of our machinists applied for a job there a few days ago and was offered 34 cents per hour. Allentown: No labor shortage, especially not in common labor. In the building line about all the mechanics are employed, but there is no shortage of men. The number employed is about the same as in normal times. New Brighton: Building trades very busy and common labor in demand, and if right wages be paid could be supplied. Butler: The factories here are running normal and I do not believe there are over 50 men out of employment at the present time. Wilkes-Barre: About 2,500 of the shop crafts are idle in Wilkes-Barre and vicinity. Miscellaneous, approximately 500; total, 3,000. The mines are working good, the only time being lost being on account of car shortage. Silk industry working fair; lace industry improved. Building trades working steady. Metal trades, improvement and working fair. RHODE ISLAND. Westerly: At no time since the World War has there been a shortage of common laborers in this vicinity. At this time there are about 400 of us out. of employment and no immediate prospect of work. SOUTH DAKOTA. Sioux Falls: Practically all the skilled laber is employed, but no scarcity. There is a surplus of common labor, perhaps 40 or 50 unemployed. SOUTH CAROLINA. Spartanburg: Three hundred unemployed. TEXAS. Houston: Building trades, 10 per cent unemployed; metal trades, 50 per cent unemployed; printing trades, 10 per cent unemployed. Common labor very plentiful. No scarcity of labor. Plenty of mechanics and hundreds of common laborers looking for work and fail to find it. San Antonio: Large number of skilled labor idle in this city. City is flooded with idle unskilled laborers. About 4,000 idle, the majority being Mexicans. About the end of November there will be a great many more idle common laborers in this city, as the cotton season will close about that time. Sherman: One thousand two hundred unemployed. Some pick up a day's work now and then, but nothing like regular. Unskilled workers get from $1.50 to $2 per day, 10 to 12 hours; not one place in town short of men or have any trouble getting men at any time they want them. Tyler: There are several men for each job. Brownwood: About 74 per cent out of work. It will be much greater in the next few days on account of work being closed down. Burkburnett: At least 25 per cent unemployed; about 500 unemployed. Corsicana: Have not had any labor shortage any time this year. Dallas: Number of men who applied for work at the municipal employment bureau for the last four months: June, 1,420; July, 1,206; August, 1,222; September, 1,240. Denison: There are 1,200 tradesmen out of employment and common labor is so plentiful that it can and is being procured for the starvation wages of 20 cents per hour. Fort Worth: There is no shortage or threatened shortage. Not less than 500 unskilled workers clamor at the packing houses gates each morning. As many more apply to the different employment bureaus. The police department, which is a good guide, estimates that at least 200 daily pass through the city. not being permitted to stop. There is not a shortage of unskilled labor in any branch. UTAH. Salt Lake City: Twenty-five hundred jobless and number growing daily. VERMONT. Bellows Falls: Four hundred and fifty men idle. No shortage of labor. The unemployed find it hard to procure work. VIRGINIA. Alexandria: Eight hundred unemployed. Only outlook we have is the shipyard, which will give employment to about 100 persons. Lynchburg: Most of people in this city have work at present time. If any out it is common labor. This kind of help so plentiful that it has brought price of common labor to the low level of about $1.75 to $2 per day. Roanoke: No labor shortage. The rates for common labr are such that few are enticed to this work. Still there is no shortage of available men in this line, even if the turnover is large. WASHINGTON. Hoquiam: All industries running on full time. No shortage of labor. One hundred men or more are idle looking for work. Seattle: About 200 men over and above jobs. In another month the Brookston Lumber Co. sawmill will shut down for the winter and that will throw 300 more men out of employment. There will be no less than 500 out of work. Spokane City Free Employment Bureau states there is "still plenty of unemployment in Spokane." Between 500 and 1,000 men out of employment. During the past six months a large sewer job was let, which called for many unskilled laborers. Men called to employment by the hundreds and were unsuccessful because the supply was too large. Tacoma: Great number of unskilled workers are unemployed. There is a surplus of skilled labor in almost every trade. WEST VIRGINIA. Wheeling: On account of so much building and other public work, such as road making, street paving, and city sewer work, there may be a shortage of common labor, but it is only temporary. There is also quite a number of men idle who are not satisfied with the wages paid, which range from 35 cents per hour, 9 and 10 hours per day, to 50 cents per hour. Very few pay the latter rate. Fairmont: In the coal-mining industry the men are working from one to three days a week. Mining machine plants, glasshouses, and foundries have plenty of applicants every day. In the construction of new hard-surface roads the contractors can not get common labor because of the miserably low wage offered for this work, 25 cents an hour. Montgomery: Five thousand miners unemployed about three-fourths of the time. Mining is the only industry. Huntington: About 25 per cent of the 5,000 organized workers here unemployed, principally among the building trades; about the same percentage of unskilled labor are unemployed, which will be increased as soon as weather conditions stop work on numerous road construction and paving jobs. There are about 400 railway clerks out of employment. WISCONSIN. Janesville: Practically all crafts are employed, but look for a scarcity of labor within the next month, especially in the automobile industry. Kenosha: Two thousand jobless, and we expect same to be worse a month from now. La Crosse: Can not see any indication of a labor shortage in La Crosse. At the present time the men are all at work, as the city is doing a lot of paving of streets, but as soon as the weather gets to freezing there will be a lot of men out of work. Manitowoc: Between 2,000 and 3,000 common laborers looking for jobs, although this city is at present doing an exceptionally large amount of building and construction work. Milwaukee: No shortage of labor in any industry. One hundred men at the railroad shops daily apply for work. Oshkosh From 150 to 200 men out of work at present. Sheboygan: Boom now in building trades, but many will be idle in a short time. of business, but I think since that time they came to the conclusion that it did not pay, and I think they have abandoned the plan. Mr. Box. The information that I wanted to get is this The CHAIRMAN. The last information I have was that it was a $5,000,000 proposition, and it was given up. A large amount of money was subscribed by the workers, but whether or not it has been paid, I do not know. Mr. SHAW. Has your organization made any study of the farm labor situation? Mr. WALLACE. I think it needs the study of the entire country. There is not a labor question that has received as little attention as this casual labor problem that has cost so much in the human resources of the country; it has cost the country an awful amount. There is no attention paid to needs of the farmer at harvest time, the railroad workers, the sugar mills, except that the so-called hobo is supposed to drift there, to get there and carry himself away the best he can. Mr. SHAW. That applies to the large wheat areas and the beat sugar areas? Mr. WALLACE. Most every industry-I remember the packing industry. I know of the cotton picking and the corn shucking; and they want people to be there when they want them, and when they are done they have no interest in them. I think it costs the country more than anything that I know of to-day, and there should be some system in this country whereby the laborer, the itinerant laborer, would be protected and aided. Mr. WHITE. Could you not submit something to the committee on that? It would be interesting. Mr. WALLACE. I would like to study it out, but I think it is a great question; but the fact remains that we have the labor in this country. The trouble is to bring it where it is needed at the time it is needed. Mr. SHAW. How do you suggest that might be done? Mr. WALLACE. I believe the Government might formulate some scheme of bringing men where they are known to be needed for harvest purposes, and bring them back. They do it in Canada. They have harvest specials. They bring men from Nova Scotia out to the wheat fields of Alberta, at the time of the harvest, almost for nothing. They take them back; just about that time work is slack in the coal fields of Nova Scotia, in the summer time, and take out a lot of workers-unemployed workers-and bring them to the wheat fields and take them back, and those men that they handle are sure of getting out and sure of being brought back; they have their families and have a home somewhere. Our American hobos have no homes. Mr. WHITE. You do not mean to make that statement that he has no home? Mr. WALLACE. It is so general that it might be called a rule; a man who goes from harvest field to the logging camps has no home, no wife. Naturally, he would have a father and a mother, but when I am talking of home I mean his own family. Mr. SHAW. Is that class of labor increasing-the hobo type? Mr. SHAW. Are they coming back? Mr. WALLACE. They are coming back; they became more plentiful at the time of the depression. Men, for instance, are working at mines and the mines shut down. The man has to go somewhere, and the further he goes the worse he looks, until he becomes a hobo, and becomes the unemployable hobo in four or five years. Mr. SHAW. Do you think that the farm labor situation could be eased up by immigration from Europe? Mr. WALLACE. I think if you bring the immigrants from Europe in here. employ them when you need them, for the short time during the harvest, and then they go back to the city, where they get comparatively steady employment, by driving some other men out, you would only accentuate the situation you should remedy. Mr. SHAW. Do you think they would be good men, regardless of nationality? Mr. WALLACE. I do not see any difference between people. They all want the same thing. to live 12 months in the year, and you can not blame them. They have to eat for 12 months, and will be only employed three months. Mr. SHAW. Some European people are farming, mining, and want to stay on the farm. They are not interested in the dollar. Mr. SABATH. Let me ask you another question. Do you not think that the standard of American citizenship is higher to-day than it ever has been? Mr. WALLACE. I do not see that the standard has changed. Mr. SABATH. Do you not think that we here in America are just above any other nation in the world? Mr. WALLACE. Oh, yes; I believe we have had better opportunities than people in other countries of the world; yet as we consist of all the people of the world I suppose we must be an amalgamation of them all. Mr. SABATH. Do you not think that we are a stronger race, and have more brains, and do we have more-what would I say? Mr. WALLACE. Adaptability? Mr. SABATH. Yes; courage, and anything else, more than any other people? Mr. WALLACE. I believe that is largely due to the fact that we are not very remote from the pioneer, who had to fight his way through, and carry himself through, if he wanted to survive hostile environment. I think those pioneers have made American civilization advance to the point where it is now. that could not survive in the early days went by the way, and they died. Mr. SABATH. That is so of the early days. Those Mr. WALLACE. And I think it is because we are not very far removed from that, just a few generations back, that we are more capable. Mr. SABATH. That is all. Mr. Box. May I ask one or two questions? The CHAIRMAN. Yes. Mr. Box. I want to get a little more information about this Amalgamated Clothing Workers' Union. I call your attention to this paragraph, “More than $200,000 of the Russian-American corporations capital of $1,000,000 has been subscribed by the public in small subscriptions," Mr. Hillman says. The letter shows that the rehabilitation of the industries of Russia seems to be a cardinal purpose. Where do you understand, if you know, that the remainder of that capital has come from? Mr. WALLACE. I do not know. I have no personal knowledge. I can only conjecture. You understand this, Mr. Box, that a great number of the people that compose the amalgamated, are of the same race as the people of Russia. Mr. Box. I am not asking these questions in hostility. I am getting information the best I can. If you have not the information, you can so state. I will read another sentence, "I am confident," Mr. Hillman says, "this is merely the beginning of our work in aiding the economic reconstruction of Europe. Our investment will be properly guarded by the soviet government, and will yield an adequate return to the American investors." Do you understand that the workers have capital to invest in the reestablishment and maintenance of economic affairs in Russia? Mr. WALLACE. I would understand they are donating out of their little salaries, or income as much as they can spare, for what they consider an ideal. I believe they are wrong. There is no organization that has been condemned as bitterly by the soviet government, and by the soviet organizations, as has the American Federation of Labor. I understand you. I want to say that, but I believe some of those men, even though they are wrong, are living up to what they consider an ideal, and are sacrificing for that ideal, and are giving some of their earnings to further it. Mr. Box. You called this organization an outlaw organization? Mr. WALLACE. Yes. Mr. Box. I want to ask if there is such affinity between them and what many of the House regard as the lawless forces of Russia, to develop between them and the American Federation of Labor. Mr. WALLACE. We have not had any evidence of any overt acts that would lead us to think that they are intentionally trying to smash the American Federation of Labor, or injure the members. Mr. Box. What about their attachment to a government? They speak here as the letter will show that they think the present government of Russia is established. Mr. SABATH. I think this was a prospectus of Mr. Hillman to raise $1,000.000 to establish a corporation owned by the laboring people over there, the same as our capitalists are getting hold of some industries over there; they think it will help the thing along, and they investigate and go in and establish a line of business, but I think since that time they came to the conclusion that it did not pay, and I think they have abandoned the plan. Mr. Box. The information that I wanted to get is this The CHAIRMAN. The last information I have was that it was a $5,000,000 proposition, and it was given up. A large amount of money was subscribed by the workers, but whether or not it has been paid, I do not know. Mr. SHAW. Has your organization made any study of the farm labor situa tion? Mr. WALLACE. I think it needs the study of the entire country. There is not a labor question that has received as little attention as this casual labor problem that has cost so much in the human resources of the country; it has cost the country an awful amount. There is no attention paid to needs of the farmer at harvest time, the railroad workers, the sugar mills, except that the so-called hobo is supposed to drift there, to get there and carry himself away the best he can. Mr. SHAW. That applies to the large wheat areas and the beat sugar areas? Mr. WALLACE. Most every industry-I remember the packing industry. I know of the cotton picking and the corn shucking; and they want people to be there when they want them, and when they are done they have no interest in them. I think it costs the country more than anything that I know of to-day, and there should be some system in this country whereby the laborer, the itinerant laborer, would be protected and aided. Mr. WHITE. Could you not submit something to the committee on that? It would be interesting. Mr. WALLACE. I would like to study it out, but I think it is a great question; but the fact remains that we have the labor in this country. The trouble is to bring it where it is needed at the time it is needed. Mr. SHAW. How do you suggest that might be done? Mr. WALLACE. I believe the Government might formulate some scheme of bringing men where they are known to be needed for harvest purposes, and bring them back. They do it in Canada. They have harvest specials. They bring men from Nova Scotia out to the wheat fields of Alberta, at the time of the harvest, almost for nothing. They take them back; just about that time work is slack in the coal fields of Nova Scotia, in the summer time, and take out a lot of workers-unemployed workers-and bring them to the wheat fields and take them back, and those men that they handle are sure of getting out and sure of being brought back; they have their families and have a home somewhere. Our American hobos have no homes. Mr. WHITE. You do not mean to make that statement that he has no home? Mr. WALLACE. It is so general that it might be called a rule; a man who goes from harvest field to the logging camps has no home, no wife. Naturally, he would have a father and a mother, but when I am talking of home I mean his own family. Mr. SHAW. Is that class of labor increasing-the hobo type? Mr. SHAW. Are they coming back? Mr. WALLACE. They are coming back; they became more plentiful at the time of the depression. Men, for instance, are working at mines and the mines shut down. The man has to go somewhere, and the further he goes the worse he looks, until he becomes a hobo, and becomes the unemployable hobo in four or five years. Mr. SHAW. Do you think that the farm labor situation could be eased up by immigration from Europe? Mr. WALLACE. I think if you bring the immigrants from Europe in here. employ them when you need them, for the short time during the harvest, and then they go back to the city, where they get comparatively steady employment, by driving some other men out. you would only accentuate the situation you should remedy. Mr. SHAW. Do you think they would be good men, regardless of nationality? Mr. WALLACE. I do not see any difference between people. They all want the same thing, to live 12 months in the year, and you can not blame them. They have to eat for 12 months, and will be only employed three months. Mr. SHAW. Some European people are farming, mining, and want to stay on the farm. They are not interested in the dollar. |