The Daily Alaska empire., 1938-05-04
Now the Wage-H0ur Bill
lNew York World-Telegraml

tNeW York World-Teegram1
 The waee-hour issue has been stripped again to it's fundamentals Now there is a possibility that the country get somewhere this much-needed reform It is only bare possibility, because action has been long delayed and Congress is in hurry to quit
 For than a year legislation to accomplish the simple objective-a floor under wages and ceil- ing working hours interstate indusries-has been blocked by collateral controversies That because the administration draftsmen of the original bill went far beyond the simple objective and tried to put our whole complex industrial system under bureaucratic control They tried not only to fix minimum wages but also to regulate all wages except those in the highest brackets.
 But the bill now reported by the House Labor Committee leaves out the bureaucracy, the objection able delegations of power the boards of exceptions the seizure of factory records, the policing of factory premises
 It simply defines oppressive child labor and sub- standard labor conditions and prohibits them in in dustries competing in interstate commerce. It pro- poses
 To forbid employment of children under 16 and to regulate employment of children between l6 and IS in hazardous occupations. 1 To prohibit employment at less than 25 cents an hour the first year 30 cents the second 35 the third and 40 cents thereafter
 To prohibit employment for more than forty-four hours week the fiAst year fortytwo the second and forty thereafter.
 To provide for enforcement through the Federal courts
 Debate may reveal the wisdom of making some modificatons. But it seems to the House Labor Committee has done good job of law-writing Some employers will argue, for instance. that the minimum pay scale rises too sharply from S11 week the first year to $1260 the S14 the third SIS there after. Our curbstone judgment would be that an employer selling goods in the national market who cant start now to pay at least $11 a week and who cant boost that rate at least S16 at the end of three years had better get out of business Certainly it would be better for the country that such employer should be driven out of business than that his sweat shop competition should ruin those who try to main tain more decent wages.
 Those who plead for differentals for certain parts of the country and for smaller communities do have we dare say, a valid contention in the matter of dis crimnatory freight rates But is it fair to offset freight differentals with wage ferentias taken of the hides of the lowest-paid workers?
 The American Federation of Labor and the Com mittee for Industrial Organiza ton have united in sup port of this bill and that is encouraging. We believe the bill should be brought out on the floors of Con- gress, amended if and as necessary and passed this session
 For there is much in what the House Labor Com mittee sayS-that the new depression has brought 'the inevitable wage cuts which the great mass of American businessmen so deplore but are powerleSs to prevent and that the Federal government cannot by inaction permit the channels of commerce to be used to set this spiral of defation in motion used to spread suffering and destitution
 Washington will look to Germany for the payment of Austrias debt to this country Looking is cheap Dallas News