man, that the remuneration must be enough to support the wage earner in reasonable and frugal comfort.

If through necessity or fear of a worse evil, the workman accepts harder conditions because an employer or contractor will give him no better, he is the victim of force and injustice.

In 1928, in a report of its Commission on Social Justice, the Central Conference of American Rabbis emphasized "the moral right to a living wage" and declared:

In the moral stewardship of the earth, society must guarantee each of its members the chance to labor and to earn a living wage. Such a wage must be considered the first charge upon any industry. Those industries which do not pay their workers a living wage or which try to establish themselves economically by beating down the standards of living of their employees cannot be tolerated by any just social order.

I might say here, I happened to be serving on the national lay committee of the National Council of Churches in an advisory capacity when the following was adopted.

In 1954, the general board of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U. S. A. called upon Christians to

work for a situation wherein all have access at least to a minimum standard of living. Such a minimum should be sufficient to permit care of the health of all and for suitable protection of the weaker members of society, such as children, the sick, the aged, and the incapacitated. It should protect the able-bodied against hazards beyond their control.

Extension of the act to retail workers affected by the several retail coverage bills would be no more than a beginning insofar as a family living wage is concerned. The present minimum wage of $1 an hour as was shown at last year's Senate hearings does not come "within shooting distance" of recognized budgets for a family of four. One such budget, set by the New York City Welfare and Health Council, would call for a weekly wage of over $80, twice that obtainable at the current $1-an-hour minimum.

In the first quarter of the century, humanitarian and social concern for the protection of health, safety, morals and the general welfare, activated public-spirited, middle-class individuals and groups in campaigns for State maximum-hour and minimum-wage laws.

Most notable of the groups were the National Consumers League, the Women's Trade Union League and the American Association for Labor Legislation. Among the outstanding personalities associated with this humanitarian effort were Jane Adams, Florence Kelley, Mrs. Katherine Phillips Edson, Mrs. Clara Beyer and Fathers E V O'Hara and John A. Ryan, the latter perhaps the first American exponent of a minimum wage.

Concern for the physical effect of excessive labor was reflected by the United States Supreme Court in 1908 in its decision in the case of Curt Miller v. The State of Oregon. The Court held that right- under the 14th amendment are not infringed by the limitation of the hours of labor of women employed in laundries.

In that case the famed, and later Justice, Louis D. Brandeis acted as attorney for the State of Oregon. Justice Brewer, the spokesman for the Court, reiterated Brandeis' argument to the effect that

women's physical structure and the functions she performs in consequence thereof, justify special legislation restricting or qualifying the conditions under which she should be permitted to toil.

Low wages were regarded as a matter of public concern and, in the period from 1910 to 1923, State laws were sought to mitigate the resulting social evils. Federal and private agency investigations had shown working women and minors were being paid shockingly low wages.

In 1912, Massachusetts became the first State in which such legislation was adopted. By 1923, 10 States and the District of Columbia had adopted workable minimum wage statutes affecting women and

minors.

In that year, an unfavorable Supreme Court decision in the Adkins v. Children's Hospital case largely suppressed development of the movement for minimum wage legislation for a number of years.

That decision held until the Supreme Court reversed itself in the West Coast Hotel case in 1937. The reversal was predicated on a new concept of the State's police powers by the Court which declared that

the protection of women is a legitimate end of the exercise of State power.

The Court also adopted the view of Mr. Justice Holmes expounded in his Adkins dissent that the District of Columbia minimum wage law

in its character and operation is like hundreds of police laws that have been upheld.

Although the Federal Government does not have unlimited police powers, the Supreme Court as far back as 1847 in the License cases, had affirmed that it does exercise those which inhere in every sovereignty and that such police power

may be exercised by the United States within the scope of the power granted to it by the Constitution.

The conference report of 1938 on the FLSA emphasized that humanitarian motives represented the policy which guided Congress in the prescription of definite wage, hour and child labor provisions, as well as the policy set forth to guide the Administrator and the industry committees in working toward progressive improvements of labor standards.

The report declared that the policy of the act is to correct and as rapidly as possible eliminate in industries engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce, labor conditions detrimental to the maintenance of the minimum standard of living necessary for health, efficiency, and general well-being, without substantially curtailing employment or earning power.

The agreement further noted significantly that it by no means follows that the highest minimum wages or the lowest maximum hours authorized by the act are adequate to maintain what should be regarded as the minimum fair standard of living.

It pointed out that conditions which fail to conform with the conference agreement cannot be deemed adequate to maintain even a minimum standard of living.

The Congress in 1949, in amending the law, was equally explicit in reaffirming the humanitarian implications of the wage-hour law. In setting forth the fundamental principles to govern the interpretation of the law it declared:

(1) The provisions of the act, being remedial and humanitarian in purpose, must not be interpreted or applied in a narrow, grudging manner. They must be liberally construed.

(2) The exemptions from the act, on the other hand, must be strictly or narrowly construed.

(3) The terms of the act must construed in the light of the purposes which it seeks to accomplish.

A liberal construction of the act in furthering its humanitarian and remedial purposes would in all honesty call for extension of coverage to those retail employees affected by the various retail coverage bills.

As was pointed out at last year's hearings of the Senate committee, by Mrs. Elizabeth Wickenden, of the American Association of Social Workers:

Substandard wages are not just a private affair between an employer and his employee, but they do have a very heavy social cost which ultimately has to be borne by the public.

The limited commerce definition in the present law and the fact that coverage depends on activities of the particular employee and not on the interstate affect of the enterprise as a whole creates great inequities. For example, the employee of a chain store is treated the same as the corner grocery store employee without regard for the fact that he is an employee of a large national business concern.

Furthermore, the warehouse employee who services more than one establishment of a chain is covered, but such recognition does not extend to the employee is the store proper.

The serveral retail coverage bills would amend the Fair Labor Standards Act principally by adding a definition of the phrase "affecting commerce.' The definition, substantially the same as the one in the National Labor Relations Act, also would be made. applicable to the congressional statement of policy in the present wage-hour law.

Activity affecting commerce" is defined in the bills as

including any activity in commerce necessary to commerce or competing with any activity in commerce which would otherwise lower the payment of wages at rates below those prescribed by this act or would burden or obstruct or tend to burden or obstruct commerce or the free flow of commerce.

The effect of the bills' amendments would be to include within the coverage of the present act only the large retail enterprises, such as department stores, food and drug chains, variety and apparel stores, the activities of which affect commerce and which have a total annual volume of sales over $500,000, or consist of more than 5 retail establishments.

The amendment would still exclude from coverage all small retail enterprises whose total combined annual volume of sales is not over $500,000, from five or less separate establishments.

The amendment would therefore make coverage depend upon the retail enterprise of entity as a whole and not upon each separate physical establishment as in the present law.

Under the bills, both large singlestate and multistate retailing operations would be affected. For example, it would not be fair to exempt J. L. Hudson of Detroit, a multimillion dollar business, with buying offices in various mercantile centers, while extending coverage to chain operations, of whatever size so long as they cross State lines. The bills would make the effect on commerce rather than geography

determining. These bills very rightly set up criteria as to business volume and outlets in determining when a retailing activity is so large as to affect interstate commerce.

The effect of the amendment is to protect all employees who are employed by any such large retail employers.

The legislative and judicial history of FLSA shows clearly that Congress has the full constitutional power to extend the Fair Labor. Standards Act to large retail enterprises "affecting commerce." For various reasons, Congress did not attempt in 1938, 1946, and 1949 to extend coverage to those large retail employers whose business affects commerce. Extension of coverage is solely a matter of policy to be decided by Congress and is not a matter of constitutional authority. In extending coverage to all employees of large retailers the Congress would be exercising powers which it has already exercised and which have been upheld as constitutional by the Supreme Court. The courts in the United States have approved many times extension of coverage under the National Labor Relations Act to large retail establishments because they or their activities "affect commerce" as defined under that act.

The Supreme Court has often pointed out that the Congress did not go to the limit of its own power to regulate commerce in the FLSA coverage provisions.

The real intent of Congress in 1938, 1946, and 1949 was to exclude from the law the small corner grocery, the small drugstore, the small clothing store and the like. The exemption, however, has enabled large mercantile establishments and national systems of chainstores to have immunity from the law and an unfair competitive advantage over the small retailer.

It should be noted that the Senate originally intended to cover large retail establishments whose businesses substantially influence the stream of commerce and that the second bill as reported by the House Labor Committee in 1938 intended to cover any retail enterprise which "affected commerce.' The House bill did not intend to cover small retail enterprises.

In 1949 Congress amended section 13 (a) (2) in order to define a retail establishment which would be exempt. As a result the law now provides three tests setting forth required percentages with respect to intrastate sales, sales for resale, and retail sales.

The only conclusion that can be drawn from the 1949 legislative history is that the sponsors primarily still had in mind continuation. of the 1938 exemption of small retail businesses.

However, the 1949 amendments did not confine the exemption to "small" retail establishments. Under the broad umbrella of the phrase "retail establishments" all retail enterprises, whether large or small, locally owned or nationwide corporations, were free to claim exemption. The bills before the committee not only carry forward the historical concern of Congress to exempt small retail enterprises but set an administratively clear line as to those large retail establishments which may be considered to come under the commerce clause as doing business "affecting interstate commerce."

The standards set forth are so clear that they will enable every employer in the retail industry to ascertain readily in advance whether or not his retail enterprise is covered by the act or is exempt, and therefore would not subject the employer to any penalties because of uncertainty or unclear language in the statute.

The argument raised by those opposing extension of coverage that all retailing is a local service and, therefore, should not be brought within the scope of Federal regulation is a form of self-serving blindness which does not stand the test of commonsense. Such an argument would have us believe that retailing today takes place within the confines of a medieval walled town and without contact with near or remote communities.

It would also have us ignore the fact that the courts and the Congress have sustained the view that certain retailing enterprises and activities are not only subject to Federal regulation, but are so regulated today. Retailing is but one of the services performed in the transitions undergone by a primary raw material until the finished product reaches the hands of the consumer. Retailing is not a segmented activity which can be severed from the life stream of the Nation's

commerce.

Even the consumer's dollar or note for deferred payment does not end the process. Every purchase made depletes the retailer's inventory and thereby regenerates the cycle of commercial and industrial activity back to the primary raw material producer. Our economic life is a continuous process. It does not function in unrelated and disconnected compartments.

In addition, interstate functions performed by large retailers include not only the direct sale of goods to the ultimate consumer but also include production of raw materials, manufacturing and processing, purchasing, transporting, and warehousing. Such retailing activities. affect commerce.

Our opponents have claimed that extension of coverage would represent "a false increase in wages and not a natural result of our economic system" as well as "Government intervention in employeremployee relations." In that opinion they betray an archaic and discredited interpretation of our American way of life.

The basic principle of our Constitution is continual improvement of human welfare, liberty, and happiness. In support thereof, scores of laws and judicial decisions have been made to mitigate the dehumanized "workings of the marketplace." The passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act was in itself a major step forward in that direction. The intent of the act is to eliminate the unfair competition of sweatshop employers and to enable fairminded employers to make a profit.

The employers who plead poverty and justify their opposition to extension on the basis of the so-called laws of supply and demand are doing the Nation a disservice in the current worldwide contest of ideas.

The most outstanding fallacy in the theories of Karl Marx was his failure to comprehend or foresee the capacity of democracy to modify and improve the living conditions of the workingman within the framework of our representative government.

There are still many millions who are yet a long way from enjoying any part of the comforts and security we associate with the American way of Life. For 1954, the Bureau of the Census reports, one-fifth of the Nation's 42 million families had incomes of less than $2,000.

It is our feeling that the failure of the Government to act does in fact freeze existing substandard wages. Those unable to bargain effectively to improve their earnings are indeed left to the cold mercies of the marketplace.

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