Now, then, I say this, that here is Congress-whatever the merits, or whatever the necessity, if you please, of the Congress and the Federal Government stepping into the matter of the labor and employment of both sexes under the age of 18, which by the way, and I don't think it has been said before, is a much broader question than the question of child labor, because if the labor of persons under 18 can be regulated by Congress, then everything that affects the labor of those persons can be regulated by Congress-for instance, their education. If they can't work-if young men and young women are not to be allowed to work-won't Congress say what they will be allowed to do, or what they must do to occupy their time? If their parents do not see that the twentieth amendment-if that is to be its number is carried out, won't there be inspectors to see that the parents do see to it? And won't there be provisions virtually taking over the whole subject of the guardianship of minors and vesting it in the Federal Government? To my mind, under the general rule which is in the Constitution, that the grant of any power carriers with it the grant of every power incidental to the power, or necessary for the enforcement of the granted power, there is virtually no limit to the power of Congress over the whole topic of domestic relations, education, and employment if this amendment is passed. Now, then, I say the tremendous increase in the Federal power, carried by direct language or by necessary implication in this amendment, is a mater on which the people of the United States have a right, and an indefeasible right, to be heard, and, may it please the members of this committee, the probability is that if this resolution is passed in its present shape, they won't have that chance. Presidential election is coming on, and one of the members suggested that both parties in their platforms had already indorsed this matter. We all know what party platforms are; how they are thrown together, and how they contain planks to catch votes here and there. Will not the proponents of this measure seek to get the same credit as the proponents of the women's suffrage amendment sought to get in 1920 by having legislatures called into special session, if necessary, to ratify the thing in a hurry, the Democrats wanting the Democratic legislatures to get that credit and the Republicans wanting the Republican legislatures to get that credit, with the active minority that means votes in debatable constituencies? That is where they want the credit. They don't care about credit with the great passive millions that are going to be subject, though they know it not, to the visits of Federal inspectors at their very doors, coming from thousands of miles away to inspect the way they manage their children, or the way their children contribute to the living of the household. Just in closing there are two things that this committee could do, if it believes, if the members sincerely believe, as I certainly do not, that this measure is necessary. One is to refer it to a convention, as the Constitution provides; the other is to first provide by an amendment, which this committee has already heard, and I have had the benefit, thanks to the courtesy of the clerk of this committee, of reading the report of the hearings you have had on that measure, known as the Garrett-Wadsworth amendment-that no old hold-over legislatures shall pass on amendments, but a new one, with a fresh mandate from the people, which will grant to the people the right to pass upon the action of their legislature by a referendum vote, as the State of Ohio undertook to do, until the Supreme Court told it it had no right to do it. If that measure were passed, the people of the United States would never again be able to say, and nobody would be able to say, that any change in the compact of government of 1789 was made without consulting the original source of power; which is the sovereign people. It has been said recently. It ought not ever to be said again. But if this amendment is submitted without prior action on that one, there will be the same story-the farce of ratifying by theoretical agents of the people whose function is past and gone and who for all practical purposes are simply, to put it baldly, politicians temporarily out of a job, called back because they were members of the legislature when it was in session and are technically so now, called back to obey the voice of a lobby in a presidential year, when anything may happen to take the whole subject of domestic relations from the sovereign States and transfer it bodily to the Federal Government here at Washington. Mr. FOSTER. Your position is that in the national platforms-and we all realize that both parties have to take into consideration the desire for a platform that is appealing-you think that beyond making an appealing platform the members of these parties, when they come into Congress, forget the planks in the platform; that it is purely a vote getter and not to be given any weight? Mr. CADWALADER. No, sir; I do not. But I say this, that national platforms are adopted at national conventions which nominate the candidates for the Presidency and Vice Presidency of the United States. The members of Congress are not nominated at those conventions and are not responsible for what goes into their platforms. Mr. FOSTER. I beg your pardon. When I qualify as a candidate for the fall election as a Republican, I sign an oath that I am going to obey the platform of that party. Mr. CADWALADER. I didn't know you had such a law in your State, sir. The CHAIRMAN. I never knew that such a barbarous condition as that existed anywhere in the world. [Laughter.] Mr. FOSTER. We did not take over the Pennsylvania system, but when you go into a party you agree to abide by its principles. Pennsylvania takes an entirely different oath. The CHAIRMAN. I am glad you tried to imitate their good qualities. Mr. CADWALADER. Mr. Chairman, I used to live in Pennsylvania, but I have been for many years a citizen of Maryland, and I am not going to get into an argument between Pennsylvania and Ohio, both our very good neighbors, but I want to say this to the gentleman whom I understand is from Ohio Mr. FOSTER. Yes, sir. Mr. CADWALADER. That in the first place, on the broad principles in the platform, I am in absolute accord with his views, that nobody has a right to run for office that does not subscribe to the principles of the platform on which he runs, but that it is impossible with these platforms that embrace everything from Maine to California, all sorts of local issues and so on, humanly impossible to expect a candidate to be in accord with every single plank on matters of detail, but outside of that I want to say to the gentleman that if he believes, as I said before, in this child labor amendment, if he believes he is pledged to it, it is absolutely in consonance with his pledge, and in consonance with his belief that he should vote to submit the making of that amendment to his own people of the State of Ohio and to the people of other States. Mr. FOSTER. You referred to the eighteenth and nineteenth amendments, and the methods by which they were adopted. Referring to both you used the term "propaganda" and that they were backed by unlimited resources. Do I understand you to say, taking the women's suffrage amendment, that that was put over because of propaganda, backed by unlimited resources? Mr. CADWALADER. I do, sir. Mr. FOSTER. That is all. Mr. CADWALADER. I do, sir, and I can easily furnish the facts and the figures. Mr. O'SULLIVAN. It is particularly true of the eighteenth amendment, is it not? Mr. CADWALADER. During the eighteenth amendment I was doing my little bit to serve my country, and all I know about it is hearsay. The way it was put over I am not prepared to testify. I do know about the nineteenth. Mr. FOSTER. During the passage of the eighteenth amendment I saw something of the workings of it in my section of the country. I saw those in favor of the eighteenth amendment distributing cards throughout the churches for subscriptions. I happened to be an attorney for the saloon keepers in my county when they voted wet. The difference was that the churches gave $1 apiece and the saloons gave $5. That was the difference. Mr. CADWALADER. We have one of the richest men in my city of Baltimore, a very conscientious man, who is a gentleman who has subscribed many thousands of dollars to a very prominent agent of the Anti-Saloon League who has been recently in difficulties in New York and has given him absolute carte blanche to use the money as he saw fit. Mr. FOSTER. I assume this man was in church when he saw the cards passed out for the dollars. Mr. WELLER. I would like to ask if Mr. King lives in Baltimore? [Laughter.] Mr. CADWALADER. Not to my knowledge. Mr. WELLER. You spoke of a prominent man. Mr. CADWALADER. Not that I know. Mr. Chairman, I would like to submit the following statement which I have prepared as a supplement to my remarks. The statement is as follows: To the Committee on the Judiciary. GENTLEMEN: The grave constitutional results that would follow from adoption of the proposed child-labor amendment are probably not fully realized by either its advocates or its opponents. Every grant of power to Congress carries with it a grant of every other power needed to make the former grant effective. To illustrate: The power to declare war and raise armies includes the power to take possession of and operate every railroad in the country, and no doubt every mine and factory. The power to regulate commerce among the several States includes the power to prohibit lotteries, to prevent unmarried men and women from traveling with any illicit intent, to prescribe a new rule of liability for personal injuries in such commerce, and to regulate the entire transportation interests of the country. The power to coin money and to raise taxes includes the power to establish a national bank or a Federal reserve system. The power to prohibit intoxicating liquor includes the power to prohibit nonintoxicating liquor that might serve as a "blind" for the "real stuff." By parity of reasoning, the power to prohibit the labor of persons under 18 and to prescribe the conditions of such labor would probably be held to include the power to prescribe how persons under 18 shall be occupied; how and to what extent they shall be educated; what standards of conduct shall be required in their legal guardians. All these collateral powers can be made effective by Congress, through taxation, appropriation, and the provision of the necessary officials and machinery to enforce them. Evidently the powers of the States in such matters would recede before the supreme power of Congress, and national control of education and of the care, custody, and guardianship of all minors under 18 will follow, in order to carry into full effect such childlabor legislation as Congress might see fit to enact. Respectfully submitted. MARCH 5, 1924. T. F. CADWALADER, 701 Maryland Trust Building, Baltimore. The CHAIRMAN. We will meet again at 10 o'clock to-morrow morning. (Whereupon at 11 o'clock a. m. the hearing was adjourned until 11 o'clock to-morrow morning, March 1, 1924.) COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, The committee met at 10 o'clock a. m., Hon. George S. Graham (chairman) presiding. The CHAIRMAN. Mrs. Gibbs, would you kindly address the committee? STATEMENT OF MRS. RUFUS M. GIBBS, LEGISLATIVE CHAIRMAN OF THE FEDERATION OF DEMOCRATIC WOMEN Mrs. GIBBS. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I come over here to-day as the legislative chairman of the Federation of Democratic Women; as the chairman also, as I am the secretary, of the Woman's Constitutional League. While I have the opportunity, I do want to correct an impression that I thought might have been made by our president in her zeal not to claim too much about our members. We have 280 members that are listed as having stood with us in the past, and we hope before the year is out that their dues will be paid, so we do not feel that we are such a very contemptible little body but, nevertheless, I am going to read our constitution. Mr. SUMMERS. She said you have about 150. Mrs. GIBBS. She said we had for 1924, but we hope for better things, and I think it was perhaps due to her zeal not to overstate it. Mr. SUMNERS. The membership you now refer to is the membership of the Constitutional League? Mrs. GIBBS. Yes. The Federation of Democratic Women is made up of women from all the different wards in the city, and we are trying to organize, and we already have about 500 members, and then representatives from each club, and we are working with the men, as we think is the only way to do. We do not feel there is any division of interest. Mr. FOSTER. So that the record may show, when you say you come over here, you mean you come from the city of Baltimore? Mrs. GIBBS. Yes; I am from the city of Baltimore, and what I did want to do was to read the constitution of the Woman's Constitutional League, because it bears on this particular thing, I think. We say: 1. We invite the women of Maryland to join with us in a league for the preservation of the principles of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights of this State and of the United States in letter and in spirit, against violation, whether by direct assault or indirect evasion; whether in the name of socialism, feminism, or in the name of humanity, or in whatever guise the effort is made to subvert the system of ordered progress under the forms of law and with respect to the just rights of all men that we have inherited from the founders of the American Constitution and from the mother country wherein that system was first conceived. 2. That the name of this league shall be the Woman's Constitutional League of Maryland. 3. That any woman who is a citizen of this State and who will subscribe to these resolutions may be admitted to membership upon payment of an initiation fee of $1. 4. That the members of this league by joining the same record their opposition to the following: "1. All measures tending to centralize power in the Federal Government which is now exercised or can be exercised by the several States or their city, town, or county governments. 99 "2. All laws, whether State or Federal, whereby the duty of serving on juries in States or Federal courts, whether civil or criminal, is imposed upon women.' I am sure you gentlemen will all realize that is a little bit abstract and, of course, my sex does not deal with abstract things very much, and I think on the whole we rather resent having abstract things forced on us, and so I think a good many women have been appealed to by sentimentalists who have told them that by putting another amendment into the Constitution or by putting some laws on the statute books they would correct evils that have existed since the beginning of the world. As Herbert Spencer says no legislative sleight of hand can save us from ourselves. But women do not like to face those very hard facts. They like to feel they are helping humanity and standing for something that is going to do all kinds of things. That is one reason why, perhaps, we have not the awfully large membership we would like to have. I feel that those who have stood with us have been very loyal. Now in regard to my representing the Federation of Democratic Women, of course, I am coming over here at their request, because I am going to point out about the very vital plank in our State platform on State rights and, of course, you gentlemen realize that this is not an issue that was closed with the Civil War. It was really another name for local self-government, which is the principle on which liberty must be established every way. There is no other way. We can not have a fiat that will give liberty. It is the people in smaller communities looking out for their own affairs. |