Mr. BAIRD. I do not believe it could be done. You could not protect yourself, and from the Government's point of view it would be absolutely impossible for them to see that the provisions are carried out. Suppose you put an inspector in every man's factory in the United States; you could not tell whether he was making a dynamo or a mantel for a private individual or for the Government. You would have to have an inspector who knows about the work that goes into every Government job, and he would have to watch each particular piece of work. It would be absolutely impossible for the Government to carry out the provisions of the bill.

Mr. EMERY. Illustrate to Mr. Nicholls the difficulties that you refer to, by giving him approximately the number of subcontracts you have to make in some one structure.

Mr. BAIRD. In a large building we usually have in the neighborhood of forty subcontracts. Then, in addition to that, we will buy materials, especially for the building which would be covered by this bill, probably from fifty others, and any one of those pieces of machniery, like, for instance, an elevator or a dynamo or a certain plumbing fixture, might take from three to four months to get out, and it would have to be inspected by the Government for that length of time.

Mr. NICHOLLS. Is it your idea that all those parts, everything furnished for this work, is to be governed by that eight-hour clause? Mr. BAIRD. No; it was my impression that it was simply the materials that were made especially for that building.

Mr. NICHOLLS. Under special order?

Mr. BAIRD. Yes, under special order. For instance, like a mantel, like that one. The architect would design you a mantel with certain ornaments on it; that mantel would come under this law.

Mr. HASKINS. Because you could not go into the open market and buy it?

Mr BAIRD. No; you could not go into the open market. Everything that goes into a building, like cement and brick, you could buy, but most of the things for a building of high character, like a Government building, are on special orders; the steel, the stone, and all of the machinery that goes into it, all of the woodwork and electric fixtures and plumbing fixtures are made especially for that building, Mr. HAYDEN. That is, certain things are not made for the general trade, the character of fixtures, the steel work, that the Government demands?

Mr. BAIRD. I would there go farther than that; whether the Government demands it or not, in any building it is almost universally made special. The fixtures for every building were made to suit the architecture of that building; the hardware is made with a certain. finish to correspond with the finish of the woodwork, and it is all designed specially. You could not go into the open market to buy electric fixtures or any of those materials for a building of such a character.

There was one point I wanted to make about the men under the eight-hour law. Under one of these Government contracts we are just finishing, out here at the Freedmen's Hospital, we had to construct that, of course, under the eight-hour law, and during all the first part of the building it was at such a time that there was a great difficulty in getting mechanics here. There was a great demand for mechanics here a year or so ago, and of course we could only work

the men eight hours, while on all our private work- -we were constructing seven or eight buildings-the men were working overtime, and we had a hard time to get men on that building, because of the fact that they could either go to our private buildings or to other buildings in town and get overtime pay, while if they stayed out there they could only work the eight hours.

Mr. DAVENPORT. Were those union men?

Mr. BAIRD. Union men and laborers. The union men, wherever they could get overtime, they would go on our other work, but the laborers we would have to hold down to eight hours.

Mr. HASKINS. If you had paid the eight-hour fellows for ten hours, you would have been all right?

Mr. BAIRD. Yes; but we could not do that.

Mr. PAYSON. What has been your experience with employees, as to their desire to make overtime work and for overtime pay? Mr. BAIRD. My experience has been absolutely that the men are very anxious to get in every hour they can. The men are very ambitious. Overtime is a fine thing for them. We get a building which is very much of a rush job, and when we commence to put on overtime, the men will flock to that building; that is known absolutely.

Mr. NICHOLLS. You pay a premium extra, do you not?

Mr. BAIRD. Oh, yes; we have to.

Mr. NICHOLLS. Time and a half?

Mr. BAIRD. It is time and a half for a certain time, and then if it is Sundays, or holidays, it is double time.

Mr. NICHOLLS. So that overtime they put in on Sunday would mean twice as much as any other day?

Mr. BAIRD. Yes. There is one clause in that bill that seems to me would be practically impossible to enforce. That is there are times in building construction when you are in great peril; your building is in peril. Even with the union regulations, there is a clause in their agreements, one of which is that they shall not work Saturday afternoon under any conditions, but in case the building is in danger, they will waive that point and the men can work. For instance, we were building the Munsey building down here

Mr. NICHOLLS. Who waive?

Mr. BAIRD. That is, the unions themselves.

Mr. HASKINS. In their contracts?

Mr. BAIRD. In the by-laws of their organizations. For instance, we were building the Munsey building down here on Pennsylvania avenue, and we were in a very bad condition regarding the foundations. Had we been compelled to quit at a certain particular time, the chances are that the National Theater would have fallen into a hole. Conditions similar to that, though possibly not so bad, arise very often. If this bill were a law, you would simply have to violate that law to repair your building.

Mr. NICHOLLS. Do you not know that this bill provides for emergencies?

Mr. BAIRD. I did not notice that; if it does, of course that would not hold.

Mr. HASKINS. The bill reads:

No penalties shall be imposed for any violation of such provision in such contract due to any emergency caused by fire, famine, or flood, by danger to life or to property, or by other extraordinary events or conditions.

Mr. BAIRD. That argument should be waived then.

Mr. HAYDEN. Is it not true that some instances arise in the course of the construction of a building which you can not call abnormal emergencies, but which occur regularly in your business?

Mr. BAIRD. Yes, there are such.

Mr. HAYDEN. That make overtime obligatory?

Mr. BAIRD. Practically; there are times when you are under heavy penalties for completion, and if you do not work overtime you would be under a very heavy money loss.

Mr. DAVENPORT. Are you aware that the Supreme Court has interpreted this that delays in getting material are not such as are covered by this language?

Mr. BAIRD. No; I did not know that.

Mr. DAVENPORT. That if your work was all thrown out of gear from delays, that that would not be such an emergency as is contemplated by the present eight-hour law; are you aware that they held that in the case of Ellis v. United States (207 U. S.)?

Mr. BAIRD. As far as the large builders are concerned, the practical point is that if that bill became a law they could not bid on Government work.

Mr. EMERY. Would that probably be the position, in your opinion, of your organization?

Mr. BAIRD. There is no question about it at all.

Mr. HASKINS. That is, you mean by that, unless you are prepared to adopt an eight-hour basis on all your work?

Mr. BAIRD. We have adopted the eight-hour basis, but we do not think it would be practical to force the people manufacturing materials farther down the line.

Mr. DAVENPORT. When you speak of eight hours you mean eight hours with overtime?

Mr. BAIRD, Yes, we have adopted that, but we have the eight hour under the regular eight-hour law of the Government. They do not have overtime stipulations at all.

Mr. EMERY. Let me ask you a question regarding the actual operation of the eight-hour law. Where, for instance, you are working on a building in course of construction your bricklayers, your plasterers, hod carriers, and so on, work eight hours?

Mr. BAIRD. Only eight hours.

Mr. EMERY. Do the engineers who have charge of the hoisting elevators, and so on, work only eight hours?

Mr. BAIRD. Only eight hours.

Mr. EMERY. Who gets up the steam on those machines, so that they can give a full eight-hour day, or do they themselves have to get the steam up, so that those using the hoisting elevators work less than that time?

Mr. BAIRD. What we do is to have a watchman who works a shift ahead who gets up the steam; another workingman takes care of that part of it.

Mr. HAYDEN. Your men who are governed by the eight-hour law do not work on any other building at the same time?

Mr. BAIRD. No.

Mr. HAYDEN. You do not shift them from private work to public work?

Mr. BAIRD. No: we do not.

Mr. HAYDEN. That would not be practicable?
Mr. BAIRD. No; it would not be practicable.

Mr. EMERY. With regard to your experience on a particular job, and finding it hard to keep your men working where there was not overtime, is that special or is it usually met by all Government contractors?

Mr. BAIRD. I think it is met by all Government contractors in times of prosperity in the building business.

Mr. NICHOLLS. You generally work overtime in cases of emergency? Mr. BAIRD. Yes, sir.

Mr. PAYSON. That includes business emergencies? For instance, you can not complete a contract on time, then you appeal to the men and they help you out?

Mr. BAIRD. Very often contracts are made with the idea of working overtime. You take a large building, it sometimes takes a great deal of overtime to get that building ready.

Mr. EMERY. You take advantage of good weather conditions very frequently, do you not?

Mr. BAIRD. Yes; very often.

Mr. EMERY. Which, you understand, under this bill, would not be emergencies?

Mr. BAIRD. Very often you have your brickwork scaffold high, and you want to get up to the level before you stop, for the reason that you can be in better condition to work to advantage the following day, and we will keep the masons on an extra hour, pay them extra time. We are now paying bricklayers on brickwork at the naval hospital at Norfolk $6 a day, and when they work time and a half it is $9 a day. Of course, we do not do that unless other conditions intervene unless in case of absolute emergency.

Mr. NICHOLLS. In case you wanted to work two shifts on the job, would you be unable to do that?

Mr. BAIRD. We would be unable to do it. We can do it with certain mechanics; we can do it with carpenters, for instance-usually by special permission; but with the bricklayers we could not do that

at all.

Mr. HAYDEN. That is, special permission from whom?
Mr. BAIRD. From the officers of the unions.

Mr. NICHOLLS. That would be from the men in meeting?

Mr. BAIRD. Yes; the men in meeting, or their authorized representatives.

Mr. PAYSON. Of course, if this bill should become a law, that could not be done, because they could not agree to it.

Mr. BAIRD. Yes. It seems to me that there are so many complications that would arise if this bill became a law that it would be very hazardous for a contractor with a reputation to try to fulfill that law. There are so many places that he might complicate himself or get into suits with his subcontractors or become complicated on account of the law that it would be very hazardous to do Government work.

Mr. EMERY. As a matter of fact, in many of your contracts to supply particular materials or particular articles to the Government your subcontractors are at such a distance and the article is produced under such conditions that it would be humanly impossible to supervise that so as to prevent a violation of the law on the part of the subcontractor?

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Mr. BAIRD. Without a question. Very often the marbles come as far as from Italy.

Mr. EMERY. The Italian quarryman would be a subcontractor? Mr. BAIRD. Yes; and you can see you could not fulfill the law there.

STATEMENT OF MR. JAMES L. PARSONS, OF WASHINGTON, D. C..

Mr. PARSONS. Do you desire my opinion as to this bill?

Mr. PAYSON. Yes.

Mr. PARSONS. Mr. Baird has gone pretty well into the details. I agree with all that he has said, and my opinion is that the bill is thoroughly impracticable and would decidedly be to the disadvantage of the Government if such a bill were enacted, and would be to the disadvantage of the workmen and of manufacturers and all persons concerned, and as far as I am concerned I would not enter into any Government contract under such a law. I would not be subject to the penalties of the bill, which would be impracticable to prevent or to supervise, and I believe that most all responsible builders would look at it in the same light.

Mr. EMERY. Mr. Parsons, will you state to the committee the length of time covered by your experience as a Government contractor? Mr. PARSONS. I have been contracting for Government work for about twenty years or more.

Mr. EMERY. And have you not contracted with the Government largely for the erection of municipal buildings in this District?

Mr. PARSONS. I now have a contract for the erection of that building.

Mr. PAYSON. What other large structures? Just go on over the city and tell what you have constructed or built.

Mr. PARSONS. For the Government?

Mr. PAYSON. No; Government and private. What experience have you had? I know you so well that I think you ought to put that in here.

Mr. PARSONS. I built an addition to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, I built several buildings at Fort Myer, I built two buildings at the Reform School, and I have built several of the public schools in the District. In the private work I have built quite a number of apartment houses.

Mr. PAYSON. Do not forget Stoneleigh Court.

Mr. PARSONS. Yes; I built Stoneleigh Court and a good bit of private work. I am not opposed to the eight-hour system; I worked eight hours for the last twenty-five years, and have only worked eight hours, and as a system I am not opposed to it, and I believe eventually it will be universal; but at the present time there are so many of the materials entering into the Government work manufactured in factories where they do not work eight hours, and where it will be some time, perhaps, before they will

Mr. DAVENPORT. In that connection, do you mean eight hours without any overtime?

Mr. PARSONS. Oh, no. The eight-hour day is the regular day.
Mr. HAYDEN. That is the rule, subject to variation?

Mr. PARSONS. Certainly. I often work overtime. We have to do it very often. The men are very glad of the opportunity to work an hour or so overtime, and it is practical often to do so; but there are uo builders who would work overtime unless it was urgent.