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That is my honest opinion about it. And I have studied it, not for a couple of years, but I have lived a whole life with it.

It is not going to make a great deal of difference to me which way it goes, because I am going over the other side of the hill pretty soon. But I do not want to see these operatives going back into the textile mills as they used to, these women with shawls on their heads. I do not want to see textile mills in the East and the North closed up and standing in deserted villages as monuments in a graveyard.

That is what we will have with these mills moving out and going to other locations. I believe that you men can write something into history in legislation that will provide national regulation, that will take the good parts of the N. R. A., or the President's reemployment agreement, and put it into a bill that will be constitutional.

Mr. KELLER. That is a mighty fine compliment, Senator, and we thank you. If there are no further questions by members of the committee, we thank you for your appearance here today and, will you be good enough to say to the Governor that we appreciate his sending you down here.

Mr. FITZGERALD. I shall be glad to do that, Mr. Chairman; thank

you.

Mr. KELLER. We are now glad to hear the Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts, Mr. Hurley.

STATEMENT OF HON. JOSEPH L. HURLEY, LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS

Mr. KELLER. Will you state for the record whom you represent, Governor?

Lieutenant Governor HURLEY. My name is Joseph L. Hurley. I am Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts, and I am representing his Excellency, James M. Curley, the Governor of Massachusetts.

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, Governor Curley and those of us associated with him in the government of Massachusetts have been living with this problem for the past year as State officials. This is not the first time that we have been down to Washington seeking some measure of aid for the textile industry.

During the past year we have been in conference with the President of the United States; we have been at hearings before the President's Cabinet committee; we have been in conference with members of the Massachusetts delegation in Congress.

The reason for our interest is not that we are taking the side of employers against employees or vice versa, but we feel that it is a public duty to do something to capture national attention for the problem that presents itself in every textile city, and Massachusetts is made up of a great many of them.

In fact, the textile industry, even today in its depression, is the greatest industry that Massachusetts has ever known.

My home town happens to be the city of Fall River. Fall River had the start of the textile industry in 1811 and I can remember, as a boy, witnessing the centennial of that industry celebrated in that city, and seeing President Taft come up from Washington to bring the greetings of the Nation to that community.

Probably in 1921 that city was considered the greatest textile city in America, if not in the world. But the experience of Fall River

since 1921 has been characteristic of the experience of every other textile community, expecially in that section of the country.

In the meantime, and prior to my being elected lieutenant governor of that State, I had the privilege of being the mayor of Fall River; and prior to that time I acted for a few years as the corporation counsel, called city solicitor in most communities.

During those years of 1929 and 1930, mine was the task of defending the city against countless pleas for abatement in taxes on the part of textile manufactories that felt, with the depression, that had already visited itself upon the industry, that their plants were grossly overvaluated, which was proven as a fact in the trials.

As I recall, my job as the defender of the city's interest, was merely to try to save the city as much money as possible. It was merely a question of how much we were going to pay back to these mills that had been overassessed.

This depression in the textile industry, if I can recall the evidence that was introduced during those days of litigation by experts, by men who knew the industry in a Nation-wide sense, was not anything that began with the general collapse of business in this country in 1929. But the depression of the textile industry started many years before that.

The present depression, I suppose we can say, started in 1923 or 1924, and has been getting worse ever since, until the advent of the N. R. A.

I well recall one witness in those cases testifying that the depression in the textile industry actually had set in prior to 1914 and it was only the World War that saved the textile industry in America at that time and kept it alive during the war days from 1914 to 1918, and then during the boom period that followed; and as soon as the boom was over, things begin to slip. During that period, we saw this happen to that typical textile city; and mind you, that city, like practically every other one of these textile communities, was a oneindustry town. As soon as the textile industry went, the entire business of the community stopped.

In 1921, in Fall River, there were 46 corporations. I think they maintained about 110 factory buildings. They operated 3,805,000 spindles and they furnished employment to 33,450 men and women.

In 1934, those 46 corporations had dwindled to 23. The 3,800,000 spindles had dwindled to 1,800,000, and the number of employees had dropped from 33,500 to 18,000. Mind you, during all the history of that community, and every other textile community, the city was growing in size and services were being rendered to a growing population-fire department, police department, street department.

With this collapse of industry, we saw the tax valuations of that one city go from $220,000,000 to what they are today, approximately $105,000,000, actually cut in half. And the burden of taxation placed upon the small-home owner and businessman.

You will probably be interested in knowing how that burden shifted in the years of that depression. In 1920, in Fall River, 55.02 percent of the valuations of the city were textile valuations. In 1934, only 14.63 percent were textile valuations. The rest of the burden of taxation shifted as I have suggested.

That is why we are interested as public officials in this problem. These communities, as Senator Fitzgerald has just told you, unless something is done to relieve them of these distressing conditions, are going to be nothing more or less than a chain of deserted mill villages. That is so, not merely in Massachusetts but in every other industrial State that is made up of textile communities.

Prior to the N. R. A. and during the days, as I have indicated, of my experience as a lawyer for the city and as mayor for the city, living with this problem in a community in which I was born and brought up, we heard these arguments advanced as to the reason for the collapse of the industry.

They told us first that more mills existed, more spindles were in place and running in this country than the country could stand; that there was a great over-production of cotton textiles. Many plants had moved from Massachusetts to other sections of the country for different reasons, the principal reason being that Massachusetts had been too progressive in its labor laws and in its social legislation; that those laws were a burden upon industry; that they had added to the cost of production and therefore mills had moved to other States that did not have those requirements, and because they did not have them their manufacturers were permitted to manufacture cotton cloth much cheaper than they were in places like Fall River.

I can recall, speaking of that last feature, that for 20 years almost, it has been a regular chestnut in Massachusetts political campaigns, sponsoring a national 48-hour law. I can remember Henry Cabot Lodge and he seems to be a figure of the distant past as we think about him today-campaigning in 1920 or 1922 and saying that when he went back to the Senate he was going to advocate a constitutional amendment to permit a 48-hour law.

Massachusetts was the only State that had adopted progressive legislation. We had dropped from 60 hours to 54 hours, before any other State, and then we dropped from 54 hours to 48 hours, applying it not merely to women and children, but to men as well.

We had a law on our statute books that has been suspended since the N. R. A., but only suspended and not repealed, providing that women and children could not work in a cotton mill after 6 o'clock at night.

We have had a law which required children between 14 and 16, who worked in industry, to attend continuation schools part of each week. We have had a very outstanding-and recognized as an outstanding workmans' compensation law, so far advanced that the legislation this year was perfected to provide that a man who is permanently injured in industry would receive compensation for the remainder of his life.

We have had requirements such as providing first-aid facilities in every factory; requiring the inspection of factories in order that safety might be maintained in industry to the highest degree; laws which prohibited children under 16 and others under 18 working in certain hazardous industries.

All of these things represent laws that every member of this committee would feel were desirable laws in his State, no matter what section of the country he comes from; and yet they have not been enacted into law in the various States only because men and women,

particularly those representing manufacturers, have constantly stood up in legislative bodies and said:

We do not want this in our State

whatever that State may be

because anything that is going to add to the cost of production of goods should not be tolerated here; because once it is put upon our statute books, we are going to be in an unfavorale situation in competition with other States.

Massachusetts has been the pioneer and has suffered because of it. We know from our experience with this 48-hour law that I have spoken of, and the agitation for a national 48-hour law, that until Federal regulation is adopted we are never going to see anything accomplished that will put every other State upon a basis comparable with ours.

Now, I got away for a moment from the arguments that were advanced as to the reason for this decline in the industry.

Principally they said that these laws, that I have now enumerated, have prevented us from competing with other States, particularly in the South, where they are able to run their spindles, employing men and women, on two 55-hour shifts a week, whereas here in Massachusetts we can only operate 48 hours and one shift. Then the N. R. A. came in and there was the greatest of enthusiasm on the part of manufacturers and employees alike. It was the first ray of hope that had come to that industry, especially in the distressed sections.

We had comparable working hours. In justice to these representatives of labor who are here, I must say that they cooperated to the highest degree in agreeing to the suspension, for the purposes of the N.R. A., of this law prohibiting women from workig after 6 o'clock and permitting them, during the suspension, to work until 10 o'clock at night. I think that extension will have to come up again this year in the legislature. I think it expires in April or May.

Our factories, for the first time in years, began running at capacity and our operatives began to get full pay envelopes after the N. R. A. had come in. Then, after the months gave greater experience with these new conditions, we found, about a year ago, four problems confronting the industry. It was admitted that the N. R. A. had been a good thing.

I am not speaking for the N. R. A. in any other industry in the country. But I know that it was a great boon to the textile industry. There may be others representing States that are inhabited by industries of widely differing nature than this. But certainly I have not heard any one suggest that it was not a commendable thing for this principal industry of Massachusetts.

There were faults with it, however; not in the system itself, but in some of its rulings and the mandates of some of its authorities. When we came down here a year ago, there was not any difference of opinion between employer and employee then. Those of us who were State officials received the cooperation of men and women of every walk of life in this industry.

It was admitted that these four things were problems that the Federal Government might well consider in trying to bring a solution to the problems of the industry.

First. Overproduction of goods. It was suggested that through the features of the N. R. A. that overproduction could be curbed. I think

you will agree with me that that was an admission that only through the N. R. A. and only through the instrumentality of some Federal official was that overproduction going to be curbed. It was an admission that industry itself was not going to control overproduction then during the existence of the N. R. A. any more than it did 6 years ago during the days when I was telling you of the testimony in those tax litigation cases.

Second. They said that there has got to be an elimination of the processing tax. Although no one at any time suggested that the purpose of the processing tax was not a good one for the entire country, if the farmer was to be benefited by it. Manufacturers of Massachusetts and every other section of the country merely said:

We think that this tax should be removed from industry and if the farmer is going to be benefited, he should be benefited from a general tax.

Third. They said there has got to be some control of the wage differential between the North and the South because it has been proven by statisticians that whereas there was a $12 and a $13 basis for the North and the South, the variations in the higher bracketed jobs made the differential $14 and $16.56. So that instead of a $1 differential, there was a differential of $2.56.

Fourth. There was the problem of Japanese competition which had been proven by the amazing statistics that had been compiled in those early days of 1935, which demonstrated that the amount of imports from Japan had increased from 30,000 yards in January of 1934 to 42 million yards in January 1935, and 5,700,000 yards in February of 1935.

Now, with that experience, and with the memory of those arguments that were advanced at that time a year ago, particularly by manufacturers, I cannot see how there should be any difference of opinion here today. I cannot see how the manufacturers, if they are going to oppose this legislation or at least the principle of it, can justify their position of a year ago.

Certainly we acted in good faith in coming down here to Washington and asking the Government to regulate, through the facilities of the N. R. A., this problem of overproduction, because it has been outlined to us by the manufacturers. The same in an effort to correct the differential in wages. The same in reference to the processing tax which was admittedly a great burden upon the textile industry. And, certainly, the manufacturers, themselves, thought sufficiently of Government regulation of a problem of the industry to ask us, and we agreed and agree today, that it would be a good thing to stem the tide of Japanese importations by tariff means or by a quota allowance. Now, the situation has not changed at all and if a year ago there was an agreement for Government regulation in the instances I have mentioned, the reason exists just as strongly today notwithstanding that the N. R. A. is a thing of the past.

We have not got the protection of the N. R. A. now. We have been benefited since the demise of the N. R. A. through a cooperative agreement among the cotton industrialists of the country. I have been told-and I think Mr. Fisher who is here will permit me to quote him, as secretary of the Manufacturers Association-that 90 percent of the cotton mills of the country have agreed to abide by the better provisions of the N. R. A. code; that 10 percent is probably a fair

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