The boldness of the advance often proves the best strategy, and in this case may forestall greater difficulties which might otherwise develop into a critical struggle of capital and labor.

If labor of human beings is not an article of commerce or commodity, then a "minimum fair wage" is essential to equality to liberty under the Constitution. If we are to preserve our dual constitutional system and a society of private property, then to the States should be open every reasonable approach consistent with the declared public policy of such State.

The new wine cannot be poured into the old crocks, encrusted with the accumulated coverings of age and riddled with the mildew and hoar of past years. New bottles must be fashioned more in keeping with the taste and the better able to hold the freshness of the brew of an altered society.

Chairman POWERS. Miss Maud Swett, of the Wisconsin Industrial Commission, will continue this discussion.

Miss SWETT. I am not so sure, after Mr. Epstein's discussion, that what I have to say will sound like a continuation or going backwards. It was suggested that in my discussion of this subject, because of a number of early experiences of Wisconsin in the administration of minimum-wage law, I might speak on some phases of our law which might be helpful to some of the other States that have had little or no experience with this type of labor legislation. I do not think I can speak of that so that it will be intelligible to some of you who do not know how we administer our law unless I speak of the kind of law we have. We have the same kind of law that all of the States have which provide that women and minors should be paid at least a living wage-a wage that would enable the woman or the minor to maintain herself or himself under conditions consistent with her or his welfare. "Welfare" is defined as reasonable comfort, reasonable physical well-being, decency, and moral well-being.

After the Tipaldo case one employer secured an injunction against the commission to restrain it from enforcing the minimum-wage law insofar as it applied to adult women employed in his plant. The legislature then amended the law so that, as far as adult women were concerned, provisions relating thereto were taken out of the body of the law. As it applied to minors, it was left exactly as it was before. It provided that adult women should not be paid oppressive wagesdefined as a wage unreasonable and inadequate for the services rendered. Instead of taking the question up industry by industry, our law says that no employer shall pay an oppressive wage to minors or adult women. The commission has adopted the policy of stating to the employer that if he does not pay what he must pay under the legislation the wage will be considered oppressive, in the absence of proof to the contrary on the part of the employer. We have gone on

administering the living-wage standard of the law as originally adopted. Theoretically we were probably wrong; practically, we were able to ride out the Adkins case decision. I have found in my experience with employers that it is easy to convince them that it is good social policy for an employer to guarantee to his employees a living wage, that he has no right to ask to be an employer unless he can do that. He can see the fallacy of providing a reasonably safe and sanitary place to work, with a limitation against hours, without also providing a decent living wage.

One thing that I am glad of is that our law covers all employers. I think as a whole they accept a thing more readily if they feel that every other employer is covered by the same restriction. It takes too long, for another thing, to do this industry by industry. There is also an advantage in having on your advisory board representatives of different industries. When you have representatives of one industry only, they stress too much the difficulties they meet in paying what you are trying to arrive at as a reasonable compensation. We had employers from different industries on our board, and could rely upon employers in some industries to do missionary work on other employer members. The laundry employers spurred on the hosiery owners to accept a higher rate than the hosiery people felt at first they could accept. Another thing that I hope you will keep closely related, is your home-work law and your minimum-wage law. There is one way of reaching the evils in home work-one of the big evils-and you can do it before the work is done. It is very difficult to go into a home to observe whether the child-labor law is being complied with or whether the hour law is being complied with, but you can set your rate so that it is adequate before you grant the permit to do the home work-do the enforcing ahead of time. Another thing that we have found of great help is a wage-collection law. If you do not have a wage-collection law in your State, then it would be well to have in your minimum-wage law something which would give you that same authority of taking the assignment of the wage to enforce the collection, if necessary, through suit. We have found that particularly helpful as it applies to some of the small employers and the employers of domestic help. You may not want your law to cover domestic service and it does let you in for a lot of grief. However, I am glad that ours does. Through the wage-claims law and the minimumwage law I think we have been able to make the life of the domestic servant during this period somewhat easier that it was before. In speaking before women's clubs, I have had to say some pretty harsh things and go back over the history of domestic service in this country to soften them up a bit and get them to acknowledge that servants. should receive a living wage the same as anyone else, and that they should not feel that they were doing a social service when they provide room and board for servants. Some people feel that the more a

person needs a job the harder he ought to work and the less he ought to be paid.

Another important thing is to make your administration as simple as possible, and in the drafting of your laws have that in mind. There are a lot of things we should like to know, but we do have to make as simple as possible the records the employer has to keep and the reports he has to furnish to the administration. There are certain records that the employer must keep, and failure to do so should be considered just as serious a violation of the order as the failure to pay the rate prescribed, but there is a limit to what we can ask the employer to furnish in the way of reports and records. When our minimum-wage legislation was fairly new in its administration, we were criticized somewhat for permitting a learning period at a lesser rate than the experience rate. Then we were criticized because we did not ask for registration of women and minors every time they changed jobs. Anyone who has done administration work knows that that would be almost impossible. My experience has been that that was one thing we did not need to ask for. Our experience shows that the employer usually takes the statement on the application, or if it is not a written application, he usually takes the oral statement of the applicant at its face value. In those cases where he does not, it can usually be proved. That is one instance of what I mean by simplifying your administration. Do not ask for too much detail. Of coure, in checking up on cases you have to go into all the details.

I have not meant this to sound like advice. There are lots of other things I should like to tell you about. I was just looking over the information compiled for the biennial report ending July 30 of this year, and 59 percent of the amounts collected under the minimumwage law was collected for adult women.

Chairman POWERS. The subject is now open for discussion from the

floor.

Mr. MURPHY (Oklahoma). For more than 40 years I have been connected with organized labor and have been very active in the movement up until recent years. There was a time when we were 100 percent against a minimum-wage law of any kind. We are getting over that, and the attitude in our part of the country is now almost the opposite. I think the time has arrived for the enactment of minimum-wage laws.

President CRAWFORD. In Ontario there is one development that might be of interest. We are faced with the problem of establishing a minimum wage for men. The minimum-wage board has opposed it until just recently. We will probably have an act passed at the coming session of the legislature. Two years ago we endeavored to pave the way by introducing the principles expounded by Mr. Epstein. We put on the statute books an act which is called the Industrial

Standards Act, under which the department calls representative conferences of employers and employees, and they formulate the schedule of minimum wages and hours in the industry on the basis of elimination of unfair competition. When the minister is satisfied that the conference drafting the schedules is a proper and sufficient representation of the industry, the schedules are given the force of law and enforced by the minimum-wage board. We have hoped that would pave the way for a proper type of minimum wage for men, but we are forced to move rapidly, and I fear that the pressure will be so great that we will have to adopt a minimum-wage act for men similar to that for women. We have recognized that weakness, although there is no constitutional problem whatever in Canada-it is a matter of jurisdiction and a matter of policy.

Mr. WALLING (Rhode Island). Mr. Epstein has made an interesting and valuable suggestion, and it would be too bad if we adjourned without further consideration of his suggestion. I wonder if he would be willing to simplify a bit for us the administration which he envisages under this unfair-competition theory, particularly with regard to the enforcement of it. Would it be by injunction by one employer against another, or would there be a central governmental organization with responsibility for administering the thing?

Mr. EPSTEIN. You would have a board which would determine, after a careful study, in a certain industry when unfair competition, in the sense of competition based upon wage differentials for identical tasks, exists. Within that industry, it is felt, some employers are exploiting labor and others are not. Following certain standards which the law must definitely set up, inquiry is made, experts are sent in to study the various plants in the industry, and the study is presented to the wage board. The board makes its findings, and on the basis of those findings it determines that in that industry unfair competition exists on the basis of wages paid for identical tasks, and in order to eliminate that unfair competition it is necessary to establish a fair minimum wage. It, therefore, sets a fair minimum wage through machinery similar to that which we now have but with a much more careful study of the labor costs. Then if a person pays less than the minimum wage he can be enjoined or convicted of a violation or a misdemeanor. It must necessarily be handled industry by industry, because we must face the fact that no statute will be sustained fixing a wage without reference to the problems of each industry individually. We must also face the fact that we have certain standards laid down. by cases under our Constitution, and when you try to make a sweeping minimum-wage approach directly, involving all employers, you are faced with the problem that you are not fixing a wage with relation to the services but with relation to outside factors. You say there are certain practices which should be prohibited because they are destruc

tive of decent business. You add to those, such as purloining a man's trade mark, saying, with fair prices you may not sell below cost. You say, if the declared public policy of your State is that you shall not use human labor as a commodity, then you must not utilize human labor as the major basis for competition. The courts have, themselves, opened up that approach. I do not see how they can get away from that approach. You cannot interfere with the wage contract directly; you cannot differentiate between adult men and women. The courts have said all that, but they have also said in any number of cases that you can prevent destructive practices in business by outlawing them as unfair. They have therefore themselves opened up the approach that you can outlaw as unfair competition the use and exploitation of labor by the use of wage differentials in order to sell the product. I have a feeling that that psychology may be just the one to appeal to the courts at this moment in order to capitalize on the reaction that has come from the direct approach.

Mr. KoSSORIS (Washington, D. C.). Is it your opinion that regulation by States of that type would be preferable to Federal regulation?

Mr. EPSTEIN. My feeling about that is this: At the present, at least, the actual labor and the control of employment are still regarded as a State problem, and without a Federal amendment you will not be able to enact legislation to control the problem throughout the Nation. I have no illusions about the facility for obtaining any such Federal amendment. Therefore, I say the problem must be faced as a State problem and approached by the State. The control and regulation of interstate commerce have not yet been extended, and I do not think they will be extended, at least within a reasonable time.

Mr. MAGNUSSON (Washington, D. C.). What cases can you cite where the fixing of wages does not run into that? Would the court believe that all differentials in wages are unfair competition?

Mr. EPSTEIN. The fixation of wages is merely one added factor that you now begin to put on unfair practices. For identical tasks in the same industry the use of a wage differential as a basis for competition is unfair when the public policy of the State has been declared to be contrary to the use of human labor in the same manner as the use of the product itself which is being manufactured.

Mr. MAGNUSSON. What cases have you in mind?

Mr. EPSTEIN. You have no cases on the direct approach to labor, but you do have cases in which the courts have said that you may regulate fair competition in industry.

Mr. MAGNUSSON. You rely wholly upon the argument that a differential in wage can be reduced to the same ground as some of these unethical practices we call unfair competition?

Mr. EPSTEIN. I rely upon that analogy plus the fact that the States have thus far been able to declare that human labor must not be