gasoline for use in making trips to investigate these cases and report on them; and there have been numerous instances of that kind. I could read from the report where one man reported to us the investigation of seven cases of dependency in his county, and in doing so, he said, "It has not all been accomplished yet, but I paid the expenses of doing this work out of my own income."

Mr. MONTAGUE. But upon that small appropriation, can you say that in your judgment the administration is efficiently accomplished? Mr. CARTER. I certainly do. And I think the next general assembly will recognize the efficiency of the program and will take care of any need we have; in fact, our budget has already assured us of that. Mr. MONTAGUE. There is a difference between efficiency and cost of administration; sometimes we have very efficient administration at low cost, and sometimes we have a very heavy cost with an inefficient administration; and then again, when you look at those things with the background of the United States Treasury on the one hand, and the background of the State treasury on the other hand, it makes a vast difference.

Mr. CARTER. Yes, sir. I would like to explain to the committee that these surveys are arranged in groups of units, in which we try to figure up the least amount of travel and travel expenses, and at the same time to make the greatest number of contacts; and those groups of units of one man are compared against the groups of units of another; so that we are always trying to get the lowest possible cost basis for each thing accomplished; and we shall know at the end of this year just what each visit cost, and what the conferences that are held in trying to put the matter over in an educational way cost us; and whenever we find anything which duplicates what is being done by others, we cast that off and get rid of it; so that only the vital things that belong to the administration of this commission will be done by it.

Mr. SUMNERS What is the state of public opinion in your State with regard to this general child-welfare program?

Mr. CARTER. I think it is unanimous in support of it.

Mr. SUMNERS. Do you find any considerable degree of local cooperation among women's organizations, etc.?

Mr. CARTER. Yes, sir; the Rotary Club, the Civitans, the Kiwanis Club, and all of those organizations have cooperated with us. My assistant, Mr. Brooks, who just visited Gastonia, found that the superintendent of public welfare of that county had just been called upon to address one of those meetings; and their attitude was, "How many boys have you that you can be a big brother to?" And those children are selected from the different villages in that vicinity, or they may be selected from the town itself; and they will take those children and do some constructive work to properly develop the character of the child.

Mr. SUMNERS. Is it your judgment or not that better and more substantial progress is being made under local and State responsibility than if the Federal Government was exercising a supervisory control over the general situation?

Mr. CARTER. My experience is that that is most decidedly so. Since we have taken this administration over we have secured the physical examination of every child that was certified under Federal

24666-H. Doc. 497, 68-2- -14

authority previously; something which we previously had not done. We have a school record of every child in North Carolina that has been certified for employment. We know where he is working, and we know under what conditions he is working; and moreover, in the cases of dependents, we have a family history of those cases; and that is something that we never had before.

Mr. SUMNERS. From your observation as to the way in which both. State and Federal expenditures are made, do you believe that $20,000 expended by the Federal Government in connection with the work in which you have been engaged would have covered the same field and brought about the same results as have been brought about? Mr. CARTER. I do not, sir; as far as I have been able to ascertain from personal investigations and contacts at the different plants. I do not wish to make any reflection on anyone, because we had perfect cooperation throughout the administration of the Federal law. But they had only the object of certifying that child; of establishing the fact whether he was old enough to work or not. In very few cases, to my knowledge, was any personal examination made as to the family dependency, or any other circumstance that might affect that child.

Mr. SUMNERS. What is your experience as to whether or not general interest in child welfare is aroused by the community assuming the responsibility with regard to some particular phase of child welfare.

Mr. CARTER. I wish to state that I think that is one of the best ways of solving that matter. In fact, we have found that the more we can throw that responsibility upon the community the more we can depend upon them to fulfill it; and I think that is the function and position, of the superintendent of welfare and the superintendent of schools in promoting the welfare in their own community and taking care of their own problem. In that way we try to place that as forcibly as we can before the community.

Mr. SUMNERS. What I am trying especially to arrive at is whether or not, when you are inquiring into the general conditions or the specific conditions under which children work in a certain community, as a result of that inquiry and the investigation that you make, there is aroused in that community an interest in seeing that the child lives under proper physical and moral conditions, whether it has the proper surroundings, and whether it goes to school under proper conditions, and things of that kind?

Mr. CARTER. We have checked over those things in the inspection that we have made, taking the certificates in the plant, and going around with the superintendent of schools in that particular place. and checking those certificates as to each of those children. And we have found that there are approximately 60 per cent in the places which we have investigated, on an average, who have gone back to school; that is, of children above the compulsory school age; I wish that point made clear; that is, of children above the compulsory school age; we are not dealing with truancy, but children above the compulsory age. Those children have voluntarily, in the face of any lure in the way of financial return offered to them, returned to school. And that has met with the unanimous support of the authorities. In one place we checked over 85 per cent; that is an extreme figure. But I checked that over myself in some places.

I looked over the pay roll of the employees in one place, and there was one young lady who was making about the same salary as the stenographers are getting in our town; she was working in a hosiery mill; and she left that position and went back to school.

So that we feel that, with the cooperation of the school officers, and with the cooperation of the business managers in North Carolina, and the industrial managers, we have strongly in hand the situation as to taking care of those children.

Mr. BOIES. Would we be safe in assuming that this wholesome local support that you have received contributed materially to the action of the legislature in increasing the appropriation last year from $10,000 to $20,000?

Mr. CARTER. Yes, sir. I wish to say that the committee was most favorably impressed with our report; and though they had limited our previous appropriation to $10,000, they unanimously approved of $20,000, in consideration of what we had accomplished. I wish to state just one other fact as to our inspections, and then I will be open for any questions.

In order to insure the accuracy of our check on this proposition, we have taken the census report, and we have taken our labor department report in North Carolina, of the number of industries, and we have added them all together; and we found the grand total approximated what we had actually accomplished; in other words, we had made 1,939 detailed inspections and visits in order to secure this information, which is beyond what is reported in the industrial and manufacturing plants in North Carolina, including the furniture factories, the textile mills, etc., which assures us, in checking over the labor report plant for plant, that we have completed the job and that we know that these figures are accurate.

There is just one point in reference to our local agents, which I wish to make plain. The county assumes the expense of this local agent; the county board of education and the county commissioners usually go 50-50 on the salary of the superintendent of public welfare, and all counties having over 32,000 population are required to have a full-time officer; those having under that population are required to provide office assistants and supplies in taking care of this work. The law provides that they shall investigate child-labor cases in their respective counties.

Mr. MONTAGUE. They are not within the $20,000 appropriation? Mr. CARTER. No, sir; that is outside and independent. And that cooperation, gentlemen, we feel is one of the features of our success. We could not put over the program which we have reported here this morning, in the individual investigation of these plants and the detailed inspections which have covered all of these details of work, unless we had had a unit in those communities which was cooperative to the fullest extent-some of them, as I have said before, even sacrificing their own salaries in order to meet the ends which we had in view in solving this child-labor problem in North Carolina.

I thank you, gentlemen.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Carter, I should like to ask you one or two questions: You necessarily are a student of child welfare?

Mr. CARTER. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Now, you have in your position knowledge of the character of the work that is being done for the protection of

children: In your judgment is the welfare of the children cared for efficiently in your State of North Carolina?

Mr. CARTER. Yes, sir; I think that it is being administered efficiently. I think that our problems are being taken up and they are being handled promptly, as a whole; yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Is the spirit of the care for the children growing or diminishing?

Mr. CARTER. Is the spirit of the care of children

The CHAIRMAN (interposing). Is the desire to care for the children growing or diminishing in your State?

Mr. CARTER. I would say the reverse, if I understand the question-that the care of the children is increasing at tremendous rates; that is, the education of them, the public health, the correcting of defective children and cripples, and all of those things, are growing at a tremendous rate.

The CHAIRMAN. I wish you would state whether or not it is your opinion that the local management and handling of this question promotes more local cooperation and help than if a central point like Washington became the controller and regulator of child labor?

Mr. CARTER. I certainly think that the problems of any community can be approached and handled by their local machinery more effectively; and that has been demonstrated to me since we have taken over the commission's work and assumed the responsibility for the program.

The CHAIRMAN. That is all.

Mr. FOSTER. Just one question, Mr. Carter: Do you know Mr. David Clark?

Mr. CARTER. Yes, sir.

Mr. FOSTER. He is the gentleman who accompanies you here now, is he not?

Mr. CARTER. He is here, as I am, in defense of our State in answer to statements that have been made in the newspapers throughout the country, stating that we in North Carolina had millions of children employed, or hundreds of thousands of them; and we wish to make the facts I have stated here plain and definite and correct. Mr. FOSTER. By "we" whom do you mean besides yourself? Mr. CARTER. Mr. Brooks, my assistant.

Mr. FOSTER. I was referring to Mr. Clark. He came up here with you, did he not?

Mr. CARTER. No, sir; he came up this morning. I came here yesterday.

Mr. FOSTER. He arranged for you to come here; he asked you to come here last week, did he not?

Mr. CARTER. Yes, sir.

Mr. FOSTER. Is he the same David Clark that has been managing editor of the Southern Bulletin for some years?

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Clark will testify; he can be asked about that. Mr. FOSTER. Well, if the chairman assures me that Mr. Clark will testify, that is all right.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Clark is here and has asked to be heard; there is no doubt about that: we do not have to ask other people questions about him when he is going to testify himself.

Mr. PERLMAN. Mr. Carter, could you not do the same work that you are doing now with a Federal child labor law?

Mr. CARTER. I wish to state that the Federal child labor law did not do it.

Mr. PERLMAN. I did not say the Federal child labor law did it; I asked, could you not do that work with a Federal child labor law just as effectively?

Mr. CARTER. I can only state, from what has been true in the past, that we were not able to get the information that we now have, under Federal supervision; and we were not able to stimulate the feeling and get the responses in the communities that we have now gotten, while it was under Federal supervision.

Mr. PERLMAN. Do you not think you could do the work just as well under the Federal child labor law?

Mr. CARTER. Well, I am open to be convinced.

The CHAIRMAN. Your experience is that you did not and could not?

Mr. PERLMAN. You said you did not do it?

Mr. CARTER. We did not do it under Federal supervision.

Mr. FOSTER. And still, you told us that there was hearty cooperation between your bureau and the Federal bureau.

Mr. CARTER. We offered every cooperation we could in carrying through the program that they had in the State.

Mr. FOSTER. My understanding was that you testified that there was hearty cooperation between your force and theirs at that time. Mr. CARTER. Yes, sir; I wish to state that as to the certification of children and the program that they followed.

STATEMENT OF MR. JAMES A. EMERY, GENERAL COUNSEL NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MANUFACTURERS OF THE UNITED STATES

The CHAIRMAN. Please state your name and whom you represent. Mr. EMERY. Yes, sir. James A. Emery, general counsel of the National Association of Manufacturers of the United States.

Mr. MONTAGUE. Where is your residence-where are you from? Mr. EMERY. Washington. I appear here, Mr. Chairman, on behalf of the National Association of Manufacturers of the United States and the following State associations of manufacturers throughout the United States: California Manufacturers' Association, Manufacturers' Association of Connecticut, Manufacturers' Association of Delaware, Associated Industries of the Inland Empire (Idaho), Indiana Manufacturers' Association, Iowa Manufacturers' Association, Associated Industries of Kansas, Associated Industries of Kentucky, Associated Industries of Maine, Manufacturers and Merchants' Association of Baltimore, Associated Industries of Massachusetts, Michigan Manufacturers' Association, Associated Industries of Missouri, Nebraska Manufacturers' Association, Associated Industries of New York State, Ohio Manufacturers' Association, Oklahoma Employers' Association, Merchants and Manufacturers' Association of Oregon. Pennsylvania Manufacturers' Association, Employers' Association of Rhode Island, Manufacturers and Employers' Association of South Dakota, Tennessee Manufacturers' Association, Utah Associated Industries, Associated