cranks. A good jeweler is usually a crank. You can not handle an artist as you handle an ordinary, well-balanced man. Now, catering to a whim as we do, manufacturing for a luxury and only a luxury, our business is necessarily very fitful. We are dependent on general business prosperity for our success. When the general business of the country is good we have a good and successful business. We are the first business to feel depression and the last to revive, always.

Now, that being the case, it is impossible for the jewelry business to have any surplus of skilled labor. In fact, there is a great dearth of skilled labor all the time, and, as you know, in this country there is a great dearth of technical training, on which Germany is leading the world to-day. Germany, France, and England have all gone into technical training, and are training men for decorative work in all lines, in the jewelry line as well as all others, in all the luxuries. Now, that puts us at a disadvantage. During the last six months there was not a jeweler in Newark that would not have put on more hands if they had been to be had; but when this financial depression struck us in October and things began to look as though there might be a slack time before us, I should think as many as ten or a dozen of our finest workmen took the first ship right back to Paris. The result is that there is always a scarcity of labor when you need increased production, and to attempt anything like restricting hours of labor with us would be almost suicidal. You take it at a time when Tiffany or some of the large jewelers of the country require something for a wedding, or when Tiffany in the shop at Forest Hills is making a silver service for one of the war ships, or something of that kind; it must be done, and it must be done on time. There is no use talking about working eight hours only. All such work as we do, done by the hour, piecework, is infinitesimal. It can not be done, because the work is so entirely different. It is work of an artistic character. Those men are delighted to work. They would not object at all to working twelve or fifteen hours if they were interested and inspired; they would do it with the greatest pleasure.

And you take it in a time of depression like this; what are you going to do? The men must have part time, a very large majority of them. This fall, if there should be a revival a month or two later, do you mean to tell me that those men would not be delighted to work more than eight hours? They would be only too glad to do So. And while in the aggregate there are a large number of these men, so far as I know, from personal intercourse with our own men, I know that they are almost all vigorously opposed to this sort of thing. Like Mr. Jenkinson, we run an open shop. Our factory has been running for sixty-odd years, and we have never had the slightest friction with our employees, never a strike, never a serious accident in all those years. I know the men in the shop by name, and our relations are exceedingly cordial. Why the United States Government should attempt anything paternal, saying to a man," It is a crime for you to work, absolutely wrong; you will be fined if you do; you must not work if you want to." is one of the things we can not understand.

The CHAIRMAN. Yo do not understand that this bill is intended to apply to anything except work for the Government?

Mr. Howe. I do not understand it, sir; but I understand that if the eight-hour law becomes a general law of manufacture, it will have its effect on our men just exactly as it has on everyone else, and I understand that if you cripple the staple lines of the country you wipe us out. Our interest is the keenest and greatest in the freedom of able-bodied men to decide all those things for themselves. Mr. HASKINS. You understand that this bill applies only to Government contracts?

Mr. Howe. Yes; to those making goods for Government contracts; but you are opening all sorts of questions there. The question comes up instantly whether a silver service such as would be made for a manof-war is regular goods. It is not regular at all. Would that mean a representative would be put in Tiffany's factory at Forest Hills to superintend that? They work ten hours a day up there. If you say that their men should work only eight hours, why, they would not touch it. Or take the Graham Company, in Providence, with 2,500 or 3,000 employees doing that work; could they do that sort of thing? I do not see how it is within the possibilities. You do affect us in a very marked degree, although it is an indirect effect. Mr. CAMPBELL. I will introduce next Mr. Crane, of the Arlington Manufacturing Company.

STATEMENT OF MR. EDWARD N. CRANE, VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE ARLINGTON COMPANY.

Mr. CRANE. Gentlemen, my position here is rather peculiar. We make very few goods for the Government. The quantity is so insignificant that I do not appear at all in behalf of an individual company. I am simply coming here from the board of trade. We can settle the matter very quickly as far as the Arlington Company is concerned; we would not make a dollar's worth of goods for the Government, and I would like to explain why. It would be impossible for us to make any articles for the Government under the conditions which are imposed by this bill. I might explain, perhaps, by illustrating what we do. The goods we manufacture are commonly known the material is commonly known as "celluloid.” "celluloid." It is a chemical compound, but requires in its manufacture a very complicated number of processes. Now, the little article we make for the Government is a recording disk or wheel, which is made at the solicitation of the Government and not from any solicitation of ours, because it is an insignificant matter; but the material is desirable for that purpose. They asked us if we could make this article. It is a part of a larger machine, and an important machine, I presume, because it was light and noncorrosive and impervious to water and could be made of the proper colors, whatever they might want; and and for many reasons it was desirable to them, and we were very glad to do that and make the article. The very basis of our business is conversion of cotton fiber into a form so that it may be properly treated, and that is in the form of tissue paper. The capacity of that mill is our daily product. It is so arranged that every day it will turn out the amount that we use; not that amount we use the next day, but that is the capacity of the mill our daily product. That must be made continuously, and the workmen are formed in

two shifts, a night force and a day force, and you know the conditions of paper making the way it must be continuous, day and night. Those men work, as I say, on two shifts, night and day, and we simply could not make anything in that department under an eighthour law. When it comes from that department, it goes to the department which we call the acid department, where it is treated.

Mr. HASKINS. Could you not have three shifts of eight hours each? Mr. CRANE. It would cause us a great deal more of expense in labor to produce. That product is made now so that we can manufacture it to advantage. The men work under good conditions, in a suburban place, and they are all very glad to have the work, and the work is easy work, as you might say that is, it is such work as is very desirable and it would cost us 50 per cent more if we should make those goods under three shifts of eight hours each. It would be impracticable for us to do it. Now, when it goes into what is called the acid department, a very peculiar process is performed there. The men work only on fifteen-minute shifts; they can not stand the acid fumes for any length of time. In order to make our output, they start in the morning at 6 o'clock, and that department runs until 7 o'clock at night. They do not all work continuously; none of them work continuously through that time, possibly. There may be some that desire to do it for some peculiar reasons of the process. So you see it would be simply impracticable for us to manufacture for the Government anything that would have to disrupt and interfere with a process which has been built up through many years. It would simply upset our whole plans-so much so that we would not desire to undertake, and we would not undertake, to make anything where there was some law to come to say to us, You must make it under certain conditions."

While the product we would make is insignificant, it seems to us that this is a bad bill if it will impose conditions so that persons could not supply their goods, even in a small way, to the Government The Government desires these goods. Why should they not have the privilege of having them? And why should not we have the privilege of selling them to the Government, even in a small way? Why should not a bill be so fair in its provisions that it is not only clearly set forth, but should be beneficial in its character? Now, there seems to be a clause here which makes inoperative the first part of the bill. We do not understand whether the articles I have mentioned are supplies for the Government, or an article for the Government, or what; and whether it was or not, it does not seem to us that a bill should be so made as to be applied to only a small percentage of manufacturers.

Mr. HASKINS. Can not those articles you make for the Government be purchased in the open market?

Mr. CRANE. Oh, no, sir; not at all. They are made on a design submitted, a model submitted, by the Government; made of our material. People might purchase our material, or they might get it from some other manufacturer and might with the same model produce a similar thing, but none of the basic material that should go into those articles could be made except under the conditions I have stated.

Mr. DAVENPORT. You will notice that it is not only goods bought in open market, but it says " such materials or articles as may usually be bought in open market."

Mr. CRANE. That is of course a special article of manufacture and could not be made under the present provisions of the bill.

Mr. DAVENPORT. Even if the word "usually" was not in there? Mr. CRANE. No, sir; it does not make any difference about that, and I am puzzled to know, on behalf of all the manufacturers of Newark, of our board of trade, how this bill would affect us. Certainly it seems to me very injurious and confusing, and it would be very injurious in our estimation. I tried to find out what percentage of people this bill would affect, or what percentage of manufacturers, rather. Some said 95 per cent and some 5 per cent. Now it seems to me where there is such a wide diversity of opinion as that there must be some confusion in the bill.

Mr. EMORY. Would not the practical effect of the operation of the bill be that you would either have to withdraw from Government contracting or, if you were in doubt as to whether or not the bill applied, to stipulate in the contract in order to protect its validity? Mr. CRANE. Oh, certainly; if we should receive an order we would simply say we could not make it under the provisions of the bill, and if they would say we could make it eliminating the provisions, we would be, of course, very glad to do anything to accommodate the Government, as we are now, but it could not be made under the ordinary methods of manufacture.

STATEMENT OF MR. HERBERT P. GLEASON.

Mr. GLEASON. Mr. Chairman, I am not directly interested in the passage of this bill, but the position of the shoe manufacturers is that, in their estimation, it seeks to introduce an unwise and unnecessary disturbing element into the present conditions between the employer and the employee. The employees of the shoe manufacturers of Newark have never, so far as I know, sought to secure a shorter workday. Their sole solicitation has been to get all the work they could and to work all the hours in the day that they could. Much of it is done by overtime work, and they are all anxious to get all the employment they can and do all the work they can. So far as the bill directly affecting our interests is concerned, the shoe manufacturing interests, I do not think that has any bearing in the city of Newark, because none of them manufacture for the Government or have ever taken Government contracts or sought for them.

ADDITIONAL STATEMENT OF MR. RICHARD C. JENKINSON.

Mr. JENKINSON. Mr. Chairman, one of the gentlemen asked a question, and after I sat down I thought what I might have said, and I want to impress it on you now. I was asked how long our working hours were, and I told you that for seven months in the year we had fifty-five hours a week and for five months in the year-May, June, July, August, and September-we stopped at noon on Saturday. It occurred to me after I sat down that I ought to tell you gentlemen

this: A few years ago we used to start up on the 1st of September working the full day on Saturday, and we had four months; then we straightened it out to the 15th of September, and we had extraordinarily hot weather in the first part, and then we had an extraordinarily hot part of the month of September in the latter part, and I made it five months instead of four months. Last year I came nearer to having trouble than I ever had before. My men came to me and demanded that we commence work after this on the 1st of September, and I said, "Send your committee in to me and I will talk to them," and they did so, and they came in and I talked to them and told them we would continue this year to the 1st of October the shorter week, and after that we would consider it this year, and it will come up again this year. They do not want less hours of work with us, in our part of the country, in our State, and I think the conditions all over the State are the same. What they want is more hours and more work all the time. I just wanted to impress upon you that fact.

Mr. PAYSON. Can you give the committee to understand approximately how many employees are engaged in manual labor in your industries which your board of trade represents? You gave the number of concerns, but nobody yet has an idea how numerous their employees may be. Just give it approximately.

Mr. JENKINSON. I think I can safely say that we have represented in the board of trade in the city of Newark 35,000 employees. We have plants ranging in number from the ordinary small manufacturing jewelry plant or small plant of any other kind, employing maybe 10 skilled workmen, up to those employing 5,000 and 6.000. We have the larger manufacturers and the small, because our board of trade is one which looks after the interests of every manufacturer in the State.

Mr. PAYSON. So far as you know will you state, or are you prepared to state as a fact, as to whether the relations between the employees and the other firms with which you are not connected are substantially the same as to cordiality as between your own employees and yourself?

Mr. JENKINSON. Exactly the same. There never was a State or never was a community where the conditions were better between the employees and the employers than in the State of New Jersey, and as the northern part of the State is the larger manufacturing part, and the glass industries of the south represent, with the shipbuilding plants, the biggest manufacturers of the south, though they are growing very fast down there, I can speak decidedly for the people of the north, for, like Mr. Campbell, I have been president of the board of trade for two terms, and I have been very close to the manufacturers and I know what I am talking about. The best of feeling exists, and we never have had any trouble and never have had any trouble that we had to settle. The charter of our board of trade of Newark, an old charter, allows us to settle disputes among the manufacturers and their employees, and we have never had to bring that up, we have never had to use that clause.

Mr. PAYSON. You have never had to exercise that power?
Mr. JENKINSON. We have never had to exercise that power.