recat, Sming 4744 HD5468 19219 C5442 ANTIPICKETING LEGISLATION. COMMITTEE ON THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, The committee met at 10 o'clock a. m., Hon. Benjamin K. Focht (chairman) presiding. The CHAIRMAN. The committee will proceed to the consideration of executive business. Mr. LAMPERT. You are going to take up the Woods bill? The CHAIRMAN. I suppose that will be in order. Mr. Underhill has some matter he wants to bring up. Mr. LAMPERT. I want to make a motion when the Woods matter comes up. Mr. UNDERHILL. Mr. Chairman, I think there is absolutely no objection on the part of the committee to this juvenile court clinic bill. The bill was acted upon by the committee at a previous meeting, and the suggestion or reservation was made that I take the matter up with Judge Woods and Judge Gilbert, and also with Judge Sellers, in order that we might incorporate in the bill some suggestions made in the committee, the chief one being that it should be under the supervision, or, rather, under the control of the District of Columbia to a certain extent in order that the District should pay its proportionate part of the expense. That has been done in the bills that Judge Woods is now examining. If I may have the authority of the committee to take it up, together with Judge Woods, and perfect the bill in such manner as his legal mind may suggest, I would like to have the bill reported before I leave here on Saturday. Mr. LAMPERT. As one member of the committee, I will say that if the bill is changed so that the expense of the carrying out of the law will be borne by the District of Columbia in the same proportion that all other matters affecting the District of Columbia are borne, I will have no objection to it. The CHAIRMAN. That, I think, will be undertsood in all measures of this kind. Mr. LAMPERT. With that understanding, I move that the request of the gentleman from Massachusetts be granted. The CHAIRMAN. It has been moved by Mr. Lampert that the bill H. R. 7122 be reported favorably. Mr. Woods. It is a new bill. The CHAIRMAN. It is the new one in which the corrections and alterations have been made. Mr. ZIHLMAN. I intended to confer with Mr. Underhill and Judge Woods prior to this. There are some matters that are desired to be incorporated in this bill. I do not know as yet whether they are meritorious or not, and before the bill is reported out I would like very much to confer with Mr. Underhill and Judge Woods. I think this is a very meritorious thing. Mr. LAMPERT. I will include in my motion that any suggestions that the gentleman from Maryland has to offer that meet with the approval of the gentleman from the Bay State and the gentleman from Virginia be included in the bill. (The motion of Mr. Lampert was adopted.) The CHAIRMAN. In the motion to report the bill is incorporated the understanding that the cost of administration is to be divided on the basis of 50-50 or 40-60 between the Federal Government and District government, as the case may be, or whatever the division may be. (The motion to favorably report the bill, as above stated, was adopted.) Mr. ZIHLMAN. Mr. Chairman, I introduced a bill providing for equalizing the pensions paid to policemen and firemen, and I would like to have the bill referred to a subcommittee. 3 The CHAIRMAN. We will refer it to a subcommittee, Mr. Zihlman. Do you want to hold hearings? Mr. ZIHLMAN. No; we want a subcommittee to consider it. The CHAIRMAN. You want that subcommittee to consist of how many members-five or three? Mr. ZIHLMAN. Three will do. The CHAIRMAN. Will you please make your statement in regard to this bill, so that it may be taken down by the secretary? Mr. ZIHLMAN. It is a bill relating to the pensioning of policemen and firemen in the District of Columbia. I might say briefly that it simply provides that the pay of policemen and firemen, or the retirement pay of policemen and firemen retired because of old age or injury received in the service, shall be equalized with the pay of the men who retired under previous laws and under previous tables of pay. The men who retire now get 50 per cent of the amount of the pay they now receive, and the old men who retired previous to the passage of the act of 1916 get about $20 less than the men who retire under the existing act. I am not asking that the subcommittee be auhorized to report it, but I am asking that a subcommittee be appointed to consider it. The CHAIRMAN. You will have with you, Mr. Zihlman, on that subcommittee Mr. Woodruff and Mr. Gilbert, whom I now designate. Mr. WHEELER. I want to report, Mr. Chairman, that the subcommittee having under consideration the antipicketing bill, H. R. 227, has been unable to agree, and they report the bill back without any recommendation. All of you have the report of the hearings that we held on this bill, and that is the majority report of the committee--that is, we report this bill back without any recommendation, and report that the subcommittee can not agree on the same. Mr. BLANTON. Mr. Chairman, I have a minority report to file which recommends the reporting out of this bill. In that connection, I want to state to my colleagues on this committee that during my five years in Congress I have received many letters about legislation, but during the entire five years of my service here, I must say that I have received ten times as many letters approving this measure from business men all over the United States as I have received on all other matters of legislation put together. Without exaggeration, I should say that I have a stack of letters on this subject that high [indicating], and I wish I could put them in the record. If you will permit the assertion, I will say that I earnestly believe that 95 per cent of those letters are written by business men who are Republicans in politics. Those letters are from the business men of this Nation. I have not received a single letter-not one-against this bill. I have not received one letter against it, and if any member of the committee has received any letters against that bill, I challenge him to present it now. No one in Washington is opposing it except the American Federation of Labor. There seems to be a universal demand throughout this country that this legislation be passed in the protection of business, or in the protection of the rights that are guaranteed to business men under the Constitution and under our Government. Mr. MILLSPAUGH. Will the gentleman yield? Mr. BLANTON. Yes. Mr. MILLSPAUGH. Can you tell us why it is, in connection with these numerous letters that we have been receiving, that probably for two days or three days we receive them from Cincinnati; and then for two or three days we receive them from Atlanta; and then for two or three days we receive them from Cleveland, Ohio; and then for two or three days we will receive them from St. Louis? Mr. BLANTON. I do not think that that statement applies to the ones that I have received, and in order to show just what they do contain, I ask permission now that the letters the chairman tells me he has received be incorporated in the record. I will not insist that my own be incorporated in the record, because they might have written their letters to me because I was the author of the bill, but I ask that the letters sent to the chairman of this committee be incorporated in the record. The chairman has not shown them to me, but he has told me about having received them. I ask that those letters be incorporated in this record. Mr. MILLSPAUGH. I object to that. Mr. BLANTON. From those letters we could tell whether or not they come from one place for a day or two and then from another for a day or two, and so on, as asserted by Mr. Millspaugh. I do not believe that those letters will show that to be the case. I know that the letters that have come to me do not. indicate that. The letters addressed to me have come from different portions of the United States; from Oregon and Washington and throughout the Northwest, from down in Florida, from out in New Mexico, and from up and down the Atlantic seacoast. Mr. WOODRUFF. I think it is fair to say that the chairman has received as many letters as I have about this matter, and I will say for the benefit of the committee that every morning for weeks my wastebasket was filled before I could get through opening and reading those letters. Mr. BLANTON. You throw them in your wastebasket and pay no attention to letters that come to you from the business men of this Nation in behalf of legislation. Members of the committee do not think enough of those letters, I presume, to read them. I ask that you let the letters go into the hearing, so that the business people of the country may know who is responsible for inaction on this measure. Mr. MILLSPAUGH. Does the gentleman yield? Mr. BLANTON. I am willing for every one of the letters I received to go into this record. I believe that 75 per cent of them came from Republican business men of this Nation, who have written us about this matter. Mr. MILLSPAUGH. Will the gentleman yield? Mr. BLANTON. Certainly. Mr. MILLSPAUGH. Can you state to the committee why it is that at least 75 per cent of the letters I received-and I have received, I presume, as many as Mr. Woodruff-have the exact name of the Congressman who introduced the bill and the number of the bill? Why do they have that information down pat in their letters? Mr. BLANTON. I can answer that Mr. ZIHLMAN (interposing). I wish you would include in your answer some explanation of why I have never received any letters on the subject of that bill. I do not believe I have received any letters on that bill at all. Mr. REED. I do not recall receiving any letters in regard to that bill. Mr. BLANTON. I presume I received more than anyone else, because I introduced the bill. I want to say this, that I did not introduce that bill until I had received a great many letters from business men from all over the United States in regard to such legislation. I received almost as many then as I have received since asking that this legislation be passed. They wrote me because they knew I was against lawlessness and anarchy. The introduction of that bill was in response to those requests from the business men of this Nation. I will state this, and I will be perfectly frank with you gentlemen, that when I introduced this bill I wrote to each and all of these gentlemen who had written to me and I told them that I had introduced bill H. R. 227 to cover the very question about which they had written to me, and I solicited their aid in helping me to get it passed. The business men of this Nation are intelligent, and they are keeping up with our transactions. It is very easy to find out the author and number of any measure here. I have written to quite a number of business men in the United States in addition to those who have written to me about it, telling them that I had introduced this bill. I have said to them that I have gone as far as I could go and that is was up to them and the other Members of Congress to see whether or not the legislation should pass. I have stated to them that I have performed my service and that I have done my duty by the business interests of this Nation and that it is now up to my colleagues to see whether or not their wishes are carried out. Possibly my colleagues do not wish to carry their wishes out. Of course, they have a right not to carry them out. If they think these business men have asked for something they are not entitled to they ought not to carry them out. However, that is a matter for you to determine upon your responsibility as Members of Congress. Mr. WALTERS. Mr. Chairman, as a Republican business man, and also as a member of this committee, I think we are dignifying by this discussion here a very trivial matter that ought to be looked after by a police sergeant or some other officer of the law. I move that the bill be laid on the table. The CHAIRMAN. Is there any further discussion? Mr. Woods. What was your idea in regard to this? I was rather surprised at the situation with regard to picketing, and the question in my mind is whether you really need any special powers on the subject. Mr. BLANTON. The State of Nebraska has in the last few months passed practically this identical measure. We passed a bill in the last Congress providing that after July 1 bread should not be manufactured in the District of Columbia in 14-pound loaves, yet every single day since July 1 bread has been manufactured in the District of Columbia and stamped "14-pound loaf" in violation of that law. That has been done because the commissioners have told the bakeries that they would get another law passed changing it, and that they should go along as if no law existed. Mr. KUNZ. What effect would the selling of 14-pound loaves of bread have on an ant picketing law. Mr. BLANTON. Some justice court or police court has held that so-called peaceful picketing is permitted so long as they do not knock a man down or kill him. That is based on some police court decision. Some of the authorities here claim under such decision that the law permits what they call "peaceful picketing" in the District of Columbia, and they are not enforcing the law that we now have. However, it is so clearly defined here in this bill that they can tell exactly what Congress intends in regard to the matter in Washington. Mr. WHEELER. Will you dispose of this matter right now? The CHAIRMAN. We will dispose of it in the quickest way. We will give the committee an opportunity to discuss the matter if they so desire, and will then put the motion. We will do it promptly and in the regular way. Mr. Kunz. I will ask the gentleman who introduced the bill to advise this committee whether or not, under the Constitution of the United States, we can pass a law to prevent a man from walking along the public streets or the public highways? Mr. BLANTON. If the gentleman will read the hearings on the bill he will find there two very fine law briefs prepared by Judge Emery and Judge Wright, in which they collated the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, and in which they hold that this bill is strictly constitutional. This bill is the law in a number of States and large cities. Mr. Kunz. On the question of the hearings, you have heard the evidence of different witnesses for and against the bill? Mr. BLANTON. Yes. Mr. KUNZ. Have all of them been placed under oath? Mr. BLANTON. I think some of them were. Mr. KUNZ. Have any of them been placed under oath? Mr. BLANTON. I remember that we had two of them sworn at one time. Mr. WHEELER. I will state that Mr. Blanton himself had Mr. Wallace, representing the American Federation of Labor, put under oath, but none of the others were sworn. Mr. BLANTON. No; I did not propose it, but at the request of some one, likely Mr. Focht, who was present, two of them, I remember, were sworn at one time. The CHAIRMAN. Those hearings were conducted by a subcommittee. Mr. SPROUL. As I remember it, only one of them was sworn. Mr. BLANTON. If you will hand me a copy of the hearings I will show you that there were two that I remember. Mr. WHEELER. I know the attorneys were not. I felt as though the committee had no right to put anybody under oath without the consent of the House. The CHAIRMAN. Oh, yes; they do that constantly. Mr. SPROUL. I call for the regular order, Mr. Chairman. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Wheeler, for your information, if you will listenMr. WHEELER. Surely; I will listen. The CHAIRMAN. A Member of Congress can administer an oath and a committee can authorize him to do it. The committee has authorized and directed me to administer oaths, and I have administered them to all who are not public officials, and I have been religiously attending to that duty. Mr. BLANTON. Let me get that straight, Mr. Chairman. On page 28 of the hearings is the following: "At this point an oath was administered for the subcommittee to Mr. Edgar Wallace and Mr. B. H. Roberts covering statements previously made by them in this hearing." Mr. WHEELER. How about the others? Mr. KUNZ. Who were they? Mr. BLANTON. Mr. Roberts was a printing establishment employer here. There was one labor man and one proprietor. Mr. Roberts was a proprietor who has a printing establishment here. Mr. LAMPERT. I do not know whether I have got this right or not, but did the majority of the committee file a report? |