or for the purchase of supplies by the Government, whether manufactured to conform to particular specifications or not.

The question was whether that leaves anything in the bill or not. Mr. HUGHES. I would like to hear from you on that.

Mr. DAVENPORT. I was going to say, bearing in mind what the honorable chairman said the other day, something about this. He said he would like to have the opponents of this bill construe it. He did not turn to our friends upon the other side and say, "What is your construction of it," but " What do the opponents say?" And I have borne in mind always that my friend when he appears here always says that he is no lawyer-that he is a horny-handed son of toil and is not able to construe it. So the lawyers are called upon to explain what that means. Well, my friend Judge McCammon over there represents the Cramps. I do not know whom I do represent, except everybody. I have no doubt he has puzzled over this thing. I have puzzled over it also. I say that nobody in the world can say what that bill means except the Supreme Court of the United States-to what it applies— and they only because they have got the last guess; and to ask us to say what the Supreme Court will say about it is to ask us to guess what the Supreme Court will guess it means. My opinion is-and I will make this prediction, as I am filled with the spirit of prophesying about it that the Supreme Court will say that it does not apply to a battle ship. I have no doubt that Mr. McCammon will say, "I would like to have you guarantee that."

Mr. HUGHES. You mean it does not apply to the battle ships; you mean that a battle ship can be made without reference to this bill? Mr. GILBERT. It is an article that can be bought in the open market? Mr. DAVENPORT. Not only that, but this: Do you gentlemen know the history of this thing; do you know the history of it as it has gotten through the committee? I was amazed, and I adopted this plan of taking the original bill and putting in everything in red ink that has been added.

Mr. HUGHES. I think we have had a bill here showing the additions. Mr. DAVENPORT. And the erasures.

Mr. HUGHES. Yes.

Mr. DAVENPORT. The first thing that is expected is it shall not apply to contracts for transportation by land or water, or for the transmission of intelligence, or for such materials or articles as may usually be bought in open market, whether made to conform to particular specifications or not.

Mr. HUGHES. Do you think that is a battle ship?

Mr. DAVENPORT. You are getting pretty close to a battle ship, but the next is, "or for the purchase of supplies by the Government, whether manufactured to conform to particular specifications or not." Mr. HUGHES. It looks to me like they are both battle ships; I do not know.

Mr. DAVENPORT. Now, just see. thing that is furnished, is it not? is a contract

What is a supply? It is everyA contract to furnish a battle ship

Mr. HUGHES. It is a contract to supply the Government?

Mr. DAVENPORT. With a battle ship, yes; and if I mistake not, Judge McCammon, when I was up there with you when they awarded those bids, the proposition was, "We will furnish the Government

with a battle ship," of a certain size, certain dimensions, etc., for so much money.

Mr. MCCAMMON. Just one word, Mr. Chairman. You and members. of the committee will recall the fact that in the British Parliament appropriation bills are called "supply bills;" and therefore in legislative parlance you would say that supplies cover all manner of appropriations for articles to be used by the Government.

Mr. DAVENPORT. Yes; but there is another thing you can not forget, gentlemen. I suppose even our Socialistic friends would admit that is in derogation of the right of the individual-that it is an act in derogation of it. Therefore, such a construction is put upon laws by the courts that they infringe as little as possible with such a principle. Therefore our distinguished judge in the Supreme Court, when he looks through this, will say: "What were they driving at here? They are excepting every possible form of article. It must be that they had in mind only two things." And that is what I think. As I said, it will come to that. I think it will be held to apply only to the things that the act of 1892 apply to.

Mr. SPALDING. Only our Socialistic friends do not admit that there are any rights except statutory rights, do they?

Mr. DAVENPORT. No. Were it not that I want to hear, before 1 return to the land of steady habits, what my friend has to say, I would like to talk a little about that. I know that a man can get his head addled on this as easy as can be. But, right here, What will the Supreme Court of the United States say this bill relates to?

There is on the statute books this bill:

That the service and employment of all laborers and mechanics who are now, or who may hereafter be, employed by the Government of the United States, by the District of Columbia, or by any contractor or subcontractor, upon any of the public works of the United States or of the said District, is hereby limited and restricted to eight hours in any one calendar day, and it shall be unlawful for any officer of the United States Government or the District of Columbia, or any such contractor or subcontractor, whose duty it shall be to employ or direct or control the services of such laborers or mechanics; to require or permit any such laborer or mechanic to work more than eight hours in any calendar day, except in cases of extraordinary

emergency.

Now, when you take that law and you take this law together and you see what is excepted from it, this is what the court will say. They intended to add to this criminal penalty the further liability upon the part of the contractor and the subcontractor on these works, that class of work, a pecuniary penalty. Not satisfied with making the man responsible for his own acts if he intentionally violated it criminally, whether he be the contractor or subcontractor, their intent was to add to that a liability. That liability is the liability to pay, whether they have done it intentionally or not; and whether the subcontractor has done it intentionally or not, they want to impose that liability upon that original contractor relating to that kind of work.

Now, then, the question is, What does that relate to? Well, I say that I guess that it does not relate to building a battle ship, but if the Maine or any other ship was brought to Cramp's shipyard, and Cramp undertook the job to repair her, that would be work-because that is now the property of the Government-done upon a public work; it would apply to the building of light-houses and to the building of Federal buildings. It would apply to contracts for dredging and all those

things, as I guess it would be interpreted. It relates only to what is now covered by the act of 1892, and adds to that that powerful further responsibility. Of course, there are a great many suggestions that could be made along that line. Now, there are objections to that construction, but there are fewer objections to that construction than there are to any other.

But I ask you, as men of common sense and as lawyers, Will you go before the Congress, will you go before the people of the United States. upon a bill which contradicts and contravenes every element of good be hounded for what they have done for this country, in the name of statute making? If you are going for the Cramps-if they deserve to labor and for the sake of labor-if they must be hounded, put them in; say that we want this to relate to battle ships and one thing and another, and do not leave it where no man can understand it.

But there is more about this-but I remember, too, that I am cautioned about the time, and I remember that the hour is approaching when Mr. Gompers must sail.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. You have three minutes more.

Mr. DAVENPORT. Did you ever read this report by Mr. McComas? I suppose Mr. Gompers is responsible for the bill in its original form. He put in there this provision:

Whether the violation of the provisions of such contract is by the contractor, his agents or employees, or any subcontractor, his agents or employees.

Well, that provision shocked the gentleman over there, and he struck out the provision making them responsible for the agents and the employees, and I want to call your attention to what he says on that subject. He has some observations to make.

(Mr. Davenport read from the report of Senator McComas, Fiftyseventh Congress, second session, on the eight-hour law bill, to accompany resolution 307, as follows:)

It is a serious objection to the House bill that severe penalties are imposed for the acts and omissions of "employees and agents.' Such acts and omissions may be unknown to the principals, unauthorized, or forbidden by them.

We take a case here. Mr. Cramp is securing himself against this thing by contract and by bonds [reading]:

If the contractor or subcontractor directs such acts or omissions or ratifies them, then such are the acts of the contractor or subcontractor. If agents or employees habitually so act or omit, their knowledge will be imputed and the ratification of such acts or omissions be proven by such circumstances.

These are, then, the willful acts of the contractor or subcontractor, and not of their agents or employees. It is the contractor or subcontractor who is to be made liable and for knowingly violating this law if it be enacted.

Your committee have amended the bill to make these proper parties liable. As the bill reads, these parties would have been liable to pay a penalty for acts of agents or employees, even if the party mulcted had forbidden such act. This, of course, would have been invalid and unjust. As amended, the guilty contractors can not escape; the innocent can not suffer.

Mr. DAVENPORT (continuing). Think of it! You take out the provision because of its injustice and because of its invalidity that makes him liable for the acts of his agents, whom he can discharge in a moment, and at the same time you retain in the bill the responsibility for the acts of the contractor over whom he has no control and against whose acts he has endeavored in every way to protect himself.

And yet such stuff is put in a report from the Senate committee.

There is lots more that could be said, but I thank you for listening to me this long.

Mr. CALDWELL. Allow me to ask you one question. Would you desire this committee to send a committee or a subcommittee to the Baldwin Locomotive Works or to Cramps to investigate this sentiment among the employees?

Mr. DAVENPORT. No; I do not think it would be a sensible thing to do, because it would take you forever. But I think if you do not believe what I say in regard to it, I think you are running the risk of making a mistake on a highly important fact. I do not know anybody that is more concerned in it than you gentlemen are.

Mr. HEARST. Mr. Davenport, not as a lawyer, but as an employer, and referring back to your remarks about the necessity of liberty of action on the part of the employer, how do you think the eight-hour workday interferes with that? All my people are employed under the eight-hour system

Mr. DAVENPORT. Voluntarily.

Mr. HEARST. And it does not interfere.

Mr. DAVENPORT. You might employ a man eight hours or six hours or any other number, but my general statement is this: I do not care what form you take, whether you attempt to do it by act of law or whether you attempt to do it by agreement, anything that weakens the control of the employer over the work, which divides that relation, that fundamental relation, is bound, in the end, whether it is collective bargaining or whatever it is somebody has to be bossed and somebody has to give the orders. Now, then, if it is important to you as an employer that you have, to properly conduct your business, to run it more than eight hours a day, for the law to step in and interfere is to strike a blow at that fundamental principle.

Mr. HEARST. I run my business twenty-four hours a day, but as to the individual workman I only employ him eight hours.

Mr. DAVENPORT. I consider you very fortunate if you are able to arrange your business in that way. The universal testimony, so far as I was able to gather it from employers, was the other way.

Mr. HUGHES. Do you find that it interferes with your control of your men?

Mr. HEARST. Not at all, nor does it interfere with any of the things suggested here; it does not interfere with my unrestrained action. I can conduct a newspaper and publish it

Mr. DAVENPORT. But it is idle to dispute that if your business, the control over it, is interfered with either by associations or by law you are not free.

Mr. HUGHES. This is not an association; this is a law.

Mr. DAVENPORT. That is ten thousand times worse, because associations will go to pieces; but when you put the great engine of the United States Government in this thing-

Mr. HUGHES. Just there, does not the great engine of the State of New York, or the great engine of the State of Connecticut step into every manufacturing establishment and say these things you shall not do?

Mr. DAVENPORT. They certainly do, and properly, often.

Mr. HUGHES. It is just the test whether this thing is proper or not. Mr. DAVENPORT. And of course I do not deny the right of the State in the exercise of its police power to do a great many things, and I

think that many things they have done have been advisable, and a great many things they have done are inadvisable; but this talk will go on indefinitely.

I want to call the attention of the committee before I conclude to a sort of diary of points which I collected in talking with employers. The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Let the stenographer have it, or you can put it in at some future hearing.

STATEMENT OF MR. SAMUEL GOMPERS, PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR.

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, at the outset I desire to thank you for the courtesy in giving me a few minutes to submit a few remarks in response to the statements and argument made by Mr. Davenport. It was not my good fortune to be able to be here when he opened his remarks, but I am advised that he read off a list of names of persons and organizations who are Socialists, and who are standing behind this bill, and that he, both by direct statement and by insinuation, endeavored to convey to the committee the notion that the whole proposition is of a socialistic character and that the Socialists, whoever they are, are behind this bill trying to push it to a passage.

It may not be uninteresting to say, first, that for more than fifteen years the subject-matter of committing the American labor movement to socialism has been rejected and that at no time so overwhelmingly rejected as at the last meeting of the American Federation of Labor, held in Boston in November of last year. I might say, further, in refutation of the insinuation he made, that if the Socialists had their way they would not be pressing this bill; that the bill would not even be pressed to your attention.

Whether intentionally or otherwise, as a matter of fact it is such as Mr. Davenport who creates socialism.

Mr. DAVENPORT. I merely read the declaration of the principles of the several unions, taken from the Industrial Commission's report. But is it not true, Mr. Gompers, that the action of the American Federation of Labor last November was simply that they would not take this thing into politics and have a socialistic labor party, and that the doctrines that underlie the several organizations are not condemned by the American Federation of Labor in convention assembled?

Mr. GOMPERS. The convention of the American Federation of Labor did not condemn the constitution of any organization, any more than it would condemn the absurdity of any individual. We do not think that we are called upon to do that.

The several propositions aiming to commit the American Federation of Labor, politically or otherwise, were reported upon unfavorably and the unfavorable report was overwhelmingly adopted, despite the misrepresentations of the manufacturers' associations and their representatives and the private employers' association and their attorneys.

During the hearing last week, or the discussion as to setting the time for hearings, one of the honorable members of the committee took occasion to say that he had read the reports of the last few Congresses, and they were considerably made up of criminations and recriminations. I entirely agree with that criticism, but I submit that if we, as the representatives of organized labor, the advocates of this bill, are compelled to sit here and listen to our associates and our friends.