refuse in general to accept the standards or to demand nullifying special provisions for their areas, or to refrain from enforcing them, even though they had gone through the motion of formally accepting them, or they may unwisely try to enforce them too quickly or too rigorously, with unfortunate results for the people on whose behalf they were supposedly introduced.

Mr. ADAMS. Are there other witnesses, Mr. Chairman?

Mr. RAMSPECK. Yes.

Mr. ADAMS. May I ask Dr. Van Sickle one more question?

With reference to Russia, what do you visualize the situation to be? How far has Russia progressed, with the support and control of wages there?

Dr. VAN SICKLE. I do not know much about Russia. I did consult an economist who wrote a doctoral thesis on the structure of wages in Russia, and he informs me that the Russians, although they have absolute power to move labor and capital around that vast country of theirs at will, nevertheless use wage differentials. They do not try to keep wages the same all over the country. They recognize that wage differentials assist the Government, although it is clothed with complete power, to bring about the adjustments that are needed in terms of their plan. Now, what it seems to me we are doing, in a free enterprise society in which we expect to rely largely on individual decision, is to create a uniformity that will make it very difficult for private enterprise to operate effectively.

Mr. RAMSPECK. Thank you very much, Doctor.

The next witness is Mr. T. B. Gittings, assistant vice president of the Western Union Telegraph Co.

STATEMENT OF T. B. GITTINGS, ASSISTANT VICE PRESIDENT OF THE WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH CO.

Mr. GITTINGS. With respect to the proposed increase in the minimum wage, our company is in a very unusual position. Of approximately 60,000 employees, about 11,000, or 18.5 percent, are messengers. The total messenger pay roll is running at an annual rate of about $10,800,000; the immediate application of the increase in the minimum to 65 cents will increase this messenger pay roll by $4,450,000, or by 41.2 percent, not including additional costs in connection with socialsecurity taxes, benefit payments, and so forth.

Regardless of the minimum wage, the best messengers, from the point of view of service to the public, are young ones, not only because of their superior alertness, but because for about a year before expecting promotion they devote their energies to becoming as efficient messengers as possible, and do not, for some little time, come to regard their job as unworthy of their capacities.

The difference between our company and practically all other large companies engaged in interstate operations is that in our case alone such a very large percentage of our employees fall within this junior class. There is nothing comparable to it in any other interstate industry.

These younger boys, in general, have not the responsibilities of heads of families, and in most cases not only live at home, but find it unnecessary to be fully self-supporting. In the present act there is a finding of fact-as the constitutional basis for the legislation-that the existence in industries engaged in commerce or production for com

merce, of labor conditions detrimental to the maintenance of the minimum standard of living necessary for health, efficiency, and general well-being of workers, burdens commerce and constitutes an unfair method of competition in commerce and leads to labor disputes obstructing commerce. It seems evident that this does not apply and was not intended to apply generally to employees of the class of telegraph messengers under eighteen. When the present act was under consideration, Congress evidently recognized that, in fairness to the telegraph companies and without serious prejudice to the national policy which Congress was about to adopt, our messengers might well be exempted to some extent from the general minimum; and at the request of the telegraph companies, and in order evidently to afford them some relief in this respect, a provision was inserted in the act authorizing the administrator to permit the employment of "messengers employed exclusively in delivering letters and messages" at such wages lower than the general minimum as he might prescribe.

In practice it turned out that this attempt to afford us relief failed of its purpose. The administrator refused to avail himself of the authority for two reasons: first, because the authority was conditioned on a showing that it was necessary to prevent curtailment of opportunities for employment, and he took the position that we could not get along without the messengers; and secondly because, in the face of the manifest intent of Congress to relieve the telegraph companies, he ruled that it could not be said that our messengers were employed exclusively in delivering letters and messages. Technically this is true. Messengers are frequently summoned by call box or telephone, and when they go out of the telegraph office we do not know whether the customer wishes them to pick up a telegram or letter or perhaps to take his brief case to the railway station or perform some other errand service. Ninety percent of the time it will be a telegram, but it may possibly be one of the other services. The provision in the existing law therefore affords no relief. We ask that Congress consider an amendment to the effect that the increase in the minimum wage now under consideration shall not apply to messengers under 18 years of age employed principally in the pick-up and delivery of telegrams and letters.

The Western Union Telegraph Co. is opposed to the provision which would prohibit it from employing messengers under 16, and from employing messengers under 18 in work of any character which the chief of the Children's Bureau decides to classify as "hazardous." In this respect the purpose of the bill is to change the rule of law as declared by the Supreme Court in the recent case of Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Lenroot, namely, that the sending of telegrams is not the shipment of goods and hence not prohibited because child labor has been employed. To change this rule would involve serious hardship to the telegraph company. If such a prohibition had been in effect during the war period, the telegraph company would have found its delivery service involved in something like a major catastrophe.

At the time of the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938 this question had careful consideration in Congress. Both the Senate and the House bills contained provisions prohibiting child labor in interstate commerce, but these provisions were eliminated from the bill as finally passed.

There is no question that the employment of children under 16 must be subject to regulation by Government. The issue on which opinions have differed is whether, under our Federal system, it should be regulated by Congress or by the States. It has always been and still is the policy of an overwhelming number of the States to permit the employment of boys under 16 as telegraph messengers, subject to restrictions of various kinds which differ in the various States according to differing conceptions of local policy. When the Western Union employs these boys, we necessarily comply scrupulously with State laws. No reason has ever been suggested why this matter requires any uniform Federal rule. We believe that no go reason can be suggested except that the abolition of all child labor is regarded by many as a progressive measure, and it is felt by some that if the several States do not progress fast enough, it is a proper function of Congress to compel them to speed up the process against their will. Twenty States, including nearly half the population of the country, have refused to agree to the child labor amendment, not from any general approval of the principle of child labor but because of their belief that they should severally retain the right of regulation of this matter in their own hands, with liberty to experiment if they see fit, but to withdraw or change the experiment if it fails to work satisfactorily under local conditions. The great convenience which would result from a uniform Federal divorce law has not resulted in any serious effort to bring this subject within the field of regulation by Congress, because family relations are primarily and essentially for regulation by the State as long as our Federal system lasts. Whether a boy shall go to work in a telegraph office if he wishes to and his father wishes him to is a family matter, and unlike the matter of divorce there is no overwhelming reason, or any reason, of convenience which demands that governmental regulation shall be uniform.

President Roosevelt, in his message which led to the introduction of the fair labor standards bills, did not recommend that the Congress prohibit child labor in commerce. He did indeed urge an extension of the frontiers of social progress, but the Democratic platform of 1936 had made it plain that in extending those frontiers it was expected that the States would do their share and Congress would do its share, "each within its proper jurisdiction." The only recommendation to Congress in the President's message, so far as child labor was concerned, was that they should change the law as established by Hammer v. Dagenhart and prohibit the shipment of goods produced by child labor in commerce, so as to destroy the competitive advantage in interstate trade which resulted to the mine or factory employing child labor over their rivals in other States who did not. And this was all that Congress did. The battle over the child labor amendment was fresh at that time in the minds of the Members of both Houses, many of whom had taken an active part in public speeches as well as in debates on the floor in the discussion as to the wisdom of extending Federal power into such local matters; and there can be no doubt that the same reasons which were and can still be advanced against the child labor amendment had their effect in eliminating the prohibition of child labor from the act as passed.

In this connection it may be interesting to note that the original bills. introduced in 1937 both contained findings of fact and a declaration of policy broad enough to indicate that it was the view of the framers

of these bills that child labor was harmful to commerce. The act as passed contained no such finding of fact or declaration of policy. We do not think that Congress could fairly conclude, from anything in past history, that the employment of these boys in capacities in which they have been long regarded as adequate affects commerce injuriously in any way. There has never been, we believe, a single instance in history of a strike caused or threatened by the employment in commerce of messengers under 16, and there is no basis for any fear that any interruption to commerce ever will be so caused or threatened.

The effect of prohibiting child labor in commerce would be to prevent boys under 16 from securing employment in a telegraph office. It would leave them free, if they must work or will work, to work in stores, as errand boys, and in all kinds of local trade and service establishments. But many of these boys would much rather be telegraph messengers. We believe that it would be incomparably better for most of them to be telegraph messengers than to work in many of these other trades. Not only is it a healthy, and largely outdoor occupation, but it affords opportunity for developing initiative and resourcefulness, and the opportunities for promotion and advancement are excellent. It is familiar knowledge that Edison, Carnegie, Glenn H. Curtiss, and Donald M. Nelson, started life as telegraph messengers. Two Western Union presidents began their business life that way, as well as a large proportion of the higher operating officials of our company.

Another addition to the list of outstanding ex-messengers came to my attention in the September 24 Congressional Record reprint of an article which first appeared in the New York Herald Tribune. It dealt with Mr. Schwellenbach's eminent fitness for the difficult job of Labor Secretary. The author explained that the Secretary's father died when Mr. Schwellenbach was 14 and that he worked his way through school as a newsboy, waterboy, messenger, and railway worker. In many businesses a boy may start as an office clerk and remain an office clerk all his life; but in less than a year the average messenger has advanced to a better job either in or out of Western Union.

While there have been many complaints of the abuses of child labor in factories and workshops, we do not believe that it has ever been seriously urged that there is anything oppressive in the ordinary sense about employment as a telegraph messenger. The term "oppressive' child labor is used in the act arbitrarily to cover all employment of boys under 16; but as applied to telegraph messengers the term does not reflect any actual evil or abuse, or the conclusion of any committee of Congress which has ever conducted an investigation of the subject.

Our company derives no competitive advantage over any rival by the employment of these younger boys as messengers. We sell no product in competition with anyone else for which we are able to charge lower rates because of the use of some of these employees. To restrict their employment when the boys, their families, and their State approve it would merely impose a new and unnecessary obstacle to our efforts to improve our public delivery service.

It affords me no pleasure to have to take issue with some of the statements made by Miss Lenroot, Chief of the Children's Bureau, when she appeared before a Senate committee on October 2. I can

fully understand her natural desire and her obligation under the law, to insure education for minors and to protect their well being. We in Western Union are human and we have children of our own.

Miss Lenroot said that Western Union is probably the largest single employer of children under 16. That is unquestionably true. It is the reason I am here. But let me explain that we are also the only employer providing a national and international telegraph service, affording what we believe we can convince you is attractive temporary employment for minors.

Miss Lenroot offered many reasons why messenger work is "highly undesirable for children." I will ask you to judge the facts. However let me first explain, and here I hope you will excuse the personal reference, that I once worked as a Western Union messenger and so did two of my three sons. I also worked for the company as delivery manager here in Washington for 3 years and at Newark, N. J., for 2 years. I therefore have had close association with messengers and with the men and women over them.

Exposure to weather conditions was emphasized by Miss Lenroot. Rain capes are provided for messengers as are mackinaws, and even shirts for warm weather use. The messenger pays nothing whatever for this clothing and his uniform.

I do not know just what Miss Lenroot has in mind in citing physical strain incident to Western Union messenger work. The youngster is either walking, riding a bus or a streetcar, or a bicycle. If he were at home he would probably be climbing trees and poles, running around on the street, playing pinball machines in a neighborood store, setting up pins in a bowling alley, or just loafing.

Where health is concerned, I submit that the messenger who needs a job at all, needs it to help feed and clothe himself. If the family is in good circumstances he is able to open a bank account and keep out of mischief in the process.

Miss Lenroot is naturally concerned over fatigue and strain which would result from long hours and night work. She has been misinformed where Western Union messengers 16 and under are concerned. Let me read from the instructions of our commercial department vice president, Mr. W. S. Fowler, regulating messenger employment in the light of the Supreme Court decision handed down on January 8 of this year. This letter from which I quote is dated New York, January 10, 1945, when the country was still at war.

It should be our general practice not to work part-time messengers under 16 in excess of 30 hours per week of 6 days, nor full-time messengers under 16 more than 48 hours a week of 6 days or more than 8 hours in any 1 day. Whether in part-time or full-time assignments, such youths should not be assigned before 7 a. m. or after 7 p. m. Youths between 14 and 15 should not be employed without division headquarters authority, which you will wish to grant only in exceptional and well-justified circumstances involving, for example, an extremely tight labor market, and then with the consent of the local school, individual requests of the school or other officials to employ a particular youth, or the employment of those in, say, the last 3 months before reaching age 15. It shall continue to be our general policy not to employ automobile messengers under 18 years of age.

Actually, the weekly hours of work for all messengers under 16 has this year averaged 22. You will be interested to know, too, that the average number of messengers under 16 employed this year was 1,268 and that of these 1,129, or 89 percent, were limited to after-school

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