Evening star., 1937-11-07

capped workers to continue to work, If
they wished, at q wage lower than the
legal minimum. To accomplish this
the authors wrote into the law a pro-
vision permitting
"The employment of persons whose
earning capacity is impaired by age or
physical or mental deficiency or injury,
under special licenses to be issued by
the board, at such wages and for
such period as shall be fixed in such
licenses"
When the bill reached the Senate,
the Senate was as much shocked by
that word license" as the average
reader must be. A man must get a
license before he could work! So, in
the bill as passed by the Senate, the
word license" appears crossed out by
long dash; In place Of it the word
certificate" is used.
Getting q certificate will be oner-
Gus enough-imagine the time and
red tape it would take to get one. The
original word license" a license to
work, suggests the spirit of the whole
bill. True, the license system applied
only to partially incapacitated work.
ers, the semi-pensioners. But the spirit
Of stringent regulation, the heavy
hand Of government, runs through
the whole measure.
Analysis Of Bill.
I suppose that all the average read
er knows about the wage and hour bill
Is just the phrase wage and hour. "
Or, at the most, minimum wages and
maximum hours" 1t sounds vaguely
idealist. And, in fact, that objective
actually is idealistic. But I doubt If
the average reader knows the details
OF the measure. I don't know the de-
tails fully myself-though I have Just
completed several laborious hours
reading the bill with concentrated
thought. I doubt if hundred per-
sons, besides myself, have read the
bill through. Anyhow, since the bill
is one of the two leading items of Mr..
Roosevelt's program for the coming
special session of Congress. the public
tempt to make it clear
The bill in its original form was
written by "a couple of Gold Dust
twins up in the White House" ] quote
that statement from Gen. Hugh
johnson. I know nothing of the
authorship of the measure myself. but
Gen. Johnson is we'll informed about
what goes on in the White House. And
suppose that by the Gold Dust
twins" he means that esoteric pair,
Messrs. Cohen and Corcoran-though
here again I have no information my
self. The common gossip of Washing
ton says that Messrs. Cohen and Cor
coran have written many of the most
important New Deal measures; prob
ably they have written more bills that
passed than all the members of Con-
gress combined.
Until recently Congress was rather
supine; the usual way was for some
OF the group around Mr. Roosevelt to
write bill and give it to the Presi-
dent. He would send it to Congress
and ask Congress to pass it. Com
monty, Congress did pass it-in many
cases. I imagine, with hardly anybody
in Congress reading it all except the
reading clerk. But lately that is
changed. Recently Congress is dis
posed to read the presidential bills
rather carefully. Sometimes. lately,
bills are rewritten by members of
Congress or initiated by them.
Has 1880 Words.
The original wage and hour measure
was trimmed down in the Senate and,
in its trimmed form, was passed July
81. The measure as passed by the
Senate is the one have before me:
1t contains SIS pages, about 1880
words. And most of the words de-
mand concentrated thought for under
standing
The bill. as passed by the Senate,
was sent to the House. In the House
it went appropriately to the Commit
tee on Labor. The Committee on
Labor passed on it favorably, by a
vote of 19 to 2. Thereupon the meas
ure went to the House Committee on
Rules. Several members of the Com
mittee on Rules and many members
OF the House became skeptical about
the measure 1t remained in the
Committee on Rules until the end Of
the recent session. The common ex-
pectation is that in the coming spe-
cial session, under pressure by Presi-
dent Roosevelt, the bill will go before
the House and be debated and acted
upon. one way or another.
Six months of familiarity with the
wage and hour bill has led to increas-
ing opposition to it. I doubt If the
measure has won one advocate-and
many who in the beginning favored
1t have now fallen away. Labor
leaders who at first supported it are
now suspicious Of it; so far as they
support it at all, many do so for the
sake Of standing well with President
Roosevelt. Labor leaders have come
to see that if government is going to
regulate labor conditions to the ex-
tent the wage and hour bill says the
Government will do, then what use
will there be for unions and union
leaders?
The truth is, this bill, like many
other New Deal measures, is a step
toward the totalitarian form of gov
ernment now in practice in Italy and
Germany. Because those governments
are jealous of everything within the
country, because they insist there shall
be nothing for the citizen to give al
legiance to except the goveument it
self-for that reason Italy and Ger
many have outlawed all labor unions.
And in the New Deal, the wage and
hour bill is a step toward later de-
struction Of the labor unions.
Things It Does.
The wage and hour bill does these
things:
It sets up Labor Standards Board"
composed Of five men with salaries Of
$4,000 q year each. The board is
called by Gen. johnson q Federal die
tator of wages and hours"
The board is directed to do these
things (among many others):