TREASURY Department,
Washington, February 2, 1915.

The CHAIRMAN COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC BUILDINGS AND GROUNDS,

House of Representatives, Washington, D. C.

SIR: In reply to your request of the 29th ultimo, the following report is submitted on H. R. 21074, to increase the limit of cost of the post office at Excelsior Springs, Mo. The contract for this building is now in force, and the work is 52 per cent completed. On account of the limited funds available it was not possible to provide marble wainscot in the toilet rooms or a concrete driveway, and from reports in the possession of the department when the drawings were prepared it was understood that the present sidewalks around the site were in good condition, and therefore new sidewalks were not included in the contract.

The change in the downspouts referred to in the bill will involve very little additional expense and can be authorized within the present limit of cost.

While the other betterments are no doubt desirable, they can not be considered essential to the satisfactory completion of the building, and on this account the department can not make a favorable recommendation in the matter.

Respectfully,

B. R. NEWTON, Acting Secretary.

O

H R-63-3-vol 1—37

CHILD-LABOR BILL.

FEBRUARY 13, 1915.-Referred to the House Calendar and ordered to be printed.

Mr. LEWIS of Maryland, from the Committee on Labor, submitted the following

REPORT.

[To accompany H. R. 12292.]

The Committee on Labor, to whom was referred the bill (H. R. 12292) to prevent interstate commerce in the products of child labor, and for other purposes, which bill with certain amendments was favorably reported to the House under date of August 13, 1914, hereby submit this supplemental report, setting forth more at large the reasons moving the committee to its recommendation.

As the amendments made in the committee constitute in effect a revision of the original act, but relate wholly to matters of form and administrative detail, preserving the entire substance of the original bill, no useful purpose would be served by encumbering this report with a discussion of the reasons leading to the various changes embodied in the amendment. It will be sufficient to here repeat the bill in the amended form, as already recommended, and to submit to the House the various considerations which have led this committee to recommend its passage in the form in which it is now submitted.

The original bill contained six sections. The amended bill contains some seven sections, and as amended reads as follows:

A BILL To prevent interstate commerce in the products of child labor, and for other purposes. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That it shall be unlawful for any producer, manufacturer, or dealer to ship or to deliver for shipment in interstate commerce the products of any mine or quarry which have been produced in whole or in part by the labor of children under the age of sixteen years, or the products of any mill, cannery, workshop, factory, or manufacturing establishment which have been produced in whole or in part by the labor of children under the age of fourteen years, or by the labor of children between the age of fourteen years and sixteen years who work more than eight hours in any one day or more than six days in any week, or after the hour of seven o'clock postmeridian or before the hour of seven o'clock antemeridian.

SEC. 2. That the Attorney General, the Secretary of Commerce, and the Secretary of Labor shall constitute a board to make and publish from time to time uniform rules and regulations for carrying out the provisions of this act.

SEC. 3. That for the purpose of securing proper enforcement of this act the Secretary of Labor, or any person duly authorized by him, shall have authority to enter and inspect at any time mines, quarries, mills, canneries, workshops, factories, and manufacturing establishments in which goods are produced for interstate commerce

SEC. 4. That it shall be the duty of each district attorney to whom the Secretary of Labor shall report any violation of this act or to whom any State factory or mining or quarry inspector, commissioner of labor, State medical inspector, or school-attendance officer, or any other person shall present satisfactory evidence of any such violation to cause appropriate proceedings to be commenced and prosecuted in the proper courts of the United States without delay for the enforcement of the penalties as in such cases herein provided.

SEC. 5. That any person, partnership, association, or corporation, or any agent or employee thereof, manufacturing, producing, or dealing in the products of any mine, quarry, mill, cannery, workshop, factory, or manufacturing establishment who shall violate any of the provisions of section one of this act, or who shall refuse or obstruct the entry or inspection authorized by section three of this act, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and shall be punished by a fine of not more than $1,000 nor less than $100 or by imprisonment for not more than one year nor less than one month, or by both fine and imprisonment, in the discretion of the court: Provided, That no dealer shall be subject to conviction under the provisions of this section who shall establish a guaranty issued by the person by whom such goods were manufactured or produced, and residing in the United States, to the effect that in the manufacture and production of such goods neither in whole nor in part had children been employed or permitted to work in any mine or quarry under the age of sixteen years, or in any mill, cannery, workshop, factory, or manufacturing establishment under the age of fourteen years. or between the ages of fourteen years and sixteen years, who worked more than eight hours in any one day or more than six days in any week, or after the hour of seven o'clock postmeridian or before the hour of seven o'clock antemeridian. Said guaranty, to afford the protection above provided, shall contain the name and address of the person giving the same, and in such event such person shall be amenable to any prosecution, fine, or penalty to which the person seeking the protection of such guaranty would otherwise have been subject under the provisions of this act. The word "dealer" as used in this act shall be construed to include any individual or corporation, or the members of any partnership or other unincorporated association.

SEC. 6. That in prosecutions under this act each shipment or delivery for shipment shall constitute a separate offense.

SEC. 7. That this act shall take effect from and after one year from the date of its passage.

It will be convenient to discuss the subject in hand under the following general heads:

I. General design and administrative features.

II. Necessity for Federal relief.

III. Propriety of standards suggested.

IV. Constitutionality.

I. GENERAL DESIGN AND ADMINISTRATIVE FEATURES.

The bill now before the House, introduced by Representative Palmer, of Pennsylvania, seeks to prohibit interstate commerce in certain of the more flagrant and vicious forms of child labor.

Directed to the same end as the bill fathered some eight years since by Senator Beveridge, it attacks the national evil of child labor in a manner which the committee believes frees it from all valid objections to which the earlier proposed legislation was subjected, and which were no doubt largely responsible for its defeat.

In effect the bill makes it unlawful for a producer or a dealer to ship in interstate commerce goods which have produced in whole or in part:

If mine or quarry products.—(1) By children under 16.

If manufactured products.-(2) By children under 14; (3) or by children under 16 employed more than eight hours a day; (4) or by children under 16 employed at night.

The standards named have been approved by the committee, after full hearing and careful debate, as elementary minimum national standards abundantly justified by the evidence presented to the committee, and which will be summarized in this report.

The cardinal features of the act are directness, definiteness, and simplicity.

Act directed against shipper.—It is to be noted that the act places responsibility for its enforcement where it logically belongs, upon the shipper of the goods. The Beveridge bill, or rather the Beveridge amendment, of 1907 was, on the other hand, aimed solely at the carriers of the products of child labor, the desire evidently being to thereby strengthen the constitutionality of the act. As we shall hereafter indicate, however, it is wholly unnecessary to resort to any such device in support of the constitutionality of this measure; whereas, on the other hand, a bill directed solely against carriers presents points of fatal weakness, as it wholly eliminates from the prohibition of the act the principal offender, to wit, the dealer or manufacturer, and opens wide the door for evasion. Such a bill, moreover, necessarily causes violation of the act to turn largely upon proof of failure to comply with technical requirements in regard to affidavits filed with the carrier at the time of shipment, and imposes upon the carrier a wholly disproportionate and profitless burden, being that in effect of acting as a federal detective service.

Standards are definite. In its definiteness also, as clearly advising manufacturers and dealers alike of the full requirements and exact standards to be observed under the law, the bill is also in favorable contrast with other proposed measures which have been brought to the attention of the committee. The Copley bill, for instance, a measure strongly advocated by representatives of the Progressive Party, and which like the Beveridge bill was also directed primarily against carriers, broadly declared that the labor of children under certain conditions should be defined as "antisocial child labor," these conditions to include among others all those which shall be "dangerous. to the life or limb or injurious to the health or morals of children," and imposed upon the Secretary of Labor the somewhat imperial discretion not only of promulgating lists of industries falling within this definition, but of examining the child-labor laws of all the States and of certifying whether or not in his judgment they effectively prevented "antisocial child labor," as defined in the act.

Apart from other obvious objections to the plan thus outlined, it appeared to the committee that no such completely indefinite standards should be created nor any such unlimited administrative responsibility be imposed upon any single officer of the Government, and that for the purposes of the legislation proposed the simple definite standards of the Palmer bill were far superior and indeed open to no just criticism.

Enforcement. The enforcement of the bill is imposed upon the Department of Labor, acting in cooperation with the State officials. Authority is granted to the Attorney General, the Secretary of Commerce, and the Secretary of Labor, as a board of three, to establish uniform rules and regulations for its enforcement, and proper provision is included, authorizing duly accredited agents of the Department of Labor to make the inspections necessary for the enforcement of the law.