Mr. FOSTER. Principally what I was trying to get at, in the legislative experience you have had here and elsewhere, has not the position that has been taken by you been different from the position that organized labor has taken?

Miss KILBRETH. I have said distinctly we are neither affiliated with organized labor nor with manufacturers.

Mr. FOSTER. My question was: Has not your position concerning legislation, so far as you have taken a position concerning legislation, been inconsistent with the position taken by labor?

Miss KILBRETH. Not that I am aware of. Our stand on legislative measures is not influenced by the attitude of labor or any faction or party toward those measures. We are concerned only with their constitutionality.

Mr. MICHENER. You are here representing whom to-day?
Miss KILBRETH. I thought I stated that very clearly.

The CHAIRMAN. You did.

Mr. MICHENER. I did not hear it.

Miss KILBRETH. I am representing the Woman Patriot Publishing Co.

Mr. MICHENER. Right there, just one word. This woman's pub. lishing company, is it an incorporated company?

Miss KILBRETH. Yes; it is incorporated..

Mr. MICHENER. Where is the publication issued?
Miss KILBRETH. In Washington.

Mr. MICHENER. How long ago were you incorporated?

Miss KILBRETH. I do not know the year, because that was not done under me. That was done under the previous president.

Mr. MICHENER. I want to know about how long this publication has been doing business.

Miss KILBRETH. This special publication-under this exact name→→→ began April, 1918. We formerly had another name but were differently organized.

Mr. MICHENER. What was the former name?

Miss KILBRETH. The former name of the publication was The Protest. It was not at that time an independent paper; it was the official organ of our organization at that time. Our general political work dates back

Mr. MICHENER. I just asked the former name, please.

Miss KILBRETH. Oh, yes; Woman's Protest.

Mr. MICHENER. Woman's protest against what?

Miss KILBRETH. The Protest was the official organ of the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage.

Mr. MICHENER. That answers it.

You said you were sending out bulletins. Where do you get your list of those to whom you send your bulletins?

Miss KILBRETH. Chiefly to certain subscribers to our papers. Occasionally we send to presidents of bar associations.

Mr. MICHENER. My purpose is not to go into your private busi

ness

Miss KILBRETH. Oh, certainly.

Mr. MICHENER. Let me finish. You appear here representing somebody except yourself and

Miss KILBRETH. I do.

Mr. MICHENER. Pardon me. This committee has a right to know

Miss KILBRETH. Certainly.

Mr. MICHENER. I am talking.

Miss KILBRETH. Excuse me.

Mr. MICHENER (continuing). Who you represent and what your purposes are, and if you answer those questions directly

Miss KILBRETH. Will you tell me just which one you want to know? What the paid circulation of our paper is, first?

Mr. MICHENER. I am not interested in the details.
Miss KILBRETH. I thought that was what you asked.

Mr. MICHENER. I asked the general circulation. Do you send out 5,000 or 10,000 of those bulletins?

Miss KILBRETH. The bulletins?
Mr. MICHENER. Yes.

Miss KILBRETH. Generally not more than 50 to 100. We send them generally to lawyers, if some emergency arises.

Mr. MICHENER. That is an answer.

Miss KILBRETH. Would you like to know our board of directors? Our directors are Mrs. B. L. Robinson, Cambridge; Mrs. John Balch, Boston; Mrs. Randolph Frothingham, Boston; Mrs. Frederick L. Longfellow, New York; Mrs. Rufus M. Gibbs, Baltimore; and myself, Southampton, N. Y., my residence. Those are the women who control the policy of the paper. I made a mistake. Mrs. Longfellow is on our finance committee-not on our executive board.

Mr. MICHENER. Of the organization?

Miss KILBRETH. There is now no organization.

Mr. MICHENER. Well, of the paper.

Miss KILBRETH. We disbanded the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage after the proclamation of the nineteenth amendment. We held our antisuffrage organization until the nineteenth amendment was carried to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled against us in one of the most drastic decisions that it has ever handed down. Consequently that issue is closed and some of us have gone now into the general constitutional field.

Mr. MICHENER. That answer is sufficient.

Mr. FOSTER. May I follow with one question?

Miss KILBRETH. Yes, sir.

Mr. FOSTER. I asked you a question earlier in your testimony which you preferred at the time not to answer because you were not here individually but were here as representing this organization. Miss KILBRETH. Company; yes.

Mr. MICHENER. Now, your remarks to-day-are they because of the action of this board of directors which directed you to come up and take this position?

We held a meeting of our board of directors here in Washington on December 11. At that meeting we agreed to oppose all measures that came in certain classes of legislation that we considered unconstitutional and to back other measures.

Mr. FOSTER. What I am getting at, in the meeting of your board of directors

Miss KILBRETH. December 11.

Mr. FOSTER (Continuing). Resolutions were passed defining the line of activity.

Miss KILBRETH. Yes.

Mr. FOSTER. And those directors whose names you read, were they

all present?

Miss KILBRETH. They were not all present. We had a quorum present. Mrs. Gibbs, who spoke here to-day, was absent.

Mr. FOSTER. Was Mrs. Frothingham present?

Miss KILBRETH. Yes. Mrs. Frothingham, Mrs. Robinson, Mrs. Balch, and I were present, which made a quorum.

Mr. FOSTER. That is three?.

Miss KILBRETH. No; four. I am ex officio a member of the board. Mr. FOSTER. At that meeting was any action taken by resolution that incorporated child labor other than your four principles you refer to?

Miss KILBRETH. We passed resolutions on these four classes of legislation, and specific measures were not named in the resolutions. Mr. FOSTER. I did not ask you that. In the meeting where the four members were present was there any resolution passed incorporating child labor?

Miss KILBRETH. No resolution was passed solely on the child labor amendment.

Mr. FOSTER. But you considered it came within those four classes? Miss KILBRETH. Positively. This was one of the chief measures which we discussed.

Mr. FOSTER. You are president of that corporation?

Miss KILBRETH. I am president.

Mr. FOSTER. And your last meeting was December 11?

Miss KILBRETH. The meeting at which the resolution on congressional legislation, at which I was present. There is no question about the feeling on these bills. Routine meetings are held in Boston. We have been considering them for months.

The CHAIRMAN. Madam, may I ask you a question?

Miss KILBRETH. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Was the child labor amendment, as it is called, discussed at that meeting?

Miss KILBRETH. Yes; at length.

The CHAIRMAN. So your resolution covered that as well as the others?

Miss KILBRETH. Absolutely. It was discussed at the meeting and discussed explicitly. We have been considering our congressional program of work since August.

Mr. DYER. Have you the minutes of that meeting?

Miss KILBRETH. I can bring them.

Mr. DYER. I mean of the legislation you said was all right.

Miss KILBRETH. Yes. The chief measure which we are backing is the Wadsworth-Garrett amendment giving the people a voice in the changes in this fundamental law. We oppose any more changes in the Constitution being imposed on the Nation, clamped down irrevocably over the heads of the people without the people themselves having any voice whatever in these changes. We hope, in fairness to the people, that the Wadsworth-Garrett amendment will be transmitted to the States ahead of all other amendments. There seems

to be a disposition to hurry that amendment through the committee on the part of the proponents.

Mr. FOSTER. Were you here prior to this week?

Miss KILBRETH. I was here two days.

Mr. FOSTER. I want to state this in my connection: My whole position has been--we reported out one in the last month of the last session

Miss KILBRETH. Yes; I know.

Mr. FOSTER. I am trying to profit by our experience then.

Miss KILBRETH. We want the Garrett-Wadsworth amendment as protection to the people. We were beaten in the Supreme Court on our amendment on all the contentions. The people themselves must protect their own interests now.

Mr. DYER. Which one was that?

Miss KILBRETH. The nineteenth amendment.

Mr. DYER. Women's suffrage?

Miss KILBRETH. Yes.

Mr. DYER. What about prohibition?

Miss KILBRETH. We were not in general politics at the time that came up. We took no position on that. I am afraid the time is going very quickly and I want to take up the position of the Socialist convention on child labor.

Mr. FOSTER. Just as you are leaving your newspapers, I take it you are on the pay roll as an officer of that company?

Miss KILBRETH. No; I am not. I am very much out of pocket on my work.

Mr. FOSTER. You have no salary on the records of your company at all?

Miss KILBRETH. I am very much out of pocket on our work. We all are.

Mr. FOSTER. Independent of "out of pocket" there is no resolution on your minutes giving compensation of any kind whatever to the position you occupy?

Miss KILBRETH. Absolutely not. I have never in my life received any pay whatever, direct or indirect, either in the form of salary or as gifts for work I have done.

Mr. SUMNERS. I object to that. I want to take this position and submit it to the judgment of the committee: I conceive that the things that will perhaps be most helpful to us are the statements of reasons which to our judgment seem sound as to why this measure ought or ought not be reported. If they should come from the most obscure source or from an interested source, what is the difference? Mr. FOSTER. I have no controversy with the gentleman from Texas. He missed the early part, and I am not interested in that except the lady took the position that individually she was not going to give an opinion except as the representative of this organization.

Mr. YATES. I am not taking any exception, but as long as I am a member of this committee I think I have a right to ask a proper question.

Mr. SUMNERS. Yes; I was only addressing myself to the soundness of the committee's judgment.

Miss KILBRETH. Has any one else been questioned whether they received a salary or not? I think not. Many of the proponents of

this amendment are salaried workers. If that question is raised in connection with me I contend that everybody who has appeared before this committee should be put on record as to whether or not they draw salaries.

The CHAIRMAN. That is perfectly fair.

Mr. FOSTER. I have not any objection.

The CHAIRMAN. You know these questions are asked for the purpose of affecting motive and trying to discredit your statements. I entirely agree with the gentleman from Texas-that what we ought to do is to base our judgment on the sufficiency and propriety and strength of the reasons given us for this amendment either going through or being halted.

Mr. FOSTER. There was no question I asked attempting to discredit your testimony whatever.

Miss KILBRETH. Discredit it. My testimony is based on official sources which are here for the committee's inspection.

Mr. FOSTER. And I have not attempted to discredit it, I want you to understand.

Miss KILBRETH. You couldn't discredit it. I have taken every precaution against that.

Mr. FOSTER. I did not say I could, but I say I had no desire to. Miss KILBRETH. I wish now to read from the proceedings of the socialist national convention held in Chicago in 1908 to show the attitude of that group of working men and women on child-labor legislation. There were two factions at the convention-the "impossibilists," the extremists, out for straight revolutionary measures which could not yet succeed, and the "immediate demands" faction, who were opportunists and for taking inch by inch whatever they could get and gradually fastening their doctrine insidiously on the Nation. And the so-called impossibles were beaten every time, because Morris Hillquit and the great socialists who were controlling the convention said, "Don't make yourself a laughing-stock; don't make yourself ridiculous." All those socialists were attempting to do-and I have the proceedings here and challenge anyone to contradict this

During the debate on section 7 of the platform entitled "Improvement of the industrial condition of the workers," part (d), "by forbidding the employment of children under 16 years of age" Delegate Joseph D. Cannon, of Arizona, moved to amend it by making it 18 years of age.

Section 7 of the platform was entitled "Improvement of the industrial condition of the workers." Part (d) of that section read, "By forbidding the employment of children under 16 years of age." At the opening of the debate on part (d) Dr. Joseph D. Cannon, of Arizona, moved to amend it by making it 18 years of age.

Delegate Marguerite Prevey, a delegate from Ohio, stated:

I want to speak in opposition to the amendment offered that the age be made 18. We as Socialists fully realize that you can not legislate the child labor problem out of existence. We fully realize that as long as we have the capitalist system where the father of a family does not get wages sufficient to support the whole family, the children must go into the shops and factories to earn a living, and that they can't be kept at school until 16.

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That is a condition that you can not legislate out of existence until the head of the family gets the full product of his labor. I am opposed to the amendment for that reason. Don't let us make ourselves ridiculous. We should understand the child labor problem better than to apply such an amendment to this proposition. (Proceedings National Convention Socialist Party, 1908, pp. 206–207.)