Mr. CLARK. Well, I participate in them, and I am president of the company. Mr. JOHNSON. Are you eligible for workmen's compensation? Mr. JOHNSON. That does not prevail in our State. Mr. CLARK. If I were injured in the course of my duties; that is my understanding of our law. Mr. JOHNSON. Do you mean that if you made a trip down into the mine and got hurt, you would enjoy workmen's compensation benefits? Mr. CLARK. That is my understanding of the law. I will admit that I never knew of a case where it happened; but that is my understanding. Perhaps Mr. Fenton, who is from Pennsylvania, would know that. Mr. JOHNSON. In what way is the situation of your mine foremen different with respect to their relationship to their employer than that of shop foreman in railroad yards? Mr. CLARK. My trouble is that I do not know enough about what shop foremen in railroad yards do to be able to make a comparison. I do know this Mr. JOHNSON. Is it a fact that the shop foremen do have a union? Mr. CLARK. I do not even know that. Mr. JOHNSON. Well, you do know that the engineers have a union? Mr. JOHNSON. You know that the conductors have a union? Mr. JOHNSON. The conductor is in charge of the train and the whole crew; is he not? Mr. CLARK. Yes. Mr. JOHNSON. I would like to have your version of how the situation of the mine foreman differs from that of the conductor of a railroad train. Mr. CLARK. I do not think a conductor has very much to do with the wages or supervision, any more than to have carried out the few rules or duties on the part of the brakeman. It is altogether different from operations in a coal mine. The foremen I am talking about spend our money. Mr. JOHNSON. When the conductor is on a trip with his train, he really represents the railroad owners, does he not, in directing the operations of the train? Mr. CLARK. He does; but I think the scope of his direction is very limited. Mr. JOHNSON. Well, do you think that the relationship between the conductor and the railroad owners is different from the relationship between your people and the owners? Mr. CLARK. Yes. I think there is a great deal more responsibility and managerial functioning in our supervisory forces than there is in the conductor of a train, as I know what his duties are. Mr. JOHNSON. That is what you brought out for us this morningdetailed operations. Do all your foremen work on a wage scale, or do they work on a piece basis? Mr. CLARK. These foremen are paid salaries, as a rule. Some of these supervisory men, when you get down to watchmen, if they are supervisory men, are usually paid an hourly rate or a daily rate. The assistant foremen are usually paid monthly salaries. Mr. JOHNSON. You have read the bill here? Mr. CLARK. Yes, sir; I have read it. Mr. JOHNSON. Of course, as far as your personal inclination is concerned, I assume you would like to hold in your mines as many competent men as you can. In other words, you do not want to have your mines depleted by withdrawals for the military service? Mr. CLARK. My feeling has always been that someone other than myself had to settle that question. Somebody has to say how many men are needed in the Army, and somebody has to say how many men are going to be left for industry. It is not a matter for the individual. Personally I would like to have as many men as we can have, producing as much coal as we can produce. Mr. JOHNSON. I understand that, but your responsibility is to run mines successfully; is not that correct? Mr. CLARK. Yes. Mr. JOHNSON. Do you have a system of applications for deferment when men are withdrawn? Mr. CLARK. Yes, sir. Mr. JOHNSON. You have a regular form that you fill out for those men when the Army proposes to withdraw them? Mr. CLARK. Yes. Mr. JOHNSON. The basis of that is that their operations and work are essential to the national war effort? Mr. CLARK. That is right. Mr. JOHNSON. So your main object is to try to create a situation wherein the situation will be the best; is not that correct? Mr. CLARK. That is correct. Mr. JOHNSON. Is not your main interest in this bill not a military interest but the fact that you think certain practices are derogatory of the efficient management of your mines? Mr. CLARK. That is right; but I know that men are going to be taken from our mines into the military forces. They have been taken, and they are going to continue to be taken up to a point. But I want the ones who are left to work under the circumstances that make for the most production of coal, because I think that this country needs coal for its war effort-I am sure it does. Mr. JOHNSON. I am not quarreling with your viewpoint; I am trying to get what that viewpoint is. Your main objective is not as much concerned with the men going into the Army as it is with having as many men as you can get and having them work efficiently and in a capable manner? Mr. CLARK. That is correct. Mr. JOHNSON. Do you believe that the rules which you suggested, which would incorporate branches of management in the labor union, would be derogatory of the effective operation of the mines? Mr. CLARK. I believe they would. Mr. JOHNSON. That is the burden of your whole testimony? Mr. CLARK. That is correct. It seems to me that it fits right in with the Selective Service Act, because you cannot look at one without looking at the other. You cannot say that there should be an Army of 20,000,000 men if enough men are not left in the country to support them. Mr. JOHNSON. Of course, the selective service is intended for the drafting of younger men? Mr. CLARK. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. Men from 18 to 38. Mr. JOHNSON. Yes. That is all. Mr. MARTIN. Now that we are on a military question, I am a little more at home. I have always been in favor of "work or fight" in wartime; but I do not look at this bill as a work-or-fight bill. Another general principle that I have always followed has been not to legislate large bodies of law violators into the armed forces. I am having a little difficulty in taking section 2 and section 7 of H. R. 2239 and seeing this bill as anything less than legislation that makes one who atetmpts to organize, a violator of a law under section 7 for his efforts to organize under section 2 and to turn all such men over to Selective Service, apparently with the hope that they will be taken en masse into the service. You are running counter to two or three rather fundamental military principles that I think need a little attention, either by you or some of the other proponents of this bill. I do not want to be placed in the position of legislating a whole group of law violators into the armed forces as such. The CHAIRMAN. May I interrupt you, Mr. Martin? I have been trying for some time to get a lawyer up here. Mr. MARTIN. This will be a little preview of what I will want him to explain. I am giving him a little forewarning that I am trying to get this question cleared up. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Clark. Mr. CLARK. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen. STATEMENT OF WALTER GORDON MERRITT, NEW YORK, N. Y. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Merritt, we will hear from you at this time. Be as brief as you can, because the House will be in session in a few minutes. State your name, your business, your residence, and what your interest in this bill is. Mr. MERRITT. My name is Walter Gordon Merritt. My office is at 40 Wall Street, New York City. My New York City residence is the Hotel Carlyle, Seventy-sixth Street and Madison Avenue. I have been counsel for the anthracite industry for nearly 20 years. I was caught down here yesterday on other matters and was asked to appear here and register the attitude of the anthracite industry toward certain particular provisions of this bill. The only provisions I have in mind are those provisions which relate to prohibitions upon the supervisory forces joining labor unions and to any concerted action or threats designed to coerce employers to deal collectively with labor organizations, and including such supervisory forces in their group. Very briefly, the industry for which I speak is, I think important in the war effort. It produces upward of 60,000,000 tons of anthracite a year. There have been threatened shortages. We are being certified in every respect as important to the war effort. We are confronted, as is the bituminous industry, with the demands of the mine workers to radically change our relations by including within the collective bargaining unit the supervisory forces. We know that if these supervisory forces join the union, the efficiency of the mines will be reduced very much, particularly if they join a union which is the same as that to which the men who are directed by the supervisory forces belong. We know that as a fact. To us it is a fact that is self-evident. Let me just state this to you, gentlemen, and then I should be glad to submit myself to any questions you care to fire at me. We regard these men as, let us say, the policemen who are going around in many instances through the underground passages looking after the enforcement of safety measures which have to do with life, liberty, and property, and to see that efficiency of production is maintained by each man doing what he should do. We know that if these men join a union and transfer their first allegiance to the union as against the employer, so that they accept orders from the union instead of the employer, or subject themselves to dual allegiance, those measures will not be carried out as efficiently, and the production of the coal will not be as efficient. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Merritt, I want to ask you a question or two. I heard yesterday something that I had never heard of before, to the effect that miners who join local unions of the United Mine Workers are required to take some kind of pledge or oath as a prerequisite of membership. Do you know whether that is true? Mr. MERRITT. I think that is true of every union I have ever heard of, and it must be true of the United Mine Workers. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Costello? Mr. COSTELLO. I have no questions, Mr. Chairman. Mr. CLASON. Mr. Merritt, are you familiar with this bill? There is something I want to have straightened out in my mind. Mr. MERRITT. Suppose you start on the assumption that I am, which is contrary to the fact. Mr. CLASON. Have you read it? Mr. MERRITT. I have read it. Mr. CLASON. This is with reference to section 2. I would like to have a good lawyer's opinion on this subject. This is the first chance I have had to get a good New York opinion free of charge. Mr. MERRITT. I may send a bill yet. [Laughter.] Mr. CLASON. Section 2 has in it a proviso, which would be an amendment to section 5E of the Selective Service and Training Act of 1940. The proviso is as follows [reading]: Provided, That none of the provisions of this subsection relating to deferment from service shall apply to any person who violates any of the following provisions of this Act, and every employer shall on or before the 10th day of March, June, September, and December of each year report to the appropriate selective service local board the name of each employee subject to the jurisdiction of each local board who has failed to comply with the following provisions of this Act. Now, are you familiar with section 5E of the Selective Service and Training Act of 1940? Mr. MERRITT. Perhaps I can answer your question without even looking at the bill. Congressman Costello is, I think, entirely right in his criticism of the bill as drawn. Mr. CLASON. When it says "any person who violates any of the following provisions of this act," do you in your mind interpret the words "any of the following provisions of this act" as applying to provisions in the Selective Service and Training Act, or have you in mind that that includes the acts included in sections 4 and 5 of this bill, H. R. 2239? Mr. MERRITT. I did not draw the bill. It is perfectly obvious, it seems to me, that the phrases appearing twice in that quoted provision of section 2 of this bill, to wit, "of this act," are improper, and they should, if they are to be inserted in like purpose in the Selective Service Act, refer to this particular bill if, as, and when it becomes an act. Mr. CLASON. In testifying here, your testimony is given on the assumption and the understanding, referring to these supervisory persons, that they are to be considered as included within that proviso? Mr. MERRITT. Yes. Mr. CLASON. In your opinion, this is a question of faulty draftsmanship, so far as your testimony is concerned? Mr. MERRITT. That is correct. Mr. CLASON. I think all of us are intent upon getting information. We are studying all the bills together, and we want to get all the testimony it is possible to get together on the subject, if this committee is going to handle this bill at all. You have given us a very brief statement on the subject. Do you consider this question of the supervisory men of such importance that it ought to be made a part of the Selective Service and Training Act? Mr. MERRITT. I consider it of tremendous importance. I think I would be willing to say that I see no reason why this question of importance should not be handled in this way, through amendment of the Selective Service Act. In other words, the purpose of this act, to sum it up, as I understand this particular phase of it, is to cancel or deny deferment to people who violate provisions of these acts by engaging in force and threats in connection with labor union activities involving supervisory forces, and to those who join labor unions which include in their membership such supervisory forces. I would say that in our particular industry manpower is short, as it is in many other industries. The efficiency per man is somewhat diminished. Our machinery, of course, is not enjoying the replacements that it once did, because of the limitations of priorities. We need at this time the greatest possible efficiency of production. Congressman Fenton said he thought this was untimely because of the demands in New York. I say that the demands in New York are untimely and that they have made this particular measure timely. Mr. FENTON. Will the gentleman yield there? Mr. MERRITT. Let me say one thing more, and then I should be delighted to submit myself to any questions. I can conceive of no greater need for consideration of this subject than in the time of this great war, when an important labor leader. is trying to enforce his demands, which in this instance include departure from all traditional methods of bargaining. Mr. FENTON. You understand that they are considering renegotiation of the contract. The present contract is about to expire; that is why at the present time they are negotiating in New York. I think it is appropriate that the contract should be renegotiated. That is why they are meeting in New York at the present time, whether there is a war on or not. They are living up to the rules of the game, the rules of the contract. Mr. MERRITT. No; they are establishing new rules of the game and extending the contract to a field that it has never been extended to |