Mr. SPROUL. I want an answer yes or no. Is it not a fact that they do try to get everybody else in sympathy with them to go out on strike with them?

Mr. WALLACE. In the same industry and under the same control of employment, yes, sir; in the same industry or under the same employment.

Mr. SPROUL. You claim the right to picket and cause sympathetic strikes, and you object to anybody objecting to your doing that? Mr. WALLACE. What do you mean by "sympathetic strikes"? Mr. SPROUL. Where you call everybody out who is working on the building or anything else.

Mr. WALLACE. Under the same employment or in the same industry?

Mr. SPROUL. All right; but when the contractors start in to try to get the same thing you are asking for, then you take it to the court.

Mr. WALLACE. No.

Mr. SPROUL. Yes.

Mr. WALLACE. When?

Mr. SPROUL. In lots of cases. In Chicago, in a strike last summer, you kept the contractors in court for weeks and cost them thousands and thousands of dollars, and claimed they were doing something illegal because they put on an outside force to help them win the strike.

Mr. WALLACE. If they were not breaking the law

Mr. SPROUL (interposing). They were breaking no law any more than you were.

Mr. WALLACE. You say they were brought into court. For what? Mr. SPROUL. For combination.

Mr. WALLACE. Conspiracy in restraint of trade?

Mr. SPROUL. Yes; conspiracy in restraint of trade. All that enters into that proposition. It was part of it.

Mr. WALLACE. You heard the evidence before the committee in New York, where the steel producers had refused to sell their material to men who dared to employ union labor. There is a case of restraint of trade. No one has been indicted.

Mr. SPROUL. Here was the case where union labor wanted something the contractors claimed they could not give them.

Mr. WHEELER. Did they say the contractors were conspiring against union labor?

Mr. SPROUL. Yes.

Mr. WHEELER. And you contend that union labor conspired against the contractors?

Mr. SPROUL. Union labor conspired against the contractors.
Mr. WALLACE. I don't know about that case.

Mr. SPROUL. After fighting for months it was thrown out of

court.

Mr. WALLACE. Then you were perfectly safe after all.

Mr. SPROUL. Why do you deny others the right you demand for your own organization?

Mr. WALLACE. Mr. Sproul, they have dragged us into court with cause and without cause.

In one

Mr. SPROUL. I do not know whether they have or not. case your organization is not financially responsible; in another case the organization was responsible. There is a great difference.

Mr. BLANTON. I will illustrate that very case the Congressman from Illinois has referred to. You take the Railroad Labor Board that has been created by Congress at a tremendous expense to the Government. Those men draw $10,000 a year, nine of them, with great incidental expenses. Three of them are selected by the employees themselves, three are selected by the railroad interests, and three of them are selected by the general public through the President. They might be just as favorable to organized labor as the labor commissioners themselves.

Now, a decision from those commissioners absolutely binds the railroads. Whatever that decision is the railroads have got to comply with it, because it can make them, according to law; but now that the decision is against the men, your organization through Mr. Gompers comes out in the press in the last few days and says that board was absolutely crooked, in effect, and that they are bound up by the capitalists of the country, and those men are not going to pay any attention to it.

Mr. WALLACE. As a fact, Mr. Gompers and the American Federation of Labor, on the contrary, said that for other men, however, well meaning they might be, to sit as a court and decide what some millions of men should receive for their labor will finally lead to a situation where there will be injustice done to the men. We don't know the percentage these men will be reduced, but we maintain the wages they are receiving now, especially the lower paid men, who are the first ones to receive a reduction, are no more than they should receive.

Mr. BLANTON. And that the members of the board are crooks.
Mr. WALLACE. I don't know that.

Mr. BLANTON. That is the effect of it.

Mr. WALLACE. I believe the statement was that their surroundings and environment were rather those of the employers than the employees. They naturally see their point of view.

Mr. WHEELER. Was that a resolution passed by some organization? Mr. BLANTON. That was the statement made by Samuel Gompers himself.

Mr. WHEELER. I expect Mr. Gompers makes statements the organizations would not approve,

Mr. WALLACE. His statement was in regard to the method of fixing wages.

Mr. BLANTON. You would like to do away with that court, would you not?

Mr. WALLACE. I would like to have the men and their employers sit together and settle these things, thrash out their own differences. Mr. BLANTON. You do not want that court?

Mr. WALLACE. No, sir.

Mr. BLANTON. You are not in favor of industrial courts, like the Kansas court?

Mr. WALLACE. No, sir; decidedly not.

Mr. SPROUL. Are you in favor of arbitration?

Mr. WALLACE. Yes, sir; voluntary arbitration.

Mr. SPROUL. Why is it that when it is offered time after time it is turned down?

Mr. WALLACE. We have had arbitration turned down by our employers just as often as it has been turned down by the employees.

We used to have in the Indiana coal fields, in the contract, an arbitration clause. That was not fixing wages, but for interpreting the contract. I have copy of the contract in my pocket. After the contract is made some dispute would arise. Sometimes language is not so plain that we each see it in the same light. Some technical question comes up. We had a clause providing that if we could not agree we would leave it to arbitration. It was the operators who finally decided that if practical men who really knew the inside workings of the mines could not settle those questions, there was no use leaving it to a man whose first qualification must be, in order that he might be fair, the fact that he knew nothing about the business, some outsider, a professional man, if you please.

Mr. BLANTON. Your idea of arbitration is that if you and I have a difference—you are the employee and I am the employer-and I pick this gentleman from Illinois and you pick that one to represent you, and let those two gentlemen get together, and if they can't agree, all right; but if they do agree, if it suits you, you will obey it, and if it does not suit you you will not consider it.

Mr. WALLACE. When we consent to accept arbitration, we live up to the decision, even though we get the worst of it.

Mr. SPROUL. In most cases in the last three or four years where you did agree to arbirtation, in making the agreement you were not bound to live up to anything that may be decided until it is put back to your men again for their decision.

Mr. WALLACE. I don't know of any such case.

Mr. SPROUL. There were lots of them.

Mr. WALLACE. In the coal strike we accepted the arbitration of the court in advance.

Mr. WHEELER. When you have an arbitration body which has come to an agreement do you ever ask the members of the different local labor unions to take a vote on it; or is it absolutely settled?

Mr. WALLACE. No, sir. It is absolutely settled. When that question came up before the miners' convention for an indorsement of the actions of their officers, it would have been just as binding upon us if we had not indorsed our officers; but we would have condemned those men for accepting that arbitration. We did not; we indorsed them.

Mr. BLANTON. In the settlement of the coal strike do you not know that Mr. Lewis sat up here all night long in conference with Mr. Gompers and others on the question of whether or not he was going to accept that decision or whether they would go on with the strike?

Mr. SPROUL. And after Mr. Gompers did accept it it was put up to the coal miners to vote to see whether they would accept it or not. They stayed out about two weeks, if I remember right, before they finally did agree.

Mr. WALLACE. The committee that the miners had empowered to make the contract met in Indianapolis and the proposition was put before them. Mr. Lewis could not accept it. He did not accept it because he did not have the power. He put it before them and they accepted it.

Mr. SPROUL. Before who?

Mr. WALLACE. The committee that was appointed.

Mr. SPROUL. And after that the men took a vote on it to see whether they would abide by it or not.

Mr. WALLACE. No; that is a mistake. The men took a vote on whether they would indorse the actions of their officers.

Mr. WHEELER. That is beating the devil around the stump.

Mr. WALLACE. No. It would have been just as binding upon us if we had not indorsed their actions.

Mr. WHEELER. But if you had not indorsed them in the convention. the men would have remained out?

Mr. WALLACE. The men were at work and had been at work for months.

Mr. SPROUL. They did not go to work for two weeks after that was settled.

Mr. WALLACE. The men went to work immediately after the representatives whom they had chosen in the first place met and decided to accept the Government's proposition.

Mr. SPROUL. I know they voted on it.

Mr. WHEELER. Where you submit to arbitration is it always final? Do the men return to work when the arbitrators agree?

Mr. WALLACE. As a matter of policy, yes. There might be isolated cases where they did not; but we whip them into line and make them go to work.

Mr. WHEELER. Your international organization would bring pressure to bear upon them to go to work after they had accepted voluntary arbitration?

Mr. WALLACE. Oh, yes; the international organization would see to it that they went to work.

Mr. BLANTON. You recognize, Mr. Wallace, do you not, that there are three parties to industrial disputes who are affected by them? One is the employer, the other is the employee, and the other the people of the United States. You recognize that, do you not?

Mr. WALLACE. We recognize that the working people of this country are a great big section of that public.

Mr. BLANTON. But you realize that the general public is interested in every single coal strike and railroad strike just as much as you are? Mr. WALLACE. Mr. Blanton, I mean to say that prior to the enactment of the Lever law, which was construed to mean that the miners could not strike, we had met our employers for 30 years and had always reached an agreement.

Mr. BLANTON. You would not say the general public has no interest in industrial disputes?

Mr. WALLACE. Of course, it has.

Mr. BLANTON. For instance, if you believe in arbitration, and you say you do, here is the railroad labor board, three men selected by you, representing the unions; three by the employers, and three by the public, through the President. They may be all union men, so far as we know, but they represent the public. Why are you not willing to accept their decision in arbitration, if you favor arbitration? Mr. WALLACE. Our objection to it is that it is compulsory. It means that nine men, three of whom, as you say, are representatives of the employees, but picked by the President-however, they are representative and they understand the employees' case, and they are in the main good men; three are selected by the employers, and are very capable of taking care of their own interests, as they should be; and the other three consist of representatives of the public, as you say; but our experience is that those men live and associate with

the representatives of the employers and not the representatives of the men. They are men who have that point of view. For instance, in the last commission to investigate industrial conditions of the country, Judge Gary and John D. Rockefeller, jr., were present as representatives of the public. We know they are large employers of labor.

Mr. BLANTON. Mr. Wallace, you do not intimate that President Wilson was not absolutely fair and impartial to your organization, do you?

Mr. WALLACE. I mean to say he appointed Judge Gary and John D. Rockefeller, jr., as representatives of the public.

Mr. BLANTON. Do you not know it to be a fact that he was put out of the presidency and his party was absolutely defeated at the polls because he was truckling to your organization?

Mr. WALLACE. No; absolutely not. I deny it.

Mr. SPROUL. You have been in the labor game a long time and you know that labor was the first in this country that asked for arbitration.

Mr. WALLACE. Yes, sir.

Mr. SPROUL. For wages, for conditions?

Mr. WALLACE. For voluntary arbitration.

Mr. SPROUL. And now they are the ones that are opposing it?
Mr. WALLACE. Compulsory arbitration.

Mr. BLANTON. You and I are citizens?

Mr. WALLACE. Yes.

Mr. BLANTON. If we have a difference, we can not go out and fight it out like we used to do in western Texas. We have got to go to

court.

Mr. WALLACE. Yes; that is true.

Mr. BLANTON. The very minute we go to court and a decision is rendered, is not that compulsory on me to pay you what I owe you?

Mr. WALLACE. If it is a matter of property, yes; but I deny the right of any court to say to me, "You shall labor under certain circumstances and you shall give your labor for so much."

Mr. FOCHT. If you make a contract you keep it?

Mr. WALLACE. Oh, yes.

Mr. FOCHT. That is a fundamental of every article in the contract? Mr. WALLACE. Certainly.

Mr. SPROUL. In arbitration union labor discovered they were getting the worst of it, and now they want to change it. They thought they could win out in it.

Mr. WALLACE. The experience we have had with compulsory arbitration has been unfortunate, especially in Australia and New Zealand. However, the American Federation of Labor never was in favor of compulsory arbitration. Our position has been that when we come to a point where we have adjudicated as many difficulties as we can between ourselves, those we can not agree upon should be left to voluntary arbitration. There is a vast difference between voluntary arbitration and compulsory arbitration.

Mr. WHEELER. Is the American Federation of Labor in favor of the public being always represented on an arbitration board?

Mr. WALLACE. The American Federation of Labor claims that a man's work is his own.

Mr. WHEELER. Answer my question.