FAIR LABOR STANDARDS ACT OF 1937 WEDNESDAY, JUNE 2, 1937 UNITED STATES SENATE, JOINT COMMITTEE OF THE SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR, AND HOUSE COMMITTEE ON LABOR, Washington, D. C. The joint committee met, pursuant to call, at 10 a. m., in the caucus room, Senate Office Building, Senator Hugo L. Black presiding. Present: Senators: Hugo L. Black (chairman), David I. Walsh, Elbert D. Thomas, James E. Murray, Rush D. Holt, Claude Pepper, Allen J. Ellender, Josh Lee, William E. Borah, Robert M. La Follette, Jr., and James J. Davis. Representatives: William P. Connery, Jr. (chairman), Robert Ramspeck, Glenn Griswold, Kent E. Keller, Matthew Dunn, Reuben T. Wood, James H. Gildea, Edward W. Curley, Albert Thomas, Joseph A. Dixon, William J. Fitzgerald, William F. Allen, George J. Schneider, Santiago Iglesias, Richard J. Welch, Fred A. Hartley, Jr., William P. Lambertson, Clyde H. Smith, and Arthur B. Jenks. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. This is a joint hearing of the Committee on Labor of the House and Committee on Education and Labor of the Senate, on H. R. 7200 and S. 2475. The CHAIRMAN. The first witness who will appear today is Mr. Robert H. Jackson. If it is satisfactory to the committee, Mr. Jackson has prepared statement which he suggests he can give to the committee and after that he suggests that he can go through the bill section by section for such questions as any members of the committee would want to ask him on the legal phases of the measure. If that is satisfactory to the committee I suggest that we follow that course. All right, proceed, Mr. Jackson. STATEMENT OF ROBERT H. JACKSON, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE Mr. JACKSON. Mr. Chairman, the formal statement which I have prepared deals with the constitutional questions, and later we can point out how those particular constitutional theories are carried into the bill. For years we have heard easy lip service "in principle to the commonplace that it is bad for America-economically as well as sociallyto have child labor, sweated labor, low standards of living, inhumane and unhealthy working conditions." Today we are considering something more than "approval in principle" of these ideas. We have an effort, in the specific and exact terms of a bill, to make this devotion to ideals statutory instead of merely rhetorical. 1 |