in no good to honest labor, but it will emphasize and widen the artificial gulf between capital and labor. I am, sir, in favor of just and equitable laws, which can not be set aside either by the rich and powerful or by the poor and weak. Indeed, when there shall have been created a just and intelligent public sentiment, there will be no rich and poor, no powerful and weak, known in the administration of law. It is not possible that the segregation of our people into classes called capital and labor, with penal statutes peculiar to each and not applicable to both, can be good for our country. To me conspiracy is conspiracy, coercion is coercion, lawlessness is lawlessness, the same as murder is murder, no matter what the political, financial, or social standing of the offender may be. It is not our business as legislators to refine what common consent accepts as wrong by classifying the people and exempting one class while holding another. But if you insist on this kind of legislation, let it be done directly, and not hand to labor organizations a bouquet of poppies gorgeous in color but withering and falling to pieces even as they reach to grasp it. Mr. President, it is because I do not believe that this exemption can possibly result in benefit to labor, but possibly may result in disaster to the whole country, that I am in favor of striking the provision from the bill. 91095-11968 TRUSTS AND COMBINATIONS SPEECH OF HON. JOHN D. WORKS OF CALIFORNIA IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES MAY 5, 1913 WASHINGTON SPEECH OF HON. JOHN D. WORKS. Mr. WORKS. Mr. President, the Sherman antitrust law has been in force now for over 22 years. It was intended, doubtless, to prevent the accumulation of large fortunes in the hands of a few by the oppression of the smaller lines of business by the larger. Its ostensible object was to maintain competition and to prevent contracts and combinations in restraint of trade. It has effected neither the one nor the other. As a practical remedy it has been a complete failure. Its object was wholesome and beneficent, but such legislation and efforts to enforce it do not reach the evils which result in these unlawful contracts and overpowering combinations of wealth. It simply scratches the surface of the evils of selfishness, greed, and avarice so largely ingrained in human nature, and which so almost wholly rule and govern the actions of men in business transactions. The fear of the law and the punishment which may result from it may, in individual instances, prevent the more timid or the more law-abiding from entering into unlawful and injurious combinations, just as individuals may by the same influence be prevented from committing murder or other crimes. But men can not be made honest or unselfish by law. Something greater and higher than this is necessary to prevent men from wronging their fellow men. In the effort to amass wealth they forget the rights of others and trample them under foot. They exact long hours of labor from their underpaid and underfed employees and the highest prices from their customers. Immense fortunes are amassed by the most cruel and inhuman injustice to thousands and thousands who labor for the simple necessaries of life. They begin wrong in this respect and continue in that way to the end. Their children are educated to be selfish. The one thing uppermost in mind in the education of the young is to enable them to succeed materially and to make and accumulate money. The good which they might do with their education to their kind is in most cases unthought of. Their success in future life is judged by the money they make and save, and not by the good they have done their fellow men. It seems to be human nature to seek and strive for the acquisition of more of this world's goods. Where it comes from or who may be injured or deprived of his rights by its getting is, with a good many people, a matter of no consequence. From the cradle to the grave man is taught, and practices, this rule of selfishness which has brought sorrow to thousands and thousands of people. The accumulation of the millions of dollars now resting in the hands of a comparatively few people in this country has, in the main, been accomplished through the toil of the many underpaid employees who are still struggling on for a mere existence. Investigations have been going on, notably in the great city of Chicago, to determine the wages paid, especially to women and girls, for their labor, and testimony has been taken to determine whether such an employee can live on $8 a week. With them it is not a question of the accumulation of money. That is not thought of. It is only a question of existence. Incongruous as it may seem, the distinguished gentlemen who carry on these investigations and the witnesses who are called upon to testify often spend more for one meal than the weekly allowances of many such employees. Thousands of these unfortunates are not paid even $8 a week. Indeed, the evidence tends to show, and I think it is a fact, that in this country the average wage for such employees does not exceed $5 a week. Take, for example, the department stores throughout the country. What I have said about the average wages paid applies to that industry. Women and girls labor for long hours for wages upon which it is almost impossible for them to subsist, while many of the proprietors of such establishments grow rich in money if not in good deeds. If any attempt is made to reduce the hours of labor of such employees or to |