Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

Total, 12 hours, minus 14 hours for meals equals 11 hours. On Saturdays close at Week, 62 hours.

2 p. m.

[blocks in formation]

Total, 12 hours, minus 2 hours for meals equals 10 hours. Week, 60 hours for men, 58 hours for women.

[blocks in formation]

Total, 12 hours, minus 2 hours for meals equals 10 hours. Week, 60 hours.

In all of those cases you will find, gentlemen, that in private employment there is practically a ten-hour day, and on inquiry at the German embassy this morning I was assured that there was no governmental regulation as to the hours of labor, even on the public works of the Empire, although there was some individual regulation among the states of the German Empire.

Mr. PAYSON. As to public work?

Mr. EMERY. I said there was no public regulation in the Empire as a whole, but there might be some regulation among the German states on public works, but in no case in private contracts. I was also told by the embassy that the eight-hour day as a standard workday among the German manufacturers was exceptional, not general. Mr. HOLDER. What consul was it that made that report?

Mr. EMERY. I was not able to get his name. I asked the Bureau of Labor for it, and they simply sent me that page. They said the complete report was not obtainable.

Mr. NICHOLLS. What is the date of it?

Mr. EMERY. It is simply dated 1905. I asked for information on the subject and the Bureau of Labor simply sent me these few pages, saying that the document from which these were taken was exhausted.

One additional word, let me say, with respect to the policy of this bill the attempt to get a Government regulation of the hours of

labor, with a view to securing an indirect governmental regulation of the hours of private employment. The experience of legislation upon the industrial relation, the contractual relation, between employer and employee-the experience of history does not justify a belief that the interference of the state secures happy results. It might very properly be said that we prefer to learn by the moral of an experience of our own, but that is an exceedingly costly lesson to learn, and the mere fact that other states, other nations, had regulated the hours of labor would not be a reason why the United States should take upon itself as a Government the establishment of a policy that tended toward not merely the regulation of the hours of labor, but what I want to keep before the members of this committee, the prohibition of the sale of labor beyond a certain specified amount. It is a new doctrine in America that it is within the power of the Government to say in private employment that a man shall sell so much of his private labor and no more, and that that surplus store of his energy shall go into the junk heap of time.

The first great attempt at the regulation of the hours of labor by government followed upon an extraordinary calamity-the great English plague of 1347 or 1348. The supply of laborers was so unequal to the task of meeting the agricultural necessities of the hour, and in response to the operation of the law of supply and demand the wage of labor raised so greatly that the great manor lords of England appealed to the State to secure the labor necessary to operate their vast possessions, and obtained the enactment of the Statute of Laborers, passed, I believe, in 1349, which not only made it compulsory for the agricultural laborer to work within the confines of his parish, but fixed his pay at least within a maximum. That first interference on the part of the State with the contractual right of the employer and employee, done under the pressure of baronial need and under the excuse of great occasion, left an ineradicable mark upon the English statute books and modified all the future relations of the English employer and employee clear up to its repeal in the twenty-third or twenty-fourth year of the Victorian reign

The statute of laborers was modified in Elizabethan time, but the private contractual relations between employer and employee were constantly kept within the grip of the state, and you find from the very beginning of feudal times, traced through Hallam's Constitutional History of the Middle Ages, traced by all our great historians, the constantly dangerous attempt on the part of the state to hold the workingman in subjection through the regulation of his labor contract, that is, with regard to hours and wages, often with regard to his freedom of movement from parish to parish, the state inhibiting his contractual rights, and compelling him to emerge but slowly from feudal conditions that found him in serfdom, until you trace that system of control of the labor contract from feudal control, through guild control to state control, until on the very eve of the French Revolution, the bells of Notre Dame rang out in public celebration of the repeal of the last statutory enactment that stood between the laborer and free contract.

The proponents of this bill have referred to the evolution of industrial relations. But they turn again to the very thing that for eight hundred years labor has striven to overcome, state control of the labor contract, because perchance they believe they are in a position to secure what they imagine would prove to be a beneficial

prohibition of the right to freely dispose of the workingman's only capital-his labor.

That

They come insisting that it is the wish of the laboring men. is the chief possession the laboring man will have taken from him in respect to certain forms of contract, and this innovation once begun, where will it end? If you are asked to exercise the powers of government in the prohibition of the sale of labor and its purchase, to the extent fixed by the terms of this bill, where will it stop? Wise was the judge who called attention to that very danger, and with respect to exactly such legislation, said, on page 214 of the Sixtyseventh Ohio State Reports, referring to a previous decision of the court in which this very question of policy had been discussed.

"Such legislation may invade one class of rights to-day and another to-morrow, and if it can be sanctioned under the Constitution, while far removed in time we will not be far away in practical statesmanship from those ages when governmental prefects supervised the building of houses, the rearing of cattle, the sowing of seed, and the reaping of grain, and governmental ordinances regulated the movements and labor of artisans, the rate of wages, the price of food, the diet and clothing of the people, and a large range of other affairs long since in all civilized lands regarded as outside of governmental functions."

That is the very tendency of the thought behind this legislation, and it is wise statesmanship, gentlemen, that recognizes and prevents the onward movement of dangerous tendencies, not permitting them to reach their goal. We are to beware of just such movements as this, "lest it be recorded as a precedent, and many an error, by the same example, creep into the State." What sound reason of public policy has yet been advanced in all the hearings before these committees for the enactment of legislation of this character that seeks to put the seal of governmental approval upon an attempt to absolutely prohibit the sale of labor with respect to certain objects? If, sir, you can once prohibit the sale or the purchase of a man's labor for Government contracts; if you can once take away from him that which the courts of this country from their earliest day have held a most valuable property right, under some specious plea of benefit, how far could you not go with varying notions of paternalistic statesmanship? Among a free people, in the midst of democratic institutions, we note carefully the growth of innovations or tendencies in directions that seriously affect the fundamental rights of the citizen, which government exists only to protect.

I am greatly obliged to this committee for the patience with which you have listened to me.

(Thereupon, at 4 o'clock p. m., the, committee adjourned until to-morrow, Friday, February 21, 1908, at 2 o'clock p. m.)

SUBCOMMITTEE ON LABOR, No. 1,
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

Friday, February 21, 1908.

The committee met at 2 o'clock p. m., Hon. John J. Gardner (chairman) in the chair.

Mr. DAVENPORT. Mr. Chairman, I am in receipt of a telegram from the president of the Manufacturers' Association of Bridgeport, Conn., as follows:

Hon. DANIEL DAVENPORT:

BRIDGEPORT, CONN., February 21, 1908.

Please represent the manufacturers of Bridgeport in opposition to the eight-hour bill by every argument at your command.

(Signed)

S. T. DAVIS, Jr., President of the Manufacturers' Association of Bridgeport, Conn.

STATEMENT OF MR. JOSEPH W. POWELL, OF PHILADELPHIA, PA.

Mr. POWELL. Mr. Chairman, I have here a letter from the general manager of the Cramp Company which I would like to present to you. The CHAIRMAN. Read it, so that it will get in the record. Mr. POWELL. This letter reads:

Hon. JAMES J. GARDNER,

Chairman Committee on Labor,

House of Representatives, Washington, D. C.

FEBRUARY 20, 1908.

DEAR SIR: Our attention has been called to House Resolution No. 15651, which has been referred to your committee. This bill, which limits the hours of daily service of laborers and mechanics employed upon work done for the United States, or for any Territory, or for the District of Columbia, or for other purposes, is similar to others that have been before the Congress on various previous occasions.

This company has presented its reasons for opposing the passage of bills of this character in the past, and is desirous of again submitting the same in some detail before your committee. While many most acceptable reasons can be urged against the enactment of this resolution, these seem to fall primarily under four headings: 1. The large increase in cost to the Government for all work done under the provisions of this act.

2. The practical impossibility of carrying on work for the Government in a commercial establishment under this law, and at the same time doing commercial work on a basis to permit competition with other firms not employed on Government work, rendering it necessary for a firm to refuse to accept Government business or to confine itself to it only.

3. Its effect in increasing the cost of output, and the decrease in promptness and efficiency of production, particularly in connection with competition with foreign manufacturers for foreign trades.

4. The definite limit placed upon the earning ability of the workman and the abridgment of his rights in this direction.

We therefore now wish to renew our objections in the most formal manner to the passage of this bill, and sincerely trust that it will not be favorably reported to the House.

(Signed)

THE WILLIAM CRAMP & SONS SHIP AND
ENGINE BUILDING COMPANY,
H. W. HAND.

Vice-President and General Manager.

Mr. POWELL. Gentlemen, I am with the Cramp Company as assistant to the president, and I am sorry that the president, Mr. Henry S. Grove, is now in the South, so that he will probably be unable to attend the committee meetings. I know that if it had been possible he would have come here to have spread his views on this subject on your records. But in his absence I must do the best I can to put it before you, together with some of my own, which may not entirely agree with his.

It seems to me that the objections to this bill naturally fall under four groupings: First, as to its practicability; second, as to the extra cost and the effect on competition, particularly as affecting our foreign business, and also to a considerable extent our competition with other American manufacturers; third, the extra cost to the Government, which is certainly a very important factor, and, fourth, the effect on the individual workman.

I think, perhaps, in starting it may make some other remarks I want to make later a little clearer if I outline in a brief manner the procedure in the building of a large vessel. This is practically the same whether the vessel is for the Government or whether it is for the merchant marine. When the contract is let and the preliminary plans and specifications are put in the shipbuilder's hands, he must first proceed to get out enough details from those plans to begin ordering the material. In the case of a first-class battle ship there are altogether in the neighborhood of three thousand plans and sketches that must be made before that vessel is completed. The amount of material that is ordered runs up considerably beyond a million dollars, probably nearly to two millions in the later ships, and practically every piece must be specified in great detail. It is absolutely essential before any work whatever can be done in the yard that the material shall have been ordered and delivered in the proper sequence and in the proper amounts. To carry out a proper system it is necessary to look, I believe, further into the future than in almost any other line of manufacture.

When the first few general plans have been approved, it is then possible to begin the order of the structural material, and as this comes in and has been received in sufficient amounts the earliest work on the vessel can be begun. From that time on it is a question of building each complex structure step by step and piece by piece from the beginning. The want of any small detail at any time in the construction may hold up an enormously large volume of work that can not be begun or can not be gone ahead with because this apparently insignificant detail is not at hand. I might cite as an example of this the delay that may be caused by not receiving a single shell plate. The want of that single plate will prevent the closing in of the compartment and its water testing and holds up every bit of work that will later go on in that compartment after it has been tested. The instances of this sort might be multiplied indefinitely-how the nonreceipt of an armor plate may hold up the backing and the completion of the work in weight of this portion of the ship. The lack of these plates may also absolutely stop the work, because it may be impossible to add other weights to the ship until the armor plate is in place, because if added it would be impossible to place these, because the armor shelf would be below the water line.

One of the great difficulties that the shipbuilder always has to encounter is the question of not getting some of his details when he needs them, and the delays that result therefrom are a constant source of annoyance and will certainly be affected by the bill now before you for consideration. This is one of the great disadvantages that the shipbuilder in this country labors under. I had the pleasure of spending some time in Great Britain last spring, and in talking with a number of the principal shipbuilders in that country, one of the points in which I was greatly interested was this question of delivery of materials. Over there they can normally get their steel

« AnteriorContinuar »