mr. MALONEY. I should like to say in reply to that, that up to now it has not seemed to me necessary that we attempt to fix wages. It seems to me that our problem is to provide a way for men to go to work, a way to provide an economic force for labor, a way to create competition for labor. If we give labor an economic force, labor in this country is well able to take care of itself concerning wages.

Mr. BLACK. Then, as I understand, the Senator does not believe that this bill should attempt to adjust wages in any way over 40 cents an hour, does he?

Mr. MALONEY. It would not hurt my feelings by going above that. As I said a moment ago, I bave left it entirely out of my proposal.

Mr. BLACK. I understood that ihe Senator did not favor even a minimum wage.

Mr. MALONEY. I did not say that. I am sorry if my language misled the Senator. I said that I left that from my bill. I say that I would not oppose it. I am not sure that it is necessary. I think perhaps a minimum wage is necessary, but I think it is rather futile to set a minimum wage at $16 a week, and I say that with this qualifying statement that I know it would do good, because in my part of the country I have seen labor exploited.

I have seen sweatshops move in there from other places. No one here needs to make a sentimental speech to attract my vote. No one here needs to make any special plea concerning people who work in order to get me on his side. I know more about it than most Members of the Senate. I know what it is to go to work before the break of dawn in the morning and get home after dark at night-and work for 5 cents an hour. I know where this one-third of our people, who are ill-clad, ill-nourished, and ill-housed, live. I know their problems. I have lived where they live. I have worked where they work. I want to write a law that will protect these people. I am concerned with that subject.

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, will the Senator from Connecticut yield?

Mr. MALONEY. I yield.

Mr. BLACK. As I understood the Senator—I may have been wrong—he criticized this bill impliedly because it left the jurisdiction to fix a minimum wage at 40 cents an hour. The committee was of the opinion that it was not wise for the Federal Government to attempt to fix wages in this country above the minimum. The committee was of the opinion that that should be left to bargaining between the employees and the employers, and that the jurisdiction should be left at that point—simply to provide a minimum wage. Is the Senator out of sympathy with that position of the committee?

Mr. MALONEY. Let me answer the Senator by saying that I am in hearty accord with that.

Mr. BLACK. I thought the Senator was, but I wanted to get that clear in the RECORD.

Mr. MALONEY. Yes; I am in hearty accord with that, but otherwise the bill does not go far enough for me.

Mr. President, I have said that if Senators want to avoid the delegation of power to a bureau, if Senators want to hold in Congress the power that belongs to Congress and still want to vote for the regulation of working hours, my amendment affords a way.

If Senators want to relieve manufacturers of the terrors of uncertainty and still help labor, it seems to me the amendment which I have offered points the way. If Senators want to regulate working hours without raising the question of the delegation of congressional power, it seems to me my amendment affords the opportunity. If Senators want to try to help those whose training and skill carry them above a $16-a-week wage, it seems to me my amendment gives that chance. The minimum-wage proposal does not very much help anyone who now gets over $16 a week; but if Senators want to kill sweatshops, if they want to help the honest and fair manufacturer who is concerned with fair treatment of those who work for him, in my opinion, my amendment gives that opportunity.

There is a difference of opinion in the Congress and a difference of opinion everywhere concerning the plight of griculture, concerning the way in which agriculture could best be helped. There are those who come from the farming sections of the country who maintain that we should take care first of the farmer. Most of the time here, about all of the time, if my recollection serves me well, I have been concerned with helping the man who devotes his life to agriculture; but it seems to me the best way we can help agriculture is by giving a buying power to labor through economic force. Give labor a chance to buy the produce and the products of the farm. Men and women in the large cities, men and women in the urban communities, have no chance to buy in abundance the things raised on the farm; but if Senators will join in the adoption of my amendment, which would regulate hours of labor and protect industrial workers, I am satisfied they would be casting bread upon the waters.

I might say that, although it was not contained in my original suggestion, my amendment contains a clause relating to child labor. I inserted it because it was in the original bill and because I favor it. To those who are concerned with the great and terrifying problem of foreign labor, foreign competition, the importation of foreign-made goods, coolie labor, as it was called on the floor of the Senate today, I say that my amendment will safeguard against those things.

Mr. President, I am very grateful to the Members of the Senate for listening to me so long. If I have impliedly made any charges against the Black-Cannery bill, I did not mean to make them. I think the Committee on Education and labor, as has been said by other SenatorS, under all the difficult

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circumstances, did a splendid job, considering, too, the brief time they had to devote to the proposal. If we are going to act upon that kind of a measure, let us have a little more time. Let us not give away something that we cannot get back. Let us not give away something that I sincerely believe cannot much help labor.

I know this proposal has some labor applause in high places. I know this is an administration bill. I know how it came up here. Mr. President, I love it here, and I should like Presidential favor. As much as any man, I want Presidential friendship, and I think I have it. I said sometime ago, in another body, in a speech, that the President of the United States would burn at the stake for his opinion. If that is true—and I believe it is—he must have a great respect for every man who would go far to maintain the convictions he has. He must have a natural admiration, because he is that kind of a man, for one who will endeavor to foster the things he thinks right.

I believe the Black-Connery bill is not the best way to go about this matter. I believe that if there is a right path, if there is a safe road within the Constitution and the traditions of democracy, it is pointed out by my amendment, and I commend it to the consideration and judgment of the Senate.

Mr. LA FOLLETTE. Mr. President, a parliamentary inquiry.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator will state it.

Mr. LA FOLLE'ITE. What is the pending amendment?

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The question is on the adoption of the amendment of the Senator from Mississippi [Mr. BILBO] to the amendment of the Senator from Oregon [Mr. McNARY].

Mr. HARRISON. Is not the question on the adoption of the amendment of the Senator from Oregon?

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The junior Senator from Mississippi [Mr. BILBO] offered an amendment inserting the words the ginning of cotton. The pending question is the amendment of the junior Senator from Mississippi to the amendment of the Senator from Oregon. Therefore, any other amendment is not in order at the present time.

Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. President, I send to the desk an amendment to the pending bill, which I ask may be printed and lie on the table in order that I may offer it at an appropriate time.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The amendment will be printed and lie on the table.

The question is on agreeing to the amendment of the Senator from Mississippi [Mr. BILBO] to the amendment of the Senator from Oregon [Mr. McNARY].

Mr. BILBO. Mr. President, I understand the Senator from Oregon will accept my amendment.

Mr. McNARY. Mr. President, I was about to announce that fact. After conferring with a number of Democratic Senators I have perfected my amendment by including the amendment offered by the Senator from Mississippi. I ask that the clerk may now report my amendment as perfected.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The amendment of the Senator from Oregon, as modified, will be stated.

The LEGISLATIVE CLERK. It is proposed, on page 60, line 20, before the period to insert a colon and the following:

Provided further, That the provisions of this subsection shall not be applicable with respect to any person employed in connection With the ginning and baling or cotton, the canning or other packing or packaging of fish, sea foods, sponges, or picking, canning, or processing of fruits, or vegetables, or the processing of beets, cane, and maple into sugar and sirup when the services of such person are of a seasonal nature.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Oregon has the right to modify his own amendment by incorporating in it the amendment of the Senator from Mississippi Therefore the question is on the modified amendment of the Senator from Oregon to the amendment reported by the committee in the nature of a substitute.

Mr. HARRISON. Mr. President, I desire to ask the Senator from Oregon whether his amendment applies only to hours, or whether it applies both to wages and to hours.

Mr. McNARY. It applies only to the provision relating to the maximum hours for which labor may be employed.

Mr. WAGNER. Mr. President, I am really in search of information. As I heard the amendment read—perhaps I was mistaken—it seemed to strip the bill bare of almost everything. I should like to ask for a statement as to the number of employees earning low wages who would be excluded from the protection of the pending measure by the proposed amendment as now modified.

Mr. McNARY. Mr. President, I have not any data with regard to the number of employees. The amendment touches only seasonal labor, and only that portion of the bill which affects the hours of employment, and not the wage to be paid.

Mr. WAGNER. It affects only what type of labor?

Mr. McNARY. It affects seasonal labor only in the enumeration set forth.

Mr. WAGNER. Does that include the canneries throughout the country?

Mr. McNARY. Those that have seasonal employment of labor. Furthermore, the amendment affects only the hours that may be worked, and not the wages to be paid.

Mr. WAGNER. Of course there are some canneries in the country which have so reorganized their operations that they are no longer seasonal in character. They operate throughout the year; but it would be a very simple matter for them to revert to a seasonal plan in order to escape the operation of this measure.

I am thinking of our experience in New York. I am wondering if the Senate would desire to exempt from the operation of this measure cannery employees of the class whom we discovered in our own State to be among the most exploited industrial workers. The canning industry is a truly manufacturing industry. The canneries employ very young persons, and even extreme child labor is used 1n many States; although in New York some years ago we entirely abolished this type of exploitation.

What is being proposed here is that an exploited class of workers who are employed in a manufacturing industry shall be excluded from the protection of the bill. It is not a question of children working upon the farm, or picking berries, or something of the kind. I visited many of them in my State as head of a commission and I know that the canneries are large manufacturing institutions all over the country.

Mr. KING. Mr. President, may I make a suggestion to the Senator?

Mr. WAGNER. Yes; I yield to the Senator from Utah.

Mr. KING. I know of some canneries which operate only a few months during the year. The work is entirely seasonal; and in some of those cases the farmers who raise the product that is canned are themselves interested in the canneries. As I say, some of those canneries operate only 6 weeks or 2 months during the year, and, of course, it would be impossible for them to observe an 8-hour day or a 7-hour day, because the products spoil very quickly, and sometimes the canneries have to run all day and all night. How would the Senator deal with cases of that kind?

Mr. WAGNER. Mr. President, I am not familiar with these very small canning institutions. There may be some such as the Senator mentions; but, in any event, my answer is this: I do not care whether the manufacturing unit is a small one or a large one; the American people are opposed to the exploitation and oppression of workers in plants of any size.

We discovered, during our investigation in New York, that prior to the time any legal protection was afforded, women were actually working 19 and 20 hours out of 24 during the seasonal period, under the apology that the work had to be done in a short time. After the disclosures, we passed laws which limited the hours of work, absolutely prohibited child labor, and we also regulated wages. The same canneries today are more prosperous than they were during their enjoyment of the privilege to exploit the young and defenseless.

Mr. WALSH. Mr. President, I should like to understand the amendment of the Senator from Oregon. First of all.

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I understand that his amendment does not ask for any exception as to compensation in the case of wage earners in the industries mentioned in his amendment. He provides that they shall all be subjected to the provisions of this measure in their desire to receive a minimum wage of 40 cents per hour. Am I correct?

Mr. McNARY. That is correct.

Mr. WALSH. The amendment simply and solely seeks to eliminate the penalty provided in the bill if more than 40 hours' work per week are required in the case of seasonal occupations and excludes all industries which work more than 6 months per year?

Mr. McNARY. That is correct.

Mr. WALSH. In view of those facts, I am inclined to support the amendment.

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, I do not desire to discuss the amendment again. I expressed my views on it yesterday. I fully agree with the Senator from New York [Mr. WAGNER] in the views he has expressed.

Mr. HARRISON. I ask for the yeas and nays on the amendment of the Senator from Oregon.

Mr. WALSH. Mr. President, I dislike vecy much to disagree with the chairman of the committee; but I understand that the only purpose of the amendment to exclude industries which operate only 6 months in the year, during the rush season of canning, from the penalty provided for working over 40 hours per week.

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. WALSH. Yes.

Mr. BLACK. I may say to the Senator that I stated on the floor in the beginning that, in my judgment, it would be improper for industries purely of a seasonal nature, such as those that can perishable fruits or vegetables, to be brought under the law by the board. I made the same statement with reference to the business which has been mentioned by the junior Senator from Mississippi [Mr. BILBO], the cotton gin. These are purely seasonal industries that require work to be speeded up during the brief period of operation. There are others in the canning business, however, such as those mentioned by the Senator from New York, that are not purely seasonal.

Mr. WALSH. Where such establishments can give their wage earners only 6 months' work during the year, if they can give them 10 hours' or 12 hours' work a day during those 6 months, why should they not have the right to do so without being penalized?

Mr. BLACK. I agree with the Senator that they should. The bill at the present time provides for such matters being taken up by the board which is to consider them in order that we may not exclude from the operation of the bill other establishments of the type mentioned by the Senator from New York.

Mr. WALSH. In other words, the difference between the Senator from Oregon and the Senator from Alabama is that the Senator from Oregon wants the exception definitely fixed in the bill, while the Senator from Alabama believes that the bill itself provides discretionary power for the board to make the exceptions.

Mr. BLACK. There is no disagreement whatever between the Senator from Oregon and me as to the for excluding purely seasonal activities which cannot operate in any other way except by speeding up the work at a particular time. The difference is that the Senator from Oregon has an amendment which proposes to write it into the legislation. It is my idea that in doing that the act might go further than even the Senator from Oregon, or some other Senators, desire to have it go, because I am sure the Senator from Oregon does not desire that institutions which are not seasonal, and which can extend their work over the year, should be excluded from the operation of the law. It is merely a difference in method and not a difference in opinion as to the particular type of activity.

Mr. WHEELER· Mr· President, if I may make a statement, I understood from the Senator from New York that the bill does include at the present time seasonal occupations, such as canning. Quite frankly, if we are to exclude them—and it 1s said they are excluded now—they can be excluded under the bill, whereas under the bill it is simply left up to a board to exclude them. If that is the case, I should rather see written positively into the law a provision to exclude them than I would to have it left to a board to say whether they should be excluded or should not be excluded. I had thought that the bill provided that they should not be excluded.

Mr. BLACK. Those of a seasonal nature. The bill does give the power to provide exemptions for those of a seasonal nature, as in my judgment, it should do.

However, I may state, as I said yesterday or the day before, I have no hope of defeating in the Senate any amendment which is brought up with reference to the canners. I have had such amendments up before, and while I would like to hope they could be defeated, I have little hope that they can be defeated.

Mr. BARKLEY. Mr. President, let me ask the Senator from Oregon a question. Is not 6 months a little long for a seasonal period in canning industries? The canning season is during the tomato season or the fruit season. Is not a period of 6 months a little lengthy?

Mr. McNARY. That criticism was suggested, and I met it by striking that provision from the amendment, which now reads seasonal in nature.

Mr. WAGNER. Mr. President, I am still looking for enlightenment. Of course, there are industries other than the canning industry which run for a periOd of 6 months. One of the great studies upon the question of employment has dealt with regularization, namely, the spreading of job opportunities over the full-year period.

But so far as this amendment is concerned, every industry which is not regularized is left free to grind its workers down for 20 out of the 24 hours. What Senator wants to leave an opening for that kind of oppression?

Mr. WALSH. Mr. President, I agree with all the Senator has said about the miserable wages paid in the canneries and the long hours the employees work. But the pending bill will give permission to fasten upon any industry that is in the canning business 40 cents an hour as the minimum wage, and the amendment of the Senator from Oregon would permit them to get 40 cents an hour 2 hours or 4 hours longer during the short period they are working. I agree with the Senator that if there were no provision written into the bill giving them control over minimum wages the Senator would be absolutely correct. All the amendment does is to provide, You will have control to limit it to 40 cents, but all we will require is that, in view of the fact that you are not going to work the year around and these people have to earn in a short period enough to support them the year around, we will let them work 10 or 12 hours, but the minimum wage shall be paid for every hour.

Mr. WAGNER. You do not say 10 hours. You say they may work whatever hours the employer may exact from them.

Let me say something about the employees in the canneries. They are not an organized group. Most of them are women, and in many of the States children as well How are they to be protected against conditions ruinous to their health?

Mr. WALSH. I am surprised to hear the statement from the Senator from New York. I would assume the State of New York would have taken some action earlier.

Mr. WAGNER. The State of New York did.

Mr. WALSH. Could they not stop it?

Mr. WAGNER. We did stop it; but it is being permitted under this bill.

Mr. WALSH. Where?

Mr. WAGNER. In the proposed law the only limitation placed upon the employer is that he is compelled to pay a certain amount per hour, but the number of hours that the unfortunate person may be compelled to work is not limited. There is no free will in the matter when work is the only alternative to starvation.

Mr. WALSH. Under the system in effect in the past they were hired by the day and employed 15 or 16 or perhaps

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longer hours. The proposal is that they cannot be hired for more than 8 hours, which would penalize them, because it may be useful and important for them to have 10 or 12 hours a day, in view of the fact that they work only 6 months. But in working them these hours the employer must pay them 40 cents an hour.

Mr. WAGNER. Will you limit it to 10 hours per day? If so, I will go along with you.

Mr. WALSH. I do feel that if a wage earner is living in a locality where the only hope of earning a livelihood is to get 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 months' work, he ought not to be restricted to working 8 hours a day, the same as the worker who works 12 months in the year; and if the employer is in a position to give them 2 or 3 hours, more work during that short period of time, and compelled to pay them a decent living minimum wage, I cannot see very much objection to it. To my mind, it is to the benefit of the wage earner. He gets 80 cents a day more if he works 2 hours longer than 8 hours.

· Mr. WAGNER. Let me repeat that tremendous numbers in the canning industry are women; and I cannot understand how anybody can say that it is to the great advantage to women who are forced to work to be forced to work excessively.

Mr. WALSH. Are they now paid per hour or per day?

Mr. WAGNER. Per hour.

Mr. WALSH. Paid per hour now?

Mr. WAGNER. Yes.

Mr. WALSH. So the Senator's objection is not that they do not get enough wages per hour but that they are obliged in this period of time to work 16 or 18 hours a day?

Mr. WAGNER. Exactly. I do not think it is a healthy thing.

:Mr. WALSH. Do they get this minimum wage we are providing for?

Mr. WAGNER. When we made the investigation in New York, we took pictures of children 7, 8, and 9 years of age.

Mr. WALSH. When were children 7 years of age working in New York for wages?

Mr. WAGNER. Up to 1911. I do not know whether in the Senator's State children are forbidden to work in canneries, because in most States canneries are excluded from the provisions prohibiting child labor.

Mr. WALSH. My State has had for years a very rigid and a very strict child-labor law and a limitation upon the hours women can work anywhere.

Mr. WAGNER. Including canneries?

· Mr. WALSH. Including everything.

Mr. WAGNER. The Senator will find that in most States canneries are an exception. But even so far as the Senator's State is concerned, protection would be denied under the proposed measure where the employers are engaged in interstate commerce. For then the State law would have no application, and the only law applicable would be the law which we are now considering.

Mr. WALSH. The State law would have application until the passage of this pending bill. When this bill is adopted, then, I understand, the industries engaged in interstate commerce will come under Federal jurisdiction and be lifted from under State jurisdiction.

Mr. WAGNER. I do not want to debate endlessly. But I shall never assent to the proposition—whether it be in canneries or anything else—that in this age of enlightenment any employer should be permitted to enslave women or men for 24 hours out of 24. That is what would be permitted if the amendment is adopted.

Mr. President, perhaps I am too advanced. Or perhaps I am too narrow-minded. Possibly women should be permitted during the busy season to work 23 or 24 hours per day. But I cannot believe so. The doctors who went with our commission said that such long hours of work were destructive of women; that it destroyed their opportunity for motherhood; that it undermined them bodily and spiritually.

Mr. WHEELER. Mr. President, I am glad I come from an advanced State which has State laws which do not permit women to work in the canneries 20 or 24 hours a day nor permit men to work in sugar factories or in any other industries for such long hours. However, I wish to ask the Senator from New York a question. In the case of a substandard industry located in any State, an industry engaged in interstate commerce, are not the bars being thrown down by saying to the bureau which it is proposed to establish, You can permit this industry, by reason of the fact that it is engaged in interstate commerce, to work people longer than the State law provides?

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, will the Senator from New York permit me to answer that question?

Mr. WAGNER. Yes.

Mr. BLACK. The bill does not make any such provision.

Mr. WHEELER. Of course it does not make any such provision. However, when Congress passes a law applicable to factories of the type I have mentioned, is the State law effective then so far as interstate commerce is concerned?

Mr. BLACK. The bill specifically provides that the State law does remain effective so far as hours and wages are concerned, if the State provides for a wage higher than the minimum fixed in this bill, or if it has provision for less hours than the maximum provided in the bill. So I am sure the Senator will be glad to know that the question he asks is fully taken care of in the measure.

Mr. WHEELER. I am glad to know that. I gathered from the remarks of the Senator from New York that the bars are being thrown down.

Mr. WAGNER. If the amendment proposed by the Senator from Oregon is adopted they will be thrown down. If I am mistaken I wish to be corrected.

Mr. WHEELER. Either the Senator from New York is wrong or other Senators are wrong in respect to that.

Mr. WAGNER. If the amendment of the Senator from Oregon [Mr. McNARY] is agreed to, is it or is it not true that the owners of canneries throughout this country Will be permitted, during the seasonal period of 6 months, to work their employees any number of hours they choose, without limitation? Am I right or wrong about that?

Mr. McNARY. The Senator is entirely wrong. In the State law of Oregon there is a factory act, for instance, which limits the hours for women, and children—not under 16 but over 16—to 9 hours a day. Lately the State of New York failed to ratify a constitutional amendment which would place an inhibition on child labor, but in Oregon it was ratified.

Mr. WAGNER. If that is so, what is the purpose of taking the canneries of the country out of the hour limitation imposed by this bill?

Mr. McNARY. The purpose is so that it shall not be left to the discretion of the Board. I have tried to take that discretion away from the Board and make it statutory in this bill, so that we shall know that the employers must pay at least 40 cents an hour if their goods go in interstate commerce.

Mr. WAGNER. I understand that. But I think the Senator from Oregon misunderstood my question.

Mr. McNARY. But when they have perishable fruits and berries and other things to can which must be canned immediately, they can work their employees in excess of the limitation of this bill, which it is necessary to do in order to preserve the products and to protect the producers as well as the canners. I do not know about the canneries in New York State.

Mr. WAGNER. I am not talking about New York now. I am talking about the effect of this amendment.

Mr. McNARY. The Senator is talking about New York canneries. In my State we do not have canneries that can be operated the year around. I do not know of any cases in which it is possible to operate canneries the year around on seasonal work and with seasonal labor.

Mr. WAGNER. I am sure I have not made myself clear to the Senator. This measure, of course, can affect only industries engaged in interstate commerce. But insofar as such industries are concerned, the entry of the Federal Government into the field would preclude further State action. Therefore. the exemption from this bill of a specific

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interstate industry would be congressional action as to that industry, and State legislation would be rendered inapplicable. Would not employers in canneries then have a free hand to exploit?

Mr. McNARY. If they do not come in conflict with State laws and if it is agreeable to the workers.

Mr. WAGNER. If it is agreeable to the workers? The workers must eat, and they must work for whatever number of hours are prescribed. They are not even organized in these industries.

Mr. McNARY. That is wholly a misstatement of the situation that prevails everywhere outside of New York State. I know that in my own State the canneries employ women and men, and children above 16, and some of the workers have become dissatisfied and have quit on account of the wage. It is a free country with free labor. This amendment gives them an opportunity to get an additional sum of money over the proscription made in this bill, if they so chose.

Mr. WAGNER. Of course, I want them to get as high wages as possible, and there are many operators of canneries who will not exploit their labor. But we have always to protect the workers against the menacing exploiter. I still would like a definite answer to my question. Is it true that the canneries, if engaged in interstate commerce, may, during the seasonal period, employ workers any number of hours they choose under the terms of this amendment?

Mr. McNARY. If it is agreeable to the worker.

Mr. WAGNER. If it is agreeable to the worker, that is so, is it not?

Mr. NcNARY. The amendment does not change the philosophy of the act. It is within the power of the board to do precisely the thing that I am trying to do by placIng the language in this measure which the Senator from Alabama suggested a moment ago.

I want to take it away from the discretion of the board and leave it in the law as an act of Congress. That is all I am doing. I do not change the general philosophy or purpose and the working conditions at all.

Mr. WAGNER. Mr. President, I should like to get clear what the Senator has—

Mr. BARKLEY. May I assist the Senator, if I can?

Mr. WAGNER. Yes.

Mr. BARKLEY. I am not disposed to support this amendment, but I think it ought to be clearly understood just what it does. If I understand the amendment, it leaves out of the bill these seasonal factories engaged in the canning of perishable fruits, so far as hours of work are concerned.

Mr. McNARY. That is all.

Mr. BARKLEY. Therefore, any State law applicable to those canneries would still be in force, just as they would be if this bill were not passed at all. Is that not a fact?

Mr. McNARY. That is what I stated a few moments ago; yes.

Mr. WAGNER. One further question. After the proposed Federal statute is passed, can a State law regulate the hours of labor in an industry engaged in interstate commerce?

Mr. BARKLEY. It cannot unless it occupies that field.

Mr. WAGNER. We are occupying that field, are we not, by passing this law?

Mr. BARKLEY. No; if we exempt them we do not occupy that field.

Mr. WAGNER. I wish to make clear what my understanding of the situation is. As I see it, a specific Federal exemption of an interstate industry would represent Federal legislation on the subject just as surely as a specific Federal inclusion. In either case State action would be precluded because of Federal occupation of the field. Therefore interstate canneries exempted from this bill would be free from all law and free to do as they please.

May I ask the Senator from Kentucky if it is the desire to vote on the amendment tonight?

Mr. BARKLEY. Yes; we would like to get a vote on it tonight.

Mr. WAGNER. Very well.

Mr. PEPPER. Mr. President, I want the Senator from New York to regard this matter for just a moment. I am in favor of the amendment which the Senator from Oregon [Mr. McNARY] has offered. All of us recognize that we have numerous instances where there should be a reasonabie regard for seasonal operations. I am referring to bona-fide emergencies which may accrue from seasonal operations. I am not referring to an industry which may take advantage of a seasonal pretext or excuse to e:xploit labor.

I think the amendment of the Senator from Oregon has adequate safeguards against exploitation in this way. His amendment affects only the second power to regulate which the board may exercise, namely, the power to reduce hours down to a floor of 40 hours per week. The board could exercise that power with respect even to a seasonal operation were it not for the amendment of the Senator from Oregon if it should be adopted. If, however, the employer is going outside the scope of legitimate emergency in respect to a seasonal operation and is doing what the Senator from New York indicated, exploiting his labor, the board still has a way to protect the employee. That way is the power of the board to regulate wages, which is not impaired by the amendment of the Senator from Oregon.

Where the board would ordinarily permit an existing wage of 20 cents an hour for example in a canning plant, and hours appropriate to seasonal operations legitimately operated, they may, in the case of the exploitation of employees, increase the wage to 40 cents an hour, not for the excess hours, but for every hour the employee works. In other words, they may impose a wage of 40 cents an hour for every hour the employee works, even in a seasonal operation, if the operator is exploiting his labor instead of conducting a legitimate seasonal operation.

If the board does that, what incentive could an employer have to work a person, who has already worked 8 hours, an additional 8 hours instead of getting a fresh employee to do the same work? What incentive to exploitation could there be on the part of the employer to use the same employee to work 18 hours when it would not cost him a penny more to have fresh employees working in shifts of 8 hours each? So I say I think, under the amendment proposed, the board still has supervisory power to protect employees against exploitation, and at the same time that the law itself will take care of seasonal emergencies instead of resort having to be made to the board in every case.

Mr. WALSH. Mr. President, will the Senator from Florida yield?

Mr. PEPPER. Certainly.

Mr. WALSH. Using the illustration of the distinguished Senator from New York [Mr. WAGNER], if an employer should work his men 24 hours a day, he would have to pay 40 cents an hour and they would make $9.60 a day if they worked all day.

Mr. PEPPER. That is exactly true. There would be no incentive for him to work his employees overtime.

Mr. WAGNER. Mr. President, may I ask the Senator from Florida if the wages in canneries are below 40 cents an hour?

Mr. PEPPER. That is the only sphere in which the board has the power to operate.

Mr. WAGNER. Some of them pay more than 40 cents an hour.

Mr. PEPPER. If so, they are outside of the scope of the bill.

There is one very fundamental thing involved in this bill. Many people want us to regulate hours and wages throughout all industries in the United States. I am not in favor of doing that. That is too great a responsibility for any lawmaking body to undertake, and too much power for any board to exercise. I am willing in a reasonable manner to go down to the very bottom of the ladder among those who cannot help themselves, and help them up to a substantial position. a subsistence wage, provided it is done reasonably.

Mr. BARKLEY. Mr. President—

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Mr. PEPPER. I yield to the Senator from Kentucky.

Mr. BARKLEY. Am I correct in the assumption that in every industrial plant in the United States where they pay 40 cents per hour or more, the board would have no jurisdiction to take any action of any sort?

Mr. PEPPER. None whatsoever.

Mr. BARKLEY. And where they are working their employees 40 hours per week or less, then neither the law nor the board would intervene in the situation?

Mr. PEPPER. Exactly. It cannot be made too clear, then, that this bill is not designed to regulate hours and wages in industry. Some organized labor groups came before the committee and wanted us to put the ceiling of wage up to 60 or 70 cents an hour. So far as I am individually concerned, if the ceiling ever passes 40 cents an hour I shall vote against the bill because I am not going to be enticed into the field of regulating wages and hours in all business in the United States. If that is to be done, why have collective bargaining? Why have the labor unions and the other groups that want to be self-protecting? What we want to do is to help the disorganized or unorganized group down at the bottom of the ladder that cannot speak for itself and cannot help itself. If we exercise a reasonable restraint upon our own idealism we are going to stop where the limits are fixed in this bill.

Mr. WAGNER. Mr. President, if the bill is idealistic, why place no limitation upon the number of hours one may be employed? Why not fix longer hours?

Mr. PEPPER. I am very glad the Senator asked that question, and I shall be glad to answer it if be wishes.

Mr. WAGNER. Why not say not more than 14 hours or not more than 12 hours, if that is the desire? I do not believe any exception should be made; but, if an exception is to be made, let us make it a reasonable one—not an invitation to exploitation.

Mr. President, I have expressed my convictions, and the matter is now in the hands of the Senate for decision.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The question is on agreeing to the amendment of the Senator from Oregon, as modified, to the amendment of the committee.

The amendment to the amendment was agreed to.

Mr. BARKLEY. Mr; President, it is obvious we cannot conclude the consideration of the bill today. Therefore, it is my purpose to move a recess until 11 o'clock tomorrow morning. It is the desire of those concerned with the proposed legislation to try to complete the consideration of the bill at the earliest possible moment consistent with fair discussion: I am making no complaint at all about the discussion today, because it has been of high order and has been very constructive; but I feel that tomorrow we ought to try to make some speed. Therefore, I am serving notice now that I shall presently move to take a recess until 11 o'clock tomorrow morning.

In that connection, in view of the fact that a committee of the Senate is to confer tomorrow with one of the departments upon an important matter, I will say that I have agreed that we shall not have a roll-call vote on any amendment until after 12 o'clock tomorrow; but we may go ahead meantime with the discussion.

Mr. HARRISON. Mr. President, will the Senator yield to me?

Mr. BARKLEY. I yield.

Mr. HARRISON. The Joint Committee on Tax Evasion has worked every morning in an effort to report some legislation, so that if the Senate and the House are to adjourn at an early date we may be ready with it and be able to get through. It is utterly impossible for the members of the joint committee on the part of the Senate to meet with the members of the joint committee on the part of the House if the Senate is to meet at 11 o'clock. The joint committee started its session this morning at 9 o'clock, and worked until 11 o'clock. It is absolutely necessary for Senators to give a little time to their offices.

Mr. BARKLEY. I realize that, but I do not think there will be any disadvantage or any inconvenience from the course I propose. The Senator from Mississippi, I know, is interested in an amendment to the pending bill, and the bill probably will be considered most of the day tomorrow; and I shall, of course, see that all Senators who are engaged in committee work are protected between the hours of 11 and 12, so that no advantage will be taken of their absence from the floor.

Mr. HARRISON. I am not only interested in the amendment I have offered but I am interested in the bill itself, because I think it is a very dangerous bill; and I had hoped we might not have to leave the committee to come here at 11 o'clock tomorrow.

Mr. BARKLEY. I think the Senator from Mississippi will suffer no disadvantage in that regard. There will be no rollcall vote between 11 and 12 o'clock tomorrow.

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, before the Senator from Kentucky makes a motion to take a recess, I desire to say that a great many statements have been made today about the position of the various units of the American Federation of Labor. It has even been reported and rumored that the American Federation of Labor is against the pending bill. I do not believe any such statement to be true.

For example, I bold in my hand a telegram—and I have hundreds of them from all over the country—from Birmingham, Ala., from an organization which represents the 52 local unions of the American Federation of Labor. I have telegrams from all over the State of Alabama, and in fact I have them from all over the country, and whatever may happen I have no doubt as to where the members of the American Federation of Labor stand on the pending bill.

Mr. WHEELER. Mr. President, will the Senator from Kentucky yield to me?

Mr. BARKLEY. I yield to the Senator from Montana.

Mr. WHEELER. Let me say that some members of the American Federation of Labor have telephoned me and telephoned other Members of the Senate and said they wanted to have the bill recommitted. I do not know for whom they were speaking, but they said they were speaking for the American Federation of Labor.

Mr. BLACK. I desire to reply to the Senator by saying that I heard that report, and I called up the president of the American Federation of Labor to ask if be had told anyone that he desired to have the bill recommitted, and be said he had not.

· Mr. WHEELER. I think it is due to the Members of the Senate that the president of the American Federation of Labor states publicly where he stands on the bill, because these statements have been made to Members of the Senate by officers of the American Federation of Labor, and were made this afternoon to different Senators whom they called up.

Mr. WALSH. Mr. President, I have just one further word to say about this matter. If the bill is recommitted, it may come back in more drastic form than its present form, because some forces are at work seeking to have incorporated in the bill the terms of the House bill; namely, a minimum wage limit of 70 cents per hour, and a maximum workweek of 35 hours.

Mr. WHEELER . Mr. President, so that there shall be no misunderstanding on the part of the Senate so far as I am concerned, I desire to say. that I am not in favor of recommitting the bill. I am in favor of the passage of the bill. I may support an amendment with reference to the child labor provision, but I am in favor of the passage of the bill.

EXECUTIVE SESSION

Mr. BARKLEY. Mr. President, I move that the Senate proceed to the consideration of executive business. The motion was agreed to; and the Senate proceeded to the consideration of executive business.

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  Page 7861        CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE        July 30, 1937        (81 Cong. Rec. 7861, 1937)

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FAIR LABOR STANDARDS IN INTERSTATE COMMERCE--AMENDMENTS

Mr. BORAH and Mr. McADOO each submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by them, respectively, to the bill (S. 2475) to provide for the establishment of fair labor standards in employments in and a1Iecting interstate commerce, and for other purposes, which were ordered to lie on the table and to be printed.

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  Page 7863        CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE        July 30, 1937        (81 Cong. Rec. 7863, 1937)

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FAIR LABOR STANDARDS IN INTERSTATE COMMERCE

The Senate resumed the consideration of the bill (S. 2475) to provide for the establishment of fair labor standards in employments in and affecting interstate commerce, and for other purposes.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The pending question is on the amendment in the nature of a substitute reported by the Committee on Education and Labor.

Mr. McNARY obtained the floor.

Mr. BORAH. Mr. President, we had some kind of understanding there would be no vote until 12 o'clock.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The Chair read that statement in the RECORD, but as there should be something before the Senate, he stated the pending question.

Mr. McNARY. Mr. President, yesterday afternoon the Senator from MissisSippi [Mr. HARRISON] stated that he would necessarily be detained this morning in the consideration of important public business before a joint committee. At that time it was agreed there should be no vote taken between the hours of 11 and 12 this morning.

Further than that, I wish to address myself to the Chair by asking a question in the nature of a parliamentary inquiry. Is the substitute offered by the Senator from Connecticut [Mr. MALONEY] a complete substitute for the committee amendment?

The VICE PRESIDENT. The amendment of the Senator from Connecticut has not been formally offered. The Chair will state once more that the question before the Senate is the amendment in the nature of a substitute offered by the committee itself to the bill.

Mr. McNARY. I misunderstood the Chair. I thought the Chair said the question now before the Senate was the amendment in the nature of a substitute offered by the Senator from Connecticut [Mr. MALONEY].

The VICE PRESIDENT. The question before the Senate is the amendment in the form of a substitute for the original bill reported by the committee, as amended.

Mr. McNARY. That is a very different proposition.

Mr. BARKLEY. Mr. President, in connection with the remarks of the Senator from Oregon, the understanding we had yesterday was very simple. On account of the absence of the members of two committees on important business it was agreed there should be no roll call on any amendment until after 12 o'clock. That did not preclude the consideration of amendments or their disposition by a viva-voce vote, if that be possible.

Mr. McNARY. I do not quite agree with that. Often an amendment is disposed of by viva-voce vote. I think as to amendments where there is no opposition, amendments which are mild and are clarifying in form, it would be proper to consider them.

Mr. BARKLEY. There was no disposition to take advantage of anyone or to pass on important amendments during the absence of Senators, but always there are amendments relatively more or less important—mild amendments, to use the term of the Senator from Oregon—and those may be considered without violation of the agreement.

Mr. McNARY. I quite agree as to mild amendments, but with reference to those of a substantial nature which might require a roll call, I do not want to have any such considered at this time.

Mr. BARKLEY. I understand the Senator from North Carolina [Mr. REYNOLDS] desires to offer an amendment at this time.

Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. President, I should like to have consideration of my amendment which would exclude certain individuals, firms, associations, and corporations from some of the provisions of the bill.

The VICE PRESIDENT. Is the Senator offering the amendment now?

Mr. REYNOLDS. Yes; I offer the amendment now.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The amendment to the committee amendment will be stated.

The LEGISLATIVE CLERK. In the committee amendment it is proposed, on page 64, after line 3, to insert the following:

The provisions of this act shall not apply to any individual, firm, association, or corporation employing 10 or fewer than 10 persons.

Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. President, we have in my State, as there are in other States, a large number of portable sawmills and other small enterprises employing less than 10 men. There are flour mills and grist mills, the products of which sometimes go into interstate commerce. There are also small canneries employing 10 or fewer men, and in order that they may be excluded from the provisions of the bill I have offered the amendment which has just been read.

Mr. VANDENBERG. Mr. President—

The VICE PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from North Carolina yield to the Senator from Michigan?

Mr. REYNOLDS. Certainly.

Mr. VANDENBERG. Will the Senator tell me why an employer of nine men should be relieved from the exactions applied to an employer of 11 men?

Mr. REYNOLDS. There are some mills which really cannot compete, for instance, with a larger flour mill, and I think the smaller employers should be excluded from the provisions of the bill.

Mr. VANDENBERG. What the Senator is saying is that the bill should not pass.

Mr. REYNOLDS. No; I do not say that.

Mr. BORAH. Mr. President, may we have the amendment read again?

The VICE PRESIDENT. The amendment will be again stated.

The legislative clerk again read the amendment of the Senator from North Carolina.

Mr. BARKLEY. Mr. President, I wish to ask the Senator from North Carolina a question. Yesterday the Senate adopted an amendment offered by the Senator from Oregon [Mr. McNARY] exempting establishments engaged in the packing or packaging of fish and other perishable products, and applicable also to canneries that work on a seasonal basis. Does not the Senator think that amendment really sufficiently takes care of all establishments which are engaged in seasonal operations which, while in the amendment not specified, are supposed to operate not more than 6 months in the year?

Mr. REYNOLDS. The amendment offered by the Senator from Oregon would not cover the individuals, firms, associations, and corporations I have in mind. For instance, I have in mind some small roller mills in North Carolina engaged in interstate commerce. They sell to large distributing houses. The amendment offered by the Senator from Oregon would not cover such small roller mills operating 12 months in the year. It would not cover the smaller sawmills in my State and others which are to be found in the adjoining States of South Carolina, Georgia, and Virginia.

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, the bill as originally introduced in this body contained a provision which would have authorized the board to exempt from the operation of the law employers having a fewer number than—, as it was stated in the bill. In other words, as I understand, the bill as originally introduced to some extent applied the exemption provisions of the laws which have been enacted with reference to social security and compensation in the various States and follows various other legislative precedents.

The number was purposely left blank for two reasons. In the first place, I was by no means sure that there should be such an exemption. In the second place, it was my belief that if there should be such an exemption, the number should be fully considered by the committee and by the Senate. A great many of the laws which have been enacted have exempted agencies employing fewer than eight people. In some of the States under the compensation laws there have been exemptions for those employing fewer than three people or five people. I wish to present the matter fairly and

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squarely to the Senate in order that they may understand the two viewpoints.

Many have taken the position that the difficulties of enforcement of the law in cases of employers of the very small number of employees made it wise that such exemptions $ould be granted. Others have taken the position that the law should apply to all employers, whether they employ 1 or 20 or 5,000 persons.

A strong protest was raised by various business agencies against any exemption. One of the chief protests was made by the lumbermen's association; and I desire to say parenthetically that the objections from my State coming from the lumbermen have been from the big lumbermen. They instituted the protests. They started the fight. Their paid representatives stimulated the activity.

The committee sought evidence on all matters connected with the bill. We invited every person in the United States who had anything to say about the matter to come before the committee. We adjourned for an entire week in order to give opportunity for others to come before the committee.

Upon consideration of this particular phase of the subject, the committee took the position that there should be no exemption. The committee took the position that the law should apply to all alike. That is the report of the committee. That is the position taken by the committee. No consideration has been given by the committee to the number of employees who should be in the service of an employer if an exemption should be granted. We found that there was as wide a divergence in the views with reference to the number who might be employed in case an exemption should be granted as there was between the views of those who thought an exemption should be granted and those who thought an exemption should not be granted. Therefore, the committee reported the bill with the exemption completely stricken out. That is the way the bill appeared before the Senate.

So far as I am personally concerned, when I originally introduced the bill it was my purpose that that particular question might be considered and might be given the mature thought both of the committee and of the Senate. The committee has given its consideration to the subject and has voted not to permit such exemptions.

With that statement I am willing to submit the question to the Senate for a vote, so far as I am concerned. That does not mean, however, that others should not discuss it. It is a very interesting question, and I do present the views of the committee with reference to this particular subject.

Mr. BORAH. Mr. President, in view of what the chairman of the committee has said, my personal view is that, unless there is some exemption of those who employ a very small number of persons, it will be practically impossible to administer this measure; but it is a frightful discrimination. My view of the bill would lead me to vote for any provision that would limit the jurisdiction of this board; but this presents the question of discrimination.

Mr. VANDENBERG. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. BORAH. I yield.

Mr. VANDENBERG. Can the Senator tell me whether the committee has at its disposal any data indicating the sum total of employment which is exempted under any of these various limitations?

Mr. BORAH. Such figures have been prepared, and I think they were read into the RECORD yesterday.

Mr. VANDENBERG. Can the Senator from Alabama answer the question?

Mr. BLACK. I did not understand the question.

Mr. VANDENBERG. Is any information available as to the total number of employees throughout the country who would be exempted under such an amendment?

Mr. BLACK. I have some information on the subject, but I have not it here with me. I can send for it and obtain it, I think, without much delay.

Mr. BORAH. Mr. President, according to the figures which were put in the RECORD yesterday, more than 57,000 establishments would be atfected, and more than 150,000 or 175,000 employees.

Mr. SCHWARTZ. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. LEE in the chair). The clerk will call the roll.

The legislative clerk called the ro~ and the following Senators answered to their names:

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Eighty-seven Senators having answered to their names, a quorum is present.

Mr. LOGAN. Mr. President, I have a few remarks, only, to make on the pending amendment.

The difficulty with most legislators ts that they either never knew or have forgotten the conditions which exist far back in the communities in their respective States. The N. R. A. was impossible of administration because it touched, and the law attempted to regulate, too many people—too many of the small fellows. I wish to make what I say concrete in order to show how we inadvisedly, and probably unthoughtedly, enact legislation which creates much dissatisfaction among the people.

Take the case of a blacksmith shop in a local commUnity. The blacksmith sharpens the coulters of the plows of the people, shoes the horses and mules for his community. Perhaps he has two or three local men working for him. They live at home. They are not engaged in competition with anyone in the world. Yet when a law is enacted similar to the bill before us, applying to his business, he has to do one of two things. He must either quit, to the, inconvenience of the entire community, or he must double his prices. If he had been shoeing mules for a dollar he will have to make it $2. So that everyone in the community begins to object, and the blacksmith quits business.

Take the case of a small flour mill. There is one in my section, down near the Tennessee line in Kentucky. It is a community concern. It is operated by an individual who sells his flour over the line in Tennessee and around him in Kentucky. He serves, perhaps, two or three counties.

He has six or seven people employed. They are boys who live in the community, and who go home at night. Perhaps they cease work when they desire to. This man is not as big in his business as is the large mill operator. Quantity reduces the cost of production, of course, so if this man is placed on a parity with all others, and if he is required to pay what some board of men think is fair, he must quit. There are hundreds of small-business men throughout my State in exactly that condition. When that man quits the tendency to form a monopoly is greatly increased, and in just a little while the small fellows have to go out of business, and the big flour mills have all the business.

The same thing is true of the lumber business. There are portable sawmills, which move from one community to another, and the operator saws up a quantity of timber into lumber or cross ties. The man who owns the sawmill employs local labor and pays them all they demand. They are not experts. The sawmill man himself is not an expert. He may cut a few hundred cross ties a day or a few thousand feet of lumber. If we do not exempt his employees, we put him out of business, and the larger sawmill men thereby get all the business. Such a law would rid them of competition. So, when the farmer wants to buy lumber !or his barn or

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someone wants lumber even to build a chicken coop, he cannot get it from the local man, he must buy it from the large manufacturer of lumber, with the result that his price is increased two or three times. For these reasons I most heartily favor the amendment.

Mr. BORAH. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. LOGAN. I yield.

Mr. BORAH. The difficulty I have in this matter is in fixing the number.

Mr. LOGAN. That is a difficulty which I myself have. It may be that 10 is too large a number. I doubt it. I think perhaps the more enterprises we exempt in the beginning the better off we will be. When we undertake to reform the world by a piece of legislation, and it simply will not be reformed, if it gets down to the people and touches the lives of too many of them.

This is an experiment. I do not know whether it will work or not. I doubt whether there is a man or a group of men anywhere in the United States or in the world who are wise enough to administer this proposed legislation, although theoretically, perhaps, it is a good thing. It could be used to create a monopoly if it were poorly administered, because it would drive out first those at the bottom, then those a little higher up, then a little higher up, until we may find that we have been legislating for monopoly when we believed we were legislating for the laboring man.

Mr. CONNALLY. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. LOGAN. I yield.

Mr. CONNALLY. Let me inquire of the Senator from Kentucky whether it was his observation that the N. R. A., which was designed to accomplish a purpose somewhat similar to that behind the pending legislation, had the effect of aiding the big and powerful concerns to the detriment of many of the smaller ones?

Mr. LOGAN. I think that was the fact, as a result of lack of proper administration, because we did not look with favor upon the small men in the respective communities, and the N. R. A. was largely destroyed because of the opposition which was developed in the small communities in the respective States, since people who do not understand the regulations often resent them and while the purpose of the proposed legislation is good; in fact, I think it might prove to be of great advantage, for eventually something has to be done along this line; in my judgment, we ought to make an exemption where the employees are few in number.

It may be that 10 is too large a number. Most of the compensation laws exempt three, some five; but there ought to be an exemption, and unless some one suggests a different number, I shall vote most earnestly, and believing that I am serving the people of this Nation to the best of my ability, for the amendment proposed by the Senator from North Carolina [Mr:'REYNOLDS].

Mr. TYDINGS. Mr. President, I should like to have the attention of the Senator from Alabama for just a moment.

Mr. BLACK. I am listening to the Senator.

Mr. TYDINGS. On page 85, under the heading Penalties, I find this language in section 23:

Any person who willfully performs or aids or abets 1n the performance of any act declared to be unlawful by any provision of this act or who willfully fails or omits to perform any act, duty, or obligation required by this act to be performed by him shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction, shall be fined not more than $500 or imprisoned for not more than 6 months, or both.

What are the provisions of the bill? The bill provides that a board shall be given the authority to make regulations fixing wages and hours of work, and the bill itself does not specify the hours of work or fix wages definitely. Suppose the board makes a regulation not specifically contained in the law, and someone violates the regulation; would the violator then come under the penalty fixed in the statute?

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, I wish to call the Senator's attention, in the first place, to the fact that the committee inserted at the end of paragraph (a) concerning penalties a provision which, I think, might well be called to the attention of the Senate at this time. It provides:

No person shall be imprisoned under this subsection except for an offense committed after the conviction of such person for a prior violation of this subsection.

We have inserted that provision in order that there might be no imprisonment for the first offense.

Mr. TYDINGS. I hope the Senator from Idaho will listen to this colloquy, because I should like to have his judgment on the matter. I have just read on page 85, under the heading Penalties, that—

Any person who willfully performs or aids or abets in the performance of any act declared to be unlawful by any provision of this act—

And so forth, shall be liable to fine and imprisonment. The bill itself does not fix minimum standards. The bill itself does not fix hours of work. That is left to a board. If a man violates a regulation of the board, as I see it, he would not be violating a provision of the act and. therefore, the penalty would not apply. Am I correct in that statement?

Mr. BLACK. My judgment is that the penalty would apply to the commission of any act which is declared to be unlawful, and it is declared to be unlawful to violate a regulation or order which is made by the board after a hearing as provided by the board.

Mr. TYDINGS. Insofar as I know, the clause to which I have referred does not read who violates this act or any of the regulations made in pursuance of this act. It simply provides that if a man violates the act he shall be guilty and shall pay a fine or suffer imprisonment. What does the bill provide? Does it fix a minimum standard? It does not. Does it fix maximum hours of labor? It does not. Therefore, how could one violate the act when the act itself is silent on its two major objectives, and that is left to be determined by some commission? So, in the absence of the words or regulation made in pursuance of this act, there would be no violation of the act itself, because the act would be silent on minimum wages and silent on the number of hours.

In the event that the words or regulation made in pursuance of this act were inserted, we would then be on the other horn of the dilemma. It would mean that Congress had turned over the making of criminal laws to a board, or commission, which might seriously affect the legality of the legislation, the question being whether we could delegate the authority to make penal statutes to a board or commission established here in Washington.

To be exact, there is nothing in this bill which fixes minimum wages. There is nothing in this bill which fixes maximum hours. Let us suppose the board says that 40 hours a week are the maximum hours, and that 40 cents an hour is the minimum wage. Then the board has made the law; but, even so, there is nothing in the penal statutes to cause a man who violates the regulation to be found guilty of a crime violating a regulation of the board. If he does not violate the act itself, then in my humble judgment, as the bill is now drawn, he would not be liable to any penalty, because certainly criminal laws are written and interpreted restrictively, and the policy of the courts is to write into a criminal statute no penalties or conditions which are not plainly carried or specifically set forth on the face of the statute. Criminal penalties for violation of a statute cannot be written into it by indirection or by implication. I think all lawyers will agree that criminal statutes must be construed strictly as they are written; and I do not know of any court in the United States which has ever claimed that something can be written into a criminal statute that is not in it—something that it was intended to have in it, but something that is not actually in it.

As to the penalty clause of the bill, it appears to me that the only violation that could be punished would be the violation of a provision of the bill itself; and if a person should violate a regulation, no penalty is contained in the penal sections of the bill to cover such a violation.

Mr. BORAH. Mr. President, I think the first provision might be amenable to the construction placed upon it by the Senator from Maryland; but under the second provision I think the violator would likely be punishable for

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employing anyone at a wage other than that fixed by the board, for it says:

Or who willfully fails or omits to perform any act, duty, or obligation required by this act to be performed.

The bill imposes upon the board the doing of certain things and gives the board authority to establish certain rates, and thereby requires those acts to be performed. If the board should fix a certain wage, and an employer should employ persons at a different wage, I think he would come under the second provision.

Mr. TYDINGS. Is the Senator referring to subsection (b)?

Mr. BORAH. No; the second provision of subsection (a), on page 85, which says:

Or who willfully fails or omits to perform any act, duty, or obligation required by this act to be performed.

Mr. TYDINGS. But the bill itself, as I interpret it, does not require any obligation to be performed. What the bill should say, if it means what I think the Senator has suggested, is:

Or any regulation or act required within the limitations of this act to be ordered to be performed by the board.

Mr. BORAH. When the board fixes a minimum wage under the authority of the bill, the parties are under obligation to live up to that minimum wage, and that is authorized by the bill.

Mr. TYDINGS. Does the Senator from Idaho feel that it would be good law to allow the board to say what the wage shall be, and, if there is a violation of the provision governing the wage fixed by the board—not fixed by the bill itself—that the person who transgresses the regulation may be tried and convicted, as the measure is written?

Mr. BORAH. I do not think we should ever give a board in Washington authority to establish ru1es and regulations the violation of which constitutes a crime. I agree with that general proposition; but I do not think this bill has that effect. The bill requires certain things to be done by the board; and when the board establishes a wage, for instance, and fixes the hours, those things are established under authority of law. The board is then acting under authority of law. It creates an obligation, and that obligation must be performed by the express terms of the bill itself.

Mr. TYDINGS. Mr. President, I understand the argument of the Senator from Idaho; but, as I read the bill—

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, may I interrupt the Senator to call attention to the section I referred to a moment ago, on page 65?

Mr. TYDINGS. I did not see that.

Mr. BLACK. It says:

It shall be unlawfUl !or any person, directly or indirectly, to employ any employee in violation of any term or provision of an order of the board made under this section.

Mr. TYDINGS. That is true; but suppose it is unlawful, then what will be the penalty? No penalty at all is contained in that provision. The penalty is contained on page 85. It says:

Any person who willfully performs or aids or abets in the performance of any act—

Mr. BLACK. Declared to be unlawful.

Mr. TYDINGS (continuing):

declared to be unlawful by any provision of this act.

Mr. BLACK. I have just read the Senator the provision of the bill which expressly declares it to be unlawful.

Mr. TYDINGS. I do not find in the bill, with all due respect, a provision which fixes minimum wages or maximum hours. There is not any such provision in the bill; and, in my judgment, poor lawyer that I am, I respectfully submit that the courts will construe criminal statutes as they are written, and they will not write into them crimes which are not plainly evident on the face of the statute.

As the bill is now written, there is not a line in it which fixes minimum wages or maximum hours. That is left up to the board. The penalty applies only for violation of the measure and not for violation of the regulations of the board.

Mr. CONNALLY. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. TYDINGS. I yield.

Mr. CONNALLY. When the Congress authorizes the board to fix the wages or the hours, is not that something done under the bill? And if thereafter someone violates that provision, does that not bring him within the penal clauses of the bill?

Mr. TYDINGS. In my judgment, no. I think the courts will hold—and I believe my prophecy will be vindicated—that if any man violates any of the provisions of the bill and is haled before the court for violation of it, and it is found that the supposed criminal statute for which he is brought before the bar of justice is made by a board sitting in Washington, no matter how much authority we may put in the hands of that board, the court will hold that he cannot be punished.

Mr. CONNALLY. No; therein is where the Senator errs. The board does not provide what is a criminal act. It does a certain executive or ministerial act in fixing hours and wages, but what is a criminal act is specified by Congress. Is not the Senator also familiar with the fact that the supreme Court has repeatedly upheld convictions for violations of regulations made by some departments, but which were authorized by Congress in an act providing that the department might make regulations in pursuance of the act?

Mr. TYDINGS. That is true.

Mr. CONNALLY. They have upheld convictions for such violations.

Mr. TYDINGS. But that is not the way the provision reads. I say that if certain clarifying words are put into the provision, perhaps then those administering the act might go into court and have jurisdiction under the act. But the bill does not say, in the penalty provisions, or regulations made in pursuance to this act. It says, in substance, for violation of this act. In the case to which the Senator from Texas [Mr. CONNALLY] referred, I think the law provided that violators of the act, or regulations made in pursuance of it, should, upon conviction, and so on, be subject to a penalty of so and so much. But in this bill we find the following wording:

Any person who willfully performs or aids or abets in the performance of any act declared to be unlawful by any provision of this act.

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, may I read right after that what the bill does declare to be unlawful? Will the Senator yield to me for that purpose?

Mr. TYDINGS. Yes.

Mr. BLACK. I read from page 65. This is what the bill declares unlawful, and it is the same as though we added these words at the point on page 85 from which the Senator has read:

It shall be unlawful for any person, directly or indirectly, to employ any employee in violation of any term or provision of an order of the board made under this section.

Mr. TYDINGS. What section is that?

Mr. BLACK. The section in reference to substandard labor conditions connected with minimum wages and maximum hours.

Mr. TYDINGS. Mr. President, I do not want to continue to argue the point. I still say that when we use the words of this act and do not add the words regu1ations in pursuance of this act, we foreclose the possibility of conviction for violations of the regulations, as the Senator has indicated. Further than that, I think it is a pretty poor policy for Congress to allow criminal statutes to be written by a board of five members who are not known by the Congress, when the bill itself is absolutely indefinite and silent on what are minimum wages and maximum hours. The Senator from Alabama himself said the other day, as I recall, that we could have any kind of hours under this bill; that there was no specific provision about that.

Mr. BLACK. I should fully agree with the Senator if Congress were to enact a law which provided that the board should be permitted to do anything it pleased, and make any regulation it wanted to make, and that after the board made an order or a regulation, a person who violated the order or

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regulation should be sent to the penitentiary. However, we have attempted—perhaps not successfully, but we have worked diligently to that end—to come within the general provisions of law which authorize Congress to appoint administrative agencies to ascertain certain facts.

Mr. TYDINGS. If I may interrupt the Senator, I will say that I agree thoroughly with him, and where it is needed I am for the policy of permitting administrative boards within certain limitations to perform certain acts; but I am talking about passing criminal statutes in connection with the enforcement of which the power is wide open, where the Senator himself concedes that the hours may be whatever the board chooses to fix.

Mr. BLACK. No; I do not concede that. I think the Senator has misunderstood the statement I made, or at least if I made such a statement I did not intend to make it.

Mr. TYDINGS. I probably misunderstood the Senator.

Mr. BLACK. The Supreme Court of the United States and the supreme court of every State in the Nation, so far as I have investigated-and I have not investigated all of them—

Mr. TYDINGS. Let me go back to the provision about which the Senator is talking in connection with which he speaks of putting a top and bottom limitation on the administrative authority of a board. I ask the Senator what is the top in hours in this bill?

Mr. BLACK. Let me proceed, and then I will come to that phase of the matter.

Mr. TYDINGS. I should much prefer that the Senator would now enlighten me wherein I am wrong.

Mr. BLACK. That is what I started to try to do.

Mr. TYDINGS. Is there a top in hours in this provision?

Mr. BLACK. I shall have to reply first by clarifying what I believe to be the Senator's misconception.

Mr. TYDINGS. I agree with the Senator that the Congress has the authority, within certain limitations and in certain connections, to delegate its power to a board. That is not the point of my argument. The point is that the bill confines the violations only to the provisions of the act, and not to the regulations made by the board in pursuance of the provisions of the act. I am asking the Senator now what is the top in hours fixed in the bill, which is the top to which the board may go.

Mr. BLACK. No definite figures, as figures, are placed in the bill either with reference to the lowest wages or with reference to the highest hours; but it is not always necessary that we have actual figures. We may mark the limitations and boundaries by other language.

Mr. TYDINGS. What are the boundaries as to hours in the bill?

Mr. BLACK. The boundaries as to hours are fixed by the standards which are to be ascertained by the board after hearing. That provision is found in the second part of section 4.

Mr. TYDINGS. On what page?

Mr. BLACK. I do not recall the page, but I will find it in a moment.

Mr. TYDINGS. I think what the Senator is looking for is on page 59.

Mr. BLACK. It is on pages 60 and 61. First, let me say that the board is not given jurisdiction to go below 40 hours.

Mr. TYDINGS. That is the bottom?

Mr. BLACK. With reference to that phase of the board's jurisdiction, that is the bottom.

Mr. TYDINGS. I agree with the Senator that there is a bottom to the hour provision.

Mr. BLACK. There is a bottom which is written in figures. There is a top to the standard beyond which the board could not go without violating the act. It could not, for instance, fix hours of work per week above the hours of work per week for work of like or comparable character which have been fixed by collective labor agreements negotiated between employers and employees by representatives of their own choosing, and it could not go above the hours of employment for work of like or comparable character maintained by employers who voluntarily maintain a maximum workweek in the occupation to be subject to the order establishing such maximum workweek.

Of course, the committee could have attempted to fix in figures an arbitrary hour and said, We will not permit the board to go above this hour, but the committee reached the conclusion—and I myself am fully persuaded it was a wise conclusion—rather than attempt to :fix the standard of hours in figures, when week hours vary throughout the Nation and throughout the diversified industries, it would be better to fix a standard which itself marks the limitation. In other words, if progressive employers, we will say, or those who recognize the best standards of labor, in the steel business, for instance, have found that 8 hours are the proper number of hours per day and 40 per week; then the board would not be justified in going beyond that in fixing the maximum hours if 8 hours per day were universally recognized or recognized in the particular region where the work was being done as a proper standard. It would no more be authorized to go above that 40 hours than if it had been written into the law. So what I am trying to make clear is that, while we did not write in figures the maximum hours per week and we did not write in figures the minimum below 40 hours per week. we did attempt to fix standards beyond which the board could not go without violating the proposed law any more than it could if we had written those figures themselves in the measure.

Mr. TYDINGS. The Senator has answered my question, and the answer, boiled down, is that there is a definite bottom to the proposed act and an elastic top to it, depending on conditions.

Mr. BLACK. There is an elastic top, depending upon the conditions set out, beyond which in a given industry the board could not go.

Mr. TYDINGS. That is what I say.

Mr. BLACK. The elasticity being not with reference to the work in a particular industry in a given region, but the elasticity being provided by reason of the difference in wages in different industries and the difference in hours.

Mr. TYDINGS. In other words, there is elasticity as to the top, but the bottom is firm.

r. BLACK. As I have tried to differentiate the provisions, I do not think that that is a clear statement.

Mr. TYDINGS. What is the top, then, if it is definite?

Mr. BLACK. Let us take any business the Senator wishes. For instance, there are in his State, I understand, large manufacturers of hats.

Mr. TYDINGS. No; we have very few manufacturers of hats in Maryland.

Mr. BLACK. Well, small establishments. I will take any other business; I simply mention the hats by way of illustration. I do not know what are the recognized working hours in that industry or what agreements have been made by those who bargain collectively or what are the general hours adopted by those employers who attempt to carry on their business in a manner fair both to themselves and to the workers; but let us assume it to be 46 hours a week. That being true, the board would have just as firm a limitation under this proposed act on 46 hours per week as they would if the figures had been written into the bill.

Mr. TYDINGS. I see the Senator's point; but I still come back to my statement that in the bill the bottom is firm while the top is not firm; it is elastic, because a workweek of 46 hours in a concern today may be 45 hours next week, and even after an agreement is entered into by collective bargaining or otherwise, such agreement may be null and void. So I still maintain that there is no definite top as to hours fixed by the bill. I am not criticizing that. I am merely trying to get the facts.

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, will the Senator yield to me again?

Mr. TYDINGS. Yes.

Mr. BLACK. I understand that the Senator is not criticizing but is simply discussing the bill, as is very proper, and it is very enlightening to have discussion, in my judgment.

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The committee reached the conclusion in connection with the Senator's suggestion that if we attempted to stipulate some specific number of hours above that which was fixed at the bottom to bring about a drastic overnight change would work a very great injustice to some industlies that have been working hours that are entirely too long. It might work very severe injury upon them to require them to bring immediately the workweek down to a number of hours that might be fixed in the proposed act.

Mr. TYDINGS. Of course, I take issue with the Senator there. The purpose of this bill is to bring about eventually a 40-hour week if it can be done—and no one is quarreling about that—but the point is that where there is now a 45-hour week or a 46-hour week, Congress itself does not want to take definite action. It wants to hand the problem over to a board. If a man is working 12 hours a day, it is wrong; he has no business working 12 hours a day 7 days a week, for example, which is 84 hours a week. What we are doing here is not recognizing that fact, but simply passing the buck over to a board. If that is wrong—and everybody says it is wrong—why not tackle it frontally and provide a standard which we think is right?

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. TYDINGS. If I may continue for a moment, in order to give the Senator my viewpoint, let me say no considerable number of employees are working 12 hours a day 7 days a week, though there was a time in the steel manufacturing business when a 12-hour day prevailed. I now yield to the Senator.

Mr. BLACK. I may say to the Senator, before I proceed with the other point, that there is a great misconception about the workweek in the United States. Because the 40- hour workweek has been talked about so much, people believe that we have a 40-hour week. We have not a 40-hour week. My information is that not one-third of the employees or workers of this Nation have a 40-hour week. On the contrary, it is absolutely surprising to find the number of employees who work 12 hours per day. I may say to the Senator that I think there is a very strong argument in favor of a fiat workweek.

Mr. TYDINGS. Will the Senator allow me to interrupt him for a moment to ask him a question?

Mr. BLACK. Certainly.

Mr. TYDINGS. I think the Senator will concede—and I should like to get his answer—that there are many men in this body who would be inclined to support the objectives of this bill who are reluctant to turn its administration over to a commission, even though there is good argument why that should be done.

Mr. BLACK. I think the Senator is correct in his statement that frequently a terrible fear is aroused about commissions which sometimes is not justified, while at other times it may be. But let us consider this—

Mr. TYDINGS. I know the Senator himself does not want to favor any more commissions than the sheer force of necessity may demand.

Mr. BLACK. I Will state to the Senator that it has been my philosophy of legislation since I have attempted to make any study of it and had anything to do With it that, so far as it can be done to accomplish the purpose, without injury to any large body of the public, it is always better to specify clearly in the law itself the regulation which is to be prescribed, and it is only when conditions develop that require recognition of a diversity of duties and responsibilities that I favor transferring authority even to determine that a contingency has developed which makes it necessary for a board to act.

Let us take the situation the Senator mentioned. We agree that we want to get away from the 12-hour day, I fully agree with the Senator on that point, as he knows. I have thought that there were times in the history of our country when it would be far wiser to have a definite workweek fixed by legislation. When 15,000,000 people are entirely out of work, I have no doubt of that. Now, however, we find the situation to be that many are working 12 hours a day, and that some are working 13 hours and 14 hours a day, and we want to get away from it; but, in doing so we do not wish to cause an injury which might be greater than the good that would be accomplished.

Mr. TYDINGS. I ask the Senator to allow me to interrupt him, because I am coming to the point where I should like a little enlightenment. What industry in America would be injured if we had an 8-hour-a-day week?

Mr. BLACK. A great many have claimed they would be injured.

Mr. TYDINGS. Will the Senator give four or five examples?

Mr. BLACK. One which has made the claim with the most argument, frankly, is the lumber business. A great many statements have been placed in the RECORD about the lumber business. They are undoubtedly working their employees at many places 12 hours a day.

Mr. TYDINGS. Why?

Mr. BLACK. I cannot state why, except they claim it is necessary in order to carry on their business. I do not believe the majolity of those employers desire to work their men 12 hours a day. They have the same instincts, the same humanitalian desires as people engaged in other business, but the ruthless, ever-pressing forces of competition crush in upon them.

. Mr. TYDINGS. If we make it 8 hours a day universally, would not we remove those crushing forces of competition?

Mr. BLACK. I have made that argument on the floor of the Senate with reference to regular daily hours. I agree with the Senator to the extent that we can and should fix a workday that is fair to production, to the employers, and to the workers. But if we were to attempt to change in 1 day the working practices and reduce the daily hours in all large industries—

Mr. TYDINGS. Have it take effect 6 months hence. Give them 6 months in which to get ready. In other words, if we want an 8-hour day, why in the name of common sense do we not say so? Why leave it to a board to play fast and loose with hours?

Mr. BLACK. One of the objections raised to the bill by the distinguished Senator from Georgia [Mr. GEORGE] was that we had said just that thing. If the Senator from Maryland will read his speech, he will find that one of his arguments is that we said the objective was just that thing, and it is. The suggestion was made to us by a businessman, who made a very clear and forceful argument, that the committee should write into the bill itself a provision that the change should advance so far in 3 months, so far in 6 months, so far in 9 months, and so far in 12 months. There is much logic behind that suggestion.

Mr. TYDINGS. I should like to have that sort of a provision considered.

Mr. BLACK. With the facilities for study of the industries in the time that would be given for the board to ascertain the facts, if we are going to make such a gradual approach to the desired objective, it is my judgment it can be done more advantageously by an agency which is entrusted solely with that duty rather than by our attempting to fit it to the terms of a written statute which could not be changed without action by Congress.

Mr. TYDINGS. The Senator knows that many of the nations of the world have such laws. I think in most of the countries of Europe there are limitations, with certain exemptions to cover unusual cases, governing the hours of work in industry. Since the debate started I have not heard a single reason advanced to show why, if the Congress itself wants to have an 8-hour day, it cannot provide an 8-hour day, approaching the objective to an 8-hour day by easy stages. The board can do that. What can the board do that Congress itself cannot do to make all competition equal down to the 8-hour day? Why give that power to a board?

Mr. BLACK. I shall be glad to give the Senator the arguments made in the committee. The committee gave the bill diligent, careful, and painstaking consideration, particularly the point which the Senator is now discussing.

The board could obtain no more evidence than the Congress could if the Congress had nothing else to do, but, unfortunately, we find from time to time somebody saying that

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Congress is tired and ought to go home. It is said that the health of Senators is being affected; that their health might be bad and their disposition might be affected.

Mr. TYDINGS. Let me say to the Senator that in the statistical abstract of the United States, as I recall, it is stated that there are approximately 35,000,000 men employed. They are employed over a country 3,000 miles long and about 2,000 miles wide in some places. If the five men who are to comprise the board can make a survey of the various conditions in the country better than can 96 Senators and 435 Members of the House, who come from all parts of the country and who know the conditions in their own districts, then they are five men who ought to set up a supergovernment and manage the affairs of all the countries of the world, including the United States.

Mr. BLACK. The Senator asked a question, and I should be glad to complete the answer: I had just stated to the Senator that the Congress has other business to perform. Each Senator is on many committees. It is not always easy to get Senators to attend a committee meeting, even when it is desired to take up an important measure such as this one.

What is required in the approach to this question? If it is approached with the idea of first obtaining as many facts as can be gotten in order to pass upon a particular industry and the problems which it meets, of course, such a study would be made not by the five men alone. Of course, the five men could not obtain all the facts. The Senator knows that, and so does everyone else. The Senator knows that the five men would have agencies through which they would have to ascertain the facts, and those agencies would have more time, perhaps would have nothing else to do, and they would not be troubled about their health and about going back home when the summertime comes, and they would not constantly be pushed and told that they are in bad health and in danger of their lives. They would have more time to investigate.

It is not any reflection upon Congress, nor is it any charge that Congress cannot do something the board can do.

Mr. TYDINGS. The Senator said the committee had long and extended hearings, and I am sure they had.

Mr. BLACK. That is correct.

Mr. TYDINGS. I realize how difficult it is to write a bill of this kind; but the only objection, of any widespread nature, to making the hours definite, that the Senator recalls, came from the lumber business.

Mr. BLACK. Oh, no. The objection came also from other sources. A gentleman from Virginia who has been in the furniture business some 20 or 25 years appeared before the committee.

Mr. TYDINGS. What was his objection?

Mr. BLACK. That it should not be done immediately; that it should be arranged in some way, either in the bill or otherwise, to be done gradually

Mr. TYDINGS. I am pointing out to the Senator that I do not want to do it tomorrow morning. If we are going to do this thing, I would cushion the reduction of maximum hours over periods of 3 months until eventually we should reach the objective.

So far on the floor of the Senate I have not heard one valid reason why that procedure should not be adopted. Indeed, from the Senator's remarks, I am constrained to believe that he himself looks with a great deal of favor upon that alternative way of handling the matter. Am I correct in that statement?

Mr. BLACK. I will say to the Senator, as I said in the beginning, that strong arguments can be made in favor of that method; but the idea has been sought to be spread around that anything we propose that a governmental agency shall do must, therefore, be performed by a group of people who are biased, who are corrupt, who have no intelligence, who will take advantage of the opportunity, with no sufficient reason for declining to follow a course which common sense suggests.

The overwhelming majority of the committee—as a matter of fact, I do not believe there was a single voice, though there may have been one or two, to the contrary on the committee—reached the conclusion that common sense requires that this be done in this way. We want to attain the objective.

Mr. TYDINGS. I agree with the Senator as to the objective; but the only objection voiced came from the lumber people and a single furniture man in Virginia.

Mr. BLACK. Oh, no; the Senator should not say that. I cannot state to the Senator every objection that came to us on that ground. I may say that of the hundreds and hundreds of communications I received, and of the many witnesses who testified, I should say that over 90 percent expressed preference for a method which would give to some agency power to approach the subject in this way.

Mr. TYDINGS. That is a good answer; but let me say to the Senator that these persons have not yet given any reasons, except they do not want this action to happen overnight; that the element of competition must always be present; that one agency cannot reduce its hours unless other agencies similarly situated reduce theirs.

What would be the harm in establishing an objective which would affect everybody in the country in the same way, and approaching it gradually in a 3-month period? If this action is to be taken by the board, if that is our objective, I cannot see why we should not go to it deliberately; and so far, I repeat, I have heard that there have been objections to this process, but I have heard no reasons for the commission approach rather than the statute approach.

Mr. BLACK. I may say that I have tried to give the Senator some reasons. I am sure I did not succeed in doing it. They are reasons which did appeal to the members of the committee.

Mr. TYDINGS. What are they?

Mr. BLACK. The reasons I have stated; and, if the Senator will let me, I will now restate what they are.

Mr. TYDINGS. When the Senator answers me this time, will he try to include in his answer, if he can, what any one of the different complainants had to say as to why his particular business could not be operated on an 8-hour-day basis a year from now, if he should be given a year's notice?

Mr. BLACK. Answering the latter part of the question first, I may say that there are some businesses that claim that they never could operate profitably on an 8-hour-day basis.

Mr. TYDINGS. What are they?

Mr. BLACK. They claim that they could not compete with others that use machines and have better natUral resources and other advantages.

Mr. TYDINGS. Will the Senator allow me to comment on that statement? What is the use of trying to set up an 8-hour day and saying that those who do not conform to it may be fined if we are going to let some man work his employees 10 hours a day?

Mr. BLACK. I am not saying that. I was answering the first question the Senator asked, which had nothing whatever to do with the other part of his question.

Mr. TYDINGS. I asked the Senator for a reason.

Mr. BLACK. I have no reason. The Senator from Georgia [Mr. GEORGE] yesterday attacked the bill on directly the opposite ground from that on which the Senator from Maryland is now attacking it. The Senator from Georgia pointed out that the objective was to have the board determine these matters, and said that was one of the reasons why he was against the bill. So we find the bill attacked by one Senator on the ground that it empowers the board to decide the questions involved, and then we find it attacked by another Senator on the ground that they are not decided by the bill itself.

These are the arguments that were made in the committee and to the committee: We have many industries. Some of them have different labor practices than others. We have many regions in this land of ours. Labor practices differ in different regions of the country. It was, and will be, impossible for any group of Senators or Representatives, or for any other governmental agency, to make a careful, detailed study of the different industries unless they give a large amount of time

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to it. They must have many persons to work with them. A Senate committee or a House committee may obtain a view of industry as a whole; but it is impossible for a Senate committee to devote all its time, for instance, to the lumber business and find the detailed facts with reference to that business in order to know whether or not it could approach this objective within 3 months or 6 months or 12 months.

Therefore it requires a study and a collection of facts by someone, somewhere, to show the effect of the bill upon that industry, assuming the hypothesis that it is better to approach the subject with reference to the different industries, and in recognition of their diversity of hours and wages at this time. If we assume the other hypothesis, which the Senator says may be assumed, that we could put all industries on the basis of a fiat 40-hour week now, then there would be no reason for a board, and the proper thing to do would be to offer an amendment providing fer a 40-hour week, and let that be adopted.

Mr. TYDINGS. Let me say to the Senator from Alabama that every Senator here knows that the purpose of the bill is to bring every industry in America, exclusive of agriculture and some others that have been exempted, into a 40-hour week. That is the goal, the objective to which the proponents of the bill have addressed themselves: If it is not feasible to vote at this good hour on the question of a 40-hour week, and yet if we want to adopt the 40-hour week by law, we can make provision that it shall take effect 6 months from now, with such industries exempted as ought to be exempted because of any peculiar reasons or conditions.

I maintain that not a single bit of reason has been given for supporting the proposition that a commission or a board ought to do this instead of the Congress doing it. In the last analysis the commission is going to find that there are certain industries that do not want to do what the commission is going to require them to do; and that bridge will have to be crossed at some time or other. There may be concerns that will have to be exempted from the provisions of a 40-hour week: All right; let us exempt them; but the fact remains that if we want a 40-hour week, there is no reason for letting a commission bring it about when Congress is elected by the people to come here and do that sort of thing.

I have never yet heard one single, solitary reason for such a course of action. I have heard that there are complaints. I have heard that certain persons say they want more time. ·I have heard that certain persons say there are peculiarities of their business; but those things are only in the form of complaints. They are not in the form of logic or reason or common sense or fact to support their contention that a commission ought to do this thing in a year, rather than have Congress do it.

Mr. LEWIS. Mr. President.—

Mr. TYDINGS. I yield to the Senator from Illinois.

Mr. LEWIS. I take the liberty of asking the able Senator from Maryland for something of an answer to a question I put, looking to its application to my own home.

With my colleague [Mr. DIETERICH], I represent a very large manufacturing section, in which every form of manufacturing is carried on. Let me ask my able friend this question: Suppose Congress should really pass a law specifically naming the exact number of hours that might be worked. When that act was passed it would be the law and would be the guide and the enforced direction to all officers of government. It would not permit exceptions, and it would not permit violations. I ask my able friend, what would he suggest as the force or agency that might provide for emergencies?

A fire may happen in the city of Baltimore or in the city of Chicago. Floods may arise in smaller communities. Conditions may arise, we will say, unhappily—to refer to war—that call for extra supplies in certain directions, and an opportunity of patronage of certain lines of work.

Mr. TYDINGS. Will the Senator allow me to answer his question?

Mr. LEWIS. No; be good enough to let me finish. Then it is desired to have more time, the concerns themselves seeking it, in order to do more work, with an increase of pay at the demand of the workers, or, if you please, through general changes of the regulations. Where would the Senator vest the opportunity of meeting such exigencies or emergencies after the act of Congress had been specifically passed and made imperative upon all?

Mr. TYDINGS. The Senator is a good enough lawyer to know, without my giving him an extended answer, that an act of God or a public enemy would exempt anybody from the provisions of an 8-hour or any other kind of an hour law.

Mr. LEWIS. But a business emergency, affording opportunity of more profit, would not be an act of God.

Mr. TYDINGS. If the Senator has any doubts about that matter, the exemption could be stated in the law-—except in case of an emergency threatening loss of life or property.

Mr. LEWIS. Where would the Senator put the discretion which might be exercised?

Mr. TYDINGS. In the courts, where it belongs. We now have exemptions from any number of our criminal statutes. Where would the Senator from lllinois put the authority—in a board that is not a court?

Mr. LEWIS. I answer that I am opposed to the whole system of boards. I opposed it at the beginning, but now that it has been adopted as a system of government, where else would the Senator from Maryland put it?

Mr. TYDINGS. Let me answer the Senator specifically. In other words, he says the exemptions must be decided by somebody. He would have the power to decide them placed in a board that is not as yet established, composed of five men sitting here in Washington, rather than in the United States courts, which have been established for a long time, and are almost as old as the Republic, and are used to construing and passing on criminal statutes every day. I submit to him, which of the two agencies, by experience and tradition, is the better fitted to deal with the situation which the Senator pictures?

Mr. LEWIS. I answer the Senator that under the doctrine we speak of as equity there is no authority of law to go to any court and ask it to make an exception to a general law in behalf of individuals. Therefore it could not be done.

Mr. TYDINGS. Of course, the law itself would provide that the 8-hour limitation should not apply in case of an act of God, or of a public enemy, or something beyond the control of the individual.

Mr. LEWIS. But where discretion must be exercised where would the Senator put the discretion?

Mr. TYDINGS. In the courts.

Mr. LEWIS. Then do I understand that the Senator advocates that we pass the bill, and if someone wishes to be exempt from its operations for the benefit of a particular locality, he is to make a petitian to the court, go through the procedure of the tribunal, then through an appeal, and finally, at the end, when everybody is dead, worn out, or bankrupt, get some relief?

Mr. TYDINGS. I would not have any exemptions from the law; but take the instance the Senator pictures, namely, that of a flood: The Senator can just imagine the United States district court in Ohio sentencing a member of, we will say, the fire department of Cincinnati for working 16 hours a day because there was a great flood on, threatening the loss of lives and property along the Ohio River. I venture to say that that situation never would arise; that where there was a great fire or a great flood, no court would consider enforcing the law any more than it would consider that a soldier ought to be punished for murder because he shot down a man in a battle in a war in which his country was engaged. It is still murder to kill a man. The penal statutes have not been repealed; but if your country should be at war, and you should shoot down one of the enemy, nobody would think of trying you for murder in a case of a great national emergency.

Mr. LEWIS. I must assert that the able Senator does not meet the position. What would he do, in what way would he vest any discretion in matters of business or emergencies

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in the affairs of life which would call for the application of some exception, such as an exception in the amount of time or in the amount of wage, an increase in the amount of time, or an increase of opportunity for more work and more output, in order that benefit might result because of the new demand? Where would the Senator put that discretion?

Mr. TYDINGS. Will the Senator give me an illustration of what he has in mind? Let us take a steel company. Will the Senator tell me what he has in mind with reference to the output of steel?

Mr. LEWIS. Promptly I put it more definitely to the Senator. I come back to his home.

Mr. TYDINGS. Very well.

Mr. LEWIS. The building of ships at this time is required by the Senator's own people, and asked for, and therefore there is a demand around us. Suppose it is shown that the desire is to have more time in which they can build these additional ships. They have the orders for them, and can do the work at once, whereas if they wait a length of time, the opportunity passes by. Where would the Senator put the authority to determine the practicability of this demand?

Mr. TYDINGS. Those who take that view do not want an 8-hour day. We are not going to have an 8-hour day if we exempt everybody who wants to be exempted.

Mr. LEWIS. Not everybody. In an emergency, where would the Senator put the authority to determine the needs?

Mr. TYDINGS. I will take the Senator's illustration. Why should the ship company, which is engaged in the commercial business of building ships, ask for an exemption?

Mr. LEWIS. It would depend on whether building more ships at the price they can get at the time, by putting more men to work would justify the exemption.

Mr. TYDINGS. In the amendment offered by the Senator from Connecticut he provides for that very case. In his substitute he provides that the workweek be enlarged or diminished so as to absorb all the physically qualified people who may be out of work and who want to work. In other words, the philosophy of the substitute of the Senator from Connecticut is that he believes that whatever work there is ought to be shared by all those who are physically and skillfully qualified to perform the work.

If in the case of the shipyard, it is working 8 hours a day, it can put on two other shifts of 8 hours a day, and work 24 hours; but no man will be working more than 8 hours a day. My point is that I am not necessarily contending for an 8-hour day, or a 6-hour day, or a 10-hour day. My point is that there has not been one single argument, if Congress wants an 8-hour day, why it should not provide it by statute, rather than by the ruling of a commission.

Mr. LEWIS. Then, would my able friend suggest that in all emergencies which might arise, for business accommodation or profit, or the increase of the opportunity for extra employment, or hours, or numbers, exemptions should be written into the statute and provided for by the law, with the possible exceptions which might be thought necessary?

Mr. TYDINGS. That is my point. I do not mean to say that there should not be an exemption written into the law. What I am saying is that it is perfectly possible for Congress to write a statute, with proper exemptions, which will fix an 8-hour day, if Congress has made up its mind to fix an 8-hour day, rather than by a board or a commission.

Mr. LEWIS. Placing in the act of Congress the exemption of such an emergency as might arise, the Senator believes, would avoid the necessity of putting the discretion in any executive board?

Mr. TYDINGS. That is my contention.

Mr. LEWIS. I catch the Senator's point.

Mr. TYDINGS. I may say to the Senator that I am not contending at all that there may not have to be exceptions and exemptions made in the law. What I am contending is that we can write them here just as well as a board can write them; and, so far, there has been no evidence, no fact, no logic, no testimony, to show why, if we want an 8-hour day, there is any business of a normal nature which cannot conform to it, assuming we give them time enough to do it;

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and I am contending the way to do it is by statute and not by a board or commission, which may disrupt more business than it Will assist.

Mr. LEWIS. Will my able friend answer me this question: Assuming his policy to be as he says, and that it should be carried out as he suggests, that in the act of Congress there should be exceptions of this emergency or that condition, which will allow a change, who shall decide?

Who does he intimate will be the judge as to whether the conditions have arisen under the law as permitted?

Mr. TYDINGS. If it is a penal statute, the United States courts.

Mr. LEWIS. As to a statute without providing a penalty, but simply a business undertaking, how would we decide whether an emergency had arisen or not?

Mr. TYDINGS. It would provide a penalty, just as the pending bill provides a penalty. But the one to decide whether an exemption or exception came within the law would be the United States court, not a board or a commission.

Mr. LEWIS. The Senator would send these matters to the courts for decision, upon whatever evidence there was to offer?

Mr. TYDINGS. That is correct. So far neither the chairman of the committee in charge of the bill nor any other Senator in this body, I repeat, has offered one scintilla of evidence to show why Congress itself should not provide, with proper exemptions, an 8-hour day, if we are going to have an 8-hour day, rather than leave it to a board or a commission.

Mr. BARKLEY. Mr. President—

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. McAnoo in the chair). Does the Senator from Maryland yield to the Senator from Kentucky?

Mr. TYDINGS. I yield.

Mr. BARKLEY. I do not care to get into a discussion or argument with the Senator, but I should like to ask him whether he means that he favors a rigid, statutory 8-hour day, applicable to all industries, and universally applicable to all territory in the United States?

Mr. TYDINGS. My answer is that I am going to support the Maloney amendment, which provides that whatever work there is in the country shall be divided, in theory, among those qualified in skill to perform it. In other words, if there are 6,000,000 out of employment, the workweek shall be one thing. On the other hand, if there were no big army of unemployed, it would, of course, lengthen the workweek so as to take care of the situation.

Mr. BARKLEY. Who is to administer the flexibility about which the Senator is now speaking?

Mr. TYDINGS. The only flexibility in the Maloney amendment is a finding of fact.

Mr. BARKLEY. Who finds that fact?

Mr. TYDINGS. The board finds it.

Mr. BARKLEY. So that we do not get away from a board.

Mr. TYDINGS. Yes; we do. The board has nothing to do with regulating any industry, The point is that the board is only a fact-finding institution. The amendment provides that when there are 6,000,000 people out of employment the workweek shall be thus and so, when there are 4,000,000 out of employment the workweek shall be less. and when there are 2,000,000 out of employment, the workweek shall be less.

Mr. BARKLEY. When the board finds the facts, who puts into effect any flexibility as the result of the facts?

Mr. TYDINGS. It is in the law itself—

Mr. BARKLEY. It cannot be automatic.

Mr. TYDINGS. Yes; it is automatic. The President issues a proclamation.

Mr. BARKLEY. The President issues a proclamation upon the receipt of a report from the board?

Mr. TYDINGS. That is correct.

Mr. BARKLEY. So that in that case the President, in addition to the board, fixes the wage.

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Mr. TYDINGS. He simply gives it publicity.

Mr. BARKLEY. So that it cannot be a rigid, statutory 8-hour day, or any other kind of day, applicable to the whole country, without the intervention of someone to make it workable?

Mr. TYDINGS. That is true.

Mr. BARKLEY. So that there is a board and the President.

Mr. TYDINGS. That is true. I concede that.

Mr. BARKLEY. I want to ask one further question.

Mr. TYDINGS. The Senator spoke of wages. I was not talking about wages. I am speaking about hours only.

Mr. BARKLEY. I was going to ask the Senator, when I rose, whether he intended to offer an amendment to the bill fixing a rigid 8-hour day applicable throughout the country.

Mr. TYDINGS. No; I do not think I am qualified to offer such an amendment on the floor of the Senate. But if the committee—and I do not suggest this to delay—were to bring in a bill with proper exemptions, I think I should favor it.

Mr. BARKLEY. Inasmuch as the Maloney amendment is not now pending, I was wondering whether we could not get a vote on the one which is pending.

Mr. TYDINGS. I may say to the Senator from Kentucky that half of my time has been utilized in answering questions which have been propounded.

Mr. BMKLEY. It has been an interesting discussion.

Mr. TYDINGS. I wish to submit, in conclusion, and I do not desire to delay a vote, that so far as I have heard there has not been a single, solitary scintilla of evidence offered by any witness before the committee, or by any Senator on the floor, that denies that Congress can, if Congress desires, pass a law providing for an 8-hour day, with proper exemptions, without any board at all. So far there has not been one single bit of evidence to show why that cannot be done in 6 months or a year, as we may want to provide; and if it can be done that way, my statement is that Congress ought to do it and not leave it up to a board of five men.

Mr. HARRISON. Mr. President, I shall not detain the Senate at great length, but the proposed legislation is of such great importance to the country, and I feel especially to my section, that I cannot withhold expression as to its merits or demerits. Others have spoken as to the work, patriotic in character, of the men who are on the Committee on Education and Labor, and I join in those expressions. They have performed very arduous and what in their opinion is good work, and I suppose that if we are to employ the methods which have been prescribed in this proposal this is about as good as could have been worked out.

I never fall out with my colleagues because they may have an opinion different from mine touching public questions. I know that there are in the hearts and minds of other men convictions and a philosophy of doing things different from mine. I have at times been accused of being a conservative. Well, suppose I accept that encomium.

I do not know what a conservative is. In my service in the House and Senate I have voted for much progressive legislation. Indeed, if thls administration is progressive, I am a progressive. If this administration is conservative, then I am to be classed as a conservative.

I do not like to go as far as some others desire to go, because I think it may sometimes do injury to go so far. Perhaps I do not want to travel as fast as some others because I might get out of breath. I have often felt sympathetic with the old ox down in my country in July days, that had been worked all day in the sun, who sees over in the distance a little shade under the tree, and then you cannot hold that ox back; he wants to get under that shade. I sometimes think I have traveled so fast that I like to get under the shade and rest a little while. I think there are many questions that deserve a little more deliberation and consideration perhaps than other people think those questions deserve.

I am not finding fault with anyone who believes in the high merits of this legislation and in its wisdom. I think I can see in it possibilities of great danger, and that it may do more harm in some respects than good. I come from a section which is no better perhaps than other sections of the country. We have some bad employers. We have some good employers. We have some bad laborers, and we have some good laborers. I think we have a civilization and a citizenship that is just as high and just as good as any, I do not think our employers want to treat labor any worse than the employers in other sections, and, indeed, I know that in the great majority of cases the employers in the United States want to see their labor get along happily, obtain fair wages, and they want to go about as far—I am talking about the majority of employers—as the economic rules and good business management will permit.

So, Mr. President, I take a different position with reference to this proposal than is taken by some of my colleagues. It is said that this is an administration measure. I suspect that the President never read the measure in his life. Mme. Perkins may have read it—I do not know. I know if the measure is passed that madam is going to have a good deal of say in its administration. And, to be perfectly frank, because I would not want to withhold anything from my colleagues, that is one among many other reasons why I am not for this legislation. We must reflect and be governed somewhat by the light of experience. I do not care to vote for legislation which will affect the people of my State and the American people generally, that will permit or direct its execution to persons who have an antipathy against my section, who have an idea that our women wear no shoes, and who have various impressions about my people which are not true, and whose assertions, in fact, in those respects are unfounded.

Of course, there are some women down there who do not wear shoes. [Laughter.] There are some men down there who do not wear shoes. But our women are just as beautiful and just as well dressed, as the women in other sections of the country. Of course, if madam could make more visits down there and associate with our people, she, like other persons from other sections of the country who have come and associated with the citizens of my section, would perhaps come to love them, and, like many other persons who have visited there, would want to stay there, and would form a different opinion from what she now has.

Mr. COPELAND. Mr. President, will the Senator Yield?

Mr. HARRISON. I yield.

Mr. COPELAND. I can well understand the feeling that the Senator from Mississippi has, and I want to reinforce what he has to say, because one does not have to go very far in the city of New York to find the most abject poverty that exists on the face of the earth, people whose clothes are ragged and who are miserably housed, although, as the Senator says, the women are handsome even so—and the women in the city of New York are as handsome as those in any part of the South.

Mr. HARRISON. I have no complaint to find with Senators and others who have reformed their own States, like my friend the Senator from New York [Mr. WAGNERl. Since 1913, I believe he said, he had made conditions perfect up there. But there are some others who think that perhaps the conditions up there are not in every respect perfect.

Mr. President, this bill goes pretty far. It gives the Department of Labor the right to go into any manufacturing plant in this country and investigate every detail as to its records. It can appoint interested parties—for there is no proscription or restriction in this bill prohibiting the Department of Labor from appointing a competitor—and such investigators may go into the plants of this country to get certain data to carry out the purposes of this bill. I do not want to give that much power to anyone.

Mr. President, I remember the days of the N. R. A. The N. R. A. legislation came out of my committee. I championed it upon the floor of the Senate. For days and days we heard testimony as to its beneficial or injurious effects. From having heard that testimony, I know how difficult it is to obtain an exemption when an exemption is desired. The days of theN. R. A. will not be forgotten, especially by Senators

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who the other day were so anxious to take care of the thresher of wheat or oats, who did not want him to come under the provisions of this bill. To me the startling thing about this legislation is that the friends of the farmer, the representatives of the agricultural interests, want the thresher exempted, and he is exempted, and then they are afraid the bill might in the remotest degree touch the farmer, and they want him exempted, too.

If the provisions of the bill are so bad for agriculture, what is there about industry that we might look at as unfair and be prejudiced against? How is the man who threshes wheat or oats going to be exempt when we pass this legislation with all the machinery that goes with enforcement? He must come down here, make his application to get his permit, if the administration of the measure is conducted like the N. R. A., and I cannot imagine how it can be run in any other way to give exemptions to people.

Senators have gone through the labyrinth of these departments, in an effort to find what they were seeking. After the application for exemption is made, those in the departments will then take several days to consider it. They must hear the other side of the proposition, and then one individual in one of the bureaus says it is all right. He sends it up to some higher-up, and the applicant may spend quite a while here in Washington in that department trying to get his exemption, and perhaps he does not get his exemption after all.

In various sections of the country there are creameries. Do Senators who represent farmers who operate cooperative creameries in small towns which employ a few individuals think they are exempt? No; they are not exempt. But if they should be exempted—as the bill is traveling now, it looks like we are going to exempt pretty nearly everyone—those operating creameries will have to come here to Washington to get their permits to be exempted.

There have been many farm cooperatives organized. I congratulate the great Midwest for what has been done toward cooperation, in organizing cooperative elevators, cooperative packing plants, cooperative creameries, and what not. Do Senators think that the operators of such cooperative organizations are exempt under this bill? No. But if we should exempt them under the terms of the bill, they must after a while come here to get their permits of exemption.

Do Senators think that those farmers in the great Middle West who are raising hogs and belong to cooperative packing plants are exempt? No; they are not exempt. However, before we complete the bill, they may be exempted also. But they must travel here to Washington, through the labyrinth of this bureau, to get their permits for exemption.

Oh, yes; yesterday we included the cotton gin in my country as to hours but not as to wages. And the cottonseed-oil mills are included in this proposition. Perhaps they will be taken out after a while.

The farmers are affected in 10,000 different ways, and we need not be deceived about that. Why should we want the farmer to be exempted in every way and pay so little attention to industry?

I have voted with labor throughout my 26 years of service. I have respect for William Green. I had great respect for Samuel Gompers. I respect the American Federation of Labor. I do not know anything about the C. I. 0. [Laughter.] I just do not understand it; that is all. I have not had time to do so. Perhaps I may understand it in time. I know, however, that in my State industry and labor have gotten along very well together. We have had few strikes in Mississippi and there have been few strikes in other parts of the South. Mills operating there, in many instances, are financed by home capital. They employ, in many instances, the sons and daughters of fanners in the vicinity. The boys and girls live on the farm and come into town to work in the factories. They have gotten along well; but recently we have become faddists; we have seen the rise of the so-called marathon dances. For a while women and girls wear their dresses short and then they start the fad of wearing them long. We are a great faddist people. A little while ago the country was swept almost from one end to the other by what were called sit-down strikes. About such things some people speak up and others do not. They seem to become a threatened danger to us, and then they pass off in a little while. So movements come and go.

When the sit-down strike movement started emissaries of that movement were sent down to my State, for instance, to a little city there which is prosperous, Tupelo, Miss., for which the T. V. A. has done so much. Local capital organized some plants there, among them a garment factory, as I recall, which made garments out of cotton. A sit-down strike was started. I do not know for what reason. But the stockholders were called in meeting. They and the labor representatives could not get together. So the stockholders said, We have been losing money for 6 or 7 years; we have operated the plant notwithstanding that fact in order to give employment to people and help the Government out, so that our employees would not have to be thrown upon the W. P. A. rolls. They had operated at a loss, but they saw they could not continue to do so, in view of the demands which were being made. So the stockholders unanimously agreed to liquidate the concern and go out of business. When, however, they filed the papers for liquidation in the court and the case was pending the Labor Relations Board's representative, with some representatives of the C. I. 0., appeared objecting to the stockholders liquidating their own institutions. In this little city where 1,700 girls, as I recall, and for the most part girls from the country, who were brought in every day in busses, were employed, and who were perfectly happy and contented, under this new regime the emissaries of the C. I. 0. came in and made certain demands on the heads of this institution, who were fine gentlemen and who wanted to be fair to their employees. So the employers called the employees together and asked, How many of you are satisfied and how many of you want to quit? Out of the 1,700, only 8 wanted to quit. Yet today that institution is tied up. I called on the Labor Relations Board and pleaded with them, telling them that I thought the Labor Relations Board was created for the purpose of trying to help in such a situation and bring about a solution of the differences. I did not get very far.

We have that background. My state is full of raw materials such as cotton and some lumber—though not much. Much has been said about lumber. That seems to be an industry which has been singled out. There are some good men engaged in the lumber industry and some bad ones in it; there are some employers that pay reasonable wages and some who do not. That is always true of every industry. But the great virgin forests of my State have been denuded, and the forests of Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina and Florida have also been denuded; they are gone. So the mills there have to work on timber that is not virgin pine. It is of a lower grade and less plentiful; the costs and economic conditions are against the operators there. So they probably cannot pay as high wages as can be paid by some of the more prosperous industries. I am not going to condemn a whole industry because there may be some bad people in it.

I know that the Secretary of Labor wants a universal wage—and I am not going to find fault with that, except for the purpose of the discussion of this bill. She cannot see the differentials. Yet in the operation of the National Recovery Act there were differentials all down the line affecting various sections of the country. I remember that in the lumber code a wage of 24^1/2 cents an hour was provided in southern lumber regions, while a wage of 42^1/2 cents an hour was provided in the great Pacific coast region. So there were differentials in that code; and there always have been differentials. Yet this bill would give to the board to be created a right to fix a standard minimum. There are beautiful words written into the measure as to the board taking various factors into consideration and imposing standards after carefully considering conditions and proceeding cautiously so as not to disrupt any industry. That is wonderful; I am glad those words are in the bill; they may operate as a restraint; but the power is to be reposed in a board with such important and far-reaching powers. I am not willing to delegate such power to any group of individuals.

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I want reasonable wages; I want the employees to get just as much as they can—just as much as the industry will bear; but, on the other hand, I am not willing to destroy any business, large or small, by legislative mandate, and I know, if this bill shall be passed, some businesses will be destroyed.

Take a little business, in a certain section, which is trying to make ends meet. It might or might not be able to increase the wages of its employees according to the order of the board. It may have reached the saturation point so that it cannot borrow money and cannot continue operations if its expenses are increased. Of course, the bill says the board will have to take those things into consideration. Whether or not the board will do so I do not know. I thought provision ought to be made for the board to take into consideration many other factors.

What has happened here during the last 5 years? I think the record written by this administration has been wonderful. During the days of the depression we did everything possible to help business; we have done everything possible to help the laboring man and to help the farmer and the underprivileged, but there is no group of our citizens to whom we have extended our arms further to help than unemployed labor, the poorest people in the land. Have we not expended nearly $10,000,000,000 out of the Treasury of the United States through the W. P. A. and P. W. A. and other agencies of the Government to give employment to people? Of course, we have. Yet this bill might do the very thing that we have sought not to do and which we have hoped would not be done.

The pending amendment of the Senator from North Carolina [Mr. REYNOLDS] provides that the terms of the bill shall not affect industries employing 10 persons or less. Very well. What will that bring about? It will bring about & situation just as did the N. R. A. between the larger units of industry and the smaller units.

Under theN. R. A. some said it would create a monopoly and others said the law could not be enforced against the small fellow. The indictments, however, that were brought at that time because of noncompliance with the codes were brought against the little fellow. It was also said that the law created a competition which was unfair. We had such a condition then, and industry wanted to get out from under it.

Consider the case of an industry that employs 12 persons. If the pending amendment to the committee amendment exempting industries employing 10 persons or less should be adopted, what would happen to the industry that is employing 12 persons? The operator of that industry would probably say, We cannot employ more than 10, and so we will discharge 2. We do not know how many little industries of the country will do that. So the W. P. A. rolls will be added to and next year Mr. Harry Hopkins will send to Congress a request for another billion and a half dollars to take care of the unemployed.

What else does this bill propose to do? It will, if enacted, affect harmfully industries that have little capital and that have to pay high interest rates and borrow money from banks in order to exist and give employment to people. I know of many in my section that have had to do it while passing through the distressing years of the depression. If they can possibly get the money in order to continue—and some of them will get it—if they employ the cheaper class of labor now, they will so mechanize their plants that the machinery will do the work of individual workers whom we are trying to help, and many will be thrown out of employment. The wheels of machinery will do the work and the list of the unemployed will be increased.

It is a wonderful thing to pay good wages; yes; but let us not, in order to pay such wages, strike down business that is on its last legs to get along and survive. We have just passed the Social Security Act. What does it do? It lays a tax on the employers in order to help the unemployed and to provide old-age retirement benefits. Business can stand so much; it cannot stand any more; and I for one, I am not in favor of destroying any legitimate industry,large or small, and I am not going to vote for any measure which I think threatens the very economic life of my section, as well as other sections of the country.

Mark you, Mr. President, the agricultural interests may be exempted from this bill if it passes, although I doubt seriously whether it will pass.

Strange elements are at work in this country. They work among the farmers the same as they work upon the unsuspecting people of the land. They start a crusade for a program which they say will not include the farmers. The next fight will be to determine whether or not agriculture shall be included in the legislation. It takes time for this thing to work sometimes, but we have all seen how people move under the spell of powerful organizations and the pleasantsounding arguments of those who appeal to the prejudice and passions of communities. If there ever was a time when those in high places should keep their feet on the ground, it is now, and they should not be following strange theorists into strange byways.

Yes, Mr. President, I think it is better that the bill should be divided and that we should deal only with hours of labor. I can understand, if we revise the hours of labor, that more people might be drawn into industry and given work; but I can understand at the same time that when we increase wages to that point beyond which business cannot go and exist, we close up business and throw people out of work. I wish the provisions of the bill could be cut in twain.

Mr. President, I have said perhaps more than I should have said. I wanted to discuss the increased cost of living made necessary by this legislation, but I shall not. I am opposed to the bill. If some Senator makes a motion to recommit it, I am going to vote for the motion. I think there are more possibilities in this bill for injury and danger to the economic structure of every part of this country than in any piece of proposed legislation that has come before the Congress.

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  Page 7875        CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE        July 30, 1937        (81 Cong. Rec. 7875, 1937)

FAIR LABOR STANDARDS IN INTERSTATE COMMERCE

The Senate resumed the consideration of the bill (S. 2475) to provide for the establishment of fair labor standards in employments in and affecting interstate commerce, and for other purposes.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. CLARK in the chair). The question is on the amendment of the Senator from North Carolina [Mr. REYNOLDS] to the amendment of the committee.

The amendment to the amendment was agreed to.

Mr. MOORE. Mr. President, I send to the desk an amendment, which I offer to the amendment of the committee.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment to the amendment will be stated.

The CHIEF CLERK. It is proposed, on page 51, line 2, after 3) ;, to insert the following:

or any employee of any common carrier by motor vehicle subject to the qualifications and maximum hours of service provisions of the Motor Carrier Act, 1935 (U. S. C., title 49, ch. 8) provided that the wage provisions of this act shall apply.

Mr. MOORE. Mr. President, strictly speaking, the amendment does not provide an exemption. It refers to the drivers of busses. The bill itself provides that its provisions shall not apply to any railway employees subject to the provisions of the Hours of Service Act.

Of course safety is the important consideration. Underthe Interstate Commerce Act it is provided that it shall be the duty of the Interstate Commerce Commission to regulate the qualifications and maximum hours of service of employees of common carriers. Following out that provision and with due regard to safety, the Commission has made a report fixing the hours of labor of bus drivers and employees. My amendment seeks only to include them, as well as railroad engineers and employees, under the terms of the bill. I may say that the amendment has been included in the similar bill now pending in the House.

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, it was the policy of the committee, in cases where regulation of hours and wages are given to other governmental agencies, to write the bill in such way as not to conflict with such regulation. That action was taken with reference to maritime workers. It was taken with reference to railroad workers insofar as they were governed by the Hours of Service Act.

The amendment of the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. MOORE] would apply the same principle to truck drivers insofar as hours of labor are concerned. It is my understanding that the hours have been regulated by the Interstate Commerce Commission recently.

Mr. MOORE. Yes; it has been done during the present month.

Mr. BLACK. That has occurred since the hearings before the committee. The committee were of the opinion, when we orginally took up the bill for consideration, that it was exceedingly important that the long hours of truck drivers should be regulated in the interest of public safety. That had not been done by any other governmental agency at the time of the hearings. Consequently the amendment was not adopted by the committee.

Speaking for myself personally, it is my belief that it would certainly be unwise to have the hours of service regulated by two governmental agencies. I am further of the opinion that the Interstate Commerce Commission, since it has the power and has exercised it, should be the agency to be entrusted with this duty. We were very much disturbed about the matter of hours of labor required of employees of trucking companies and associations, particularly the long hours the drivers are compelled to work. Undoubtedly the Interstate Commerce Commission has adopted a regulation under that law. So far as the pending amendment is concerned, and so far as concerns the amendment which is to be submitted by the Senator from New York [Mr. CoPELAND] with reference to certain employees in the aviation service who are now under the Railroad Labor Act, it is my own belief that both of the amendments should be adopted.

Mr. SHIPSTEAD. Mr. President, I could not hear all the discussion. When I heard the amendment read the matter of truck drivers came to my mind. Am I to understand the Senator from Alabama to say that the Interstate Commerce Commission is now undertaking to regulate hours and wages of truck drivers?

Mr. BLACK. Not wages, but hours of labor.

Mr. SHIPSTEAD. I have reliable information that at least up to 10 days ago truck drivers in my State were being paid $9.60 a week for a 48-hour week. Is there any provision in the bill that can reach such a situation? Under the ruling of the Interstate Commerce Commission or under the provisions of the bill now before the Senate, can that situation be controlled? Those men are compelled to work for $9.60 per 48-hour week and feed and clothe themselves. That is a situation which to my mind is glaringly bad.

Mr. MOORE. Mr. President, I do not by my amendment seek to fix wages. It relates merely to hours of labor. Under the Interstate Commerce Act the Interstate Commerce Commission is given authority to prescribe maximum hours and qualifications for service. My amendment seeks only to leave the fixing of hours, but not the fixing of wages, with the Interstate Commerce Commission. The bill would take care of the wage question.

Mr. SHIPSTEAD. May I have the assurance of the Senator from Alabama [Mr. BLAcK], chairman of the committee, that the bill now before the Senate will take care of a wage situation such as I have described?

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, as the bill is now written, employees of trucking companies are included in both the minimum-wage and maximum-hour provisions. The amendment of the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. MOORE] would exempt them only from the maximum-hour provision. The question of minimum wages would still be governed by the provisions of the bill. The reason why the Senator from New Jersey is offering the amendment is that the law now imposes upon the Interstate Commerce Commission the responsibility and duty of regulating hours.

As I said, speaking for myself alone, I am of the opinion that it would be very unwise indeed to seek to entrust the same responsibility to two governmental agencies.

Mr. SHIPSTEAD. I agree with that.

Mr. BLACK. I further believe, inasmuch as the Interstate Commerce Commission regulates truck and railroad employees, and insofar as the law relates to certain aviation employees, the regulation of the hours of such employees should remain with the Interstate Commerce Commission under those laws. Therefore, I do not object to the amendment which has been offered by the Senator from New Jersey.

Mr. SHIPSTEAD. If a trucking company employs 10 persons or less, will this bill apply to it as to wages?

Mr. BLACK. Not if the bill is finally passed with the amendment which was adopted. It would not include any business of any type with 10 employees or less.

Mr. SHIPSTEAD. Then truck drivers woUld have no remedy if their employer employed 10 persons or less?

Mr. BLACK. The same thing would be true with reference to the employees of any business, because under the amendment which was adopted by the Senate the bill would not apply to any business which employs less than 10 persons.

Mr. MOORE. The interstate commerce law would apply as to hours.

Mr. SHIPSTEAD. As to hours but not as to wages?

Mr. MOORE. No, sir.

Mr. SHIPSTEAD. I am interested in wages.

Mr. COPELAND. Mr. President, in view of the statement of the chairman of the committee, I suggest that my colleague from New Jersey [Mr. MOORE] modify his amendment by adding, after the parenthesis on line 5, the words:

And any air transport employee subject to the provisions of title II of the Railway Labor Act approved April 10, 1936.

Mr. MOORE. I accept that modification.

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he PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the modified amendment offered by the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. MOORE] to the amendment reported by the committee.

The amendment to the amendment was agreed to.

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. Mr. President, I send to the desk an amendment which I ask to have stated.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment will be stated.

The CHIEF CLERK. In the committee amendment, on page 51, line 14, after the word operations, it is proposed to insert the following:

The term person employed in agriculture, as used in this act, insofar as it shall refer to fresh fruits or vegetables, shall include persons employed within the area of production engaged in preparing, packing, or storing such fresh fruits or vegetables in their raw or natural state.

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. Mr. President, on day before yesterday I discussed the situation upon which the amendment is based.

The amendment is very strictly drawn in an effort to limit the operations defined therein purely to those of an agricultural nature. I should like to say that, so far as I am concerned, I cannot agree with the position taken by the Senator from Mississippi [Mr. HARRISON], indicating that there might be some danger about extending this measure to agriculture. So far as I am concerned, I think there should be a regulation of hours and wages for all workers in the country; but the bill does not attempt to do that. The bill attempts to exempt agricultural workers. The situation in which I am principally interested is a situation involving the apple industry; and it is one in which, unless an exemption of this kind is made, there will be a discrimination against the small producer and in favor of the larger producer.

In other words, in a small apple operation of 5 or 10 or 15 or 20 acres, it is not possible for the owner of the ranch. to purchase and maintain on the ranch the necessary machmery which is required in the washing operation under the rules and regulations of the Department of Agriculture. It 1s not possible for him to provide on his ranch the necessary storage space to store the apples until such time as it is possible to take them to market. It is not possible on the small ranch to supply the space for packing the apples. Therefore, it is necessary for such a farmer either to join other farmers in a cooperative, or to send his apples to a packing house, and have these operations, which are purely agricultural operations, performed elsewhere than at the situs of the ranch or the farm.

The purpose of this amendment is to give protection against that situation, and to make it possible for the small fruit and vegetable producer to operate upon the same basis as the large fruit and vegetable producer.

Mr. CONNALLY. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. I yield.

Mr. CONNALLY. Of course, apple raisers are already exempt, are they not, under the term agricultural workers?

Mr. SCHWELLENBACII. The amendment applies only to the packing, storing, and preparing of fresh fruits and vegetables.

Mr. CONNALLY. Does not that exempt all of those engaged in that industry?

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. The amendment is very short, and I will read it:

The term person employed in agriculture, as used in this act, insofar as it shall refer to fresh fruits or vegetables, shall include persons employed within the area of production engaged in preparing, packing, or storing such fresh fruits or vegetables in the1r raw or natural state.

Mr. CONNALLY. The effect of the amendment is to exempt all employees of apple-packing plants; is it not?

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. If they are engaged in the area of production, and so long as the apples are 1n their natural or raw state; yes, sir.

Mr. COPELAND and Mr. REYNOLDS addressed the Chair.

The PRESIDlNG OFFICER. Does the Senator from Washington yield; and if so, to whom?

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. I yield first to the Senator from New York.

Mr. COPELAND. Mr. President, did the Senator include in his amendment the word transportation?

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. No; I did not include the word transportation, because I do not believe that the transportation should be exempt; and I did not include processing.

Mr. COPELAND. If the Senator will yield further for a moment, we have the same problem of the apple grower in my State. The small orchardist has seasonal work in the neighborhood in the picking, sorting, storage, and transportation of his apples. What I mean by transportation—perhaps it is not the right use of the term—is the carriage of apples in the ripe season to the nearby markets, which in my case is New York City, and the work of those who drive the trucks and rush the apples from the cooperative or private storage house to the city; so does not the Senator think that word, too, should be used?

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. I will say to the Senator that as the amendment was originally prepared it had transportation and marketing in it. I have tried to limit the amendment to what I consider purely agricultural operations. Perhaps I am incorrect about it, but I do not feel that taking apples into market and selling them are parts of agricultural operations.

Mr. COPELAND. Will the Senator yield at that point?

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. Yes; I yield.

Mr. COPELAND. I live in Rockland County, N.Y., which is on the New Jersey line; and while the city of New York is the large market for the apples raised in Rockland County, a great many apples are disposed of in Newark, N. J. The truck of the farmer carries the fruit to the market in Newark, which is a standard market where merchants go to get material, and the farmer stays there on the market stand until he can dispose of his truckload of apples. That is what I have in mind, because, of course, the transaction of getting rid of the product may take late afternoon and all night. So as I originally introduced the amendment I had in it transportation and marketing, and also the language the Senator used, which makes it clear that the transaction is in the neighborhood; that it is not a great, big transaction involving a trip across the continent.

Have I made clear the thought I have in mind to the point where the Senator will accept the words transportation and marketing and make them an addition to his amendment?

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. I will say to the Senator from New York that I studied the amendment very carefully; and when we get beyond the point of preparing, packing, and storing—those operations which can be done on the farm by the large farmer as compared with the small one—I feel that we are going beyond the point of agricultural operations, and that the work really is not agricultural work.

Mr. COPELAND. Mr. President, I disagree with the Senator, and do so, of course, in all good spirit; but what I am saying is founded upon actual knowledge. The farmer may be a very small farmer. He may not produce more than one or two or three hundred barrels of apples, but in order to get them to market he has to put them on a truck—his own truck or a hired truck—and go the short distance, perhaps 20 miles, to the town where there is a central market where he may dispose of his product. That seems to me to be very obviously a part of the agricultural transaction, and yet I fear that I have not been able to convince the Senator from Washington to that effect.

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. Possibly I have convinced myself the other way so thoroughly that the Senator's statement has not served to change my mind about the matter.

:Mr. COPELAND. As a matter of fact, is not the problem quite a different one in the great apple country of the West, where there are tremendous crops of apples which are taken in large quantities to the railroad station and shipped on to New York, where we buy and eat those apples; while, on the other hand, the small farmer in my section is not commercially engaged in the orchard business, as they are in the West, or as they are on the great plantation of the junior

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Senator from Virginia [Mr. BYRD]? What the small farmer of my section does is a part of his farming transaction. He takes his apples to market and gets rid of them; and I want to help him as much as I can.

Mr. McCARRAN. Mr. President—

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Washington yield to the Senator from Nevada?

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. I yield to the Senator from Nevada.

Mr. McCARRAN. Is it not true, in keeping with what the Senator from New York has said, that in the State of the Senator who offered this amendment, the real truth is that the farmer takes the apples to a processing plant? I myself have seen this operation in the Senator's State, though the Senator knows about it much better than I do. The farmer takes the apple from the orchard to the processing plant. In other words, that is where the apple is really graded, and boxed, and prepared for shipment.

It seems to me that the Senator from New York is entirely correct in stating that up to the point where the apple is boxed and ready for shipment it is and remains a product of the farm, and is handled by the farmer. It seems to me the Senator is forgetting the real point of his amendment.

Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. President, will the Senator from Washington yield to me?

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. I yield.

Mr. REYNOLDS. A moment ago, in explaining his amendment, the Senator from Washington made reference to orchards covering 15 or 20 acres. Am I to assume that the Senator had in mind the protection of the small producer?

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. The production of the small producer as compared with the larger producer. In other words, the small producer cannot afford to have the capital investment in the warehouse, the washing machinery, all of the necessary incidentals to this operation, while the larger producer can afford them, and he is exempt from the provisions of the bill.

Mr. REYNOLDS. The small producer would hardly have more than 8 or 10 men employed in the gathering of a crop?

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. He takes his apples to a warehouse, however, and there are more than 8 or 10 employed in the warehouse.

Mr. REYNOLDS. In that instance would not the Senator's amendment exclude from the provisions of the bill the larger cold-storage plants, where there are employed hundreds of men, and would not the amendment of the Senator from Washington really exempt from the provisions of the law the larger refrigerating plants throughout the entire country?

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. I limit my amendment to employees who are working upon products from the immediate area, products in their raw or natural state, in their preparation, packing, and storing. I do not. think that in thoseoperations there would be any large or enormous plants such as the Senator has in mind.

Mr. REYNOLDS. I gathered from the terms of the amendment that it would actually remove from the provisions of the bill the larger cold-storage plants throughout the country. Of course, many of them we find in the cities of New York, Chicago, St. Louis, San Francisco, and Seattle.

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. Those are not in the immediate production area.

Mr. REYNOLDS. But they would be included.

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. No; they would not be included because they are not in the immediate production area.

Mr. COPELAND. Mr. President, may I ask the Senator from North Carolina a question?

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. I yield to the Senator from New York.

Mr. COPELAND. Let me ask. the Senator from North Carolina whether in all probability the point I have in mind is not provided for in the amendment he offered, which has just been adopted. His amendment, as I understand, applies the bill to those who employ 10 or more persons. Is that correct?

Mr. REYNOLDS. That is correct.

Mr. COPELAND. As the Senator Understands his amendment, does it mean that to a fruit farm such as I have described, unless there are in excess of 10 persons, the act would not apply?

Mr. REYNOLDS. Under my amendment any firm, individual, association, or corporation employing 10 or a less number of persons would not be subject to the provisions of the bill. That is why I made inquiry a moment ago as to whether or not the small producers of apples would not be reached by it. What I am particularly interested in ascertaining as to the amendment is whether or not it will be of material benefit to the small producer. I expect in a few moments to offer an amendment eliminating tobacco warehouses. There are 57 of them in North Carolina, and their work is seasonal. Eliminating them from the provisions of the proposed law would benefit the tobacco farmers of my State. So I am assuming that the amendment offered by the Senator from Washington would actually be of benefit to the small fruit growers of his State. That is the intent, is it not?

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. That is the purpose of it.

Mr. REYNOLDS, That is all I wanted to find out about it.

Mr. BORAH. Mr. President, I should like to offer an amendment and have it read and lie on the table.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will read the amendment.

The CHIEF CLERK. It is proposed, on page 60, line 20, to strike out the period at the end of the line and insert a comma and the following:

And provided further, That the provisions of this pararaph (c) shall not apply to employees employed in a plant located in dairy production areas in which milk, cream, or butterfat are received, processed, shipped, or manufactured.

Mr. CONNALLY. Mr. President, I should like to ask the Senator from Washington a question. Would not the effect of his amendment be to exempt all industrial warehouses and packing plants in apple territory? There is no limit. The condition is that they are packing plants, and if they are, they are exempt.

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. If a packing plant is working upon fresh fruits or vegetables, in their raw or natural state, within the immediate production area, it would be exempt.

Mr. CONNALLY. My understanding is that the largest apple-packing plant in the world is located at Winchester, Va., right in the heart of a great apple-producing region. That would be exempt, would it not?

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. If the work done in that plant is as described in the amendment, it would be exempt.

Mr. CONNALLY. WhY should a man engaged in packing apples be exempt, and a man packing lemons, or oranges, or grapefruit, not be exempt? What is there about apples that makes them entitled to exemption?

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. There is one very important thing about apples, so far as I am concerned, as compared with grapefruit, and that is that we grow apples in the State of Washington. [Laughter.]

The purpose of the amendment is not for the protection of the packing plant or for the protection of the owners of the packing plant. The cost is paid by the producer. These packing plants just pass the cost back to the man who produces the apples. The farmer pays the bill. The purpose of the amendment is to permit the small farmer, who cannot afford to have his own warehouse and cannot afford to have his own washing machine, to be placed upon a parity with the larger producers, who can afford to maintain their own warehouses and their own washing machines and their own equipment.

Mr. BARKLEY. Mr. President, will the Senator from Washington yield?

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. I yield.

Mr. BARKLEY. I suppose that any establishment dealing with apples as they come from the orchard is dealing with them in their raw state.

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. That is correct.

Mr. BARKLEY. There are many things which may be made from apples—for instance, applesauce, which I presume

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is not included within the regulations of the bill. But if we provide for the exemption of plants which are dealing with apples as a raw material, we include practically all plants which deal with apples, because they deal with them only as raw materials. Is that true?

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. No; I think the Senator is incorrect in that suggestion. The exemption applies when they deal with them in their raw or natural state. If they start making cider out of them, or start making apple sauce out of them, then they are processing and not dealing with them in their raw or natural state.

Mr. BARKLEY. They are dealing with the apple in its raw state.

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. Not after they put it through the first grinder. It then ceases to be in the raw or natural state.

Mr. BARKLEY. Somewhere between the apple and the cider this proposed law will take effect. [Laughter.]

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. I do not think there would be any difficulty as to a construction of that kind, because once it gets to the point which the Senator from Kentucky describes, then it becomes processing, and there is no inclusion of processing in the amendment.

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, will the Senator yield to me?

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. I yield.

Mr. BLACK. Would the amendment apply to a cannery?

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. No.

Mr. BLACK. What would be the definition of the word prepare?

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. Prepare in the natural or raw state is washing.

Mr. BLACK. It is limited, as the Senator understands, to the fruit as it actually comes from the tree?

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. Yes.

Mr. BLACK. The Senator knows that the committee has tried to provide and is favorable to a complete exclusion of activities which are purely agricultural. We have tried to write the bill in such a way as to take care of that situation. What about the area? What would be the definition of area? Would it not be possible to define it more clearly to get the effect?

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. I gave considerable thought to that. I do not believe it is possible, and that is something which the board, which has been accused of receiving too much power, would have to decide. It would have to provide a definition of immediate production area.

Mr. BLACK. The Senator believes that in order to obtain the effect of what the committee has tried to do in writing the bill, it is essential that this amendment be adopted insofar as this particular type of business is concerned?

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. I feel so, and it is for that reason that I am offering the amendment.

Mr. BLACK. May I ask the Senator whether he has conferred with the Senator from Florida [Mr. PEPPER] as to this particular amendment?

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. No; I have not.

Mr. BLACK. The Senator from Florida has been very helpful in connection with the agricultural features of the bill and the agricultural functions, and I would very much appreciate it if the Senator from Washington would not ask for a vote, but would withdraw the amendment and discuss it with the Senator from Florida. I will say to the Senator that if it is satisfactory, and he believes it is in line with this definition, I shall not object to it.

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. At the suggestion of the Senator from Alabama [Mr. BLACK], I will temporarily withdraw the amendment.

Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. President, I offer an amendment to the committee amendment, which I ask to have stated.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment to the amendment will be stated.

The LEGISLATIVE CLERK. At the proper place in the amendment reported by the committee it is proposed to insert the following:

The provisions of this act shall not apply to tobacco warehouses, their employers or employees.

Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. President, North Carolina is the greatest producer of tobacco of any State in the Union. Of course, it is unnecessary for me to state that its grade of tobacco is considered the best of any in the world. In North Carolina we have approximately 57 tobacco warehouses. They are in actual operation only a few months out of each year. As a matter of fact, the farmer himself is the one who eventually pays the cost of operation of the warehouses; and I think these warehouses should be excluded from the provisions of the bill.

Mr. LA FOLLETTE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. REYNOLDS. I Yield.

Mr. LA FOLLETTE. Did I correctly understand the Senator to say that employment in tobacco warehouses is seasonal in character?

Mr. REYNOLDS. As a matter of fact, they are open for only several months of the year. I should say they are open not more than from 3 to 4 months of the year. In eastern North Carolina, of course, the market season is difierent than that in western North Carolina, where is grown the superior burley quality; but the warehouses as a rule are closed about 9 months of the year.

Mr. LA FOLLETTE. So the persons who are employed in these warehouses have only 3 or 4 months' employment during the year?

Mr. REYNOLDS. That is all. Perhaps one or two men are employed throughout the year merely in the capacity of watchmen or repairmen; but, as a rule, the warehouses are in actual operation only during the selling season. In view of that fact I think they should be exempted from the provisions of the measure, because, after all, the small producer, the small farmer, is the one who actually pays the cost of operation.

Mr. LA FOLLETTE. How many persons are usually employed in such a warehouse?

Mr. REYNOLDS. That, of course, depends entirely upon the size of the warehouse. In North Carolina we have the largest tobacco warehouses in the world, but we also have quite a number of the smaller warehouses. They employ anywhere from 10 to 40 or 50 persons, according to the square-foot area and capacity of the warehouse. I recall that yesterday the Senate agreed to an amendment which gave protection to a number of agricultural enterprises. The amendment was offered by the Senator from Oregon [Mr. McNARY]. I am of the opinion that warehouses which employ from 40 to 50 persons during the time they operate should be excluded from the provisions of the bill.

Mr. LA FOLLETTE. If the employment is absolutely seasonal in character—

Mr. REYNOLDS. Yes; it is seasonal in character.

Mr. LA FOLLETTE. While I do not believe the bill should be emasculated by a long series of exemptions, yet, if there is to be an exemption for seasonal work in relation to fruits and vegetables, I cannot see that we are in a very good position to resist an amendment which is designed exclusively to provide an exception for a purely seasonal occupation in connection with the harvesting and marketing of tobacco.

Mr. BARKLEY. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. REYNOLDS. I Yield to the Senator from Kentucky; and in yielding I wish to say that I have high hope that the Senator from Kentucky will be favorable to this amendment, because there are many tobacco warehouses in Kentucky which are in the same position as those in North Carolina.

Mr. BARKLEY. With respect to this amendment, I wish to say in a preliminary sense that I think the only rivalry existing between the States of North Carolina and Kentucky is in the production of tobacco. I think North Carolina produces more tobacco, but Kentucky produces better tobacco, so that we average up pretty well in the matter of tobacco.

Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. President, I dislike to disagree with the Senator from Kentucky in that respect, but I must.

Mr. BARKLEY. With respect to this amendment, it is true that in the entire tobacco region—North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Kentucky, and every other State where tobacco is produced—many warehouses which are devoted only to the receipt of tobacco brought in by the farmers during what they call the tobacco season—which varies in

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different sections of the country, as the extent of the season also varies—operate only for a period of 3 or 4 months. Some of these warehouses are cooperative, and are owned by the farmers themselves. The farmers deliver their tobacco to the warehouses, and the tobacco is received by the organization of which the warehouses are a part for resale to the private tobacco market, largely dominated by some very large tobacco interests that have their situs in the Senator's State and elsewhere.

There are certain tobacco warehouses, however, that are not seasonal. I am afraid the language of the Senator's amendment would include them all. There are some tobacco warehouses to which the tobacco is delivered during the tobacco season, but during almost the whole year the warehouse operators engage in the process of prizing and stripping and stemming. I do not think the Senator means to exempt warehouses of that sort that engage in more or less year-round activity.

Mr. REYNOLDS. No; that is not my intent, and I shall be very happy indeed to accept the suggestion of the Senator from Kentucky and provide whatever phraseology is necessary to be added to the amendment itself so that it will bring about the exemption of only those warehouses which are, as it might be said, engaged in seasonal work.

Mr. BARKLEY. I suggest to the Senator that at the end of his amendment there be added the words where the employment is seasonal in character.

Mr. REYNOLDS. I shall be very glad to accept those words as part of my amendment: Mr. President.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, is there not a clear definition of the functions of these warehouses in the names they bear? The Senator referred to a place where tobacco is prepared after it goes through the warehouse. Such places are called stemmeries; are they not?

Mr. REYNOLDS. Yes.

Mr. BARKLEY. That work is not altogether done in stemmeries. In some States a considerable part of the work goes on in the warehouses, and the buildings are referred to generally by the public as warehouses.

I ask the Senator from North Carolina if he will accept the language I have suggested?

Mr. REYNOLDS. I accept the language suggested by the Senator from Kentucky as part of my amendment.

Mr. BARKLEY. This situation applies to other States, as well as to the State of North Carolina.

Mr. GLASS. Mr. President, we have tobacco warehouses in Virginia, and I have never known one that has been engaged in the work of stripping and preparation of tobacco. That is done in the tobacco factories.

Mr. BARKLEY. Virginia produces a different type of tobacco from that produced in my State. In my State there are many of these establishments which are known as warehouses, and are referred to by the public as warehouses, in which the receipt of the tobacco is seasonal, but they continue the operation of prizing and preparation during a considerable part of the year.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is the Chair to understand that the Senator from North Carolina has accepted the modification of his amendment proposed by the Senator from Kentucky?

Mr. REYNOLDS. Yes; I accept that modification.

Mr. OVERTON. Mr. President. will the Senator from North Carolina yield?

Mr. REYNOLDS. I yield.

Mr. OVERTON. I desire to ask the Senator a question. I did not follow his amendment very closely. I think some modification has been made of his amendment. I wish to ask him whether cotton compresses and cotton warehouses are included in the amendment.

Mr. REYNOLDS. The intent of the amendment which I offered is merely to exclude tobacco warehouses that are engaged in what may be called seasonal work, from 2 to 3 months in the year; and I accepted as part of my amendment language suggested by the Senator from Kentucky [Mr. BARKLEY] to make that intent more clear.

Mr. OVERTON. Is there any difference in the duration of operation between a cotton warehouse and a tobacco warehouse?

Mr. REYNOLDS. I made mention only of tobacco warehouses.

Mr. OVERTON. Are not cotton compresses and cotton warehouses engaged in as seasonal work as tobacco warehouses?

Mr. REYNOLDS. I suppose they are.

Mr. OVERTON. Would the Senator have any objection to including in his amendment cotton compresses and cotton warehouses?

Mr. REYNOLDS. No; I should have no objection, because in that instance also the little producer or farmer pays the bill, as I understand. I should have no objection to including in my amendment the language suggested by the Senator from Louisiana, because the work in the cotton warehouses and cotton compresses is purely seasonal.

Mr. OVERTON. Mr. President, yesterday the Senator from Oregon [Mr. McNARY] offered an amendment, which was agreed to by the Senate, which exempted cotton ginning from the workweek provisions of the bill. It does not exempt cotton ginning, however, from the wage provisions of the bill. As I understand the amendment of the Senator from North Carolina, it will exempt the warehousing of tobacco altogether from the provisions of the bill.

Mr. REYNOLDS. It is eliminated entirely from the provisions of the bill.

Mr. OVERTON. I think the Senator from North Carolina will agree with me—at least I hope he will—that his amendment should include cotton ginning and baling, compressing and warehousing.

Mr. REYNOLDS. I shall be glad to include them in the provisions of my amendment.

Mr. OVERTON. Then I ask the clerk to report from the desk the amendment as modified.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana offers an amendment to the amendment of the Senator from North Carolina, and the clerk will report the amendment as modified.

The LEGISLATIVE CLERK. The amendment, as modified, reads as follows:

The provisions of this act shall not apply to tobacco warehouses, cotton compresses, cotton warehouses, cotton ginning and baling, their employers or employees, where the employment is seasonal in character.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from North Carolina accept the amendment of the Senator from Louisiana?

Mr. REYNOLDS. I accept the amendment.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendment of the Senator from North Carolina, as modified.

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, I sincerely hope the amendment will be promptly voted down. In my judgment, there is no reason for continuing to make exemptions with reference to every kind of processing that can be done. In the first place, the bill itself—

Mr. CONNALLY. Mr. President—

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Alabama yield to .the Senator from Texas?

Mr. BLACK. I yield.

Mr. CONNALLY. Is it not entirely possible that all exemptions will be eliminated in conference?

Mr. BLACK. That may be entirely possible. I do not know what the House will do.

Mr. CONNALLY. The amendments which the Senate adopts will probably be deleted and eliminated in conference.

Mr. BARKLEY. Mr. President—

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Alabama yield to the Senator from Kentucky?

Mr. BLACK. I yield.

Mr. BARKLEY. Of course, this being a Senate bill, if it were agreed to by the House, the bill would not even be in conference.

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Mr. CONNALLY. The Senator from Kentucky is more optimistic than he usually is in that view. He says if agreed to by the House; but the House is already in disagreement with this bill. The committee of the House this morning, I understand, modified the bill so as to give the board power to fix wages as high as 70 cents an hour and hours as low as 35 a week. So that does not indicate that the House is thinking along the same lines as is the Senate.

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, I dislike very much to disagree with my good friend the Senator from North Carolina [Mr. REYNOLDS] and the senior Senator from Louisiana [Mr. OVERTON]. This bill, however, in its present form provides proper exemptions under a proper statement of facts relating to seasonal activities. It is my belief that, if by name we exempt particular businesses, the dictionary should be searched and the knowledge of each Senator should be searched with reference to the particular activities within his own State-—nd I may say that some of these businesses have relation to the section of the country from which I come—and simply put them all in at once.

Mr. BONE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

The PRESIDlliG OFFICER. Does the Senator from Alabama yield to the Senator from Washington?

Mr. BLACK. I yield.

Mr. BONE. It becomes evident that if many more amendments of the character suggested are to be offered, it is going not only to come to a point where we might as well adopt a blanket amendment removing from the bill all seasonal employment, for if we eliminate some seasonal activities it would seem only reasonable that we should exempt from the provisions of the bill seasonal industries in all forms. I do not think that was the desire of the Senate or of the author of the bill.

Mr. BLACK. May I say to the Senator that, recognizing that there are some seasonal activities which raise different questions, we attempted to provide for them by the proper type of investigation by an agency that would investigate the question and would adopt regulations to suit the various types of seasonal activities. From my own personal knowledge, it is my belief that some of the things, as I said yesterday, which are included in this amendment are of such types that the provisions of the bill should not be applied to them with the same strictness with which they should be applied to other activities.

Mr. OVERTON. Mr. President, will the Senator yield to me?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Alabama yield to the Senator from Louisiana?

Mr. BLACK. I yield.

Mr. OVERTON. I understood the argument heretofore made by the very able and brilliant Senator from Alabama, who has charge of this bill, to be that it was the serious and bona-fide purpose and intent of the committee to exempt agriculture and those engaged in agriculture.

Therefore, under the provisions of the bill as it now stands, unquestionably purely agricultural operations would be exempted. Take the cotton farmer or planter who employs labor to plant his cotton. The labor so employed does not come under the provisions of this bill. The labor he employs in picking cotton does not come under the provisions of the bill. The labor he employs in hauling his seed cotton to the gin does not come under the provisions of the bill. But the cotton farmer, when he has his cotton ginried, has to pay for the ginning. It is a burden that is imposed upon the fanner. It is as much a burden as is the picking of the cotton and the planting of the cotton and the hoeing of the cotton. It is a step in the process of getting his agricultural product to market, and the ginning of the cotton is just as essential to getting the cotton to market as is the picking of the cotton in the field. Why, then, should those who are engaged in the ginning of cotton, the cost of which operation is imposed directly upon the farmer, come under the provisions of this bill? Why should they not be regarded as others who are engaged in labor connected with agriculture and the marketing of agricultural products?

Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. President—

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Alabama yield to the Senator from North Carolina?

Mr. BLACK. I yield.

Mr. REYNOLDS. I merely wish to make the observation that the Senator's argument would apply equally to tobacco farming.

Mr. OVERTON. I have no doubt that that is absolutely correct; and the same argument applies to the compressing and to the baling of cotton. It seems to me, if the Senator in charge of the bill desires to exempt those engaged in agricUltural pursuits, that he should accede to this amendment. I thank the Senator for yielding to me.

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, if I may be permitted to speak, I was just about to say something about compresses. I do not understand that the compresses fit at all into the picture which has been drawn. I do not understand that it is necessary that compresses work long hours. They work throughout the year. They work when the cotton is brought to them. There is nothing perishable about the cotton. I can see no earthly reason why a cotton compress at a port should be exempted from the provisions of the bill.

Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Alabama yield to the Senator from North Carolina?

Mr. BLACK. I yield.

Mr. REYNOLDS. I should like to ask the Senator if he would object to the adoption of an amendment exempting tobacco warehouses.

Mr. BLACK. I may say to the Senator I do not think that this is the proper way to provide exemptions for activities if they are entitled to be exempt. I think it is not right to take some types of business as to which the suggestion happens to be made here and ask for an amendment to exclude them, unless we are going to do away with the other provisions which give authority to the board to consider seasonal activities. Knowing the Senator's belief in the value of legislation of this kind, I know that he does not want a single exemption to be made legislatively or under the action of a board that would require long hours to be worked unnecessarily or wages to be paid that are below a standard of decency and the necessity of the person and which will fit the case. Bearing that in mind, may I say to the Senator that we have provided in the bill a system which would really determine those facts on a basis of knowledge of the industry gained from the introduction of evidence. The hearings would be public. It was stated yesterday by the Senator from Idaho [Mr. BORAH] that before the board the low-paid wage earners would not have a voice; that they would not be able to come to Washington. That is probably correct. It might also be stated that they are not here now; they are not here today. They have not been here during the past week.

Some of them can write letters and pay for postage stamps, but unfortunately they cannot employ anyone to write letters for them. Accordingly, it is necessary that we bear in mind this mute, inarticulate group if we are going to attempt to enact legislation to take care of the situation in the proper way.

We need to do that when we consider the statement with reference to the destruction of industry. Industry is important, but it is only important insofar as it relates to and serves human beings. Destruction of human beings after all ought to be entitled to an equal place with destruction of industry, big or little. I am speaking on the floor of the Senate not merely for the industries which some say might be jeopardized, but I want to try to say something for the human beings who have been jeopardized and who are today jeopardized by the working conditions under which they are compelled to live. They cannot appear before the Congress. It is true they cannot appear before the board in Washington.

I sincerely hope that those good friends of the measure such as the Senator from North Carolina [Mr. REYNOLDS] who has offered this amendment, will recognize that we have taken care of the situation. I hope that the Senator from North Carolina, whose neart I know beats in sympathy with

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those whom the bill is trying to protect, will join with me and that he will withdraw his amendment and aid me in seeing that we do not further emasculate the bill or make it possible to do so.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, I have a memorial signed by certain gentlemen of my State who met with some of us day before yesterday to protest against the passage of the pending bill. I am acquainted with each and every one of them. They represent a cross section of the different occupations of my State. Without having it read, I ask that it may be printed in the RECORD at this point as a part of my remarks.

There being no objection, the memorial was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:

To the South Carolina Congressional Delegation:

The undersigned representatives of agriculture, commerce, and industries of South Carolina designated to appear before the South Carolina delegation in Congress present their objections to the Black-Cannery bill:

1. So much legislation affecting business has either been enacted or projected that investment of capital has been discouraged. The effect of this can be easily imagined. The South needs capital; it has great resources awaiting development.

2. If this bill is intended to increase the purchasing power of an industrial group, it does so at the expense of all those who buy but do not enjoy the benefits of the bill.

The first effect of the operation of such a law would be to dislocate industry and increase unemployment. Those industries which cannot operate on the projected pay and time scale would be forced out of business, leaving their employees without work and compelling the Government to maintain a permanent W. P. A. or else break down the unemployment-insurance funds through too heavy and precipitate a strain.

3. So far as labor is concerned, this bill is entirely unnecessary, since by the Wagner Act the great arm of the Government guarantees and protects labor in negotiating with capital.

4. In common equity, all those who labor should enjoy the same consideration, whatever may be the field of work. If agriculture cannot operate on such a pay scale, it is equally true as regards other work.

5. All our experience has proved the ineptitude of bureaucratic authority over production and distribution. The Food Administration and the Fuel Administration and many other boards and commissions have proved that in a country of such vast extent as ours, with such a variety of interests, such social and economic peculiarities as found in some sections, one body, one commission, cannot administer the law in intimate detail.

This is a nation of small businesses. What makes the Nation is not a great number of Du Ponts but a vast number of small enterprises struggling to survive and to expand.

The Black-Cannery bill will freeze the advantages to the vast aggregation of capital and exclude the little man.

This bill will make necessary further use of machinery, reducing the labor load and labor employment, closing down the underprivileged because of his poverty and deny him the right to survive in a small independent enterprise and commit him to perpetual industrial vassalage.

Labor will shift to those paying a higher wage, compelling all employers to meet the scale or shut down. This bill will rest most heavily on the farmers, because it will increase the price of all he buys, all the costs of processing aggregating a considerable increase in prices, paid by him, while all that he produces and sells is sold on a world market over which he has no control and in which he has no voice.

We regard all this tendency is government as opposed to the fundamental American doctrine of free bargaining and free choice.

The Nation needs nothing so much as a breathing spell so that adjustments may be made to operate according to laws we already have. We believe that without further restriction or legislative intimidation our business could and would absorb most of the unemployed capable of work and willing to work.

J. B. Britton, Sumter; A. L. M. Wiggins, Hartsville; J. Roy Pennell, Spartanburg; Winchester Smith, Williston; W. P. Jacobs, Clinton; Thomas Brice, Sumter; J. B. Mahoney, Charleston; C. G. Timberlake, Hartsville; C. L. Cobb, Rock Hill; J. C. Cauthen, Rock Hill; J. K. Breedin, Manning.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, while I am on my feet I want to submit some observations, some of them very pertinent.

I am the last one—I was about to say on this side of the Chamber, but I cannot say that now, but I am the last one of the so-called Democrats—and I am a real Democrat—who came into the Senate at the time I did. Only one Member of this body has served longer continuously than I, and he is the Senator from Idaho [Mr. BORAHJ.

Since the War between the States the section to which I belong, by force of conviction and horrible and unfortunate circumstances, has been solidly Democratic. During all that long period we never were able, except when the Republicans for some temporary reason split, to elect a President of the United States. Through all the years we were fondly hoping that the time would come when we could elect an administration upon the principles of democracy which some of us cherished and in which we believed, and though defeated year after year and time after time, the solid South was never dismayed.

There were factors entering into the conditions prevalent in my section that did not exist elsewhere, and we were hoping that some time there would come into existence a Democratic administration which would fully realize the difficulties under which the South has labored all through the years and yet maintained her political integrity and faith.

In 1933 we thought the time had come when the problems and burdens peculiar to the South would be recognized, and her economic and social conditions so recognized as to give her an opportunity to express herself once again in the councils of the Nation.

What are some of the facts? I feel so intense about this matter, Mr. President, that it is difficult for me to approach the subject with any degree of so-called conservatism. Time after time, for miserable political reasons, there has been injected into this body, naturally from the other side of the aisle, what is known as an antilynching bill. Every Senator, every man decent enough to be a Member of this body, knew that the section to which I belong was faced with a problem that would try the stoutest of hearts. We had the problem of slaves, imported from an unfortunate place-—unfortunate in the terms of comparative civilization—who became one of the causes of the war between the States. In a moment of hate and passion, engendered by the bloodshed incident to that war, there were written two amendments to the Constitution which in the years to come will stand as a monument to the extreme to which passion and hate can go. By a stroke of the pen an attempt was made to do what it took us hundreds of years to bring about in the type of civilization which we exemplified. By a stroke of the pen the majority of those totally unfit for the purpose were injected into the blood stream of American politics. We protested, and, be it said to the everlasting honor of those on the other side who introduced it, they did not attempt really to enforce it.

Every Senator present knows that the antilynching bill is introduced for no other reason in the world than a desire to get the votes of a certain race in this country. The element of recognition of what is called the injustice done is present, perhaps, to the extent of less than one-half of one percent. There is not a man in the South worthy of the name of citizen—and millions there are worthy of that name—who is not as much opposed to mob murder as are the sacrosancts who introduce the measure, in the abundance of their desire to see their State purged of this blot.

What they desire to see is ballots put in the box to send them back here, in order—even though it humiliates a proud section of the country—that they may return home and say, See what I did for you.

Year after year, the law-abiding citizens of my section of the South have resisted the tide of mob rule, and gradually have decreased it with all the power of court and public opinion. until, thank God, it is gradually vanishing. We have not attempted to go into other sections and demand that the innocent shall pay for the victims of racketeering. We have said, Come and sympathize with us, but leave the jurisdiction of the law to us, who ourselves are struggling with a tremendous problem.

I shall have more to say about that matter when that blistering commentary on American politics, managed by men who claim to be white people—that blistering commentary on the depths to which a desire for election can sink an individual-again comes before this body.

Again, I said I thought our section would be amply provided for along all proper lines. In the first convention that met in Philadelphia, under the auspices of the Democrats. the cards were already stacked so that the renomination of the present President was practically a foregone conclusion.

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What did the delegates do at that convention? They repealed the two-thirds ru1e. Every man here from the South knows that the only guarantee the South had of a voice in nominating our standard bearer was the two-thirds ru1e. The only voice the solid South had in saying who should be our standard bearer was in the two-thirds ru1e, the guaranty of some rights to the minority. It was abolished; and now it is possible for a very few of the great cities and the populous States to unite and ignore the southern vote. We had as well not send delegates to the national convention if the two-thirds ru1e is no longer to obtain.

Antilynching, two-thirds rule, and, last of all, this unconscionable—I shall not attempt to use the proper adjective to designate, in my opinion, this bill! Any man on this floor who has sense enough to read the English language knows that the main object of this bill is, by human legislation, to overcome the splendid gifts of God to the South. There is not a man here but knows that that is the object of the bill. I talked to a Senator on the fioor of this body and said, In the name of the God of justice, you are not going to vote for this bill, are you? He said, Yes; I am. I said, Why? Why, he said, all our cotton mills have gone South, and we want to get them back.

The cotton mills left old England because it was more profitable to manufacture cotton in New England. Then, after the paralysis of the war, when a little capital began to trickle into my devoted section, even shrewd New Englanders thought, Well, the raw material is right there. Splendid water power is right there. Why should not I move my mill to a place where I will eliminate freight on the raw material and freight on the finished product? They have good ports out of which to export the finished product. They have good railroads that will transport it to the interior.

God did it. I did not. He gave us a climate that did not require very much clothing, and did not require very much heat during the winter, and where something edible grows the 12 months around, where the windows can be opened and healthy breezes can ventilate the factories; so the textile mills came South. It did not require as much to support either employer or employee in my section as it did in the less fortunate climates of the Northeast.

This bill proposes, by a process of higher wages and added expense, to counteract the handicap of the Northeast. There is not a man here who can deny it—not one. This whole bill, whether intentionally or otherwise, is based upon the principle of checking the inevitable rise of the South from the lowly condition in which the War between the States left it. With more than 70 percent of the standing timber of the Nation, with a varied production the like of which the world cannot exceed, from the Tropics clear up to the splendid breezes of our mountains, we can grow almost anything; and I had hoped we had grown a crop of patriots who could not be seduced or bought. But I found out, Mr. President, that we had two kinds of patriots in this country and down in my section as well. There were p-a-t-r-i-o-t-s—they are down to a pretty thin stand; and there are p-a-y-t-r-i-o-t-s. God knows, they are as thick as fleas. [Laughter.] The p-a-y-t-r-i-o-t-s have got us going.

I want to read a section of this bill. To think that such a proposal should be made here, in the House of what we thought were our friends, under the banner of that old name which in the horrible days of reconstruction and the first decade subsequent to that horrible war was our pillar of cloud by day and :fire by night, we patiently waiting for the time to come, in the gracious mercy of the Creator, when He wou1d give us a Democratic administration! I want to read you one section of this patriotic proposal, and let every man who has sense enough to be out of St. Elizabeths listen. [Laughter.]

Whenever the board—

The board—

shall determine that any substandard labor condition exists in the production of goods in one State and that such goods compete to a substantial extent in that State with other goods produced in another State and sold or transported in interstate commerce in the production of which such substandard labor condition does not exist, the Board shall make an order requiring the elimiliation of such substandard labor condition and the maintenance of the appropriate fair labor standard in the production of goods which so compete.

In other words, if South Carolina's living conditions are so kindly that it takes only 50 cents a day, for illustration, to enable one to live comfortably and reasonably, and in th~ New England States it takes a dollar and a half a day to buy the necessary coal and have windows in the houses so constructed that people will not suffer, then the wage in South Carolina shall be raised to a dollar and a half.

Why, in the name of common sense, do not some of these people call in God, and tell Him that He must stop this thing of making one section more advantageous than another section for the production of a given article? Why do we not bring Him down here and tell Him that it is a miserable crime to give one man more brains than another man? [Laughter.] But we are indicating to Him how He ought to run the universe, that our natural advantages must be wiped out; in the name of what? In the name of the fear that I will not have an opportunity to fill this seat again.

Who will dispute that? Of course Senators may get up and deny it, but everybody believes that I am telling the truth 100 percent. [Laughter.] The whole miserable philanthropic, and eleemosynary spirit that seems to be the psychology of this body is nothing but a vote-getting project. You know it, and I know it. Why not face it? You may be able to force this thing on the South, but a false principle wrought into real life will work itself out in disaster.

Though the mills of God grind slowly,

Yet they grind exceeding small;

Though with patience He stands waiting,

With exactness grinds He all.

If I did not believe that I would not believe in God.

I have cited some instances to show with what tender care the party to which we have given allegiance for so long is treating the devoted section to which I belong. I cannot conceive how any man from the South or any honest man from the North can vote to support this piece of legislation. It used to be the boast of some of my colleagues here that in their youth they had to eat the hard bread of poverty and destitution; but the hardships of their youth became the golden ships of their manhood and mature years; the hard grilling of necessity was the gracious mother of their future success.

There is an old Latin adage that has never been improved upon: Ad astra per aspera—"To the stars through struggling." We never will amend that. There is being created in this country a psychology that will so snap the sinews of energy and enervate the populace that we will sink into the kind of a chasm that engulfed Rome, and we may not escape.

I said sometime ago, and I repeat, we will have to loosen up our immigration laws and bring people here to work. Nearly every American is on the Government pay roll. We will have to get workers from somewhere.

Now we are reversing the concept of America by attempting to stipulate the wage that shall be paid by every manufacturer and everyone in business, whether he is able to pay it or not. Under such an exacting law every establishment in America wou1d be frozen.

Mr. President, I am going to live and die a Democrat, a pure, honest-to-God Democrat, without fear or favor or shadow of turning. I rather think it will be a pretty lonely journey. But there is a character in the Bible whose experience I wish every man here could read and appreciatethe character of Job. When the devil brought in his philosophy Jehovah said, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and upright man?

The devil said, Yes; I have. You have made him a rich man. You have given him patronage, and you have given him everything, and why should he not be perfect?

God said, I have faith in Job's integrity, in spite of the money he has, and the possessions he has and the patronage he has.

The devil said, Yes.

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God said, Behold, he is in thine hand.

The next time the devil came back he said he was a little mistaken about that, that Job loved his people and his retainers, and that he would give everything for them.

God said, So you think his integrity inheres in his love for his kin

The devil said, Yes; but all that a man hath he will give for his life. Put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse Thee to Thy face.

God said, All right; go and cover him with sores. Give him everything, but do not touch his life.

The devil never came back. That was the final acid test, and, paraphrasing Job's expression, Though truth and integrity slay me, yet I will be true.

God grant that American Senators may so be imbued with the spirit of American democracy that no office can seduce them, no money can defile them, and no hope of reward swerve them from their conviction of right.

If Senators will excuse a personal allusion, I never thought the time would come when I would be put to the test of deciding whether I would rather sink to this level or be right. I made my choice. There are not votes enough, there are not offices enough, to make me turn apostate and repudiate my faith in the belief that political honesty and integrity is one with personal interest and integrity.

Do not think that because I have called attention to these beautiful gifts handed out to the South you are going to drive me out of the Democratic Party. I am afraid there are many calling themselves Democrats who lack a great deal of being Democrats. I long ago learned that putting a label on a thing did not change the contents, that labeling a vial of strychnine sugar did not make it sugar by any means.

Here is the last and final measure which, if enacted into law, will arrest forever, perhaps, in your time and mine, the hope of progress in the South.

I thank the Senate.

Mr. LA FOLLETTE. Mr. President, when the pending bill was under consideration in the committee the members of the committee fully realized that there were certain seasonal industries which of necessity would have to be excluded from the provisions of the bill. After careful study and after considering many of the amendments, some of them in identical form with those now being offered by individual Senators, the majority of the committee came to the conclusion that it was impossible to provide specific exemptions for industries which were seasonal in character, and therefore entitled to exemption, without emasculating the provisions of the bill, and without extending the exemptions to many related activities which obviously should come within the purview of the proposed legislation.

Therefore, the committee provided that the board should have power to grant exemptions and to make exceptions for seasonal industries, after a proper showing had been made before the board that they were entitled to such exception or exemption.

The difficulty in attempting to write specific exemptions into the bill on the fioor in the form of amendments is that in many instances the amendments will be so drawn that in their application they will grant exemptions to many operations to which, if the bill is to be enacted at all, it should apply. Take, for instance, the amendment which is now under consideration. When the junior Senator from North Carolina offered the amendment I asked him whether employment in tobacco warehouses was seasonal in character, and he stated that it was.

However, the Senator from Kentucky pointed out the fact that many warehouses in his State employ their personnel upon a yearly basis; and it was upon his suggestion that the Senator from North Carolina accepted the language providing that tobacco-warehouse employees shall be exempted from the provisions of this bill only in cases where their employment is of a seasonal character. The senior Senator from Louisiana [Mr. OVERTON] suggested, and the Senator from North Carolina has accepted as part of his amendment, the exemption of cotton gins and cotton-compressing establishments. Of course I am not as familiar with the operation of the compressing plants, if I may use that term, in connection with cotton as are the Senators from cotton-producing States. Nevertheless, I have visited cotton-compressing establishments; and they operated, according to my observation, exactly as a manufacturing plant would operate.

Mr. CONNALLY. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. LA FOLLETTE. I yield.

Mr. CONNALLY. Is the Senator now referring to a cotton gin?

Mr. LA FOLLETTE. I am referring to establishments where cotton is compressed into bales.

Mr. CONNALLY. That is done first in gins and then the cotton is recompressed in compresses.

Mr. LA FOLLETTE. I am now discussing the compress.

Mr. CONNALLY. I will say to the Senator from Wisconsin that during the cotton season the operation of the compresses are very largely seasonal, but of course they maintain a skeleton organization the year around, because a little cotton may drift in. Naturally their work is done during the cotton season, which is 3 or 4 months, because it is then that the great volume of cotton is moving; but, of course, they do some compressing throughout the year.

Mr. LA FOLLETI'E. The information I obtained at the particular compress I visited was that there was a seasonal peak when a large force was employed and the compress operated 24 hours a day, but that during the off-season there was a sufficient amount of work to do, so that the machinery was in operation usually throughout the year.

Mr. CONNALLY. Mr. President, will the Senator further yield?

Mr. LA FOLLETTE. I yield.

Mr. CONNALLY. I do not think that statement is quite accurate. After the completion of the seasonal work the compresses lay off most of their employees. They may operate 1 day a week when cotton comes in, but they do not work every day. At the ports the condition is a little different. At Galveston and Houston and the other great ports some compresses probably have enough to do to operate the year around, because the cotton comes there to be shipped, and it must be compressed before it is shipped.

Mr. LA FOLLETTE. I accept the information furnished by the Senator from Texas, and I appreciate it. However, it helps to illustrate the point I was trying to make, namely, that it is very difficult, without thorough examination, without sufficient testimony and data, to ascertain on the floor of the Senate what particular processors should be allowed an exemption on the ground that their work is seasonal in character, and which ones obviously should come within the purview of the bill if the bill is to be applied to such establishments at all.

Mr. MINTON. Mr. President—

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. BURKE in the chair). Does the Senator from Wisconsin yield to the Senator from Indiana?

Mr. LA FOLLETTE. I yield.

Mr. MINTON. I wonder if the Senator from Wisconsin does not have the same idea about the amendment that I had when it was offered. It was my understanding that the amendment offered by the Senator from Oregon [Mr. McNARY] was not offered for the purpose of exempting seasonal employees from the provisions of the bill, but that it was rather to exempt packers and processors during a season when they were engaged in processing and packing perishable goods. It was in the interest of saving perishable goods rather than in the interest of taking seasonal employees from under the provisions of the bill that the amendment was suggested in the beginning. Is that not true?

Mr. LA FOLLETI'E. That was my understanding of the purpose of the amendment offered by the senior Senator from Oregon. Of course, the Senator from Indiana will also bear in mind that the amendment applied only to the section empowering the board to limit hours under certain circumstances. Therefore, I do not think the amendment

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offered by the Senator from North Carolina, as he has modified it, is on all fours with the amendment offered by the Senator from Oregon which the Senate has adopted.

The appeal I wish to make to Senators who believe in the objectives which the bill seeks to attain and who intend to support it is that in our desire to take care of certain particular situations which, as they are presented, may seem appealing, we shall not incorporate in the bill language which will go beyond the intent even of those who have offered the amendments and take from the purview of the bill operations which are really essentially industrial in character, which are continuous, and which, if the bill is to apply to any operations, certainly should apply to those in the category to which I have just referred.

Therefore, Mr. President, I hope the Senator from North Carolina will withdraw his amendment and permit an opportunity to be afforded to some of those who have served on the committee and who have given their time and effort to the consideration of the bill, to confer with the Senator and see if we cannot bring the amendment into harmony with the principles upon which the amendment offered by the Senator from Oregon was predicated.

Mr. DIETERICH. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. LA FOLLETTE. I yield.

Mr. DIETERICH. I have offered an amendment, which is printed and is on the desk. I was very much interested in hearing what the Senator said about the committee considering the amendment offered by the Senator from North Carolina and seeing if some reasonable solution could not be reached as to what the exemptions in the bill should be. I wonder if the Senator would not be willing to extend the same privilege to me and if he is willing not to press action upon the amendment until I shall have had an opportunity to confer with him.

Mr. LA FOLLETTE. I realize that I am making an unusual request; but the amendment of the Senator from North Carolina was offered from the floor and we had no opportunity to see it in printed form. Since then it has been modified by suggestions made by other Senators. It occurred to me that if the Senator was willing to withdraw his amendment temporarily, if that suggestion appeals to him, perhaps we could bring it into harmony with the principles upon which is based the amendment offered by the Senator from Oregon, which has already been adopted.

Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. LA FOLLETTE. I yield.

Mr. REYNOLDS. I am wondering when we shall reach a vote upon the bill itself. I make that inquiry for the reason that I should like to ascertain whether or not I shall have an opportunity to talk to the members of the committee on this subject before a final vote is reached, if the Senator from Wisconsin desires to discuss the subject matter of the amendment.

Mr. LA FOLLETTE. I was not suggesting a meeting of the committee for the purpose of considering the amendment.

Mr. REYNOLDS. No; that is not what I thought. I understood the Senator to suggest that the Senator from North Carolina confer with members of the committee on the subject.

Mr. WHITE. Mr. President, a parliamentary inquiry.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator will state it.

Mr. WHITE. Is the situation such that the Senator from North Carolina may withdraw his amendment without unanimous consent? Has he the right at this time to withdraw the amendment?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Yes; it may be withdrawn at any time by the Senator offering it.

Mr. LA FOLLE'ITE. Mr. President, I do not wish to press the suggestion any further, but it occurred to me that if the Senator from North Carolina was willing to withdraw his amendment, it might be possible to bring it into harmony with the principles of the amendment offered by the Senator from Oregon.

Mr. WHITE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. LA FOLLETTE. I yield.

Mr. WHITE. If the amendment is to be withdrawn for the purpose of being considered by members of the committee, in connection with the consideration they give to it, I wish they would also give thought to a suggestion I should like to make, and that is that the words potato warehouses should be included in the amendment.

I know of no reasons for excepting tobacco warehouses from the provisions of the bill that do not equally obtain with respect to potato warehouses in many sections of the country. Some of the potato warehouses are seasonal in their operations, and some of them, I take it, are used all the year around. In connection with the warehouses that are seasonal in their use, I think the burden falls directly on the farmers of the country who produce potatoes, because I take it that the warehouse charges come out of the producer.

If the amendment is to be withdrawn, and the matter is to be considered further by the committee, I ask that consideration of potato warehouses also be given by the committee.

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, I do not care to make a statement, except to say that it would be impossible for the committee to meet and discuss this particular matter. The Senator may wish to withdraw his amendment, but if he wishes to have a vote on it I shall be glad to have it taken. So far as I am concerned, I should much prefer that we go ahead and vote. Let potato warehouses and all others be added to the amendment. We can then vote on them all in one basket.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendment offered by the Senator from North Carolina, as modified, to the amendment reported by the committee in the nature of a substitute.

Mr. WALSH. Mr. President, I ask that the amendment be stated.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment to the amendment will be stated.

The CHIEF CLERK. At the proper point in the amendment reported by the committee it is proposed to insert the following:

The provisions of this act shall not apply to tobacco warehouses, cotton compresses, cotton warehouses, cotton ginning and baling, their employers or employees, where the employment is seasonal in character.

Mr. DIETERICH. Mr. President, In response to the suggestion of the Senator from Alabama [Mr. BLACKJ that he is willing to have all the amendments voted on at the same time, I will say that I do not think that will be satisfactory to Members of the Senate who are in good faith offering amendments, and who have no intention whatever of weakening or emasculating the bill.

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Illinois yield to the Senator from Alabama?

Mr. DIETERICH. I yield.

Mr. BLACK. The Senator evidently was not present when I discussed this question some moments ago. The idea is, as I said then, that if there is going to be a special exemption from the proposed law of one type of activity, it should include, as a matter of justice, every other similar type of activity in the Nation. Therefore, I think that they should all be placed in one amendment, if that is to be done.

Mr. DIETERICH. Mr. President, the presumption would obtain from the Senator's statement that all suggested exceptions would be of the same class and entitled to the same consideration consistent with the spirit and the purpose of this bill. I do not believe that such a presumption can be indulged. Throughout, I think, my entire State there are little concerns which are not necessarily cooperative but are community affairs, such as small canning factories here and there, which the community has encouraged. The actual canning process of the vegetables and the other farm products that are processed by those small canning factories involves no item of labor employment of any importance. The canning places operate for a short duration and they do not attract labor to the particular locality. The labor is performed

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by local residents, by members of various families who are able to participate in the work rather as a harvesttime activity and for the sake of obtaining pin money. It occurs to me that the exemption of an institution of that kind could well be made without at all running counter to the purposes of this bill. The benefit is to the farmer of the vicinity.

For instance, some localities have establishments that can corn. The season is only 2 or 3 weeks in duration. Of cmrrse, the corn must be harvested and must be processed during the harvest season.

The benefit to the community accrues in large part from the fact that the canning factories furnish the farmers a market for their com. A large acreage is devoted to the raising of the particular kind of com which is canned, and the corn is brought to the canning factories in the form of roasting ears. The benefit is mainly to the farmer, only a very minor part of it accruing to those employed during the harvest season in the canning factories.

As I say, these small canning operations do not attract any outside labor. The labor item is not important. There is no one in the community wholly or in any substantial way dependent on labor of that kind. So, it occurs to me, an exemption might well be made of such establishments without doing any violence to this bill or without in any way destroying its purposes.

Mr. BORAH. Mr. President, I desire to make a parliamentary inquiry.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator will state it.

Mr. BORAH. If an amendment has been adopted by a viva-voce vote may a Senator, if he chooses, enter a motion to reconsider the vote?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Any Senator may do so within the 2-day time limit.

Mr. BORAH. The amendment of the Senator from North Carolina [Mr. REYNOLDS] with reference to limiting the operation of this bill to employers who employ 10 or a less number of employees was adopted this morning by a viva-voce vote. Since that time I have received some communications that justify me in now entering a motion to reconsider the vote by which that amendment was adopted. I shall not ask that the motion be acted upon this evening, unless the bill shall be acted upon today, because I desire some further information, but I wish at this time to enter a motion to reconsider the vote by which that amendment was adopted.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motion will be entered.

Mr. BARKLEY. Mr. President, during the last day or two I have conferred with the Senator from Oregon [Mr. McNARY] and other Senators on both sides of the Chamber looking toward a possible limitation of debate during the further consideration of the pending bill. I do not wish to shut off any legitimate debate, but I think that we ought to be making progress toward a culmination of the discussion. I had hoped, I will say frankly, that if we could finish the bill this afternoon, and possibly make the housing bill the unfinished business, the Senate might recess over until Monday. That cannot be done if we cannot conclude the consideration of this bill today.

We all realize that there is an anxiety to wind up our business here at the earliest possible moment: I am sure that no Senator on either side wishes to prolong the debate; and I wish to say that up to this hour I do not think any Senator has spoken for that purpose, for the debate, as I said yesterday, has been on a very high plane and has been very instructive. I should like, however, to feel out the situation to see whether or not we may not, by unanimous consent, agree that from now on during the remainder of the consideration of the pending bill no Senator shall speak more than once nor longer than 15 minutes on the bill or any amendment thereto.

Mr. McNARY. Mr. President, I have just returned to the Senate Chamber, and have not bad an opportunity to confer with Senators on this side of the aisle. I think we have been progressing along rather rapid and considerate lines. I do not feel at this time that I would be willing to enter into an agreement of the kind suggested by the Senator from Kentucky. If there should seem to be a disposition to prolong the consideration of the bill beyond the time which ought to be given to it, I should be very glad to cooperate with the Senator.

Mr. BARKLEY. In that connection, I hope the Senator will confer with his colleagues with a view to arranging that kind of an agreement.

Mr. McNARY. I think, Mr. President, that no speeches have been made which have not, more or less, thrown light upon the subject, and most of those have come, I will say, from the Democratic side in opposition to the bill.

Mr. BARKLEY. Most of the speeches which shed light on a subject come from the Democratic side. Therefore, I am not in a position to dispute the observation of the Senator from Oregon.

Mr. McNARY. I said the speeches in opposition to the bill.

Mr. BORAH. Mr. President, I understand that no agreement has been made this afternoon?

Mr. BARKLEY. Not at this moment.

Mr. BORAH. Will one be made today?

Mr. BARKLEY. It is for each individual Senator to determine what the Senate will do today.

Mr. WALSH. Mr. President, I hope the Senator from Idaho [Mr. BORAH] will at a suitable time press his motion to reconsider the vote by which the amendment of the Senator from North Carolina [Mr. REYNOLDS] was adopted. Every Member of the Senate agrees that persons engaged in seasonal occupations in perishable goods should be exempted from the operations of the bill, but the amendment of the Senator from North Carolina would exempt about 200,000 wage earners who may have the misfortune to be working in sweatshops where there are less than 10 people employed.

If this bill has any merit whatsoever, it is that it seeks to provide a living minimum wage for the men and women who work in sweatshops. Unfortunately, while I do not think it is so intended by the Senator from North Carolina, the exemption proposed by him will mean that in the great city of New York and in Boston and Chicago where sweatshops are operated—not in the South; that may be said to the credit of the South—in which now from, say, 50 to 75 people are employed in garment making and in other sweatshop activities, the owners of the business will suddenly and unexpectedly bring about a division of ownership, so that there will be 9 people in 10 different shops, and the legitimate, decent, and respectable employer, who is willing to abide by the terms of this bill, and who employs 75 people, will be penalized and be the victim of chiseling by the employer who is in competition with him and who seeks to evade the provisions of this bill, if it shall be enacted.

The Committee on Finance has been devoting weeks to the effort to prevent evasion of the tax laws. The amendment to which I have referred, if finally adopted, would permit evasion of the proposed law and would put employers having seven, eight, or nine employees in competition with the legitimate employer.

Mr. WAGNER. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. WALSH. I yield.

Mr. WAGNER. Would not the effect of the amendment be that the character of competition which we are seeking to prevent, namely, exploitation as against efficiency, would continue, because the small sweatshop, employing just a few persons, would continue to pay low wages in competition with the employer who pays reasonable wages?

Mr. WALSH. The Senator from New York is absolutely correct. If this bill, Mr. President, has any merit at all, if it has any justification for favorable action by the Congress of the United States, it is that it is designed to protect and prevent the exploitation of men and women wage earners working in small establishments. Those working in establishments having less than 10 employees number approximately 200,000. The bill is on the theory that such workers cannot organize, cannot enjoy collective bargaining, cannot have the benefit of the large units of employees who

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an orgariize and bring the pressure of a great labor organization to bear against the employer in order to obtain decent wages and reasonable hours of employment.

This amendment would have no business whatever to be here if it dealt only with the large units of industry in which a large number of wage earners are employed, because the organizations of such workers are so virile and so alert that they are capable of taking care of themselves. The theory upon which the bill has merit, in my opinion, is that small-wage earners in small industries scattered all over the country in competition with large industries, because of their locality, because of the fact they cannot organize, because of the objections of their employers to organized labor unions, have no power of asserting their human right to social justice.

What is social justice? Social justice means that we as legislators should extend to the unfortunate human beings those social rights which they could demand if they had the power of unity of action. Social justice means that government will take a hand in helping to uphold and support individuals and small groups of individuals who have not the power of pressure possessed by labor organizations.

I, for one, cannot agree that we should exempt from the protection of the bill the small number of employees who are engaged in seasonal work, but engaged in working 52 hours a week. Such wage earners are as much entitled to the application of the principles of. social justice and the application of the principle of a decent living wage and the application of the principle of reasonable hours of emloyment as are the mass employees in the great centers of population of the country.

I, for one, hope, when the matter of reconsideration comes up, that we will give thought to that fact, and prevent the abuse which is as certain to follow as that the sun shines. I can see the situation now. Senators can visualize the kind of men who operate sweatshops in the great cities of the country suddenly dividing their 60 or 70 or 80 employees into units of 8 or 9, with a brother-in-law or cousin or aunt or uncle in alleged ownership of the establishment, and thus evading and escaping the application of the law; then sending their goods into the central markets in competition with large employers who obey and respect the law.

Mr. BORAH. Mr. President, may I suggest that the Senator might move to reconsider the vote by which the amendment was adopted? I merely entered the motion.

Mr. WALSH. Very well. I move that the Senate reconsider the vote by which the amendment of the Senator from North Carolina [Mr. REYNOLDS] was adopted.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. An amendment offered by the Senator from North Carolina [Mr. REYNOLDS] is pending, and a motion to reconsider is not in order at the moment.

Mr. WALSH. Very well; I will submit it at a later time.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendment of the Senator from North Carolina.

Mr. HARRISON. Mr. President, let us have the amendment reported from the desk.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment Will be read again.

The LEGISLATIVE CLERK. At the proper place in the bill it is proposed to insert the following:

The provisions of this act shall not apply to tobacco warehouses, cotton compresses, cotton warehouses, cotton ginning and baling, their employers or employees, where the employment 1s seasonal in character.

Mr. WALSH. Mr. President, would the distinguished Senator from North Carolina be willing to incorporate in the amendment a provision to the effect that if the board created under this act finds that the employment is seasonal, and so forth?

Mr. REYNOLDS. My understanding from the Senator's address is that he is in favor of the exemption of seasonal employment.

Mr. WALSH. I have said I am in favor of the exemption of seasonal employment, but I do not know whether or not the Senator's amendment relates strictly to seasonal employment. I do not want to have incorporated in the bill a provision classifying these occupations as seasonal unless they are seasonal.

Mr. REYNOLDS. They are seasonal.

Mr. WALSH. How many months a year do these employees work?

. Mr. REYNOLDS. I should say 3 months would be the maximum amount of time.

Mr. WALSH. My objection is based on the viewpoint that all seasonal occupations ought to be exempted, especially from the hours of labor provisions, but I have some doubt whether these particular occupations are seasonal. I will take the Senator's word. If he says that in no case do these employees work more than from 3 to 6 months a year, I will accept his judgment.

Mr. REYNOLDS. I am sure in most instances none of the workers are employed more than 3 months. Senators from those sections of the South involved know that these workers are engaged actually not more than 3 months.

Mr. WALSH. Unfortunately, I am not from that section of the country. May I ask the Senator from Alabama [Mr. BLACK] whether he is in accord with the statement of the Senator from North Carolina?

Mr. BARKLEY. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. REYNOLDS. I yield.

Mr. BARKLEY. The amendment of the Senator from North Carolina as originally offered simply exempted tobacco workers from the operation of the provisions of the bill. I called to his attention that there are in my State some tobacco workers, that, while most of them are seasonal, yet some operate for the greater part of the year because they do other things than simply to receive tobacco at a warehouse. At my suggestion the language was amended to provide that where the operation of the workers is not seasonal in character, the exemption should not apply.

Mr. WALSH. Then the suggestion made by me is equivalent to having the board itself ascertain the fact?

Mr. Mr. BARKLEY. I think so. Of course, if in any case the operation should not be seasonal but annual, it would not be exempt, and the board would have charge of that.

Mr. MINTON. Mr. President, may I ask the Senator from Massachusetts a question?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from North Carolina yield to the Senator from Indiana for that purpose?

Mr. REYNOLDS. Certainly.

Mr. MINTON. Is the Senator from Massachusetts in favor of exempting employees notwithstanding the fact that they are not engaged in what might strictly be construed to be seasonal occupation? For instance, would he apply the provisions of the bill to those engaged in the processing of products which might not be strictly seasonal?

Mr. WALSH. I am in favor of exempting from the rigid requirements of a 40-hour week all seasonal employees. I am not in favor of removing them from the requirement of having the board pass upon what shall be the minimum wage of the employees.

Mr. MINTON. If I correctly understand the Senator, he does not want to confine the exemption of employees to seasonal processings which do not involve perishable products. In other words, here is cotton, which is not perishable; then here is tobacco, which is not perishable. Yet in both cases they might be termed seasonal.

Mr. WALSH. They are not perishable, but they are seasonal. In my own State of Massachusetts fish are caught and brought to the shore at the city of Gloucester, where canning and other packing factories take charge of them and handle them, of course while they are fresh. This business is carried on throughout the year. It is seasonal to the extent that, when one shipload of fish comes in, the factory

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begins operations, and then does not operate again until another cargo of fish comes in. It would seem to me that packers and canners and others carrying on a year-around business should not be exempted from the provisions of the bill. But employees engaged in seasonal occupational work on perishable products clearly should be exempt.

Mr. MINTON. What I had in mind when the amendment was first offered was that it was intended to exempt only perishable products; that it was the intention to help those who raise the perishable products, to enable them to save their products from waste in order that they might be packed.

Mr. WALSH. The Senator is correct. The Senator has raised a very fine and proper distinction. These operations should be exempted because it is necessary to operate quickly and work long hours to handle the products while they are fresh and before they spoil. However, in the case of nonperishable products, such as tobacco and cotton, there is no reason for exempting them from the provisions of the b1ll, in my judgment.

Mr. WAGNER. Mr. President, I am not going to weary the Senate with more talk upon this subject, because I expressed my views fully yesterday.

The point I desire to raise, and it involves a legal question, is this: In creating these specific exemptions we must be careful not to void by Federal entry into the field any State laws which might impose restrictions upon these seasonal industries. I know that a number of States do impose limitations as to hours, even for seasonal industries. I therefore ask those who want an unlimited number of hours for seasonal industries under this bill to accept at least the proviso that wherever a State law imposes a limitation of hours upon the industries involved, such State law shall not be affected adversely by our action under this bill.

Mr. GLASS. Mr. President, the Senator is a lawyer and he knows that we cannot repeal a State statute.

Mr. WAGNER. Of course, we cannot; but many of these industries—

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield to me, I think we can obviate this discussion.

Mr. WAGNER. I yield.

Mr. BLACK. The bill already contains a saving clause with reference to State laws. Wherever there is a State law or a municipal regulation regulating hours, and those hours are a less number per week than as provided in this bill or under the orders made in pursuance of this bill, the State or municipal regulation governs; and the same thing is true with reference to wages.

Mr. WAGNER. The chances are that that will take care of the situation. I will say to the distinguished Senator from Virginia [Mr. GLASS] that State laws apply even to interstate commerce within the State so long as there is no Federal regulation. But the moment we initiate a Federal regulation which is in conflict with the State law, the Federal rule prevails.

Mr. GLASS. That I understand; but we cannot here make, except in matters of interstate commerce, any law that will control the States.

Mr. WAGNER. I did not say that we could, Mr. President. In fact, I said that even in the case of industries in interstate commerce, so long as the Federal Government made no regulation, the State restrictions would apply.

Mr. GLASS. Exactly.

Mr. WAGNER. What I was fearful of was that by adopting these amendments we might interfere with humane State legislation, but I am satisfied by the explanation of the Senator from Alabama that the matter is amply safeguarded 1n the bill as now drawn.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the modified amendment offered by the Senator from North Carolina [Mr. REYNOLDS] to the amendment reported by the committee in the nature of a substitute.

The modified amendment of Mr. REYNOLDs was as follows:

LXXXI---498

The provisions of this act shall not apply to tobacco ware-houses, cotton compresses, cotton warehouses, cotton ginning and baling, their employers or employees where the employment is seasonal in character.

Mr. HARRISON. I call for the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered, and the legislative clerk called the roll.

Mr. LEWIS. I announce the general pair of the Senator from West Virginia [Mr. HoLT] with the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. SMATHERS].

I also announce that the Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. DUFFY], the Senator from Georgia [Mr. RUSSELL], and the Senator from Vermont [Mr. GIBSON] are absent from the Senate in the performance of duty as members of the committee to attend the dedication of the battle monuments in France.

The Senator from Washington [Mr. BONE], the Senator from Arkansas [Mrs. CARAWAY], the Senator from Ohio [Mr. DONAHEY], the Senator from West Virginia [Mr. HOLT], the Senator from Nevada [Mr. PITTMAN], and the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. SMATHERS] are unavoidably detained from the Senate.

Mr. AUSTIN. I announce the general pair of the Senator from Vermont [Mr. GIBSON] with the Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. DUFFY].

The roll call resulted-yeas 40, nays 40, as follows:

YEAS—40

NAYS—40

NOTVOTING—15

The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this question the yeas are 40, the nays are 40. The modified amendment to the committee amendment is, therefore, rejected.

Mr. WALSH. Mr. President, I now move that the Senate reconsider the vote of approval recently registered upon the amendment of the Senator from North Carolina providing that employers who employ less than 10 employees shall not be subject to the proposed law. I ask for the yeas and nays upon the motion.

Mr. BARKLEY. Mr. President, I ask the Senator whether we may not have the vote reconsidered, and then have the yeas and nays on the amendment itself? I ask unanimous consent that the vote by which the amendment was agreed to be reconsidered.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? The Chair hears none, and the vote is reconsidered.

The question now is on agreeing to the amendment offered by the Senator from North Carolina [Mr. REYNOLDS] to the amendment of the committee.

Mr. ASHURST and Mr. McKELLAR requested that the amendment be stated.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment will be stated.

The CHIEF CLERK. It is proposed to insert, on page 64, after line 3, the following:

The provisions of this act shall not apply to any individual, firm, association, or corporation employing 10 or fewer than 10 persons.

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The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this question the yeas and nays have been requested. Is the demand seconded?

The yeas and nays were ordered, and the roll was called.

Mr. LEWIS. I announce that the Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. DUFFY] and the Senator from Georgia [Mr. RUSSELL] are absent from the Senate in the performance of duty as members of the committee to attend the dedication of the battle monuments in France.

The Senator from Arkansas [Mrs. CARAWAY], the Senator from Ohio [Mr. DONAHEY], the Senator from West Virginia [Mr. HOLT], the Senator from Nevada [Mr. PITTMAN], and the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. SMATHERS] are unavoidably detained from the Senate.

The Senator from West Virginia [Mr. HOLT] has a general pair with the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. SMATHERS].

Mr. AUSTIN. The Senator from Vermont [Mr. GIBSON] has a general pair with the Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. DUFFY].

The result was announced-yeas 31, nays 52, as follows:

YEAS—31

NAYS—52

NOT VOTING—52

So Mr. REYNOLDs' amendment to the amendment of the committee was rejected.

Mr. McGILL. Mr. President, I offer an amendment, and ask that it be reported from the desk.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will state the amendment.

The LEGISLATIVE CLERK. On page 51, line 13, after the word farmer, it is proposed to insert the words or on a farm, and on line 14, page 51, after the word operations, it is proposed to insert a comma and the words including delivery to market.

Mr. McGILL. Mr. President, the purpose of the amendment is to broaden the definition of employee as applied to agriculture. I can readily see how some have construed the language of the bill to mean that one who operates a thrashing machine outfit and employs a crew and is employed by a farmer to thrash his wheat might be included under the provisions of the bill. Likewise, those who are ngaged in harvesting and delivering to market might be included. It is my understanding, although no definite commitment has been made, that the amendment is not opposed by those in charge of the bill. If I am correct, I should like to have the amendment agreed to.

Mr. GEORGE. Mr. President, I ask that the amendment again be reported.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will state the amendment.

The amendment was again stated.

Mr. GEORGE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. McGILL. I yield.

Mr. GEORGE. Is it the purpose of the amendment to exempt those who thresh grain?

Mr. McGILL. Those who thresh grain, who harvest grain and deliver it to market.

Mr. GEORGE. Would the amendment also apply to the harvesting of any other crop?

Mr. McGILL. It would apply to any commodity produced on a farm.

Mr. GEORGE. Would it apply to peanut pickers who pick in the fields?

Mr. McGILL. Yes.

Mr. GEORGE. And who move peanuts to the market?

Mr. McGILL. Yes; that is my understanding.

Mr. GEORGE. I should like to ask the Senator from Alabama if that is his interpretation of the amendment.

Mr. BLACK. That is my interpretation of the amendment, and it is my belief that the bill as originally drawn covers what is now contained in the language of the amendment; but some Senators who were doubtful about it wished to draw a clarifying amendment.

Mr. GEORGE. I am sure it does not in fact do so, because the picking of peanuts and the harvesting of grain in my part of the country are done purely by contract with outsiders, who in a great many cases have no farm interest. What I want to get at is whether, in the opinion of the Senator from Alabama, the language of the amendment of the Senator from Kansas includes any field crop that is threshed, as in the case of grain, or picked, as in the case of peanuts in the field.

· Mr. BLACK. Unquestionably.

Mr. McGILL. I may say to the Senator from Georgia and other Senators that it is my object to make the language of the amendment broad enough to include all work done on a farm, so long as it is incidental to agricultural purposes.

Mr. GEORGE. And so long as it is merely preparatory and necessarily preparatory to the marketing of the field crop. Is that true?

Mr. McGILL. That is true; and the language would also include all labor performed in making delivery to market.

Mr. GEORGE. I thank the Senator.

Mr. COPELAND. Of course, that would take care of my apple man, about whom I have been worrying, would it not? It would take care of the farmer who takes his crop of apples to the market, would it not?

Mr. McGILL. That is correct.

Mr. COPELAND. I lost my apple man before.

Mr. McGILL. I hope it will take care of him.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendment offered by the Senator from Kansas [Mr. McGILL] to the amendment repclrted by the committee in the nature of a substitute.

The amendment to the amendment was agreed to.

Mr. BYRNES. Mr. President, I offer an amendment to the committee amendment, which I send to the desk and ask to have stated.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment to the amendment will be stated.

The CHIEF CLERK. In the committee amenmdent, on page 61, after line 12, it is proposed to add a new section, as follows:

The average minimum wage ordered by the board to be paid by private employers in any State shall be the minimum wage to be paid by the Works Progress Administration to its employees in that State.

Mr. BYRNES. Mr. President, during the consideration of the independent offices appropriation bill the Appropriations Committee considered the question whether or not there should be included in the bill an amendment providing that any minimum wage fixed in this bill should apply to the employees of the Works Progress Administration. I did not believe the appropriation bill was the proper place to put such a provision. I did not think it should be included in the appropriation bill. It was our thought that if such action was to be taken, it should await action by the Congress on this bill.

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Mr. President, the argument that is used for this bill is that it is designed to protect unorganized laborers. If that is to be done, certainly there is no larger or more helpless group than that composed of those who are employed by the Works Progress Administration. They are not organized. They cannot be successfully organized. If a minimum wage is to be ordered to be paid by employers within the States, I think the same minimum wage should be paid by the Works Progress Administration. I know what will be the effect of establishing a minimum wage in many respects.

Mr. CONNALLY. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. BYRNES. I yield.

Mr. CONNALLY. Am I to understand the Senator's amendment to provide the payment of the same minimum wages that would be paid by the Works Progress Administration?

Mr. BYRNES. It would require the Works Progress Administration to pay the minimum wages that the board determines shall be paid. The provision of the amendment is just the reverse of what the Senator has stated.

Mr. CONNALLY. I understood to the contrary.

Mr. BYRNES. No. Mr. President, I hope no misunderstanding exists with reference to the amendment.

Mr. KING. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. BYRNES. I yield.

Mr. KING. I may not quite understand the position of the Senator from South Carolina; but if it attempts to yoke this bill to the Works Progress Administration, it seems to me that would be a mistake, because the Works Progress Administration is an ephemeral organization, and the board now proposed to be set up by the bill is to be one in perpetuity.

Mr. BYRNES. No yoking is provided in the amendment. Members of the Senate know that the Works Progress Administration, after an investigation, has established a schedule of wages which is the cause of continued complaint by various States and various sections. The unskilled wage runs all the way from $21.16 per month in Mississippi to $60.50 in New York. In practically every State there is a different wage for unskilled labor.

All that my amendment does is to provide that if, in the State of South Carolina or Georgia, for instance, the board shall hereafter conclude that a minimum wage of 40 cents per hour should be paid by private employers as the minimum upon which an employee can live, then the average for the State—for the board might fix one minimum wage for one industry and another minimum wage for another industry—the average for the State, fixed by the board after its investigation as provided for in the bill, shall be adopted by another department of the Government as the minimum wage to be paid to employees of that department of the Government.

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. BYRNES. I yield.

Mr. BLACK. The Senator from Georgia [Mr. RUSSELL] offered an amendment to the Works Progress Administration appropriation, as I recall, which I thought was adopted, which carried into that bill the idea of the pending amendment. Is that correct?

Mr. BYRNES. The amendment was not adopted. I will say to the Senator that we were of the opinion that it should be adopted; but it was finally determined in conference that the matter should await the consideration of the bill now pending, and that this would be the proper place to consider the subject instead of placing the amendment on the appropriation bill.

Mr. BLACK. The amendment now before us is the same, as I recall, as that which the Senate adopted in connection with the appropriation bill.

Mr. BYRNES. Its purpose is exactly the same, as I said at the outset. It was first offered by the Senator from Georgia [Mr. RUSSELL] and was considered by the Appropriations Committee. By reason of his appointment by the Senate on a special committee, he is now necessarily absent. I am satisfied that if he were present he would offer the amendment to this bill as he did at the time he previously offered it.

Mr. BLACK. As I recall, that amendment was unanimously adopted by the Senate, was it not?

Mr. BYRNES. I do not recall whether it was or not, but it was adopted by the Senate; and, I understand from the Senator from Georgia, that in conference it was eliminated for the reason that the conferees thought the matter should await action in connection with the bill now before us.

Mr. BLACK. I may say to the Senator that I voted for the amendment when the Senator from Georgia offered it, and the Committee on Education and Labor has not been called upon to act upon it; so I have no authority to speak for the committee with respect to it.

Mr. BYRNES. I hope the Senator will accept the amendment.

Mr. BLACK. I will say that I voted for it when it was offered by the Senator from Georgia.

Mr. BYRNES. I hope the Senator will agree to its adoption.

Mr. BARKLEY. Mr. President, I should like to have the situation clear before we decide how we shall vote on this amendment.

It seems to me the situation in relation to the amendment offered on the relief bill was entirely different from that which now presents itself to the Senate. Under this bill the board is authorized to establish a minimum wage. The Works Progress Administration is not engaged in general industry. It is not engaged in general industrial employment. The wages paid by the Works Progress Administration are wages paid in the main on public improvements of various sorts, and they may not have any relationship at all to what ought to be the minimum wage or the average wage in private industry. If we undertake to fix a minimum wage with respect to lumber or flour mills, or sawmills, or shoe factories, or clothing factories, or shirt factories, or any other average type of private industry, certainly the average minimum wage paid by the Works Progress Administration, it seems to me, would not have any relationship whatever to such wage.

Mr. BYRNES. Let me say to the Senator from Kentucky—and I think he overlooked it—that the Congress took exactly the opposite position and provided in one of the previous appropriation bills, after a very strenuous fight led by the Senator from Nevada [Mr. McCARRANl, that the wage paid by the Works Progress Administration should follow the prevailing wage rate. The Administrator has been endeavoring, according to a statement made by him to the Appropriations Committee, to follow the prevailing wage rate.

r. BARKLEY. That provision had application only to the prevailing wage rate paid in the community for similar or like work.

Mr. BYRNES. Yes.

Mr. BARKLEY. But where the Works Progress Administration, through the agency of a school board, is building a high school or a bridge or a hospital or repairing sidewalks, or doing any other nature of public work, it seems to me there is no way by which to measure what ought to be the average minimum wage in those employments as compared with any private industry in which the Works Progress Administration is not engaged.

Mr. BYRNES. I suggest to the Senator that we discussed that matter in the committee at the time, and a table was then incorporated in the hearings which I should like to have printed in the RECORD as a part of my remarks. The table was submitted by the Director. In it he gives the wage for unskilled labor, intermediate labor, skilled labor, and professional labor. This bill bas reference solely to the minimum wage, which is the unskilled wage. Four grades are fixed by the Works Progress Administration—unskilled, intermediate, skilled, and professional.

I ask that the table to which I have referred may be printed in the RECORD at this point.

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[PAGE 7890]

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. McGILL in the chair). Without objection, it is so ordered.

[NOTE: Insert the table "TABLE XVI.-Average assigned monthly wage rates of security wage workers employed on Works Progress Administration projects, by wage rate regions and. States, and by wage classes, June 1936

Mr. BYRNES. I may say that before the committee the director stated at the time that it was his thought that if this bill were enacted into law the minimum wage of the W. P. A. should be made to correspond to the wage fixed by this bill.

Mr. BARKLEY. Is it not true that the amendment of the Senator, if adopted, would completely nullify the minimum of 40 cents an hour fixed by the bill?

Mr. BYRNES. On the contrary, it would have just the opposite effect. Certainly its purpose is not as the Senator from Kentucky suggests.

Mr. BARKLEY. If it should happen that in any community or any State or over the country, as a whole, that the minimum was not so much as 40 cents an hour, then, the provisions of the Senator's amendment would supersede the 40-cent rate?

Mr. BYRNES. Oh, no. I can see now why the Senator has not immediately approved the amendment. All that the amendment provides is that whenever the board fixes a minimum wage of 40 cents an hour, then the Works Progress Administration must pay to the same unskilled labor 40 cents an hour.

Mr. BARKLEY. I evidently have the thing backwards.

Mr. BYRNES. The Senator had it in reverse.

Mr. BARKLEY. I thought it was the other way around, that the board would have to pay whatever rate was fixed by the Works Progress Administration.

Mr. BYRNES. The sole purpose is to make sure if one arm of the Government created by this bill establishes as a minimum wage, upon which human beings can live under a reasonable standard, 40 cents an hour, that we should not then permit the Government itself, after requiring the Senator from Kentucky, say, to pay 40 cents an hour to go into his community and pay 20 cents an hour.

Mr. BARKLEY. With that interpretation of the amendment, having been mistaken in my interpretation of it, I see no objection to the amendment.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendment proposed by the Senator from South Carolina [Mr. BYRNES].

The amendment was agreed to.

Mr. MURRAY. Mr. President, I offer an amendment and ask that it be stated.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment to the committee amendment will be stated.

The CHIEF CLERK. In the amendment reported by the committee, on page 52, line 12, it is proposed to strike out the words by or under and insert in lieu thereof and held pursuant to.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendment offered by the Senator from Montana to the amendment reported by the committee.

Mr. MURRAY. Mr. President, the amendment pertains to the definition of oppressive child labor. After giving the definition, the section proceeds as follows:

But oppressive child labor shall not be deemed to exist by virtue of the employment in any occupation, of any person with respect to whom the employer shall have on file a certificate issued by or under the regulation of the Chief of the Children's Bureau certifying that such person is above the oppressive child-labor age.

It will be seen at a glance while at the time of the issuance of the certificates the particular employer may have been complying with the requirements that later on he may not be complying. Therefore this amendment is proposed so that the certificate would not only be issued but would be held pursuant to the regulation of the Chief of the Children's Bureau. In other words, it would be effective at all times. If the certificate ceases to be effective, it should not be a protection for an employer who is not complying with the provisions of the law. That is the only purpose of the amendment.

I have called it to the attention of other members of the committee, and they do not appear to have any objection to it.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendment offered by the Senator from Montana to the amendment in the nature of a substitute reported by the committee.

The. amendment to the amendrilent was agreed to.

Mr. MURRAY. I ask that the next amendment offered by me be stated.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment to the committee amendment will be stated.

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The CHIEF CLERK. In the committee amendment on page 68, line 5, it is proposed to strike out the word such and insert in lieu thereof the words industrial home work or of such other.

Mr. MURRAY. Mr. President, this provision has reference to the labor-standard orders that may be issued by the board. It is proposed by the amendment to include in paragraph (6) of section 9 the words industrial home work or such other, in order to prohibit industrial home work, which is one of the most serious evils in sweatshop practices. It seems to me that such a provision should be made in this bill. I do not assume that there will be any objection to it.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendment proposed by the Senator from Montana [Mr. MURRAY] to the amendment reported by the committee.

The amendment to the amendment was agreed to.

Mr. MURRAY. I ask that the next amendment offered by me be stated.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment to the committee amendment will be stated.

The CHIEF CLERK. In the amendment of the committee, on page 75, after line 7, it is proposed to strike out paragraph (c), as follows:

(c) Whenever the board deems necessary or appropriate to aid in the enforcement of, or to facilitate compliance with, the provisions of this act or the regulations thereunder, the board shall by regulation or order provide for the issuance of appropriate certificates of compliance to employers who the board finds are complying with the provisions of this act and the regulations and orders thereunder, and any person who shall in good faith purchase goods from or transport goods for any employer in reliance upon such certificate shall not be deemed to have any reason to believe that any substandard labor condition existed in the production of such goods.

And in lieu thereof to insert:

(c) No person other than the producer shall be prosecuted for the transportation, shipment. delivery, or sale of unfair goods who has secured a representation in writing from the person by whom the goods transported, shipped, or delivered were produced, resident in the United States, to the effect that such goods were not produced in violation of any provision of this act. If such representation contains any false statement of a material fact, the person furnishing the same shall be amenable to prosecution and to the penalties provided for the violation of the provisions of this act.

Mr. MURRAY. I will state the purpose of the amendment. The bill as it stands requires the board to make investigations throughout the country and iSsue appropriate certificates of compliance to employers who are complying with the act. It will be observed that it would be necessary for the board constantly to be carrying on investigations throughout the Nation. The purpose of this amendment is to place the burden upon the employer to issue a guaranty or warranty that he is complying with the act, and thereby relieve the board of the necessity of much administrative work which would require a large body of investigators. The adoption of the amendment would reduce the cost of the administration of the act and would also greatly simplify its administration.

I have called the amendment to the attention of several members of the committee and I assume that they have no objection to it.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendment offered by the Senator from Montana [Mr. MURRAY] to the amendment reported by the committee.

The amendment to the amendment was agreed to.

Mr. MURRAY. I ask that the next amendment offered by me be stated.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment to the committee amendment will be stated.

The CHIEF CLERK. In the committee amendment, on page 80, line 18, it is proposed to strike out the words supersede or,

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendment offered by the Senator from Montana [Mr. MURRAY] to the amendment reported by the committee.

The amendment to the amendment was agreed to.

Mr. MALONEY. Mr. President, I now offer the amendment heretofore submitted by me and which is on the clerk's desk.

Mr. COPELAND. Mr. President, will the Senator yield to me?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Connecticut yield to the Senator from New York?

Mr. MALONEY. I yield.

Mr. COPELAND. May I ask the chairman of the committee—I was compelled to be absent from the Senate Chamber yesterday—if any Senator brought up the question of porters and redcaps in railroad stations?

Mr. BLACK. I do not recall any question being raised as to red caps.

Mr. COPELAND. Let me call the attention of the Senate to the fact that porters and redcaps in railroad stations get absolutely no pay. They depend upon fees and tips received. They are, in a sense, employees of the station master; but, of course, if their hours of labor were to be limited, many of these poor chaps would starve to death. Is there anything in the bill that would permit anyone to interfere with the hours of labor of these colored workmen in the railroad stations?

Mr. BLACK. The bill excludes railroad employees who are governed by the railroad employees' law.

Mr. COPELAND. But these men are not so governed.

Mr. BLACK. Then the question would be whether or not the work is of such a character that they should be brought within the provisions of the bill.

Mr. COPELAND. If I had my way, I would have these men paid. I should be glad if they were paid the 40-centan-hour rate, but as a matter of fact they are not paid anything. They do not have $1 a week paid to them. They depend wholly upon tips, and yet they are employees of and under the discipline of the station master. The point I have in mind is, How could we proceed to give these men relief from the requirements and restrictions of the bill?

Mr. BLACK. They could be exempted if the Senate wanted to vote for their exemption. Personally, I should regret to see a particular exemption for this type of employees.

Mr. COPELAND. But they are perfectly helpless. They have no pay. They have to work ungodly hours, as do many of the taxi drivers, and others.

Mr. GEORGE. Mr. President, I should not think the men referred to by the Senator from New York would be considered as being employed by the stationmaster or the railroads. They are merely licensees or permittees, so to speak, and their employment is by each individual who hands them baggage, authorizing them to convey the baggage to or from a train. I should not think they would be employed by the railway company. They are piece workers for individuals who might desire their services and would not come within the meaning of the bill nor within the regulations imposed by the bill.

Mr. COPELAND. If they are not employed, of course, they would not come within the proviSions of the bill.

Mr. GEORGE. They are merely permitted by the railway companies or the stationmaster to serve there as porters. It seems to me they are not employed.

Mr: COPELAND. Then the record will show the matter was considered here, and that redcaps and porters of this type are not employed in the sense of the language used in the bill and therefore do not come under the requirements of the bill.

Mr. GEORGE. I should say that is correct.

Mr. McKELLAR. Mr. President, a parliamentary inquiry.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator will state it.

Mr. McKELLAR. As I understand, the amendment offered by the Senator from Connecticut [Mr. MALONEY] is in the nature of a substitute. I have two amendments which I want to offer to perfect the text of the substitute proposed by the committee. Would not they take precedence of the amendment of the Senator from Connecticut?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. In the opinion of the present occupant of the chair, the perfecting amendments to the

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committee substitute would take precedence over a substitute for the entire committee amendment.

Mr. McKELLAR. Then I offer an amendment to the committee amendment.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment to the amendment will be stated.

The CHIEF CLERK. In the committee amendment, on page 59, after line 13, it is proposed to insert the following:

(1a) Where transportation costs or freight rates are discriminatory against any locality or area.

Mr. McKELLAR. I do not believe there will be any objection to the amendment because it follows the language, In declaring such minimum wages the board shall consider among other relevant circumstances the following. Then follows cost of living and then comes my amendment relating to cost of transportation. I hope the amendment will be agreed to. I do not believe there should be any objection on the part of the committee. From what the chairman of the committee said the other day on the floor of the Senate, I take it that it is an amendment which should be adopted.

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, it is my own belief, as I said several days ago, that the bill as drawn and the standards set forth include the identical language contained in the amendment offered by the Senator from Tennessee.

Mr. McKELLAR. If that be the case, there is no reason why the amendment may not go into the bill, and I ask that it be agreed to.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the amendment of the Senator from Tennessee to the committee amendment is agreed to.

Mr. McKELLAR. I now offer another amendment to the committee amendment.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment to the amendment will be stated.

The CHIEF CLERK. In the committee amendment it is proposed, following the amendment just agreed to, to insert:

(1b) Local economic conditions.

Mr. McKELLAR. That is of the same nature, and I hope it will be agreed to.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the amendment to the committee amendment is agreed to.

Mr. MALONEY obtained the floor.

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, will the Senator from Connecticut yield to me a moment?

Mr. MALONEY. I yield.

Mr. BLACK. I have sought for some time to get an opportunity to have read at the desk a very short statement sent to me about noon by Mr. William Green, of the American Federation of Labor. I now ask unanimous consent to have it read. It is very brief.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the clerk will read, as requested.

The Chief Clerk read as follows:

The wage and hour bill in the form in which it is now before the Senate does not meet the expectations of labor. However, we recognize the need !or the enactment of wage and hour legislation. For that reason, rather than recommit the Senate bill for further committee consideration, it would seem advisable to pass the best wage and hour b111 possible in the Senate, with the hope that it can be revised and amended in the House in such a way as to make it more nearly satisfactory and acceptable to labor.

Several Senators addressed the Chair.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Connecticut yield; and if so, to whom?

Mr. MALONEY. Mr. President, I shall not yield at the moment, but I will yield as soon as I get permission to have the clerk read a communication from another official of the American Federation of Labor. I ask that the communication be read by the clerk.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the clerk will read, as requested.

The Chief Clerk read as follows:

WASHINGTON, D. C., July 30, 1937.

Hon. FRANCIS T. MALONEY.

United States Senator, Senate Office Building:

As a representative of the American Federation of Labor I am unalterably opposed to Senate bill 2475 in its present form. I am of the opinion your amendment will overcome my objections. If your amendment is not accept ed by your colleagues, may I urge you to vote to recommit the pending bill.

I. M. ORNBURN,

Secretary, Union Label Trades Department,

American Federation of Labor.

Mr. CONNALLY. Mr. President, will the Senator from Connecticut yield?

Mr. MALONEY. I yield

Mr. CONNALLY. I ask unanimous consent to have read at the desk another statement by some high officials of the American Federation of Labor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the clerk will read, as requested.

The legislative clerk read as follows:

The international unions of the building trades and the metal trades, speaking through the building trades department and the metal trades department, American Federation of Labor, believe that the Black-Cannery bill—the wage and hour b1ll—now before the Senate should be recommitted.

This measure, which so vitally affects labor, seeks to establish minimum wage rates and maximum hours of labor. With this purpose the two departments are in hearty and active approval. But the measure in its present form and with amendments which have been proposed would go much farther.

In its present form there is grave danger that it would materially interfere with and modify the Walsh-Healey bill, which has been of such great protection to labor standards.

There is as yet no clearly defined authority to be given the commission provided for in the measure.

There has been no adequate opportunity for consideration of the measure by labor or by the Senate.

It is the conviction of the building trades department and of the metal trades department, American Federation of Labor, that a measure of such far-reaching effect on labor should not be enacted until there has been an adequate opportunity for examination, consultation, and conference.

It is for these reasons that the two departments of the American Federation of Labor, whose members will be so vitally affected by any such measure, earnestly urge that the bill w1ll be recommitted so that the subject can receive the consideration which is so necessary under the circumstances.

JOHN P. FREY,

President, Metal Trades Department,

American Federation of Labor.

J. W. WILLIAMS,

President, Building Trades Department,

American Federation of Labor.

Mr. HARRISON. Mr. President, is the Senator from Connecticut about to offer an amendment in the nature of a substitute?

Mr. MALONEY. I am.

Mr. HARRISON. If the Senator will permit me, I have one or two amendments which I desire to offer to the bill before we reach the substitute. Of course, the offer of the substitute will not preclude my doing so; but before we are through I want to put the amendments in the bill if I can. I desire to ask whether we cannot arrange some time for the consideration of this matter tomorrow, so that we may continue then. I suppose nobody doubts that we can finish the bill tomorrow.

We have gone along very rapidly. Yesterday it was the understanding that we would go into executive session today so that we might dispose of the Social Security appointees; and there may be some discussion about them.

Mr. BARKLEY. I will state to the Senator that there was no agreement that we would have an executive session today. The agreement was that the nominations would be considered at the next executive session, whether today or at some other time. We are going along pretty well now; it is only a little after 4 o'clock and it is entirely possible that we may conclude the consideration of the bill today. If so, the chances are fairly favorable that we may have a recess until Monday. If, however, we cannot conclude the consideration of the bill today, we shall have to work tomorrow, if the Members of the Senate are willing to come back here tomorrow.

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Mr. HARRISON. I see no reason why we should not work tomorrow. If it is desired to discuss the matter further today, very well.

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, I should like to say that so far as I am concerned, I think we should finish the consideration of the bill tonight.

Mr. COPELAND. Mr. President, will the Senator from Connecticut yield to me?

Mr. MALONEY. I yield.

Mr. COPELAND. I have one or two matters that I desire to bring up in connection with the pending bill. I do not want to interfere at all with the Senator from Connecticut.

Mr. MALONEY. Mr. President, I should like to have a clear understanding as to the parliamentary situation. Is it compulsory, because my amendment is in the nature of a substitute for the amendment reported by the committee, that I await action upon any and all amendments that are proposed to the committee amendment?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair is advised by the Parliamentarian that under the rule, perfecting amendments to the committee substitute are first in order, after which a substitute for that substitute is in order. Therefore, perfecting amendments would take precedence over the Senator's substitute.

Mr. MALONEY. Then I yield the fioor.

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. President, I send to the desk an amendment to the committee amendment, which I ask to have stated.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment to the amendment will be stated.

The LEGISLATIVE CLERK. In the committee amendment, on page 51, line 3, after the word agricultur", it is proposed to insert a semicolon and the following:

Or any person whose compensation is paid upon a commission basis exclusively.

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. President, this bill has been greatly modified since hearings were first held upon it. As I understand, the chief purpose of the bill is to provide a process whereby minimum wages and maximum working hours in all industries of the Nation doing business through interstate commerce may be established.

The bill does not, in my judgment, attempt to fix wages and maximum hours of employment in all the small local business units of the country. In this respect, therefore, we have reason to expect that it will not be imposed on small business as was the National Recovery Act. If I am mistaken in this point, I should like to be corrected by those in charge of the bill, for I hold that this is an exceedingly important point.

One of the chief disastrous results of the National Recovery Act was the way in which it was administered so as to impose a blanket code on all of industry, irrespective of size or location.

I believe careful attention should be given to the phrase otherwise directly affecting interstate commerce in the first sentence of the first section. If this phrase will be interpreted by the board so as to include small business, I think we should know it now. I believe the Nation should have warning of it. It is my understanding that this plan of action under the bill is not now contemplated.

I am in full accord with the measure insofar as it relates to the further restriction of child labor, although I should like very much to see this part of the bill separated from the rest of it. I do not believe that the action taken in this regard would justify an expectation of a complete coverage of the Nation in the limitation of child labor, because it does not, as I understand, apply to local businesses doing merely intrastate trade. I have always been in favor of the restriction of child labor in industry; and insofar as the bill will be a step in this direction, I fayor it.

The bill does not affect agriculture directly, although I think we must realize that anything which pertains to industry will inevitably have an effect upon agriculture. No possible divorcement can be obtained between the two. With the present advancing improvement in agricultural conditions, I should not like to see any feature of this bill applied in such a way as to weaken the parity between agriculture and industry which is now in prospect.

The original bill contained certain punitive measures which have been removed. I would not vote for the bill if I understood it to express any vengeful or vindictive attitude toward American industry, because we cannot afford to create a condition of war between Government and industry.

The Davis-Bacon prevailing wage law has established a principle for wage agreements which should not be jeopardized by the proposed legislation now before us. I believe no action should be taken which would break down the principle of the prevailing wage standards. According to my interpretation of the bill, whenever and wherever workers engaged in interstate business receive less than 40 cents an hour, they can petition the board to have a minimum-wage standard fixed, or any group of employees who are now working over 40 hours a week can petition the board to have their weekly hour standard reduced. The board has jurisdiction over every employee engaged in business of an interstate character who is receiving less than 40 cents an hour and over every employee who is working over 40 hours per week. This is my understanding of the bill.

The employer who is not willing to pay his workers an adequate wage is holding back the progress of our economic recovery. Where thousands of workers are reduced in purchasing power, the business of the Nation or of the locality involved suffers. From any one industry which pays a mere subsistence wage goes out the vicious circle of loss, affecting all other industries. I believe there is a growing opinion among employers that the cooperation of workers and industrial management in relation to hours and wages is necessary to the national welfare. Only through united effort to bring purchasing power to larger numbers of people can we achieve the industrial stability which the Nation as a whole now requires.

Wages and hours of labor have always been of great interest to me. When I was Secretary of Labor these matters were constantly uppermost in my mind. Much progress was made toward the establishment of the 8-hour day and the 6-day week in certain industries at that time which formerly had operated on the 7-day week and 12-hour day basis. Practically all the steel industry had abandoned the 7-day week and conferences were being held with other industries leading to the same development by 1929. At that time the 5-day week was becoming increasingly prevalent.

There appears tO be a distinct line between the employers who try to be fair to their employees and those who have proceeded on the rule or ruin policy. In my observation of the last 16 years, those operators who observe humanttarian American princi:ples, which today we realize are the soundest economic principles, have carried on quite as successfully as those operators whose rule has been one of ruthless oppression. Progressive industrial leaders have learned that it is profitable to pay good wages.

High wages make emcient and contented workers, and no industry can fiourish today whose employees are constantly dissatisfied. Labor unrest of today shows clearly that the workers of this country will never be satisfied unless their wages and hours represent the increase which technological improvements should insure. The employer who refuses to pay an adequate wage to his worker, that is, a saving wage, injures himself even more than he injures them. Unconsciously such an employer is engaged in the unprofitable business of robbing himself. The worker who receives a bare subsistence wage will never learn to be a good buyer. He will eat only the coarsest of foods; he will wear only the shoddiest of clothes, and he will live shabbily.

I have always favored the voluntary principle of American industry, and have feared the injuries possible under a system of political coercion. I have felt that the attempted

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control of politics by business is no less injurious than the attempted control of business by politics. These are two separate fields in which cooperation is necessary, but where the loss of identity by either is injurious to the Nation. I believe we have men in Washington who know more about government than industry can possibly know. Likewise I believe there are leaders in our many industries and in agriculture who know what is best for their productivity and the Nation's prosperity. If political coercion of industry and labor is intended under the bill, I am opposed to it and cannot vote for it. If it merely attempts to set standards, regulatory in nature, similar to those set up for the transportation industry by the Interstate Commerce Commission, and without either punitive methods or spirit as regards industry, I am willing to give it a trial. I think it should be regarded as experimental. In order that complete independence of the board from undue political influence may be maintained, I believe the chairmanship should rotate annually, and I am submitting an amendment calling for this provision. I do not think the President should have power to remove the chairman of the board at will, or without showing cause for such action.

I regard the measure as experimental in nature, and if the punitive and coercive features against which I have protested, and which were present in the original bill, shall be carried over in the administration of the pending bill, I shall immediately ask for its repeal

Mr. President, I have always believed in the principle of collective bargaining. I was born in the year of what was probably the greatest strike known at that time, in which that problem was involved. From my earliest days I have known the misery and anguish caused through the denial of this right. I have worked for the development and maintenance of this right ever since I went to work in industry as a boy. I have seen the gradual development of public conscience in this matter until today I can truthfully say that no man dares stand in the Halls of Congress and urge the defeat of this principle. We all believe that collective bargaining is not only the right of the worker, but the right of industry, and that it serves the mutual interests of both.

Mr. President, legislation has been found necessary to the development of public opinion in this field. There have been many employers who desired to give this right to their employees who were kept back by others who refused to recognize the usefulness of this principle. There have been a few employers who have fought against the principle of labor organization and unionism with every method at their command, and often flying in the face of common decency and the best interests of the communities in which they lived in order to defeat it. They have resorted to force, blacklisting, espionage, and organized terrorism in order to have their own way. But today they cim find no one to champion their cause openly in the Halls of Congress, and collective bargaining, which they denied, is now guaranteed by the law of the land to every worker in the United States, no matter where he lives or how humble may be his occupation. The National Labor Relations Act, as I understand it, does this and no more. It is a guarantee that workers everywhere in the land shall have the right to assemble and organize without fear of being discharged or molested in any way. The law was at first the subject of controversy, and has not been clearly understood. Perhaps some modifications will be necessary to make it entirely clear. But the principle of collective bargaining stands written in it, and that principle has come to stay. The law does not compel any man to join a union. It does not compel a worker to work or an employer to employ. It does guarantee that workers shall have the right to organize so that they may come to their employers as a group or through representatives of their own choosing, and discuss with the employer the terms of their hours and wages and labor conditions. This seems to be such a just demand that it is strange it has not always been the practice in American industry.

Mr. President, I am greatly interested in the application of this principle to small establishments, for they are in the majority. There are only 120 establishments in the United States having 2,500 or more employees, as shown by the figures so fortunately furnished yesterday by the Senator from Louisiana [Mr. ELLENDER] and cited by the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. WALSH] in his very able discussion of this problem. But while there are comparatively few great establishments, there are 57,152 where the number of employees is between 1 and 5, 40,176 where the number of employees is between 6 and 20, 18,576 where the number of employees is between 21 and 50, 9,262 where the number of employees is between 51 and 100, 10,304 where the number of employees is over 100 and under 500, and 1,661 where the number of employees is between 500 and 2,500.

Thus it will be seen that the great preponderance of the employing establishments of the coountry have on their pay rolls less than 2,500 employees, and most of them less than 20. I am interested in these more than 97,000 establishments having less than 20 employees each. It is this type of business which stands unorganized today and where the difficulties of organization are great. The fact is that less than 15 percent of American labor is organized, and the great mass which is not organized often holds back the progress of better standards of work and wages. Under the iaw of the land it is now possible for workers everywhere, irrespective of the size of their establishments, to get together and organize collectively for their rights and interests. They are no longer left helpless. This represents a condition of improvement for both labor and industry, for I believe it means an increase of purchasing power for the Nation as a whole, which is so greatly needed.

Mr. President, yesterday question arose in the Senate as to the violation of industrial agreements. Experienced tradeunion leaders will fight to the last for the strict and honest maintenance of labor agreements. During my 10 years' experience as Secretary of Labor, violations of contract were exceedingly rare—almost nil. We did have the experience of having certain constituent unions of the A. F. of L. now with the C. I. 0. quit work under their agreements, but such action came through local officers and the national labor leaders of that constituent body of the A. F. of L. insisted that the locals go back to work, and they did return to their labors. The best statements I have ever heard made concerning the sacredness of labor agreements have come from the lips of these great labor statesmen. Inexperienced unionists who have only an academic understanding of these matters have been today the cause of most of our difficulties along this line. Voluntary organizations cannot be carried on successfully by inexperienced and theory-ridden leadership. Industrial and labor agreements must be regarded as sacred and must be kept, no matter what the cost. When differences arise, the proper adjustments can be made around the council table. Sensible workers know that their wages come solely and wholly from industrial earnings, and sensible employers know that wages must be sufficient, as President Harding said, for comfort, enough to make his house a home, enough to insure him that the struggle for existence is worth existing for.

Mr. President, in the light of industry discords two questions present themselves: The value and importance of collective bargaining and the relation of arbitration to collective bargaining. Collective bargaining is the right of the working men and women of the country, as it is the right of American industry. The actual application of the principle is largely the cause of differences that exist in certain industries. An excellent statement of the fundamental principles involved has come from the president of a great international union, who now occupies a seat in this Chamber. I refer to the junior Senator from Tennessee, the Honorable GEORGE L. BERRY. It was as long ago as 1908 that he said:

The prosperity of the investor, management, and labor depends upon the prosperity and stabllity of the industry in which they are engaged. There exists between these elements an inescapable community of interest. They cannot take out of business more than they put into it jointly; and all wastes of whatever nature, whether wastes in the use of raw materials, ~efficiencies, strikes,

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or lock-outs, visit themselves upon all who are engaged in business. Therefore I subscribe to the principle of conciliation, mediation, and, as a last resort, arbitration before considering the stoppage of business, which in itself is the largest element of waste.

Thus the International Printing Pressmen and Assistants' Union of North America grew in importance, in public respect, in infiuence, and in betterments, not only for the members of the organization itself but for the industry in which its members were engaged.

Mr. President, the foregoing quotation comes from the president of an organization that prints practically every newspaper upon the continent, working under an international agreement that has had a continued tenure for more than 30 years, and in all of that period of time there has never been a strike or lock-out in the newspaper field of America which was covered by this international voluntarily made arbitration agreement, except in one instance, and that occurred in the city of New York in 1923. The country was made aware of the strike that stopped the daily newspapers of that city, and again the president of the International Printing Pressmen and Assistants' Union of North America, our colleague, Senator BERRY, said:

This is an illegal strike of one of our local unions; the local has violated an agreement which it made with the publishers. The publishers have not abrogated the agreement, and the international union, which underwrote the agreement, has not abrogated it.

We propose to make good our guaranty. This is the fight of the International Printing Press and Assistants' Union to maintain the sacredness of contracts and the principle of arbitration as the antidote against wasteful strikes. We will print these newspapers; we will cancel this local union's charter; we will fight our own members to the fullest degree of our influence, strength, and money to maintain law and order in the newspaper field of New York City.

Mr. President, the example to which reference is made can be found in any other international and national labor unions, and it results from a long period of education and discipline. It is the outgrowth of a complete understanding as to the value of cooperation on a sound business basis as between the investor, management, and labor. Moreover, it is my opinion that such a procedure constitutes not only the very essence of American industrial stability and tranquillity, but it is also a contribution to the perpetuity of our Nation itself.

Mr. President, under date of July 28 I received from John Possehl, general president of the International Union of Operating Engineers, a copy of a letter he addressed under date of July 23 to President Green, of the American Federation of Labor, on the subject of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

I am of the opinion that this letter will throw some light on the statements made here yesterday with reference to the American Federation of Labor.

I have known Mr. Possehl for many years. He is a scholar and a profound student of labor problems, a consistent tradeunionist, and one who strongly believes in the sacredness of labor agreements.

Upon receipt of this letter from Mr. Possehl I called him by telephone and requested him to send me a copy of the previous letter he referred to, which he sent to President Green, of the Federation of Labor, under date of June 3, 1937. I am not going to read that particular letter, but, as it is Mr. Possehl's analysis of the first bill, and because I am of the opinion it will be of service to those who desire to see, from a labor man's point of view, the difference between the original bill and the bill as reported out of the Committee on Education and Labor, I now ask unanimous consent to have Mr. Possehl's letter under date of June 3, 1937, placed in the RECORD at this point.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

The letter is as follows:

INTERNATIONAL UNION OF OPERATING ENGINEERS,

Washington, D. C., June 3,1937.

Subject: Fair Labor Standards Act of 1937.

Mr. WILLIAM GREEN,

President, American Federation of Labor.

American Federation of Labor Building, Washington, D. C.

DEAR SIR AND BROTHER:

The two bills brought within the subject of this memorandum—S. 2475, by Senator BLACK, of Alabama,and H. R. 7200, by Representative CONNERY, of Massachusetts—are practically identical and accompany the special message of the President to the Congress on May 24, 1937, on the subject of wages and hours of labor. I have studied the bills carefully, using S. 2475 as the principal source, and present you herewith my analysis thereof.

Part I: Part I of the bill is devoted to a declaration of policy, definitions, and the creation of a labor standards board.

Section 1 (a): As a part of its legislative declaration, the bill declares the evils of the employment of workers under substandard labor conditions in occupations in interstate commerce, in the production of goods for interstate commerce, or otherwise directly affecting interstate commerce. That quoted phrase goes in its intent far beyond any legislative proposal which, offhand, I remember to have come before my attention. The recent decisions by the Supreme Court—I refer to those of April 12, 1937—were extremely liberal in their interpretations of the relationship between the National Labor Relations Act and interstate commerce, but the words of the new bill greatly exceed the decisions of the Court. So far as I am able to visualize the field, any enterprise which employs labor may be considered as having an effect upon interstate commerce. A cab owner, for example, who operates cabs within the limits of a political subdivision, no matter how small, and who, with respect to his employees, violates any of the provisions of this bill, coUld be held on the ground that his action affects interstate commerce. The illustration is not at all farfetched, for if his attitude toward his employees resUlted in a strike of those employees, then his consumption of gasoline would be reduced, thus affecting interstate commerce, for gasoline is clearly an article shipped in interstate commerce.

Section 2 (a) (6): The word employer is defined as any person acting directly or indirectly in the interest of an employer, and, insofar as any labor organization is an employer, such organization must come within the intent and purpose of the bill.

Section 2 (a) (8): A labor organization is defined. as an employees' organization of any kind which exists for the purpose, in whole or in part, of dealing with employers concerning grievances, labor disputes, wages, or any of the other questions which arise between employees and employers. In that definition the bill is definitely at cross purposes with the National Labor Relations Act, for here, whether by intent or whether by careless draftsmanship, the way is left open for the reestablishment and the legal recognition of the company union.

Section 3 (a): A Labor Standards Board of five members is to be appointed by the President. The appointments are to be made with consideration to the industrial and geographic regions of the country. It is very easy for me to understand how appointments could be made with proper consideration either to the industrial or the geographic regions of the United States, but I fail to see how both could be given consideration at the same time. Certainly the two are in sharp conflict. To give industrial areas proper recognition in the matter of appointments must mean that geographical areas must be left unrecognized and, on the other hand, to make appointments with the idea of giving recognition to geographical regions must correspondingly leave important industrial regions without representation.

Beyond that the text discloses a much more serious evil, for there is nothing to indicate the peculiar qualifications which shall be required of those appointed. As a matter of fact, no qualifications whatever are set forth. There is in the bill no requirement that representatives, either of labor or of industry, shall be given places on the board. Under the bill as drawn, any five men, whether white, black, or yellow, whether honest or dishonest, whether qualified or not qualified, whether men of national importance or men utterly nondescript can be appointed to the Labor Standards Board and exercise complete jurisdiction over 40,000,000 wage earners and the employers of 40,000,000 wage earners.

Part II: The various sections of part II relate to the establishment of fair labor standards with respect to wages and hours and exemptions from such standards.

Section 4: This section of the bill relates to the extension by the Labor Standards Board of the provisions of the bill to employments in which oppressive wages are paid, in which oppressive hours of labor are worked and gives the board authority to raise or lower the standards which the board itself has set, with respect to employees in so-called oppressive employments.

Each one of the four paragraphs of the section includes a phrase which is singularly disquieting—each one states that the provisions of the bill may be extended as rapidly as the board finds that it may be done without unreasonably curtailing opportunities for employment. The inference is clear and indisputable. It was definitely in the minds of the draftsmen of the bill that its provisions are so drastic and its effective operation so burdensome that Industrial recessions are bound to occur. In other words, a bill designed, according to the President, to extend our social frontiers is to have the immediate effect of narrowing and restricting those frontiers. The experiment is far too dangerous a one with which to trifle.

Equally disquieting is the provision included in the two last paragraphs of the section which is that minimum-wage standards and maximum-workweek standards having been established by the board, the board may raise or lower such standards when it finds a change necessary or appropriate to prevent the depression of wage levels or to prevent hours of work from having an adverse effect upon the health or well-being of employees. The

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proviso discussed in the preceding paragraph is included—that such changes can be made Without unreasonably curtailing opportunities for employment or the earning power of employees. Here, though, is to be read the conclusion of the draftsmen of the bill that a standard set by the board is, after all, no standard but merely something which can be raised or lowered according to the will of the board. Instead of stabilization, an added factor of uncertainty appears which must have its effect upon the industrial life of the Nation, and hence upon the lives of all of those who presumably are gainfully employed.

Section 5 (a): Whenever the board shall have reason to believe that wages lower than a minimum fair wage are paid to employees who are engaged in interstate commerce, it shall conduct an investigation: and if it determines that wages lower than a fair minimum are being paid or that the fixation of a minimum fair wage will not unreasonably curtail opportunities for employment, it shall proceed to establish a minimum fair wage for those employees made the subject of the investigation. In establishing such wage, the board is to take into account the cost of living and other circumstance affecting the value of the service rendered and is to be guided by the same considerations as would guide a court of law. The board is also to consider the wages paid for work of like or comparable character when fixed by collective agreements, and also similar wages as paid by those employers who voluntarily maintain fair-wage standards.

The objections to such a proceeding are manifold. Note that before the board can proceed With an investigation it must have reason to believe that substandard scales of wages are in effect. If the board is to have reason to believe that is the case, it must, of course, have before it data of such a character as to afford the basis of that reason, and that can be done only by the collection and compilation of evidence and its presentation before the board, or before an officer or officers designated by the board for that purpose. Such a procedure calls for regulation. Having in mind the mass of regulations which have made so relatively simple a statute as the National Labor Relations Act unwieldy, and in certain practical sense unworkable, it is immediately apparent that regulations compiled by the board covering the operation of this single phase of a most complex bill must result in a consumption of time and effort so vast as almost certainly to defeat its presumed beneficial design.

Once the board has reason to believe that substandard wages are 1n effect, it must then conduct an investigation which shall determine the condition to be true. The board then shall by mandate establish a minimum fair wage, taking into account as before noted, the cost of living and relative circumstances affecting the value of the work performed. There again, difilculties pyramid enormously, for the cost of living is an extremely variable and highly fluctuating figure and one which—to my satisfaction at least—has never yet been determined. Obviously, the most important criterion of the wage which shall be paid is the worth of the work which it represents, and that again is something tremendously difticult to determine. I point again to the excessive requirement of time, effort, and even of money necessary to bring about a determination of a fair minimum wage, and once that has been concluded, it is to be remembered that it can be made effective only if the board shall decide that it will not unreasonably curtail opportunities for employment.

Section 5 (b): Here is covered a question of determination of a maximum reasonable workweek. That is to be concluded under conditions substantially the same as those for the fixation of a fair minimum wage and the same dimculties are implied. For that reason, they are not here given new discussion. It may not be altogether inexpedient, however, to mention the probability that, in the great number of cases, both the factors of wages and hours will be included. The combination of the two can operate only to increase the complexities. If all the difticulties arise—and I firmly believe they will arise—in the fixation of wages and hours of work as I have outlined them above, then, when the two are considered together and taken up 1n their relationships of one to the other, more and more factors which cannot readily be reconciled will come to the fore and the expenditure of time and effort correspondingly increased.

Section 6 (a) : This section treats with exemptions from labor standards with respect to wages and hours, and, as is so likely to be the case, one of the most vicious evils stands exempted. Among the strange inconsistencies, of which so many appear 1n this bill, is one in this paragraph which leaves the number of employees who shall exempt an employer from its provisions as undeterminedt—hat is, the number must be filled 1n by the Congress during its consideration. The value of the paragraph, then, taken solely by itsef!, depends upon the point at which the number of employees may be fixed. If it 1s extremely low—say 5 to 10— the sweatshop employer in his most vicious aspect wlll be exempted. It 1s not necessary to give illustrations of the great number of employers, particularly in metropolitan areas, who employ workmen and workwomen in numbers of 10 or a dozen or less, and who conduct their enterprises, judged by any standard, under substandard conditions. If the minimum number of employees is set fairly high—20 or 25—a strong tendency may develop to encourage small decentralized industrial units established for the sole purpose of seeking exemption from the statute.

Section 6 (c) : The board may provide, by regulation, that the employment of employees in any occupation under special conditions shall not be considered in violation of the terms of the bill if it finds that the special character of the employment makes such conditions justifiable. Such regulations may be applicable to the employment of learners and apprentices at wages lower than those determined for the industry, the employment of persons whose earning capacity is impaired by any one of several causes, deductions for board, lodging, and the like, if it is necessary for the employer to furnish them, overtime work in the case of peak or seasonal activity, and any other cases which seem to the board to justify themselves.

All of the five sets of conditions or circumstances are open to objection, the most serious being that which refers to the employment of learners and apprentices. The learner is one thing and the apprentice another, and it has been found from long and unpleasant experience that by certain classes of employers the policy has been pursued of carrying the learners at low rates of wages for so long a period as to qualify them both by time and experience as journeymen. Too strong an opposition against the inclusion of the classification of learner cannot be registered. The provision respecting those whose earning capacity is impaired by age or other limiting conditions is likely to be found in conflict with the compensation laws of the various States, and with respect to the matter of deductions for board and lodging there stands the determination of a question of fact. Under the slow procedure which it seems must almost inevitably be established by the board, overtime employment in periods of peak or seasonal activity must long have passed before the board itself could reach a conclusion respecting its justification and to cover the last point the general classification of other cases may mean nothing more than a kind of pigeollhole for all manner of exemptions which do not lend themselves to ready solution.

Part III: This part deals with the disbarment of unfair goods from interstate commerce.

Section 7: In this section are stated certain conditions under which it shall be unlawful to transport goods in interstate commerce. The section is not one which deals directly with the wages and hours of labor and, for that reason, is not discussed in detail. Its terms, however, are such as to cause hesitancy on the part of employers, to make them withhold their funds from productive enterprises, and, thus, to have an indirect effect upon the employment of labor.

Section 8 (a) : This section, which seeks to protect interstate commerce from the effect of substandard labor conditions, makes frank reference to all commerce.

In other words, it extends directly and definitely to intrastate commerce. Here is no question of border-line case or of a so-called "no man's land"—the bill gives to the board authority to direct an employer who maintains his operations under substandard labor conditions, but who is not engaged in interstate commerce, to cease his substandard activities.

Section 8 (b) : In this paragraph the position outlined in that preceding is so broadened and strengthened as to give the board complete authority over labor conditions in all industries, whether its products are sold in interstate or intrastate commerce.

Section 8 (c): The paragraph is brief. It 1s confined merely to the statement that it shall be unlawful for any person to employ any employee in violation of any provision of any order made under the preceding paragraphs in the section. Since a person is defined as an individual, partnership, association, corporation, business trust, receiver, trustee, trustee in bankruptcy or liquidating or reorganizing agent, it is immediately apparent that the control of the board over all forms of industry, and hence over employees in all industry is to be complete and final.

Part IV: This part refers to the devices by means of which substandard labor conditions may be eliminated.

Section 9 (b) : This paragraph read in connection with the earlier parts of the b1ll practically eliminates intrastate commerce. State laws respecting intrastate commerce, even though beneficent, are nullified and the doctrine of State rights, which is as old as the Nation itself, is set aside. It reduces to the fact that an employer engaged entirely in intrastate commerce, whose employees were employed under substandard conditions, as defined by the board, even if those employees are satisfied With the conditions under which they work, may be brought within the terms of the bill.

Section 11 (c): Here again appears one of those frequent inconsistencies, for the blll having ruthlessly set aside State rights and the rights of employers engaged only in intrastate commerce, suddenly recognizes State statutes by a reference to the violation of the laws of any State. It should be added that the paragraph is not intended apparently to define the rights of the States, but rather to strengthen the power of the board.

Part V: In this part are established the general administrative provisions of the bill.

Section 12 ( 6) : This paragraph grants to the board by a labor standards order full authority to classify employers, employees, and employments according to localities, population, number of employees, and other circumstances. Employees may have no power to sell their services according to the classification and, hence, the valuation which they place upon them—that may be left entirely within the authority of the board. In the hands of unqualified members of the board (and, as before pointed out, the question of qualification is not recognized in the text of the bill) or of employees of the board, such authority is extremely dangerous to employers, employees, and to the entire commercial structure of the United States. For the bill to say that lt shall be the policy of the board to avoid unnecessary or excessive classifications and to exercise its powers of classification only to the extent necessary does not in the slightest degree lessen the danger, for it remains with the board to determine what may be necessary or unnecessary.

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It is interesting to note in this paragraph that the board may make such classifications, which it sets forth in detail, as it may consider necessary or appropriate to accomplish the purposes of any order which it may issue. That is to say, that conditions are to be changed to suit the order; there seems to be no thought that the order shall be drafted to suit conditions.

Section 12 (6): Here it is stated that an order relating to wages may contain such terms and conditions as the board may consider necessary or appropriate to prevent the established minimum wage becoming the maximum wage. It is difficult to believe that the draftsmen of the bill could be either so artless in their thinking or so completely ignorant of the principles of the wages of labor as to feel that an order establishing a definite minimum wage rate could be so drawn as at the same time to protect rates higher than the established minimun. Wages of labor are certain to approximate a minimum fixed by statute, and no number or variety of terms and conditions which may be inserted in an order can prevent or even check such a natural tendency

Again, it is stated that the board shall establish such minimum wage standards as will affect only those employees in need of legislative protection without interfering with the voluntary establishment of appropriate differentials. Wages are not individual things. Wages paid one employee or a group of employees do not stand alone and apart from wages paid other employees and groups of employees. The whole structure of wages is closely woven into one great whole, and the fact that wages for one group are fixed under statute cannot help but have, whether the board so wishes it or not, a definite effect upon all other wages.

Section 12 (8): Under this paragraph the board is given authority at any time to modify, extend, or rescind an order in the light of conditions then prevailing. Presmnably that is a salutary provision, but again appears the element of uncertainty which must be disastrous both to employee and employer. If the order of today can be changed tomorrow, on what basis can the employer proceed with his enterprise; and if the employer cannot proceed, then how can he either employ labor or pay the wages of labor?

Section 13: In this section is described the general procedure with respect to hearings. The procedures have been discussed in some detail under section 5 (a) and are not given further discussion here.

Section 14: In this section appears a further encumbrance to the efficient operation of the board, for here is given authority to the board to appoint advisory committees for purposes of investigating and reporting upon the fair value of the services rendered by employees. The appointment of such committees follows the usual procedure—appointments shall be made from lists of nominees submitted by employers and employees and shall consist of an equal number of persons representing employers and employees, and certain disinterested persons representing the public. Such advisory committees shall submit their reports within 60 days. If reports are not submitted within that time, the board may appoint new committees and the board may reject, either in whole or in part, the recommendations of such committees.

Now, for a moment, consider the time element. For nominations, appointments, and acceptances a period of at least 30 days must be required. After appointment the committee has 60 days in which to report. Presumably, the board would require 30 days more in which to analyze the report and to issue a labor order. Thus, 120 days will have elapsed, providing, of course, the board does not appoint a new committee or does not reinvestigate the entire situation, and that number of days must be considered as an addition to all of those required as necessary to convincing the board that reason exists for investigation. Issues involving labor should be settled immediately and as they arise; better still, they should be adjusted before they arise and not at the end of a minimum period of 120 days after they take form.

It is interesting to note, however, that in this section appears the first recognition in the bill of employees and employers as parties, in any sense or degree, to the administration of the bill. It can be regarded as nothing more than recognition, for they are given no authority. Again, in issues as broad and as far reaching as those of wages and hours of labor, as covered by this bill, the question may well be asked as to where the disinterested members of advisory committees are to come from, for those issues are so grave as to touch directly upon the lives of every citizen in this country.

Section 17 (b): By this paragraph is reintroduced the possible use of the Blue Eagle, or some other kind of bird, beast, or fish, to designate goods produced by those employers who conform strictly to the will of the board. In that is a distinct threat. The American Federation of Labor found manifold objections to the use of the Blue Eagle under the National Industrial Recovery Act. A device of that sort, however, seems to have a particular appeal for various Government departments, for several times it has been suggested that a device in the form of a label showing conformity with established Government standards be utilized.

Section 19: Again in this section are discussed regulations to be drawn and orders to be issued by the board. Again with respect to this section comes consideration of the element of time which has already been discussed in detail.

Section 23 (a): In this paragraph it is stated that nothing in the act shall be construed to interfere with the right of employees to self-organization or to bargain collectively. All that is true, but let the question be asked frankly, what is the use? Of what use to organized labor or to labor of any kind is the retention of the power to bargain collectively with respect to wages, hours, and conditions of labor, if when enacted into law the bill Will give to a board plenary powers over all industry and over the wages and hours of labor in industry. Under the full operation of this bill such rights and authorities are abrogated and become of no use.

Section 23 (d) : Here it is _provided that nothing in any regulation or order by the board shall be construed to invalidate any collective bargaining agreement made by an employer. Again that may be accepted as true, but why should an employer enter into an agreement with his employees under the terms of this bill? But little would be gained in the way of security either to employee or to employer. The bill is so drastic in its terms as to give the board complete authority over all forms of industry, whether expressed in interstate or intrastate commerce.

These notes, though lengthy, have been written in outline and serve to show the length and complexity of the bill. Not all sections and paragraphs have been discussed. Some which have been given no attention are of such a nature as to make an argument either for or against labor rather difficult. They include provisions which refer strictly and definitely to employers, although, of course, any part of the bill which affects employers must, at the same time, also affect employees.

The bill is designed to provide for the establishment of fair labor standards. I see but little therein which offers promise of establishing fair labor standards and that promise is largely nullified by the tremendous burden placed both upon employees and employers in establishing such standards. In order to determine the fair labor standard it is necessary, it seems to me, first to decide upon the constituents of a fair labor standard, and on that point as I read and understand it, the bill is entirely silent.

I see but a single factor in the bill whlch affords any degree of satisfaction to organized labor. Clearly, in order to present data which shall give the board reason to believe that employees of some employers are working under substandard conditions, some form of organization will be necessary. That bit of satisfaction, however, is largely offset by the fact that organization necessary to present factual material, need not be permanent and need be only of a transitory type which could be readily bent to its own uses by some of the less responsible organizations of labor which just now are in possession of considerable strength.

With kind regards, I am.

Fraternally yours,

General President.

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. President, because I discussed a part of the subject matter of this letter with Chairman BLACK yesterday, I am going to present the copy of Mr. Possehl's second and later letter addressed to President Green, of the American Federation of Labor, under date of July 23, which I have already referred to. I ask unanimous consent that the second letter may be inserted in the RECORD at this point, as a part of my remarks.

There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:

INTERNATIONAL UNION OF OPERATING ENGINEERS,

Washington, D. C., July 23, 1937.

Subject: Fair Labor Standards Act of 1937 (as reported with an amendment.)

Mr. WILLIAM GREEN,

President, American Fecleration of Labor

Washington, D. C.

DEAR Sm AND BROTHER: On date of June 3, 1937, I addressed to you an analysis of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1937, as originally introduced in the Senate and the House of Representatives by Senator Black and Representative Connery, respectively. I am taking the liberty of sending you now an analysis of the amended bill as it is at present before the Senate:

On May 24, 1937, the President sent to Congress a special message in which were discussed methods for the establishment of fair labor standards. On the same day two bills—S. 2475 in the Senate and H. R. 7200 in the House, and together known as the Black-Cannery bill—designed to fix such standards by law, were introduced and referred to appropriate committees. Hearings were held before a joint committee and on date of July 8, 1937, Senator Black reported S. 2475 to the Senate with an amendment 1n the nature of a substitute and a report-no. 884.

The bill, and hereafter that term refers to the bill as amended and reported, exhibits marked changes in a comparison with that originally introduced. It is less devious. More important, it does not carry, providing it is enacted into law, so sweeping an assumption of authority. On the other hand, it does include elements which are faulty and which should be discussed.

From the legislative declaration part I, section 1 (a) have been eliminated two clauses: (4) which states that the employment of workers under substandard conditions causes industrial dislocations directly burdening and obstructing interstate commerce and (6) causes undue price fluctuations impairing the stability of prices of goods in interstate commerce. It seems a reasonable conclusion that the clause last quoted was excluded with the thought that in it were to be read potentialities if not necessities of price fixing. An assignable reason for the omission of the first of the two quoted clauses does not as easily come

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to mind. Its principle appears to be clear and if it was the truth in the original, it probably is also the truth in the amended bill.

Whatever may have been the motives or the reason on the broad ground that the phrasing of legislation should be made as simple as possible, the result of the two exclusions is doubtless salutary. The opening sentence of the section, however, remains unchanged, and it still stands as the declaration of the evils of employment under substandard labor conditions in the production of goods for interstate commerce or otherwise directly affecting interstate commerce.

But little commerce exists which does not directly affect interstate commerce. In a nation woven into as solid a unit as are the several States of the United States, through all the varied systems of communication, that part of commerce which is so purely intrastate as to have no direct effect on interstate commerce is relatively unimportant. In those few words last quoted the pending b111 holds a device which opens the way for Federal regulation of all commerce.

In the section given over to definitions one commendable change is to be noted. The offending definition of a labor organization which made possible the legal recognition of the company union has been omitted. others have been excluded, including that perfect rhetorical gem which stated that the singular includes the plural and the plural includes the singular.

Other definitions are broadened. That, for instance, of employee includes workers in agriculture as in the original b111, and then proceeds to define agriculture as including cultivation and tillage of the soil, dairying, market gardening, poultry, and so on through a substantial list of activities. In respect of that definition a single thought is expressed that in some branches of agriculture, particularly the last three of those named above, are employed workers of exactly the same trade classifications as those to be found in other forms of industry who are presumed to benefit under the terms of this bill.

The definition of child labor is also greatly broadened. That, however, is not discussed here, nor are any of the effects of the bill upon the employment of child labor given discussion. It is felt that those parts of the b111 can be treated much more effectively by those whose field of endeavor brings them more clearly into contact with that form of employment.

In no important particular does that section devoted to the Labor Standards Board vary from the corresponding section in the bill as originally introduced. Indeed, with the single exception that the amended measure includes a statement giving to the board authority to adopt its own rules of procedure, the two are identical. That fact does not indicate, though, that the section is not open to critical comment.

The truth is qUite the opposite. In the matter of the appointment of the board there is no lessening of the evil, no shrinkage in its impracticabilities. The difiiculty of reconciling industrial areas with geographical reasons is present in the same language as before; the same complete lack exists of expressed qualifications which shall be possessed by those who may be appointed to membership on the board.

The failure to define requirements satisfactorily for service makes that section of the bill objectionable to organized labor. It is not necessary, it will be observed, that members should be acquainted with even the most simple rudiments of industrial practice. No requirement is introduced that members shall possess any specialized skills. There is no suggestion that there should be demonstrated any degree of interest in the problems of labor, whether organized or unorganized.

Parenthetically, it should perhaps be said, that at the convention of the American Federation of Labor held in 1936 at Tampa, Fla., the question of legislation covering various aspects of labor relations held the attention of the committee on resolutions. That committee reported a resolution, unanimously adopted by the convention, which assumed the position that the American Federation of Labor would not support legislation which did not provide for direct representation of labor on any administrative body to be established by the measures under discussion. The pending bill carries with it no such provision.

The fourth section is opened with a series of propositions followed by a declaratory paragraph which concludes subsection (a) of that section of the bill. Of those premises there are six with some of which complete agreement comes swiftly and qUite without effort. Others require thought before full accord can be reached and in one instance it is difficult to give much more than a somewhat qualified assent.

There is but little hesitation in saying that a weekly wage of $5 or less is unconscionably low. There is none at all in a further statement that if the conditions of the business are so unstable, if its debit and credit relationships are so precarious or its margin of profit so narrow as to compel the payment of a $5 wage, then the time is at hand for that business to conclude its affairs and to turn its capital into other channels of investment. To those industrial organizations which, operating under normal conditions, find it essential to engage in a workweek of 84 hours, the same thoughts, though perhaps somewhat modified, are applicable.

No doubt can be entertained that such low schedules of wages and such high schedules of hours create unfair competition among employers of labor. The necessity that workers in the United States be protected by the elimination of substandard wages and hours will not be denied. General agreement will be found in the expression of an opinion that the changes necessary to achieve the results must be developed carefully and cautiously without disruption or dislocation of business and industry.

On that last a word may be offered. It must not be construed as a defense of low wages and high hours when it is said that the resulting change, 1f the bill becomes law, is bound to be drastic. No matter how careful and cautious may be the procedure, disturbance, and dislocation of industry are certain to occur. It is impossible through mandate having the force of statute to impose new schedules of wages and hours upon an industry without disturbing that industry. The disturbance may or thay not be far-reaching; it may or may not be particularly grave. It may extend over a long period or be only temporary, but disturbance will follow.

Against the premise which says that those workers whose wages are the lowest and whose hours are the longest and who are unable to improve their condition through the medium of collective bargaining, a certain dissent must be laid. There are organizations ready and qualified to give them aid. There have been such organizations in the past. On that single point nothing further need be said.

The series of propositions having been stated, it is declared to be the policy to maintain minimum wage and maximum hours standards at levels which shall be conducive to the general well-being of workers and at the same time operate to the profitable operation of business. It is all notably praiseworthy.

The text plunges then into the details of the measure. First to be noted is that it is mandatory upon the board to declare minimum wages, whereas in the original b111 that was a qual1fied authority—that is, only when the board had reason to believe that wages lower than fair minima were paid was it obliged to make investigation and determination and to issue corrective orders. Until the board had been persuaded of a substandard condition nothing could happen.

Providing, then, that opportunities for employment shall not be curtailed, the board shall from time to time declare minimum wages which shall be adequate for the occupation or occupations to which they are applicable. From the context the word occupation obviously refers to the means of livelihood pursued by the worker. There is no reference to industry.

The omission is important. An occupation in one industry may command a different scale or wages, may differ widely in its requirement of sklll from the same occupation when pursued in another industry. The toolmaker in the precision-instrument industry is in every way, excepting only in the knowledge of the fundamentals of his craft a dtiferent mechanic from the toolmaker in an industry where the principal requisite of the tool is that it be sufilciently rugged to withstand long service under hard and not particularly intelligent usage.

It is not necessary to confine illustration to skllled trades. Common labor, for example, employed in the foundry industry is not the same as common labor employed in, say, the knitted-fabrics industry. The differences are both quantitative and qualitative.

Still speaking of common labor, the same differences persist in the separate units of the same industry. In the machinery and machine-tool industry both quantity and quality vary as between the foundry, the several contributive divisions, and the machine shop proper. One of the conspicuous characteristics of common labor is that, in the sense ordinarily accepted, it is not common.

So if minimum wages for an occupation are to be declared without regard to the varying requirements demanded of that occupation by different industries, the problem, insofar as the board is concerned, is comparatively simple—that is taken strictly 1n a comparative and not an absolute sense. Great inequities and grave injustices to large groups of workers will result, but those do not affect the problem as it is before the board. If minimum wages are fixed with full consideration of all the differing qualifications for workers in the craft imposed by each one of the employing industries, the board has before it a problem of great and widely ramifying perplexities. If attention is extended not only to occupational characteristics as modified by the needs of the di1ferent industries, but beyond those to the distinctions of those characteristics within each industry taken by itself, perplexities multiply beyond ready imagination.

Notwithstanding the enormous maze of detail, how indeed can minimum wages otherwise be declared than with full regard to the refinements of di1ferences in occupational employment? If a workman is so unfortunate, so hapless in his birth, family, training, education, ambition, and mentality as to be incorporated into the great mass of common labor, is he to be deprived by statute of the scant advantage in earning power which is his by reason of the fact that he is the possessor of the narrowest of margins of intelligence, physical strength and willingness over his fellow workers? Whether or not it is easily believed, the fact is that even in the great body of common labor are gradations of ability. They would not be visible to the collective regulative mind of a board but they are clearly apparent to direct employers and to the other workers in the group. It is no denial of the principle of minimum wages to say that those degrees of dtiference should be recognized and their rewards protected.

Perhaps something of that sort is rather vaguely contemplated by the bill, for it reads that minimum wages shall be declared for the occupation to which they are applicable from time to time. The meaning is not clear. Does it mean that a minimum wage will be fixed for an occupation in one industry at one time and for the same occupation in a different industry at another? Or does it mean that wages for the same occupation in the same industry will be subject to frequent change, or again does it mean

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that adjustments will be made so carefully and so often as to take account of all or many of the different individual gradations of ability? The last question is probably not the correct one and yet if it is not, how small a degree of equity, in last analysis, resides in the bill.

After all, the industry in which the occupation finds expression is a most important factor. To the industry, as before mentioned, there is no reference. Apparently it is not considered necessary that the members of the board should be acquainted with the peculiarities of requirement of the ditierent industries. To the board, no matter where or how employed, a laborer is a laborer and that is all there is to it.

It may be the intent to compensate for the failure, to mention industry or the board's conceivable lack of knowledge of industry through the appointment of advisory committees as provided by section 11. There once more is a departure from the original btll, for the measure now pending makes mandatory the use of advisory committees. In the b111, as first presented, the use of such committees was discretionary with the board.

Even in that section of the bill no mention is made of industry. The personnel ar advisory committees—equal numbers of persons representing the employees and the employers in the occupation under investigation—justifies a hope that the m1nimum wage determined will be declared for the occupation in a specific industry, but that is pure assumption. The bill does not so state. The reference is solely to the occupation. By the composition of the advisory committee the diftlculties above discussed may be reduced, but not necessarily so. They will not be eliminated.

The minimum wages to be declared by the board shall be as nearly adequate as is economically feasible, without curtaillng opportunities for employment, to maintain a standard of living necessary for health, efficiency, and general well-being. Excellent. But in the minds of the authors of the amended blll as in those who drafted the original measure, although not so clearly apparent, is the same haunting fear that effectuation as law will reduce opportunities for employment.

The feeling is not without justification. How could the fact be otherwise? Again, without defending the low wage industry or a section—either producing or geographical—of an industry which is definitely substandard in the matter of wages, how is a new wage structure to be imposed without affecting employment. It cannot be done.

If such an industry employing, for example, a labor force made up in large proportion of unskllled. or common labor has reason to believe its average hourly rate of wages is subject to sharp increases ranging upward to perhaps 100 percent, what is likely to be its attitude toward immediate business relationships. Obviously, it could well be one of caution. It w1l1 be slow to accept orders or contracts involving any considerable volume because of an apprehension that increasing wage costs under law will bring positive loss instead of anticipated gain. It will be reluctant to make substantial commitments for raw materials lest increased cost succeeded by an increased selling price will cause goods to remain unsold or to become stagnant and unmoved until the market shall have had time to adjust itself and become accustomed to the change. So delicate is the mechanism of the market that once out of balance it does not always move back rapidly to a state approximating equi1ibrium.

Those two conditions out of many which could be recited are not offered in opposition to the adoption of schedules of minimum wages. They are presented merely as indices of a certain decrease in the employment of labor. Hesitancy in the solicitation of new business and slowness in making commitments for necessary materials can result only in the curtailment of opportunities for employment.

That is not all. What of the workers in the occupational wage brackets next above those for which minimum-wage schedules are declared? Suppose the minimum wage for an occupational group were to be advanced by order of the board to 40 cents per hour. What happens to those who received that rate before the increase was ordered?

Will the wages of those be correspondingly increased? Probably not. Indeed, from the viewpoint of the employer, why should they be increased? If the services they rendered before the enactment of the statute were worth only 40 cents per hour, why should they be worth more after the passage of a law which admittedly does not apply to them? They are not, of course, worth more.

Occurs, then, a congestion of labor around the 40-cent level, or at the level to which the board has advanced minimum wages for the occupational group. The employer notes a decided bulge at the declared level, and as he believes should be the case With an over-expansion in any particular group of workers at any specified wage rate, he proposes to himself that it be reduced. Let those who have benefited under the law earn their increased wages. If 40-cent men must be employed, let them earn 40 cents per hour.

The possibilities of curtailment of employment through numerical reduction of occupational groups extend much more widely and in far greater detail than can possibly be recited here. Those constitute a study in themselves. Merely as an index of the evils inherent in the fixation of wages by statute a single and altogether obvious illustration will suffice.

Three workmen, 1 at 35 cents and 2 at 30 cents, have been employed on a particular job—a total wage cost of 95 cents per hour. Why not speed up a bit—two 40-cent men required under statute and drop one of the others? The result is both interesting, and as the employer sees it, extremely practical—one man less, a reduced wage cost of 15 cents per hour, and completed obedience to the law. The scheme is sound and it will be followed.

As earlier suggested, the bill carries no price-fixing provision. It is not argued that such requisites should be included, but in their absence increased wage costs are extremely likely to be translated into increased costs to the consumer. Evidently the authors had that rather strong possibility in mind when the bill was drafted, for in section 8 is found a provision which authorizes the United States Tariff Commission to investigate increased costs results from its operation should it become law, and to propose adjustments in rates of duty which would not hold domestic goods in a position of disadvantage in relation to foreign goods.

In identical language, excepting only that the words maximum workweek are substituted for the words minimum wages, the board is placed under mandate to declare a maximum workweek for any occupation or occupations which shall be as nearly adequate as possible to maintain the health and well-being of the workers. The discussion directed toward the minimum-wage provisions of the bill does not require any very substantial modification to render it applicable to the subsection devoted to maximum hours. No new points of consideration are raised.

One fact coming from the combination of maximum hours with m1nimum wages does require brief mention. A maximum of 40 hours of work per week applied to a minimum wage of 40 cents per hour, above and below which, respectlvely, the board cannot function, brings a wage of $16 per week. On the basis of 50 weeks of work—under present conditions, a hope rather than a conviction—the return to the individual would be $800 for the year's work. It is not much money.

That is not written scornfully. Any advance that can be secured to labor is worth a great deal. On the other hand, it must be noted that according to the Statistical Abstract of the United States for 1936, the average wage paid common labor in the United States in 1935 in several ditierent industries, all of which come within the terms of the blll, was slightly in excess of 45 cents per hour. The inadequacy of that figure and the data which support it are admitted, but it does point to the strong probability that the benefits of the legislation, if completed, will not extend as widely as its supporters have hoped.

Succeeding that section given over to the establishment of minimum wages and maximum hours is section 5, by which agreements consummated by collective bargaining are presumed to be affrorded protection. Apparently a satisfactory measure of protection is granted, but by some who have analyzed the bill it has been pointed out that the inclusion of the phrase allowed by law, in the opening sentence of the section, extends its protective features to the company union. If that is true, then nothing has been gained by omitting from the amended text section 2 (a)-(8) of the original bill, which opened the way to legal recognition of that form of organizatlon.

Even in the face of the probable intent of the language, it is difficult to resist a feeling that the bill operates to weaken the structure of collective bargaining. There seems to be evident no reason why employers should enter into agreements with those labor groups which come within the scope of the bill. They w1ll observe the law, if passed, and stop short with observance, excepting only as some unforeseen or uncontrollable factor forces them into a more advanced position. Certainly there is no reason why employers should make collective agreements, for example, 42 cents, if under statute they can secure equally good labor at a legalized rate of 40 cents per hour. More and more labor will be brought within the wage schedules fixed by the board: increases in wages will be met, in large part, by reductions; and the strong tendency w1l1 be to delay collective-bargaining agreements and to permit exist1ng agreements to lapse without renewal, until by each employer the limit of regrouping labor within declared schedules has been reached.

In section 9, where are recited the general administrative provisions of the bill, it is required that a labor-standard order shall define the occupation or occupations, the territorial limits within which such order shall operate, and the class, craft, or industrial unit or units to which such order relates. In that language the objection that no reference is made to industry appears to be answered. That, in truth, is precisely not the case.

What is meant by the term industrial unit? Does it mean one industry—the steel industry, for example—as differentiated from another, say, the leather-goods industry? Or does it mean the manufacture of shoes taken apart from the basic leather industry? Or, further, could it mean without regard to other materials, the manufacture of fabric shoes? Or, once more, could it mean only the foundry division of the machinery industry? And if that is the event, what community of basis will be discovered between the comercial foundry and the foundry of a single unit included in any broader industry?

In that is perplexity, in what follows is real danger, for not only must the board define the class or craft covered by its order, but it has permissive authority to classify employers, employees, and employments. A host of questions immediately arises. They are so many and so varied that they cannot even be suggested here.

Let it be stated briefly that the classiflcation of employers and employees or employments constitutes a task of enormous if not insurmountable difiiculties. So far as this analysis is concerned, employers may be left to speak for themselves and this paragraph will be limited to employees. By whom are they to be classified? Classifications made heretofore by bodies organized for that purpose have wandered so far from fact and practlcability as to reduce

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quickly to absurdity. Most industrial plants, whether they employ many or only a few, have among their workers some whose duties are such as to defy classification by employer, by the employee himself, or by other employees. Even accurate classification, if it were possible, would not satisfy the basic question: The real criterion of the wage lies in the value of the work and not in the classification to which he may be assigned.

In that section of the bill, no matter how conscientiously administered, lie certain injustices and an incalculable harm which cannot be avoided. Classification of employees and employments inevitably will rob great numbers of individual workmen of the fruits of their aptitudes. It will take away the rewards of lesser skills and reduce all workmen in the lower wage occupational groups to the level of the mass.

In many respects the bill holds no improvements over the measure as originally introduced. The exempting paragraphs include all the evils, particularly those respecting the employment of learners, which were apparent in the bill as first drawn. The full use and meaning of the union label is endangered now, as it was before. Probably it is genuinely the intent to limit the operation of the bill strictly to interstate commerce, but ambiguities of language suggest possible confusion in that direction. If anything, the time element is given even less consideration than before. In the bill as it now reads almost any period can be devoted to investigation before declaration need be made by the board. That stands as the most serious kind of fault, for it is still a truth without meaning to be at all cryptic—that the best time to adjust a labor issue is before it arises.

In the bill as it is today before the Senate appears but little of positive good to labor. It holds even less of positive good for industry. It may be argued that it represents a start toward better conditions for labor, and that very likely is true, but any gain which may be accomplished must accrue at such tremendous cost to all, excepting only the comparative few who will benefit directly—to the great numbers of the workers, to the employers, to industry, and to the Nation—-that it seems better to postpone those scant advantages until, through further time and considerable study, a bill may be introduced which will be demonstrably utilitarian in its scope.

It is but a cold and cheerless argument to say that a poor bill is better than no bill at all. A poor bill is altogether unnecessary. A bill hurriedly prepared is equally unnecessary. The possibilities of positive harm are too grave and far reaching; the potentialities of danger too apparent to justify hurry. In this case time should not be of the essence.

With kindest regards, I am,

Fraternally yours,

JoHN POSSEHL, General President.

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. President, I am extremely anxious that the Senate shall adopt the amendment which I have submitted, which is, on page 51, line 3, after the word agriculture, to insert a semicolon and the following:

Or any person whose compensation is paid upon a commission basis exclusively.

I am familiar with the conditions of those who work upon a commission basis. They prefer to work upon that basis rather than to accept a minimum wage or any other kind of wage. They want to be paid exclusively for that which they do.

Last night to my home came a young man to transact some business in the nature of some work in the house. His bill was rather high, and I ask upon what basis he was paid. He said he was paid upon a commission basis, and informed me that he would not work on a salary basis but wanted to be paid entirely upon a commission basis.

I believe there are between 500,000 and 1,000,000 people in the United States who work upon a commission basis. Many of them are the kind of workers who do a few days' work now and then. I cannot see how under any circumstances we can apply the restrictions of the bill to such people instead of submitting the matter to the board. Accordingly, I hope the Senate will adopt my amendment to exempt from the bill those who work upon a commission basis.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the amendment of the Senator from Pennsylvania to the amendment of the committee.

Mr. BARKLEY. Mr. President, I think we all recognize that there is a general desire to dispose of the bill at the earliest possible time. In order to avoid having a late session this evening I am going to propose a unanimous-consent request, prefacing it with the statement that later I shall move a recess until 11 o'clock tomorrow morning.

I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate convenes tomorrow, during the further consideration of the pending bill no Senator shall speak more than once nor longer than 15 minutes on the bill or any amendment or motion relating thereto, and that at not later than 3 o'clock p. m. the Senate shall proceed to vote without further debate on the bill and all amendments thereto.

Pending that request, I ask unanimous consent that the roll call provided for under the rule be waived.

Mr. McNARY. With the qualification that we shall recess this evening at not later than 5:15?

Mr. BARKLEY. We desire to have an executive session.

Mr. McCARRAN. Mr. President, I do not understand the suggestion made by the Senator from Kentucky with reference to the roll call.

Mr. BARKLEY. Under the rule, whenever unanimous consent is requested to fix an hour to vote on the final passage of a measure, a quorum must be called. It is my desire to waive that requirement of the rule.

Mr. McCARRAN. It does not mean we cannot have a quorum called tomorrow?

Mr. BARKLEY. Oh, no. It is simply my desire to avoid calling a quorum for the purpose of entering into the agreement at this time. It is not necessary to have a quorum called now.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky asks unanimous consent that when the Senate convenes tomorrow at 11 o'clock a. m., during the further consideration of the pending bill, no Senator shall speak more than once nor longer than 15 minutes on the bill or any amendment or motion relating thereto, and that at not later than 3 o'clock p.m. the Senate shall proceed to vote without further debate on the bill and all amendments thereto. Is there objection?

Mr. McCARRAN. Mr. President, in order to clarify the agreement—and I must confess I do not quite understand it—it would seem to mean that any Senator may speak 15 minutes on the bill and 15 minutes on any amendment thereto.

Mr. BARKLEY. That is correct.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the request of the Senator from Kentucky?

Mr. MALONEY. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, does the proposal mean that in the event there are amendments to be offered which Senators desire to discuss, the Senator will suspend the 3 o'clock limitation?

Mr. BARKLEY. No. All debate will end at 3 o'clock, and the Senate will vote at that time on the bill and all amendments thereto.

Mr. CONNAlLY. Mr. President, does the proposed agreement also include any motions that may be made?

Mr. BARKLEY. Oh, yes.

M.r. CONNALLY. It includes all amendments and motions that are to be voted on?

Mr. BARKLEY. Yes.

Mr. GEORGE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. BARKLEY. I yield.

Mr. GEORGE. If all amendments to be offered had not been disposed of, would we have opportunity without further debate to vote upon all pending amendments?

Mr. BARKLEY. There would be no limitation as to voting on any amendments, but discussion would end at 3 o'clock.

Mr. GEORGE. It would be in order then to offer further amendments?

Mr. BARKLEY. Yes; absolutely.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the request submitted by the Senator from Kentucky?

Mr. MALONEY. Mr. President, further reserving the right to object, I obtained the floor once this afternoon, but under a parliamentary ruling, which, of course, was correct, I was not permitted to call up my amendment in the nature of a substitute until all so-called perfecting amendments had been offered and disposed of. Under the unanimous-consent request submitted by the majority leader I might find myself without an opportunity to say a word when the time came to vote upon my amendment in the nature of a substitute.

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Mr. BARKLEY. I will say to the Senator that I shall be glad to cooperate with him and with the Chair to secure an opportunity for him to discuss his substitute, although he may have to do it prior to its being actually offered on the floor, due to the technical rules.

Mr. NEELY. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. BARKLEY. I yield to the Senator from West Virginia.

Mr. NEELY. The Senator from Connecticut would have a perfect right to speak to his amendment, which has already been read from the desk, prior to the time the amendment comes before the Senate for action.

Mr. BARKLEY. Oh, yes; I shall be glad to help the Senator secure such an opportunity.

Mr. McCARRAN. That would be before 3 o'clock?

Mr. BARKLEY. Yes.

Mr. McCARRAN. At 3 o'clock all discussion would be cut off. Am I right about that?

Mr. BARKLEY. That is true.

Mr. McCARRAN. May I have it understood that if we recess now, I shall have the floor tomorrow morning?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada has the floor.

Mr. BARKLEY. The Senator would have the floor tomorrow.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the unanimous-consent request of the Senator from Kentucky?

Mr. MALONEY. Mr. President, I should like to offer a suggestion to the majority leader. In view of the unusual situation in which I find myself and the unusual legislative situation concerning my proposal, I wonder if he will ask for this consent with the exception, under the circumstances, of my substitute bill.

Mr. BARKLEY. Mr. President. it is difficult to do that. I will see that the Senator from Connecticut has an opportunity to speak.

Mr. BRIDGES. Mr. President, my position is the same as that of the junior Senator from Connecticut [Mr. MALONEY]. I proposed to offer, in the form of an amendment, a substitute bill; and I, too, have yielded, pursuant to the ruling of the Chair today on the parliamentary procedure. I desire to have an opportunity tomorrow to offer my amendment and to say something on it. I therefore reserve the right to object, and I do object, if I am to be prevented from offering and discussing my substitute.

Mr. BARKLEY. Mr. President, I will say to the Senator from New Hampshire that we will take care of the Senator and give him an opportunity to discuss his substitute. There will be no trouble about that. Many Senators may have amendments to offer at the last minute that they may not be able to discuss; but I realize the special situation of the Senator from New Hampshire, and I will cooperate with him.

Mr. BRIDGES. Then. I withdraw my objection.

The VICE PRESIDENT. Is there objection to the unanimous-consent request submitted by the Senator from Kentucky? The Chair hears none, and it is so ordered.

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  Page 7918        CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE        July 31, 1937        (81 Cong. Rec. 7918, 1937)

FAIR LABOR STANDARDS IN INTERSTATE COMMERCE

The Senate resumed the consideration of the bill (S. 2475) to provide for the establishment of fair labor standards in employments in and affecting interstate commerce, and for other purposes.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The question is on the amendment offered by the Senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. DAVIS] to the amendment in the nature of a substitute reported by the committee. The Senator from Nevada [Mr. McCARRAN] bas the floor.

Mr. McCARRAN. Mr. President, I understand the parliamentary situation to be that the amendment offered by the Senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. DAVIS] is pending. If the Senator desires a vote on that amendment now, I will yield the floor, in order that a vote may be taken on the amendment, if I may have the :floor after the vote on that amendment shall have been taken.

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  Page 7921        CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE        July 31, 1937        (81 Cong. Rec. 7918, 1937)

FAIR LABOR STANDARDS IN INTERSTATE COMMERCE

The Senate resumed the consideration of the bill (S. 2475) to provide for the establishment of fair-labor standards in employments in and a1Iecting interstate commerce, and for other purpases.

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. President, yesterday I offered an amendment on page 51, line 3, after the word agriculture, to insert a semicolon and the following:

Or any person whose compensation is paid upon a commission basis exclusively.

My amendment would exempt commission men or commission salesmen who are not working for any kind of wage or salary. We know that the time of such a salesman is his own. He can work as he pleases. He can work an hour ar two in the morning and then quit for the day. He might make enough in 1 or 2 days to keep him for months. If such salesmen come within the terms of the bill, my amendment would provide an exemption in their case.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The question is on agreeing to the amendment of the Senator from Pennsylvania to the amendment of the committee.

Mr. LA FOLLETTE. Mr. President, I am opposed to the amendment submitted by the Senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. DAVIS]. I am opposed to it lest it might provide a device whereby employers could, throngh a commission arrangement, take themselves out from under the terms of the bill.

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. LA FOLLETTE. In just a moment.

So far as persons who are ordinarily hired upon a commission basis are concerned, I would have no objection to their being exempted from the provisions of the bill. What I fear, however, is that through arrangements which may be made by employers persons who are not ordinarily working upon a commission basis may be employed under such arrangements when obviously they should be under the terms of the bill.

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. Mr. President—

The VICE PRESIDENT. Does the Senator from Wisconsin yield to the Senator from Washington?

Mr. LA FOLLETTE. I yieid

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. Would it not be possible under the amendment of the Senator from Pennsylvania to bring about collusion between employers and employees and thus completely destroy the desired effect of the bill?

Mr. LA FOLLETTE. That is what I fear. In that connection I invite attention to the fact that the board is given power under the terms of the bill as it now stands to grant exemptions from its provisions. That is found on page 64 in the following language:

Suitable treatment of other cases or classes of cases which, because of the nature and character at the employment, justify special treatment.

I now yield to the Senator from Pennsylvania.

Mr. DAVIS. The Senator from Pennsylvania does not desire to have the board pass upon it. He wants the Congress of the United States to pass upon it. I do not believe in the delegation of our powers to a board to pass on something that we ourselves can act upon.

Mr. LA FOLLETTE. We are dealing here, however, with a situation affecting certain classes or kinds of employment which obviously should not come within the terms of the bill. However, as I stated yesterday in connection with an amendment offered by the Senator from North Carolina [Mr. REYNOLDS], in adopting broad, sweeping exemptions there is grave danger that means may be provided whereby employers who desire to defeat the purposes of the bill may avail themselves of devices of that kind under general exemption amendments. I contend that the board has full power to grant exemptions in cases of this nature, and therefore that in passing on the biH we should be very careful and should reject amendments so sweeping in their nature that they may become a device which will defeat the purposes of the proposed legislation.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The question is on agreeing to the amendment offered by the Senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. DAVIS] to the amendment reported by the committee in the nature of a substitute.

The amendment to the amendment was rejected.

Mr. McCARRAN obtained the floor.

Mr-. DAVIS. Mr. President—

Mr. McCARRAN. I inquire if the Senator from Pennsylvania desires a vote on his other amendment?

Mr. DAVIS. I have several small amendments, which it will take just a very few minutes to dispose of.

Mr. McCARRAN. Mr. President, I had the floor last evening at the time of taking the recess. I yielded the floor to the Senator from Pennsylvania so that a vote might be taken on his amendment. Now I desire the floor for the purpose of having a vote taken on an amendment I am offering. If I may have it now, I shall be through in just a few moments.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Nevada has the floor.

Mr. McCARRAN. Mr. President, I offer the amendment which I send to the desk and ask to have stated.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The amendment offered by the Senator from Nevada to the amendment reported by the committee will be stated.

The CHIEF CLERK. In the committee amendment, on page 65, beginning in line 3, it is proposed to strike out all of section 8, in the following words:

SEc. 8. (a) Whenever the Board shall determine that any substandard labor condition exists in the productibn of goods in one State and that such goods compete to a substantial extent in that State with other goods produced in another State and sold or transported in interstate commerce, in the production of which such substandard labor condition does not exist, the Board shall make an order requiring the elimination of such substandard labor condition and the maintenance of the appropriate fair labor standard in the production of goods which so compete.

(b) It shall be unlawful tor any person, directly or indirectly, to employ any employee in violation of any term or provision of an order of the Board made under this section.

(c) The United States Tariff Commission (1) upon request of the President, or (2) upon resolution of either or both Houses of Congress, or (3) upon request of the Board, or (4) upon its own motion, or (5) when in the judgment of the Conunission there is good and sufficient reason therefor, upon application of any interested party, shall investigate the differences resulting from the operation of this act in the costs of production of any domestic arttcle and of any like or slmilar foreign article, with a view to determining whether or not an increase should be made in the duty upon such foreign article for the purpose of equalizing such differences.

(d) All proVisions oflaw appUcable with respect to investigations under section 336 of the Tariff Act of 1930, as amended, including the provisions applicable to reports. of the Commission and proclamations by the President, shall, insofar as they are not inconsistent with this section, be applicable in like manner with respect to investigations unner this section.

And in lieu thereof to insert the following:

SEC. 8. The Labor Standards Board shall notify the Secretary of the Treasury of those substand labor conditions which have

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been defined as oppressive, and the Secretary of the Treasury is thereafter directed to refuse or deny entry to goods, wares, or merchandise produced under such substandard labor conditions, which goods, wares, or merchandise are comparable to or competitive with similar goods, wares, or merchandise produced in the United States under fair labor conditions as herein defined. In the event of any complaint or dispute arising as to whether such goods, wares, or merchandise seeking entry were produced under substandard labor conditions, as herein defined, the Labor Standards Board shall make a thorough investigation, and the decision of said Board shall be conclusive, shall be in writing, and shall be a matter of public record and open to public inspection.

Mr. McCARRAN. Mr. President, it has been stated that if this amendment should be adopted, it might create an embargo; but, as I view the situation, the bill we are considering virtually creates an embargo as between respective States. There is nothing in the bill we are considering which affects the manufacture or sale of goods within the confines of a State. We cannot touch that subject. It is only when goods become the subject of interstate commerce that Congress has a right to act.

We now seek to protect labor, to raise labor standards, to raise labor's earning power, and to reduce the hours during which labor shall serve. The amendment proposes that manufactured or processed goods coming to this country, in competition with American goods from countries where the standards of labor and living and wage hours are below our standards, shall not be permitted entry. In other words, the amendment would protect American labor and American industry from products and commodities offered at our door that would destroy and have been destroying American labor and American industry.

Today imports of dairy products are virtually tearing down the dairy industry of this country. Other products offered to us from abroad, which we are accepting, are manufactured and processed and produced under conditions and standards so low that they can even go through the tariff wall we have created, and come into the United States in competition with the products of American labor and American industry.

If we are serious about this matter, if this measure is for the purpose of protecting American labor and at the same time holding the standard of American living where we think it should be, why should we allow American labor to come in competition with the labor of foreign cormtries in which the standard of living is so much under our standard of living? Why should we throw American labor in continual competition with an influx of commodities manufactured in countries whose workers perhaps live on a handful of rice a day, and sleep on a mat?

Today our markets are flooded with commodities and produce that come in competition with American industry every day of the year, and every one of them is offered in our markets at a price less than for which we can produce it, because our standards of living, our wages, and our hours are different; and the countries offering them are the greatest competitors with American labor that we have today.

Mr. VANDENBERG. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. McCARRAN. I yield to the Senator from Michigan.

Mr. VANDENBERG. I suggest to the Senator that the text of the bill confesses the precise matters the Senator has defined, but it totally fails to provide a remedy for them, because by referring the operation back to the elastic tariff it leaves the entire free list, which includes two-thirds of our imports, entirely out of reach; it leaves all the Hull treaties out of reach, and does not touch 5 percent of the problem to which the Senator is addressing himself.

Mr. McCARRAN. I am entirely in accord with the expressions of the Senator from Michigan. I am serious about this amendment, because I want to protect American labor by every means and every method we have at our disposal. If we are serious in wanting to do that how can we, while we embargo our own products within given State lines, thereby depriving such products of an opportunity to go into interstate commerce because they are made and manufactured and processed and produced under conditions which we think are not right or proper or progressive, yet at the same time say to foreign countries, Bring on your goods. We will accept them, although they will tear down every standard of living we are trying to establish by legislation?

Mr. GILLETTE. Mr. President—

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Does the Senator from Nevada yield to the Senator from Iowa?

Mr. McCARRAN. I yield to the Senator.

Mr. GILLETTE. Will the Senator comment on the effect his amendment would have, if adopted, on the reciprocal trade agreements which have been negotiated?

Mr. McCARRAN. Mr. President, I wish to answer the Senator's question in this wise: My view of the reciprocal trade agreements has been that they have continuously impaired and torn down the use of American products. I refer to dairy products; I refer to agricultural products. Only a few days ago I was informed—and I take my information to be fairly correct—that Argentine corn, imported from the Argentine, is today being sold and used in Indiana, one of the great corn-producing States of the Union; and I know that dairy products are coming in and destroying the domestic dairy industry. Yet we say that we are going to raise the standard of living; we are going to increase wages. Every time we raise wages—and we should raise wages and hold them up—and every time we reduce the hours of toil, we give a further avenue, a greater avenue, if you please, to competition from foreign-made products that come in from countries where there are no standards of wages, and where there is no limitation of hours, and where the one aim and object of those who manufacture the products is that printed somewhere on them shall be the words made in—somewhere. That is the aim and object. Men in those countries work because they love their countries, and they live for their countries, and they are willing to live on a handful of rice a day, because those are their countries. They do not care about the hours of labor or the standards of living of this country, and they send their commodities into our markets to destroy the possibility of our toilers earning an honest living under American standards.

Mr. STEIWER. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. McCARRAN. I yield to the Senator from Oregon.

Mr. STEIWER. I am wondering if the Senator from Nevada caught the full effect of the question just propounded to him.

Under the tari1f treaties our Government has bound our tariffs to certain agreed standards or levels. In view of those contractual obligations in the tariff treaties, how would it be possible to obtain any protection for American labor either under the plan that is proposed in the bill itself or under the Senator's plan? It seems to me that America is irrevocably on record with respect to the duties upon certain commodities, and that, regardless of the effect upon our own domestic economy or upon our own people, so long as those treaties are the law of the land, neither the proposal of the bill nor the proposal in the Senator's amendment will be of any avail to America.

Mr. McCARRAN. Excepting that I hope by this amendment, if it should be adopted as a part of the bill, so to change the character of the reciprocal-trade agreements that they may protect American industries.

Mr. STEIWER. Let me say to the Senator that I am not opposing his amendment.

Mr. McCARRAN. I understand.

Mr. STEIWER. I think I shall vote for it. As between the two proposals—namely, the one suggested by the Senator from Nevada and the one which is included in the bill—I believe I prefer the Senator's proposal; and yet, as I stand here, I have a feeling of utter futility. It seems to me that by an improvident system of reciprocal-trade agreements we have so bound ourselves that if foreign competition works havoc to American industry by reason of the higher standards of wages and better standards of hours fixed in this bill, we are utterly helpless. I hope I am wrong in that respect.

Mr. BORAH. Mr. President, I think the Senator is in error. I do not think the reciprocal-trade agreements bind Congress against making any law that it desires to make

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with reference to tariffs. Neither trade agreements nor even treaties are beyond the reach of legislation subsequently enacted. Even a treaty cannot bind Congress. Congress can pass an act, and the act being passed subsequent to the treaty, is binding against the treaty.

Mr. STEIWER. Will the Senator from Nevada yield to me to make one observation in respect to that?

Mr. McCARRAN. I yield.

Mr. STEIWER. I think the Senator from Idaho is entirely correct. Technically Congress has a right to enact such legislation; but there still remains the matter of our moral obligation under the treaty, and there still remains the possibility that a foreign nation might proceed against us for our violation of the treaty. I think there is one case in history where the American Government paid damages to a foreign nation by reason of its violation of a treaty which had been made prior to that time.

Mr. BORAH. I have no doubt of the ability to pass a statute which would modify these agreements, but I know perfectly well they will not be modified.

Mr. McCARRAN. Mr. President, at least we can make the best effort Congress has within its power at least to show the intention of Congress to protect American industries and American labor.

I shall not hold the Senate any longer on this exceedingly important matter, as it is so well known and understood. I shall ask for a yea-and-nay vote on the amendment.

Mr. KING. Mr. President, it is my purpose, in taking the floor, to occupy but a moment or two, as I am compelled to attend a committee meeting which is considering important measures relating to the District of Columbia.

The bill before the Senate contains provisions with which I do not agree. If enacted into law, it will profoundly affect political and economic conditions. It is believed by many to be an encroachment upon the rights of sovereign States as well as upon the rights of individuals. That it will interfere with purely intrastate activities I think is conceded, and to that extent, it seems to me, must be regarded as invalid.

I know the futility of attempting to resist the tide of centralization that is sweeping over our country. The Federal Government is extending its authority into fields which are exclusively, under our form of government, to be appropriated by the States, local communities, and individuals. But demands are being made, that seem to be irresistible, that the Federal Government take control over the economic, industrial, and political life of the American people. It is to control all domestic relations and to point the paths in which individuals shall walk and the political, industrial, and economic policies which are to be followed in every part of our land.

The view is entertained by some that it is more important to have a powerful national government, with almost uncontrolled authority over States and individuals, than to preserve the democratic form of government established by the founders of the Republic, with sovereign and independent States, within which its citizens may enjoy the fullest measure of liberty and the fruits of their own efforts. I fear efforts are being made to impose upon the American people views and policies, political and economic, alien to our institutions and hostile to genuine democratic institutions.

In this period when world-wide movements are centralizing political and economic authority and power, it is to be hoped that the people in this Republic will successfully resist all efforts to bring them and this Republic within the circle of such malign infiuences.

Mr. President, I am not convinced that the measure before us will prove advantageous to labor or beneficial to the American people. It will produce a powerful bureaucracy which, in my opinion, will be not only distasteful but in the end highly repugnant to the American people. Some of its unwise, if not dangerous, features have been adverted to by Senators who have spoken, and I have no desire to traverse the fields which they have covered.

I desire to bring to the attention of the Senate a telegram which I received this morning from James Truslow Adams, an American historian of note. I do not know the political affiliations of Professor Adams, but it seems to me that the telegram challenges attention to some features of the bill which are worthy of consideration. I send the telegram to the desk and ask that it may be read.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will read.

The legislative clerk read as follows:

NEW YORK, N. Y., July 30, 1937.

Senator WILLIAM H. KING,

United States Senate Office Building, Washington, D. C.:

At the request of Members of the Congress deeply concerned about the constitutional aspects of recently suggested legislation; I have made a careful study of the Black-Connery bill.

In my opinion, it will give the President, through a board appointed by him, almost complete power of economic life and death over every individual concern and employer in the country, and also over economic life of every section of the country, as well as control over the freedom of the press and the radio. One employer could be ruined for the benefit of another, one industry. for another, one section for another.

The powers granted are unbelievably great. Under the clause 23. an employer of 2,000 men could be fined a mlllion dollars and sent to jail for a thousand years for violating this act.

Labor in this country has achieved its rightful place of participation in the economic sphere by collective action under self-guidance. It would be a bitter day for American labor if this self-determination were to be transferred to a governmental bureau which has the power to oppress and suppress labor activities just as much as it has the power to advance or hinder the cause of management.

The power of life and death created by this bill operates two ways—it is as applicable to labor as it is to industry, and there is no bureau, board, or agency, no matter how well intentioned, that should be given such opportunity or such a responsibility.

There should be time for the public opinion to crystallize and make itself heard, and for Congress to consider and hold hearings on the amended bill. In its present form this bill practically places the future of every American employer and ordinary citizen under the control of the President and of a board of his appointees who will hold vast and unusual powers.

I urge that consideration of this bill be put over to the next session, when issues can be carried to the country. Otherwise that it be returned to committee and Congress remain in session long enough for full public discussion of this epoch-making bill.

JAMES TRUSLOW ADAMS.

Mr. KING. I also ask permission to have inserted in the RECORD at this point a communication which appeared in this morning's New York Times, written by William S. Bennet, who, as I recall, was formerly a Congressman from the State of New York.

There being no objection, the communication was ordered to be printed, as follows:

FAULTS FOUND IN BLACK-CONNERY BILL—MEASURE, IT IS HELD, WOULD INCREASE COSTS AND IMPOSE UNWORKABLE CONTROL ON INDUSTRY

To the EDITOR OF THE NEW YORK TIMES:

Having read several times, and carefully, Senator BLACK's letter appearing on your editorial page July 25, the impression it leaves on me is that the Senator has demonstrated that his bill should be very thoroughly studied before action is asked.

It is proposed as a modest beginning of a much-needed effort to increase America's capacity to consume, and as intended to • • • benefit not only the industrial worker but the whole of American industry and agriculture. Anything like that necessarily affects the whole 127,000,000 of us. Plans, no matter how well intentioned, affecting 127,000,000 people ought to be studied not only carefully but dispassionately.

It 1s easy for the best-intentioned men to be wrong. Everyone, including Senator BLACK in his letter, now points out the defects in N. R. A. Still, if my recollection serves me correctly, the Senator not only voted for it in 1933 but spoke for it. But he was not alone. A large and important portion of employers were for N. R. A. They assisted in drafting the bill. The then president of the United States Chamber of Commerce was the chief witness for the bill before the Ways and Means Committee. It became a law June 16, 1933, with public sentiment largely supporting it, but by April 19, 1935, its failure had become so evident that the Senate, I think, unanimously, in passing a resolution continuing it for a few months, took away practically all its power.

CAREFUL SCANNING IND1CATED

What happened under that recent, well-intentioned legislation rather leads us to look carefully at all proposed industrial legislation, particularly when it contains provisions which we all have seen fail when contained in other well-intentioned legislation. Besides, our present industrial system is producing results which cannot be ignored. The Senator himself says: "We have been gradually—but all too slowly—reducing hours and raising the real

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sandard of living of our lowest-paid workers for years." Omitting the rhetorical but all too slowly, which is unprovable as a fact, the Senator's statement is correct.

President Roosevelt, on July 4, 1937, said to his Dutchess County neighbors: This has been a good Fourth of July for the country. We are so much better off in the United States than in a whole lot of other nations of the world that I wish we could pass some of our poise on to them. That's true, too.

It has taken us over 250 years to build up, side by side, our governmental, industrial, and agricultural systems. Our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution are a part of the structure, and the whole is the work of a vigorous, thinking people enjoying the largest measure of ordered liberty of any people on the earth. Statisticians and economists state the following to be facts:

1. Employment in United States manufacturing today is at the highest point in history, with 500,000 more persons on the pay rolls than in 1929 and 5,000,000 more employed than at the low point of 1932.

2. The worker's share of the national income has steadily increased from 35 percent in 1850 to over 66 percent today.

3. Fourteen million American families own the homes in which they live; and there are more than 44,000,000 savings accounts and more than 118,000,000 insurance policies in effect.

4. Jobs in America have increased faster than a swiftly growing population. Since 1879, 18 new manufacturing industries alone have created, directly and indirectly, an estimated 10,000,000 new jobs.

SHORTER WORKWEEK

5. The average workweek in manufacturing industry has declined from 60 hours a week in 1890 to slightly more than 40 hours a week today.

6. American industry spends $750,000 each working day in research, employs 35,000 men and women seeking new and better products which make for new and better jobs.

7. Child labor has shown a striking decline since 1900, the number of children employed in manufacturing industry today amounting to but one-half of 1 percent of total manufacturing employment. All the time there are fewer and fewer children at work and more and more at school.

8. The indirect employment provided by manufacturing industry is equally as important as direct employment. Fifty thousand food manufacturing establishments, for example, buy raw materials from some 6,000,000 farmers and 75,000 fishermen; provide business for 45,000 wholesale establishments and approximately 500,000 retailers of food products.

9. Profits in American industry for the 11-year period 1923-33, including both boom and depression years, averaged but 4 percent of capital invested.

10. For every worker in manufacturing industry there is a capital investment of approximately $7,600 in tools, land, buildings, machinery, and the like.

Our present system of free men at liberty to plan and think resulted, between 1879 and 1929, in the following new industries, each based on invention: Electrical machinery, apparatus, and supplies; motor vehicles, not including motorcycles; motor vehicle bodies and parts; rubber tires and inner tubes; manufacture of gasoline; rayon and allied products; manufactured ice; aluminum manufactures; typewriters and parts; mechanical refrigerators; cash registers and adding and computing machines; oil, cake, and meal, cottonseed; aircrafts and parts; phonographs; photographic apparatus and materials; motion-picture apparatus; asbestos products, and fountain pens.

In 1929 these 18 new industries employed, directly, 1,123,314 wage earners—almost one-seventh of all the labor employed in manufacturing in 1929. All of the other countries of the world put together cannot match that record of new inventions in those 60 years.

Over against this record of achievement the Senator offers a 40-hour week in a limited number of industries. But the National Industrial Conference Board says that in May this year, in manufacturing industries, the average workweek was 40.6 hours. There 1s nothing much to fuss over in 36 minutes a week.

WAGES GOING UP

But, says Senator BLACK, the evidence indicates that something over 3,000,000 people are getting less than 40 cents an hour. There are no available statistics to support this. How much less? The Senator does not say. Are these 3,000,000 in factories? The Senator does not say. Besides wages are going up anyway. In 25 representative manufacturing industries the average hourly earnings in May 1937 were nearly 16 percent higher than in 1929. We are headed in the right direction as to wages.

Labor unions, too, have been vigilant. They have always got labor more wage increases than legislation has. That is their job. I have not been able to find any statistical basis for the Senator's statement, It is estimated that individual productivity—an individual's ability to produce if given the chance—has increased more than 70 percent in the last 25 years. Yet there has been no comparable increase in the standard of living of the average man.

National Industrial Conference Board chart no. 72, dated May 14, gives the figures from 1914-37—23 years—and shows that production per wage earner in manufacturing industries rose during that period 46 percent, and the purchasing power of weekly earnings 48 percent. These figures do not bear out the Senator's statement.

The big trouble is the board to run the whole country. Thomas Jefferson said that our country was too big to be run from any one place. It was true when he said it, and it is true now. The late Gen. George W. Goethals said that the trouble with most boards is that they are long, narrow, and wooden.

You couldn't get action, during the World War, from the Railroad Administration. I left New York one night on the 5-hour sleeper trip to Washington and got there at 1 o'clock the next afternoon—7 hours late on a 5-hour trip. During the N. R. A., I was code counsel for the Chicago Retail Lumber Dealers Association. It took me from October 1933, to September 1934—11 months—to get approval for three unobjected rules.

GOVERNMENT BOARDS DISAPPROVED

During the World War our country spent a billion dollars in airplane production without getting one single plane to any European battle front. This was handled by a governmental board, too.

Government boards in industry simply don't work. Before he goes on with his bill the Senator ought to give us at least one instance where, in normal peacetimes, such as these, a Government board has worked better than private industry would have. He is proposing a revolution in industry and the burden of proof is on him.

Doubtless the Senator's bill is well intentioned. So was the Wagner labor-relations bill. That bill was to stop strikes. It hasn't. The N. R. A. was to revolutionize industry to the benefit of both employers and employees. It emphatically didn't.

The most certain thing that the Black-Cannery bill would do in its present form would be to raise costs so that more foreign goods, produced by lower wages and longer hours, would come in. The House committee sees this and its text is claimed to contain provisions preventing it. They throw the reciprocal-treaty policy out of the window, but this is necessary, as the home market cannot be kept for American high-wage labor and given to foreign low-wage labor at one and the same time.

WILLIAM S. BENNET.

NEW YoRK, July 29, 1937.

Mr. ELLENDER obtained the floor.

Mr. BARKLEY. Mr. President, may I ask the Senator from Utah whether this is the same James Truslow Adams who, notwithstanding the fact that Thomas Jefferson was recognized as the most liberal, farsighted, and progressive statesman of his day, has written a book in which he has attempted to prove that Jefferson was a reactionary?

Mr. KING. The Senator, of course, may draw such conclusions from Professor Adams' writing as to him may seem proper. I have read his Epic of America and some of his historical writings. That does not mean that I agree with all of the views of Professor Adams any more than I endorse all of the views of our distinguished leader. I approve of some of the positions taken by him, but have disapproved of some of his views and policies.

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, will the Senator from Louisiana yield?

Mr. ELLENDER. I yield.

Mr. BLACK. The Senator who now has the floor will recall that the Senate committee gave opportunity to any witness in the United States who requested to be heard on the pending bill, in spite of the statement of this gentleman. I should like to ask the Senator from Utah whether this is not the same James Truslow Adams who, during the campaign of 1936, attempted to persuade the people of this country that they should elect Governor Landon instead of President Roosevelt, on the basis of arguments similar to those which he has sent in this telegram?

Mr. KING. I do not know Professor Adams' political affiliations. I assume that the Senator is disposed to condemn those who do not agree with him and condemns everyone who supported Mr. Landon. Personally, I opposed Mr. Landon, but I know that many patriotic people voted for him.

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, the Senator has not answered the question, so I assume he does not care to admit in this body that he did present a telegram sent by a gentleman who actively and urgently insisted to the people of this country that President Roosevelt should be defeated and that Governor Landon should be elected, and that his arguments then were along the same line that has been presented in this telegram.

Mr. KING. I make no admission whatever. I do not know what the attitude of Professor Adams was during the last campaign or whom he supported. If the Senator says with full knowledge—and apparently he has been

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[PAGE 7925]

investigating Professor Adams—that he supported Mr. Landon, the Senator is entitled to all the pleasure and joy he can derive from that investigation.

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, will the Senator from Louisiana yield just once more?

Mr. ELLENDER. I yield.

Mr. BLACK. I did not come into personal contact with Mr. Adams, but I recall reading some of the statements he made at that time. I also recall that he wrote—

Mr. JOHNSON of California. A parliamentary inquiry.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator will state it.

Mr. JOHNSON of California. I am not particularly interested in the discussion going on, but does the making of these speeches in the time of another Senator constitute, under the rule, the making of speeches upon the bill or the amendment?

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. In strict compliance with the rule, the Senator from Louisiana, who has the floor, would have no right to yield for these speeches, and he would jeopardize his chance of making a speech.

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield, I will state that I asked the question because, by unanimous consent of all present, a telegram was read into the RECORD, and in view of that I believed that the question I asked would be pertinent.

Mr. JOHNSON of California. The question degenerated into a speech. [Laughter.]

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. That was out of order.

Mr. BLACK. The Senator from California may be correct—

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Alabama is out of order.

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, will the Senator from Louisiana yield for a question?

Mr. ELLENDER. I yield.

Mr. McNARY. Mr. President, if there is further yielding, I shall ask that the Senator lose the floor under the rule.

Mr. BLACK. I shall not ask the Senator to yield.

Mr. ELLENDER. Mr. President, I do not propose to detain the Senate very long with a discussion of the pending amendment, for the reason that the same subject matter now at issue was debated on this floor a few days ago and overwhelmingly rejected by this body. It will be recalled that on last Wednesday the junior Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. LODGE] offered an amendment prohibiting the importation of any goods of any class into the United states from any foreign country, during any calendar year, in excess of the 5-year average annual volume of that class of goods imported into our country, by any country, unless such excess was manufactured under like or better standards than those provided for in the bill we are now considering.

The amendment of the Senator from Nevada [Mr. McCARRAN] which is now at issue, is more drastic than the Lodge amendment, for the reason that it virtually closes our doors to the importation of any foreign goods that are not manufactured under the same labor standards that would prevail in this country should the bil1 under discussion become law. The McCarran amendment provides that—

The Labor Standards Board shall notify the Secretary of the Treasury of those substandard labor conditions which have been defined as oppressive, and the Secretary of the Treasury is thereafter directed to refuse or deny entry to goods, wares, or merchandise produced under such substandard labor conditions, which goods, wares, or merchandise are comparable to or competitive with simllar goods, wares, or merchandise produced in the United States under fair labor conditions as herein defined. In the event of any complaint or dispute arising as to whether such goods, wares, or merchandise seeking entry were produced under substandard labor conditions, as herein defined, the Labor Standards Board shall make a thorough investigation, and the decision of said Board shall be conclusive, shall be in writing, and shall be a matter of public record and open to public inspection.

It is obvious that the amendment would prevent the importation of goods from any foreign country. It amounts to an embargo on foreign goods. It says in effect to foreign producers: It makes no difference what your handicaps are, you must raise the standards of living of your workers at once to the level of this country and unless you do so, do not ship any of your goods to us.

That, of course, sounds good. I would like for us to be in a position to enact a law with such provisions and make it effective. Remember this: It is not very practical for us to be able to sell our goods to foreign countries unless we in turn buy from them. We have a very healthy foreign trade at this time, and without it I am positive that we would have a good deal more unemployment than we now have. The workingman would suffer, and I feel confident that it is better to attempt to protect him, as far as we can, through our present tariff laws rather than by the method suggested by the Senator from Nevada. It would please me very much if our country were self-sustaining and if it could consume all it produces. It would doubtless be to the advantage of labor if we would keep out foreign competition, but, as I see it, such a condition cannot exist. We must buy foreign goods in order to be able to sell our own surplus merchandise. We must maintain the good will of our foreign neighbors in order to have them buy our products. I feel confident that if we should close our doors to their trade it would mean immediate isolation, and I cannot but see disaster to our industries and in turn to the American workingman. Let us improve our standards for labor by using the same method as in the past, through the medium of the tariff, as I have heretofore stated.

There is a provision in the pending amendment for investigations by the board of labor standards abroad. Sueh a proposal would not be feasible, were it desirable. We have had considerable experience in foreign tariff investigations. The task imposed in this amendment would require thousands of employees to go abroad for this purpose, and I am certain that it would lead to much ill feeling.

Mr. AUSTIN. Mr. President, will the Senator yield to me for a question?

Mr. ELLENDER. I yield.

Mr. AUSTIN. Regardless of the constitutional power of Congress to legislate right in the face of the treaties entered into between the President and foreign countries lowering the tariff rates on goods, I ask the Senator from Louisiana if he thinks that the United States of America could afford as a matter of good faith and honor and respectability in the world to legislate in any manner that would abrogate or derogate those agreements entered into between the President of the United States and foreign countries for the purpose of protecting labor, after we have imposed these additional costs upon labor that this bill carries?

Mr. ELLENDER. It morally could not and should not. An abrogation of such agreements on our part would show bad faith and would promote ill will between our country and foreign nations.

Mr. President, the Committee on Education and Labor, of which I am privileged to be a member, was ever mindful to protect the rights of American labor from foreign competition. During our hearings the question was discussed many times, and the committee concluded that the most feasible way to afford protection was by the tariff method. The committee thought it more desirable to incorporate in the pending bill the prevailing method of raising tariffs. Any interested party may cause the Tariff Commission to investigate the difference resulting from the operation of this act in the cost of the production of any domestic article and any like or similar foreign article, with a view to determining whether or not an increase should be made in the duty upon such foreign article, for the purpose of equalizing such differences. Should the Commission conclude that an increase in the present rates should be made, the President by proclamation could increase them, as is now provided under section 336 of the Tariff Act of 1930, as amended. Such a method could be carried out without any interference on our part in the affairs of our foreign neighbors and one that has been invoked in the past in order to afford protection for our workers.

Mr. WAlSH. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. ELLENDER. I yield.

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Mr. WALSH. Is not the provision in this bill relating to this subject exactly the same provision that was incorporated for the same purpose in the National Labor Relations Act?

Mr. ELLENDER. Yes; the identical provision.

Mr. President, while I am on my feet, let me plead with the Members of the Senate not to vote to recommit this bill. It is a cowardly way to kill a bill. It would be more honorable to vote against it on its merits than to vote for recommitment. Our committee has worked diligently for many weeks, and I do not believe it possible to improve the bill if only we keep in mind the purpose of this legislation.

As has been often said during the present debate, it is our desire to help that class of labor that cannot, by collective bargaining, achieve a living wage. We are merely providing a bargaining agency for these unfortunates so that they may have the chance to improve their condition.

The pending bill recognizes the right of labor to collective bargaining, and it in no manner interferes with that right. I desire no interference by a Government agency where employer and employee are accorded the legal right to establish wages and hours as provided under the Wagner Act.

Mr. BORAH. Mr. President, before the Senate votes on the amendment offered by the Senator from Nevada, I desire to say a word in explanation of my vote.

I voted against the amendment offered by the able Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. LODGE], not because I was in opposition to the principle of it but because I felt that upon this measure and in view of the present program it was impracticable and unworkable. I thoroughly favor maintaining our markets in this country and maintaining our standards of labor by protecting our markets against the importation of cheap labor-made goods, but I do not think we can do so by imposing a practical embargo in a bill like this. Besides, I am unwilling to let this board pass upon substandard labor levels in other countries. If we are going to deal with the subject, certainly we should deal with it with a great deal of care and after a great deal of investigation and consideration.

I am placed in the position of seeming to vote against a measure in which I believe in principle but which I do not think has a place in this measure.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, may we have the amendment read?

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The amendment will be stated.

The LEGISLATIVE CLERK. On page 65, line 3, it is proposed to strike out all of section 8 and in lieu thereof to insert the following:

SEC. 8. The Labor Standards Board shall notify the Secretary of the Treasury of those substandard labor conditions which have been defined as oppressive and the Secretary of the Treasury is thereafter directed to refuse or deny entry to goods, wares, or merchandise produced under such substandard labor conditions, which goods, wares, or merchandise are comparable to or competitive with similar goods, wares, or merchandise produced in the United States under fair labor conditions as herein defined. In the event of any complaint or dispute arising as to whether such goods, wares, or merchandise seeking entry were produced under substandard labor conditions, as herein defined, the Labor Standards Board shall make a thorough investigation, and the decision of said Board shall be conclusive, shall be in writing, and shall be a matter of public record and open to public inspection.

Mr. McCARRAN. On my amendment I ask for the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered, and the Chief Clerk called the roll.

Mr. LEWIS. I announce that the Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. DUFFY] and the Senator from Georgia [Mr. RUSSELL] are absent in the performance of duty as members of the committee to attend the dedication of the battle monuments in France.

The Senator from Arkansas [Mrs. CARAWAY] is detained from the Senate because of illness.

The Senator from North Carolina [Mr. BAILEY], the Senator from Washington [Mr. BONE], the Senator from Ohio [Mr. DONAHEY], the Senator from Rhode-Island [Mr. GREEN], the Senator from West Virginia [Mr. HoLT], the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. SMATHERs], and the Senator from Maryland [Mr. TYDINGS] are unavoidably detained.

I also announce that on this question the Senator from West Virginia [Mr. HOLT] is paired with the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. SMATHERS].

Mr. AUSTIN. I announce that my colleague [Mr. GIBSON] is absent as a member of the Battle Monuments Committee in France. He has a general pair with the Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. DUFFY].

The result was announced-yeas 27, nays 53, as follows:

YEAS—27

NAYS—53

NOT VOTING—15

So Mr. McCARRAN's amendment to the amendment reported by the committee was rejected.

Mr. LONERGAN. Mr. President, I have received from a very prominent constituent of mine an interesting letter on the subject of the pending bill, which I send to the desk and ask to have read. I withhold his name, as I do not have authority to use it.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the letter will be read.

The Chief Clerk read the letter, as follows:

JULY 29, 1937.

Hon. AUGUSTINE LONERGANc,

United States Senate, Washington, D. C.

SIR: You are now engrossed, under most trying conditions, in considering whether Congress shall take upon itself the stupendous task of determining what the minimum wages and maximum hours shall be, not only for Connecticut but every State in the Union.

Because the problem has been superficlally simplified in the Senate bill by limiting its immediate application to wages not exceeding 40 cents per hour and to hours not exceeding 40 per week, and because these limits do not generally affect the conditions of labor governing in the larger shops in Connecticut, you have been led to believe that this amended proposal is a comparatively harmless one. The original bill and the probable House bill contained much higher limits. But let us see what these proposals really entail as a matter of continuing legislative policy.

When Congress has once started to regulate wages for the United States, political expediency will never allow it to stop at a minimum wage of 40 cents per hour, as is shown by the fact that the original bill contemplated power to fix minima all the way up to 80 cents, and affecting not only the least skilled jobs but all classifications and occupations, and establishing a maximum workweek determined by whatever the discretion of the commission found to be properly within the criteria set up. The House Committee on Labor is already talking of a 35-hour 70-cents basis.

Whatever your own unquestioned honesty of intention may be, you will be faced, if this law passes, with the unscrupulous politician who will attempt to purchase his election by promising to secure from Congress more favorable wages and hours. Since Congress will then have taken away from the States this function, it would be forcibly urged that it is the obvious duty of every Congressman continuously to exploit this field.

The public, whenever it thinks of industrial employment in Connecticut, is apt to think of a few large companies which em-ploy over 1,000 employees. You, of course, know that there are less than 50 such concerns in Connecticut today out of a total of about 3,300 and that these 50 employ less than one-third of the total working force. You know that Connecticut has for many years been the home of small industries and small shops, where a small number of employees must work under flexible conditions if these concerns are to survive at all. They live on the brains of the management and the skill of the laborers. If wages are fixed at

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more than their skill can produce, it simply means that these unremunerative grades of labor will be forced out ot these small shops and either thrown upon relief or thrown upon the already overcrowded, unskilled industries of a purely local character, which do not come under the terms of the Federal act or which have been exempted from it.

It intimately concerns you that you will be urged and importuned from all sides to secure exemptions, so that the Congressman's job will become a double one of seeing how many he can get out from under that law for which he was tempted to win his election by promising extensions. If any have doubts about this, the opening debates in Congress, and the contests in the committees of the House and the Senate, make it perfectly plain. Already and inevitably the farmer has been exempted as always; but the question remains: Shall this include the processor of farm products, the canner, the dairyman, the packer, and the trucker? Shall it include the distributors, and how about it when they distribute in another State than their own? Shall we exempt the learner and the apprentice, and if so, for how long? Shall the old man who can still be employed in earning less than the minimum? Shall the man with one eye, arm, or leg also be exempted, or must they all be condemned to charitable relief? Shall we exempt the service trades, especially when they are services to interstate commerce? Shall we exempt those employing less than five; and if so, those employing less than 10? Where shall we stop? Shall the merchants come under the act, and when does a merchant become an agent? When is a merchant not a merchant and simply a family store?

All of these instances, and there are literally hundreds of such examples which the N. R. A. had to face and which broke its back, will give an idea of what Congress is undertaking. The N. R. A., during the term of its existence, issued some 4,000 executive orders, all of which had the effect of law and which the Supreme Court happily found constituted the exercise of an undue delegation of power by Congress to the N. R. A. Is Congress now prepared to take upon its shoulders the responsibility of legislating as to these exceptions?

Many of the small establishments are making goods constantly subject to fluctuating demands. When the peaks come, must they let the business go by, or can their Congressmen in Washington gain an exemption for them and do it in a hurry—today? This is another job the N. R. A. failed on. Shall these small establishments break the law or try to employ more help, and let it go as soon as the peak is over, and thereby multiply dissatisfactions and recurring unemployment? Can Congress, after the progress of the seasons, change the minds of women as to when they wlll purchase new clothes, and foresee the constantly shifting demands for changing goods?

Can Congress foresee in its wisdom how tar it can go in leaving these questions to the discretion of the Commission without a delegation of authority which will make the act unconstitutional? Is it going to experiment again in the passing of a law which makes confusion worse confounded by setting up an act that is unenforceable?

Can a bewildered people know when they are crossing the line which separates a purely local industry from one that is engaged in interstate commerce? Will they thank their Congressmen for landing them in jail or subjecting them to heavy penalties and costs when they innocently disregard the traditions of the past and overstep that shadowy, undetermined line?

We are merely suggesting some of the problems which are doubtless harassing you and to which you are asked to give answers in the heat of the summer, without knowing all that this entails upon your own future service to the State and your constituents. Why not come home and talk it over with us before acting?

You are being urged to vote for this measure under the fallacious argument that the application of a minimum wage will increase earning power. There is no way to increase earning power except to produce more goods. We cannot lift ourselves by our bootstraps. More wages can be earned only out of an increased production. Increased costs are always a deterrent and not a help; while lower costs insure more wages and often make higher wages possible.

Yours respectfully,

Mr. McADOO. Mr. President, I ask for the consideration at this time of the amendment I offer to the committee amendment and which I send to the desk.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The amendment to the amendment of the committee will be stated.

The LEGISLATIVE CLERK. In the amendment of the committee, on page 51, it is proposed to strike out lines 13 and 14 and insert in lieu thereof the following:

Any practices ordinarily performed by or for a farmer as an incident to such farming, including harvesting, packing, storing, or preparing for market, in the raw or natural state, any products derived from any of the above agricultural pursuits.

Mr. McADOO. Mr. President, under the pending bill agriculture is excluded, but the definition of agriculture in the bill is not sufficiently broad to include work so closely connected with farming as to be substantially a part of it, such as packing, storing, and preparing for market.

Further, it does not cover services which, in my State—California—where producer cooperatives flourish, are largely performed for the farmers by the cooperative associations of which the farmers are members. Among such groups in California may be mentioned the fruit growers' exchange, the raisin growers, the prune growers, and others of a similar character. The practice in these cases is for the laborers to work for the association—that is, the cooperative—rather than for the individual farmer, and the association does the packing and preparing for market, which elsewhere is generally done by the farmer himself.

These agricultural commodities are highly perishable, and the work which must be done by the packing houses and on the farms varies greatly with temperature variations. Twenty-four hours in advance one cannot know whether the crop must be moved. So, to fix rigid hours of labor in such cases would be to ruin the producers, as the crop must be handled quickly with the workers available. The broadening of the definition as I have suggested is not only directly in line with the object of the bill but will also protect the farmers who, in my State at least, are engaged in a method of marketing, packing, and handling their crops which may differ from the methods employed in other States.

Mr. BARKLEY. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?.

Mr. McADOO. I yield.

Mr. BARKLEY. Regardless of the merits of the first part of the Senator's amendment, on which I do not wish to comment, the last part seems to me to make possible the interpretation that the exemption would apply to any product derived from agricultural products all through the process of manufacture, no matter to what extent or degree.

I appreciate what the Senator is trying to do; he wishes this proposed law to be inapplicable to the operations referred to by him. He seeks to strike out the language in lines 13 and 14, and proposes to substitute therefor the words—

Any practices ordinarily performed by or for a farmer as an incident to such farming, including harvesting, packing, storing, or preparing for market, in the raw or natural state, any products derived from any of the above agricultural pursuits.

Any products derived from any of the above agricultural pursuits might mean the manufacture of shoes, which come, of course, from leather, which comes from hides, which come from cows. It might be regarded to follow up the manufacture of horse collars, which are made of leather and straw, which are agrictural products. I am wondering whether the Senator wishes his amendment to go that far?

Mr. McADOO. I had not intended it to cover horse collars or shoes, I will admit.

Mr. BARKLEY. Horse collars are manufactured from products derived from agriculture, as the Senator knows, both as to the leather and the straw.

Mr. McADOO. Almost everything in the form of food and clothing is manufactured from products of the farm.

Mr. BARKLEY. Yes; but I do not think the Senator wants his amendment to follow these things from the farm through all the factories so as to exclude them from the operation of the bill because they are derived from agricultural pursuits.

Mr. McGILL. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. McADOO. I yield.

Mr. McGILL. Mr. President, a parliamentary inquiry,

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator will state it.

Mr. McGILL. On yesterday lines 13 and 14, page 51, were amended. In view of the fact that those two lines have been amended by the Senate, is the amendment now offered by the Senator from California in order?

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. It would appear to the Chair the amendment is in order.

Mr. McGILL. Mr. President, will the Senator from California yield for a question?

Mr. McADOO. I yield, if the question is not too long.

Mr. McGILL. Yesterday afternoon the Senate amended the lines to which the Senator's amendment applies by inserting in line 13, after the word farmer, the words or on a farm, and also by inserting in line 14, after the word

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operations, the words including delivery to market, it being the purpose of those amendments to exclude from the bill all labor performed on a farm, whether by contract with the farmer or otherwise, and to exclude all labor connected with the delivery to market of commodities produced on a farm. Does not that cover what the Senator has in mind by his amendment?

Mr. McADOO. I do not think it is sufficiently broad. I may say to the Senator from Kansas so much of the preparation of our crops in California is through farm cooperatives that the alterations which have been made in the amendment I think do not widen it as much as is needed. I think, perhaps, I can meet the objection raised by our distinguished leader by omitting in lines 5 and 6 of my proposed amendment the concluding part, namely, the words products derived from any of the above agricultural pursuits.

Mr. BARKLEY. That is the language I was afraid of, and I think that the Senator's amendment would be improved by eliminating those words.

Mr. McADOO. I am willing to strike out that part of the amendment and to submit the amendment in that form.

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. McADOO. I yield.

Mr. HATCH. Would the Senator be willing to add, in lieu of the words which he now says be is willing to strike out, the language proposed by the Senator from Kansas [Mr. McGILL] relating to delivery to market, say, the words including delivery to market

Mr. McADOO. I have no objection to that.

Mr. HATCH. I believe, then, the Senator's amendment would cover everything included by the amendment of the Senator from Kansas.

Mr. McGILL. Mr. President, will the Senator from California yield?

Mr. McADOO. I yield.

Mr. McGILL. In response to what the Senator from New Mexico has just said I will state that I feel the amendment adopted yesterday is broader than the amendment proposed by the Senator from California, by virtue of the fact that no limitation was placed in the amendment adopted yesterday, such as mentioning harvesting, packing, and operations of that character. The amendment adopted yesterday was intended to include, and, I think, it does include, all kinds of labor performed on a farm and all kinds of labor in connection with delivering agricultural products to market. In my judgment it includes more than does the amendment proposed by the Senator from California and is broader in its terms. I hope that the amendment adopted yesterday will remain in the bill and that the amendment of the Senator from California, by virtue of the narrower terms carried in it, will be rejected.

Mr. McADOO. Mr. President, the amendment suggested by me is not intended to eliminate the amendment to which the Senator from Kansas referred.

Mr. McGILL. But it strikes out the amendment to which I refer.

Mr. McADOO. Has the Senator the amendment before him?

Mr. McGILL. It was adopted yesterday and is in the RECORD. The Senator's amendment, if agreed to, would strike out entirely the lines covering the amendment to which I refer.

Mr. BORAH. Mr. President, I am unable to hear what is going on on the other side of the Chamber.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Idaho makes the point of order that he cannot hear the discussion which is taking place on the other side.

Mr. McNARY. Mr. President, I am not able to hear what is taking place on the floor. I inquire who has the floor?

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from California [Mr. McADoo].

Mr. McNARY. Has the time of the Senator from California expired?

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Not. quite.

Mr. McNARY. Mr. President, there is so much confusion in the Chamber that I raise the point of order whether the Senate is in session? [Laughter.]

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senate is in session and the Senator from California still has the floor.

Mr. McADOO. I yield to the Senator from Oregon.

Mr. McNARY. I am not asking the Senator to yield. The Senator's time has about expired; and if he is going forward with an explanation of his amendment, he should proceed.

Mr. PEPPER. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. McADOO. I yield.

Mr. PEPPER. I ask the Senator from California if it would not meet his objection, and at the same time preserve the liberal amendment inserted yesterday, which was offered by the Senator from Kansas [Mr. McGILL], to let the amendment of the Senator from California come after the amendment of the Senator from Kansas, so that the bill would provide:

And including any practices ordinarily performed by or for a farmer as an incident to such farming, including harvesting, packing, storing, or preparing for market, in the raw or natural state.

Mr. McADOO. I consider that of the utmost importance where a large part of the services are rendered through farm cooperatives, and for that reason, while I do not want to affect the amendment of the Senator from Kansas, nevertheless I think the suggestion of my friend from Florida is worthy of consideration.

Mr. McGILL. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. McADOO. I yield.

Mr. McGILL. I appreciate the purpose of the Senator from California, but my judgment is that his amendment will operate simply as a limitation to the amendment I offered and will not broaden its scope.

Mr. ADAMS. Mr. President, will the Senator from California yield?

Mr. McADOO. Certainly.

Mr. ADAMS. The Senator from California has stricken from his amendment the clause any products derived from any of the above agricultural pursuits, so that it merely applies to processing without saying whether it is an agricUltural product or not. He has stricken out the definition of agricultural products.

Mr. PEPPER. The Senator from California has not stricken out anything, according to his later suggestion. He merely suggests that he will let the provision be added at the end of the amendment of the Senator from Kansas, so that it will take care of what he has in mind without interfering with the exemptions which other Senators desire to have incorporated in the bill.

Mr. McADOO. From a hasty examination of the amendment which the Senator from Kansas [Mr. McGILL] has brought to my attention, I cannot see how my amendment, if inserted in the bill, would have the effect which has been suggested.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The time of the Senator from California on the amendment has expired.

Mr. McADOO. But, on the other hand, my amendment takes care of a situation involving the use of cooperatives.

Mr. GEORGE. Mr. President—

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Does the Senator from California yield to the Senator from Georgia?

Mr. McADOO. I yield.

Mr. GEORGE. I suggest to the Senator from California that, in my opinion, the amendment offered by the Senator from Kansas [Mr. McGILL] yesterday is broader than his amendment, because it takes care of all operations, whether performed by cooperatives or by persons under contract or by persons who have merely been employed for a particular job. To enumerate even them in a succeeding clause, or to recite the things that are included, would thus, of course, under the well-known rule of construction, form a limitation upon what is first stated as a broad general proposition. I think the Senator's purpose is absolutely accomplished by

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the amendment offered yesterday by the Senator from Kansas.

I may say to the Senator from California that I had in mind precisely what he has in mind, but with reference to different products. After examining the amendment of the Senator from Kansas I concluded that it covered all those cases as well as the cases which I think the Senator himself has in mind.

Mr. McADOO. Then I shall ask that further consideration of my amendment be deferred for the moment. I should like now to offer a second amendment to the amendment of the committee.

Mr. LA FOLLETTE. Mr. President, a parliamentary inquiry.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator will state it.

Mr. LA FOLLETTE. Has the Senator from California withdrawn his amendment?

Mr. McADOO. No; I am deferring further consideration of it for the moment.

Mr. LA FOLLETTE. Then what is the pending amendment?

Mr. McADOO. It is the one I am now asking to have considered. I ask that it be read by the clerk.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will state the amendment offered by the Senator from California to the amendment of the committee.

The LEGISLATIVE CLERK. In the amendment of the committee, it is proposed, on page 53, line 19, before the period, to insert a comma and the following:

And any goods produced wholly or 1n part by convicts or prisoners (except convicts or prisoners on parole or probation).

Mr. McADOO. Mr. President, the object of the amendment is obvious from its reading. The object is to prevent prison-made goods being brought in competition with goods made by free labor in the different States when we are regulating, by the provisions of the bill under consideration, not only wages of labor but the hours of labor. Many States have laws forbidding the sale of convict-made goods. The Ashurst-Sumners Act prohibits the transportation in interstate commerce of prison-made goods into States where the sale of such goods is prohibited. If we are to pass this bill fixing minimum wages and maximum working hours throughout the Nation, it is, in my opinion, necessary, for the protection of goods made by free labor, that the transportation of prison-made goods in interstate commerce be excluded. I therefore have offered the amendment to the amendment of the committee.

Mr. COPELAND. Mr. President, apparently the matter presented by the Senator from California is of considerable interest to my State. I have had a number of telegrams asking that the amendment of the Senator from California be adopted. I ask that the names of the signers of the telegrams urging adoption of the McAdoo amendment may be inserted in the RECORD.

There being no objection, the names were ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:

Whitlock Cordage Co., B. Sack & Son, Federal Hardware Co., American Manufacturing Co., City Cordage & Chamas Paper Co., Coston Supply Co.

Mr. COPELAND. Mr. President, while I am on my feet may I ask a question of the Senator in charge of the bill [Mr. BLACK], who is always very patient?

Mr. BLACK. Certainly.

Mr. COPELAND. Yesterday I had a telegram from one of my constituents asking that the term employer, on page 50, line 16, be further defined. I crave the aid of the Senator from Alabama in setting me clear as to why this is desired. My constituent requests that the following language be added:

Provided, however, That the term employer shall not include any employer who demonstrably uses minimum-wage and maximum-week standards equal to or better than those established by the act.

It would seem to me it would naturally be the case, if the employer were paying the minimum wage and not exceeding the maximum hours of labor prescribed by the bill, that that question and that employer would not be involved in the operations of the bill. Was this matter presented to the committee?

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, no such matter was presented to the committee, but it would be impossible for the bill to apply to a person who who paying a larger wage than the minimum provided and who was working his employees shorter hours than provided by the bill. It would be the same as though no order had been issued so far as he was concerned. It would be mere surplusage to add such a provision and accomplish nothing except to add three or four lines to the bill, which would be wholly futile.

Mr. COPELAND. In other words, it would be a work of supererogation?

Mr. BLACK. Yes; something of that kind.

Mr. COPELAND. It would seem so to me, but the gentleman who suggested the addition to me is in such a position of knowledge that I thought he must have something well worth while in mind. However, what the Senator has said is satisfactory to me.

Mr. President, I send to the desk an amendment to the pending committee amendment, being a new part V, and ask that it lie on the table; also an amendment to the so-called Maloney substitute for title II, which I ask to have lie on the table.

The amendments are identical. They cover the antilynching bill as it came to the Senate from the House. I am not offering the bill which was introduced here by my colleague [Mr. WAGNER] and the Senator from Indiana [Mr. VAN NUYsJ, thinking that the bill which came from the House perhaps was common property. It is offered in the form of an amendment, first, to the committee amendment, and, second, to the Maloney substitute. I ask that both amendments may lie on the table.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The amendments will lie on the table.

Mr. CONNALLY. Mr. President, is the Senator going to offer the antilynching bill as an amendment to the pending bill?

Mr. COPELAND. I have sent the amendments forward and asked that they lie on the table, so that at the appropriate time I may call them up if it seems desirable.

Mr. CONNALLY. The Senator is going to endeavor to attach the antilynching bill to the hour and wage bill?

Mr. COPELAND. Yes.

Mr. GEORGE. Mr. President, I offer an amendment to the pending bill, which I send to the desk and ask to have stated.

Mr. McNARY. Mr. President, a parliamentary inquiry.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator will state it.

Mr. McNARY. What is the status of the amendment offered by the junior Senator from California [Mr. McADoo]?

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. It is pending.

Mr. GEORGE. I understood that the amendment of the Senator from California had been disposed of.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. It has not been.

Mr. McADOO. Mr. President, I ask for action on the pending amendment.

Mr. McNARY. May the amendment be stated by the clerk?

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will again state the amendment ofiered by the Senator from California [Mr. McADoo] to the amendment reported by the committee.

The CHIEF CLERK. In the committee amendment, on page 53, line 19, before the period, it is proposed to insert a comma and the following:

And any goods produced wholly or in part by convicts or prisoners (except convicts or prisoners on parole or probation).

Mr. BLACK obtained the floor.

Mr. WALSH. Mr. President—

Mr. BLACK. I yield to the Senator from Massachusetts.

Mr. WALSH. I desire to say to the chairman of the committee that I think I have some knowledge about the provisions of this bill, but I have not any knowledge about the amendments which are being offered; and for 15 minutes I

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have not been able to hear what was said pro and con about these matters. I think that is true of a number of Senators on the floor. Let us have order; and I suggest that Senators raise their voices so that we may hear them.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore rapped for order.

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, the pending amendment would make it illegal to transport in interstate commerce any goods which have been produced in whole or in part by convict labor. It would add an entirely new phase to the bill. The bill has been prepared in such a way as to limit its effect to minimum wages, maximum hours, and child labor. Any other subjects which might be added would, of course, be added without committee consideration in connection with the form in which they should be added to the bill, and without investigation as to the conditions which may or may not require their addition.

I sincerely hope the Senate will not adopt an amendment to this measure which would add a fourth phase making it illegal to transport prison-made goods in interstate commerce. At the present time there is in effect a law relating to that subject. Under that law, no prison-made goods may be shipped into any State if the use of prison-made goods is prohibited by the laws of the State. This measure would go still further, and would prevent such goods being shipped into States even though the States themselves had enacted no legislation on the subject.

The Government having embarked upon the other method of treating the subject of prison-made goods, it seems to me it would be unwise and improper to depart from it at this time; and certainly I believe it would not be wise or proper to add that controversial subject to this measure when it is already limited to the three subjects discussed.

I sincerely hope, therefore, that the amendment will be rejected.

Mr. WHEELER. Mr. President, what the Senator from Alabama has said with reference to prison-made goods might be said with equal force with reference to the addition to the wage and hour bill of the child-labor provision.

The other day, as I understand, the Senator from Colorado [Mr. JOHNSON] made a motion, or he is about to make a motion, to strike from the bill its provisions with reference to child labor and substitute the bill which has been reported from the Committee on Interstate Commerce. I desire to call the attention of the Senate to some of the provisions with reference to child labor as they appear in the pending bill:

The Chief of the Children's Bureau shall provide by regulation or by order that the employment of employees under the age of 16 years in any occupation shall not be deemed to constitute oppressive child labor if and to the extent that the Chief of the Children's Bureau determines that such employment is confined to periods which will not interfere with their schooling and to conditions which will not interfere with their health and well-being.

In other words, the Chief of the Children's Bureau may absolutely say whether child labor shall or shall not be employed in a particular industry. I say it is not right that the Chief of the Children's Bureau should be permitted to say that children shall be permitted to work in a particular industry and shall not be permitted to work in some other industry.

In addition to that the pending bill gives to the Chief of the Children's Bureau the right to say that children under 16 years of age shall be permitted to work in a particular industry, but that children under 18 shall not be permitted to work in another particular industry, because the Chief of the Children's Bureau is authorized to say that one industry is hazardous and another one is not hazardous. So, with reference to mining or anything else, the Chief of the Children's Bureau, under the provisions of the bill, is authorized to say, Children may work in this particular field, and that is all right, but they may not work in some other field.

The Senator from Alabama called attention to the provision which has just been offered as an amendment with reference to convict-made goods.

Mr. CONNALLY. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. WHEELER. I yield.

Mr. CONNALLY. Does not what the Senator is now pointing out, about the delegation of authority to the Chief of the Children's Bureau, apply to the whole bill, in that we are delegating this power to a board? I would just as soon trust the Chief of the Children's Bureau as trust the board. Does not the same vice go all through the bill?

Mr. WHEELER. I may say that I think a good deal of the same vice does go all through the bill; but if the Senator will observe and study the bill, he will see that the vice applies particularly with reference to child labor.

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for another question?

Mr. WHEELER. I yield.

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. I merely wish to clear up a misunderstanding in my own mind. I understood the Senator from Colorado [Mr. JOHNSON] the other day to indicate that he merely intended to move to strike from the bill the provisions with reference to child labor. The Senator from Montana a few minutes ago indicated that it was the intention of the Senator from Colorado also to move to substitute another measure on the subject of child labor.

Mr. WHEELER. That is my understanding.

Let me make a brief statement with reference to the amendment which was offered by the Senator from Colorado and give the Senate just a little background with reference to it.

After talking with a gentleman whom I consider one of the outstanding liberals of the country and who has given a great deal of thought and study to the child-labor movement, I introduced a bill along the same lines as the Prison Made Goods Act, which is now in operation and which is working rather effectively. I did so because I have been interested in preventing child labor ever since I was a boy in Massachusetts, and because this bill absolutely flies in the face of the Supreme Court of the United States of America in one case, in that the Court has held that this kind of legislation may not be constitutionally enacted. In addition to that, it absolutely flies in the face of the supreme Court, because in that respect the bill is an unwarranted delegation of power to the Children's Bureau with reference to child labor.

Does the Senate desire definitely to say to the Supreme Court, We intend to pass this bill, notwithstanding you have held this kind of legislation unconstitutional, notwithstanding the fact that you have said to the Congress of the United States that it may not delegate its power as it is delegated with reference to the Children's Bureau, because no proper standard is set up there? No proper standard is set up with reference to child labor in this bill, and yet we are asked to pass it.

I must confess that it looks to me as if the Children's Bureau and the Department of Labor were urging the inclusion of the provision advisedly and deliberately because they want to see the Supreme Court again strike down the provision in order that they may come back to the Congress of the United States and say, Well, we told you so, and go to the people of the country on that issue.

In the first place, the subject of child labor has no business in this particular bill. It was put in the bill, not by the chairman of the committee—what I say has no reference to him—in my judgment, because it was desired to say to Senators, When you vote against this bill you are also voting against the prohibition of child labor. The provision has not any business in the bill. It should be a separate measure. It is one of the very most important questions before Congress, and it should be dealt with separately and distinctly by itself.

As the Senator from Colorado [Mr. JoHNSON] said the other day, where do we find the provision with reference to child labor? In the penalty clause. I mean, finally we find in the penalty clause a provision with reference to child labor, prohibiting the shipment in interstate commerce of

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goods by child labor. That is not the way we ought to legislate in the Senate. It is not the honest way to legislate. It is not the right way to legislate with reference to a great subject, such as child labor, in which people from one end of the country to the other are interested.

When I introduced my bill I found that the Senator from Missouri [Mr. CLARK] bad introduced a bill identical with mine, or practically identical with it. I found that several other Senators had introduced similar bills; that the Senator from Alabama [Mr. BLACK] himself had introduced a bill on the subject; that the Senator from Kentucky [Mr. BARKLEY] had introduced a bill on the subject; that the Senator from Kansas [Mr. CAPPER], the Senator from Colorado [Mr. JOHNSON], the Senator from Wyoming [Mr. O'MAHONEY], and the Senator from Washington [Mr. SCHWELLENBACH] had introduced bills on the subject. I turned them over to a subcommittee. We held hearings with reference to the subject for a considerable length of time. We heard representatives of the different churches, representatives of the Episcopal Church, I think of the Methodist Church, of the Jewish race, and of the Catholic denomination. We beard representatives of the brotherhoods and representatives of the employers. We finally worked out a bill which was satisfactory to practically everybody except the Children's Bureau. They were practically the only ones who were not satisfied. Some of those who came and testified against the bill, inspired, I may say, by the Children's Bureau, stated that the reason they did not want any legislation was that they were afraid it might prevent the ratification of the amendment to the Constitution with reference to child labor. In other words, they were afraid they would lose the cause for which they had been fighting, and were afraid some of them could not go out and collect fees from the general public for fighting for the prevention of child labor. Even when it was presented to them that in practical effect the legislation would prevent child labor, they did not want to accept it.

Mr. Keating, the editor of Labor, came and testified in favor of the legislation. He was the author of the original child labor amendment. Likewise a number of representatives of the railroad brotherhoods came and· testified with reference to it.

We thought we had worked out iii the committee a bill which would do the job, and we took, in substance, the original Keating bill, which passed Congress, and amended it in some details so that we thought it would be more acceptable to the Supreme Coirrt of the United States. Secondly, we added another provision dealing with child labor in identically the same way that we deal with prison-made goods, so that if the Supreme Court of the United States should hold one provision of the law unconstitutional, we knew they would have to hold the other provisions constitutional.

Men came from New York to testify. New York State is one of the large consumers of goods. We provided that no goods could be shipped into a State whose laws prohibited the shipment of such goods into it. Then we provided in detail with reference to the necessity of branding goods made by child labor.

Senators know that, from a practical standpoint, if goods had to be branded so as to show they bad been made by child labor, very few people would buy them. Certainly they would not be bought in many of the States. The stores would not sell them. So we provided that it would be necessary to brand goods as having been made by child labor if they were produced in a factory which employed child labor.

We also provided against the shipment of goods into a State whose laws prevented the sale of that kind of goods. So there were three different ways in which we undertook to prevent child labor. We did not leave it to the Children's Bureau to say, You can employ child labor in this particular factory, but you cannot employ it over here. What the Children's Bureau wants and what the Department of Labor wants, it seems to me, is not the prevention of child labor, but they want to have the power in their hands.

Mr. GEORGE. Mr. President, I suggest to the Senator from Montana that when the pending child-labor amendment to the Constitution was offered in this body in 1924 it was the same unreasonable, unyielding, and stubborn attitude which prevented the writing of an amendment which would have been adopted long ago by the American people.

Mr. WHEELER. I know that perfectly well, because my colleague, the late Senator Walsh, worked on the amendment, and I know the opposition and the unyielding attitude he met from the Department. But he was so interested in the effort to prevent child labor that he went along with the Department in spite of their unyielding attitude, and as a result the child-labor amendment has not been ratified.

Mi. LA FOLLETTE. Mr. President, I think that in fairness to the present Chief of the Children's Bureau, the RECORD ought to show that she is opposed to this very language, on page 52, beginning after the period in line 14 and extending down to line 22.

Mr. WHEELER. The Children's Bureau has not consulted me about it, and the first thing I heard of it was the statement made by the Senator from Wisconsin.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. MINTON in the chair). The time of the Senator from Montana on the amendment has expired.

Mr. WHEELER. I will occupy some of my time on the bill. I am glad to hear the Senator from Wisconsin say that the Chief of the Children's Bureau is opposed to that provision, because certainly it is a provision which grants her the power to say whether or not a child's health is going to be injured from working in a factory. It certainly gives the Bureau a chance to say, You can work this child from this home, but you cannot work this child from this other home because its health would be affected.

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, will the Senator from Montana yield?

Mr. WHEELER. I yield.

Mr. BLACK. This provision, which was written in by the committee, as stated by the Senator, and not at the request of the Children's Bureau, was inserted merely to apply to the period when children are out of school, during school vacation. It does not provide for the entire year. It is limited wholly and completely—and I am sure the Senator wants the Senate to understand the facts—to the vacation period.

There was a conflict in the committee on that particular matter. There may be a motion to strike the provision from the bill. But I should like to have it appear that the provision does not grant full power to the Children's Bureau to do what the Senator is saying.

Mr. WHEELER. Let me read the language.

Mr. BLACK. Very well.

Mr. WHEELER. It provides:

The Chief of the Children's Bureau shall provide by regulation or by order that the employment of employees under the age of 16 years In any occupation shall not be deemed to constitute oppressive child labor if and to the extent that the Chief of the Children's Bureau determines that such employment is confined to periods which will not interfere with their schooling and to conditions which will not interfere with their health and wellbeing.

If that does not mean what I said it did; if that does not mean that the Children's Bureau can say that a period of vacation is 6 months, or 9 months, or 3 months, or 2 months, then I do not understand the English language. If that language does not mean that the Children's Bureau can say to this particular child, Your health will permit you to work, and to another, Your health will not permit you to work, I do not understand the English language.

Mr. Presiden, I have raised six children, and I think I know something about children and how they ought to be regulated. I get weary of hearing women who have never had any children and never have known what it is to raise children tell me and my wife how we should raise our children. I object to women who have made miserable failures of raising their own children telling the mothers of the country who have raised their children in a decent manner how they should raise them.

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[PAGE 7932]

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. WHEELER. I yield for a question, but my time is limited.

Mr. BLACK. The Senator understands, does he not, that the provision to which he refers is a part of the bill which can be isolated, and which can be stricken out by amendment if the Senate desires to do that?

Mr. WHEELER. I thoroughly understand that, but I am pointing out what is in the bill now, not what can be done with the bill in the future.

Mr. BLACK. If the Senator will yield just for me to make one statement, I wish to corroborate what the Senator from Wisconsin has said to the effect that the Chief of the Children's Bureau is very anxious to have this provision stricken from the bill.

Mr. WHEELER. It should be stricken out. In addition to what I have said, I call attention to the fact that it is provided in the bill that the Department may hire a sheriff, or a constable, or any State officer, or, if they do not hire him, they can pay him, without any question as to the amount they may pay him. There can be constables and sheriffs and other public officers, State employees, all over the country, being paid out of the Treasury of the United States for assisting the Department of Labor. It does not provide how much they shall be paid, whether $50, or $10, or $5. Under the provisions of the bill the Department can go out and subsidize and buy up all the sheriffs and constables and other peace officers of the United States and pay them while they are drawing their regular salaries.

Mr. CONNALLY. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. WHEELER. I yield.

Mr. CONNALLY. Why does the bill provide that the investigation shall be made by the Department of Labor instead of by the board? Why should the board turn over the investigatory power to the Department of Labor?

Mr. WHEELER. I do not know.

Mr. CONNALLY. If the board is to be an impartial board to pass on matters. why should it turn over all the work of investigation and report to the Department?

Mr. WHEELER. I had desired to have an opportunity to support a bill providing for regulation of the hours of labor, but it seems to me that the pending bill has been very poorly drafted; and while I intend to vote for it, I shall do so with the greatest of hesitation, particalarly in view of the provisions contained in the bill with reference to the Children's Bureau. I think they are outrageous provisions and should never have been included.

Some have asked why Congress does not draft its own bills. It is because whenever a committee drafts a bill some official in one of the departments sends in a bill and says, We want this, and we do not want the bill drafted by the committee, because we do not like the way that 't' is crossed or that 'i' is dotted. As a result of this situation which has existed Congress is being blamed and the Senate is being blamed because they have allowed themselves to be led around by the nose by some officers in the departments whom we commonly call the brain trusters.

Mr. President, I desire to close my remarks by saying that I shall support the amendment offered by the Senator from Colorado [Mr. JoHNSON] as a substitute for part of the committee amendment. I said the other day that I had intended to vote for the bill anyway, and I desire to vote for it, but I reserve the right to vote against it in the event that the iniquitous provisions with reference to the Children's Bureau remain in the bill. The bill should not contain a provision that representatives of the Children's Bureau can go out to Montana and say to the people of Montana what shall be done with reference to particular children. The provision now in the bill would permit the representatives of the Children's Bureau to go into every home in America, if they wanted to, and make an order with reference to a particular child, and say that it may work because it is strong and healthy, but that another child in the same household may not work because that child is not so well or healthy as the other child.

Is that what the Senate of the United States wants to do? Is that the kind of power it wants to give to the Children's Bureau—to permit it to send its representatives into every little home in the country that it chooses to go into? Do Senators want the sheriffs of their counties and the prosecuting attorneys of their counties to act as snoopers in the homes of America, and while they are snooping there putting in bills for $10, $25, or $50 to the Labor Department?

I cannot conceive that the Senate wants to do that, and I do not believe the Senate wants to pass the bill with that sort of a provision in it, or the provisions with reference to children that are now contained in the bill.

Mr. CONNALLY. Mr. President—

. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia [Mr. GEORGE] wishes to offer an amendment. He had previously endeavored to offer it.

Mr. CONNALLY. I desire to make a privileged motion under the rule. I send the motion to the desk and ask to have it read.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas makes a motion, which the clerk will read.

The legislative clerk read as follows:

I move that the bill be recommitted to the Committee on Education and Labor.

Mr. CONNALLY. Mr. President. have I the floor?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. That motion takes precedence over pending amendments.

Mr. CONNALLY. And does the Senator from Texas have the floor?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Yes; the Senator from Texas has the floor.

Mr. CONNALLY. Mr. President, from the very beginning I had intended to vote for a bill to regulate hours and wages, and I had intended to vote for this bill until I read it.

Mr. GEORGE. Mr. President. will the Senator from Texas yield to me for the purpose of asking that two brief amendments which I shall offer may be considered as pending, so that I may have an opportunity to have a vote on them?

Mr. CONNALLY. I shall be very glad to yield for that purpose.

Mr. GEORGE. Mr. President. I ask that two amendments, which I send to the desk, may be considered as pending, having now been formally offered, so that I may have a vote upon them if the motion now made by the Senator from Texas shall not prevail.

Mr. BONE. Mr. President, will the Senator from Texas yield?

Mr. CONNALLY. For what purpose does the Senator from Washington wish to have the Senator from Texas yield?

Mr. BONE. For the purpose of asking a parliamentary question of the Chair.

Mr. CONNALLY. I yield for that purpose.

Mr. BONE. Mr. President, the Senator from California [Mr. McADoo] offered an amendment which is now pending. I have an amendment of similar nature.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment presented by the Senator from California [Mr. McADOO] is now pending.

Mr. BONE. Mr. President, a parliamentary inquiry.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator will state it.

Mr. BONE. Do I correctly understand that the Senator from Texas has made a motion to recommit the bill?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas has made such a motion.

Mr. CONNALLY. I have.

Mr. BONE. I have prepared an amendment, but was not advised until this morning that the Senator from California [Mr. McADOO] had prepared a similar amendment. My amendment would bring convict-made goods within the scope of the bill; and I am not certain just exactly what the parliamentary status would be if a vote were taken on the motion which has just been made by the Senator from Texas.

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[PAGE 7933]

Mr. CONNALLY. I yield to the Senator from Washington for the purpose of offering an amendment, if he desires.

Mr. BONE. I send the amendment to the desk and ask that it lie on the table.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. No other question will come up until the motion made by the Senator from Texas shall have been disposed of. Amendments may be sent to the desk and lie on the table.

Mr. CONNALLY, As I said a moment ago, Mr. President, I am anxious to vote for a bill to regulate hours and wages, but that does not mean that I am willing to vote for any bill that has that label on it. I want to vote for a bill that contains provisions which appeal to my judgment and my sense of the proper exercise of our constitutional power.

Senator after Senator on the fioor of the Senate has said that the pending bill does not suit him, and yet some of them say they are going to vote for it anyway. The Senator from Montana [Mr. WHEELER], an outstanding friend of labor, said a moment ago that he does not like the bill, that it does not suit him, that he may vote for it, but that he may not do so unless it is amended in certain particulars.

Mr. President, I feel that the bill ought to go back to the Committee on Education and Labor, so that the committee, if necessary, may hold additional hearings upon the bill, may reconsider the questions that have been brought forth in the debate, and may be able to report back to the Senate at its next session a bill which may meet with our ideas of the proprieties of the subject matter.

This is a bill supposedly in behalf of labor, Mr. President. Some Senators seem to have been influenced somewhat by the letter of Mr. William Green, president of the American Federation of Labor, under date of yesterday. I want to analyze Mr. Green's statement:

The wage and hour bill in the form in which it is now before the Senate does not meet the expectations of labor.

Well, if it does not, why should Senators support it on the theory that it does meet the expectations of labor? If Senators want to help labor, why vote for a. bill which labor says does not meet the situation?—

However—

This is Mr. Green speakingHowever, we recognize the need for the enactment of wage and hour legislation.

So do I, Mr. President. That is why I want to send the bill back to the committee, so that the committee may bring out a bill on the subject.

For that reason, rather than recommit the Senate btll for further committee consideration, it would seem advisable to pass the best wage and hour bill possible 1n the Senate—

For what purpose? To get a bill? To enact legislation? No. Not that this bill suits him, not that it snits us, but merely to have something with the name on it which says "hours and wages we shall pass something with the hope of doing what—

with the hope that it can be revised and amended 1n the House in such a way as to make it more nearly satisfactory and acceptable to labor.

I submit that Mr. Green's letter, instead of being in favor of not recommitting the bill is an argument in behalf of recommitting it.

Mr. Green says this bill does not suit him. He does not want this bill. If the House does not change it, he is against it. What does he ask us to do? By inference he suggests that the Senate abdicate its authority and let the House of Representatives write the bill. No; this bill does not suit us. We do not want it; and if this were the final word on the subject, we should be against it. But, Senators, give up your authority, pass it over to the House, and let the House write a bill. Who knows what the House will write? Mr. Green does not know; Senators do not know; and the House does not know.

Mr. President, there is nothing in the Democratic platform demanding this particular bill. There 1s nothing in the Democratic platform making any pledge as to this particular measure or anything like this measure. So Senators on this side of the aisle need not fear the lash of the platform in sending this bill back to the committee.

But what are the views of other labor men? I hold in my hand, and there has been printed in the RECORD, statements of John P. Frey, president, metal-trades department, American Federation of Labor, and J. W. Williams, president, building-trades department, American Federation of Labor. Two great departments of the American Federation of Labor are urging the Senate to send the bill back to the committee, so that the committee may work out an acceptable bill and bring it back here in January.

Mr. President, why should we be so hasty? What is there that is compelling us to enact this legislation today? Congress will be here again in January. Will we not know more about this question then than we now do? Will not the Committee on Education and Labor know more about it then than it now knows? The bill which is before us is not the bill that was introduced originally. It is not the bill with respect to which Mr. Green appeared before the committee earlier in the hearings and which he approved.

Are we now in the proper frame of mind for deliberate action on important legislation? Everyone within the sound of my voice knows that our nerves are frayed; that we are tired and that the country is also tired; that we ought to go home; and that we ought not to enact this proposed legislation simply for the sake of passing something in order that the House of Representatives may write the bill, or perhaps that it may be written in conference.

Mr. President, as one Senator, I do not favor turning over to conference committees the power to legislate and to bring back to this body measures that have not received the deliberate consideration and approval of the Senate of the United States.

What does this bill propose to do? Mr. President, it confers on a board of five men greater powers over the economic life of this Nation than the power exercised today by five European monarchs over the affairs of their peoples. Whose power is it? The power to legislate is vested in this body and in the House of Representatives by the people through the Constitution. Have we any right to turn over that power to a board? Why not enact a piece of legislation fixing by statute what the minimum wage shall be, entrusting its administration, of course, to a board? I am not willing, without further consideration of the committee, to delegate to five men the power of life and death over the industry of America.

Let me say to those who contend that this bill is in behalf of labor that the power which it is proposed to confer upon this board may be exercised against labor, just as it may be exercised in favor of labor. Let me say to those from the Northwest and the Middle West that the power of this board may be exercised against their region just as it may be exercised against any region in the United States.

Mr. President, the labor representatives of two great departments of the American Federation of Labor have expressed their views on this measure. What do they say? They say that this bill ought to be recommitted; they are bitterly against it.

The international unions of the bullding trades and the metal trades, speaking through the building trades department and the metal trades depa.rtment, American Federation of Labor—

Speaking in their official capacity, they have made their views known. Do you suppose, Mr. President, if Mr. Green was very insistent about the letter which he wrote and which was read here that he would permit two members of his cabinet, so to speak, two of his board of directors, openly to advocate the recommitment of this bill?

Mr. Green, of course, is in a difficult position. We have to understand the attitude of men before we can always understand their sentiments or their views. But what do these men say? They are not under any pressure. What do they say? They speak for labor; they speak for men who belong to their unions.

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[PAGE 7934]

The international unions of the building trades and the metal trades, speaking through the building trades department and the metal trades department, American Federation of Labor, believe that the Black-Cannery bill—the wages-and-hours bill—now before the Senate should be recommitted.

Is there any doubt there? Is there any hesitation there?

Mr. BARKLEY. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Texas yield to the Senator from Kentucky?

Mr. CONNALLY. I yield.

Mr. BARKLEY. In connection with the Senator's remark that the two gentlemen who signed the letter are free and independent of Mr. Green, and that, therefore, they ought to be respected because they have broken away from him in this matter, it ought to be recalled that, notwithstanding the fact that Mr. Green in the campaign last year supported President Roosevelt, the two gentlemen to whom the Senator has reference broke away from him and did their best actively to elect Mr. Landon as President of the United States.

Mr. CONNALLY. I do not know about whom they supported for President, and I do not see that that is important when we are considering a matter such as this.

Mr. BARKLEY. The Senator was talking about them breaking away from Mr. Green; and I was reminding him that that is not the first time they did it.

Mr. CONNALLY. What I meant to imply was that there could not be any very great bitterness between Mr. Green and two of his chiefs of staff because of their writing the letter, for, if Mr. Green had wanted to, I should think he could have stopped it. But I do not see that for whom they voted for President has anything to do with this bill, because I suppose this bill will provide wages and hours for the thinning ranks of the Republicans, if any of them ever work [laughter], as well as for Democrats.

Let us see what these men say. They are talking for labor; they are not running for office; they are speaking in behalf of the interest of men who do work:

This measure, which so vitally affects labor, seeks to establish minimum wage rates and maximum hours of labor. With this purpose the two departments are in hearty and active approval.

They are for wage and hour legislation, but are not for this particular wage and hour legislation. Is this bill all that can be said on the subject? Is this bill the last word? Is this the sublimated essence of all that can be done about wages and hours? The committee changed the entire original bill. In the light of the facts, it can change this bill if the bill goes back to them.

But the measure in its present form, and with the amendments which have been proposed, would go much further.

Those are the words of these labor leaders and not the words of the Senator from Texas.

In its present form—

Listen to this, Senators. You had better bear them now instead of after the vote; you had better hear them now before the election, and not afterward—

In its present form there is grave danger that it would materially interfere with and modify the Walsh-Healey bill.

I should like to have the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. WALSH] note that statement. These two labor men say that this bill—

Would materially interfere with and modify the Walsh-Healey bill, which has been of such great protection to labor standards.

There is as yet no clearly defined authority to be given the commission provided for in the measure.

These men see the broad sweep of power which this bill will give to five men. They fear it. They know that power can be exercised against them as well as for them. They recognize that there is no standard set up, but it is all turned over to a board. Let the board do it. Here is the Senate of the United States, entrusted by the people and the Constitution with the legislative power, and we are asked to turn over that power not to 96 Senators, not to 435 Representatives, elected by the people, chosen by the people, but to a board of five not chosen by the people, not selected by the people. Give the board this power; give it up, Mr. Senate; give it up, Mr. Congress; turn it over to a board.

What are Senators going to say to their constituents when they challenge them because of the manner in which they have performed their duty and say, We meant for the Senate to legislate; we meant for the House to legislate; we did not expect you from fear to fail to do you duty and turn it over to a board.

Who is this board? We do not know—

There has been—

These labor representatives are still speaking—

There has been no adequate opportunity for consideration of the measure by labor or by the Senate.

Labor says that this new bill has not been considered by labor because it has not had any adequate opportunity to consider it. Let us send this bill back to the Committee on Education and Labor. Let them have additional hearings; let labor come before them; let those who may oppose it come before them; let the committee thresh out these questions and bring us back a bill that shall set up some standard by which this board is to be governed, but not a bill which will convey the sovereignty of the United States to a board of five.

It is the conviction of the building trades department—

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator from Texas on the motion has expired.

Mr. CONNALLY. I shall take a few minutes on the bill if the Chair please.

It is the conviction of the building-trades department—

The conviction, not the hasty thought, not a passing fancy, but it is the conviction, the deliberate, settled fixed conviction—

of the building-trades department and the metal-trades department, American Federation of Labor, that a measure of such farreaching effect on labor—

Far reaching, reaching out into every nook and cranny of this Republic, reaching out not simply into the great steel industry and similar industries but reaching out to every little precinct and voting box in all the sweep of this majestic Republic, affecting every man, woman, and child, either directly or indirectly. If it does not affect them directly, it affects what they eat and what they wear and everything else they may buy.

It is the conviction of the building-trades department and of the metal-trades department, American Federation of Labor, that a measure of such far-reaching effect—

On what? On industry? On the big fellows? No, that is not what these gentlemen say. Labor is not complaining because this bill is going to pinch the capitalists and the industrialists; but what do the writers of the letter say?

That a measure of such far-reaching effect on labor—

On labor—

should not be enacted until there has been an adequate opportunity for examination, consultation, and ·conference.

They only want adequate opportunity. They have said that they have not had adequate opportunity to study this new bill or to present this new bill, and they are asking the Congress to give them another chance.

Mr. HUGHES. Mr. President—

MI. CONNALLY. Just a moment. This does not mean that the legislation should be killed. I am in favor of wage and-hour legislation, but I am not in favor of just anything that bears the label of wage and hour legislation. I now yield to the Senator from Delaware.

Mr. HUGHES. I should like to ask the Senator from Texas whether the unions to which he refers and which have sent the letter he holds in his hand did not have the opportunity to go before the committee in the long bearings which the committee conducted on this bill? Were they denied the opportunity to go before the committee and present their views?

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[PAGE 7935]

Mr. CONNALLY. I suppose they had opportunity to go before the committee and be heard on the original bill, but this is a new bill; this is a substitute bill; it is not the original bill.

Mr. HUGHES. Do the changes that have been made affect their interests?

Mr. CONNALLY. They seem to think so; and I think they know as to that better than I do.

Mr. HUGHES. Did not the representatives of labor, many of them, come and testify before the committee at the hearing?

Mr. CONNALLY. I think they did.

Mr. HUGHES. If that be true, I wish to ask the Senator if the bill should be recommitted to the committee which made a report on it, in connection with which, as I understand, no minority views were filed, what new light would be afforded the Senate that must act on the matter? After all, is the bill not committed ultimately to the Senate, and is it not the Senate by the votes of the Senators that will act on this matter? The committee having reported to the Senate, why may we not assume our responsibility and act as we should act without recommitting it to the committee that has already held long hearings and submitted a report?

Mr. CONNALLY. I thank the Senator for his interruption. Let me ask the Senator a question. Does not the Senator know more about the bill today than he did yesterday or the day before?

Mr. HUGHES. Yes; I think I do.

Mr. CONNALLY. I am not in favor of closing the doors to further information.

Mr. HUGHES. I individually would know more since the Senator has spoken, because I always learn much when the Senator speaks.

Mr. CONNALLY. I thank the Senator. If he will just follow the Senator from Texas today, as his compliment implies he is going to do, I shall be very happy.

Mr. HUGHES. I am not sure I can follow the Senator, but I am following his argument.

Mr. PEPPER. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. CONNALLY. I yield.

Mr. PEPPER. Is the Senator in a position to state some of the principal objections of labor?

Mr. CONNALLY. I am stating them now. One is that too much power is given the board.

Mr. PEPPER. Does the Senator know that certain of the nationally prominent labor leaders came to certain members of the committee asking that the ceiling be made 60 cents an hour instead of 40 cents an hour, and that the objection they have to the bill is because the ceiling is not high enough and because there is not sufficient power given to the board?

Mr. CONNALLY. That may be, but that is entirely consistent with what is about to be done here. The proposal is now that the bill does not satisfy us, so we will let the House draw the bill. The House bill provides 70 cents an hour and a 35-hour week. Do Senators want such a bill? That is probably what the House would insist upon having in the bill. Senators say, We do not like this bill so we will let the House write it. They know more than we do. Members of the House are more able than we are. They are more patriotic. They have investigated this matter better than we have. Let us send the bill over and let the House fix the terms of the bill.

Are Senators ready to do that? Are Senators ready to vote that Representatives in the House from their States know more about the subject and are wiser and more patriotic than are the Senators themselves? If any Senator admits that, probably some Representative will take his seat in the Senate after the next election. [Laughter.]

Mr. HUGHES. Mr. President, will the Senator yield further?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Texas yield to the Senator from Delaware?

Mr. CONNALLY. I yield.

LXXXI—501

Mr. HUGHES. I do not exactly follow the Senators line of argument. Why does the Senator say we are turning the bill over to the House? Would we not turn it over to a conference committee?

Mr. CONNALLY. That is worse than turning it over to the House.

Mr. HUGHES. The Senate would be represented by Members of the Senate in the conference and would not be turning it over to the House, but to a conference committee to reconcile the differences between the House and the Senate. If the Senate conferees did their duty we would be as much represented as the House and would not be leaving it to the House to write a bill for the Senate.

Mr. CONNALLY. Every Senator who has been in the Senate very long knows about conference committees. We adopt amendments such as those offered yesterday by the Senator from North Carolina [Mr. REYNOLDS]. He offered two important amendments which were adopted, and the newspapers flashed the information down to North Carolina, and then in about an hour the Senate reversed itself and threw both amendments out the window.

We adopt an amendment to a bill, and it goes to conference. Who are on the conference committee? The conferees on the part of the Sepate are members of the committee who wrote the bill. What would happen to the amendment? It would go out the window if they could find a window to throw it out of.

Conference committee! I was elected to sit in the Senate and to be a United States Senator. I was not elected to sit here and let a conference committee of five or six men take over the entire authority of the United States Senate.

Mr. ELLENDER. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Texas yield to the Senator from Louisiana?

Mr. CONNALLY. First let me inquire how much time I have left?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Five minutes.

Mr. CONNALLY. Very well I yield to the Senator from Louisiana.

Mr. ELLENDER. Has the Senator from Texas offered or suggested any amendments to the bill that would improve it to such an extent as would cause him to support it?

Mr. CONNALLY. Yes; I have an amendment pending.

Mr. ELLENDER. Could the bill be amended so as to satisfy the views of the Senator from Texas?

Mr. CONNALLY. I think it could.

Mr. ELLENDER. What suggestions would the Senator have to offer?

Mr. CONNALLY. I have but 5 minutes left. It would take all day to tell the Senator. [Laughter.]

Mr. ELLENDER. The Senator may not have the time at this moment, but he had ample occasion before now to offer his suggestions to the Committee on Labor and Education, and to the Senate.

Mr. CONNALLY. The Senator from Texas has not spoken before on the bill.

Mr. ELLENDER. So he informs me; but we have been considering the pending bill since Monday, a period of 6 days.

Mr. CONNALLY; I realize that; but nevertheless I have not spoken.

Mr. ELLENDER. This is the first time the Senator has spoken on the bill?

Mr. CONNALLY. Yes; the first time. I am sorry the Senator intimates that I ought to have talked all day yesterday and all day the day before.

Mr. ELLENDER. No; I am not making such an accusation, but the point that I mean to emphasize is that notwithstanding ample opportmtity, the Senator has remained silent and did not attempt to improve the bill so as to meet such objections as he now urges. A motion to recommit would mean death to the bill.

Mr. CONNALLY. I have an amendment pending. That amendment provides that no order made by the board shall

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become effective until Congress shall have been in session 60 days thereafter. That would be some safeguard. If the board should undertake to ruin an industry or ruin a section of the country, I would provide that the order should not become effective until Congress had been in session 60 days, in which time we might be able to get some action by Congress to prevent such a disaster.

Mr. President, what do these labor representatives say? These interruptions have diverted attention from what the labor men are saying. What do these labor representatives say?

A measure of such far-reaching effect on labor should not be enacted until there has been an adequate opportunity for examination, consultation, and conference.

Here are two great departments of the American Federation of Labor begging the United States Senate to send the bill back to the committee, begging for hearings, begging for consultation, begging for a conference. What is the Senate going to say? Is it going to say, No; we do not want to hear you. We are through. We do not want to bother with you fellows. We are in a hurry. We have to pass this bill right now?

It is for these reasons—

These are the reasons given by two departments of the American Federation of Labor—

It is for these reasons that the two departments of the American Federation of Labor, whose members will be so vitally affected by any such measure, earnestly urge that the blll be recommitted so that the subject can receive the consideration which is so necessary under the circumstances.

Mr. President, I very much regret not being able to be in complete harmony and agreement with the pending measure. I am in favor of the principle of regulation of hours and wages. I think the Congress ought to do something along that line. I do not think we ought to delegate it to somebody else to do.

I am making this motion to recommit in order that we may have more hearings and get more information, in order that the committee may work out a more generally acceptable bill. Who will deny that all of us know more about the bill today than we did last Monday or than we did even yesterday? Why shall we not know more about it in January? The debates that have taken place on the floor of the Senate, the amendments which have been offered, the articles which have been published in the newspapers will all contribute to a crystallization of sentiment on the subject, and the committee and the Congress, and the Senate particularly, will be in better position at the next session to enact wise, sane, and acceptable legislation than they are now at the end of the session, when everyone, petulant, irritated, disturbed, frayed in spirit and in mind, is anxious to go home.

The Senator from New York [Mr. COPELAND] is looking straight into my eyes, and I remember his injunction of some days ago as a scientist, the man of medicine, that Senators ought to be at home and ought not to be legislating under these hectic conditions and circumstances. Have I properly stated the attitude of the Senator from New York?

Mr. COPELAND. Absolutely. The Senator never said a truer word.

Mr. CONNALLY. Mr. President, this is not a hostile motion. I want the committee to bring back to the Senate a bill for which I can vote. I want to help the man in the lower brackets. I know something about the man who toils. I have done some toiling myself, many, many years ago. [Laughter] I do not expect to do any more manual toil if I can avoid it, but I have not forgotten my affection and sympathy for the man down in the lower brackets who works long hours and gets little pay. I want to do something for him. I am not going to turn him and his destiny over to five industrial monarchs who will wield a greater power than any five European monarchs who may now sit upon their little painted thrones.

The power of the five members of the board will be real; their power will be vital; their power will reach out into every section of this Republic. The little European monarch merely sits upon a little piece of gilded wood, wearing his robes of office, but with his hands empty of real power and real authority—simply a little tinseled functionary, a functionary for ceremonies and pomp and display. But we are asked to create five great monarchs, industrial monarchs, commercial monarchs, whose edicts and whose ukases will go out everywhere in this Republic.

Mr. WALSH. Mr. President, yesterday reference was made in the debate to a letter from a prominent labor leader, and again reference has been made to it today by the distinguished Senator from Texas [Mr. CONNALLY], to the effect that the passage of this bill would have some limitation upon the effectiveness of the so-called Walsh-Healey Act. I wish to direct myself briefly to that matter.

If the proposal in this bill had been put forward last year, we would not have heard of the Walsh-Healey Act. Until recent decisions of the United States Supreme Court it was not believed that the proposal contained in this bill was constitutional. The Walsh-Healey Act contains practically all the proposals contained in this bill, but is applicable only to that class of employers and employees who, it was believed, could be held by constitutional authority to comply with the terms laid down; namely, contractors and employers furnishing the Government with supplies and materials. Clearly it was constitutional for the Government to incorporate in any contract for the purchase of supplies a stipulation that such supplies shoUld be produced only in factories and other establishments that operated their employees not more than 40 hours a week, and where a minimum wage was paid that was fixed by a Federal agency, after taking into consideration the standards and conditions set forth in the act.

Mr. President, this bill simply extends the principle of the Walsh-Healey Act beyond merely employees employed on supplies which finally are purchased by the Government; and frankly I cannot understand why any representative of organized labor demands the elimination of the sweatshop and long hours of labor and low wages when his fellow wage earners are working on Government contracts, but does not demand that the same things be done when they are working upon merchandise that goes into the general sales market.

That is all there is to this phase of the question. Instead of contracting or limiting or restricting the Walsh-Healey Act the pending bill extends it.

I repeat, the real issue here is plain and simple. Practically every Senator asserts he is for the objective. Nearly every Member of this body says, I am for a maximum workweek and a minimum wage for wage earners engaged in interstate commerce. There are just two ways of doing this. We can write a bill and fix therein the maximum hours and the minimum wage and compel all industries to comply with these fixed and rigid standards, or we can leave it to a board to fix the hours and minimum wages according to the different standards and conditions existing in different industries.

Herein is the whole question; and we are going to have that issue when the substitute of the Senator from Connecticut [Mr. MALONEY] is presented, because he fixes the hours on a sliding scale, depending upon how many persons are out of work, so that one year a man or a woman may work in a particular industry 32 hours a week, and a few years afterward, or the next year, 38 hours, all depending upon the number of millions who may be unemployed.

Now, let us see why we need a board. We need a board because of the facts stated in the letter I hold in my hand from the man who is administering the Walsh-Healey Act, under which a board fixes the minimum wages in different industries, and has those wages incorporated in the proposals when the Government asks for contracts for supplies. I read a portion of the letter, which is dated July 30, 1937:

I am enclosing copies of the recent decisions of the Secretary of Labor determining prevaillng minimum wages of $15 in the cotton-garment and allied industries, which include the earlier $15 decision

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for the men's work-clothing industry; of $16 for the men's raincoat industry; of $14 for the men's work- and knit-glove industry; of $14 in the North and $13 in the South for the men's underwear industry; of $20 for experienced workers and $15 for boxers and trimmers and learners in the neckwear industry; $27 for the men's cap and hat industry; and of $14 for the seamlesshosiery industry.

Indicating that there is a wide variation as to what should be the minimum wage fixed by law in various industries.

I repeat what I have said before during this debate: Do not Senators think every member of the committee would a thousand times rather have brought in a bill which would prescribe for every industry in this country a maximum 40-hour week and a minimum wage of 40 cents per hour? We were unanimous for it; but, Senators, the evidence showed that that would have brought ruin to a tremendous number of industries. It would immediately have impaired the financial standing of 80 percent of the industries of the country and 80 percent of the workers in the industries of the country, and we did not dare do it. The reason why a board is suggested is in order that it may be done gradually, that it may be done after study and a survey, that it may not be done in 1 month or 6 months or 1 year or 2 years, but that the objective of getting most of the industries of the country into that category may finally be attained.

There is the issue-a board, or a rigid law compelling all the lumber mills in the South which are now working their employees 56 hours a week to reduce their hours immediately, at-once, to 40 hours per week.

Mr. CONNALLY. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Massachusetts yield to the Senator from Texas?

Mr. WALSH. Yes; I yield.

Mr. CONNAlLY. Does the Senator say that the lumber mills in the South work their men 56 hours a week?

Mr. WALSH. Some of them; yes.

Mr. CONNAlLY. I think the Senator ought to say some of them then.

Mr. WALSH. Perhaps I should.

Mr. CONNAlLY. I do not think the Senator ought to charge that all the lumber mills of the South work their men 56 hours a week.

Mr. WALSH. I had in mind the letters that the Senator from Alabama read and the evidence that was submitted.

Mr. CONNALLY. The other day someone quoted the junior Senator from New York [Mr. WAGNER] as saying that in New York some women work 24 hours a day.

Mr. WALSH. I had no intention of referring particularly to the South. The Senator knows that I am not and have not been sectional in discussing this measure. I mentioned the lumber industry of the South in the same way that I would mention industries in other parts of the country, because I realize that same of the Senators from the Southern States are particularly fearful of the consequences of this bill upon the industries of their section and that a sudden drastic reduction in hours would seriously handicap these industries.

Mr. CONNALLY. Some of them may work their employees that many hours, but there are not many of them in my State, I know.

Mr. WALSH. Mr. President, I have just one other statement to make and then I shall complete my observations.

Some leaders of labor organizations are opposed to this bill. Why are they opposed to it? It may be that some fear that legislation of this nature will have a tendency to restrict the expansion of labor organizations, to restrict the organizing of wage earners into labor unions. We had that fact in mind in the committee, and that is the reason why we reached only for the lowest class, the men and women, as the Senator from Florida said, at the foot of the ladder, who are not organized, who have not the facilities for joining labor organizations.

So, Mr. President, I am anxious to lower the working hours and increase the wages of the millions of wage earners who are unorganized, who are in the lowest group of employees, who are hardly able to make ends meet. who have no means of asserting their economic right to a decent living wage, and that is what this bill does. It can be done in one of two ways—by a direct provision for uniform hours and wages in the law or by a bureau with elastic powers. As for me, I am for the bureau as the easiest and the safest and the soundest and the best way and the most reasonable way of bringing about the desired result.

Mr. WHEELER. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. WALSH. Yes; I yield to the Senator from Montana.

Mr. WHEELER. I do not know whether or not the Semitor was in the Chamber a little while ago when I spoke about the provsion with reference to child labor. I particularly should like to have the Senator give his attention to page 52 of the bill, which provides as follows:

The Chief of the Children's Bureau shall provide by regulation or by order that the employment of employees under the age of 16 years in any occupation shall not be deemed to constitute oppressive child labor if and to the extent that the Chief of the Children's Bureau determines that such employment is confined to periods which will not interfere with their schooling and to conditions which will not interfere with their health and well-being.

In other words, the Chief of the Children's Bureau may go into every home in the United States and say to the children in that home whether they may or may not work in industry.

I am sure the Senator, who is a member of the committee, would not want such a provision in this bill.

Mr. WALSH. Mr. President, unfortunately I was not present in the committee when that provision was inserted in the bill. I am disposed to agree with the views of the Senator from Montana.

Mr. NEELY. Mr. President, if our weather-beaten, tempest-tossed legislative bark which has for 6 days floundered in the troubled senatorial sea could speak, it would doubtless say in the language of a wise Hindu poet:

I live between perils, abandoned by friends,

Like an ant on a fire stick lit at both ends.

The beneficent purposes of the Black bill to reduce the hours of service and increase the compensation of certain overworked and underpaid toilers will elicit little sympathy, and command less support, from those who were born with silver spoons in their mouths, rocked in the cradles of luxury, or reared on flowery beds of ease.

Only those who have learned in the severe school of experience, or by long and continuous observation, something of the distress of the homeless, the jobless, and the hungry; only those who know the misery of the countless throng whose hopeless existence is portrayed by the melancholy line:

The short and simple annals of the poor—

will wholeheartedly approve this important measure or diligently endeavor to bestow its proffered blessings upon the children of men.

The necessity for the enactment of the pending legislation is clearly and impressively stated by the President in a message which he sent to the Congress on the 24th day of May, and in which the following appears:

One-third of our population, the overwhelming majority of which is in agriculture or industry, is ill-nourished, ill-clad, and ill-housed.

In other words, every third person in the United States is destitute of necessary clothing. Every third person is either homeless or the occupant of a house or a hut that is not appropriate for human habitation; the wolves of hunger are at the heels of every third person in the land.

Do those who are proposing destructive amendments to the bill believe that the fruits brought forth by the toiling masses have been fairly distributed?. If so, let them remember that in this richest of all rich countries, in which wealth has accumulated and millionaires have multiplied beyond the dreams of the most avaricious and optimistic, 20,500,000 American citizens were kept alive exclusively by Federal relief during the year 1933.

And today, after more than 4 years of a rapid, uninterrupted, and unsurpassed return of prosperity to those whose

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incomes are in the high or middle brackets, more than 12,300,000 of our fellow citizens are still obliged to exist on Federal relief because it is impossible for them to find employment in private industry.

According to the most accurate estimates, more than 8,700,000 men and women who are capable of working with their hands are now idle through no fault of their own.

Today more than 5,800,000 American famllies—21 percent of. our people-are existing on incomes of less than a thousand dollars a year. Three-fifths of American families have incomes of less than $2,000 a year.

On the other hand, in 1935, the last year for which complete figures are available, a certain corporation executive received compensation of $500,000, or $369 more for his services for a single day than the total income upon which any one of more than 5,800,000 American families lived for an entire year. In 1935 another corporation executive received compensation of more than $398,000, and another a salary of more than $374,000, while others received compensation of more than a quarter of a million dollars a year.

The alarming spectacle of fabulous wealth and insufferable poverty living side by side; the menacing pageant of corporation executives with preposterous salaries of a half a million dollars a year ruling employees of the corporation who work long hours for starvation wages should move the Congress to instant and heroic efforts to banish the evils and exile the agonies which a third of the people has so long suffered and so patiently endured.

The amazing lethargy which everywhere manifests itself in this matter lies in the fact that those who enjoy lucrative salaries, live in the lap of abundance, and like the man in the parable are clothed in purple and fine linen and fare sumptuously every day are utterly incapable of comprehending the misery of those who are pursued by woeful want throughout their weary journey from the cradle to the grave.

The general apathy of the public in matters of righting Nation-wide wrongs has throughout the history of civilization compelled governments to deal directly with evils such as the pending bill is designed to abolish. In addressing ourselves to the Herculean task before us we should be encouraged by the accomplishments of the governments of other lands. As all within the sound of my voice well know, almost every page of history is marred with recitals of the oppression of the toiling masses for the benefit of the fortunate and the favored few.

In Great Britain prior to 1802 little children under 9 years of age were apprenticed to masters who compelled them to work under the lash 15 hours a day, Women who were soon to become mothers were not only permitted but forced to toil as much as 17 hours a day. But during the last 135 years Great Britain has passed labor laws and established labor conditions which are among the most humanitarian in the world.

From Thomas Buckle's History of Civilization we learn that as late as the latter part of the eighteenth century the word laborer in India was a term of reproach; to call a member of the so-called upper class a laborer was to commit an o1Iense punishable by banishment; that a toiler who spoke disrespectfully of a social superior was punished by the burning of his mouth with a red-hot iron. If a laboring man read the sacred books he was subject to the punishment of having burning oil poured into his ears. If he committed any part of the sacred books to memory, he was put to death. But even in India, which is still a backward country, amazing reformations have been made for the benefit of the toilers since the dark and barbarous days of a hundred forty years ago.

Fewer than fourscore years have passed away since human slavery was not only legal in a large part of this country but was defended on the floor of the Senate with eloquence comparable to that With which some of our distinguished antireformers have condemned the Black bill.

But the colored man was eventually emancipated, and some of us now demand that American citizens of every race and complexion be freed from the tyranny of starvation wages and inhuman hours of service. The pending bill may not be perfect, but it is the only one on the subject now before the Senate which has a ghost of a chance of becoming a law before the Congress adjourns.

It will at least do these specific things:

Reduce the hours of service of those who work in sweatshops more than 40 hours a week.

Increase the wages of those who receive less than 40 cents an hour.

Prevent the transportation in interstate commerce of the products of child labor.

It will inevitably spread employment to thousands of the more than 8,000,000 who are now unable to obtain work.

But the illustrious Senator from Idaho [Mr. BORAH], with his usual eloquence and sincerity, condemns what he considers certain defects or dangers in the proposed legislation. He fears that the establishment of an additional bureau will jeopardize the safety of the Republic.

He fears that increased favors will be granted those who represent the vested interests. But within the hour in which the Senator from Idaho spoke, the distinguished and eloquent Senator from Georgia [Mr. GEORGE] proclaimed his fears that the Secretary of Labor might peradventure send a union labor leader into the South to organize the cotton-mill workers and the peanut pickers and impose unreasonable burdens upon their employers.

The distinguished Senator from Michigan [Mr. VANDENBERG] is afraid of the bill for a variety of reasons, which he eloquently and vigorously stated.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator from West Virgina on the motion has expired.

Mr. NEELY. Mr. President, let me proceed on the bill.

But excepting the Senator from Michigan, not one of those who have declaimed so Vigorously against this measure has offered a substitute that has a chance of receiving serious consideration before final adjournment; and the substitute proposed by the Senator from Michigan has, by common consent, been placed in a pigeonhole, from which it cannot possibly emerge before January 1938.

The remainder of the antireformers offer no tangible remedy for social diseases and propose no tangible relief from the evils of unemployment and starvation wages. They content themselves by expressing their fears of taking a single step upon the experimental road to progress upon the apparent theory that it is better to bear those ills we have than to take even a remote chance of flying to others that we know not of. Such philosophy, if it had been followed to its ultimate conclusion, would have meant that the earth would still be without form and void; America never would have been discovered, slavery never would have been abolished, and the Declaration of Independence never would have been born.

The best answer to all the fears and apprehensions voiced during the debate is that made by Woodrow Wilson 25 years ago in circumstances similar to those that exist today. Hear what Mr. Wilson says in his New Freedom:

Does any man doubt the great discontent in this country? Does any man doubt that there are grounds and justifications tor discontent? Do we dare stand still? Within the past few months we have witnessed (along with other strange political phenomena, eloquently significant of popular uneasiness) on one side a doubling of the Socialist vote and on the other the posting on dead walls and hoardings all over the country of certain very attractive and diverting bllls warning citizens that lt was better to be safe than sorry and advising them to let well enough alone.

Apparently a good many citizens doubted whether the situation they were advised to let alone was really well enough, and concluded that they would take a chance of being sorry. To me these counsels of do-nothingism, these counsels of sitting still for fear something would happen, these counsels addressed to the hopeful, energetic people of the United States, telling them that they are not wise enough to touch their own affairs without marring them, constitute the most extraordinary argument of fatuous Ignorance I ever beard. Americans are not yet cowards.

Thank God they are not. Mr. Wilson adds progress is the word that charms their ears and stirs their hearts. A

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majority of the people of this Nation and all true liberals in the Senate desire not to stand still but to go forward with the Black bill.

Our unemployment is at this hour a frightful cancer, persistently and ceaselessly gnawing at the vitals of the Republic. A starvation wage for a third of our working population is a malignant tumor that is only slightly less menacing to the welfare of the Nation than the cancer of unemployment. Both of these deadly afllictions will be cured or the patient will perish and the Government of the United States will at last go to the great international cemetery where sleep the remains of Babylon and Nineveh and Thebes and the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome.

The slogan of this hour should be, not inaction, not cowardly surrender, not timid retreat, but forward, march, to the tune of Onward, Christian Soldiers, against every enemy of improvement and every foe of reform:

Come clear the way, then, clear the way.

Blind creeds and kings have had their day.

Break the dead branches from the path;

Our hope is in the aftermath.

Our hope is in heroic men.

Star led to build the world again.

Make way for liberty, make way for men.

Mr. BARKLEY. Mr. President—

Mr. LA FOLLETTE. Mr. President, will the Senator yield so that I may suggest the absence of a quorum?

Mr. BARKLEY. I do not think it is necessary.

Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the motion to recommit the bill. I regret to find myself in disagreement—

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, I should like the Senator to yield in order that we may have a quorum.

Mr. BARKLEY. Very well; I yield.

Mr. BLACK. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. NEELY. Mr. President, is it understood that the Senator from Kentucky shall have the floor after the conclusion of the quorum call?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Yes. The clerk will call the roll

The Chief Clerk called the roll, and the following Senators answered to their names:

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Eighty-six Senators have answered to their names. A quorum is present.

Mr. BARKLEY. Mr. President, yesterday I agreed with the Senator from Oregon [Mr. McNARY] and other Senators that I should attempt to protect the Senator from New Hampshire [Mr. BRIDGES] and the Senator from Connecticut [Mr. MALONEY] so that they might be heard within the time during which we agreed to a limitation on debate. The Senator from Connecticut tells me that he can conclude his remarks in 10 minutes, and I am told that the Senator from New Hampshire believes he can do the same thing and will make an effort to do so. Therefore I shall not occupy the floor now, in order that the Senator from Connecticut may be recognized.

Mr. MALONEY obtained the floor.

Mr. BORAH. Mr. President, I inquire what is the question now before the Senate? Is it the motion to recommit the bill?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is the question now before the Senate.

Mr. BORAH. There are some amendments to be considered which have not as yet been formally offered.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motion to recommit the bill takes precedence.

Mr. BORAH. I am aware of that, but I thought perhaps the author of the motion might be willing to withdraw it until the amendments could be disposed of.

Mr. MALONEY. Mr. President, perhaps I can clear it up, if the Senator will yield to me.

Mr. LA FOLLETI'E. Mr. President, I inquire whose time is this discussion being taken out of? Who has the floor?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair has recognized the Senator from Connecticut [Mr. MALONEY].

Mr. MALONEY. Mr. President, I send to the desk an article from yesterday's Boston Traveler in which it is stated that officials of Massachusetts branch of the American Federation of Labor are opposed to this bill. I ask that the article be read by the clerk.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the clerk will read, as requested.

The Chief Clerk read as follows:

[From the Boston Traveler of Friday, July 30, 1937]

STATE A. F. OF L. HEAD HITS WAGE BILL—TOO MANY CHANGES MADE IN CONNERY MEASURE, SAYS GATELEE

Officials of the Massachusetts branch of the American Federation of Labor do not favor the Black-Cannery wages-and-hours bill in its present form, it was learned today.

When the bill was first framed by the late Congressman Connery, of Lynn, State branch officials sent him a telegram declaring their willingness to uphold the bill, but, says John F. Gatelee, of Holyoke, president of the Massachusetts State federation, in his office at 11 Beacon Street today, "The bill has undergone many changes since that time.

"I am old-fashioned, perhaps, but I believe that labor problems can well be solved by labor itself, and by the employers, rather than by hard and fast rules laid down by a central governmental body.

"Some of the provisions in the Black-Cannery blll are well thought out, but as a whole, as it now stands, I am not at all sure I should like to see it pass. There are many labor men in hlgh office in Washington who dislike the bill in its present form.

"Under its present form it might be all right under a benevolent dictator, but the next Executive might be merely a dictator.

"The State federation has taken no official action on the passage of the bill. It may be that at some future meeting we will discuss it and perhaps take some action."

Mr. MALONEY. Mr. President, I had hoped yesterday, and prior thereto, that I might have an opportunity to discuss in some detail the amendment which I have offered and which is in the nature of a substitute for the bill reported by the Committee on Education and Labor. In my desire, however, to cooperate with the majority leader, and in keeping with the agreement entered into yesterday, I am confining myself, at his suggestion, to 10 minutes.

I discussed the amendment submitted by me at some length a day or two ago, and I shall do little more now than attempt to refresh the memory of those who listened then and brie:tly to explain the amendment to those who were compelled to be absent.

Mr. President, in the beginning I had hoped that I might be able to support the Black-Cannery proposal. I know just as well as anyone can know that hundreds of thousands of American men and women are in the industrial wilderness. I know that they need help; I feel that there is a governmental responsibility to bring relief to them; but I do not believe the proposal now before the Senate provides a wise method of reaching the objective, and I further believe if we now give up the rights and the powers and the responsibilities of the Senate and of the other House of Congress that we will not be able to get them back at a later time when the distress may become more severe.

I am not willing to surrender the philosophy so long and so eloquently advocated by the Senator from Alabama. I want to regulate the hours of labor by law; I want to stay within the Constitution; I want the Supreme Court to uphold such legislation as may be enacted on this subject. I do not want to attempt to give away the power of the Congress to

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five men, who are not now known. to fix wages and hours at their pleasure.

I said the other day that the proposal I have submitted to the Senate would give to the board very great powers to relieve industry and bring relief to labor; but I pointed out that it would not give the board power to do anything that might be harmful to industry or to labor. I pointed out that it would definitely remove sweatshops; that it would definitely prevent the exploitation of child labor; that it would, very probably, cut down the relief rolls of the country and help toward balancing the Budget. I pointed out that it would relieve the great terror of uncertainty in the minds of those who are engaged in industry. I pointed out that it would give labor an economic force; that it would create a competition for labor, and would protect against the unfair competition of what has been described as foreign coolie labor.

I have attempted, in the little time that I have been permitted to have in the discussion of this bill, to point out that labor was opposed to the measure now being considered. I do not know of a single solitary instance, Mr. President, where labor is opposed to my substitute. I have offered supporting evidence that labor favors the substitute. Even many of those who advocate the so-called Black-Cannery bill, insofar as I have been able to ascertain, would prefer the substitute embodied in my proposal, but they do not believe sufficient votes can be secured to bring about its adoption. I think there are sufficient votes in the Senate to do so.

I call the attention of Senators who are concerned with the agricultural problems of their neighborhoods, Senators who are concerned with the fear of foreign competition, and Senators who fear the vicious competition of prison labor that all necessary provision is made in the proposed substitute amendment offered by me to afford the protection they desire.

Mr. President, I have only 2 or 3 minutes left, and I wish to call a witness in support of my measure. I call as a witness one man in this country who should know more than any other man, whether or not the so-called Black-Cannery bill would work. I quote from the column in today's Washington News written by the man who originated the N. R. A., the brilliant mind that tried to make it work. He says:

The wage and hour bill is no good for another reason-it won't work. It puts it up to a board to hold hearings and consider ''industry by industry, craft by craft, and loca.lity by locality" what wages and hours should be in hundreds of thousands of separate cases. If it could do that intell1gently at all-which it can't-it would take from 20 years to a century. For that reason it won't work. Industries and localities are themselves all competitive. You can't hoist the wage scale of locality or industry A and leave locality or industry B until you can get around to it without up- setting or even ruining locality or industry A. You must move the standards of all competing units up and down together and not piecemeal.

For both these reasons the practical way is for the law itself to set the standards over wide areas, with due regard to existing differentials, and then leave to your board only the duty of dealing with the relatively few exceptions to the general rule in cases of unusual hardship-instead of having it invent its own rule for each of an infinite variety of cases.

The difference between this suggestion and the Black bill is the difference between success and failure. The suggestion puts the new standards into effect instantaneously. The few exceptions can be quickly handled. The work of the board is reduced 99 percent. Competitive upsets due to piecemeal wage fixing are avoided. Congress, and not an administrative board, has legislated the standards. The suggestion will work and the Black bill won't.

How do I know this? Because I tried both methods. One worked, the other failed. In all the mud slinging at the Blue Eagle people forget that the principal trouble came under the codes when we tried to do what the Black bill proposes—handle the job industry by industry.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator from Connecticut has expired.

Mr. BRIDGES. Mr. President, I recently offered as an amendment to the so-called Black bill a substitute which would strike out the entire provisions of the Black bill and insert in its stead the provisions which I have previously discussed. I am approaching the measure from the viewpoint of a friend of wage and hour legislation.

Mr. McADOO. Mr. President, a parliamentary inquiry.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator will state it.

Mr. McADOO. What is the pending motion before the Senate?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motion of the Senator from Texas [Mr. CONNALLY] to recommit the bill.

Mr. McADOO. Is it in order to introduce amendments of any character?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. It is not.

Mr. MALONEY. Mr. President, the Senator from Texas [Mr. CONNALLY] advised me that he had not called up the motion.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas made the motion. It is not necessary to call it up. He can call it down.

Mr. CONNALLY. Mr. President, in view of the fact that many Senators have amendments to offer, it had been my thought, if agreeable to other Senators, to defer a vote on the motion to recommit until the amendments shall have been disposed of.

Mr. BARKLEY. Mr. President. I think we had better proceed in an orderly way. The motion to recommit is a privileged motion. The debate ought to be directed to that motion, although it has gone wide of that field. Of course, if we lay aside the motion and the hour of 3 o'clock arrives, and in the meantime debate is continued on amendments, then further debate on the motion will not be possible.

Mr. LA FOLLETTE. Mr. President, I appeal to the Senate not to take up the last few minutes available to Senators who want to speak on the bill merely in order to discuss parliamentary procedure. Do not deprive us of the short time that remains. The Senator from New Hampshire [Mr. BRIDGES] has the floor, and I hope he may be permitted to proceed.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire will proceed.

Mr. BRIDGES. Mr. President, I shall yield to no one. I wish to occupy my own time.

The amendment which I have proposed would attain the desired objective, which is adequate minimum-wage and maximum-hour legislation. It would set up the same standards of maximum hours and minimum wages that are set up in the Black bill. However, my amendment contains no delegation of power. It would establish by statute minimum wages of 40 cents per hour and maximum hours of 40 per week. It is a sound, straightforward approach to the wage and hour problem.

My amendment would eliminate the dangerous discretionary powers proposed to be given to a five-man board. It would meet the objection of some Members of the Senate in that it would not become effective until 1 year after passage. It provides far the appointment of a board by the President of this body and the Speaker of the House to study sectional differentials and report to the next session of Congress.

My amendment makes similar exemptions to those made in the Black bill, as well as certain additional exemptions. In my judgment, any Senator can vote for my amendment with a clear conscience, knowing that he is voting for suitable wage and hour legislation. The provisions are set forth in a distinct manner. If it should be put upon the statute books and enforced by the courts and district attorneys of the country it would accomplish the desired purposes. Under the provisions of my amendment we would convey to no board wide, discretionary powers, setting them us as czars in control of industry and labor, a feature of the pending bill which has met the opposition of labor and industry alike. The adoption of such a proposal would probably result in tying a millstone around the necks of both labor and industry. I think I have offered a sound approach to the problem, and when the opportunity presents itself for a vote upon my amendment to the bill I shall ask for the yeas and nays upon it.

Mr. BARKLEY. Mr. President, as I said a while ago, I am going to occupy only a few minutes in opposition to the motion to recommit. In the short time at my disposal I shall

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not, of course, have the opportunity to go into a detailed discussion of the measure.

I am opposed to the motion to recommit, and I hope it will be defeated, because, in my judgment, if the motion to recommit should carry, it would mean no legislation on the subject of wages and hours at this session of Congress.

Mr. President, 4 years ago there were some 15,000,000 unemployed able-bodied men in the United States. We have by various methods up to this hour been able to reduce that army of unemployed men to somewhere between 6,000,000 and 7,000,000. There are many well-informed, patriotic, and sincere Americans, without regard to political affiliations, who believe the time has come, or will soon come, when we must consider legislation designed to spread employment among those available for its performance in order that every American who desires work may have it. If we have arrived at a time in this country when we must choose between two horns of a dilemma, one of which is that all our people may work three-fourths of the time and the other that three-fourths of them may work all the time and one-fourth of them never work, then I choose the former. I believe it will be socially, economically, and industrially more wholesome and safe for all the available labor in America to be able to work three-fourths of the time than for three-fourths of it to work all the time and one-fourth never to work.

The bill makes a modest beginning by undertaking to establish among the laborers who are not organized, who have no voice around the conference table, who have no mechanics through which to make a choice of representatives in collective bargaining, an opportunity and possibility of spreading employment among all those able and willing to perform it in order that those who are willing and able to perform it may obtain work.

I am opposed to the motion to recommit the bill because I think the Committee on Education and Labor, the Members of the Senate, and the administration itself, overwhelmingly returned to power only a little more than 6 months ago, are entitled to a vote on the work of the committee which has brought the bill here. If the Members of this body are opposed to it, let them oppose it in a vote. If they desire to kill the bill, let them do it on the front porch and not in the kitchen, in order to establish an alibi that might satisfy somebody with respect to their attitude upon the measure.

It has been claimed that certain representatives of labor were not given an opportunity to be heard before the Committee on Education and Labor. I hold in my hand the printed hearings of the committee, which began on the 2d day of June and ended on the 22d day of June. The hearings comprise more than 1,200 pages of testimony taken by the committee, whose chairman is the Senator from Alabama [Mr. BLACK]. Not a single American citizen, whether he was an employer or employee, was denied the opportunity to be heard before the committee. Neither of the gentlemen whose letters have been read here today asked to be heard before the committee, and, therefore, they were not denied the opportunity to be heard before the committee.

We have heard much sarcastic criticism because the bill would create a board to administer its provisions. We are told that Congress ought to write a bill providing maXimum hours and minimum wages, that Congress ought to sit here in an effort to provide the detailed regulations in order that a minimum-wage and maximum-hour law might be written en the statute books. In the next breath, after we are urged to do that, we are told that we ought to go home because we are all fagged out in mind and body because of our extended labors here during the last 7 months.

Mr. President, suppose the farmers and carpenters of America should decide that they ought to quit work; suppose the miners of America should decide that climatic conditions and weather do not suit them and might endanger their health, and they should walk out like a tired steer in the middle of the road and go home and not work any more? Suppose the workers in our great automobile factories, our great shoe shops, our great railroad shops, all the employees in the country outside of the United States Senate and the House of Representatives should decide that they ought to quit work and go home, what would be the social and economic results to the people of the United States? Are we to confess that we are less interested in the welfare of the American people than are others?

We are asked to recommit this bill because it creates a board. The same argument was heard in 1887 when the act to regulate commerce was passed by Congress. The Senator from Idaho [Mr. BORAH] yesterday said he was not here then. Neither was I; neither were any of us; but we know, as a matter of history, that when the act to regulate commerce was under consideration by Congress the same argument was urged against the creation of an Interstate Commerce Commission that is now urged against the creation of the board which is set up in this bill. It was charged that the Interstate Commerce Commission would be arbitrary, and it was asserted on the floor of both Houses that under the commerce clause the House and Senate ought to write railroad rates and regulate all the other practices that might be indulged in by interstate carriers in the United States because the creation of a board or commission might result in arbitrary action. Yet for 50 years the Interstate Commerce Commission has functioned, and it was created because Congress knew that Congress itself could not write the detailed regulations of railroad practices, and write in the statutes the rates that should apply in various sections of the country.

I was here, and so was the Senator from Idaho, when in 1913, under the leadership of the able and distinguished and beloved Senator from Virginia [Mr. GLASS], we established a Federal Reserve System, and created the Federal Reserve Board. The same arguments were made then, that the Federal Reserve Board ought not to be set up to control banking and currency and money; and yet for 24 years the Federal Reserve Board bas functioned because it was recognized that Congress could not sit here and write the detailed provisions of banking and monetary regulation.

I was here in 1914, as a Member of another body, when, under the Federal Trade Commission Act, the Federal Trade Commission was set up; and the same argument was made then. We were trying to unchoke the channels of commerce. We were trying to make it unnecessary for little business and big business to undergo the delays and hardships of litigation in the Federal courts. We were trying to set up a commission which should exercise jurisdiction that was quasijudicial in undertaking to clear the channels of commerce for the benefit of American business; and when that bill was under consideration the same argument was advanced that is now advanced against the board set up in this bill.

Only a few years ago, when the marvelous invention known as the radio came into existence, by which we may step into our living rooms, and, by turning a metallic dial a fraction of an inch, bring to our ears the music and the oratory and the information that float around through the air, because there was chaos in the atmosphere, because there was no authority anywhere to allocate the channels or the currents of the air, nobody could get a particular program, nobody knew when he turned on his radio that he would be able to get any intelligent response anywhere in the world, we set up the Radio Commission, which recently has been transformed into the Communications Commission. While it has made its mistakes, and while we may all disapprove of some policies that may have been inaugurated by it, no one can deny that it has cleared the atmosphere and brought order out of chaos in this modern method of instruction and entertainment.

When, a year or two ago, under the leadership of our friend the chairman of the Committee on Finance, Mr. HARRISON, we set up a social-security law, we created a Social Security Board; and the same argument was thep used that is now advanced against the creation of this board. There is not a State in the Union that has a workmen's compensation law or a social-security law, or any other law dealing en masse with the problems of humanity, that has not created a board

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or commission to administer that law, because neither Congresses nor legislatures, sitting in their capacity as legisiatures and Congresses, have either the time or the disposition to regulate all the details necessary to administer such an act.

When we were in the latter part of the Hoover administration, finding ourselves in economic disaster, when the banks of our country were no longer able or disposed to loan money to business, did we set up here in Congress a committee to loan money from the Treasury to railroads and insurance companies and banks and industries? No; we created the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, which has loaned more than $10,000,000,000 of the people's money to industry and transportation all over the United States.

A choice between a board and anything else means, as an alternative, no legislation. A board must administer this law or it will not be administered. We must either set up a board to carry out the general policy of Congress or we must do nothing. There are only those two alternatives.

Mr. President, we have been told that in certain sections of the country the proposed legislation will work a hardship. I do not wish to indulge in anything that might be regarded as sectional. I now live within 18 miles of the place where I was born, and that is south of the Ohio River. A large part of whatever education I now have was obtained in the State of Georgia, under the tutelage of one of the greatest men, in my judgment, who ever lived in any State or in any nation. I know the people of that section of our country. I know their background. I know their history. I know their philosophy. I know their chivalry and their patriotism; their devotion to the welfare of their country. I have found, by observation and experience, that there is not a very great difference between the people of the United States of America, no matter where they come from; for all through their hearts there is a golden thread of unity of purpose and of loyalty to the nationality which is represented by our fiag and by our Constitution and by our institutions. I do not, therefore, entertain the fear that this legislation will work an injustice to any section of our country. I should not be so bold as to say that it may not make it necessary for some individual establishment to change its hours of labor and perhaps its wages; but, after all, Mr. President and Members of this great body, we are not dealing here with cold economic financial figures. We are dealing with human problems, with social problems; and while we may talk about balancing our financial budgets, I should like to see millions of unbalanced lives in the United States balanced, as well as to balance the financial institutions whiqh we are supposed to support by the taxes which we levy.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator from Kentucky has expired.

Mr. BARKLEY. Mr. President, in order not to trespass upon the time which is needed, and which, by agreement, I promised to help others obtain, I shall not occupy any further time, except to say that I sincerely trust the motion to recommit the bill may be defeated.

Mr. BYRNES and Mr. SHIPSTEAD addressed the Chair.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.

Mr. SHIPSTEAD. Mr. President, was there an agreement that the Senator from South Carolina should be recognized?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Yes.

Mr. SHIPSTEAD. That is under the rules of the Senate, is it? I was on the floor and asked recognition.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The present occupant of the chair saw the Senator from South Carolina on the floor at the same time; and, having in mind the agreement that had been made with the senator from South Carolina, the occupant of the chair recognized him.

Mr. BYRNES. Mr. President, when this proposal was submitted to the Senate it was my hope and expectation that the committee would report a bill that I could support. Last week end for the first time I had an opportunity to study the hearings and study the bill. After reading it and studying its provisions I came to the conclusion that it would be unwise at this time for the Senate to pass this measure. Therefore I shall vote for the motion to recommit the bill.

In doing so my action cannot be construed as any criticism of the committee. I believe they have done all they could do under the circumstances, and in the limited time at their disposal, tu apply a principle which we all favor to a concrete proposal in legislative form; but I say without fear of successful contradiction that there are few men on the floor of the Senate who now know the effect of this measure. I admit that I do not know it. I challenge any man to say that he has studied section 8 (a). and believes that it is constitutional. There is not a lawyer who will study it, who will read the Schechter decision and the decision of the Supreme Court on the Labor Relations Act and who will conclude that it is unconstitutional.

Mr. President, I have a memorandum relating to the constitutionality of this section, which I shall not take the time to read, but I ask unanimous consent to have it inserted at this point as a part of my remarks.

There being no objection, the memorandum was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:

Section 8 (a) and (b) of Senate bill 2475 is plainly unconstitutional. Its constitutionality is not supported by the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the group of cases known as the Shreveport Rate cases (234 U. S. 342, decided in 1914), and its unconstitutionality is so clearly decided in the Schechter, or N. B. A., case (295 U. S. 4H5, at pp. 544-550) as to leave no reasonable doubt on the question.

It must be remembered that the Schechter case was no 5-to-4 decision. The Supreme Court was unanimous in that case. Brandeis and Stone and Cardozo, as well as HugheS and Roberts, Van Devanter, McReynolds, Butler, and Sutherland, held that what was attempted there went beyond the constitutional power of Congress. A reexamination of that part of the Schechter case opinion which deals with the attempt by Federal legislation to effect labor standards in purely intrastate production and selling will show that the Court's holding on what was there attempted by Federal legislation directly applies to that which it is sought to accomplish by section 8 of the legislation now proposed.

No one will dispute that Congress has not only the right by legislation to regulate interstate commerce, but the right to regulate, prohibit, and provide standards for many transactions which, though they are not carried on in interstate commerce, do directly affect that commerce. But beyond this we cannot constitutionally go. Even though intrastate transactions do, in some respects, affect interstate matters, that does not give the Congress the power to control them, if the effect be indirect rather than direct. And in the Schechter case it was directly held that wages, hours of work, and like labor standards in commerce which was entirely intrastate were not within the constitutional power of Congress, even though the intrastate products sought to be affected did in fact come in competition with products which were the subject of interstate commerce.

The Court pointed out that the question which must be answered is, Did the transactions directly affect interstate commerce so as to be subject to Federal regulation? The Court expressly distinguished the Shreveport Rate case and other cases involving interstate carriers which also engage in intrastate transportation. In rejecting the contention that Congress could legislate respecting commerce, though it be entirely intrastate, if the goods produced and sold therein came in competition with goods produced and sold in interstate commerce, because necessarily the latter were affected by the competition of the former, the Court said (546) :

But where the effect of intrastate transactions upon interstate commerce is merely indirect, such transactions remain within the domain of State power. If the commerce clause were construed to reach all enterprises and transactions which could be said to have an indirect effect upon interstate commerce, the Federal authority would embrace practically all the activities of the people and the authority of the State over its domestic concerns would exist only by sufferance of the Federal Government. Indeed, on such a theory, even the development of the State's commercial facilities would be subject to Federal control.

Saying that the distinction between direct and indirect effects has been clearly recognized in the application not only of railroad rate acts but uf the Antitrust Act, and reviewing cases which came within as well as those that were Without such Federal legislation, the Court, after a review of prior decisions, quoted what it had previously said in Industrial Association v. United States (268 U.S. 64). I read that quotation from page 547 of the Chief Justice's opinion in the Schechter case:

"The • • • acts here complained of spent their intended and direct force upon a local situation—for building is as essentially local as mining, manufacturing, or growing crops—and if, by a resulting diminution of the commercial demand, interstate trade was curtailed either generally or in specific instances, that was a

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fortuitous consequence so remote and indirect as plainly to cause lt to fall outside the reach of the Sherman Act."

That is to say, outside the reach of the Federal legislative power.

The Supreme Court followed its review of previous cases, which related to the application of Federal statutes, such as the Antitrust case, with this observation, pertinent to the discussion of the matter now before us (p. 548):

While these decisions related to the application of the Federal statute, and not to its constitutional validity, the distinction between direct and indirect effects of intrastate transactions upon interstate commerce must be recognized as a fundamental one, essential to the maintenance of our constitutional system. Otherwise, as we have said, there would be virtually no limit to the Federal power, and for all practical purposes we should have a completely centralized Government.

It will be remembered that a question of chief importance in the Schechter case related to the provisions of the N. R. A. code as to the hours and wages of those employed in the defendants' slaughterhouse markets. Those requirements were imposed in order to govern the defendants' management of their local business. Referring to this question, the Court said (p. 548):

"The persons employed in slaughtering and selling in local trade are not employed in interstate commerce. Their hours and wages have no direct relation to interstate commerce. The question of how many hours these employees should work and what they should be paid differs in no essential respect from similar questions in other local businesses which handle commodities brought into a State and there dealt in as a part of its internal commerce. This appears from an examination of the considerations urged by the Government with respect to conditions in the poultry trade. Thus the Government argues that hours and wages affect prices; that slaughterhouse men sell at a small margin above operating costs; that labor represents 50 to 60 percent of these costs; that a slaughterhouse operator paying lower wages or reducing his cost by exacting long hours of work translates his saving into lower prices; that this results in demands for a cheaper grade of goods; and that the cutting of prices brings about a demoralization of the price structure. Similar conditions may be adduced in relation to other businesses. The argument of the Government proves too much. If the Federal Government may determine the wages and hours of employees in the internal commerce of a State, because of their relation to cost and prices and their indirect effect upon interstate commerce, it would seem that a similar control might be exerted over other elements of cost, also affecting prices, such as the number of employees, rents, advertising, methods of doing business, etc. All the processes of production and distribution that enter into cost could likewise be controlled. If the cost of doing an intrastate business is in itself the permitted object of Federal control, the extent of the regulation of cost would be a question of discretion and not of power.

The Government also makes the point that efforts to enact State legislation establishing high labor standards have been impeded by the belief that unless similar action is taken generally commerce will be diverted from the States adopting such standards, and that this fear of diversion has led to demands for Federal legislation on the subject of wages and hours. The apparent implication is that the Federal authority under the commerce clause should be deemed to extend to the establishment of rules to govern wages and hours in intrastate trade and industry generally throughout the country, thus overriding the authority of the States to deal with domestic problems arising from labor conditions in their internal commerce.

Of course, what has just been quoted from the language of the Schechter case cannot be distinguished from the questions which are presented by section 8 of this bill and the arguments made in support of the constitutionality of the provisions of the N. R. A. code, seeking to prescribe labor standards in wholly intrastate production and selling, cannot be distinguished from the arguments which must be made in an effort to support the claim to constitutionality of this section 8. Having stated those arguments, and what they unescapably led to, the Supreme Court, in the Schechter case, continued (p. 549):

It is not the province of the Court to consider the economic advantages or disadvantages of such a centralized system. It is sufficient to say that the Federal Constitution does not provide for it. Our growth and development have called for wide use of the commerce power of the Federal Government in its control over the expanded activities of interstate commerce, and in protecting that commerce from burdens, interferences, and conspiracies to restrain and monopolize it. But the authority of the Federal Government may not be pushed to such an extreme as to destroy the distinction, which the commerce clause itself establishes, between commerce 'among the several States' and the internal concerns of a State.

The motive to improve labor standards in American industries is a highly commendable one. The power of the Federal Government in that sphere is obviously broad. But it is clear that however fine the motive, however broad the power, nevertheless the efforts of the Federal Government must be made in a manner consistent with the authority granted by the Constitution. If Congress is to have power to regulate all commerce, intrastate as well as interstate, then that power can come to Congress only by an amendment to the Constitution made by the people in the manner provided for in the Nation's charter. It is too much to expect that the Supreme Court of the United States would thus soon seriously consider overruling the doctrine unanimously laid down by it just 2 years ago.

There is nothing in the National Labor Relations Board cases, under the Wagner Act, decided April 12, 1937, that weakens anything thus far said. It is true that the Court in those later cases advanced considerably beyond its own position in the earlier cases dealing with manufacture, mining, and farming. But in the last analysis what the Court held in the Wagner Labor Act cases was that the direct effect of labor troubles in the manufacturing plant of an employer whose business is predominantly interstate is to interrupt, obstruct, and prevent the free flow of goods in interstate commerce, and that the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce includes the power to enact legislation designed to prevent such interruption or obstruction. The extent to which the Court went was that, as applied to labor relations in manufacturing operations of concerns whose business is predominantly interstate in character, the Wagner Labor Act is valid and constitutional under the power to regulate interstate commerce.

Equally clear from a study of those decisions is it that where Congress attempts to regulate intrastate commerce, or an operation not involving commerce at all, such as manufacturing, the direct effect of the legislation must be to protect or to prevent injury to or obstruction of interstate commerce, otherwise the attempt would be futile because beyond the constitutional power.

Section 8 (a) of the bill now before the Senate goes beyond what was condemned in the Schechter case. As we have seen, in that case N. R. A, was held to be unconstitutional, since the effect of the transactions and relations which N. R. A. sought to regulate were so indirect and remote upon interstate commerce in the busi- ness in which the defendants were engaged that they could not constitutionally be regulated by Congress. Section 8 (a) of the bill before the Senate would give the board to be created under the provisions of this act authority to make an order prohibiting the continuance of certain labor practices and commanding the maintenance of labor standards prescribed by the board in any industry producing goods entirely in one State, which goods are sold exclusively in that State. In other words, this section would regulate the labor relations of local manufacturers and local merchants who sell their goods only in one State, and it is clear that that is exactly what the Schechter case has held Congress cannot constitutionally do.

As I read the 1937 Labor Act decisions of the Supreme Court, the Federal Government cannot regulate labor standards in local manufacturing operations, even where the products of the employer are partly sold in interstate commerce—where a predominant part of the products manufactured are sold within the State in which they are manufactured; and this seems to be true, even though the raw materials are purchased from outside the State. Nevertheless we find that section 8 would make subject to Federal regulation labor relations of local manufacturers and merchants dealing exclusively intrastate, if the Federal labor standards board determines that those exclusively intrastate transactions are in products which come into competition with interstate products. It is interesting to note that Assistant Attorney General Jackson, in his statement in support of the original draft of this bill before the Senate and House Labor Committees, did not once refer to the Schechter decision in his discussion of the power of Congress, under the interstate-commerce clause, to enact this legislation. I think the explanation of this is that Mr. Jackson interpreted the original draft of the bill as not including that which we find in section 8 (a). I say this because I find Mr. Jackson speaking of the bill as originally proposed as follows (p. 7, pt. I, of the hearings):

Care has been taken to hold the pending bill to a good-faith regulation of interstate commerce and nothing more. Any State may use child labor or sweated labor for products of home consumption as much as it pleases, so long as it does not divert or affect interstate commerce in so doing. The State may exploit youth in its internal affairs as far as its own conscience will permit, but it cannot dump its children into the Nation's markets to demoralize our national standards.

If section 8 (a) and (b) of this bill could be held to be a constitutional exercise of the Federal legislative power, then it is not too much to say that no transactions in the production of and trading in commodities on any considerable scale, though absolutely confined: to the localities where the production and trading took place, is beyond the regulatory power of Congress. In other words, if this section is constitutional, then, except in the most inconsequential or trifiing of transactions, there is no longer any distinction, so far as the legislative power is concerned, between interstate and intrastate commerce.

Mr. BYRNES. Mr. President, from many Members of the Senate with whom I have discussed this section, I received the response that they have not had tinie to study the bill; yet Senators can vote for it only on the theory that it is constitutional. If it is constitutional, then under this bill every local transaction, purely intrastate, would come under the jurisdiction of congressional legislation.

Much has been said of the textile industry. I am not so much interested in what the textile industry thinks of it.

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The textile industry in my State would be affected in only a small measure. They are now paying code wages in the vast majority of cases.

But I am interested in the effect upon small industries. I did not know until this week that there were quite so many small industries in my State. But this week I was deeply interested when a group of citizens came to tell me how this measure would affect them. It brought to my mind what I think will later be brought to the minds of all Senators—that this measure will affect the lives and the happiness of more people than we antjcipate at this moment.

The little ice-cream factory, the bottling works, the basket factory, the iceman who sells ice to the American fruit growers to ice cars for transportation of their vegetables, the mattress factory with 15 or 10 employees, the furniture manufacturer.

These industries can do business today. They have only a few employees, and are able, in the section in which they operate, to pay wages less than the objective provided in the bill. They can compete with the machine-made furniture or machine-made products of companies with greater capital only because of the differential in labor. Pass this bill and there will be more unemployment in this country than there is at this moment.

It is said that the owner of one of these small industries can get an exemption. Well, we remember N. R. A. Then the industries of the country were divided up into codes, a code for each industry. Still, we could never get to anyone with authority to pass upon any exemptions.

I see in this bill the prospect that hereafter every Senator and every Representative will be besieged daily by people seeking exemptions who toqay have no idea of what is coming to them under its provisions.

When a man walks into a little factory in some town today and tells the man running the factory what we are proposing to do he will be met with laughter. When he learns what we are doing to him he will appeal to his Senator—and I hope his Senator will have an answer. I have not an answer.

It is said that we exempt the farmer. Exempt the farmer? He is the only man who will be made to pay more for lumber, for ice, for all the other products he uses. A farmer of my State stated to the South Carolina delegation this week, If you write into the bill a provision that we can get a minimum price of 40 cents a pound for cotton, we do not care if you do provide for the payment of 40 cents an hour for labor. But we cannot do it for the farmer. This bill affects the farmer in many ways. When we raise the wages of other people in the community we take the farmer's labor from him. We can raise the price of the furniture, lumber, and other products the cotton farmer must purchase, but the price for his product is fixed in world markets.

Then we are told, It is all right to leave it to a bureau. There was the Walsh-Healey Act. I have in mind that the Department, in construing that act, fixed no differential throughout this country until this week, when 2^1/2 cents an hour was fixed. The exact language of the Walsh-Healey Act is in the Works Progress Act. Another department construing the Works Progress Act fixed a differential between Mississippi and New York of $40 a month. What department will construe the proposed legislation? If they construe it against your views, will you say that you did not have time to consider this bill, that you left it to the House? Will the House include the retailer? No. Is a girl who works long hours in a 5-and-10-cent store included? No. Will any relief be given to employees of that kind, or is this law and its restrictions only for the little manufacturers in the little towns of this Nation?

Labor itself is divided, as evidenced from the letters of the officials of the American Federation of Labor. But proponents say something must be done. Well, we do not have to adjourn. I should like to have Congress adjourn, but I would far rather stay here and see that Congress has a greater opportunity to do justice to the little manufacturer in the towns of this country than to adjourn, go home, and have to answer the questions he will be asking me as to the effect of the law. I would rather stay here than by this law cause the closing of a business and the discharge of employees.

Mr. SHIPSTEAD. Mr. President—

Mr. BYRNES. I intend to take but 2 or 3 minutes more, but I cannot yield.

In conclusion let me say that I voted for the Walsh-Healey Act. I voted for the Wagner Act. I voted for every labor act I can recall having been presented to the Congress since I have been a Member of the Congress. No man can say that any antagonism to labor causes me to ask that the pending bill be thoroughly considered in the hope that we may arrive at an agreement as to a measure which would enable us to vote for an objective we so heartily desire to attain. But why do we have to be in such a hurry? The world is not coming to an end in the next 3 months. Thanks to the achievements of the Democratic administration, this country has recovered from the depression. There is no emergency. The people are not anxious for us to act hastily upon a matter of this kind. Their condition is improving; they are going about their daily avocations busy and happy. It is not necessary for us immediately to pass a measure when we do not know the effect it will have upon the people in our States. Why not send the bill back to the committee and let them give further consideration to it?

The Senator from Kentucky refers to the Federal Reserve Board. For more than 6 months there was an Aldrich-Vreeland Commission investigating the currency question. Then, under the leadership of the Senator from Virginia [Mr. GLASS], we sat for many more months considering that question. A bill was brought before the House of Representatives, a Democratic caucus was held, and that caucus was in session for 2 weeks considering that measure, line by line, to see how it would affect the people of America before it was passed. The bill was considered in the Senate for some months. Now, after 4 days' debate, we are asked to pass the pending bill, which will affect every little business throughout this Nation of ours.

Mr. President, I ask only that the bill be sent back to the committee in order that an opportunity may be given to the capable chairman of the committee, who desires to accomplish the same object every one of us desires, to see if he cannot report a bill that will meet with the approval of the Senate and meet with the approval of the country.

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, in the few minutes that I have I should like to discuss without interruption some of the things which have been said. I have not had any opportunity to discuss the bill in that way since it came on the floor.

Mr. OVERTON. Mr. President, will the Senator yield to me for a simple request?

Mr. BLACK. I yield.

Mr. OVERTON. The Senator from Alabama submitted for the RECORD a letter from a Louisiana baker in reference to the hours and wages of labor. The information contained in the letter is wholly incorrect, according to the two telegrams I have just received, one from George Heebe, president of the Louisiana Bakers' Association, as well as a telegram received from Mr. Daniel J. Bordages, an employee of the A. J. Scwabe Bakery in New Orleans.

Mr. BLACK. I suggest the Senator put the telegrams in the RECORD, because my time is limited.

Mr. OVERTON. I was about to make a request for unanimous consent that the two telegrams be printed in the RECORD.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?

There being no objection, the telegrams were ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:

Senator JOHN H. OVERTON:

NEW ORLEANS, LA., July 31, 1937,

That letter received by Senator BLACK from a New Orleans baker 1s not a true picture of the circumstances existing in the bakeries

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in New Orleans. In all of the large bakeries in New Orleans the bakers receive from $18 to $40 for a 6-day week; also they never work more than 8 or 9 hours a day.

Respectfully, GEORGE HEEBE.

_______________

NEW ORLEANS, LA., July 31, 1937.

Senator JoHN H. OVERTON,

Senate Office Building:

Surprised see letter this morning's Times Picayune about working conditions New Orleans bakeries, which is not true, and think you should correct. To my knowledge responsible bakeries here have good working conditions, with 8-hour average per day, 6 days a week, and minimum pay $22 week. Also there is shortage of competent bakers here. I wish state letter rece1ved by Senator BLACK is gross misrepresentation of conditions in baking industry New Orleans. I am employee of A. J. Scwabe Bakery, 4229 Magazine Street; in this plant we have six bakers, and working conditions described above prevail.

DANIEL J. BoRDAGES.

Mr. SHIPSTEAD. Mr. President, will the Senator from Alabama yield for a question?

Mr. BLACK. I would much prefer to have the Senator ask his question at some other time.

Mr. SHIPSTEAD. It is important to ask it now. I should like to ask the Senator whether he intends to occupy all the remainder of the time.

Mr. BLACK. I intend to discuss the bill. I had intended to discuss the bill for 30 minutes, but the situation was such that I could not do so.

Mr. President, with reference to the statement just put into the REDORD, the letter I placed in the REORRD was from an individual who worked in a bakery. It was not from the president of the State bakers' association.

Mr. OVERTON. I have a telegram also from an employee of a bakery.

Mr. BLACK. The employee of the bakery may not work the hours I stated. Of course, I did not vouch for the statement made by the employee. He wrote me a letter and I put it into the RECORD.

I wish to read very briefly from the Democratic national platform, which the Senator from South Carolina, and I, and others, including the Senator from New York, as a subcommittee, stayed up all night writing. Let me read this quotation:

We know that minimum wages, maximum hours • • • cannot be adequately handled exclusively by 48 separate State legislatures, 48 several State administrations, and 48 separate State courts. Transactions and activities which inevitably overflow State boundaries call for both State and Federal treatment.

We have sought and will continue to seek to meet these problems through legislation within the Constitution.

We are now trying to carry out that platform, a platform which was approved by the American people, a platform which was repudiated by the national president of the Building Trades Association, who is today presenting arguments here again against the Democratic platform and against carrying it out.

It will be recalled that about the only leading representative of the American Federation of Labor who could be secured to fight under the Republican banner against this platform was Mr. Hutchinson, of the carpenters' union, and he fought against minimum-wage and maximum-hour laws. But the Democrats of this country who went around and spoke to the people did not tell the people they opposed minimum wages and maximum hours. I wonder how many of them who made speeches over this country said then they were opposed to minimum wages and maximum hours. If they did not, they stood upon the Democratic platform.

I am not surprised at the message of the gentleman who continues his fight now. The voice is the voice of the gentleman who sent in the protest, the same voice that we heard during the campaign in 1936, but methinks the hands are still the hands of the Republican National Committee.

The Democratic Party declared itself for minimum wages and maximum hours. We promised them to the people. We did not promise to make motions to recommit; we promised to enact legislation.

Is anyone who came before the Committee on Education and Labor and asked it to adopt a single amendment asking that the bill be recommitted? If it was so important that amendments be adopted, why were they not offered to the committee when it was considering the bill? If it is so important that we recommit the bill for consideration, what amendments have been suggested by those who intend to vote to recommit? The only one I have heard of is one which would postpone action until Congress meets again. Have they offered amendments to improve the bill so that it would meet objections which they say they have?

Mr. President, who is it that is moving to recommit the bill on the ground that it gives power to a board? Which one of the Senators has made a motion to write into law a 30-hour week, a 35-hour week, a 40-hour week, a 45-hour week, or even a 65-hour week? Who of those objecting to giving this power to the board has done so? I will say that the Senator from Idaho [Mr. BORAH] did. But who, of all those who object to giving this power to the board and who stand on the Democratic platform, has said that he wants the Congress to adopt a 30-cent minimum wage, a 35-cent minimum wage, a 40-cent minimum wage, a 10-cent minimum wage, a 50-cent minimum wage, or any other minimum wage?

Mr. President, we are now asked to send the bill back to the committee which had it under consideration for many weeks. We are asked to send it back to the committee in order that the committee may consider—what? The fact that somebody does not like it. However, if Senators stand on the platform of the Democratic Party, they must believe in minimum wages and maximum hours.

Mr. President, I understand that delegations from various States have come to Washington, as stated by my friend the Senator from South Carolina rMr. SMITH]. He said a delegation of little men had come up here. I wonder if they were little enough to be working in the State of South Carolina, like some others I have indicated, who labor for as little as 10 cents an hour and for as long as 10 or 12 hours a day. I wonder if any of those little people have come to the city of Washington to protest against the passage of this bill.

Mr. President, I am very greatly interested in the little fellows. I am interested in the little fellows who are not able to come to Washington. I am interested in the little fellows who are not able to send their representatives to sit up in the gallery over here [indicating] day after day, or in the other gallery over there [indicating].

My friends, I am interested in the little people for whom we promised the Nation we would show our concern, those who work long hours, to the destruction of their health, at wages inadequate for them to support themselves and their children.

Mr. President, I listened with great interest to the statement of my friend the distinguished Senator from the State of Mississippi [Mr. HARRISON] as he talked feelingly, and drew a picture of an ox that in the evening shadows, before the sun went down, went to rest under the tree. It was a very sad and pathetic picture. I myself have seen that old ox. I understand that he does want to go to the shade of the tree. We have laws which prevent cruelty to animals such as the ox. But there are others who like the shade of the tree. They would even like to get through their work before the twilight has arrived. They would even like to rest, just as my good friend the Senator from Mississippi said he would like to rest, as the memories of the old ox that went under the shade of the tree prompted his desire to rest his weary limbs. All over the Nation at this time, as we talk, there are those who work who would like to rest their weary limbs.

Senators say, We are for the principle, but we are against the bill. I have heard that ever since anybody ever introduced a bill.

I have in my desk an article written more than 100 years ago. A man wrote a speech. and he called it The Speech of Mr. Noodle. He said you could find similar speeches made

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in the legislative bodies everywhere, and he gave the reasons why men were against various proposals. They were usually for the principle, they were for the objective, but they were against the method. They were for the principle and for the objective, but they wanted to have a commission appointed. They told their constituents that they were for the principle and for the objective.

Senators have stood on party platforms which promised relief to the men and women of this Nation, but they are not for it at the time the bill is ready to be voted upon; they do not want to vote on it until it can be more fully studied by a committee, which has already heard every witness who desired to be heard and which has permitted ai.lYone to testify who wanted to be heard, and which heard witnesses from the very day the committee began its hearings until it finally closed its hearings.

Mr. President, some time ago I went into a State in New England where it is said that good hours of work are observed. I had heard of the hours they worked. It was the State of my good friend the Senator from Connecticut [Mr. MALONEY]. I visted a great factory town in that State. It so happened that I conversed with people I knew well. I learned that in the great and progressive State of Connecticut people worked long hours in the mills within a very short distance from where I stayed, at a time when more than 8,000,000 people had no jobs at all. Young women went to work in those mills in the early morning hours, before the sun had come over the eastern horizon, and they remained at work, with 30 minutes for lunch, until after the sun had sunk into its western resting place.

As we talk today, and as we pledge allegiance to the principle that we promised to carry into effect, and as we continue to exhibit our undying love and admiration and fondness for the little people who work long hours all over the Nation, 8,000,000 and more of our people are doing nothing at all. Many of those little people have to go to work in the early morning hours, so early that they do not have much time to think about principle or method or objective, and they remain at their labor until the evening shadows gather. As one of them wrote me, all they can do is to go to their place of work shortly after they rise in the morning and come home from their place of work and immediately go to sleep. Work and sleep; sleep and work.

Mr. President, it is said that this bill has poetry in it. I should thank God if it had. I cannot forget that the great poets of the world have never failed, down through the ages, to raise their voices in behalf of the helpless and the weak. I cannot forget that more than 2,000 years ago they raised their voices in behalf of the weak and the helpless in the ancient countries of the world. Somehow I have always thought that the poetic phrase, Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, was perhaps more than anything else responsible for the unpopularity of the One who spoke it.

I do not forget that man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn. I do not forget the Song of the Shirt, the lilting melody of which, with all its beauty and all its purity, did so much to awaken the people of its genemtion to a realization of abuses that must be stopped.

I am told that this bill will injure the farmers of the country, the farmers whose sons trudge into the mills of the city, the farmers whose children have replenished the ranks of the workers of America. I am told that the bill will injure the farmers whose chief customers for the shirts made from the cotton they grow in the fields are the workers of America, whose chief customers for the food they raise are the workers of this country—the workers who would like to have that food if they could get it, but who sometimes are compelled, as they were a few days ago, to burrow into the garbage cans to take out the refuse they can get from them which comes from the tables of others. No one can tell me that the farmers will be injured by improving the condition of those workers.

My friends, thank God for the poetry in this bill if it but reaches a single heart, if it but reaches the standards of American citizens, if it but cuts off unnecessarily long hours that people are toiling, while others live on the dole.

Mr. President, let there be no misunderstanding: A motion to recommit is a motion to kill the bill. Every Senator knows it. If we want to vote against the bill, let us stand up and vote against it. Let it be known that we are against minimum wages and maximum hours. A vote to recommit is a vote against a bill for minimum wages and maximum hours.

I cannot have all I want written in the bill. Other Senators cannot. No other person can. But for weeks and months we have worked and we have labored and we have toiled on the bill. We have brought the bill to the Senate in compliance with the overwhelming mandate of American men and women. We speak for the little men and women, whose voices too frequently are not heard. We are in the city of Washington. They have no representatives up in that gallery, nor over there in the other gallery, nor anywhere, unless it might have been the man who was taken from the gallery today. But, my friends, they are the ones for whom we promised to pass legislation. If Senators are against the bill, let them vote against the bill. If they are for a bill for minimum wages and maximum hours, let them vote against recommittal.

I come from the South, and I am proud of it. I believe I speak the language of its people. My ancestors have been buried under the soil of the South since before the Revolutionary War. They settled in Halifax County, Va. They settled in South Carolina and in the grand old State of Georgia. An uncle of mine marched forward in the face of the shells at Gettysburg, and I am proud of it. My father, at the age of 14 years—the last one in his family who had not gone into the war—ran away and volunteered under the Stars and Bars. The first—born of my father's family was named for Gen. Robert E. Lee, and another was named for Gallant Pelham, whose name is a hallowed one in all parts of Alabama and the South. I speak for the little men and women of Alabama and of the Nation.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The hour of 3 o'clock having arrived, under the unanimous-consent agreement entered into yesterday, the time for debate has expired. The question is on the motion of the Senator from Texas [Mr. CoNNALLY] to recommit the bill.

Mr. LA FOLLETTE. Mr. President, on that I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. CONNALLY. Mr. President, I wish to make a request for unanimous consent.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The Senator will state it.

Mr. CONNALLY. I ask unanimous consent that the Senate vote first on the amendments and then on the motion to recommit. I think Senators ought to have an opportunity to have a vote on their amendments. I make the request that that course be followed.

The VICE PRESIDENT. Does the Senator ask unanimous consent that the Senate vote on all pending amendments and also those to be offered?

Mr. CONNALLY. All those offered. I do not know how many are offered.

The VICE PRESIDENT. Is there objection to the request of the Senator from Texas that the vote on all pending amendments and all amendments that may be offered be taken before voting on the motion to recommit?

Mr. BLACK. I object.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The Senator from Alabama objects.

Mr. CONNALLY. Mr President, a parliamentary inquiry.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The Senator will state it.

Mr. CONNALLY. In case the Senator from Texas should now withdraw the motion to recommit would it be in order for him to reoffer it later?

The VICE PRESIDENT. It would, and the next amendment which is pending, whatever amendment is pending, would be in order.

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Mr. CONNALLY. I asked would the Senator from Texas be permitted to reoffer the motion to recommit after the disposition of the amendments?

The VICE PRESIDENT. Certainly. Until the bill is disposed of, any motion may be made by any Senator having the floor.

Mr. CONNALLY. Then, the Senator from Texas will withdraw for the present the motion to recommit and will renew it when the pending amendment and other amendments to follow it have been voted on.

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. Mr. President, a parliamentary inquiry.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The Senator will state it.

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. I inquire if the motion of the Senator from Texas to recommit the bill has been withdrawn?

The VICE PRESIDENT. The Senator from Texas has withdrawn his motion to recommit the bill.

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. I ask consideration of the amendment which I proposed yesterday.

The VICE PRESIDENT. There is an amendment now pending. The question is on the amendment offered by the Senator from California [Mr. McADOO] to the amendment reported by the committee.

Mr. McADOO. I ask that the amendment offered by me to the amendment of the committee be stated.

The VICE PRESIDENT. Is there objection to restating the amendment offered by the Senator from California?

The Chair hears none, and the clerk will restate the amendment.

The LEGISLATIVE CLERK. In the amendment of the committee, on page 53, line 19, before the period, it is proposed to insert a comma and the words and any goods produced wholly or in part by convicts or prisoners (except convicts or prisoners on parole or probation).

The VICE PRESIDENT. The question is on agreeing to the amendment offered by the Senator from California to the amendment reported by the committee. [Putting the question.] By the sound, the ayes seem to have it.

Mr. LA FOLLETTE and Mr. BLACK asked for a division.

On a division, the amendment to the amendment of the committee was rejected.

Mr. BORAH. Mr. President, I ask for the consideration of the amendment which I have offered and which is on the desk.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The clerk will state the amendment offered by the Senator from Idaho to the amendment reported by the committee.

The LEGISLATIVE CLERK. In the amendment of the committee, on page 60, line 20, after the word production, it is proposed to insert a colon and the following:

Provided further, That the provisions of this paragraph (c) shall not apply to employees employed 1n a plant located 1n dairy production areas 1n which milk, cream, or butterfat are received, processed, shipped, or manufactured.

Mr. BORAH. Mr. President, a parliamentary inquiry.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The Senator will state it.

Mr. BORAH. May I be permitted to perfect that amendment before it is voted upon?

The VICE PRESIDENT. The Senator has that right.

Mr. BORAH. I offer an amendment as a perfecting amendment.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The clerk will report the perfected amendment offered by the Senator from Idaho to the amendment reported by the committee.

The LEGISLATIVE CLERK. In the amendment of the committee on page 60, line 20, after the word production, it is proposed to strike out the period at the end thereof, insert a comma and the following additional words:

And provided further, That the provisions of this paragraph (c) shall not apply to employees employed in a plant located in dairy-production areas in which milk, cream, or butterfat are received, processed, shipped, or manufactured if operated by a cooperative association as defined in the Farm Credit Act of 1933.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The question is on agreeing to the amendment offered by the Senator from Idaho to the amendment reported by the committee.

Mr. BORAH. On that I ask for the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered, and the Chief Clerk proceeded to call the roll.

Mr. HOLT (when his name was called). I have a pair with the junior Senator from New Jersey [Mr. SMATHERS]. Not knowing how he would vote, I withhold my vote.

The roll call was concluded.

Mr. LEWIS. I again announce that the Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. DUFFY] and the Senator from Georgia [Mr. RUSSELL] are absent in the performance of official duty as members of the committee appointed to attend the dedication of the battle monuments in France.

The Senator from Arkansas [Mrs. CARAWAY] is absent because of illness.

The Senator from Mississippi [Mr. BILBO], the Senator from Rhode Island [Mr. GREEN], and the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. SMATHERS] are unavoidably detained from the Senate.

Mr. AUSTIN. I announce that my colleague [Mr. GIBSON] is absent on official business in connection with the dedication of the battle monuments in France. He has a general pair with the Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. DUFFY].

The result was announced-yeas 59, nays 25, as follows:

YEAS—59

NAYS—25

NOT VOTING—11

So Mr. BORAH's amendment to the amendment of the committee was agreed to.

Mr. OVERTON. Mr. President, a parliamentary inquiry.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The Senator will state it.

Mr. OVERTON. Has an amendment been adopted exempting the ginning and baling of cotton?

The VICE PRESIDENT. The Chair is not able to answer the inquiry of the Senator from Louisiana. However, it is suggested by the Parliamentarian that the question raised by the Senator from Louisiana was included in the amendment offered by the Senator from Oregon [Mr. McNARY]. The Chair personally does not know about it.

Mr. OVERTON. I send to the desk an amendment to the committee amendment and ask that it may be stated.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The amendment of the Senator from Louisiana to the amendment of the committee will be stated.

The LEGISLATIVE CLERK. In the amendment of the committee, on page 51, line 2, after the word in, it is proposed to insert the ginning and baling of cotton.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The question is on agreeing to the amendment of the Senator ftom Louisiana to the amendment of the committee.

The amendment to the committee amendment was rejected.

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Mr. OVERTON. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. LA FOLLETTE. I make the point of order that the result has been announced and the demand for the yeas and nays comes too late.

Mr. CONNALLY. Mr. President, the Senator from Louisiana was asking for the yeas and nays, but the Chair did not hear his request.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The Chair observed as well as he could; and if the Senator from Louisiana was on his feet when the decision was announced, the Chair did not see him and he was looking in that direction. [Laughter.]

Mr. OVERTON. Am I responsible for the Vice President's vision? [Laughter]

The VICE PRESIDENT. Not at all.

Mr. DIETERICH. Mr. President, I send to the desk an amendment to the committee amendment, which I ask to have stated.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The amendment will be stated.

The LEGISLATIVE CLERK. In the amendment of the committee, on page 61, after line 12, it is proposed to insert the following:

The provisions of this subsection shall not apply to employees engaged in processing or packing perishable agricultural products during the harvesting season.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The question is on agreeing to the amendment of the Senator from Illinois to the amendment of the committee.

Mr. DIETERICH. On that question I ask for the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered, and the legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.

Mr. HOLT (when his name was called). Repeating my previous announcement with reference to my pair, I withhold my vote.

The roll call was concluded.

Mr. AUSTIN. Mr. President, I repeat the announcement made on the previous vote in regard to my colleague [Mr. GIBSON] and his general pair.

The result was announced-yeas 51, nays 33, as follows:

YEAS—51

NAYS—33

NOT VOTING-11

So Mr. DIETERICH,s amendment to the amendment of the committee was agreed to.

Mr. REYNOLDS. Mr. President, I offer an amendment to the amendment of the committee and ask that it may be stated.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The amendment will be stated.

The CHIEF CLERK. In the amendment of the committee, on page 64, after line 3, it is proposed to insert the following:

The provisions of this act shall not apply to any individual company, association, or corporation employing five or fewer than five persons.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The question is on agreeing to the amendment of the Senator from North Carolina to the amendment of the committee. [Putting the question.] By the sound the noes appear to have it.

Mr. REYNOLDS. I ask for the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were not ordered.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The noes have it, and the amendment is rejected.

Mr. BONE. Mr. President, I desire to offer an amendment to the amendment of the committee. While the amendment of the Senator from California [Mr. McAdooJ was similar in nature, he requested a record vote and did not obtain it, and therefore I ask for the yeas and nays on my amendment.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The amendment will be stated.

The CHIEF CLERK. In the committee amendment, on page 53, line 19, after the word condition, it is proposed to insert a comma and the words , including convict-made goods.

Mr. BONE. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. BLACK. Mr. President, a point of order.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The Senator will state it.

Mr. BLACK. The amendment of the Senator from Washington having the same substance and effect as the amendment offered by the Senator from California [Mr. McAdooJ, I make the point of order that the amendment of the Senator from Washington is not in order merely because it involves a change of words.

Mr. BONE. Mr. President, the Senator from Alabama is absolutely correct as to the effect of the amendment, but I do not believe the Senator has stated the parliamentary situation.

Mr. McNARY and other Senators demanded the regular order.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The Chair is not familiar with this particular question, but is advised by the Parliamentarian that there is no rule of the Senate touching it. He is further advised that the precedents are that where the Senate has once voted down an amendment the substance of which is again offered and a point of order is made against it, the point of order has been sustained. The Parliamentarian also advises the Chair that the substance of the amendment now offered by the Senator from Washington has been offered and voted on heretofore. Therefore, the point of order is sustained.

Mr. McADOO. Mr. President, as I understand the rule, when there is no record vote a motion to reconsider may be made by any Senator. I therefore move that the vote on the amendment offered by me be reconsidered, so that we may have a record vote on it.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The Senator from California moves to reconsider the vote by which the Senate rejected the amendment offered by him to the amendment reported by the committee. [Putting the question.] By the sound the noes seem to have it.

Mr. CLARK. I call for a division.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The noes have it, and the Senate declines to reconsider the vote.

Mr. CLARK. Mr. President, a division. I was on my feet asking for a division.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The Senator was on his feet.

Mr. CLARK. I intended to ask for a division; but, pending that, I ask for the yeas and nays.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The Senator has that right, because he was on his feet. Is the demand for the yeas and nays seconded?

The yeas and nays were ordered.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The Cbair may be making a gratuitous suggestion to the Senate; but the Senate now is voting on a motion to reconsider the vote by which it defeated the McAdoo amendment.

The clerk will call the roll.

The legislative clerk called the roll.

Mr. LEWIS. I announce the absence of the senior Senator from Arkansas [Mrs. CARAWAY] because of illness.

The Senator from Rhode Island [Mr. GREEN] and the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. SMATHERS] are necessarily detained.

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The Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. DUFFY] and the Senator from Georgia [Mr. RUSSELL] are absent in the performance of official duty, having been appointed members of the committee to attend the dedication of the battle monuments in France.

Mr. HOLT. I have a general pair with the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. SMATHERS]. Not knowing how he would vote on this question, I withhold my vote.

Mr. AUSTIN. I repeat the announcement made on a prior roll call in regard to my colleague [Mr. GIBSON].

The roll call resulted-yeas 42, nays 42, as follows:

YEAS—42

NAYS—42

NOT VOTING—11

The VICE PRESIDENT. On the motion to reconsider, the yeas are 42, the nays are 42, and the motion is lost.

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. Mr. President, I call up for consideration the amendment which I submitted.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The amendment offered by the Senator from Washington to the amendment of the committee will be stated.

The CHIEF CLERK. At the proper place in the committee amendment it is proposed to insert the following:

The term. person employed in agriculture, as used in this act, insofar as lt shall refer to fresh fruits or vegetables, shall include persons employed within the area of production engaged in preparing, packing, or storing such fresh fruits or vegetables in their raw or natural state.

The VICE PRESIDENT. The question is on agreeing to the amendment offered by the Senator from Washington to the amendment reported by the committee.

Mr. SCHWELLENBACH. On my amendment I ask for the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered, and the Chief Clerk called the roll.

Mr. AUSTIN. My colleague the junior Senator from Vermont [Mr. GIBSON] has a general pair with the junior Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. DUFFY].

Mr. LEWIS. The senior Senator from Arkansas [Mrs. CARAWAY] is absent on account of illness.

The Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. DUFFY] and the Senator from Georgia [Mr. RUSSELL] are absent on official business, having been appointed members of the Senate delegation to attend the dedication of American battle monuments in France.

The Senator from Rhode Island [Mr, GREEN] and the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. SMATHERS] are necessarily detained from the Senate.

Mr. HOLT. I have a general pair with the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. SMATHERS]. I therefore withhold my vote.

The result was announced-yeas 55, nays 29, as follows:

YEAS—55