Mr. KELLER. I want to thank you very much, Mr. McMahon, for the very thorough manner in which you have gone into this matter. I am going to suggest, if I may, that when we are asking our questions that we do it as quickly and as sharply as we can, because it is going to run us into two weeks of work of long hours anyway, because we want to give everybody here his opportunity to speak. We want to hear everything that is to be presented. I hope that the remainder of the time may be used to give us some idea of what wage increases mean, what they will mean to the industry, what proportion of the total income of the industry is being paid in wages. I would like to have the men who labor and the men who direct labor to try to work out for us some rational plan to consider, that is, just what lies at the base of our present condition. If we will do that we can get together. If we do not do it we will not get together. And what we are trying to do in this country is to get together.

There is not one of us who does not know that 10,000,000 idle men are not going to remain idle, and there is not anyone of us who ought not know that we are not going to ask them to remain idle. If industry is going to come in and give jobs it is going to serve greatly. If it is going to hold in its grip the industry without giving jobs, they ought to see the total impossibility of it. The reason I am saying that to you is this: I think I ought to bring it out into the open.

I received a very considerable number of letters from various manufacturers asking me to kill this bill in the Committee. I have written an answer to them in which I am trying to point out that the Congress of the United States is doing its level best, no matter what is being said about it, to get at the facts in the case. We are doing it for the benefit of the whole people of the United States, not just for the men who work, not just for the men who direct work. And I believe you will find this committee, quite as well as the whole Congress and the whole labor committee, is responsible for our existence here. I believe you will find that what we are driving at is a rational solution of those things.

And I hope you other gentlemen when you come to it, will bear that in mind and try to give the facts that will help us out of this thing.

Mr. MCMAHON. Mr. Chairman, may I say to you that in the exhibits I have submitted to you you will find an answer to all of the questions you have asked here as to the differentials, the wages, and so on. There is the Cabinet report included in Exhibit A, and others will appear here personally before you from the various parts of the country.

Mr. HARTLEY. Mr. McMahon, do those exhibits also include a comparison of wages and hours under N. R. A. and since N. R. A.? Mr. MCMAHON. Yes, sir.

Mr. KELLER. What attracted my attention to this, gentlemenand I am sure all of you have seen the same thing in one direction or another is this. In carrying on my research work on this very subject I ran across this rather remarkable statement, which seems to be very well proven, and that is that if we can raise the wage average or the income average of the men of this country 50 percent that we will take 20,000,000 bales of cotton to supply our own demand within our own borders rather than 11,000,000 bales. And that is worth

your consideration, both that of the manufacturers and the men who work, as well as the men who raise the cotton in the South.

I think we ought to keep some of those things in hand. I assure you I will not lecture you, but I thought I would like to direct your attention to that because I am sure this Committee wants to know these things.

Are there any questions?

Mr. WOOD. May I observe that a very long statement was necessary to be made. And I am very glad Mr. McMahon made the lucid statement that he did.

Mr. RAMSPECK. Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask Mr. McMahon a question.

Do you approve the Winant Report?

Mr. MCMAHON. Yes, sir. In general, yes.

Mr. RAMSPECK. You think it was a fair report?

Mr. MCMAHON. Yes, sir, I do.

Mr. RAMSPECK. The members of this committee approached the subject from a basis of fair play?

Mr. MCMAHON. Yes, sir.

Mr. RAMSPECK. Mr. Chairman, I asked that question because I want to put into the record the fact that one of the members of that committee, Mr. Marion Smith, is a resident of my district, and Mr. McMahon's statement constitutes a rather severe indictment of the employers in the South in the textile industry. And I presume it was intended to be a severe indictment. I am not questioning that. But I do want the record to show that on this committee of three that investigated this subject, this splendid gentleman served and approached the matter in a spirit of fairness and made a report which does set forth the facts in this industry.

Mr. MCMAHON. May I say to the Congressman that right back in my mind is this particular thought, that if the northern employers who control the mills in the South were taken care of properly through some action of this kind the southern employees would soon come to heel.

Mr. RAMSPECK. Thank you, Mr. McMahon. And I think that is true.

Mr. KELLER. In other words, you think there has been an immigration from the North toward the South and it has affected the conditions?

Mr. MCMAHON. They built mills in the South from our blood. Mr. Wood. I notice in your statement you refer to the maintenance of company stores, company churches, and company theaters. I think you termed that as a type of paternalism. I think I would call it absolutism, wouldn't you?

Mr. MCMAHON. I would if I were talking to you by yourself. Mr. MARCANTONIO. As a matter of fact, it is about the most vicious piece of racketeering known.

Mr. MCMAHON. It is. But in appearing before you gentlemen I will have to use the lesser word.

Mr. KELLER. We are not so modest.

We will hear next the following gentlemen in the order named: Governor Greene, of Rhode Island, who has sent his representative here very considerately. Mr. L. Metcalfe Walling will be our next witness.

Mr. Walling will be followed by two gentlemen who are present, Senator Fitzgerald, representing Governor Greene, and Mr. Nickerson, representing Governor Greene. Senator Fitzgerald will represent the labor side, and Mr. Nickerson the other side of it.

STATEMENT OF L. METCALFE WALLING, ON BEHALF OF
GOVERNOR GREENE, OF RHODE ISLAND

Mr. WALLING. Mr. Chairman, I appear at this hearing as a representative of Governor Theodore Francis Greene, of Rhode Island, who unfortunately was unable to come because of the fact that our general assembly is in session at this very moment. But he was very anxious to indicate his interest in the provisions of this bill and particularly to point out to the committee the feeling that he has very deeply and very sincerely that the textile problem with which we are all concerned is a problem which is peculiarly susceptible of national treatment. Our State, although a very small one, is a very important industrial State, and it is particularly important as a textile State.

We have seen in the last few years many of our mills lie idle, some close and move to the South. We have suffered from the depression along with other parts of the country. Fortunately we have had a wide diversity of industry which has somewhat alleviated the distress which otherwise would have been even keener than it was.

I am glad to report that this year we have had almost 600 new factory establishments, employing five or more people, which have started business in Rhode Island.

On this point of the necessity of national treatment and uniform labor standards in the textile industry may I make two or three comments?

I think all of us recognize that no one State, however high its intentions may be to help labor conditions for its workers, can step out too far ahead of the procession without inflicting damage not only upon the employers of industry in that State but also upon the workers for whom progressive labor laws are primarily designed-that is, they are primarily designed to help them.

That fact is very important for us to keep in mind. It is particularly so in Rhode Island, which is a very small State. That is why we are very much interested in the provisions of this bill.

Back in 1933, before the National Industrial Recovery Act became law, the six New England Governors got together, and Governor Greene, in common with the other Governors, signed an agreement to appoint commissions to study the problem of uniform labor standards in the New England States and such other States that might be interested in working with them, to the end of negotiating compacts between those States in order to effectuate uniform standards.

That was just prior to the enactment of N. R. A. I mention that simply to show the interest Governor Greene has in this problem and to illustrate to you that even at that date, before it was a matter of national legislation, we in Rhode Island and in the other New England States were thinking of the importance of crossing State lines in establishing uniform labor standards.

I am not going to rehearse for you gentlemen what you already know very well-the very bad conditions of sweated labor which existed everywhere throughout the country, and particularly in the textile regions north and south before the adoption of N. R. A.

I was interested in reading some time ago a joint legislative report from the State of Pennsylvania, which State is the home of the proponent of this bill, which was a remarkable study of the depth to which wage codes had gone, particularly in regard to the payment of women and children, without some kind of legislative control. I do not need to emphasize to you what has been brought out here today; I do not need to remind you of the jubilation with which the Cotton Textile Code was first approved, and the benefit which they had in the cotton textile industry in the North as well as in the South.

The sudden increase in prosperity in that industry during the first few months, especially after the adoption of this code, is evidence in itself of the sound, economic base on which national legislation to help the textile industry is based.

Various statements have been made at this hearing as to the extent of compliance with N. R. A. code requirements in the textile industry. Whatever the truth is; whatever degree of voluntary compliance there has been by the textile mills of the country is some evidence of the fact that those employers at least consider the standards fixed in the N. R. A. codes as sound and not unduly burdensome to those mills.

Illustrative of the interest that the State of Rhode Island is taking in these labor matters, in following the bills now pending in the State of Rhode Island General Assembly, with the exception of one, namely, workmen's compensation amendment, they all apply to women and minor workers only. They are bills to establish minimum, fair wages, shorter work week for women and children, to increase the age at which children may legally enter industry; abolition of night work, and so forth. Those bills are, as I have said, designed chiefly for the protection of women and children.

If the State of Rhode Island, like any other State, should attempt to legislate for all workers in general and to step out ahead of the procession, it would be putting the heads of its industry and its workers alike on the chopping block. There can be no adequate treatment of this important problem except by national legislation.

I do not want to make an extended analysis of the bill, because the Governor has not had opportunity to study it in detail. I do, however, want to point out certain provisions, which, I think, are most helpful in dealing with this problem.

In the first place, the Governor was very glad to see that no pricefixing provisions were included in the bill, and that adequate regard was paid to the necessity of handling monopolistic practices.

Another very good feature of the bill, as it seems to the Governor, is the fact that one of the most troublesome worries of the manufacturer, and one of the least legitimate of the kinds of competition, namely, competition in labor costs, would be removed by the equalization of labor standards and by the imposition of national standards which would apply to the textile industry in all parts of the country equally.

The bill simply adopts a standard which would be maintained by the best type of employers in the industry and this legislation ought to be considered not only from the standpoint of the employees but from the standpoint of the honest, fair-minded type of employer also, who would like voluntarily to maintain fair labor conditions in his mill, but who is not, frequently, able to do so on account of destructive and unfair competition of his sweatshop competitors.

The provision of the bill in regard to child labor is so reasonable that it has become to be accepted widespread as fair, sound, economically sound, and can be applied not only to the textile industry but to industry in general without unduly burdening any industry.

Those standards are the same as the standards that are being proposed for industry in general in the State of Rhode Island at the present session of the general assembly.

I want to make one comment about the $15 minimum wage provision of the bill. I take it the committee has given some careful thought to the question of whether it is desirable to fix a definitely dollar minimum in the bill or to allow the textile commission, which would be created as the administrative agency under the bill, to make findings of fact and then determine what a fair, minimum wage is in commensurate relation with the value of services rendered. I make that suggestion simply because of the difficulties the Supreme Court has found with the minimum wage act formerly in force in the District of Columbia, where a prime point was that there was no finding of fact that the wage fixed had any reasonable relation to the fair value of the services rendered.

Insofar as the 35-hour limitation is concerned, it is obviously a compromise between 30 hours a week, which is being advocated vigorously on hand, and the 40 hours a week prevailing in the industry today. It has been brought out here, and you know as a matter of common knowledge, that the textile industry, like other industries, has not been able to average a 40-hour week for some time. The compromise between the two extremes seems a reasonable and workable one and it would provide what we are all interested in seeing, namely, the maximum of stability in employment over a period of, say, a year.

Another provision which is excellent is the one requiring the proposed commission to make a study of the problem of minimum wages on an annual basis and not merely on a weekly basis. Of what benefit is a minimum wage a week to the employee if he receives that only a few months out of the year? The thing he is interested in is a minimum wage on an annual basis, which would guarantee an income for his family throughout the year.

That provision for study by the commission is excellent indeed. Again, the provision that female employees performing substantially the same work as male employees shall receive the same rate of pay is a good one.

The provision that employees who have been employed regularly one calendar year shall be granted not less than 7 days' vacation each year with pay is a novelty; but that is usual in other industries, especially among office workers, and it seems to be reasonable and fair.

The collective bargaining provision is one with which we are all familiar and one which now is so common as a guarantee of the fundamental rights of labor that there should not be any complaint as to the wisdom and necessity of its inclusion.

The provision requiring payment of wages when an employee is dismissed is one which is probably more questionable. It proceeds on a sound theory, but, I think there might be some question whether the maximum of 3 months' wages, which is provided, might not be unduly burdensome along with the requirement that unemployment compensation also be paid in addition to that. That is the point