PRISON-MADE MERCHANDISE HEARINGS BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON LABOR SEVENTIETH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION ON H. R. 7729 A BILL TO DIVEST GOODS, WARES, AND MERCHANDISE PRISON-MADE MERCHANDISE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Tuesday, February 7, 1928. The committee met at 2 o'clock p. m., Hon. William F. Kopp (chairman) presiding. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will please come to order. We are to consider the Cooper bill, H. R. 7729, which reads as follows: [H. R. 7729, Seventieth Congress, first session] A BILL To divest goods, wares, and merchandise manufactured, produced, or mined by convicts or prisoners of their interstate character in certain cases Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That all goods, wares, and merchandise manufactured, produced, or mined, wholly or in part, by convicts or prisoners, except paroled convicts or prisoners, or in any penal and/or reformatory institutions, transported into any State or Territory of the United States and remaining therein for use, consumption, sale, or storage, shall upon arrival and delivery in such State or Territory be subject to the operation and effect of the laws of such State or Territory to the same extent and in the same manner as though such goods, wares, and merchandise had been manufactured, produced, or mined in such State or Territory, and shall not be exempt therefrom by reason of being introduced in the original package or otherwise. Senator Hawes is here. Congressman Cooper, of Ohio, can not be here on account of the sickness of Mrs. Cooper. So we have asked Senator Hawes to make the opening statement at this hearing. You may proceed, Senator, in your own way. STATEMENT OF HON. HARRY B. HAWES, UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MISSOURI Senator HAWES. Mr. Chairman, I greatly regret the absence of Congressman Cooper, who is one of the most intelligent Members of the House and is thoroughly familiar with this act. It may interest you to know that the House has passed the bill three times after its being reported practically unanimously from this committee. Mr. FENN. Do you mean the Cooper bill or the other bill? Mr. FENN. The other bill that was passed was a bill much broader in its effect than the so-called Cooper bill; that would apply to all States, providing that there woud be no shipments into a State of prisonmade goods. Senator HAWES. I am informed that it was the Cooper bill. Gentlemen, the bill was defeated in the Senate. It never got there in time to pass; through processes of delay on this side and the activities of representatives of the prisons and the prison contractors it usually got to the Senate at such a late date that in the jam of legislation there it did not get through. May I say to you that within he next two days the Senate committee will complete its hearings this year and I believe the voice of the House, three times expressed, will be registered by vote in the Senate in favor of this legislation. The suport back of this bill is rather unusual. It represents three distinct elements in our society, each favoring it from a different viewpoint. The American Federation of Labor, which has a membership of 5,000,000, and, taken with their families, a representation of 25,000,000, have indorsed this bill in their national conventions. It has been indorsed by their executive committee; it has beein indorsed by the State unions, and by many of the local unions. So a full and free expression of approval has been given b ythe Federation of Labor. The second element of support comes from a different element of our society entirely. It comes from the General Federation of Women's Clubs, an organization throught the United States which has 14,000 branches and a national membership of 2,000,000. This organization, composed exclusively of women, is interested in the welfare of the prisoner and his humane treatment, his proper employment, so that a way will be prepared for him when he leaves the, penitentiary or prison reformatory. These ladies, like the American Federation of Labor, have considered this subject in their State organizations and also in their national organization. They had a meeting about 30 days ago when representatives from 39 different States discussed this matter and gave it their unanimous approval. There is a third class who are vitally interested in this, and they are the manufacturers. For instance, there is the garment industry of the United States, which represents 25,100 garment establishments distributed in 38 States. They employ in excess of 1,900,000 men and women, and they have a capital of $373,000,000 invested in the garment industry. Then there is the broom industry of the United States, in which there are 600 maunfacturing concerns, distributed in 39 States. They employ 6,000 men and women and have a capital of $6,000,000. The cotton-textile industry represents an investment of $2,000,000,000, doing business in each of the 48 States, and employing over 500,000 men and women. And you will hear a representative of the blind, who are losing their occupation in the broom-making field, which is their particular field. Mr. Donald Richberg will discuss before your committee the question of the constitutionality of this bill, if it is attacked. I may say to you that the bill was submitted by me to the legislative drafting committee of the Senate, composed of some very able lawyers, and they all say there is no doubt about its constitutionality. Now, what does the bill do? The bill simply permits the States of the Union to protect the sentiment of those States as expressed by their legislatures. There are 13 States of the 48 which either prohibit the sale of convict-made goods, or tax them or place regulations upon them to prevent their sale. This bill simply stops a consignment of convict-made goods, when it reaches the border of a State where the sale is prohibited. That is all it does. It is based on the Wilson Act, which prohibits the interstate shipment of liquor into a State where the laws of that State prohibit the sale. It is based upon the same principles as my black bass bill, in the advocacy of which your friend Fenn and I were so earnest, prohibiting the interstate shipment of black bass into a State where the State law prohibited its commercial sale. Now, gentlemen, that is all the bill does. Any State may do as it pleases with its own goods, but it is prohibited from dumping its convict-made goods into a State where the prisoners of that State are not permitted to make and sell convict-made goods. It will interest you to know that the State of New York and the State of Pennsylvania and the States of Ohio and New Jersey, large populous States, with a large number of convicts in each of those States, have what is called the State-use system. With your permission, I shall put into the record a letter written. by Senator Edge, of New Jersey, who introduced that system in New Jersey. If there is a Congressman here from New York, he will tell you that the New York Penitentiary, with more prisoners than any other penitentiary in America, keeps its prisoners all employed, and the same thing is true in Pennsylvania. The support of union labor is based upon a matter of equity and justice. În my State of Missouri, for instance, we make more shoes than any other State in the Union, and in my city of St. Louis more shoes are made than any other city in America. Mr. CONNERY. That used to be true of Lynn, but I guess you took that away from us. Senator HAWES. Yes; that is one time when we got ahead of Massachusetts. The manufacturer there must pay his employee from $3 to $4 a day. The prison contractors get the use of a prisoner, say, for 60 cents a day. That is dishonest and unfair competition. We pass laws to exclude the competition of cheap labor from abroad. We raise our tariff walls in order to prevent, in some degree at least, the competition of cheap labor with American labor. And yet if something is not done to stop the greed of the prison contractor, and done by the American Congress, you will continue to throw into direct competition with free labor the convict labor of the penitentiaries of the States. And the States are powerless to control this thing. For illustration, the State of New York has a modern prison, with more prisoners in it than any penitentiary in the United States. It prohibits the sale of convict-made goods in the State of New York, and yet other States can manufacture what they please and sell their products in the State of New York. And some of these sales, my friends, are conducted in fraud and deceit. I will file with this committee for the record an order issued by the Federal Trade Commission of the United States. This commission reports on a situation that developed in Indiana. The so-called Commonwealth Manufacturing Co. and the Chicago Manufacturing Co. and Mr. Dushoff-all one and the same has one |