is entirely uncalled for. The 60-hour week and in some cases the 66-hour week is in operation in some of our States. Some of our southern States have regulations, but, as in our northern States, with the exception of the State of Massachusetts, these statutory regulations are not enforced.

We are not here to say that the South is the only offender in so far as the cotton division of our textile industry is concerned. We are here to state emphatically that the States of Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, also are offenders, but not in the same degree that our southern mill operators have carried out their purposes in connection with night work, but in so far as they can.

We have certain regulations in the State of Connecticut prohibiting the employment of women and children after the hour of 10 o'clock p. m. In Rhode Island, which is my own State, we have no such regulation, and when opportunity is given employers they take advantage of it just as do the employers in other parts of the country.

If the present spindlage were accepted as a criterion of the condition of the industry in the cotton division, we have in place to-day approximately 32,000,000 spindles.

The CHAIRMAN. I dislike to interrupt, Mr. McMahon, but for the purpose of the record, I think you probably have some information that the committee would like to have. You speak of the southern cotton mills and the New England mills. It has always been my impression that many of these mills in the South that compete with the New England mills have much longer hours of labor, and many of those southern mills are owned by the same persons that own the northern mills, and these people have simply gone South for the purpose of getting the advantage of the long hours of labor there and not with the idea of benefiting the South. What is your experience. in connection with that point?

Mr. MCMAHON. That is right, Mr. Chairman. I had intended to bring that matter out, and show that the management of the mills in the North and the South is in fact the same management; and the ownerships are in the same hands. What the chairman states. is true. A large percentage of the mills of the South to-day are controlled, if not by New England capital, at least by northern capital, and quite a considerable amount of the stocks and shares of the southern mills have been taken over by the Wall Street crowd of cotton brokers during the last few years. The pitiable condition of our people in the cotton division of the industry-and I might say it here so as to avoid any long statement, that there is a parity between the cotton division of the textile and the woolen and worsted workers and the silk workers. Every advantage has been taken of the workers during the present economic depression and prior thereto. Our industry has been in a very depressed condition since the latter part of 1926.

To go back to the question of spindlage; we have 32,000,000 spindles in place, according to the November statistics of the United States Government. There are 24,350,000 in operation. In May prior to the November of 1932 we had 21,639,000. The increase of 3,000,000 spindles noted in the reports for the two months mentioned was caused by the flury in the market beginning in August, 1932,

and it continued until October, when again the bottom fell out of the market, and no doubt the December and the January Government reports will indicate that the spindlage has again fallen off. One-third of our spindlage is idle. We believe that when the entire spindlage is in operation on a 5-day week and a 6-hour day basis most of the United States would be supplied and that the little less than 7 per cent of our product exported in our palmiest exportation days could be taken care of. It is a fact, according to the reports and from all other authorities, that the home market is protected to the extent that we consume here in the United States 93 per cent of the products of American labor and the 7 per cent is exported or was up to the last two or three years. Of course, all of us know that there has been a complete falling off due to industrial conditions in Europe as well as due to the depreciation of currencies, which means a lack of buying power. Also, we know that a large percentage of this 7 per cent of our products exported was due in great measure to the fact that we exported according to conditions in Europe and Asia between 5,000,000 and 6,000,000 bales of our southern cotton in the raw.

It is our contention, as I have stated, that employers have demonstrated their failure to properly manage their own business; that when agreements between gentlemen have been entered into they have been broken ruthlessly. Among the 80 per cent of the employers who signed that agreement to which I have referred, I happen to know many, and I can say without fear of contradiction that at least 85 per cent of that 80 per cent desire to do the right thing. While we do not agree, naturally, at all times with them, yet in fairness to those men who have been handicapped by the minority in this particular group, I feel it is necessary for the Federal Government to step in and save our industry from absolute ruin.

The CHAIRMAN. Right there, Mr. McMahon, during the last Lawrence strike some interesting experience was gained. You have had a wonderful and valuable experience in your work and you have been through many of those strikes and you know all the suffering and privation that go with them. During the last Lawrence textile strike did not your organization, through Mr. Robert Watt, a representative of the union, go to the mill owners at Lawrence and say, "We want to be absolutely fair about this matter and therefore we ask that you take a poll of all your workers in the mills, both union and nonunion, to determine whether or not they want to take this proposed cut and go back to work," and the mill owners would not agree to allow even the nonunion workers to say in a poll whether they wanted to go back to work? Is that not true?

Mr. MCMAHON. Yes; that is correct. I might add this to your statement: The civic committee of the community involved, which committee included clergymen, bankers, doctors, lawyers, local government officials, and other leaders, was the intermediary in that case and it was through that committee that this proposal was made by our organization to the employers of the Arlington mills and the American Woolen Co.

The CHAIRMEN. I bring that matter up simply to show that labor has been more than fair, going to the extent of allowing the nonunion workers to vote on the question of whether they should take the

proposed cut in wages and go back to work, and the employers would not allow that poll to be taken.

Mr. MCMAHON. Let me give you what has been stated in the Cotton and Wool Reporter comparing conditions in the woolen worsted mills in 1900 and 1932 for the information of this committee, Mr. Chairman. The American Woolen and Cotton Reporter is a trade journal representing the interests of the employers and it is edited by Bennett Bros., of Boston. It is somewhat like the Southern Textile Bulletin, which is edited by David Clark, of Charlotte, N. C. In that report an overseer of weaving in carded woolens states that in 1900 a weaver running one loom, which was then the custom, 90 motions of the loom per minte, so far as the shuttle was concerned, and 60 hours per week, wove a maximum yardage of 250 per week with 36 picks to the inch in these woolen carded goods. In 1932 a weaver operating eight looms, with the exact construction as was in the cloth produced in 1900, produces 2,400 yards per week of 54 hours. This apparently is a statement emanating from my own State of Rhode Island and from a mill controlled by a Senator of the United States, as I believe, but I have no authority for that statement. Anyway, it is taken from a Rhode Island mill, and the figures are in agreement with figures I have in my own office.

In 1932 the difference between the speed of the loom and what it was in 1900 is 30 picks per minute, running 120 picks per minute in 1932. Both of the earnings of those weavers are given.

In 1900 we had about 13,462 weavers in the New England district, who were receiving $10 per week and whose annual combined pay amounted to $7,000,000 plus. In 1932 there were in that district 1,682 weavers producing the same yardage as did the 13,462 weavers in 1900, with this difference: That for the exact production in 1932 the weavers in that year received only $2,623,920, or a loss over 1900 of about $4,500,000, which means a loss to the community by reason of the decreased purchasing power of the workers. Think of it! There was a displacement of 11,000 weavers and the loss of $4,500,000 in that district, and yet we are told, as was evidenced by the question of the chairman, that necessity to-day compels still further reductions, and within the last two weeks the American Woolen Co. placed a reduction of wages on all office help and other employees earning as much as $18 per week or more. Now, they have already in motion a proposal to further reduce the wages of those receiving less than $18 and employed as workers or producers in the mills. The exact counterpart of the cotton, with a proportion greater in so far as the weaver is concerned in the cotton mill. We are not weaving to-day by the yard. We are producing by the mile; and in 1900, when an ordinary weaver of good skill was running 6 to 8 looms and operating 60 hours per week he earned eight or nine dollars a week. To-day throughout the United States, whether in Maine, Rhode Island, or Connecticut, or the Southern States, without calling the names of those geographical bodies, the earning power of our workers is reduced, although they produced 900 per cent more in 1932 than they produced in 1900.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the average wage?

Mr. MCMAHON. Taking the entire Southern States-and I should like to do that, if you please the average wage is about $11.65 a week of 55 hours.

The CHAIRMAN. You mentioned Maine, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Hampshire, but you omitted the State of Massachusetts. What are the conditions in the State of Massachusetts?

Mr. MCMAHON. Conditions in the State of Massachusetts, at least some centers of it, are on a par with the States bordering that State, because of the preponderance of what is occurring in the other States by way of deflating wages. Naturally, wages have been seriously deflated.

The CHAIRMAN. They might be ordinarily a little higher?
Mr. MCMAHON. Ordinarily so; yes.

The CHAIRMAN. But not very much?

Mr. MCMAHON. Not very much. In the city of Fall River and the city of New Bedford, two of the greatest centers we have on this continent, the wages in those two cities, if we find mills operating 52 weeks a year, which will be a hard thing to find anywhere, North or South, I think the normal 52-hour week carries with it an average wage of $16.50, and I am not including what my colleague will tell you about a condition existing in Massachusetts, and he is better qualified to tell you the conditions in Massachusetts than I am, because he comes from that State.

The CHAIRMAN. The average is about $16 a week, and the mills at Lawrence wanted to give the workers another cut of 10 per cent? Mr. MCMAHON. That is the woolen industry.

The CHAIRMAN. The Pacific mills deal with cotton, do they not? Mr. MCMAHON. Cotton and worsted goods. There is no weaving of cotton in the Pacific mills. They have moved part of their machinery to the State of South Carolina, just outside of Columbia, I believe, due to the labor conditions in South Carolina and their control, particularly of community governments.

The CHAIRMAN. You gave us round figures concerning the operation of looms, telling us about the yardage produced. What is the average difference in the tending of looms between 1900 and 1932. How many looms did one man handle in 1900 and how many does one man handle now?

Mr. MCMAHON. That depends on whether it is six or eight. That was the general number operated by weavers. It depended then, as now, upon the construction of the cloth, its width and weight, and the number of threads entering into the construction of the fabric. We have probably two or three hundred different constructions in the cotton division alone, probably more. These differences in construction tend to regulate the number of looms to the weaver; but if we go to a 64-60 plant we can readily answer, and, judging from those 38.5 inches wide and 535/100 yards to the pound, carded goods, each weaver is operating 36 looms to-day. And he is producing, because of the increased speed of the loom, three cuts of 60 yards each per loom, whereas it was two in 1900.

The maximum wage of the worker to-day, in comparison with the wage of 1900, is 3.65 greater on an average than it was.

The CHAIRMAN. Are most of your workers engaged on a piece-pay basis?

Mr. MCMAHON. All of our workers are engaged in piecework, practically speaking.

The CHAIRMAN. Is it true that when the loom stops for any reason, such as the breaking of thread, during the time the loom is not in operation its operator gets no pay?

Mr. MCMAHON. That is true; but we have an allowance by way of a per day pay granted by some mills when there is a breakage and the weaver himself does the mending.

The CHAIRMAN. I want to ask you this question because I know you are very conversant with this whole subject, having for years done constructive and intelligent work in fighting for the textile workers of the United States, and you are still doing it. The mills at Lawrence, Lowell, New Bedford, Fall River, and elsewhere, were very much overcapitalized, carried much watered stock in times of prosperity, and wages were down just the same. Now, when a depression comes upon us, instead of taking that out of the people who made millions in better days, the stockholders and directors, the only remedy they seem to have is to cut wages farther. Is that correct?

Mr. MCMAHON. Yes. I am glad you brought that out. Owing to a decision of the United States Supreme Court in 1922 or 1923 stock dividends were declared nontaxable and there arose out of the fog millions of certificates representing dollars and declarations of stock dividends started and they have been going on unceasingly for several years. For instance, in one woolen mill in the State of Massachusetts a stock dividend was declared immediately following the decision of the court of 3223.3 per cent, and the ordinary stock dividend of 100 per cent has been duplicated by many employers several times. One Rhode Island concern, capitalized at $9,000,000, owning large mills in South Carolina also, entered an agreement with the Manville company and declared a $19,500,000 capitalization, and some time during August, 1924, this $19,500,000 capitalization was changed without the replacement of one spindle or loom to $39,500,000. Mr. RAMSPECK. By the stock-dividend route?

Mr. MCMAHON. By the stock-dividend route. The curse of the whole thing is that the capitalization has been retained, and such trade journals as represent our friends, the employers, come out and say that those values are only in accord with community values, and that because for many years employers had just merely placed a certain capital-stock value upon their buildings and investment was no reason why they should not increase the capitalization.

As a matter of fact, if our employers could only agree upon some policy or plan, which they apparently can not do, and regulate the matter of capitalization, they themselves would have less of the socalled deficits and reports in red annually.

The CHAIRMAN. Is it your experience that the workers of these cities of New England, and I suppose the same thing applies to the South, have suffered a great deal by reason of absentee landlordism? Obviously, many of the owners of the New England mills do not live in New England but live, say, in New York. All those concerns have their head offices, I believe, in New York City; and the owners have little or no interest in the communities where they have mills.

Mr. MCMAHON. Unfortunately, that is true. That condition is betoming more and more true in the South to-day. During the last 10