pass an amendment to break up this process of American industry and American capital leaving this country, to take advantage of the reciprocal trade agreements. They are following practices that were never thought of, that never occurred to anybody, until these reciprocal trade agreements were established as Government procedure for future years. What is happening is this, that our industries are moving abroad. Mr. LESINSKI. We have had a lot of industries moving abroad without that condition. England has had them, Belgium had theirs, and Germany had theirs. Mr. BAILEY. I know, but I am talking about such industries as the automobile companies establishing plants abroad, and typewriter companies, and business-machine companies-and now, the textile industry. Also, the oil industry. Mr. LESINSKI. Ford and Chevrolet started plants in Canada, and they pay more in Canada, or at least as high if not higher wages, than here. Mr. BAILEY. That may be so, but that is not true of the Ford factories in England and Germany. There it is about $400 less for a car. You know where this is going to lead us to. Mr. LESINSKI. Off the record. (There was discussion off the record.) Mr. LESINSKI. Gentlemen, are there any other questions? (No response.) Mr. LESINSKI. We will meet again at 10 o'clock tomorrow morning. (Whereupon, at 4:50 p. m., an adjournment was taken until the following day, Tuesday, February 15, 1949, at 10 a. m. AMENDMENTS TO THE FAIR LABOR STANDARDS ACT OF 1938 TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1949 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Washington, D. C. The committee met, pursuant to adjournment, at 10 a. m., Hon. John Lesinski (chairman) presiding. Mr. LESINSKI. The meeting will come to order. We have a colleague here, the Honorable Will M. Whittington, of Mississippi, who has some witnesses he will introduce. Mr. Whittington. STATEMENT OF HON. WILL M. WHITTINGTON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI Mr. WHITTINGTON. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, my name is Will M. Whittington, Representative from the Third District of Mississippi. I represent one of the largest agricultural districts devoted to the raising of cotton in the entire Cotton Belt. I have been a Member of Congress for some 24 years, and, therefore, I am rather familiar with the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. I was in the Congress at the time the act was passed, and I have observed the workings of the act since that time. I am here to urge this committee not to include the employees of agriculture in the pending bill, H. R. 2033, but to continue the exemptions, primarily the exemptions for those employed in agriculture and those employed in the processing of agricultural products. I speak particularly of cotton, not only because I am the Representative from the district where so much cotton is grown but because I have had many years of experience in the growing and processing of cotton, including the operation of cotton gins. I also speak of oil mills and compresses. Also, in the district which I represent we have many small businesses, including laundries and retail merchants. My statement, Mr. Chairman, is primarily to urge that the pending legislation continue the exemption for agriculture and for the small businesses that I have mentioned, including cotton gins, oil mills, and compresses. I oppose the 75-cent minimum wage, as it would wreck cotton growing and the small businesses I have urged be exempted from the pending bill. At this time there are two organizations that are appearing here efore your committee, through their representatives. They are organizations which speak for the people of the district that I represent and the people of the Cotton Belt. One speaks from the local and State viewpoint, and the other from the entire belt's viewpoint. The first witness is Mr. Rhea Blake, the executive vice president of the National Cotton Council, an organization that speaks for growers and for those engaged in the industrie cotton. The second witness will be Dr. C. 1 and economist of the Delta Council, district that I represent. Its memb stantially in the delta of Mississippi, a Council, composed of cotton growers producing district in the United State the people of Mississippi. I would like to say, Mr. Chairman, these two gentlemen, Mr. Blake and ] with their statements, and they will be Mr. LESINSKI. Will you step up, gen Mr. WHITTINGTON. One more word My sympathies are with the man who cotton farms are furnished their house furnished land for the growing of gar water and their fuel-all that they ha wooded plots on the farm and get their anything for it, nor do they have to pa their garden and utilities, as do the emp and towns away from the farms. Mr. Chairman, in the district that I re a differential in the amount paid the lab and who have their houses free of ren free, their gardens free, who grow, very l has been always a differential in what is the amount that the farmers pay to the towns who assist in the cultivation and h the year. I would first like to present Mr. Blake I think their statements will be very i primarily at a time when the Governme culture and in view of the large amounts by Congress in investigations to help sm The exemptions contained in the pr continued. I also urge that there be a b production, and that the defining of that with the Department of Agriculture. With that statement, Mr. Chairman, chairman of the Public Works Committ in session in a few minutes. I now pres by Dr. Sayre. Mr. LESINSKI. Thank you, Mr. Whitt TESTIMONY OF RHEA BLAKE, EXECU TIONAL COTTON COUNCIL OF AM Mr. BLAKE. My name is Rhea Blake Tenn. I represent the National Cotton C tion of cotton farmers, ginners, merchan ers, and spinners. The raw-cotton ind ed with groups, provides the incomes of more people than any other industry in America. There are 7,000,000 or 8,000,000 people living today on about 1,500,000 American cotton farmers, and the employees of gins, nizati merchant firms, compresses and warehouses, oil mills, and spinning plants, add approximately another 700,000. The speaks! a great majority of each of the six groups that make up the raw-cotton da industry, including the 1,500,000 farmers. The delegate-members who that vote on policy matters represent each of the six groups in each of the mm18 States which grow cotton. The council takes a position only after ase two-thirds of the delegate-members from each and every one of the atter six groups, including the farmers, vote to do so. It has taken a very We definite position on the subject now before your committee, and I apthepreciate the opportunity of reporting it to you. I am sure we are all deeply concerned with the problem of low t incomes for working people, and how to get them up. Coming from the South and particularly from cotton-which is the heart of the the southern economy-I feel that I represent a situation which will be of special interest to your committee, because it is in the South, and particularly in the cotton-growing population, that the Nation has its greatest problem of low income. Let's look at the 10 Southern States where most of our cotton is fr grown, including North and South Carolina on the east and Texas and Oklahoma on the west. These 10 States embrace 31,000,000 people, or more than a fifth of the Nation. In 1947, the latest year available, the per capita income of the Nation as a whole was about 50 percent higher than the per capita income of these 10 States. The average person in this entire southern region had only about two-thirds as much income as the average person in the whole country. Therefore, we face grave danger than any minimum-wage figure which would just affect the lower-income groups in the rest of the Nation would strike right through the middle of the population in the South, disrupting business and creating unemployment. In 1947 the total income payments of all kinds to individuals in the United States were enough to equal $1.54 per hour for every member of the labor force fully employed on a 40-hour week, 50 weeks a year; but in these 10 Southern States, if the same faction of the population was in the labor force, the total income was equal to only $1.05 an hour for full employment, and in the 3 States of South Carolina, Mississippi, and Arkansas it was equal to only 83 cents an hour. Let me emphasize what this 83-cent figure means. If the total income of everybody-including rent, interests, profits, dividends, professional fees, and salaries of all kinds, and every type of skilled labor-had all been appropriated for the purpose of paying one average wage for full employment with no overtime, that wage would have been 83 cents an hour, and that is only 8 cents more than the minimum proposed in this bill for the most unskilled workers. This was in 1947, one of the most prosperous years in our history. I would not try to say what a minimum wage of 75 cents would do to the whole Nation, where the total income averaged over twice as much as this figure; but I can tell you that it would have a very different and a very chaotic effect on the economy of the Southern States, where 85539-49-vol. 2- -29 |