believed. If you were to meet those men to whom I refer, on the street, on the streets of Fort Worth, Tulsa, Dallas, Amarillo, or any of these other cities, they would look like any other prosperous business men. They still manage to retain some of the clothes they bought when they could buy them, and they have the appearance of successful men, but they are absolutely without means of support. What are you going to do with them? Are you going to turn them into the bread lines?

There is nothing this Congress can do, of course, to immediately ameliorate those conditions. While on that subject I want to say that just before I left Midland, Tex., the last issue of the paper published there stated that the chamber of commerce, a relief organization, had announced that wages would be reduced on public work to 15 cents an hour; that single men would be given no employment unless they had been in the community at least one year, nor a married man either; that the limit of employment to a family would be $3.60 per week. I have a copy of that paper at the hotel, and it is typical of what is going on. Two months ago the wages were 30 cents an hour, and when you, Senator Black, suggested hours were being increased and wages lowered in many industries, you were absolutely within the facts. That is being done. We used to pay from $8 to $12 for tool dressers and drillers in the oil business. Many of them are working to-day for $2 a day, and just as long hours as they did 30 years ago. It is true they generally work up some kind of an arrangement where they promise them something in addition if the well happens to be a success, or something like that, but in practice they do not get anything out of it. Those men are so desperately unemployed they must take whatever is offered to them, and they are considered lucky to get it.

There is just one thing more I want to say, and then I will quit. I was impressed by the statement of Mr. Emery that the proposed added scale of wages on the railroads would run $650,000,000 a year if your 6-hour law was put into effect. I want to say in all candor and most thorough seriousness that that would be the best thing that could happen to the railroads. If they could add $650,000,000 to their pay roll, it would mean they would have something to haul, which they have not got now. There is not any answer to this problem except an increased wage and better living conditions for the average citizen of the United States. We have got the goods in superabundance. We have got the raw material to meet every requirement that the imagination can conceive. Surely you can not answer it by stinting those things, but rather by increasing their use. If there were $650,000,000 being paid to the railroad workers, of course there would be corresponding increases paid in other industries.

The gentleman who preceded me spoke about the statements of the banks, whether it is the National City of New York, the Chase National Bank, or the local bank out in my home town of Midland, money is lying idle. There are billions of it in the United States. They can not loan it to anybody because they do not know who is going to be able to repay it, and the reason that I am strongly for the enactment of this bill is that it will be one definite and clear and simple step in the right direction.

I thank you, gentlemen.

(Whereupon, at 3.45 o'clock p. m., the hearing was recessed until 10 o'clock Wednesday, January 18, 1933.)

THIRTY-HOUR WORK WEEK

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 18, 1933

UNITED STATES SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, Washington, D. C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to adjournment, at 10 o'clock a. m., in the committee room, Capitol, Senator George W. Norris (chairman) presiding.

Present: Senators Norris (chairman), Robinson of Indiana, and Black.

The CHAIRMAN. We will hear you, Mr. Thom.

STATEMENT OF ALFRED P. THOM, GENERAL COUNSEL ASSOCIATION OF RAILWAY EXECUTIVES, WASHINGTON, D. C.

Mг. THOм. My name is Alfred T. Thom. I am general counsel of the Association of Railway Executives, and appear here in opposition to the bill now under consideration.

I do not believe, Mr. Chairman, it will be necessary for me to take much of the committee's time. At the outset I wish to say that I believe that the proposed bill is clearly unconstitutional. I do not think that it will be necessary for me to make an elaborate argument on that question. I heard this morning that an argument has already been made before the committee in respect to it. I wish, however, to refer to the case of Hammer v. Dagenhart (247 U. S. 251) and to the case of Bailey v. Drexel Furniture Co. (259 U. S. 20). These cases seem to me to be clearly in point and to cover the question involved in this bill. I assume that the committee is very well acquainted with those cases, and it has been presented here before, and I am merely presenting those cases here now so as to indicate my own position in respect to the constitutionality of this proposed legislation.

Passing from that point, we come to the terms of the bill itself. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Thom, before you leave that point, of course the committee has had their attention called to those cases and we are more or less familiar with them. Nevertheless, I think the committee realizes, at least I do, that they refer to a very important question involved in this legislation and I do not want to ask you to go into anything at any length, but we would be glad to have you discuss the constitutionality and to get your viewpoint just as fully as you want to set it forth.

Mr. THOM. There is very little I can add to the cases which have been decided.

The CHAIRMAN. Of course I am not urging you to go on.

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Mг. THOм. They seem to me to be directly in point.

The CHAIRMAN. I do not want to pass over it with the idea that it is not important, because I feel it is a very important point in this legislation.

Mr. THOм. The first of these cases presents to me the exact point that is involved in this case. It forbids transportation in interstate commerce of the products of child labor, and there the court elaborated in that case, considered the distinction between the regulation of the products of a harmless article and the power of Congress to forbid the transportation of them in interstate commerce, and discusses the question with elaboration to show how much the court had in its mind this very question. I will read from page 273 of the Hammer against Dagenhart case.

Senator BLACK. That is the majority opinion?

Mr. THOM. Yes; the majority opinion.

There is no power vested in Congress to require the States to exercise their police power so as to prevent possible unfair competition. Many causes may Cooperate to give one State, by reason of local laws or conditions, an economic advantage over others. The commerce clause was not intended to give the Congress a general authority to equalize such conditions. In some of the States hows have been passed fixing minimum wages for women, in others the local law regolates the hours of labor of women in various employments. Business done sach States may be at an economic disadvantage when compared with States walça have no such regulation; surely this fact does not give Congress the power to deny transportation in interstate commerce to those who carry on business wage be hours of labor and rate of compensation for women have not been od 2x a standard in use in other States and approved by Congress.

tead that merely for the purpose of indicating that the court had and the regulation of the hours of service. Senator Black has ched to the fact that this is the majority opinion from which I Love ce reading. There were four dissents. The justices diswag were Holmes, Brandeis, McKenna, and Clark. The question we considered in the case of Bailey v. Drexel Furniture Comt S 20). In that case all the judges that dissented sat, egy, Mocnes, McKenna, Brandeis, and Clark, and when it came que con of dissent in that case, only one of the justices dised, whereas in the previous case four dissented.

ར

kex What was the question involved in the latter case? ow the right to tax child labor.

That was not under the interstate commerce

Nat was not under the interstate commerce clause, g power, and the power of Congress. This case Dagenhart was referred to and approved in that

Now, Mr. Thom, a very important point has been Kack referred to it yesterday in his questioning, at there might be considerable in it. Do you which the country now is, a condition Seme Court would take judicial notice of,

genhart case they really decided Congress cle in interstate commerce unless the rogatory to public health or public

Mr. THом. The product?

The CHAIRMAN. The product.

Mr. THOм. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. Now, assuming that the Supreme Court would take notice of the present condition the country is in, and assuming that they would be of the opinion that the condition of the country was desperate, just like war, and probably some people think worse, that they would say that products manufactured by those who had worked more than six hours, on account of the condition of the country, and because it is necessary, if we assume that something must be done to give employment to the unemployed, that if we did not do it it was liable to mean the destruction of our Government itself, that they would say that while the article itself being transported in interstate commerce has no inherent objections in it, the fact that it was produced and its production and circulation in interstate commerce would have a tendency to prevent the dire disaster of the destruction of the Government, that they would attribute to the article then an evil effect that they would not under any ordinary circumstance.

I do not know if I have made myself plain.

Mг. THOм. You have made yourself entirely clear, Senator.

I do not think that the appreciation by the Supreme Court of a national emergency such as you describe would persuade that court. or any other court, in my judgment, to break down the line of demarcation between the authority of the State and the authority of the United States. We must realize that even if all the things that you have referred to, Mr. Chairman, exist now, and are important in our national life, there is a remedy for them under our system of government. The States still have power to deal with that question, and if it is of such exigent nature as your question indicates, the place to go is the legislatures of the various States, in the exercise of their police power, and this exigency should not, and I do not believe would be permitted to break down the power of the States and to justify the interference with them of the Federal power. The line is very clearly marked out in these decisions between the authority of the States to deal with the question and the authority of the United States.

The power of the United States is found in the commerce power. It is held after much deliberation that the manufacture of these articles does not fall within the commerce power, but limits the regulation of it with the States. The States may regulate the hours of labor. They may regulate other matters connected with production, and the fact that they do not, would not in my judgment, justify the Federal court in overstepping its power and interfering with the just authority of the States.

The CHAIRMAN. Would not the Supreme Court say that this other matter that you have suggested, while it is perfectly proper and everybody would concede the States do have that authority, if they wanted a practical result, they could not get it that way, because there are 48 States, and everybody would realize it would be a physical impossibility to get them all to agree to the same legislation that would prohibit the working of men more than six hours? Even if one State held out, it would have put all the other States at a disadvantage,.