trudging back again at 6 or 7 at night, as I have seen them. Now go into those States to-day and see them coming out of their school buildings with rosy cheeks and going into the different playgrounds built in the big cities by some of the manufacturing institutions of the State and you will see sturdy, loving children. I would rather see that than discuss questions of Federal interference, and there are brains enough on this committee to bring into the House a law that will bring that about even though we have been told in the past that the laws previously enacted were unconstitutional.

Mr. SUMNERS. How did this change come about with these little children?

Mr. TAGUE. In my State?

Mr. SUMNERS. Yes.

Mr. TAGUE. It is the simplest thing in the world. We had the same conditions in our State that you have in other States where great_manufacturing concerns were built up. These great barons of industry in the past looked forward to the almighty dollar and nothing else. They never cared how they got it; they felt that was the way to build up their institutions.

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Mr. SUMNERS. Were they powerful in politics and finance?

Mr. TAGUE. You and I are practical men in politics. You know they have been powerful, and so do I.

Mr. SUMNERS. Who put the roses in the cheeks of those children?
Mr. TAGUE. God Himself.

Mr. SUMNERS. I know, but somebody helped give Him a chance, did they not?

Mr. TAGUE. Well, the people of the Commonwealth and the people of the States. They had vision enough

Mr. SUMNERS (interposing). That is exactly what I am getting at. The people of Massachusetts, with its great industries, have sent their children to school. That is the question before this committee. All this talk about children and all that business I do not think is a debatable question; we all agree. But we are facing a plain proposition as to whether or not we can depend on States to do what you say the wonderful people of Massachusetts did. Now, then, Massachusetts did all this work and did it when it was difficult, when it was fighting great industries. Now, when Massachusetts has done this work and the other States have done this work, here comes the Federal Government to scoop up the credit and make the States feel they did not do anything. Is that a good thing to have happen? That is the question before this committee.

Mr. TAGUE. This would not be the first time, Mr. Sumners, when the Federal authorities went into the States and usurped the power of the States when it was a matter of benefiting the whole Nation. We, of course, all desire our rights in the States.

Mr. SUMNERS. I do not care one thing on earth about State rights. State rights do not bother me. All I am concerned about is the duty of the State. I am trying to give you what is in my mind. These gentlemen are going to report out this bill, and I would love to vote for it if I could. I would like to do it because it surely would put me in good with a lot of fine women in my country. [Laughter.]

Mr. TAGUE. I said in the beginning that I think this question of the welfare of the future generation of this Nation is greater than the

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thought of any State. I contend, too, that this is one question where every man and every woman, whether they are organized or not, can stand on a common ground.

Mr. SUMNERS. I am not disputing that.

Mr. TAGUE. My people in Massachusetts belong to my country, as do the people of the other States. Then why should not the country educate their children, if the States neglect to? Why should we wait for this State or that State which takes the position that the children intrusted to its care shall not receive the advantages the children in other States are getting?

Mr. SUMNERS. What States?

Mr. TAGUE. I will not mention any States.

Mr. SUMNERS. I know; but most of this talk is about somebody away off somewhere.

Mr. TAGUE. It is not way off so far but what we could reach it in two minutes on the telephone or by telegraph. I do not care whose State or what State it is, but when it allows little innocent children 9, 10, and 12 years of age to go into the mills and the fields to work, neglecting their education and depriving them of the sunshine of life, then I say that that State is not doing justice to the children or to the Nation itself.

Mr. SUMNERS. You think you can not trust the States to do that? Mr. TAGUE. Of course we trust the States of the Nation. I would not for a moment think we could not trust them; but I am afraid, as we sometimes do in our own private affairs, we allow our selfish interests to get the better of our judgment.

Mr. SUMNERS. Do you think that the fact that the State of Massachusetts and its good people had to make the fight for the children that they did make, gave them a general interest in child welfare that is a valuable asset to the people there in the State? Do you or do you not regard the fact that Massachusetts had to make that fight against its big corporations to take the little children out of the mills and put them into the schools, instead of the National Government coming in there and by the power of its national strength taking them out, had the result of arousing a general local interest in child welfare, and the consciousness of power to protect, that would not have existed to as great an extent if the Federal Government had done the work?

Mr. TAGUE. Of course, I love to think that my State is one of the pioneers in this movement, although it did not start the movement; and I love to think that it had foresight enough to move on in the great progress of the conditions of life and to know in a measure that its great movement had some bearing on the other parts of the Nation. I believe that the passing of such a law in Massachusetts, or in any other State, has had an effect that is felt in other ways. I believe, too, that in the fight against the interests who were trying to stop this good work, we met the same beclouded interests that are now trying to fight the issue in other parts of the country. The men who in those days carried on this fight against the industries are to-day the pioneers in trying to develop the youths of that part of the country, and they want their good work to go on throughout the country. Further than that, all of these questions had their origination in some portion or in some locality, but they

reached out just like our election laws. The great State of Oregon incorporated an election system that was soon copied by many States of the Nation. One measure that was considered and passed here, and on which you and I perhaps differ, the question of "Volsteadism," or prohibition, the people of the States never had the right to vote on. It was never a State question.

Mr. SUMNERS. Well, they did vote on it.

Mr. TAGUE. They did through their legislatures.

Mr. SUMNERS. The States voted on the constitutional amendment. Mr. FOSTER. They voted five times in Ohio on a constitutional amendment.

Mr. DYER. Missouri voted more than five times on the question. They voted against prohibition in Missouri every time.

Mr. TAGUE. The States have had interference with their rights in the past on questions that to my mind have no standing at all compared with this question.

Mr. HERSEY. You have drawn for us a very vivid picture of the deplorable conditions in Massachusetts before the child-labor laws were passed in Massachusetts. Suppose Massachusetts had not passed her child-labor laws, which have been so beneficial to the State and conditions were in the same deplorable state to-day that they were before the laws were passed, how could we reach it except through this amendment to the Constitution that we have before us now?

Mr. TAGUE. I do not believe there would be any other way of reaching it. I will say this, that with what little knowledge I have on the question of child labor, that if my State had neglected to take care of that situation and I was elected a Member of this Congress I would be the first man to come to this Congress and say to my State, "Get into line, get into the progress of life, and give the children a chance."

Mr. HERSEY. Would you try it first in the State legislature?
Mr. TAGUE. We always do.

Mr. BOIES. How long would you try it?

Mr. TAGUE. I would try it for one year, and if unsuccessful I would come to Congress and say that if they did not do it we would make them.

Mr. BOIES. If you stayed here one year, and they did not do it, what would you do?

Mr. TAGUE. I would pray to the Almighty like the "darky" does. I have been giving a great deal of study to the child-labor proposition and I view it from a standpoint not of State rights or of local conditions but a humanitarian standpoint. I believe it is a big question, a greater question than any other we have before the Nation to-day

Mr. BOIES. I think it is a question of intuition rather than study. Mr. TAGUE. I suppose it is intuition especially with those who have children of their own and are looking to their future. I think the time has come when Congress should speak to those who will not speak for themselves.

Mr. BоIES. Mrs. Upton.

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STATEMENT OF MRS. HARRIET TAYLOR UPTON, VICE PRESIDENT NATIONAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, WASHINGTON, D. C.

Mrs. Upton. I am called here, I suppose, because I happen to be on the executive committee of the Republican Party, and also because I have lately been in the field. I have just finished 10,000 miles of travel, and I suppose that you geutlemen, sitting here in this way would like to know what the women back home think and say. When I was asked if I would make a statement here, I said I would if requested, and I want to say that in all that travel, and I have been speaking to different kinds of groups and I have been in consultations and in executive sessions, I do not remember of being in a single State, and I think I might say in a single town, and I might possibly say that I do not remember being in a single meeting, in which some woman has not asked me what the prospect was of the passage of this child labor amendment. I thought that was very significant. Every one of them is interested in it. I never heard a word from anybody fearing that any thing would come from the passage of such an amendment except something good.

Now, whether that is of any value to the men on the committee I do not know. I know that as a rule Congressmen say that they do not attach much significance to the women's vote. But I do think that they do respect the women's vote and opinion, because individual men respect their own women and they can not help respecting their opinions on matters of this kind. Now, I think that the women have been very patient in pressing this matter, because we have let two or three Congresses try to pass a bill on this child labor matter rather than to try to do anything about a constitutional amendment.

We are not especially in favor of paternal government; we would not care for that if we could do this in any other way. But now a person has not a great deal of intelligence who proceeds or attempts to proceed dozens of times along the same lines. We have certainly felt that by legislative action we could accomplish our result, but there appears to be no way to do it except by a constitutional amendment. I am more opposed now to constitutional amendments than I was before, because my big job is done, the job of enfranchising women. We are all selfish, and we like to get the thing done our way and to say that we are very much in favor of it, but we do not want to put every little thing up to Congress through a constitutional amendment. But there is one thing that seems to me to be vitally important, and that is that we have tried every other means. On this question of child labor, I think that I can speak perhaps better than some of the other speakers, because I live in a State where the child labor laws are said to be the best of any in the world. That is the State of Ohio. I do not know that that is true, but they say it is so. A great many things are said to be true which are not true; but I do know that it is generally conceded; people really say that our laws are as good and perhaps better than any in the world. Mr. FOSTER. With characteristic modesty, we admit it, do we not? Mrs. UPTON. Yes; we do.

Mr. HICKEY. I believe the law of Indiana is better. [Laughter.]

Mrs. UPTON. Well, what I say is hearsay, but I do not find anybody questioning it. If the Indiana law is better, I am glad it is. The only thing I want the States to have is as good laws as Ohio has.

Mr. DYER. There is nobody in Ohio who doubts that they have the best of everything.

Mrs. UPTON. We do not think that.

Mr. SUMNERS. Do you think the Ohio law is sufficient to take care of the protection of children?

Mrs. UPTON. I should think maybe it is, for the State of Ohio, but I do not think it is for the State of Texas.

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Mr. SUMNERS. But for your State you think it is sufficient.

Mrs. UPTON. Yes; I do. I just want Texas to take care of it.

Mr. SUMNERS. I think we can do so; we think we can.

Mrs. UPTON. Now, of course, it is perfectly ridiculous to say that the Texas law for child labor is the same as the Ohio law, because it is not the same. If the people of Texas do not want to pass a right law for child labor, and can not pass it, and we can not get it in any other way, then I think we ought to try to get it through the constitutional amendment, because to my mind there is nothing before the people at this time and there is a great deal before the people at this time--that is any more important than to start aright the children of our people in living and education and every other thing. Children who work for the mills can not have what they ought to have, and nobody denies that. I know what you are thinking of, but to me that is an unimportant thing as far as the main question is concerned.

If nobody else wants to cross-examine me, I will retire. I am not afraid of this committee, and it is the only committee of the House that I am not afraid of. It is because my father was chairman of this committee and I was brought up in the committee room. Mr. BOIES. Is Miss Regan here?

STATEMENT OF MISS AGNES G. REGAN, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY NATIONAL COUNCIL OF CATHOLIC WOMEN, WASHINGTON, D. C.

Miss REGAN. On behalf of the National Council of Catholic Women, I beg leave to submit the following resolution concerning child labor, which was unanimously adopted on October 3, 1923:

Whereas the inveterate refusal of some States to enact laws for the prohibition of child labor inflicts injury upon tens of thousands of young children in these States and causes unfair hardships to employers in States which have good child labor laws; and

Whereas the only way in which this evil can be remedied within a reasonable time lies through national legislation: Therefore be it

Resolved, That the National Council of Catholic Women favors an amendment to the Federal Constitution which will empower Congress to enact such legislation, but which will not prohibit any State from enacting a law of higher standard than required by the Federal legislation enacted subsequent to the passing of such a constitutional amendment.

I wish to say in connection with this that everything that Mr. Sumners has said appeals very strongly to me. I recognize that one of the greatest evils is the building up of a big, central government, and getting Congress through organized majorities to do that which the States should do for themselves. However, I think this map on