children and a further provision for an 8-hour day for children between 1 and 16 years of age. In other words, this bill, if it becomes a law, will keep out of interstate commerce the products of any mine or quarry where children under 16 years of age are employed; the products of any mill, cannery, workshop, or manufacturing establishment in which children under 14 years of age are employed, or where children between 14 and 16 years of age are compelled to work more than 8 hours a day, or in the nighttime between 7 o'clock at night and 7 o'clock in the morning.

Now, this measure differs from the Beveridge bill, or, properly, the Beveridge amendment, which was pressed in 1907, and upon which Senator Beveridge made his great argument in support of child-labor legislation. It differs from the Kenyon bill, which is the Beveridge proposition, in that those bills put the burden upon the carrier and make it unlawful for any common carrier to receive or ship goods manufactured under conditions of the sort fixed by the law.

The Copley bill, introduced in the last Congress and in this Congress, and which, I think, is before the Interstate Commerce Committee-although it may be before this committee; I am not sureis quite a different measure, and it again puts the burden largely upon the carrier. It provides against what it calls "antisocial labor," and puts it up to the Secretary of Labor to determine whether the factory laws in various States are sufficient, and whether conditions in the various States are right, and gives him such enormous power and puts upon him such a tremendous burden that it seems to me it would be impracticable and impossible.

The simple method, as it strikes us, is to make it a misdemeanor for the producer, for the man who is responsible for the labor itself being employed, to put into interstate commerce the article which is produced under these conditions.

Now, I take it, Mr. Chairman, that what this committee will want to satisfy itself about before it reports favorably upon a bill of this character would be three things: First, whether child labor exists. in this country in a nation-wide way; whether it is in the mills, factories, mines, quarries, and workshops of the land from one end of the country to the other; and, second, whether it is such an evil of a nation-wide character affecting the interests of the Nation and the future of our people as demands uniform, universal legislation to correct it, preferably Federal legislation; and, third, whether, assuming that these things be true-that child labor exists in the country and that it is a great evil that ought to be corrected, and as a national evil ought, if possible, be corrected by Federal legislation-whether it may be reached under the power of Congress under the Constitution to regulate commerce between the States.

Now, 10 years ago, the first question-perhaps the second question-might have been debatable. Five years ago, perhaps, there would have been found men on both sides of the proposition, but to-day it seems to me there can be no argument upon it. The country has awakened to the fact that millions of our little children, despite some advance in the States upon this question in the way of regulatory legislation, are being employed in the mines and quarries and mills and factories of the land, and that the result has

been and is bound to be in the future so appalling upon the health and morals of the children and of the men and women as they develop that it will constitute a great crying evil which calls for correction and remedy.

Now, in every State the question has been agitated; in every State attempts have been made at corrective legislation-vigorous, earnest attempts. They have met with opposition as vigorous and as earnest, and the principal opposition to this kind of legislation in the States presents the strongest argument which can possibly come before the Congress for legislation here upon this question. The campaign in every State in reference to this child-labor legislation makes it plain that it is interstate commerce which is at the very root of this great evil. It is absolutely a national question, because to-day, with our greater facilities for transportation for commerce between the States, production and manufacturing have become not a State proposition but an interstate proposition. No producer anywhere to-day of any size, especially of the kind where children are employed, is engaged in the production of articles the consumption of which is confined entirely within the lines of the States within which the production takes place.

The commodities of our manufacturing establishments go everywhere, and, consequently, when we go to a State and ask that State to make a law which will crush out this evil of the employment of little children in the mills and factories, we are immediately met by the answer on the part of the manufacturer and producing interests, "It is not fair to us and to our own people in this State to do this thing, because it puts us in competition, after you have done it, with the States which are not progressive and are not interested in humane legislation of this kind and which refuse to pass this kind of legislation. Those States are, therefore, able to produce our article at lower cost." And it is a good argument, and it has constituted a block in a great many States against this kind of legislation. The legislator says:

If our State is going to be compelled to suffer by reason of putting good laws upon our statute books, if our business interests and industrial development and all that sort of thing are going to be at the mercy of other States, we will not put this kind of law upon our statute books.

A situation is presented which, it seems to me, aside from the constitutional and legal question, calls for some kind of uniform, universal, Nation-wide regulation of this evil.

Now, before we get through, Mr. Chairman, we shall ask opportunity to present to the committee evidence to show what I have here stated, that child labor exists to an enormous degree in the country and that it is a great evil.

Mr. MAHER. Some of the States of the Union have laws preventing the employment of children?

Mr. PALMER. Yes.

Mr. MAHER. Not all the States?

Mr. PALMER. There are different standards.

Mr. MAHER. If this act were to become law, could not the employer or merchant take refuge in the Sherman antitrust law, that this act was depriving him of his rights to interstate commerce?

Mr. PALMER. That raises the entire constitutional question.

Mr. MAHER. I heard it argued before the United States Supreme Court, and they quoted the Anti-Child Labor League-there is a branch of it in San Francisco-which informed a merchant in San Francisco who was handling the goods of an employer in Connecticut that they would not purchase the goods made by children and that he was selling at retail. It was held that that was a violation of the Sherman antitrust law-interfering with interstate commerce.

Mr. PALMER. Restraint of trade by individuals might get into that kind of a position, but it would be a novel proposition, to my mind a charge that an act of Congress was in violation of the Sherman antitrust law.

Mr. MAHER. They claimed they were protected by the Sherman antitrust law.

Mr. PALMER. If this becomes a law, and it shall be determined by the courts that this proposition is within the power of Congress, of course the question which you raise, Mr. Maher, could not come in. Mr. SMITH. Will you let me interrupt you a moment. Do you know what laws they have in foreign countries prohibiting child labor-whether they have any or not-and do you think there ought to be laws passed prohibiting the importation of goods made by child labor in other countries?

Mr. PALMER. Yes; I would say so; and I would personally have no objection to the inclusion in this bill of a provision against the shipment in our foreign commerce of these products in exactly the same way as interstate commerce.

Mr. HAWLEY. But that would only apply to the carriers and not to the manufacturers.

Mr. PALMER. That is all it does anyway. It is only the transportation of the goods we are reaching, because we forbid their shipment in interstate commerce. We could in the same way forbid and actually prohibit the importation of such goods as are made in foreign countries under conditions which were the same as are provided in this bill, because under the Constitution we have the same power exactly to regulate foreign commerce as interstate commerce. The CHAIRMAN. Would it be very difficult to determine the facts in foreign countries in such a way as to be able to apply them punitively to the carriers?

Mr. PALMER. Yes.

Mr. SMITH. Where they have no such law in a foreign country you could prohibit them, and designate the country by the fact that they have no law against child labor.

Mr. PALMER. It was left out of this bill because we felt one step at a time would do. This is a long step and great step, and we do not want to confuse the two propositions of importation and transportation between the States.

Mr. NOLAN. During the discussion by the committee of the Booher bill, in which the same principle is involved so far as Federal law is concerned, a discussion took place on a measure I had before the Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee prohibiting the shipment of convict-made goods in interstate commerce, which is a little different from your bill, but the question came up as to the constitutionality of the measure, and that seemed to stick in the minds of some of the members of this committee. I would suggest, Mr. Palmer, that inasmuch as you and those who have collaborated with

you in the preparation of this bill must have given this question of constitutionality some thought, that if you have a brief it might be well to present it to the committee.

Mr. PALMER. I wish to say that I would not like to undertake to discuss the constitutionality of the question in five minutes, and I have had in mind exactly what you say. Before we get through with this question I would like not only to file a brief which can be printed in the hearings, but an opportunity to present an oral argument. I have dealt with committees long enough to know that an oral argument is preferable to a brief, but I would like to present both.

The CHAIRMAN. Could you indicate a Supreme Court case that has been adjudicated that would come close to throwing some light upon this subject so that the members of the committee and the country may be directed to the sources of constitutional authority relied upon?

?

Mr. PALMER. We take the position that under the decisions of the Supreme Court, Congress having power to regulate commerce between the States, has the same power to regulate interstate commerce as a State has to regulate intrastate commerce or commerce within its own borders, and that the Congress may go so far under its power of regulation as to prohibit from interstate commerce commodities which are produced under conditions which, within the State, would call for the exercise of the police power of the State. The cases have gone very far.

In the lottery case, for instance, which sustained an act of Congress which prohibited from interstate commerce lottery tickets, in themselves entirely inoffensive and innocent, the Supreme Court held that Congress, upon the ground that these tickets represented and stood for a business which affected the morals of the community and was against the interest of the Nation, might look to the use of the article which was asked to be transported in interstate commerce, and if that use was against the morals of the Nation it might absolutely prohibit its transportation in interstate commerce. The food and drugs act is an illustration of the same principle, and the insecticide act and in many others it was held the power to regulate commerce goes so far as to prohibit commerce in a certain commodity where the use of that commodity or the transportation of that commodity shows such a condition that makes it improper and unsafe, in the judgment of the lawmaking power, that it should be transported. For instance, there is a law upon the statute books making it unlawful to transfer loose hay upon ships in interstate commerce and also explosives in order to protect the safety of the carrier and of passengers and property carried by the carrier. It is an absolute prohibition, however, of commerce between States.

Mr. NOLAN. Let me ask you right there: Is there a law prohibiting the interstate shipment of the Johnson-Jeffries fight pictures? Mr. PALMER. I do not think there was such a law passed.

Mr. NOLAN. There is a prohibition, I know-not particularly those pictures, but moving pictures of fights.

Mr. PALMER. I do not know about that. Now, you will see, Mr. Chairman, taking the lottery cases and the loose-hay proposition and the explosives and the pure-food acts and the insecticide act, they

have been sustained upon the principle that the Congress, in its power to regulate interstate commerce, may absolutely prohibit where the use of the commodity is, in the judgment of the lawmaking power, against the interests of the Nation.

Now, this proposition is that Congress may, under that power to regulate, also prohibit from interstate commerce a commodity which has been produced under conditions the general character of which are against the interests of the Nation and calculated to weaken the moral strength of the Nation. In other words, we say that if Congress may look forward to the use to which a commodity, which goes into interstate commerce, may be put, and say that because that use is bad therefore we may regulate its commerce by absolute prohibition, Congress may also look backward to the origin of the commodity and say that because it originated under conditions which were undesirable and offensive that therefore it shall be prohibited from interstate commerce, the article itself in each case being equally innocent in character.

The product of a child-labor factory is of itself no more deleterious than a lottery ticket, a mere piece of pasteboard. It is not the article itself which is bad or wrong, but the use or the manufacture of the article is such as makes it proper for the lawmaking power, in the right of its exercise of that power, to prohibit it from transportation.

Now, I want to call your attention to a few cases. In Hoke v. United States, which was decided in 1913, and which is a white-slave case, Justice McKenna says:

There is a domain which the States can not reach and over which Congress alone has power; and if such power be exerted to control what the States can not it is an argument for, not against, its legality. Its exertion does not encroach upon the jurisdiction of the States. We have examples; others may be adduced. The pure food and drugs act is a conspicuous instance. In all of the instances a clash of National legislation with the power of the States was urged and in all rejected.

I want to call your attention to a couple of other cases. In McDermott v. Wisconsin (228 U. S., 115), Justice Day said:

Congress may itself determine the means for barring articles from interstate commerce; and so long as they do no violence to the other provisions of the Constitution, Congress is itself the judge of the means to be employed in exercising the powers conferred on it in this respect.

This last case was in relation to the transportation of illicit and harmful articles.

Now, in the lottery case the court said this:

We should hesitate long before adjudging that an evil of such appalling character, carried on through interstate commerce, can not be met and crushed by the only power competent to that end.

Mr. SMITH. That seems to be a leading case.

Mr. PALMER. That is the lottery case.

The CHAIRMAN. I think, Mr. Palmer, you have laid the general foundation of your case very clearly.

Mr. PALMER. That is all I care to do now. I wish to file with you a brief and argument, so that it can be printed in the record, and I want an opportunity for myself and some other friends of this measure to present a legal argument, because I believe that is the thing that will give most concern to this committee.