it to industrial committees, even though you agree that the future is sure enough to sustain a 60- or 65-cent minimum; provide that if we lose present relationship through a shrinkage of the national income, that the minimum automatically come down; that it not be administratively determined that it should come down, but gear it to a formula that has proved through the years to be scientific, and I refer to the cost of living index under the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

I think that could be done, and if the committee will permit me to submit data in support of it, I will submit it in a formal statement, and I am now trying to work out the formula for my own satisfaction. I would ask the committee to give me that privilege, of submitting to you the kind of formula that I think we can define.

Mr. LESINSKI. Are there any objections to the Member of Congress submitting a formula?

(No response.)

Mr. LESINSKI. If there is none, it will be accepted.

Mr. HAYS. Mr. Chairman, when the irritations that come out of bureaucracy cause me to question the desirability of a minimum, I remind myself that before we established the 40-cent minimum some workers in the lumber camps and in the garment factories of my State were working for 15 cents an hour. It was not due to any inhumane attitude on the part of employers. As this committee well knows, there is a competitive situation that dragged them down to the lowest standards.

The public conscience asserted itself; it gave us a rigid minimum of 40 cents. We were able to live with it. Theoretically there was objection to it, but we were able to do it because we were on the road up toward a higher level of recovery. With the dangers of shrinkage I am not sure that we can do it without the flexible formula that I am suggesting.

Our Committee on Banking at this time is hearing testimony indicating that while the producer of agricultural commodities is suffering a loss in his income at the farm level, the prices of those commodities are not necessarily being reduced at the retail level. The pertinence of that reference is that this committee must consider the complexities of our agricultural situation, and I am sure it is well enough before you without my laboring that point.

In conclusion, what I am suggesting to the committee is that above everything else, flexibility should be recommended to the Congress in this legislation, that agricultural production should not be included, and that an effort should be made to save our marginal industries in a region that has lower levels and where relationships would certainly justify a lower minimum without impairing standards of living.

I appreciate the hearing the committee has given me. I would like to yield 3 or 4 minutes of my time to a representative of the Arkansas Wholesale Grocers' Association, who is the secretary-treasurer of that organization, and if I might have the privilege, sir, I would like to give way to him.

Mr. LESINSKI. Who is the gentleman?

Mr. HAYS. Mr. William L. Humphries. He will make a very brief statement, and I think his main case, Mr. Chairman, will be included in documentary form which is prepared to be submitted, and he v not ask the privilege of reading.

Mr. LESINSKI. It will be all right.

Mr. HAYS. I think that was my understanding with the clerk yesterday, that Mr. Humphries could follow me.

Mr. LESINSKI. You have 5 minutes left; so the gentleman may heard.

Mr. HAYS. Do you want to ask me any questions?

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Mr. BARDEN. No; that is all right; but I declare, it bothers me. Here is a gentleman elected to the Congress of the United States, and he comes in and we say that he has to sit down after 15 minutes.

Mr. LESINSKI. He asked for 15 minutes, and we gave him 15 minutes. Mr. BARDEN. I just want to ask one question, but I do not want to take the committee's time to do it.

Mr. HAYS. I am at the committee's disposal, Mr. Chairman. Mr. GWINN. Mr. Chairman, there is no limit on our time to question witnesses?

Mr. LESINSKI. Certain gentlemen ask for certain times. Some want 15 minutes and some want a half hour. We naturally scheduled it that way. We are beyond the schedule now.

Mr. GWINN. Yes; but when the witness asks for time, he does not ask that he be not questioned by the Members of the Congress, does he? Mr. LESINSKI. It happens that in Mr. Hays' case he asked for 15 minutes.

Mr. GWINN. Yes. But we are asking for time now to talk with the gentleman, who seems to have some information we would like to have.

Mr. LESINSKI. Just this, gentlemen, that then it would be impossible to make up a schedule and tell the witnesses when to come in. There are witnesses here from all over the country, and we have to give them that time.

Mr. GWINN. Mr. Chairman, is there any reason why we cannot extend these hearings a day or two in order to give these witnesses an opportunity?

I am being pressed just now for the first time by people

Mr. LESINSKI. We are going to sit on Saturday also. We are going to give Saturday to some of the people who are here now to be heard. Mr. GWINN. How about Monday or Tuesday?

Mr. BARDEN. Mr. Chairman, who are we racing with over this piece of legislation?

Mr. LESINSKI. The question of strikes coming up on the east coast and the west coast.

Mr. BARDEN. Let me tell you something. It took a long time to build Rome, but it did not take long to tear it up.

Mr. LESINSKI. I agree with you there. Only, if we are going to discuss this, I would rather have the gentleman go ahead, because we are just wasting time.

Mr. BARDEN. All right. I will take so much of this, and then I am afraid I am going to transfer some responsibility to the chairman. Mr. SMITH. Mr. Chairman, do I understand that 300,000 people down in Arkansas are just told point-blank that their Representative can have only 15 minutes?

Mr. LESINSKI. The gentleman, as I understand it, asked for 15 minutes, and he was allotted that on the schedule.

Mr. GWINN. But Mr. Chairman, may I ask Congressman Hays whether he made that request having in mind that he would not be

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exposed to questions from members of the committee that might take beyond 15 minutes!

Mr. HAYS. Mr. Chairman, of course I would be very happy to have more than 15 minutes. My request was based on some consideration of the committee, and I am at the committee's disposal. I mean, I do not wish my request of 15 minutes to be interpreted as any reluctance to stay as long as the committee would like to have me stay. It was in consideration of the committee's situation and not my own convenience that I asked for 15 minutes.

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. Chairman, may I make a statement?
Mr. LESINSKI. Mr. McConnell.

Mr. McCONNELL. I have had some experience with the conduct of infair labor standards hearings, and I have stated to the chairman several times privately that we are attempting an impossible situation to schedule all these witnesses in one day and then to meet a deadline by the end of the week. It just cannot be done. We have to come to a conclusion, and I think the only way to do it, if you want, is by a decision of the committee itself, as to how we are going to handle this. We go from 10 o'clock in the morning until 6 o'clock at night, and the men are tired out. There is just too much pressure on this thing, and sometime or other, emotionally, there is going to be a break-out and it will spoil the type of legislation that we attempt to enact.

My judgment would be just to look the facts in the face and schedule our hearings to end in the middle of next week, or something of that sort, and then proceed in a quiet and sane fashion, because this will bring on an outburst, and it will be troublesome.

Mr. PERKINS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield for a suggestion?

I think that we should follow the schedule that has been made up, even if we have to run late at night, but at the same time, in a case like this, I think that we should give the gentleman a few more minutes over 15 minutes, and add it to our day's work. But go ahead with the schedule.

Mr. BARDEN. Does the gentleman feel that he can learn everything that he ought to know about this by Saturday night and pass an opinion on it?

Mr. PERKINS. I do not, Mr. Barden.

Mr. BARDEN. I do not, either.

Mr. LESINSKI. We have spent 10 minutes discussing it, and in the meantime, you could have asked the questions.

Mr. BARDEN. Mr. Chairman, I do not apologize for it, because as long as I am acting in what I consider the best interests of the American people, I do not apologize to anybody. I did not ask for this schedule, and I do not want to delay it. But God help us if we rush into something ill-advised and begin to tinker with businesses that we do not know anything about, and guessing at things that people are going to have to live with or go to jail.

Mr. LESINSKI. Mr. Lucas.

Mr. LUCAS. I think this is a subject that we might discuss in executive session, and I move regular order.

Mr. LESINSKI. Are there any questions of Mr. Hays?

Mr. HAYS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. LESINSKI. Just a minute, Mr. Hays. "There may be a question. You had a question, Mr. Barden?

Mr. BARDEN. I just wanted to ask Mr. Hays if it was his thought that Congress should assume the responsibility for the writing of the formula to which he refers.

Mr. HAYS. I do.

Mr. BARDEN. Or should we leave it to the whims of some administrator?

Mr. HAYS. I think, to be realistic and satisfactory, the formula has to come out of Congress.

Mr. BARDEN. Now, I will ask you one further question: Has it not been your experience that the veil of uncertainty around this past law which was certainly one of the most poorly drafted laws I have ever seen spread on the statute books-this veil of uncertainty has caused more confusion and troubles in your district than the minimum set?

Mr. HAYS. I should say it has caused considerable trouble; yes. Mr. BARDEN. If we fix a minimum, they know what to abide by, and they go ahead and operate; do they not? If they know that?

Mr. HAYS. Yes. But the point I am making is that with no assurance that existing relationships will continue indefinitely, it would not be wise to have an inflexible 75-cent minimum that would catch us in a situation where unemployment results from a high minimum. Mr. BARDEN. That is all I wanted to ask.

Mr. LESINSKI. Very well. Will the next witness proceed and give us his name?

TESTIMONY OF WILLIAM L. HUMPHRIES, SECRETARY AND TREASURER OF THE ARKANSAS WHOLESALE GROCERS' ASSOCIATION

Mr. HUMPHRIES. My name is William L. Humphries. I am secretary and treasurer of the Arkansas Wholesale Grocers' Association. We have 127 members, every one in the State, in addition to which we have brokers and 120 manufacturers of the United States of nationally advertised brands. I am also chairman of the State Wholesale Grocers' Association of the United States.

I just want to make a very brief statement and then file the brief with the committee, and I appreciate, Mr. Chairman, the committee's kindness in indulging me in this matter.

At the outset, I want to say that we have no brief against labor, as such. In fact, we feel it an integral part of industry. But we feel that the minimum wage proposed in this amendment covering various phases of interstate commerce which are difficult to separate and segre gate would tend to reach a point of saturation to where it would strangle industry in the South, particularly the 13 Southern States and Arkansas most of all, we believe. We find in our industry in the South that we have a gross profit of 7.9 percent. We have an operational cost of 6.5 percent. We have a net profit of 1.4 percent above taxes. And if the minimum wage is set at 75 cents, not only that, but other industries will be adversely affected to the extent that employees will be, many of them, out of employment, and the cycle of prices and labor will continue and work back against the good of the consuming public and the Government as a whole.

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(The brief submitted by Mr. Humphries is as follows.)

BRIEF SUBMITTED BY WILLIAM L. HUMPHRIES ON BEHALF OF ARKANSAS WHOLESALE
GROCERS' ASSOCIATION, INC.

In the matter of various proposed amendments to the Fair Labor Standards
Act of 1938, as amended.

The Arkansas Wholesale Grocers' Association, Inc., an organization of wholewhims sale grocers located in the State of Arkansas, representing every wholesale grocer, most food brokers, and 120 packers and manufacturers of nationally advertised brands of foods, bring to you herewith data relative to the subject matter, Amendments to the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, as amended. The various bills proposed on this subject provide for a minimum wage of from 75 cents to $1, the present minimum wage being 40 cents. It was the intent of the law in the beginning to provide a base below which wages could not be paid, and this act was passed at a time when the business of the United States was apparently on a very normal basis. Business at the present time is not on a normal basis but on an abnormal basis produced primarily by the war which has just recently closed and the aftermath of the war, and cannot be considered at this time a normal lasting condition.

Any increase in the minimum wage rate over that at present authorized by the trak Fair Labor Standards Act would be an inflationary measure and in this industry, that of food distribution, would have to have an increase in the selling price of all commodities, as will be later demonstrated herein.

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While the dollar volume of business today is considerably higher than before this period of war and aftermath of war, the actual volume of commodities in tonnage has not greatly increased.

The increase that has been developed in the actual commodity volume is attendant only on the gradual increase in the population of the country; in other words, the consumption of food and food products per capita has not increased any appreciable amount.

A fair example of the wholesale grocers marketing at the present time, based on a total hours per week worked of 521⁄2 hours, paying 56 cents per hour for 40 hours and 84 cents per hour for overtime is:

Sales..

Gross profit.
Expense---

Net profit, before taxes..

Percentage of sales 100.00 7.90

6. 50

1.40

Assuming at 75-cents-per-hour minimum wage on a work-week of 521⁄2 hours per week, the wages to be paid would be 75 cents per hour for 40 hours and $1,12% per hour for overtime, the result would be:

And on the same basis for $1 per hour minimum, the following:

Percentage of sales

100.00

7.90

7.20

.70

Percentage of sales 100.00 7.90

8.20

8. 20

.30

Food products, as far as the wholesale market is concerned, are handled on a very narrow margin.

The wholesale prices, at the present time, are gradually decreasing, which automatically decreased the sales volume in dollars and cents and, as the dollar and cents volume decreased the actual gross profit in dollars and cents decreases, and naturally the net profit in dollars and cents also decreases.

Under the present rate now being paid for a 522-hour week, the expense item will, on dollar volume, increase.