now actually, or hope to be, contractors of the Government, and they feel very deeply interested in the measures proposed.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the association besides the Builders' Exchange?

Mr. EMERY. The Builders' Exchange of Baltimore and the Merchants and Manufacturers' Association of Baltimore. We desire to show you, Mr. Chairman, the practical working of the stipulations that will be required in the Government contracts under the proposed bill, and their absolute impracticability, as well as some of the dangers of the policy proposed by this measure. I should like to present Mr. I. H. Scates, the secretary of the delegation, who will present the witnesses to you. They have a great number of witnesses, and for the purpose of taking no more of your time than is necessary to present the evidence they appear to present it from those who have the largest experience.

STATEMENT OF MR. I. H. SCATES, SECRETARY OF THE BUILDERS' EXCHANGE, OF BALTIMORE, MD.

Mr. SCATES. Mr. Chairman, representing the Builders' Exchange as secretary of that organization, and as spokesman for the Merchants and Manufacturers' Association, I do not care to take up the time of the committee by any remarks of mine, but, as Mr. Emery has stated, I do desire to present to you gentlemen who, in their line, are practical, and who can answer questions and present the facts of the case as they see them regarding this bill. The employing capacity of these two organizations is great. The individual employing capacity of our membership is large in many instances. Many of our members who are unfortunate enough not to be able to be present to-day, have been contractors on Government work. They feel the hardship that will be worked upon them.

I now beg to present to the committee the first speaker, Dr. D. H. Carroll, president of the Merchants and Manufacturers' Association. STATEMENT OF DR. D. H. CARROLL, PRESIDENT OF THE MERCHANTS AND MANUFACTURERS' ASSOCIATION, OF BALTIMORE, MD.

Mr. CARROLL. I represent a large corporation, the Consolidated Cotton Duck Company, possessing and owning 20 separate mills and employing about seven or eight thousand operatives.

have been introduced as the president of the Merchants and Manufacturers' Association. That association represents 1,100 menmerchants, manufacturers, and financiers, the brightest and most capable, most energetic and progressive men of the city of Baltimore. They have raised a committee, a small committee, to appear before you and state their most enthusiastic antagonism, their most hearty, unalterable, undying hostility to the bill which is under consideration by you here. I shall not detain you with statistics; I can only wish to say that we are involved in this matter as manufacturers more particularly than as merchants; we are involved in this matter to the extent of millions of dollars. This association represents hundreds of firms and millions of dollars and many thousands of laboring men, and we wish to be understood, as I have just stated, as being

opposed to this bill for various reasons. Speaking, now, as a manufacturer, I would say that it would seem to us that this legislation proposes to hamper the Government; it certainly must result in that. It also must injure, and perhaps ruin, manufacturing, if it goes into effect. The Government is a purchaser, and I can not take any other view of this movement, of this bill, of this proposed legislation, than that the Government is going to be forced either to go out of business or to pay an exorbitant price for the supplies which it must have. It is hardly to be thought that the Government wishes to revolutionize the business, and I can hardly see that there is any solid ground on which the parties pressing this bill, and forcing it--for I will use that word, for it has been held here for years for action on the part of Congress-to justify this, unless it is a desire to revolutionize, overturn, and recklessly disregard the results of such legislation.

I speak as a manufacturer of cotton duck. We have great relations with the Government. I do not believe that the Government would get its supplies of cotton duck if we did not make it for them. I do not mean to say we make all, but there is so great a demand that even we, with all our mills, have not been able to meet the demand heretofore. Although the work we are doing is largely for the Government, we can not keep up with the demand of the Government; and I assure you, gentlemen, that this corporation is not going on an eight-hour basis, and this corporation is not going to take any contracts from the Government, if the Government says that it must be all made and guaranteed to be made under a rule or a law such as you are considering here. What we would say for ourselves, and as we would look at it ourselves, I think would be the same as others would say and would view it. It is impracticable, it is impossible, gentlemen, to make goods in a cotton mill, a part of which will go to the Government under an eight-hour law, and another part of which will meet the demands of the country, competing with those mills which are not in Government business, for many mills do not contract with the Government; their capacity is not sufficient to enable them to furnish the supplies promptly and regularlyI speak of cotton mills-and they keep out of that business, and it would be impossible, even if they wished to go into the business, at times to distinguish between the product, the material that goes into the Government business, and the material that goes into trade over the country or throughout the world. They must go on the eighthour basis or they must give up Government business, and I assert it and believe it, and I emphasize it, as a matter of course, that they will give up the Government business. It is not particularly nice business, anyway: I mean by that, the Government has a right to have things done nicely and well, and many of the mills can not meet the requirements without trouble, and it would not require. a great deal for them to go out of this business. If it is the policy of the legislature, if the Congress of the United States finds it is in its province, that it has a high and noble sphere to embarrass the Government and destroy the operations of the Government, you are certainly pursuing an excellent course to accomplish that result. It is not right, Mr. Chairman, to do by indirection what you can not do openly. It has been asserted, and we think it looks very plausible, that the purpose is to force the business of the country on an eighthour basis. We do hope that the committee will not be led to take

such disastrous and drastic action as would force the private business to do what they would not do otherwise than under the action of Congress. It is not right to act as grandfather and grandmother, or father and mother, to all the people of this country. Do let the people have something to say about their own affairs; do allow the business of the country to be conducted upon a basis outside of Congressional action; let the people in the different States and in the businesses conduct their own affairs without getting into hostility with the Government. I think your good sense and large experience and your patriotism as well would lead you to coincide with this general view of the case. If this bill should pass and we should be compelled to go on an eight-hour basis, what becomes of our commerce, what becomes of our ability to compete with Germany and with other countries?

We have trouble enough with Japan and with China and with the countries which are now in rather better condition than ourselves, and we do need this outlet for trade, and we should not be forced-it would be unjust, it would be unpatriotic, I think it would be disastrous to the country, to the commerce of the country and to the well-being of the country-if we should be forced by Congressional action to go on a basis which could not be maintained here long in view of the competition of the country. If the Congress of the United States controlled all nations and we wanted to fix on a reasonable number of hours to work it would then be fair for one and fair for the other. We must take care of our own interests, and you will take care of our interests, I know. The commerce and manufactures of this country must be dear to you and I can not believe individually, and I can not believe speaking as a representative of this association, that this committee would ever favor the drastic, the disastrous, and revolutionary principles that lie under as a basis of this movement.

I would like to say further that we have here some representatives of the Merchants and Manufacturers' Association, and I would be glad indeed if Mr. Matthai, who is the chairman of the committee on manufacturers of the Merchants and Manufacturers' Association, would follow these words of mine with a few remarks.

Mr. PAYSON. I would like to ask the gentleman a question.

Mr. CARROLL. I would be glad to answer any questions that I could. Mr. PAYSON. What are the hours of labor, as a rule, in the manufacturing establishments with which you are connected or in which you are interested?

Mr. CARROLL. Ten hours. There are mills scattered all over the country, and in the South it is a little more than ten-ten and a half or eleven-but I think they are getting down to the ten-hour basis.

Mr. PAYSON. No one of them as long as ten hours a day as a unit? Mr. CARROLL. No, sir.

Mr. PAYSON. What are the personal relations between you as an employer and those with you as employers and your employees, as to their being amicable, taking into account the hours of labor and the wages which you pay? Is there any friction on either of those questions to-day?

Mr. CARROLL. Not on any of them, neither between the employers, as related to the employees, or the employees as related to the employers. We have no strikes; we have not had any strikes in our mills, and we have no antagonism, no open antagonism.

Mr. PAYSON. In a word, the condition is one of satisfaction between employer and employees?

Mr. CARROLL. It is.

Mr. PAYSON. In all the interests in which you are interested?

Mr. CARROLL. It is, yes, sir; very positively so. The trouble is that we can not get hours enough.

Mr. PAYSON. I will ask you one other question that occurs to me, because it has been a common theme of inquiry in this investigation. Have you such a thing in any of your mills as overtime work? Mr. CARROLL. Very rarely.

Mr. PAYSON. That is all, then; I do not care for any exceptions. Mr. CARROLL. In the Spanish war, of course, we ran then, though there are laws generally covering children and women, and in some instances, men, though in Maryland, I think, there is no law governing their time.

Mr. EMERY. I ask in conclusion, in view of what you have stated to the committee, as Government contractors, in the large concern with which you are connected, would you continue to supply the Government with your product under the conditions fixed by this contract?

Mr. CARROLL. It would be impossible for us to take any contract, if the goods are to be made and produced under an eight-hour lawabsolutely impossible-and I do not think, Mr. Chairman, if I may be allowed to go a little further, that there is a manufacturer of cotton. goods but who would emphatically indorse that statement. The Government trade is not as large as all other trades put together, not by any means as large; it is a large factor, but it is only a factor, and it would be suicidal for the mills to give up the other trade to take Government contracts. The consequence of it is as plain to my mind as that two and two make four, that this bill contemplates putting the Government in a hole, and under any circumstances it contemplates mulcting the Government in damages or losses to a very great If it did not drive it out of business, it would certainly put it to an enormously increased expense. For instance, take our mills; I do not believe that the Government could get half its supplies from all the country combined if our mills were not supplying it on Government contracts, and that shows that there is not a surplus of making; the opportunity of getting would be so reduced that it would be the most serious legislation, and it would appear to me that it is asking Congress to take action that proposes to embarrass instead of promote the general interests of the General Government.

STATEMENT OF MR. WILLIAM H. MATTHAI.

Mr. MATTHAI. Mr. Chairman, as Doctor Carroll has stated, we represent a very large volume of capital and labor employed in the city of Baltimore. I am also secretary of the National Enameling and Stamping Company, which has eight branches in the country. We have one at St. Louis, one at Milwaukee, one at Chicago, one at New Orleans, one at Philadelphia, and one at Baltimore. We employ between 7,000 and 8,000 men-hands, including men and women, but mostly menand we have heretofore been manufacturing, to a limited extent, goods that we have supplied to the Government. It is a small proportion of our business, and it goes without saying that if we were forced to

comply with the law as laid down in this bill it would prevent us from making any goods for the Government. The percentage in that line is small, but at the same time it is important to the extent that we do that work, and probably important to them. Another point that Doctor Carroll has referred to is the placing of us in a detrimental position as far as competition is concerned. Our largest competitor at present is the German manufacturer on the enamel line of goods. We are protected by a 40 per cent duty, yet, notwithstanding that, their wares are being largely sold in this country and the importation is on the increase. Of course it would hamper us, particularly so if we were forced by the stepping stone, which will likely be the case, from going from our present hours of labor, which are ten hours a day, to an eight-hour day; it would force us out of a good deal of the market we are now having.

I do not see how it is possible for us to define a part of the bill. I think, among the exceptions of this bill are certain supplies. I do not see how you could separate one from the other. Ours would be in the nature of a supply for the Government and we are excepted, but there may be some doubt as to that. I believe from what I have heard in reference to it that there is a question of just where the supply would begin and where it would end and the nature of this supply and that supply. I therefore think it would be an injustice to the manufacturers-it certainly would be in our line-and I think it would be a decided injustice to the Government, because it would be the means of increasing the cost of all the goods if anyone would prepare to conform to the law as it is stipulated by this bill, and it would be the means of increasing the cost, to a very great extent, of all supplies that are furnished them. I just want to say this, in just a few words, in opposition to the movement. On one occasion I was before a committee of which Senator McComas was chairman, on the same bill, and we entered a protest, and protests were extensive, and I believe well taken, and I hope you will so consider them.

Mr. HASKINS. What kind of goods do you manufacture?

Mr. MATTHAI. We manufacture such goods as what we call hotel cooking utensils, some copper utensils; then we manufacture, to a very large extent, enamel goods, such as the smaller cooking utensils in the enamel line. As a rule, the larger cooking utensils are made out of this heavy material which we call hotel ware.

Mr. EMERY. When made for the Government, are they made under particular specifications?

Mr. MATTHAI. Generally so; the tinware is always made under particular specifications. We had an occasion to supply a request from Jeffersonville during the past year, on which we found that the specifications were so technical and so particular that we experienced a loss of about one-third of the amount of the contract; we had to make the goods over again, very much to our regret.

Mr. HASKINS. How many men do you employ?

Mr. MATTHAI. We have between 7,000 and 8,000; we have a steel plant in connection with our work; we have a steel plant at Granite City, of which Mr. T. K. Niedringhaus is president.

Mr. HAYDEN. What are the relations between the employer and the employees-between you and the employees of your company? Mr. MATTHAI. I do not think we have had a strike. We have been in operation since 1899, and except on one occasion at the steel plant.