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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 Third Session of the Seventy-Fifth Congress of the United States of American, Volume 83 - Part 8, June 8, 1938, to July 16, 1938. (Pages 8463 to 9720)

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  Page 9158              CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE              June 14, 1938             (83 Cong. Rec. 9158, 1938)

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STANDARDS OF WAGES AND HOURS OF LABOR—CONFERENCE REPORT

During the delivery of Mr. LUNDEEN's speech:

Mr. THOMAS of Utah. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. LUNDEEN. I yield.

Mr. THOMAS of Utah submitted the following report:

The committee of conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses on the amendent of the House 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, having met, after full and free conference, have agreed to recommend and do recommend to their respective Houses as follows:

That the Senate recede from its disagreement to the amendment of the House, and agree to the same with an amendment as follows:

In lieu of the matter proposed to be inserted by the House amendment, insert the following:

"That this Act may be cited as the 'Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.'

[PAGE 9158]

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FINDING AND DECLARATION OF POLICY

"SEC. 2. (a) The Congress hereby finds that the existence, in industries engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce, of labor conditions detrimental to the maintenance of the minimum standard of living necessary for health, efficiency, and general well-being of workers (1) causes commerce and the channels and instrumentalities of commerce to be used to spread and perpetuate such labor conditions among the workers of the several States; (2) burdens commerce and the free flow of goods in commerce; (3) constitutes an unfair method of competition in commerce; (4) leads to labor disputes burdening and obstructing commerce and the free flow of goods in commerce; and (5) interferes With the orderly and fair marketing of goods in commerce.

"(b) It is hereby declared to be the policy of this Act, through the exercise by Congress of its power to regulate commerce among the several States, to correct and as rapidly as practicable to eliminate the conditions above referred to in such industries without substantially curtailing employment or earning power.

DEFINITIONS

"SEc. 3. As used in this Act—

"(a) 'Person' means an individual, partnership, association, corporation, business trust, legal representative, or any organized group of persons.

"(b) 'Commerce' means trade, commerce, transportation, transmission, or communication among the several States or from any State to any place outside thereof.

"(c) 'State' means any State of the United States or the District of Columbia or any Territory or possession of the United States.

"(d) 'Employer' includes any person acting directly or indirectly in the interest of an employer in relation to an employee but shall not include the United States or any State or political subdivision of a State, or any labor organization (other than when acting as an employer), or anyone acting in the capacity of officer or agent of such labor organization.

"(e) 'Employee' includes any individual employed by an employer.

"(f) 'Agriculture' includes farming in all its branches and among other things includes the cultivation and tillage of the soil, dairying, the production, cultivation, growing, and harvesting of any agricultural or horticultural commodities (including commodities defined as agricultural commodities in section 15 (g) of the Agricultural Marketing Act, as amended), the raising of livestock, bees, fur-bearing animals, or poultry, and any practices (including any forestry or lumbering operations) performed by a farmer or on a farm as an incident to or in conjunction with such farming operations, including preparation for market, delivery to storage or to market or to carriers for transportation to market.

"(g) 'Employ' includes to suffer or permit to work.

"(h) 'Industry' means a trade, business, industry, or branch thereof, or group of industries, in which individuals are gainfully employed.

"(i) 'Goods' means goods (including ships and marine equipment), wares, products, coinmodities, merchandise, or articles or subjects of commerce of any character, or any part or ingredient thereof, but does not include goods after their delivery into the actual physical possession of the ultimate consumer thereof other than a producer, manufacturer, or processor thereof.

"(j) 'Produced' means produced, manufactured, mined, handled, or in any other manner worked on in any State; and for the purposes of this Act an employee shall be deemed to have been engaged in the production of goods if such employee was employed in producing, manufacturing, mining, handling, transporting, or in any other manner working on such goods, or in any process or occupation necessary to the production thereof, in any State.

"(k) 'Sale' or 'sell' includes any sale, exchange, contract to sell, consignment for sale, shipment for sale, or other disposition.

"(1) 'Oppressive child labor' means a condition of employment under which (1) any employee under the age of sixteen years is employed by an employer (other than a parent or a person standing in place of a parent employing his own child or a child in his custody under the age of sixteen years in an occupation other than manufacturing or mining) in any occupation, or (2) any employee between the ages of sixteen and eighteen years is employed by an employer in any occupation which the Chief of the Children's Bureau in the Department of Labor shall find and by order declare to be particularly hazardous for the employment of children between such ages or detrimental to their health or well-being; 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 an unexpired certificate issued and held pursuant to regulations of the Chief of the Children's Bureau certifying that such person is above the oppressive child labor age. The Chief of the Children's Bureau shall provide by regulation or by order that the employment of employees between the ages of fourteen and sixteen years in occupations other than manufacturing and mining shall not be deemed to constitute oppressive chtld 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.

"(m) 'Wage' paid to any employee includes the reasonable cost, as determined by the Administrator, to the employer of furnishing such employee with board, lodging, or other facilities, if such board, lodging, or other facilities are customarily furnished by such employer to his employees.

ADMINISTRATOR

"SEC. 4. (a) There is hereby created in the Dapartment of Labor a Wage and Hour Division which shall be under the direction of an Administrator, to be known as the Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division (in this Act referred to as the 'Administrator'). The Administrator shall be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, and shall receive compensation at the rate of $10,000 a year.

"(b) The Administrator may, subject to the civil-service laws, appoint such employees as he deems necessary to carry out his functions and duties under this Act and shall fix their compensation in accordance with the Classification Act of 1923, as amended. The Administrator 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 appear for and represent the Administrator in any litigation, but all such litigation shall be subject to the direction and control of the Attorney General. In the appointment, selection, classification, and promotion of officers and employees of the Administrator, 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.

"(c) The principal office of the Admin1strator shall be in the District of Columbia, but he or his duly authorized representatives may exercise any or all of his powers in any place.

"(d) The Administrator shall submit annually in January a report to the Congress covering his activities for the preceding year and including such information, data, and recommendations for further legislation in connection with the matters covered by this Act as he may find advisable.

"INDUSTRY COMMITTEES

SEC. 5. (a) The Administrator shall as soon as practicable appoint an industry committee for each industry engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce.

"(b) An industry committee shall be appointed by the Administrator without regard to any other provisions of law regarding the appointment and compensation of employees of the United States. It shall include a number of disinterested persons representing the public, one of whom the administrator shall designate as chairman, a like number of persons representing employees in the industry, and a like number of persons representing employers in the industry. In the appointment of the persons representing each group, the Administrator shall give due regard to the geographical regions in which the industry is carried on.

"(c) Two-thirds of the members of an industry committee shall constitute a quorum, and the decision of the committee shall require a vote of not less than a majority of all its members. Members of an industry committee shall receive as compensation for their services a reasonable per diem, which the Administrator shall by rules and regulations prescribe, for each day actually spent in the work of the committee, and shall in addition be reimbursed for their necessary traveling and other expenses. The Administrator shall furnish the committee with adequate legal, stenographic, clerical, and other assistance, and shall by rules and regulations prescribe the procedure to be followed by the committee.

"(d) The Administrator shall submit to an industry committee from time to time such data as he may have available on the matters referred to it, and shall cause to be brought before it in connection with such matters any witnesses whom he deems material. An industry committee may summon other witnesses or call upon the Administrator to furnish additional information to aid it in its deliberations.

"MINIMUM WAGES

"SEC. 6. (a) Every employer shall pay to each of his employees who is engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce wages at the following rates—

"(1) during the first year from the effective date of this section, not less than 25 cents an hour,

"(2) during the next six years from such date, not less than 30 cents an hour,

"(3) after the expiration of seven years from such date, not less than 40 cents an hour, or the rate (not less than 30 cents an hour) prescribed in the applicable order of the Administrator issued under section 8, whichever is lower, and

"(4) at any time after the effective date of this section, not less than the rate (not in excess of 40 cents an hour) prescribed in the applicable order of the Administrator issued under section 8.

"(b) This section shall take effect upon the expiration of one hundred and twenty days from the date of enactment of this Act.

"MAXIMUM HOURS

"SEC. 7. (a) No employer shall, except as otherwise provided in this section, employ any of his employees who is engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce—

"(1) for a workweek longer than forty-four hours during the first year from the effective date of this section,

"(2) for a workweek longer than forty-two hours during the second year from such date, or

"(3) for a workweek longer than forty hours after the expiration of the second year from such date, "unless such employee receives compensation for his employment in excess of the hours above specified at a rate not less than one and one~half times the regular rate at which he is employed.

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(b) No employer shall be deemed to have violated subsection (a) by employing any employee for a workweek in excess of that specified in such subsection without paying the compensation, for overtime employment prescribed therein if such employee is so employed—

"(1) in pursuance of an agreement made as a result of collective bargaining by representatives of employees certified as bona fide by the National Labor Relations Board, which provides that no employee shall be employed more than one thousand hours during any period of twenty-six consecutive weeks,

"(2) on an annual basis in pursuance of an agreement with his employer, made as a result of collective bargaining by representatives of employees certified as bona fide by the National Labor Relations Board, which provides that the employee shall not be employed more than two thousand hours during any period of fifty-two consecutive weeks, or

"(3) for a period or periods of not more than fourteen workweeks in the aggregate in any calendar year in an industry found by the Administrator to be of a seasonal nature, and if such employee receives compensation for employment in excess of 12 hours in any workday, or for employment in excess of 56 hours in any workweek, as the case may be, at a rate not less than one and one-half times the regular rate at which he 1s employed.

"(c) In the case of an employer engaged in the first processing of milk, whey, skimmed milk, or cream into dairy products, or in the ginning and compressing of cotton, or in the processing. of cottonseed, or in the processing of sugar beets, sugar beet molasses, sugarcane, or maple sap, into sugar (but not refined sugar) or into syrup, the provisions of subsection (a) shall not apply to his employees in any place of employment where he is so engaged; and in the case of an employer engaged in the first processing of, or in canning or packing pertsbable or seasonal fresh fruits or vegetables, or in the first processing. within the area of product1on (as defined by the Administrator), of any agricultural or horticultural commodity during seasonal operations, or in handling, slaughtering, or dressing poultry or livestock, the provisions of subsection (a), during a period or periods of not more than fourteen workweeks in the aggregate in any calendar year, shall not apply to his employees in any place of employment where he is so engaged.

"(d) This section shall take effect upon the expiration of one hundred and twenty days from the date of enactment of this Act.

"WAGE 0RDERS

"SEC. 8. (a) With a view to carrying out the poligy of this Act by reaching, as rapidly as is economically feasible without substantially curtalling employment, the objective of a universal minimum wage of 40 cents an hour in each industry engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce, the Administrator shall from time to time convene the industry committee for each such industry, and the industry committee shall from time to time recommend the minimum rate or rates of wages to be paid under section 6 by employers engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce in such industry or classifications therein.

"(b) Upon the convening of an industry committee, the Administrator shall refer to it the question of the minimum wage rate or rates to be fixed for such industry. The industry committee shall investigate conditions in the industry and the committee, or any authorized subcommittee thereof, may hear such witnesses and receive such evidence as may be necessary or appropriate to enable the committee to perform its duties and functions under this Act. The eomm1ttee shall recommend to the Administrator the highest minimum wage rates for the industry which it determines, having due regard to economic and competitive conditions will not substantially curtail emplqyment in the industry.

"(c) The industry committee for any industry shall recommend such reasonable classifications within any industry as it determines to be necessary for the purpose of fixing for each classification within such industry the highest minimum wage rate (not in excess of 40 cents an hour) which (1) will not substantially curtail employment in such classification and (2) will not give a competitiye advantage to any group in the industry, and shall recommend for each classification in the industry the highest minimum wage rate which the committee determines will not substantially curtail employment in such classification. In determining whether such classifications should be made in any industry, in making such classifications, and in determining the minimum wage rates for such classifications, no classification shall be made, and no minimum wage rate shall be fixed, solely on a regional basis, but the industry committee and the Administrator shall consider among other relevant factors the following:

"(1) competitive conditions as affected by transportation, living and production costs;

"(2) the wages established for work of like or comparable character by collective labor agreements negotiated between employers and employees by representatives of their own choosing; and

"(3) the wages paid for work of like or comparable character by employers who volunarily maintain minimum-wage standards in the industry.

'No classification shall be made under this section on the basis or age or sex.

(d) The industry committee shall file with the Administrator a report containing its recommendations with respect to the matters referred to it. Upon the filing of such report, the Administrator, after due notice to interested persons, and giving them an opportunity to be heard, shall by order approve and carry into effect the recommendations contained in such report, if he finds that the recommendations are made in accordance with law, are supported by the evidence adduced at the hearing, and, taking into consideration the same factors as are required to be considered by the industry committee, will carry out the purposes of this section; otherwise he shall disapprove such recommendations. If the Administrator disapproves such recommendations, he shall again refer the matter to such committee, or to another industry committee for such industry (which he may appoint for such purpose) for further consideration and recommendations.

"(e) No order issued under this section with respect to any industry prior to the expiration of seven years from the effective date of section 6 shall remain in effect after such expiration, and no order shall be issued under this section with respect to any industry on or after such expiration, unless the industry committee by a preponderance of the evidence before it recommends, and the Administrator by a preponderance of the evidence adduced at the hearing finds, that the continued effectiveness or the issuance of the order, as the case may be, is necessary in order to prevent substantial curtailment of employment in the Industry.

"(f) Orders issued under this section shall define the industries and classifications therein to which they are to apply, and shall contain such terms and conditions as the Administrator finds necessary to carry out the purposes of such orders, to prevent the circumvention or evasion thereof, and to safeguard the minimum wage rates established therein. No such order shall take effect until after due notice is given of the issUance thereof by publication in the Federal Register and by such other means as the Administrator deems reasonably calculated to give to interested persons general notice of such issuance.

(g) Due notice of any hearing provided for in this section shall be given by publication in the Federal Register and by such other means as the Administrator deems reasonably calculated to give general notice to interested persons.

"ATTENDANCE OF WITNESSES

"SEC. 9. For the purpose of any hearing or investigation provided for in this Act, the provisions of sections 9 and 10 (relating to the attendanee of witnesses and the production of books, papers, and documents) of the Federal Trade Commission Act of September 16, 1914, as amended (U. S. C., 1934 edition, title 15, secs. 49 and 50), are hereby made applicable to the jurisdiction, powers, and duties of the Administrator, the Chief of the Children's Bureau, and the industry committees.

"COURT REVIEW

"SEC. 10. (a) Any person aggrieved by an order of the Administrator issued under section 8 may obtain a review of such order in the circuit court of appeals of the United States for any circuit wherein such person resides or has his principal place of business, or in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, by filing in such court, within sixty days after the entry of such order, a written petition praying that the order of the Administrator be modified or set aside in whole or in part. A copy of such petition shall forthwith be served upon the Administrator, and thereupon the Administrator shall certify and file in the court a transcript of the record upon which the order complained of was entered. Upon the filing of such transcript such court shall have exclusive jurisdiction to affirm, modify, or set aside such order in whole or in part, so far as it is applicable to the petitioner. The review by the court shall be limited to questions of law, and findings of fact by the Administrator when supported by substantial evidence shall be conclusive. No objection to the order of the Administrator shall be considered by the court unless such objection shall have been urged before the Admlnistrator or unless there were reasonable grounds for failure so to do. If application is made to the court for leave to adduce additional evidence, and it is shown to the satisfaction of the court that such additional evidence may materially affect the result of the proceeding and that there were reasonable grounds for failure to adduce such evidence in the proceeding before the AdminiStrator, the court may order such additional evidence to be taken before the Administrator and to be adduced upon the hearing in such manner and upon such terms and conditions as to the court may seem proper. The Administrator may modify his findings by reason of the additional evidence so taken, and shall file with the court such modified or new findings which if supported by substantial evidence shall be conclusive, and shall also file his recommendation, if any, for the modification or setting aside of the original order. The judgment and decree of the court shall be final, subject to review by the Supreme Court of the United States upon certiorari or certification as provided in sections 239 and 240 of the Judicial Code, as amended (U.S.C. title 28, secs. 346 and 347).

(b) The commencement of proceedings under subsection (a) shall not, unless specifically ordered by the court, operate as a stay of the Administrator's order. The court shall not grant any stay of the order unless the person complaining of such order shall file in court an undertaking with a surety or sureties satisfactory to the court for the payment to the emp1oyees affected by the order, in the event such order is affirmed, of the amount by which the compensation

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such employees are entitled to receive under the order exceeds the compensation they actually receive while such stay is in effect.

"INVESTIGATIONS, INSPECTIONS, AND RECORDS

"SEC.11. (a) The Administrator or his designated representatives may investigate and gather data regarding the wages, hours, and other conditions and practices of employment in any industry subject to this Act, and may enter and inspect such places and such records (and make such transcriptions thereof), question such employees, and investigate such facts, conditions, practices, or matters as he may deem necessary or appropriate to determine whether any person has violated any provisions of this Act, or which may aid in the enforcement of the provisions of this Act. Except as provided in section 12 and in subsection (b) of this section, the Administrator shall utilize the bureaus and divisions of the Department of Labor for all the investigations and inspections necessary under this section. Except as provided in section 12, the Administrator shall bring all actions under section 17 to restrain violations of this Act.

"(b) With the consent and cooperation of State agencies charged with the administration of State labor laws, the Administrator and the Chief of the Children's Bureau may, for the purpose of carrying out their respective functions and duties under this Act, utilize the services of State and local agencies an(l their employees and, notwithstanding any other provision of law, may reimburse such State and local agencies and their employees for services rendered for such purposes.

"(c) Every employer subject to any provision of this Act or of any order issued under this Act shall make, keep, and preserve such records of the persons employed by him and of the wages, hours, and other conditions and practices of employment maintained by him, and shall preserve such records for such periods of time, and shall make such reports therefrom to the Administrator as he shall prescribe by regulation or order as necessary or appropriate for the enforcement of the provisions of this Act or the regulations or orders thereunder.

"CHILD LABOR PROVISIONS

"SEC.l2. (a) After the expiration of one hundred and twenty days from the date of enactment of this Act, no producer, manufacturer, or dealer shall ship or deliver for shipment in commerce any goods produced in an establishment situated in the United States in or about which within thirty days prior to the removal of sucn goods therefrom any oppressive child labor has been employed: Provided, That a prosecution and conviction of a defendant for the shipment or delivery for shipment of any goods under the conditions herein prohibited shall be a bar to any further prosecution against the same defendant for shipments or deliveries for shipment of any such goods before the beginning of said prosecution.

"(b) The Chief of the Children's Bureau in the Department of Labor, or any of his authorized representatives, shall make all investigations and inspections under section 11 (a) with respect to the employment of minors, and, subject to the direction and control of the Attorney General, shall bring all actions under section 17 to enjoin any act or practice which is unlawful by reason of the existence of oppressive child labor, and shall administer all other provisions of this Act relating to oppressive child labor.

"EXEMPTIONS

"SEC. 13. (a) The provisions of sections 6 and 7 shall not apply with respect to (1) any employee employed in a bona fide executive, administrative, professional, or local retailing capacity, or in the capacity of outside salesman (as such terms are defined and delimited by regulations of the Administrator); or (2) any employee engaged in any retail or service establishment the greater part of whose selling or servicing is in intrastate commerce; or (3) any employee employed as a seaman; or (4) any employee of a carrier by air subject to the provisions of title II of the Railway Labor Act; or (5) any employee employed in the catching, taking, harvesting, cultivating, or farming of any kind of fish, shellfish, crustacea, sponges, seaweeds, or other aquatic forms of animal and vegetable life, including the going to and returning from work and including employment in the loading, unloading, or packing of such products for shipment or in propagating, processing, marketing, freezing, canning, curing, storing, or distributing the above products or byproducts thereof; or (6) any employee employed in agriculture; or (7) any employee to the extent that such employee is exempted by regulations or orders of the Administrator issued under section 14; or (8) any employee employed in connection with the publication of any weekly or semiweekly newspaper with a circulation of less than three thousand the major part of which circulation is within the county where printed and published; or (9) any employee of a street, suburban, or interurban electric railway, or local trolley or motor bus carrier, not included in other exemptions contained in this section; or (10) to any individual employed within the area of production (as defined by the Administrator), engaged in handling, packing, storing, ginning, compressing, pasteurizing, drying, preparing in their raw or natural state, or canning of agricultural or horticultural commodities for market, or in malting cheese or butter or other dairy products.

"(b) The provisions of section 7 shall not apply with respect to (1) any employee with respect to whom the Interstate Commerce Commission has power to establish qualifications and maximum hours of service pursuant to the provisions of section 204 of the Motor Carrier Act 1935; or (2) any employee of an employer subject to the provisions of Part I of the Interstate Commerce Act.

"(c) The provisions of section 12 relating to child labor shall not apply with respect to any employee employed in agriculture while not legally required to attend school, or to any child employed as an actor in motion pictures or theatrical productions.

"LEARNERS, APPRENTICES, AND HANDICAPPED WORKERS

"SEc. 14. The Administrator, to the extent necessary in order to prevent curtailment of opportunities for employment, shall by regulations or by orders provide for (1) the employment of leamers, of apprentices, and of messengers employed exclusively in delivering letters and messages, under special certificates issued pursuant to regulations of the Administrator, at such wages lower than the minimum wage applicable under section 6 and subject to such limitations as to time, number, proportion, and length of service as the Administrator shall prescribe, and (2) the employment of individuals whose earning capacity is impaired by age or physical or mental deficiency or injury, under special certificates issued by the Administrator, at such wages lower than the minimum wage applicable under section 6 and for such period as shall be fixed in such certificates.

"PROHIBITED ACTS

"SEc. 15. (a) After the expiration of one hundred and twenty days from the date of enactment of this Act, it shall be unlawful for any person:

"(1) to transport, offer for transportation, ship, deliver, or sell in commerce, or to ship, deliver or sell with knowledge that shipment or delivery or sale thereof in commerce is intended, any goods in the production of which any employee was employed in violation of section 6 or section 7, or in violation of any regulation or order of the_ Administrator issued under section 14; except that no provision of this Act shall impose any liability upon any common carrier for the transportation in 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;

"(2) to violate any of the provisions of section 6 or section 7, or any of the provisions of any regulation or order of the Administrator issued under section 14;

"(3) to discharge or in any other manner discriminate against any employee because such employee has filed any complaint or instituted or caused to be instituted any proceeding under or related to this Act, or has testified or is about to testify in any such proceeding, or has served or is about to serve on an industry committee;

"(4) to violate any of the provisions of section 12;

"(5) to violate any of the provisions of section 11 (c), or to make any statement, report, or record filed or kept pursuant to the provisions of such section or of any regulation or order thereunder knowing such statement, report, or record to be false in a material respect.

"(b) For the purposes of subsection (a) (1) proof that any employee was employed in any place of employment where goods shipped or sold in commerce were produced, within ninety days prior to the removal of the goods from such place of employment, shall be prima facie evidence that such employee was engaged in the production of such goods.

"PENALTIES

"SEC. 16. (a) Any person who willfully violates any of the provisions of section 15 shall upon conviction thereof be subject to a fine of not more than $10,000, or to imprisonment for not more than six months, or both. No person shall be imprisoned under this subsection except for an offense committed after the conviction of such person for a prior offense under this subsection.

"(b) Any employer who violates the provisions of section 6 or section 7 of this Act shall be liable to the employee or employees affected in the amount of their unpaid minimum wages, or their unpaid overtime compensation, as the case may be, and in an additional equal amount as liquidated damages. Action to recover such liability may be maintained in any court of competent jurisdiction by any one or more employees for and in behalf of himself or themselves and other employees similarly situated, or such employee or employees may designate an agent or representative to maintain such action for and in behalf of all employees similarly situated. The court in such action shall, in addition to ally judgment awarded to the plaintiff or plaintiffs, allow a reasonable attorney's fee to be paid by the defendant, and costs of the action.

"INJUNCTION PROCEEDINGS

"SEC. 17. The district courts of the United States and the United States courts of the Territories and possessions shall have jurisdiction, for cause shown, and subject to the provisions of section 20 (relating to notice to opposite party) of the Act entitled "An Act to supplement existing laws against unlawful restraints and monopolies, and for other purposes", approved October 15, 1914, as amended (U. S. C., 1934 edition, title 28, sec. 381), to restrain violations of section 15.

"RELATION TO OTHER LAWS

"SEC. 18. No provision of this Act or of any order thereunder shall excuse noncompliance with any Federal or State law or municipal ordinance establishing a minimum wage higher than

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the minimum wage established under this Act or a maximum workweek lower than the maximum workweek established under this Act, and no provision of this Act relating to the employment of child labor shall justify noncompliance with any Federal or State law or municipal ordinance establishing a higher standard than the standard established under this Act. No provision of this Act shall justify any employer in reducing a wage paid by him which is in excess of the applicable minimum wage under this Act, or justify any employer in increasing hours of employment ma1nta1ned by him which are shorter than the maximum hours applicable under this Act.

"SEPARABILITY OF PROVISIONS

"SEC. 19. If any provision of this Act or the application of such provision to any person or circumstance is held invalid, the remainder of the Act and the application of such provision to other persons or circumstances shall not be affected thereby."

And the House agree to the same.

ELBERT D. THOMAS,

DAVID I. WALSH,

WILLIAM E. BORAH,

CLAUDE PEPPER,

ALLEN J. ELLENDER,

JAMES E. MURRAY,

ROBERT M. LA FOLLETTE, Jr.,

Managers on the part of tne Senate.

MARY T. NORTON,

ROBERT RAMSPECK,

M.A. DUNN,

KENT KELLER,

JENNINGS RANDOLPH,

RICHARD J. WELCH,

FRED A. HARTLEY, Jr.

Managers on the part of the House.

Mr. O'MAHONEY. Mr. President, I should like to ask the Senator from Utah what the effect of the conference report is upon seasonal agricultural industries, such as the refining of beet sugar in the West, for example.

Mr. THOMAS of Utah. Mr. President, any beet-sugar refinery in the West is a seasonal refinery, and operates generally on a basis of from 80 to 90 days in a year. Therefore, such a refinery, being a temporary refinery, is covered under the provision for seasonal work, found on page 5 of the report, subparagraph (3) of subsection (b) of section 7:

(3) For a period or periods of not more than 14 weeks 1n the aggregate in any calendar year in an industry found by the Admin1atrator to be of a seasonal nature.

I think that provisiop answers the Senator's question.

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

Mr. THOMAS of Utah. I shall be glad to yield.

Mr. OVERTON. In Louisiana we have a situation with reference to processing sugarcane into sugar. Under the first clause of the exemption in hours the language is—

Or in the processing of • • • sugarcane • • • into sugar (but not refined sugar).

In the second clause there is the provision that the processing must be a first processing.

In some of the mills in Louisiana the sugarcane is converted into raw sugar and then the raw sugar is converted into refined sugar in the same plant. Do such plants come under either one of the exemptions referred to? I assume they would come under the first exemption, with the exception of refined sugar, which needs some separate and independent operation.

If a mill is processing sugarcane into raw sugar, and then immediately converting the raw sugar into refined sugar in the area of production, as a more or less continuous process, would the hours' exemption apply to such a mill?

Mr. THOMAS of Utah. I should think the exemption which I have already mentioned in regard to beet sugar would apply also to the transaction referred to by the Senator, because, as I understand, the harvesting of sugarcane and the refining of sugar in that instance would not be a year-round industry. It would be seasonal in nature, and therefore, so far as the Senator's question is concerned, I think it is completely covered under subparagraph (3) of subsection (b) of section 7.

Mr. OVERTON. That is, the first processing would cover the conversion into refined sugar?

Mr. THOMAS of Utah. That section has no bearing at all upon the first processing. It has bearing merely upon the act that the whole transaction is seasonal. I am pretty sure that no small mill or refinery in the state of Louisiana would be making sugar for a period longer than 14 weeks in a year.

Mr. OVERTON. May I direct the Senator's attention to the provision in subsection (c):

In the case of an employer engaged in the first processing—

And so forth. As I understand the Senator's interpretation, it 1s not the intention to exempt from the hours provision those engaged in the processing of sugar as a continuous operation.

Mr. THOMAS of Utah. I think the Senator is asking two questions. First, I think that, so far as the Louisiana refineries are concerned, those refineries are small refineries. They are not year-round refineries. Their operations are seasonal. Therefore they are completely covered by subparagraph (3) of subsection (b).

Mr. OVERTON. That is a very satisfactory explanation.

Mr. THOMAS of Utah. There is no doubt about the matter.

The other question has reference to the general exemption for ordinary agricultural occupations and agricultural activities under subsection (c). In that subsection there is the expression in parentheses "(but not refined sugar)." That expression was inserted primarily to cover the year-round, big refineries, which are factories in every sense of the word, which buy molasses, sirup, or unrefined sugar and cbange them into refined sugar. Such a factory is not entitled to an exemption. Such a factory is comparable to the employer of any kind of labor anywhere else in the United States, and should not come under the exemption referred to.

For example, as I understand, tUe Hawaiian sugar industry does not produce any refined sugar. The raw sugar is all sent to the continent for refining. SUch a factory probably runs 12 months out of the year and employs its labor in the ordinary way. Therefore it is not entitled to an exemption and should not have an exemption. The hope in framing the provision is that it will not have an exemption.

SEVERAL SENATORS. Vote!

Mr. JOHNSON of California. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. THOMAS of Utah. I shall be glad to yield.

Mr. JOHNSON of California. What part of the conference report contains the agricultural exemption?

Mr. THOMAS of Utah. Section 7, on page 4, contains the maximum hours; and the agricultural exemption with regard to maximum hours is included in subparagraph (c) of that section, on page 5.

Mr. JOHNSON of California. Will the Senator state generally what agricultural products are exempted?

Mr. THOMAS of Utah. It seems to me that if the Senator will read subsection (c) he will find included practically everything which is agricultural, so far as hours are concerned.

So far as wages are concerned, there is a definition of "agriculture" found on page 2. That definition reads as follows:

(f) "Agriculture" includes farming in all its branches and among other things includes the cultivation and tillage of the soil, dairying, the production, cultivation, growing, and harvesting of any agricultural or horticultural commodities (including commodities defined as agricultural commodities in section 15 (g) of the Agricultural Marketing Act, as amended), the raising of livestock, bees, fur-bearing animals, or poultry, and any practices (including any forestry or lumbering operations) performed by a farmer or on a farm as an incident to or in conjunction with such farming operations, including preparation for market, delivery to storage or to market or to carriers for transportation to market.

Mr. JOHNSON of California. I take it from what the Senator has said that the agricultural exemptions are practically plenary, and take in almost all agricultural products.

Mr. THOMAS of Utah. I could not hear part of the Senator's sentence.

Mr. JOHNSON of California. I said that, in general language, agriculture is exempted from the operation of the bill.

Mr. THOMAS of Utah. It is.

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Mr. JOHNSON of California. Does the Senator know of any particular kind of agriculture that is included in the bill?

Mr. THOMAS of Utah. I do not know of any. The definition seems to be all-inclusive, and we tried to make it so.

Mr. O'MAHONEY. Mr. President, do I correctly understand the Senator, then, to say that it was the intention of the committee to grant an exemption to the refiners of beet sugar in the West? I desire merely to understand the meaning of the report.

Mr. THOMAS of Utah. The refiners of beet sugar in the West are definitely exempted under the seasonal provision. We ought to go one step further and say that any seasonal factory is exempted under the same general language.

Mr. O'MAHONEY. The reason I asked the question was because I notice on page 5 in subparagraph (c) a parenthetical provision to the effect that "refined sugar" is not included. That parenthetical statement does not exclude the beet-sugar refineries of the West from the exemption which the Senator has just been discussing?

Mr. THOMAS of Utah. If the beet refineries of the West are so operated as to be comparable to any other factories and employ labor in exactly the same way as any other factories, they are not exempted and should not be exempted.

Mr. O'MAHONEY. I understand that, but if they are seasonal—

Mr. THOMAS of Utah. If they are seasonal, and part of the agricultural movement, they are exempted.

Mr. O'MAHONEY. So that that exemption was intended to apply only to those refineries which are not operated all the year around.

Mr. THOMAS of Utah. That is as I understand it.

Mr. BAILEY. Mr. President, will the Senator inform me if this bill exempts the farmer who operates, say, a sawmill business on his own farm, and who has his own timber on his own premises?

Mr. THOMAS of Utah. If the lumbering activity—and that would be called a lumbering activity, I take it—is in connection with his farming activity, he would be exempted.

Mr. BAILEY. Would the operation of a sawmill be in connection with his farming activity? How would the Senator connect raising cotton with lumbering, for example?

Mr. THOMAS of Utah. Starting with the raising of livestock in paragraph (f) of section 2, the bill reads, and I think it is as plain as it can be in that regard:

The raising of livestock, bees, fur-bearing animals, or poultry, and any practices (including any forestry or lumbering operations) performed by a farmer or on a farm as an incident to or in conjunction with such farming operations.

Mr. BAILEY. That has to do with a case of a farmer who is merely running a sawmill on his farm and sawing his own timber. Could he get timber from an adjoining farm and then be exempted?

Mr. THOMAS of Utah. If the man is not in the sawmill industry, if he is primarily a farmer, I would take it that he would be exempt. If his sawmill business, his gathering of logs, his lumbering, his forestry, and such things are all in connection with his farming activity they would be considered a part of it.

Mr. BAILEY. He is a farmer, farming is his main business; he cuts timber on his own land and sets up a sawmill. He is exempted. That is clear, is it?

Mr. THOMAS of Utah. That is clear.

Mr. BAILEY. If he should buy some timber from his neighbor and saw it, would he be exempted?

Mr. THOMAS of Utah. There would be a question there, I take it, because that would not be a part of his ordinary farming activity, but I am pretty sure if a large sawmill were established on somebody's farm for the sake of getting an exemption that it would not get an exemption and should not get an exemption.

Mr. BAILEY. I understand that, and I agree to that. But there is some doubt whether a farmer might buy timber around the neighborhood and use what we call a set mill, a little movable mill. Does the Senator think he would be exempted?

Mr. THOMAS of Utah. I think he would be exempted. This provision was put in, by the way, and was explained, by the way, by one member of the conference committee who comes from a section of the country where the farmers engage a part of the time in the lumbering and forestry business.

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

Mr. THOMAS of Utah. I am glad to yield to the Senator from New York.

Mr. COPELAND. In this same connection, it happens that I am·a farmer. I have a mill, by the operation of which in the winter time I can keep my men engaged and give them employment. The timber comes from my own place generally, but suppose I did not have sufficient timber, and I wanted to keep my men employed, could I buy some logs from my neighbor, not with a view of doing a commercial business, for the work that I do on the farm is at a loss anyway; it has no commercial value? My aim is to keep my men employed. Would I not be exempt under the terms of this bill?

Mr. THOMAS of Utah. What difference would that make? I am sure the Senator from New York would not pay an amount less than 25 cents an hour.

Mr. COPELAND. No.

Mr. THOMAS of Utah. I am pretty sure that he would not work his employees more than 44 hours a week or more than 56 hours a week, which would probably be another maximum allowed. so I think the Senator need never have any question in his mind.

The conference agreement on the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 marks a notable event in America's economic development.

Despite differences of every character except a unified desire to raise the standard of living, the conference committee reached an agreement which has the unanimous support of its members.

The conference agreement was reached not by logrolling or by petty bartering. The agreement, of course, represents a compromise, but a constructive compromise obtained by the recognition that divergent viewpoints and interests had to be reconciled rather than ignored, and that our most vital interests were the common interests of all of us.

Neither House nor Senate yielded its convictions, but both Houses obtained their common objective, which was to abolish traffic in interstate commerce in the products of child labor and in the products of underpaid and overworked labor. I think that many of the conference committee feel that our common objective has probably been more effectively and wisely obtained in the conference agreement than it would have been obtained in either the Senate or House bill.

Perhaps the most perplexing problem that the conference committee had to agree upon was the establishment of minimum wages. The common objective of both bills was a minimum wage of 40 cents an hour. A minimum wage of 40 cents an hour, even to a worker who finds full-time employment and is able to earn $800 a year, certainly does not provide in any part of the country an excessively high standard of living for an American family in the twentieth century.

The House bill, starting with a minimum wage of 25 cents an hour during the first year and advancing 5 cents an hour each year, required a minimum wage of 40 cents to be attained at the expiration of the third year. The Senate bill, stating the same objective in general terms, had empowered a board, acting on advice of industry committees, to implement that objective as rapidly as possible without substantially curtailing employment. There was complaint that the House bill was too rigid and imposed a strait jacket upon widely diversified industries. There was complaint the Senate bill gave too much discretion to an administrative board, and that no administrative board, without a more exacting mandate, would be able to overcome the resistance and the inertia that kept wages at excessively low levels in some industries and localities.

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An interchange of views revealed that our differences were more apparent than real. We were all eager to establish some general floor below which wages should not fall. We all recognized the hazard of placing this floor too high at the start without giving industry time to adjust itself. We finally determined that a minimum of 25 cents an hour for the first year and 30 cents an hour for the second year involved no more hazard than we would have to risk if we were serious in our effort to establish any general wage floor.

We recognized that some industries even at the present time could readily adjust themselves to a much higher minimum, but we also recognized that there was some hazard in trying to fix the exact rate of increase above 30 cents an hour which industry generally might be able to absorb year by year.

Having fixed a rudimentary floor for wages for all industry producing for interstate commerce, we decided to authorize separate and, when substantial curtailment of employment would not result, higher minimum rates (not exceeding 40 cents an hour) to be fixed industry by industry. But again to guard against the forces of inertia we provided that all industries covered by the act must be brought up to a minimum of 40 cents not later than 7 years after the effective date of the act, unless it should be definitely established by a preponderance of the evidence that such a rate would substantially curtail employment in the industry.

In authorizing the establishment of separate and higher minimums, industry by industry, we agreed that reasonable classification should be allowed so as to permit the establishment of the highest minimwn wage for each classification, consistent With the provisions of the act, Which would not substantially curtail employment in any classification and which would not give a competitive advantage to any group within the industry. It was agreed, however, that no classification should be made or minimum wage fixed, solely on a regional basis, and that no classification should be made on the basis of age and sex. But in making classifications and fixing minimum wages, the Administrator is to consider, among other relevant factors, competitive conditions as affected by transportation, livi.Dg, and production costs, wages established by collective bargaining agreements, and wages paid by employers who voluntarily maintain fair minimum wage standards.

Once the necessity of some flexibility was recognized, there arose the problem of devising the administrative machinery necessary to provide this flexibility. Inasmuch as there had been some criticism of the powers conferred upon a single board by the Senate bill, it was agreed that the powers of the administrative agency should be more definitely defined. We decided therefore to authorize the administrative agency to act only upon the recommendations of an industry committee, one-third of whose members should be selected to represent the employers, another third to represent the employees, and the other third to represent the general public, With due regard being given to geographical considerations in their selection.

With the powers of the administrative agency so limited, we decided to set up, in place of the administrative board provided in the Senate bill, an independent Administrator in the Labor Department. We authorized the Administrator to set up, as soon as practicable after the act becomes effective, an industry committee for each industry affected by the act to mate recommendations to him concerning the establishment of minimum wages for such industry, which may be higher but not lower than the rigid minima prescribed in the act for industry generally. The Administrator may accept or reject the recommendations of an industry committee, but he may not put into effect minimum wages other than those recommended to him by an industry committee. The Administrator may accept the recommendations of an industry committee only if he is satisfied, after a hearing, that they are made in accordance with law, are supported by the evidence, and, taking into consideration the same factors as are required to be considered by the industry committee, will carry out the purposes of the act. If the Administrator disapproves the recommendations, he must convene the same or a new committee for further action.

This procedure is modeled upon the New York minimum wage act. In the Tipaldo case (298 U. s. 587, 619), Chief Justice Hughes referred to "its provisions for careful and deliberate procedure." It should be noted that this careful and deliberate procedure has a twofold advantage. On the one hand, it insures that no minimum rate shall be established by administrative action that has not been carefully worked out by a committee principally drawn from the industry itself. On the other hand, it insures that no minimum wage rate shall be put into effect by administrative action which has not been found to be in accordance with law by an independent, responsible administrative officer of the Government, exercising an independent judgment on the evidence after a legal hearing. There is certainly no illegal delegation here.

The act is now so drawn that even if any of the rigid minimum rates prescribed by the act itself were to be adjudged invalid, these carefully deVised provisions for the establishment of minimum wages, industry by industry, would still remain.

The next major problem which the conference committee had to resolve was the problem of maximum hours. The House bill had provided a maximum workweek of 44 hours for the first year, 42 hours for the second year, and 40 hours for the third, with overtime work permissible upon the payment of one and one-half times the regular rate. The Senate bill had directed an administrative board to fix maximum hours of employment, industry by industry, with a view to attaining a maximum workweek of 40 hours as rapidly as possible without substantially curtailing earning power. Tbe House bill had been criticized for its rigidity and the Senate bill for its flexibility. Again a compromise was effected, and the compromise, I believe, has certain outstanding merits which neither the Senate. nor the House bill possessed.

The general hour requirements of the House bill are retained, but general exceptions are provided which are so drawn as to encourage under proper safeguards continuity or regularity of employment. Thus an exemption is accorded for employees under bona fide collective-bargaining agreements which provide that no employee shall be employed more than 1,000 hours during any period of 26 consecutive weeks. A further exemption is accorded for employees employed on an annual basis under bona fide collective-bargaining agreements which provide that no employee shall be employed more than 2,000 hours during any period of 52 consecutive weeks. And a further exemption is provided for periods of not more than 14 weeks in the aggregate in any calendar year for industries found by the Administrator to be of a seasonal nature. These exemptions are further restricted by the requirement that employees coming under these exemptions must receive compensation at one and one-half times the regular rate for employment in excess of 12 hours in any workday or in excess of 56 hours in any workweek

The conference committee agreed to accept the child-labor provisions of the House b1ll, which were substantially the same as the provisions in the bill reported by the Senate Committee on Education and Labor. The conference committee felt that in view of the trend of decisions in the Supreme Court this was safe procedure.

The conference agreement on the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 may be viewed as no mean achievement of the Seventy-fifth Congress. It is a sincere and deliberate effort to use the words of President Roosevelt, "to extend the frontiers of social progress." It seeks to meet difficult social and economic problems cautiously but nonetheless courageously.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the conference report.

Mr. MALONEY. Mr. President, I inquire of the Senator if he has concluded?

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Mr. THOMAS of Utah. I should like to have the question put before I conclude.

Mr. MALONEY. I should like to make a very brief statement on the conference report (S. 2475).

Mr. THOMAS of Utah. I yield for that purpose.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.

Mr. MALONEY. Mr. President, I do not want to long delay the Senate at this hour in the discussion of the conference report. When the Senate was considering the wage and hour bill I protested against the method of procedure prescribed by the measure. It did not seem to me wise that we should delegate to a board the wide powers which were contained in the bill as then proposed and as are contained in the measure that is now before the Senate.

I voted for the wage and hour bill then because I firmly believe in the regulation of working hours, but because I do not believe in making protest unless I can offer some sort of a substitute, I did at that time offer a substitute for the wage and hour bill. I am sorry to say that, although by a very narrow margin, the Senate rejected my proposal.

I wish to point out that while my substitute proposal provided for a board, the board would operate under definite rules and regulations and specifications laid down by the Congress. My measure offered a scientific approach to the matter of regulating working hours. It provided, first, for a census of unemployment, in order that Congress and those who attempted to do something about the matter of unemployment should have a yardstick by which to measure conditions and determine the situation.

Mr. President, I have not changed my mind at all. Shortly after the consideration of the wage and hour bill in the Senate, I think largely because of the pressure from over the country, there was introduced a census bill. I believed and I think the other Members of the Senate believed, that the census bill was designed to help us in the matter of writing a bill to regulate the hours of labor. It was a feeble gesture; and I was so bold as to say on the fioor of the Senate at that time, after the introduction of the bill by the then senior Senator from Alabama, Mr. Black, that the census proposal was futile and that it was nearly worthless. Time has proved that prophecy to be true. The census of last fall has not helped us a particle in the matter of regulating working hours, and we are now proposing to go about this regulation almost as blindly as is humanly possible.

Next year, when we come back here, I shall reintroduce the proposal which I offered at that time, becaUse the measure we are about to pass today is not going to put men back to work in sufficient numbers to clear up the unemployment situation. I do not know that regulating the hours of labor is the way to bring about a correction of the distress of the times, although I think it is one of the important things that we might do. I had been hopeful that during this session of Congress we might consider some of the monetary proposals that have been submitted by able and distinguished Senators; but we were denied the chance to consider those bills and that method of procedure.

I shall introduce my own bill to regulate the hours of labor at the next session of Congress. because I think the proposal we are about to enact today will prove insufficient, because I think there is danger of confusion under this bill, because I think it is wrong to delegate these tremendous powers to an administrator or an agency, because I have some fear that it may be beyond our power to delegate this authority, and, in addition, I am going to introduce another bill proposing another method of regulating the hours of labor. It is not my bill. I introduce it by request. It is a novel procedure, but it seems to be a scientific approach to the matter of regulating working hours. I am not going to take the time of the Senate to explain it this afternoon. I shall ask unanimous consent that I may introduce the bill out of order, that it may be referred to the Committee on Education and Labor, in order that the members of that committee who are ambitious, who desire to give consideration to this all-important and paramount problem during the recess, may have another suggestion,another idea, another proposal and plan before them. This proposal is a little bit more radical than anything proposed up to this time.

The PRESIDING OFPICER. Without objection, the bill will be received and referred to the Committee on Education and Labor.

Mr. MALONEY. This proposal would curtail the hours of labor more definitely than the proposal heretofore offered by me; but I respectfully suggest to the members of the Committee on Education and Labor of the Senate that their work is not done; that they are going to come back and wrestle again with this problem in January; and I respectfully suggest that they give consideration to the proposal which, by unanimous consent, I am permitted to offer at this time.

(The bill introduced by Mr. MALONEY appears under its appropriate heading in another part of today's RECORD.)

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The report will lie on the table.

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  Page 9165              CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE              June 14, 1938             (83 Cong. Rec. 9165, 1938)

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STANDARDS OF WAGES AND HOURS OF LABOR—CONFERENCE REPORT

The Senate resumed the consideration of the report of the committee of conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses on the amendment of the House 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.

Mr. BAILEY. I do not intend to delay the Senate more than a few moments. I am highly favorable to the pro gram of adjournment at the earliest possible moment, and I am not disposed to take kindly to the suggestion of the

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Senator from Minnesota [Mr. LUNDEEN] that we may have a special session. I hope we may adjourn, and go home, and stay home, and not come back until we are required by law to do so.

I can think of only one argument for bringing us back in a special session, and that is the ancient argument that "the hair of the dog is good for the bite." We have been here 7 months, and something more, I believe, and things have gotten worse every day we have been here. It is possible that we might cure things by staying longer, but the evidence up to now is quite to the contrary.

I wish to say a word about the wage and hour bill. I am inclined to regret that there is no disposition to discuss so great a matter socially and industrially, and so great a departure from the policy of the Republic, which for nearly 150 years has been accepted by the people and followed successfully by them.

I consider the bill manifestly unconstitutional. I do not think anything has happened in the Supreme Court of the United States to justify an alteration of view as to this particular piece of legislation. Throughout its history the Court has held, without variation, that the commerce clause giving the Congress plenary power to regulate commerce between the States and foreign nations, gives it no power of regulating industry or manufacture or agriculture or the other activities of the people. Yet here we, in the name of the commerce clause, are undertaking to invade the relation of employer and employee, and to determine the wages, at least by way of a floor under wages and a ceiling over hours.

What justification is there for the view that the Supreme Court now will uphold legislation of this type, when there is case after case practically in every decade for the last 7 decades, saying that the commerce clause does not extend to manufacture, does not extend to mining, does not extend to agriculture? Yet we proceed.

There exists a theory that the decisions of the Court, a good many in number now, under the Wagner Labor Relations Act, justify something of a hope, I might say something of a suspicion, that the Court under the duress of circumstances—I say that with regret—might possibly extend the doctrine in the Wagner Labor Relations Act to the measure now before us. I do not think there is foundation for that.

The Wagner Labor Relations Act was sustained on the ground that friction as between the employer and employee was in the nature of and might actually become an obstacle to commerce, and that the Congress in the exercise of its power of regulating commerce might go to the extent of adopting provisions with the view of eliminating that obstacle.

There is a great deal of ground for that view. That takes us back to the veto by President Pierce—I think it was in 1845 or 1846—in connection with which he wrote to the Congress that he would veto an appropriation to remove a ship, an old bottom, from a river in North Carolina, but he said, "When I consider that that is in a navigable stream, and that it was a gunboat of the United States, and that the United States was responsible for it being there, I believe I will sustain the appropriation as relieving an obstacle to commerce placed there by the Federal Government." We have traveled far since then, but the obstacle basis holds yet.

That question has been developed, and the Congress does have the power and the duty to clear the channels of commerce of obstacles, to provide for the free flow of commerce throughout the United States and as between the United States and foreign countries. But there is nothing in the pending measure which does away with anything in the nature of an obstacle. No one can say that one set of men working 6 hours and another working 8 hours throughout the country, or men working 10 hours in California and others working 8 hours in Georgia, or vice versa, can remotely be considered as an obstacle to commerce. No man can say that the payment of a wage of $1 an hour in New York and the payment of a wage of 10 cents an hour in North Carolina—of course, we do not pay so low a wage, but let the statement go by way of illustration—is in the nature of an obstacle to commerce.

Unless an obstacle or burden can be found, unless something can be found in connection with commerce which is necessary to be regulated with the view to its flow, unless some evil in the commerce itself can be found, the constitutional power to regulate commerce with the view to accomplishing a social end or objective, however, desirable it may be, cannot be invoked. If that were desirable, then instead of undertaking to strain the meaning of the Constitution, instead of putting men like ourselves, who are under oath to uphold and maintain and defend the Constitution against its enemies, domestic and foreign, in the position of repeatedly attacking the Constitution with the view to stretching it, and persistently attacking the courts, I fear with the view to intimidation—instead of getting into that position, the frank, the courageous, the statesmanlike, and the patriotic thing would be to offer an amendment to the States and to the people, in order that they might pass upon the power, and in order that we might get it from them according to the historic process by which we live, from which the country derives its life, and not by way of the methods of Metternich or Machiavelli.

So much for that view, Mr. President. I do not wish legislation to be enacted by Congress and presented to the Supreme Court of the United States without one expression from the floor of the Senate to show that at least one Senator believes that the proposed legislation is unconstitutional and therefore beyond his power to support, however desirable it may be in other respects.

Mr. BORAH. Mr. President—

Mr. BAILEY. I yield to the Senator from Idaho.

Mr. BORAH. Do I understand correctly, that the Senator confines his question of the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of the interstate commerce clause?

Mr. BAILEY. And the effort to expand it by other means than by the consent of the people duly given to the Congress.

Mr. BORAH. The Senator would concede, would he not, that it would be within the power of the Congress to fix minimum wages on the basis of health and the condition of the wage earner actually engaged in interstate commerce?

Mr. BAILEY. I think so; on the basis of health.

Mr. BORAH. That is the basis upon which much of the debate has taken place, so far as some of us are concerned.

Mr. BAILEY. I have thought about that matter; and some time ago I suggested that the Congress did have power with respect to the public health, in matters within interstate commerce itself. However, I do not think the Congress could rise from the regulation of commerce into an effort to regulate health or to regulate hours.

Mr. BORAH. However, the Congress may take into consideration the question of health, or the question of the condition of the workers who are actually engaged in interstate commerce, may it not?

Mr. BAILEY. I think so.

Mr. KING. I would not concede that.

Mr. BAILEY. The Senator suggests that he would not concede the statement made by the Senator from Idaho. I am rather inclined to concede it. However, conceding it, I do not think anyone could justify drawing from that concession the power to fix a ceiling on hours, or a floor under wages. It would have to be found as a fact, upon an investigation, that the workers were actually engaged in interstate commerce and that the matter of their health or their condition was involved. The Supreme Court has repeatedly said that in such matters the Congress has no power of self-judgment. There must be evidence of the fact. I do not think it can be said that the difference between 25 cents an hour and 20 cents an hour, or the difference between 20 cents an hour and 50 cents an hour is a matter of health or is related to health or that health is

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related to it. I do not think that the difference between working 6 hours a day and working 8 hours a day is a matter of health.

Mr. GLASS. Mr. President

Mr. BAILEY. I yield to the Senator from Virginia.

Mr. GLASS. I can give the Senator an objective illustration of the fact. I am more than 80 years old, and I used to work 18 hours a day.

Mr. BAILEY. I hope the senior Senator from Virginia will be present and working with-us from 10 to 18 hours a day until he is 100 years of age.

Mr. BORAH. Mr. PresidentMr.

BAILEY. I yield to the Senator from Idaho.

Mr. BORAH. Suppose the wage being paid is not sufficient to maintain the health of the worker and maintain the family, Suppose the wage is not sufficient to maintain a place to live and provide proper food and clothing, and the health of the family is thereby impaired. May not the Congress of the United States deal with that situation in the same way as the State may deal with it in intrastate commerce?

Mr. BAILEY. I question that doctrine. The Senator will agree with me that we are rather breaking into new ground.

Mr. BORAH. No; I do not agree that we are breaking into new ground. I understand that the Congress of the United States has as complete and plenary power over interstate commerce as the States have over intrastate commerce.

Mr. BAILEY. I agree to that.

Mr. BORAH. The States have decided that under certain conditions they may deal with the question of wages and the question of hours as affecting the health and welfare of the citizen. If the same workmen are working in interstate commerce—and it is admitted that the National Congress has the same power over interstate commerce that the States have over intrastate comnierce—I cannot see why we may not deal with the question.

Mr. BAILEY. I am a little afraid that the Senator from Idaho is now arguing that since industry may be affected, or men in industry may be affected by the industry, and the industry ships goods in commerce, therefore the men working in an institution which ships goods in commerce are subject to the Federal power of regulation with regard to their wages and all their activities. I think that would be a decidedly new doctrine in America.

If that is good law, if that is the Constitution, if that is within our power, then why, during all these years, could not the Congress, in the name of public health, related to commerce, have stepped across the line which we had never stepped across until recently, and regulated wages and hours on the ground that the workers were in an industry which was ultimately shippil)g goods in commerce? The Supreme Court has held just the opposite, that commerce is one thing, and industry, manufacturing, mining, and agriculture, are quite separate. Commerce is intercourse. It is not industry. I think the Senator will agree with me about that. I have heard him argue to that effect in this Chamber many times.

Mr. BORAH. I do not disagree with the Senator, that if an activity is within intrastate commerce, we may not deal with it. However, if the activity is interstate commerce, and the wage earner is engaged in work which results in shipment in interstate commerce, that is a wholly different question.

. Mr. BAILEY. The Senator is coming down to commerce. Let us keep the question between us clear. Suppose I am working in a cotton mill in North Carolina. The cotton mill sells goods across the State line. Does that fact put me in commerce? If it does, that is a new doctrine in the Senate, and a new doctrine in America. The railroad worker is in commerce, because the railroad is an instrumentality of commerce. However, I think the Senator from Idaho, whose learning in the matter of the Constitution and the law is extraordinary and admirable and is profoundly respected by me, under all circumstances, as he knows, will agree that it has always been held that the man in the mill is not in commerce just because the mill sells its goods in commerce. Am I not correct in that statement?

Mr. BORAH. Certainly, if the Senator limits the question as he does. However, if the man in the mill is engaged in producing a commodity which is shipped, and the entire operation of production and shipment is one transaction, as was held in the Jones and Laughlin case, then I maintain that it is in interstate commerce.

Mr. BAILEY. Does the Senator contend that the man is working in interstate commerce?

Mr. BORAH. If he is working in the production of goods which are being prepared for interstate commerce, and it is part of the system to ship the goods in interstate commerce, the whole transaction is interstate commerce, as was held by the court in the Jones and Laughlin case.

Mr. BAILEY. It follows, then, that the man in the cotton field, who is planting cotton or picking cotton which is sold in interstate or foreign commerce, is engaged in interstate or foreign commerce, and therefore the Congress can find that it is to the benefit of his health that we pass a law respecting his reward. If that be true, then the agricultural act, which I think the Senator argued was unconstitutional, is constitutional.

Mr. CHAVEZ. Mr. President—

Mr. BAILEY. I shall be glad to yield to the Senator in a moment. I am addressing an argument to the Senator from Idaho.

Mr. BORAH. I concede the point for which the Senator contends. If a workman is engaged in production as a separate intrastate activity of course he is not engaged in interstate commerce. But if he is engaged in an enterprise whose business it is to carry on trade in interstate commerce, the mere fact that he is not himself actually in the channels of interstate commerce does not exclude the Congress from dealing with him.

Mr. BAILEY. Then the Senator takes the position that the man engaged in production in an industry which ships or sells in commerce is engaged in commerce between the States; but the man who engages in agriculture, which ships cotton, wheat, chickens, cattle, corn, or hogs in commerce, is not in commerce between the States. I think the one situation would go along with the other. Should the doctrine contended for by the Senator prevail, Congress would have every power of regulation that has ever been contended for.

Mr. PEPPER. Mr. President—

Mr. BAILEY. I promised to yield to the Senator from New Mexico. Then I shall be glad to yield to the Senator from Florida.

Mr. CHAVEZ. Mr. President, in discussing the matter of the constitutionality of this particular measure, in my opinion we should have in mind what the framers of the Constitution had in mind. When we discuss the question of whether or not a particular workman is engaged in interstate commerce, should we not go to the Constitution itself? Why not discuss this: What did they have in mind when they drew the Constitution? The general welfare. Of what? "To secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." And interstate commerce was one of the features they had in mind at that particular time. Now I ask the Senator from North Carolina why persons in North Carolina or persons in my State should not come within the provisions of the preamble of the Constitution as affected by the legislation we are now trying to pass?

Mr. BAILEY. I think, Mr. President, that is settled by the simple doctrine that no legislative authority whatever is drawn from the preamble of the Constitution.

Mr. CHAVEZ. We can always say, though, that that is what they had in mind.

Mr. BAILEY. The fact of the matter is that no legislative authority, no executive power, is drawn from the preamble of the Constitution; just as in the preambles to measures

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passed by Congress no authority arises by reason of what is declared in those preambles.

Mr. CHAVEZ. Does the Senator from North Carolina agree that in connection with the various articles of the Constitution what the framers had in mind at the particular time may be interpreted by the preamble of the Constitution?

Mr. BAILEY. I think, Mr. President, that the doctrine on that point is that where there is later ambiguity or where there may be difilculty in finding the plain meaning of the words of authority, one may go to the preamble for interpretation.

Mr. MINTON addressed the Chair.

Mr. BAILEY. If the senator from New Mexico has finished, then I promised to yield to the Senator from Florida.

Mr. PEPPER. I think it is vital that we should keep clearly in mind the distinction between what the Senator from North Carolina has suggested and what is in this bill as to the objectives of the bill and its application legally. If the Senator will regard section 6 of the conference report he will find it reads as follows:

Every employer shall pay to each of his employees who is engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce wages at the following rates.

And section 7, which deals with maximum hours, reads thus:

No employer shall, except as otherwise provided in this section, employ any of his employees who is engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce&

More than the hours specified in the section.

So that the conference committee had before it the question of whether this proposed law should be applied to all employees of an industry which itself is engaged in interstate commerce although the individual employees may not necessarily themselves be engaged in interstate commerce or whether its application should be applied or made to the employees themselves who were engaged either in interstate commerce or in the production of goods for interstate commerce.

The power to affect those employed in interstate commerce is, I assume, definitely admitted by the Senator from North Carolina. Jurisdiction over employees engaged in the production of goods for interstate commerce is as vital to the exercise of the power to regulate commerce as the source of a river is to the river itself or the origin of a spring to the stream which flows away from it.

I want it distinctly stated that this proposed law is not applicable to all employees of an industry which itself is engaged in interstate commerce. It is applicable only to those employees who themselves are engaged either in interstate commerce or the production of goods for interstate commerce, and the contrary theory was definitely rejected by the committee.

Mr. BAILEY. The Senator reminds me of Abraham Lincoln's favorite conundrum. He used to ask his friends if they counted the tail of a sheep as a leg how many legs the sheep would have? They would say, "Five." He would say, "No; the sheep still has four. You cannot make a tail a leg by describing it as such." The fact that the bill describes these employees as being in commerce does not put them in commerce. The condition is not created by law; it is a question of fact; and the declaration of Congress on that point does not even raise a presumption.

Mr. PEPPER. The conferees made no declaration. They merely have agreed on a measure which is applicable to the situation when the facts are presented. We have not defined the scope of it; we have merely said this is the law, and the facts then will determine its application.

Mr. BAILEY. Even if the court should hold that an employee of a mill was not in commerce, notwithstanding the act refers to him in that way, then the act would go out as invalid and a null and void thing. I do not think the Senator would like to come to that conclusion. But the bill does describe and seem to include as in interstate commerce those who produce goods for sale in that commerce, employers and employees.

Mr. PEPPER. If the Senator will allow me once more, I will not interrupt him further. On the contrary, the conference report provides that resort may be had to the circuit court of appeals by any petitioner who alleges that he is unlawfully affected by this bill, and if he may be able to show that he is not engaged in commerce or is not engaged in the production of goods for interstate commerce it will be the duty of the court to exempt him from the application of the law.

Mr. BAILEY. I understand that, but the reference here is to employees working for institutions that sell across State lines as being thereby ipso facto in interstate commerce, and therefore subject to the law.

Mr. BORAH rose.

Mr. MINTON. Mr. President—

Mr. BORAH. If the Senator from Indiana desires to interrupt the Senator, I will not do so now.

Mr. BAILEY. I yield to the Senator from Indiana.

Mr. MINTON. Mr. President, I should like to invite the attention of the able Senator from North Carolina to a very recent case decided by the Supreme Court entitled The National Labor Relations Board against the Mackay Radio & Telegraph Co., which was decided on May 16, 1938. I think the language used there by the Court will sustain and support the legislation now before the Senate, not on the basis pointed out by the Senator from Idaho in its relation to the health of the employees, but rather upon industrial relations and the possibility of industrial strife. This is what Mr. Justice Roberts said in that opinion:

We have held that, in the exercise of the commerce power, Congress may impose upon contractual relationships reasonable regulations calculated to protect commerce against threatened industrial strife.

It cannot be said that the question of hours and wages has no relation to industrial strife, and, if it does have, as we must admit that it does have, then the Congress may deal with the relationship which relates to industrial strife in commerce. On that basis and on this authority so recently handed down by the Supreme Court, it seems to me that this legislation is clearly within the Constitution.

Mr. BAILEY. The Senator has missed the argument on the basis of what I was saying at the outset. The mere fact that there could be a dispute between me as a worker and someone else as an employer as to how many hours I should work in a day or how much I should be paid would in itself not raise up the exercise of the plenary power of the Congress to regulate all the industry. That is not involved in the Wagner labor relations cases at all, as I understand them. The act itself did not base itself upon anything of that sort. The basis of the doctrine in the Wagner relations cases, as I understand it—and I do not profess to have read all the cases—is that the labor strife, or the strife between capital and labor, may become, and often is, an obstacle to or a burden upon commerce, which breaks down commerce, which stops the mills, which stops the wheels, which arrests the whole flow of things in trade; and, therefore, collective bargaining, free and fair and open, may be regulated in such a way as to tend to relieve the friction and get rid of the obstacle. I do not think one may argue from that that the mere fact that there might some day be a quarrel between the man who is employed and the man who is employing him, which might create a little trouble and might bring on the necessity for an arbitration, would constitute such an obstacle to commerce as to justify the interposition of the power of the Congress.

Mr. BORAH. Mr. President—

Mr. BAILEY. I yield to the Senator from Idaho.

Mr. BORAH. I understood the Senator a few moments ago to concede if the worker actually engages in work connected with interstate commerce that the Congress could regulate his wages from the minimum standpoint?

Mr. BAILEY. I am making that concession, yes, on the distinct idea that, first, the worker is engaged in commerce.

Mr. BORAH. But the senator would not contend that a person working, for instance. in a machine shop of a rail

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road company, who himself individually was never in the channels of trade, who lived and did his work solely within the State as a workman in a machine shop, could not be included as a part of the railroad system in regulating the wages and conditions of labor?

Mr. BAILEY. I may surprise the Senator, but I think I would contend that the entire railroad organization is an instrumentality of commerce between the States and relates to every man wherever he may be and whatever he is doing, providing he is doing something with regard to that system. The instrumentality idea as applied to railroads takes in the whole system, not merely the man who runs the engine or the conductor who manages the car or the brakeman, but the machinist in the shop who never leaves the borders of the State. I think that is the established doctrine.

Mr. BORAH. But then if we should establish, with reference to any other industry, the fact that the labor was a part of the industrial system, and the industrial system occupied the channels of interstate trade, the doctrine with reference to the man working in the machine shop would apply in that instance; would it not?

Mr. BAILEY. He is in the whole railroad system that is in itself, as a whole, the instrument of commerce between the States; but the man in the cotton mill is not in any such system.

Mr. BORAH. That may be true. I am not undertaking to deal with any particular situation. We are laying down the general principle that Congress may regulate the minimum wage of those engaged in commerce. If we should fail to establish that fact under the law, of, course the case would fail; but all we are seeking to do in this bill, so far as that question is concerned, is to protect the minimum wage of those who are engaged in interstate commerce. It may be said that a particular individual is not in interstate commerce. If he is not, then he is not covered by the bill; but, if he is, he is covered by the bill.

Mr. BAILEY. Let me ask the Senator whether I am mistaken in my understanding of the bill that it is written on the assumption that all those who work in industrial and other establishments which sell their goods in interstate commerce are in interstate commerce?

Mr. BORAH. No; not necessarily. Take, for instance, the Jones & Laughlin case. There the question which arose did not involve at all the question of the workman actually traveling in the channels of interstate trade; but he was at work on a part of the system. If he had been considered separate and apart from the system he would not have been considered in interstate commerce. Take the case of any industry; I do not care what the industry is: If, as a system, it is engaged in interstate commerce and the workman is a necessary part of carrying on the system, my contention is that the Congress of the United States may regulate his minimum wage, just as the State may regulate the minimum wage of the intrastate worker.

Mr. BAILEY. And, to make the matter specific, the bill presupposes, and the Senator understands, that upon its passage the worker in the knitting mill, the worker in the grist mill which ships in interstate cominerce, the worker in the textile industry, the worker in the packing plant, all of them shipping or selling in interstate commerce, have at last become involved, for the first time in the history of this country, in a system which makes them subject in all their relationships to the plenary regulatory power of the Congress.

Now let us go a little further. If that is good doctrine, then every farmer who buys supplies in interstate commerce or sells cotton or pork or wheat or other goods in interstate commerce, may be held by the Congress to be in a system of interstate commerce and therefore subject to the plenary regulatory power of the Congress.

Mr. BORAH. No; I make no such contention.

Mr. BAILEY. If that is good law, I will take back all I have said as to my position during the 7 years that I have been in the Senate resisting these regulatory and centralizing forces in the Congress and the country.

Mr. BORAH. The Senator presents a condition of facts which I do not consider to come within the terms of this bill.

Mr. BAILEY. I should like to have the Senator state them.

Mr. BORAH. I said a few moments ago that in order that the worker shall be subject to regulation in his minimum wage under this bill, it must be shown that he is so far engaged in interstate commerce as to be a producer of a part of the working machinery of that system.

Mr. BAILEY. I will go along with the Senator about that. We may not know how much; we may have a question for the jury, then, as to whether or not the mill is engaged in interstate commerce, may we not?

Mr. BORAH. What is the Senator's question?

Mr. BAILEY. That would have to be determined by some standard, if we are going to raise the question on the threshold of this legislation as to whether a mill which sells 25 percent of its goods in interstate commerce is within the scope of the bill.

Mr. BORAH. But it will have to be determined, in every case which is tested, whether or not the minimum wage applies to a man who is engaged in interstate commerce.

Mr. BAILEY. Let me ask the Senator from Idaho a question. Suppose I run a mill in North Carolina and make the rule of never selling any goods outside of my state. Presumptively I am beyond the puwer of this measure. But suppose I buy my coal and my lubricating oil in interstate commerce; would I be within this act under those circumstances?

Mr. BORAH. It would depend entirely upon all the circumstances.

Mr. BAILEY. Who would find the circumstances?

Mr. BORAH. If the Senator in. the first instance were running a mill exclusively within his State, certainly it would not come under the law.

Mr. BAILEY. But if I were buying my coal in interstate commerce, what would the Senator say?

Mr. BORAH. But if the Senator were doing a business which might be considered an interstate-commerce business, and his workmen were a part of the machinery by which such a system were carried on, I maintain that he would be covered by this bill.

Mr. BAILEY. Then the only way to test that question would be by an action in court in the event of resistance?

Mr. BORAH. Oh, undoubtedly. all these cases will have to be tested out, and in each particular case, in all probability, the person involved will present his own view as to whether or not he is engaged in interstate commerce; but if the court finds that he is engaged in interstate commence, then I maintain that the power of Congress is ample to fix the minimum wage of those who are engaged by that person engaged in interstate commerce.

Mr. BAILEY. Let me ask a question of the Senator on that point. Suppose we should write a similar bill for agrtculture, and the court should find that I, as a farmer, sold all of my cotton in interstate commerce, and bought all of my fertilizer in interstate commerce. Would the Senator say then that the Congress would be justified in the conclusion that I as a farmer under those circumstances was so involved in a system of interstate commerce that the Congress could stretch forth is plenary power of regulation?

Mr. BORAH. Let me say that the facts which the Senator has stated, and those alone, in my opinion, would not bring him into interstate commerce; but if a man-were engaged in producing cotton and shipping cotton, and it were a part of his entire plan and scheme for the production and shipment of cotton, then I maintain that his workmen would be under the control of this bill.

Mr. BAILEY. But in each case the cotton produced by the farmer is sold in interstate commerce. The cotton sold by the broker is sold in such commerce. I doubt if the distinction could be drawn.

Mr. BORAH. Let me ask the Senator one more question, and then I will not interrupt him further.

Mr. BAILEY. Very well.

Mr. BORAH. It will be conceded, I assume, that some department of the Government may fix a minimum wage for

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both interstate commerce and intrastate commerce. There must be some power which can deal with both of the matters. It is conceded that the National Government cannot deal with intrastate business, and it must be conceded that the States cannot deal with interstate business. To accept the Senator's view in its logical consequences would mean that all those working in interstate commerce would not be subject to the control of any government.

Mr. BAILEY. Up until now, I do not think they have been. All would depend on the power of Congress to declare a worker who produces articles sold in interstate commerce as a part of it and engaged in it.

Mr. BORAH. They may not have been up to now.

Mr. BAILEY. I think that has been the accepted doctrine for 150 years. We are breaking new ground.

Mr. LEWIS and Mr. GEORGE addressed the Chair.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. CLARK in the chair). Does the Senator from North Carolina yield; and if so, to whom?

Mr. BAILEY. The Senator from lliinois rose first, if the Senator from Georgia will permit me to yield first to him.

Mr. GEORGE. Certainly.

Mr. LEWIS. Mr. President, I should like to invite the attention of the Senator from Idaho and the Senator from North Carolina to the fact that each of them, in the pressure of matters, has omitted to consider the last declaration of the Supreme Court of the United States upon a state of facts very similar to that presented by both Senators.

In the city of Richmond, Va., was a manufacturer of clothes. The position was taken that the manufacture of these clothes gave rise to no authority for the Federal Government to administer. The Supreme Court of the United States holds, and in the case to which I refer decides, that since the cloth came from wherever it came from, and moved to the makers of the clothes with the well-known understanding that the makers of the clothes were to ship them into neighboring States around, that gave jurisdiction to the Federal Government, and such was interstate commerce, though the workman lived in Richmond, though the work was done in Richmond, and he neither knew how far the cloth would be made into clothes nor how far the clothes afterward would be shipped out of the city of Richmond. That is what was held in an opinion delivered in the past 2 weeks by the Supreme Court of the United States.

Mr. BORAH. Exactly; I understand that, and that is what I was contending—that if the business is such as to occupy the channels of interstate commerce, any of the employees who are a necessary part of carrying on that business are within the terms of this bill, and, in my opinion, are under the Constitution of the United States.

Mr. LEWIS. I ask the Senator from North Carolina whether he does not regard that opinion as more or less affecting business, and running in the reverse direction to the viewpoint expressed by the able Senator from North Carolina.

Mr. BAILEY. Unfortunately, I cannot answer the question, because I am not familiar with the opinion; but I have no difficulty at all in reconciling what the Senator said with the views I have stated, and I have no difficulty in arguing against any analogy of that sort with a simple illustration.

If it is true that the relation of a business to commerce between the States involves its workers in interstate commerce to such an extent as to give the Congress its plenary regulatory power over commerce, then, agriculture being a business, once it engages in interstate commerce, the plenary power of Congress will attach to the farmer and those whom he employs, and we may regulate them. I do not think anyone is going to contend that now; yet I see no difference in the analogy.

Go back through the whole history of this country. We hear argument today that the doctrine propounded by the bill and by the very able Senator is something old; but every Senator knows that it is brand new, and every Senator knows that it was repudiated by the Court in the unanimous decision in the famous N. R. A. case. The Court said that Congress had no power whatever to stretch its hands out into an industry and regulate it merely because the industry was in interstate commerce.

Mr. BORAH. Mr. President, the Supreme Court expressly said in the N. R. A. case that the transaction which it held was void, and in which the party could not be attacked under the act, had come to a close, that it was at an end, that it had ceased to be a part of interstate commerce. that it was not even an agent of interstate commerce. They held that men who had purchased poultry, and had no connection whatever with anyone who had shipped the poultry, had no connection with interstate commerce. The Court said this transaction has come to a close, this matter is at an end, and these people whom you have indicted have no connection whatever with interstate commerce.

Mr. BAILEY. I agree with the Senator that they said that the sick chickens had come to rest in New York, but the sick chickens came into New York in commerce between the States. There is the doctrine of coming to rest and getting out of interstate commerce. But Senators who have read the whole decision will agree with me that that is not all the Court said in the decision. They did say that manufacturing and industry were not commerce.

Mr. BORAH. But they said in the Jones and Laughlin case that while manufacturing and production were not determinative of the question, they could be considered in connection with the question of whether they were dealing with interstate commerce or not.

Mr. BAILEY. And the case went off on the delegation of power as much as on the point of the chicken having come to rest within the jurisdiction of a State. Let us consider the coal case. It was specifically declared in the majority decision in the Guffey coal case that mining is not commerce notwithstanding the produce of the mines flows directly into all the States. I must say I do not think the Senator will differ with me a moment in this one statement, that at no time has the Court said anything which would justify the assumption that the fact that an institution ships its goods in interstate commerce puts its workers in interstate commerce.

Mr. BORAH. Stated in that negative way, of course I do not contend that; but I do contend that the Court has clearly stated that where there is a business entering the channels of interstate trade and like shipments or any other transaction, and the workers are a necessary part of carrying on that business, although a worker may not be in the channels of interstate trade at all, he may simply be manufacturing the stuff or preparing it for shipment, the Court has held that he may be controlled by the Federal Congress.

Mr. BAILEY. That is where the instrumentality of interstate commerce, like the railroads, is a whole system, and everybody working in it is necessarily a part of the instrumentality and a part of its operation.

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

Mr. BAILEY. I yield.

Mr. WHEELER. First, I wish to say that I shall vote for the wage and hour bill. Permit me, however, to call attention to the fact that under the Railroad Employers Liability Act, in order to recover a worker had to be actually engaged in interstate commerce. If he was working in a machine shop he could not recover under the act because the court held that he was not engaged in interstate commerce.

Mr. BAILEY. That may be true, but it would depend on the limitations of the act. I am merely saying that a worker in a machine shop on a railroad who never left the State in his life but who was repairing engines engaged in interstate commerce, or cars so related to interstate commerce, even if they never left the State themselves, would be a part of the system, and I would have no difticulty in saying that the regulatory power of the Congress would attach.

Mr. LEWIS. Mr. President, the case to which I referred, lately decided by the Supreme Court of the United States, which has gradually gravitated further and further toward

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the opinions held in Congress, was the case of Friedman against the National Labor Relations Board.

Mr. BAILEY. I thank the Senator.

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

Mr. BAILEY. I yield.

Mr. MINTON. The Senator from Montana referred to the first and second employers' liability cases. As the Senator has pointed out, in the first case the Court held that the back-shop employees were not within the act and they limited it only to those actually engaged in the stream of commerce.

Mr. WHEELER. They not only so held in the first case but they held that in more recent cases, as the Senator will find if he will follow them up. I know, because I happen to have had a good many cases. In order to recover under the Federal Employers' Liability Act one had to show that the man was actually engaged in the actual transportation of goods. The Court held that a man who was turning a turntable, for instance, with an engine which was engaged in interstate commerce was engaged in interstate commerce but the machinist who was working 1n the shop has never been held to come under the Employers' Liability Act.

Mr. MINTON. That ts correct. There has never been any determination under the employer's liability act since these recent cases to decide whether or not the recent cases have not overruled the first employer's liability-act case. That question was mooted and argued in the recent case. There has been reference to the Friedman case and the Jones-Laughlin case and the Virginian Railway case. The Solicitor General undertook to distinguish between the industrial relations and the employer's liability act, which applied to the statute, which made a line which was entirely too fine for me to follow. He attempted to make a distinction between the liability cases and the industrial relations cases, but a great many lawyers believe today that the recent decisions under the National Labor Relations Act have definitely overruled the first employer's liability case.

Mr. WHEELER. If I may interrupt the Senator, in my judgment a corporation which is engaged in carrying on an interstate commerce business should come under the jurisdiction of the Congress of the United States; but I do question whether the Court will hold that it does. However, Congress should adopt a resolution providing for an amendment to the Constitution defining exactly what we mean, so that there cannot be any question. We ought to adopt such an amendment even though the pending bill shall be passed. It seems to me we ought to adopt some amendment to the Constitution so that there could not be any quibbling on the part of employers or anyone else with reference to the matter.

Mr. MINTON. Mr. President—

Mr. WHEELER. If I may just finish my statement; I do not know why anyone should worry about this particular bill, because under the works progress economic survey it was pointed out that the maintenance level in the United States for a family of four is $1,261, that the emergency living level is $903. Under the minimum wage fixed by this particular bill, if a worker is fully employed for a whole year he gets only $572, and later his top minimum will be $910 which would be only $7 above what the emergency living scale level is according to the economic survey made by the Works Progress Administration.

Some highly paid executives of large corporations have contended that this bill is a dangerous bill. They ignore the real danger to America in this field: the sickening truth that there are in America human beings who are working for wages even below an emergency level and to whom merely a decent maintenance level would seem a luxury. This bill does no more than to seek minimums, which are themselves so low that it woUld be unjust and unsound and dangerous to permit workers to work for wages below those minimums.

Mr. BORAH. Mr. President, it is true that the wage fixed is very low, but it is also true, astonishingly true, that there are a great many people in this country working for wages below that level. That is the reason why I say we ought to be plain, that it cannot possibly be that we want people to work in this country for less than 25 cents an hour, and it cannot be possible that they can maintain their health and welfare and well-being and maintain the citizenship of this country unless they are paid a living wage. It cannot be possible that the Congress of the United states has not the power, as to those working in interstate commerce, to fix a minimum wage.

Mr. BAILEY. I am always sure of the fairness of the Senator from Idaho. I know he would not suggest that those of us who take the position I am taking are taking it in behalf of low wages. I am disregarding all of that. If the wage were a dollar an hour and the hours were reduced to two or three a day, the principles involved here would not be affected. I will go with anyone in favor of good wages for everybody. I think every Senator here would. We all desire that. The question of the power of Congress is quite a different matter, and that is the only question I was arguing.

Mr. BORAH. If the Senator agrees that we ought to protect these people as to a minimum wage—

Mr. BAILEY. I do not agree that Congress ought. Congress should not do anything it does not have power to do. I might agree as a moral question and as a moral obligation from one man to another that every man who employed people ought to pay for a day's work and pay enough for a decent day's living.

I think every man on earth, if Senators will let me state my position, who works, who is in earnest, who tries, ought to have every possible reward in life; he ought to have a family, a home, he ought to have a chance to educate his children; his wife ought to have the conveniences which other women have. The whole conception of life,. the whole moral obligations between me and my fellows is that I should wish for every man to have as good a chance as I have had. I am arguing now wholly on the constitutional ground as to the power of the Congress, not the humanity of a wage. If it were up to me to fix the wages for the people of the United States, and I could get the wealth out of the country to pay them, I would see that every man had enough money to take care of his wife and children; own his own home, educate his children, and have good clothes; and all the conveniences and things in life which make for happiness. But that is not based on acts of Congress. That is based on the creation of annual wealth by people who labor. That is the problem of our time.

Th1s very bill, so far from aiding anyone—and now I am dealing with the economic basis—may be the means of throwing thousands of people out of work, just as we know that the old N. R. A. is said to have thrown over 500,000 Negro workers out of work in the South. This bill may have the same consequences. That is on the economic side. I am not discussing that at this time. I am discussing the question of constitutionality.

Mr. WAGNER and Mr. MINTON rose.

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

Mr. BAILEY. I promised I would yield to the Senator from Indiana. I shall now make that promise good.

Mr. BARKLEY. Mr. President, before the Senator from North Carolina yields to the Senator from Indiana, will he yield to me for the purpose of making an announcement?

Mr. BAILEY. I yield.

Mr. BARKLEY. For the information of the Senate I think I ought to announce that we shall have to have an evening session and run on into the evening without recess.

Mr. BAILEY. Mr. President, I rose to speak for about 15 minutes, and announced that I intended to speak for only that length of time, but I believe I have enabled a good many very able Senators, each one to speak 15 minutes, and I wish our leader to know that I did not intend to delay the Senate.

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Mr. BARKLEY. I want to say that my announcement has no relationship to the Senator's speech. I wanted to make my announcement while the Senate is filled, as it always is, when the Senator addresses it. [Laughter.]

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

Mr. BAILEY. I now yield to the Senator from Indiana.

Mr. MINTON. I do not want to provoke any more announcements of that kind, but I wish to announce that the Senator's interesting and able argument, and the colloquy which has taken place in connection with it, has I think shown the development of the law of interstate commerce. For instance, under the first employers' liability cases, as has been pointed out, the back-shop employee, that fellow who worked on the bench and made nuts and bolts to be used out on the track or on the engine, was held not to be in commerce, and therefore was not within the provisions of the act, because it related only to commerce.

The back-shop employee under the National Labor Relations Board against Virginian Railroad is held to be in commerce and is within the provisions of the act. So, therefore, it seems to me that the Supreme Court has progressed a long way from the first employer's liability case to the Virginian Railway against the National Labor Relations Board, because they have gone from excluding the back-shop employee from commerce to including him in the later cases.

Mr. GLASS and Mr. WHEELER rose.

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

Mr. BAILEY. I propose to yield to the Senator from Virginia.

Mr. GLASS. Mr. President, I want to ask a very simple question of the constitutional lawyers who differ so widely in their interpretation of the Constitution. I should like one of them to define for me what constitutes interstate commerce. Specifically, in order to keep out of jail, I should like to ask them if I am engaged in interstate commerce in publishing two newspapers because of the fact that I buy my newsprint from Maine, or some other State, or because of the fact that I purchased my newspaper press from New Jersey, or because of the fact that I am compelled to buy my type, when I buy type, from some other State? Am I engaged in interstate commerce?

Mr. BORAH. Does the newspaper circulate in several States?

Mr. GLASS. Well, there is another question that I should like to ask.

Mr. WHEELER. Mr. President—

Mr. GLASS. Let me ask the other question now, which these constitutional lawyers may be able to answer: What constitutes actual interstate commerce? Suppose I have a newspaper with 20,000 subscribers, and say all of the papers circulate in Virginia except to 10 subscribers. Am I engaged in interstate commerce?

Mr. THOMAS of Utah. Mr. President—

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

Mr. GLASS. Mr. President, I am waiting for the answer.

Mr. BAILEY. Mr. President, I do not know a better man in the Senate, or on the whole earth, to answer that question than the Senator from Idaho. I shall turn the matter of answering the question over to him.

Mr. BORAH. Mr. President, if the Senator is purchasing his goods for the purpose of making up his newspaper in different States, and he takes them to a particular place where he uses them, and he transmits his newspapers into other States, I do not think the number—the number, 10 or 20 or 30—is controlling. I think the Senator is engaged in interstate commerce.

Mr. GLASS. Well, I do not. [Laughter.]

Mr. WHEELER. If I may interrupt the Senator from Idaho, I will say to the Senator from Virginia that 20 years ago he would not have been engaged in interstate commerce, but if he is not considered to be engaged in interstate commerce now, he will be considered to be engaged in interstate commerce 10 years from now, because the law will be so changed, and the courts will finally come to the conclusion that he is engaged in interstate commerce.

Mr. GLASS. Oh, yes; I think that the Court has been terrorized to render any sort of decision that was wanted.

Mr. BORAH. There has not been a more full, complete, and accurate definition of interstate commerce than was written by John Marshall in the Gibbons case, and we have not undertaken in this bill, at least we thought we were not undertaking to go outside the definition announced nearly 150 years ago. What we intended to do was to deal alone on the question of minimum wages with the men who are engaged in interstate commerce. If we have been unfortunate in our language, that is one thing, but our intention and our sole purpose was to deal with those engaged in interstate commerce. In my opinion the language carries out that idea. I may be mistaken as to that, but I am not mistaken as to what our intention was, because we discussed it off and on for 9 long days.

Mr. BAILEY. But the Senator is contending, as I understand, that a man working at a machine in a cotton mill, which sells its goods in interstate commerce, is in interstate commerce under the bill. That is the contention now?

Mr. BORAH. I did not completely hear the Senator's question.

Mr. BAILEY. It was John Marshall who defined commerce as intercourse, not manufacture. A worker working in a cotton mill in North Carolina—he may be an oiler, he may be working at a machine, he may look after the bobbins and the shuttles, in working there in the mill, and if the miil ships its goods in interstate commerce between the States, then that man, within the meaning of this bill, is in interstate commerce, subject to the regulatory powers contained in the bill, notwithstanding he is engaged in manufacture, and not in intercourse

Mr. BORAH. He is subject to those powers, if the business is one of interstate commerce—that is, of shipping between the States, passing the goods between the States—why, certainly those who are engaged in manufacturing the goods are a part of that system, and they are engaged in interstate commerce. The Senator would have to admit, I think, that the State could not control that man. The State could not control his wages. He would immediately claim that he was not subject to that control, because he was engaged in interstate commerce.

Mr. BAILEY. Let me say to the Senator on that point that practically all the States of the Union have passed laws regulating the wages precisely on that question.

Mr. BORAH. They wm pass laws regulating the wages of those engaged in intrastate commerce. I shall ask the able Senator a question. The States have passed a law with reference to minimum wages for those engaged in intrastate commerce. Is there no power to fix the minimum wage for those engaged in interstate commerce?

Mr. BAILEY. Let us get out of the theories and into the facts. The State of North Carolina does have a law regulating the hours of labor of the very people who are supposed to come in under this bill. They are workers in the cotton mills, which ship their goods in interstate commerce.

I just asked the Senator in charge of the bill [Mr. THOMAs] if it is related to sawmills. The sawmill in North Carolina is a little thing. There are 700 of them down there. Here is a man with a set mill. He is sawing logs. The logs are shipped in interstate commerce. We sell the southern pine. That puts the man within the Senator's conception, unless I greatly misunderstood him, within the regulatory power of the Congress of the United States. Here is a man working in a little sawmill. Just because the boards which are cut are put on a train and sold in Virginia, that puts him within the regulatory powers of Congress.

If that is so, every cotton farmer, every tobacco farmer—we sell 60 percent of our tobacco in foreign commerce—every tobacco farmer, every wheat farmer, all of them fall right within that doctrine. Then you have got your central government, then you have expanded your commerce clause

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to the utmost possible extent, and if that is good law tbere is no need for a constitutional amendment, and there is no need either for protest against the centralization of your Government. It is here.

Mr. WAGNER. Mr. President—

Mr. BAILEY. 1 yield to the Senator from New York.

Mr. WAGNER. In the first place, if the Senator will permit me, I should like to make a correction in the statement he made, that the N. R. A. resulted in the unemployment of an additional three or four million people. As a matter of fact, under the N. R. A., with the shortening of hours and the abolition of child labor, we actually increased employment in this country between three and a half million and four million. The rate of reemployment fell off when the United states Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutionaL Then long hours returned, and ehildren went back into industry, with the result that hundreds of thousands of workers who would otherwise have been reabsorbed failed to get jobs in private industry.

The present discussion is interesting because it recalls to mind the discussion we had when the Labor Relations Act was under consideration. Some very distinguished constitutional lawyers—and they had a basis for their prediction in some of the prior cases—opined that the law, if it were constitutional, would be so restricted in its application that it would affect only interstate bus lines and one or two other industries which are clearly in interstate commerce, and thus be a futile effort.

I think the decisions of the SUpreme Court of the United States under the Labor Act were a liberalization of the definition of interstate commerce, as that definition is given in prior rulings upon similar questions. Of course, the facts were somewhat different. However, the rulings of the Court were more liberal than most lawyers had predicted. Acoordmg to some rulings of the United States Supreme Court, if a company exports or manufactures for interstate commerce only 30 percent of its entire production, that company is engaged in interstate commerce for the purpose of giving jurisdiction to the Labor Relations Board.

The Labor Relations Act is a regulatory act. It deals with labor disputes. The Court does not attempt to separate those employed in the industry who are directly engaged in the production of a particular product destined for interstate commerce from those engaged in interstate commerce as such. The whole record of the industry is taken into consideration. The Supreme Court has held in one case, as I have said, that if as little as 30 percent of all the manufactured products went into interstate commerce, the industry was engaged in interstate commerce for the purpose of the National Labor Relations Act and its regulatory features.

In that case, which involved a California cannery, all the raw materials which went into the manufacture of the partieular product came from within the State. Yet the Court held that the industry was engaged in interstate commerce under the regulatory features of the National Labor Relatrons Act, so as to give jurisdiction to the National Labor Relations Board and make effective the provisions of the act.

After all, we are now discussing something which the United States SUpreme Court will be called upon to decide. We have merely said that the minimum wages shall app]y to those workers, roughly speaking, who are engaged in interstate commerce or in producing goods to be shipped in the channels of interstate commerce, or otherwise directly affecting interstate commerce.

When the Labor Re1ations Act was under consideration many predictions were made. Some of us now have a more liberal view of the definition of interstate commerce than others.

So, depending upon our view, either a large number of workers or a very few will be affected by the law. However, that does not affect the objective. We all ought to be for the objective, however narrow the application of the law may be.

My prediction is that the same workers whom the courts have held to be in or directly affecting interstate commerce under the National Labor Relations Act will be regarded as subject to the Federal commerce power under the provisions of the bill which we are now considering. Apart from all other theories of jurisdiction, this bill also exercises the constitutional power of Congress to bar unfair goods from the channels of interstate commerce, even where Congress may not regulate directly the employment relations involved.

I do not think the Senator from North Carolina is arguing against the constitutionality of the bill, but rather, under his interpretation of interstate commerce, that its application is very narrow and will include very few workers. However, inasmuch as the humane oojeetive is one in which we are all concerned and upon which we are all in agreement, is it not wiser for us to enact the legislation and then let the Court determine the extent of its application?

Mr. BAILEY. Mr. President, I wish to finish my argument, but I must respond to the Senator from New York [Mr. WAGNER]. He must have misunderstood me. I did not say that the N. R. A. caused the loss of jobs to three or four million people. I said that its consequence was to cause about 500,000 Negroes in the South to lose their places. I was not saying that of my own knowledge. Tnat fact was alleged and reported. As a matter of fact, I do know—and my memory is not likely to betray me on a point of this sort, because I think Senators will bear me out—that from the moment the National Industrial Recovery Act went into effect the curve of industrial production went down. Anybady can obtain a copy of the New York Times for last Sunday and look at the charts. They will be found in nearly all newspapers. It win be found that during that period the curve of production was going down. There was a great deal of trouble, and we did not begin to emerge from our difficulties until the Supreme Court of the United States threw the N. R. A. out the window. Everybody in America, so far as I know, was happy over that result.

Mr. WAGNER. MM. President, will the Senator yield?

Mr. BAILEY. Of course I will .yield to the Senator

Mr. WAGNER. I do not desire to annoy the Senator. The Senator is correct in the statement that shortly after the enactment of the National Industrial Recovery Act there was a decrease in the production of the country. If the Senator will study the question a little further, he will find the reason for that decrease was that for a period of about 3 or 4 months, in anticipation of enactment of the National Industrial Recovery Act, the shnrtening of the hours, the increase of wages, and the prevention of the exploitation of children, many industries, in order to take advantage of the lower wages, produced far above the carpacity of the market to absorb, and so tremendously increased their inventnries. When the law went into effect, of course we had to wait for a short period of time until the inventories were exhausted. Then, the Senator will find, production increased, and it was increasing at the time the National Industrial Recovery Act was declared unconstitutional.

Mr. BAILEY. Mr. President, there is no reason for any dispute about the facts. I am in the presence of witnesses. Every man and woman in America who knows anything at all about the last 3 or 4 years knows that the great rise in America occurred 1n 1936 and 1937, after the N. .R. A. was thrown out the window. We all know that. It is a matter of fact. We cannot go back of the fact 1935 was not a good year. 1934 was not a good year. 1933 was not a good year. The first good year was l936, and the next was 1937. Then things brcke about the first of September 1937, and we have gone down since, in the sharpest decline in all the history of human depressions on this side of the water. Those are the facts.

The Senator is under a misapprehension. I was arguing that the bill is unconstitutional with respect to the people whom it is expected to affect. Let me make that point specific. I am talking about the workers in the textile industry. I am talking about the workers in industries which ship in interstate commerce. I am making a distinction. Commerce is one thing and manufacturing is another.

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That is the old, historic distinction. I am making that distinction. The fact that I work in a cotton mill which bought all it ever bought and sold all it ever sold in interstate commerce does not put me within the power and the jurisdiction of the Congress. That is my position, and I will stand on it.

The Court may change. We have the doctrine of a living Court and a living Constitution. Also there is the power to put men on the Court. I do not know what will happen when more power is sought to place men on the Court.

Nobody knows about the Constitution now, because we do not know the standards of the appointing power. I am sorry. I do not want to say anything more about it. That is one trouble with the country.

I will not say that the bill, if enacted into law, will be held to be unconstitutional. However, I will say that there has not been a court since 1789, until the present hour, that would not have held it to be unconstitutional. The opinions of the Court show it. However, I do not know what will happen in the future. When the foundations begin to slip, at least the Senate ought to stand up.

Mr. President, I started on a very simple matter. I knew that there was not going to be a record vote. I have had enough intimations to that effect. I do not intend to ask for one. However, I wish to make a record of my opposition to the bill. We have engaged in a little debate and contraversy, and I have greatly enjoyed it. I appreciate all the expressions from Senators. I have very great respect for everything they have said.

I desire to allude now, very briefly, to one point which has concerned me a great deal.

I do not think we are going to get out of the depression by thrusting the labor question into the vortex of Federal politics. I do not think men are going to invest money when they see that men who know nothing about their industry are going to undertake to control it. Sometimes l grow weary of hearing politicians tell us how to run railroads. Very frequently they would not be able to ride on one if the Congress did not give them an allowance of 20 cents a mile. [Laughter.] Sometimes I overspeak myself, Mr. President. Sometimes I see men who are masters in politics, shrewd and capable in getting votes and omces, assuming to run great industrial activities all over the country.

Other people who have saved their money, but who have no faculty of that sort, refuse to invest in business and enterprise when that sort of thing is going on; and then we are told that we have a sit-down strike! That is not a sitdown strike. That is being frightened to death. There is a great difference. It is not a matter of will. The American people would be happy to invest their money. It is not a matter of rich men. It is a matter of the people who save money all over the country. They will not do it so long as they know that we have a Congress every year which assumes to tell them what shall be done with their capital and what shall be done with their savings.

I am in favor of humane things, decent things, and right things, but I have not that much confidence in the Congress. I have no great estate; but if I had to lie down tomorrow and die, and desired to leave provision for my little children, God knows I would not put out my money in industries to be controlled by politicians. Nobody else will. That is why bonds do not sell in America. That is why stocks are going down. That is why the streets are filled with the unemployed. I confess I do not know how to run a railroad, and I do not know how to run a cotton mill, and I am not going to try.

Mr. President, I am a southern man, and I am proud of it; but I am not a sectional man. I have not liked the sectional view taken about this legislation. I have nothing to say in behalf of or by way of apology for the South about this legislation. The South is all right. We got along in the 75 years following the Civil War and during the long night of reconstruction without Federal aid, and we can get along without Federal interference.

We are getting through the depression down there, and are costing the Federal Government less than any other portion of the country.

Talk about high wages in the North! Pennsylvania is a great and rich manufacturing State. Their wages are high enough; yes; but they have so many unemployed and so many distressed that the Federal Government in this administration has spent more money in that one State than in all the 11 Southern States which are looked down upon here, and said to be paying poverty wages, and charged with feudalism. There are no feudalists in the South. There is no feudalism in the South. You may tell the world that. I know what feudalism is, and you do.

Think about that part of the country which came out of the struggle of the Civil War and fought its way to a place in the sun without the aid of anyone upon its own courage and its own character—think of it sitting here in the family of the States, in the Senate of the United States; happier than the others, calling on the Treasury for less than anybody else, gathering wealth by dint of labor and of courage and of self-discipline and of savings, and then being told in the house of its friends that their achievements are the achievements of feudalism! It is unkind. It is unjust.

I will not say any more on that subject. I am not opposed to this legislation on any sectional ground. I have no jealousy as between New England and the South. I want you to have your mills and your industries. I do not want one of them. We can have ours. We can build, and you can build. I would not have a competition between North Carolina and Massachusetts for a cotton mill—no! I would not ask any odds, either, between Massachusetts and North Carolina. I do ask to be let alone. I do not want us to have any better chance than we had during the 75 years since the Civil War.

God knows, if we could do what we have done in that period, all we ask of you is to let us go en alone and not call us contemptible names. All we ask is a chance to live in peace and do our work in our own way.

The South pays to labor a larger proportion of the value added by manufacture in textile goods than the North does. That astonishes you, does it not? We would not pay to labor any part of the cost of the raw material. That goes to the man who produces the raw material. The South pays to the worker 40^1/2 percent of the value added by manufacture in textiles, and the North pays 37^1/2 percent; yet it is said that we oppress people, and we create poverty, and that we ask for favors. The southern cotton mills pay to the workers 17 percent more per pound of cotton manufactured than the mills in the rest of the country; and then we are told that we are feudalists, and we are cruel, and we oppress people, and we create poverty.

Mr. President, there is an explanation of those matters.

The North produces, not a better quality, but a different type of goods. The man who produces steel can always pay higher wages than the man who produces cotton, and that accounts for a great deal of it. The man who produces fine shoes can pay a better wage than the man who produces a cheaper shoe, and that accounts for a great deal of it. The man who has a lower freight rate can pay a little bit better wage in money, not in terms of the value added by manufacture, than the other fellow.

I repel the suggestion, I denounce it, that anyone in the South wants freedom to oppress his fellow men. I would not say the South is any better than any other part of the country, but I deny the right of any man to refiect upon the character of our people.

I am not motivated in this matter by any feeling of jealousy, any competitive idea of the situation with regard to the other parts of the country. I am saying that we are richer today than the people of any other part of America in that we ask less from the Federal Government to take care of our unemployed. We are better off, and we are willing to help; but we ask to be let alone.

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I am saying that without the aid of the Federal Government these 75 years we came from the pit of ruin, with a foreign government imposed upon us, and with no power to borrow money. Our fathers struggled up and laid that great foundation on which we built, and I am saying that the appeal to southern men, or to the American Congress, to enact this law in order to undo a feudalism there, is intolerable. My sentiments are indescribable. We are willing to do right, but we want to be treated justly. We are calling no names. Why call us names of hate and contempt?

Mr. BORAH. Mr. President, the Senator from North Carolina said he did not expect a record vote. I think we should have a record vote. We should, by all means, have a record vote, and I know of no reason why we should not have it. Let us record the courage of our convictions for or against the report.

It must be borne in .mind that the Senate passed by an overwhelming vote a minimum-wage bill. The House passed by an overwhelming vote a minimum-wage bill. Those two bills were sent to conference. It was up to the conferees, if possible, to bring in a report. It was an almost impossible task. It was not within the power of any 1 man or set of men to frame a report without its being vulnerable to objections and serious objections. We labored for 9 days. We will be back here in January, and doubtless there will be changes proposed and, perhaps, wisely proposed.

It was our duty to reconcile the two measures insofar as we could, although they were contradictory in philosophy and often in express terms, and to bring back a report to the Senate; and that we have done.

There should be a record vote. If the Senate does not want to adopt the report the Senate can so vote. We have discharged our duty.

Let me say one thing to the Senator from North Carolina in great sincerity. This bill has never been regarded by me in any sense as an attack upon the South.

Mr. BAILEY. Mr. President, I wish to assure the Senator 1 that he is just as incapable of that as is any man on earth.

Mr. BORAH. Perhal>S I am not free to discuss what was said in the conference, but my position was and has been that this question of the necessity of a minimum wage applies to the whole country, that it is not in any sense confined to one region of the country. It was not an attack upon the South, and the southern question was never raised in that sense by the conferees and never was considered by me for a single moment.

I realize that there have been things said abroad outside of the conference and outside of the Senate and outside of the House, but I never heard it suggested in the conference that the bill was an attack upon the South or a reflection upon the South. If I thought there was a drop of sectional blood in my veins I would call a physician and have it drawn. No! No! For myself I feel for the entire conference we were seeking to deal without bias or prejudice for the Nation.

Mr. President, a brief word as to what we undertook to do. The Senator has argued that certain people working in certain conditions under certain circumstances in certain places would not be engaged in interstate commerce. That may be true. In many instances referred to that would be true. But if the Court so holds then such a worker wQuld not be covered by the bill. All we have undertaken to say is that those engaged in interstate commerce shall pay a minimum wage of 25 and 30 cents an hour for the first and second years. We have gone no further than to announce the general principle as to those engaged in Interstate commerce and if the court finds, as it must find, pro or con upon the question, the particular case must fall or rise according to whether the Court finds the parties are engaged in interstate commerce. BUt we have not extended the rule by the tenns of the measure itself. We have said that those employed in interstate commerce are to be covered. Tbe Court must determine whether or not they are employed in interstate commerce. If they are employed in interstate commerce then they are protected by the bill and covered by the bill. We could not do other than lay down a general principle and announce the general principle of protecting those engaged in interstate commerce. There is one phrase which seemed to me objectionable, but under the Jones-Laughlin decision it was thought by the conferees it was justified.

This was the situation. In different parts of the country people will be found working for less than 20 cents an hour, less by far than 30 cents an hour. That condition is not confined to any region of the country; it is a condition existing in many business institutions where the institutions can afford to pay the wages provided, where there will be no injury to them if they pay the wage provided, where it will merely result in transferring a part of their profits to the pockets of their workers.

What does 25 cents an hour mean? It means $11 a week. What does $11 a week mean in the way of maintaining a family? Think of the shacks in which they must live, of the meager clothes, of the poor food, the possibility of sickness overtaking them. What have they to live on? Eleven dollars a week, to pay all these bills. This wage strikes at the very life, certainly the health and morals of the citizen. This Government has the power and owes the supreme duty to see that those engaged in interstate commerce are protected against conditions which destroy health and well being, against sweatshop and extortion, against the greed of those who have the power to lash them day after day to their task. What is a free government for if not to protect the weak against the wrongs and injustices of the strong?

In this country we are interested in maintaining business, protecting business, and in bidding speed to business recovery; but we are not interested in maintaining business at the cost of the lives and the health of the young Americans who are growing up to become the men and women of the future in this country. Business in this rountry can pay that wage which will protect the workers sufficiently to maintain them in their health and in their well-being, and if they refuse to pay such a wage, I say that the Congress of the United States has ample power under the commerce clause of the Constitution to fix a minimum wage, just as the State has the power to fix a minimum wage for intrastate business.

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

Mr. BORAH. I yield.

Mr. CHAVEZ. In line with what the Senator from Idaho has been stating, let me tell him of an instance of lumber being manufactured in my State and sold in Manassas, Va. The men in my State were paid as much as 12 cents an hour. I still believe that we can, within the Constitution, regulate that situation.

Mr. BORAH. The Senator means as little as 12 cents an hour.

Mr. CHAVEZ. As little as 12 cents an hour, yes; $1.20 for 10 hours, in New Mexico, selling the lumber in Manassas, Va. I still think Congress can regulate that situation.

Mr. BORAH. I do not think anyone doubts that Congress can regulate it, if the people are engaged in interstate commerce. The able Senator from North Carollna does not contend against that proposition. If the language is inappropriate to the expression of the principle, it is unfortunate.

We think we have appropriate language, and that we confine the bill to the operation of those engaged in interstate commerce.

Certainly there must be some power under this Government to protect the man who is called upon to work for 12 or 15 or 16 cents an hour. Certainly there is a power somewhere, and it will be conceded that the State cannot go into interstate commerce and fix the wage. If there is no power, then the Constitution has failed to supply the means by which to protect the lives and the health and the well-being of the citizens of this country.

Mr. President, we have in this session obligated ourselves to appropriate something like two and a half to three billion dollars for the protection of this Government—for the protection of the American people. I venture to say

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that there is no element of protection for this country or for the people of this country so vital and essential as that of building up the citizenship in health and in morals, as we are undertaking in part to do in this bill. Without the good and loyal citizenship of those who must defend our country, without their health or manhood and their womanhood, where may we hope for the final success against those who may attack us? This is a part of the national defense.

I noticed the other day that Mr. Sloan; of New York, said that the adoption of the measure would lead to unemployment, to the disturbance of business. What unemployment? Mr. Sloan says that paying workingmen 25 cents an hour will lead to unemployment to the disturbance of business, and that putting a ceiling of 44 hours will lead to unemployment. These men are very able in particular lines. They are great financial and industrial leaders, and as such we respect them. But there is one thing sadly wanting in their philosophy—the humanitarian side of the question, the welfare of the children who are growing up to meet the duties imposed upon them by their country, the welfare of the men and women who are struggling to keep their homes and maintain their families. Mr. Sloan, who enjoys a salary of several hundred thousand dollars a year, who enjoys a large income above his salary, thinks 25 cents an hour may disturb business. My opinion is that these vast salaries are far more calculated to disturb the whole economic situation. I am firmly of the belief that these men who enjoy these great salaries and huge incomes would do well for their own sake and for the sake of their country not to complain of $11 a week for maintenance of a family. There is danger in that direction.

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

Mr. BORAH. I yield.

Mr. CHAVEZ. We have been for years and years talking about the American system of government, and we have been talking about the American standard of living. I cannot see the difference between the girl in Boston sweating away in a laundry at low wages and the girl in my home city, or the girl in Birmingham or elsewhere sweating away at similar work, at low wages. Why should there be two standards of wages under the American standard of living?

Mr. BORAH. We are not dealing here with anything except minimum wages, and those in my opinion are fixed upon one general principle and that is the amount of wages necessary to maintain a family and build up and maintain the citizenship of the country. That is all we are dealing with. As I said to the Senator from Montana [Mr. WHEELER] a moment ago, the amount of minimum wages is very small. We started with 25 cents per hour and we increased it to 30 cents an hour. That is the sum total of our accomplished efforts. Beyond that you have your investigation. An industrial committee is made up of so many from industry, so many from the community, so many from labor, and they investigate and determine the conditions under which, if possible, these wages may be raised. The sum total of the accomplishments of the bill was the creation of a wage of 25 cents an hour to be increased to 30 cents an hour, and the rest is left to investigation, to consideration, to study and determination if possible whether or not the wages can be raised beyond that. That is all.

Mr. President, I do not say that there is not a serious constitutional question involved in this bill. I know there is. But it does not have relation to the power of fixing the minimum wage. Upon that question we have the full constitutional power to do what we have done. I would not undertake to say that some of the other questions do not raise a constitutional question. But I do say that so far as the power of the National Government to fix a minimum wage for those engaged in interstate commerce, it is just as full and complete and plenary as the power of the State to fix it in 1ntrastate commerce.

Mr. President, doubtless there are questions presented here about which able and sincere men may differ. But I regard this bill in fixing a minimum wage as something in the nature of an emancipation proclamation for a part of our people. If the courts hold we have erred in our language or in the accuracy of defining our power we will rewrite the bill, but the objective we will not surrender.

Mr. WALSH. Mr. President, I do not intend to make any speech upon the conference report, but I should like to make a statement for the RECORD. Much has been said in the press about the conflict between the cotton-textile industry in the North and South. Yet the record shows that the only industry in the United States of America, North or South, which presented a united front and presented recommendations for uniform minimum wages and uniform maximum hours of employment, was the cotton-textile industry. The one industry that had practically no differences of opinion, that asked for no differential, North and South was the cotton-textile industry. They would have preferred to have the maximum wage fixed below 40 cents per hour, but otherwise they favored most of the other provisions.

Mr. President, the feature of this bill which has troubled me is not its application to the large industries of this country, most of whom are already organized, most of whom have 40 or 42 or 44 hours employment a week, and most of whom pay as high or higher wages than the minimum wage fixed in this bill. There was little difficulty in conference in the matter of fixing a minimum wage and maximum hours with respect to those industries. But what has troubled the conferees and is still troubling them is the effect that these minimum wages and the 44-hour to 40-hour week will have upon the smaller, struggling, not well-financed industries engaged in interstate commerce. If any hardship results it will bear down upon this group of industries. But as the Senator from Idaho has well said, this bill was not brought into the Senate by any members of the conference.

It was not of our making and choosing. The bill was before us to fix in interstate commerce a minimum wage, and a minimum wage commencing with 25 cents an hour is hardly defensible in a great country like ours, when we realize the cost of decent living to our workers. If it were not for the small industries, the minimum wage would not begin with a floor as low as 25 cents.

From time to time during the last few days a series of questions have been submitted to me with reference to particular features of the bill, and I have tried to prepare answers to them, and I now ask unanimous consent that the record of this debate may contain the questions and answers in reference to particular features of the bill which have been submitted to me and to which I have made replies over the radio. It fully expresses my views on this subject.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

The matter referred to is as follows:

STATEMENT BY SENATOR WALSH

Q. What groups or classes of Industries are affected by its provlslons?-A. All businesses engaged In interstate commerce and local retailing establishments, the greater part ·of whose sell1ng are goods that move in interstate commerce. The bill does not 1n any way affect purely local retail or service businesses.

Q. Name some of the employees to which the bill is not appUcable.—A. Employees in Interstate commerce in several instances are exempted from the provisions of this bill. Some are exempted from the hour provisions; others from the wage provisions, and still others from both wage and hour provisions. Comparatively few, however, are exempted from the hour provisions as it is hoped through the limited-hour provisions, viz, the short workweek, to spread employment. Practically the only employees exempted from the hour provisions are those employed in the first processing of dairy products; compressing of cotton and first processing of perishable fruit products whose season is limited to 14 workweeks per year. Employers and employees, through collective bargaining, may arrange for a longer workday than 8 hours and a longer workweek than 40 hours, but they are forbidden to make the aggregate number of hours during a 6-month period exceed an average of 40 hours per week, less 1 week for vacations, or if the collective bargaining agreement between the employer and employee is on an annual-wage basis, the total hours for the year can be arranged so as not to exceed in the

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total, less 2 weeks' vacations, on the average of not more than 40 hours per week. However, in no event does the bill permit employment in excess of 12 hours in any workday, or employment in excess of 56 hours in any workweek. If these figures must be increased in emergencies, time and one-half must be paid.

Q. Who are exempt from the wage provisions?—A. Learners and apprentices; persons impaired by age or physical deficiencies and messengers employed exclusively in delivering letters and messages are exempted from the 40-cent wage provisions of this bill.

Q. What exemptions are there to both wage and hour provisions?—A. There is a long list in this category. Employees employed in a bona fide executive, administrative, professional or local retailing capacity; salesmen; seamen; employees in the fish industry, including canning, packing, marketing, and distributing of fish; employees employed in agriculture and horticulture; employees engaged in handling storing, pasteurtzing, or preparing in their raw or natural state, agricultural commodities for marketing, or making cheese and butter; employees employed in connection with the operation of trains and airplanes who are subject to the regulations of the Interstate Commerce Commission; employees in the maintenance-of-way on railroads are not exempt.

Q. When do the provisions of this bill become operative?—A. The wage and hour provisions become operative 4 months after enactment of the bill. The bill, however, sets up the administrative agency provisions immediately.

Q. What wages are fixed in this bill?—A. Within 4 months a rigid minimum wage of 25 cents per hour is made appl1cable to every business engaged in interstate commerce aside from those which are specifically exempted and to which I have made reference. One year thereafter 30 cents becomes the universal minimum wage, and 6 years thereafter, or 7 years after the enactment of this bill, the rate of 40 cents per hour becomes the universal minimum wage. In other words, for the 6 years after the fixing of the rate at 30 cents, the rate may be 40 cents or any rate between 30 cents and 40 cents but not less than 30 cents. In this 6-year period the bill provides for the creation of industrial boards in each industry for the fixing of a minimum wage between 30 and 40 cents, and the Administrator may accept or reject the findings of these industrial boards. These industrial boards may make classifications of wages and take into consideration certain economic factors, not, however, on a regional basis. For instance, these boards could recommend a minimum wage somewhat lower in industries where only a few persons were employed from that in a larger industry, or in those industries where production was lower than in other industries, but this classification would apply to all industries wherever located. It would not be on a regional basis.

Q. What is meant by a minimum wage?—A. The wage paid to the lowest paid group of workers in any industry, below which no wage may be paid.

Q. Must all interstate-commerce industries or businesses pay a rigid uniform 40 cents per hour wage at the end of 7 years, commencing in 1945?—A. Yes; except there is one contingency which permits an exception. If the industrial board which is set up for each industry recommends to the Administrator that 40 cents per hour will substantially curtail employment in a particular industry, the Administrator may delay application of the rigid 40 cents per hour rate and apply a minimum rate between 30 cents and 40 cents. But this cannot be done on a regional basis; it must be applicable to all businesses, wherever located.

Q. What are the provisions of the bill with reference to hours?—A. Four months after date of enactment of the bill 44 hours will be the maximum number of hours for employment in any one week in interstate-commerce businesses. One year thereafter this maximum is reduced to 42 hours, and 1 year later it is further reduced to 40 hours. In other words, by October 1940 the workweek will be 40 hours.

Q. Does this mean that under no circumstances can any industry work its employees more than 40 hours per week?—A. No. Industries may work their employees more than 40 hours or 42 hours or 44 hours, as the case may be, but it must pay the employees for overtime at the rate of 1^1/3 times the regular pay of its employees.

Q. Are there any exeptions where overtime pay is not required?—A. Yes. Employment may extend over the 40 hours without overtime pay, if agreed to by collective bargaining, for not more than 6 months of 1,000 hours (which represents an average of 40 hours per week) or for 1 year of 2,000 hour"s (which likewise represents an average of 40 hours per week) when through collective bargaining an annual wage is fixed; or for 14 weeks in seasonal work, but even in all these cases the workday is limited to not more than 12 hours and the workweek to not more than 56 hours.

Q. Are there any di1ferentials provided in this bill ?—A. Differentials are of two kinds. Regional and classified. As to regional, no; as to classified, yes.

Q. What is meant by this?—A. I mean there are no regional differentials of any kind in this bill. Every industry wherever located in competition in interstate commerce, will have applied to it the same minimum-wage and maximum-hour provisions.

Q. What is meant by classified differentlals?—A. The bill provides that the industrial boards set up may make certain classifications in the minimum-wage rates between 30 and 40 cents. For instance, it could fix a somewhat different minimum wage for industries with a few employees than is fixed for larger like industries, or somewhat different minimum wages to employees in industries whose production is very small in comparison with the industries whose production is large. But this cannot be done on a regional basis. Whatever classifications are made as to size or production must be made applicable to all like industries wherever located.

Q. Are there any provisions in the bill covering child labor?—A. Yes; child labor is forbidden by preventing goods to be shipped in interstate commerce when produced 'by child labor. However, the forbidding of child labor does not apply to persons under 16 years of age employed in agriculture when not legally required to attend school, or to any child employed as an actor in motion pictures or theatrical productions. The purpose of this exception is to permit school children to be employed during vacations and after school hours in such agricultural activities as picking berries, fruits, and simllar agricultural commodities. It should also be added that the law does not forbid parents from permitting their own children to work in an occupation, for their parents, other than manufacturing or mining.

Q. Does this bill wipe out all di1ferentials in all wages above the minium wage in various parts of the country?—A. Oh, no. Only differentials in minimum wages and maximum hours of employment. Congress has no authority to deal with other wages. All wage earners have a constitutional right to bargain for whatever wage they choose. The Federal Government only has authority to deal with minimum wages because minimum wages and hours of employment relate to the health and general welfare of the citizens and it legislates in this field solely because it can be justified on humanitarian grounds. Both Federal and State constitutions forbid the fixing of any wage by law other than the minimum. Of course, the fixing of minimum wages has an effect upon all wages above the minimum and to that extent all other wages are or may be affected indirectly. There are differentials in wages in the same industry as paid in different parts of the country at the present time. These are not interfered with except in the only field where the Federal Government may interfere, namely, minimum wages. Differentials in other wages are not and cannot be regulated by the Federal Government.

Q. Why hasn't the Federal Government acted before this on minimum wages and maximum hours of employent?—A. Because only recently the Supreme Court has given sanction by its decisions to the contention that the Federal Government may enter the field of regulation of minimum wages and maximum hours of employment in all businesses engaged in interstate commerce.

Q. Does this b111 interfere With labor unions?—A. No. It specifically provides that all collective bargaining for wages above the minimum fixed in this bill are not to be interfered with. Indeed higher minimum wages made by collective bargaining in like industries must be considered by the industrial boards in fixing the wage up to 40 cents. It also provides that all collective bargaining contracts now in force between employers and recognized labor unions providing for a work week in excess of 40 hours are not to be changed during the life of the present contract.

Q. On what theory can this bill be defended other than the right of the Federal Government to regulate hours and minimum wages in interstate employment?—A. The importance of eliminating sweatshops, oppressive child labor, differentials, and a wage that is inadequate for a worker and his family to obtain a living wage and a decent American standard of living in all parts of the country.

Q. Why is not all this humane and social well-being-which we concede is the right of the man or woman who works—left to organized labor unions who can obtain these objectives through collective bargaining?—A. This would be the ideal way of handling the situation. But the Government cannot compel workers everywhere to organize and many are unable to organize. For those employees in small industries in remote places, under hostile employers, this b111 makes the Government their agency for collective bargaining by providing a reasonable living minimum wage and by protecting them against exploitation through long working hours. Furthermore, the fixing of maximum hours and minimum wages is a protection to high-standard industries against sweatshop competitors.

Q. What effect w111 the application of this sudden and rigid regulation of hours of employment and wages have upon industry?—A. In my opinion the bill will be more harmful to small rather than large industries. The latter can adjust themselves without much difficulty as many of them are on a 40-hour workweek now. Industries with little capital and who employ small numbers of people, will probably experience considerable difficulty in adjusting themselves in 4 months to a 44-hour week and to a 25-cent-minimum wage. Unfortunately, there are a large number of industries in this country that have worked their employees much longer than 44 hours per week and paid minimum wages of less than 25 cents per hour. These industries operated upon the theory that in order to survive they had to work their employees longer hours and for less wages and in this way would be able to compete with the larger, well organized and efficiently managed industries, by slightly underselling in the markets. In my opinion, unless this law is cautiously and prudently administered, it will tend to increase monopolies and eliminate small industries. To be successful, this law with its commendable humanitarian objectives must be administered with the caution, care, and sympathy of a physician and not with the autocracy and force of a police officer.

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It is inevitable that there should be some economic changes in undertaking the almost impossible task of placing the innumerable, and varied interstate commerce industries, in all parts of the Nation on a uniform employment hour and minimum-wage basis. It is hoped and expected these difficulties will be offset by improving the lot of millions of wage earners who have been obliged to live under insanitary conditions—ill-nourished, poorly clad, and at times often underfed-—because of the absence of a minimum-wage law.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The question is on agreeing to the conference report.

Mr. BORAH. I ask for the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were not ordered.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The question is on agreeing to the conference report.

The report was agreed to.

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Page 9190        CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE        June 14, 1937        (81 Cong. Rec. 9190, 1937)

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Mr. ADAMS. Mr. President, pursuant to the adoption of the conference report on the wage and hour bill, it becomes necessary that an appropriation be made to carry out the provisions of that bill. A Budget estimate has been submitted, and the amendment I now send to the desk is to provide money for the administration of the wage and hour bill.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment offered by the Senator from Colorado on behalf of the committee will be stated.

The CHIEF CLERK. On page 60, after line 2, it is proposed to insert:

ADMINISTRATION OF THE FAIR LABOR STANDARDS ACT

To carry into effect the provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, including personal services and rent in the District of Columbia and elsewhere, contract stenographic reporting services, travel expenses, printing and binding, law books, books of reference and periodicals, and all other necessary expenses, fiscal year 1939, to be immediately available, $500,000: Provided, That this appropriation shall not become available unless and until the aforesaid legislation is enacted into law.

The amendment was agreed to.

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Page 9348        CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE        June 14, 1938        (81 Cong. Rec. 9348, 1938)

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ENROLLED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS SIGNED

S. 2475. An act to provide for the establishment of fair labor standards in employments in and affecting interstate commerce, and for other purposes;

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Page 9356        CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE        June 15, 1938        (81 Cong. Rec. 9356, 1938)

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[At this point Mr. LUNDEEN yielded to Mr. THOMAS of Utah to present the conference report on Senate bill 2475, the wage and hour bill, the proceedings and debate on which appear in the RECORD at the conclusion of Mr. LUNDEEN's remarks.]

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Page 9523        CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE        June 16, 1938        (81 Cong. Rec. 9523, 1938)

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ENROLLED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS PRESENTED

S. 2475. An act to provide for the establishment of fair labor standards in the employments in and affecting interstate commerce, and for other purposes;

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Page 9615        CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - SENATE        June 16, 1938        (81 Cong. Rec. 9615, 1938)

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APPROVAL OF SENATE BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTION

The President of the United states, subsequent to the final adjournment of the third session of the Seventy-fifth Congress, notified the Secretary of the Senate that he had approved acts and a joint resolution of the Senate, as follows:

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On June 25, 1938:

S. 2475. An act to provide for the establishment of fair labor standards in employments in and affecting interstate commerce, and for other purposes;

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