EIGHT HOURS FOR LABORERS ON GOVERNMENT WORK.

COMMITTEE ON LABOR,

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

Washington, D. C., March 10, 1904-10.30 o'clock a. m.

The committee met at 10.30 o'clock a. m., Hon. James P. Conner in the chair.

STATEMENT OF MR. CHARLES N. CHADWICK.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. Mr. Chadwick, will you please state your full name and whom you represent?

Mr. CHADWICK. My name is Charles N. Chadwick, and I appear as a citizen and taxpayer.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. From what place do you come?

Mr. CHADWICK. I am from Brooklyn, N. Y., No. 692 Willoughby avenue. I am a manufacturer.

The ACTING CHAIRMAN. What line of goods do you manufacture? Mr. CHADWICK, I am a manufacturer of muslin underwear and children's waists.

As I have stated, I prefer to appear here as a citizen and taxpayer rather than as a manufacturer. It seems to me that the enforcement of the eight-hour bill by statute is a serious mistake. The people of the country to-day are beginning to take into consideration the efforts making in restraint of the development of the industries of this country along normal lines and in accordance with economic principles. Naturally, of course, those who are affected by any measure that is proposed which will in any manner affect a certain industry are the ones who will speak first. Then in due course of time the people at large begin to take up these questions and consider them. That was the course of procedure during the silver campaign. If you will remember, it was a campaign of education. At first there was very little knowledge with regard to the merits of either the single standard or the double standard. But after a year or two of education the people began to see clearly, and to express themselves upon that subject. So it is in regard to this question of labor.

We have to-day confronting us the problem of the closed shop, the limiting of the number of apprentices in any one trade and what seems to me to be a restriction of the right of private contract, the eight-hour bill, which is now before this committee for consideration, which as yet you have not fathered. In their attempt to better themselves, it seems to me the labor organizations have departed a long way from fundamental principles. Organized originally as bodies for the amelioration of labor and for the improvement of conditions and doing, as they have done, a magnificent work, they have departed in a certain measure from what was originally contemplated. It is the tendency of every one who acquires power to desire to use that power.

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It seems to me that is the mistake that is being made to-day. The attempt is to better conditions along destructive lines rather than along constructive lines. When you attempt to clothe, in the terms of a law, individual rights and liberties, which inherently belong to the people, I do not think you are going to accomplish the greatest and best result in the quickest way.

I am not a lawyer and therefore I am not competent to talk upon this subject along constitutional lines, as to whether this bill, if enacted, would be in violation of the Constitution of the United States. That is a question for the Supreme Court of the United States to determine, and it has the final say. But But it is, Mr. Chairman, a question for you to determine whether, in the enactment of the law, you are preparing a bill, fathering a bill, that is in accordance with the inherent principles of the Anglo-Saxon race. Those principles are beginning to be well understood, right of life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They go back a great many thousand years. They have found expression in the statutes of England and in Blackstone. Chief Justice Waite has said that the Constitution did not create civil rights; it assumes them. It seems to me that it is those civil rights which this bill is seeking to destroy.

Mind you, Mr. Chairman, no right-thinking man objects to anyone pettering his condition by increasing his wealth, by shortening his hours of labor, or by any other method which is legitimate and right. There can be no objection to that. That is not the contention. The contention is that this principle is sought to be enforced by a process of law. That is the mistake, as it seems to me. I feel, and I feel very strongly, that whatever can be done in the direction of the improvement of the people is right, and I may say that I do not think any one has the right to arrogate to himself the honorable word "laborer." The entire body of the American people-man, woman, and child alike, are laborers. Whether they work with the brain or with the hand is immaterial. This is a question that can not affect any section or part of the body politic. It can not be made by law to affect, and should not be made by law to affect, any particular section or part. It is a question which relates and has reference to the entire body politic, and it seems to me we ought to look at it from that point of view. Any legislation which may be passed upon this subject, attempting to segregate and set apart a certain number of people-workingmen, mechanics, and the men who work with their hands as laborers and the cutting out of the rest of community, is a mistake.

What I am trying to do now, in a very lame way, is to present to your minds, if I can, the thought that this measure does not relate to any particular body of people or to any particular industry, but relates to the people as a whole. It is because I think that, and because I believe it strongly, that I am appearing here as a citizen. I do not know, nor do I pretend to say, that the great body of the people of this country have taken this question up for consideration. They have not. It has not yet been brought home to them. But sooner or later this question, as every great question has been, will be brought home to the people of this country: and they will speak with no uncertain voice when they understand the bearings of it. In a general way, as I view the situation, the attitude of the country is, and will be, in regard to this proposition, entirely from that view.

You have a measure here presented to you for consideration which attempts by legislative enactment to limit the number of hours of

labor in any calendar day upon any work in which the Government itself is interested as an employer, either directly or indirectly, either through a contractor or a subcontractor. I apprehend that the word "subcontractor" may mean any number of subcontractors.

Let us for a moment consider that measure. The bill which was presented to Congress in 1902 was modified and changed to meet the objections which developed after the people had begun to consider it and see what its practical effect would be. So that to-day, as I understand it, you have before you what is known as the Hitt bill. This bill, aside from the fact that it provides for a penalty, provides for the appointment of an inspector, and to this official of the Government is given despotic power.

In all my reading of history I know of nothing which equals it in the range of power which it gives to an unknown and irresponsible individual-absolutely despotic power in the dictionary sense of that word. What is his power under this bill? He has the right to enter a factory and say that in his opinion work has been done or is being done in that factory in excess of eight hours. It is not a number of minutes in excess of eight hours, but it is in excess of eight hours. Under the provisions of the bill it is absolutely his prerogative, and not only his prerogative, but he must exercise his judgment and he must report to his official head the facts which in his judgment he has ascertained. I am not a lawyer, and therefore I can not say that is unconstitutional; but as a business man I think it is nonsense.

Furthermore, he has the right to waive any conditions walch. in his judgment, he thinks are proper. See what an opportunity there is there for "graft That word has become well understood to-day. As a practical illustration, assume that I, a manufacturer, have a Government contract and I have 150 or 200 employees in my factory. This inspector who has been appointed comes into my factory and for some reason or other he has a grudge against me. He says, "Mr, Chadwick, you are working overtime. I say, "No, sir; I'am not." He says, "Yes; you are." Immediately, upon his own volition, he reports the situation, and I find when I come to ask for my compensation for the work I have been doing that it is held up. Then you come to another principle. The burden of proof is on me.

I am the guilty party and yet the burden of proof is on me. That transcends all the laws of this country by which no man is presumed to be guilty until he has been proven to be so by due process of law. Nevertheless, on the statement of this inspector, and because of his opinion, I am declared to have violated the law and it is upon me to assume the responsibility of proving that I have not.

Suppose I have 1,000 employees in my shop and there is a penalty of $5 a day on each, that would be $5,000 a day. This inspector says that this working overtime has been going on for a period of ten days. That would amount to $50,000. The entire amount of my contract is perhaps half of that. I have a small capital and I depend on the receipts which come in to me daily to purchase my supplies, pay my workmen, and do my work. The result is I am thrown into bankruptcy. Why? Because one man holds me up and says that in his opinion I have violated this law by working my men more than eight hours a day. It transcends every right that belongs to every citizen of this country.

The whole thing, it seems to me, is pernicious; it is absurd; it is wrong; it interferes with the right of private contracts. I know it

has been said, over and over again, that it does not, and that the Supreme Court of the United States held in the Kansas case that it did not, because you need not take the contract unless you want to. Every business man who has reached the age of you gentlemen here knows that, in his business career, his right of choice has been controlled by circumstances and environment.

A junior partner in a concern, with $2,000 invested in the business, with a family on his hands and the responsibility which that carries, is told by the senior partners that, in the formation of a new partnership, his interest, instead of being 10 or 15 per cent will be 5 per cent, and he has the right to take that 5 per cent and stay in, or to go out. Do you mean to say that he is at liberty to contract or not as he pleases? He is held up in that case just as much as the man on the stagecoach is held up when the robber with his revolver holds up the coach and says: "Hands up; I will help myself." Every gentleman here, Mr. Chairman, knows that the right to contract is conditioned upon circumstances and upon environment.

Now, a manufacturer has installed a plant and he is doing Government work. He has, perhaps, put in special machinery and that machinery can only do the kind of work he is doing for the Government. Along comes this eight-hour bill. Only a part of his work is Government work, and the rest is commercial work. He is confronted with this bill and he says: "What am I going to do? Am I going to give up Government work entirely and take in only commercial work, and thereby throw out the people who have been trained in that special work and let them look to themselves as to what they shall do, or shall I take this Government work under these conditions?" The Government says: "You have perfect freedom to take it or not, as you please." And so you have from one point of view but not from another point of view. We all know that to be the fact.

It seems to me the bill is somewhat obscure. It refers to "the open market," and it says, as I understand it, that this bill does not affect materials which can be bought in the open market by the Government. What is this open market? Is it not all the things which the Government does not purchase by competition? That is the only definition I can put upon it. Then, what can they buy by competition? The things which are in the open market to-day they can buy to-morrow by competition. The question is, What is a closed market and what is an open market, in this particular? Take the matter of shipbuildopen ing. I am not a shipbuilder, and I do not propose to discuss that question from the point of view of the shipbuilder. But I am told that in the construction of a ship there are assembled materials of perhaps four hundred different industries. When you begin to think of the ramifications of those industries, you find that the cotton cloth that is used reaches out into the cotton fields of the South.

You find that there is woolen cloth used and that reaches back to the ranches and sheep farms of the West and to the New England farms. You find there is a certain amount of wood used which reaches into the forests. You find that iron is used and coal is used, which reaches into the mines; so that, in the final analysis of this subject, as your mind follows the ramifications, you find that they reach into every industry and they touch practically everybody in the United States. So that instead of this bill only covering certain industries in a limited way, as it apparently does upon its face, its ramifications extend into every branch of industry and enterprise. I