The Butler County press. [volume] (Hamilton, Ohio) 1900-1946, 1939-08-04
House Foes Wage Bitter Fight
On Adequate Appropriations.
Battalion of Death in House Seeks
to Hamstring Law and Assure Some
Immunity from Prosecution.

immunity from Prosecution.
Washington, d. G. (ILNS) Wage
and Hour Administrator Andrews,
who is trying to fix minimum wages
and maximum hours in individual en-
ployments, is threatened with the pos
sibility of his division of the Labor
Department becoming practically a
dead letter in Uncle Sans govern
mental machinery. Mr.. Andrews has
not been given enough money to run
his division this year. The appropria-
tion by Congress has been cut to the
point where there is not enough to
maintain an organization, or to in
quire into complaints of "chiseling"
under the law.
Apparently shortage of funds for
the Wage and Hour Division is just
what some of the members of Con-
gress want. This is especially true
of the little group of rugged indi-
vidualists" who come from the areas
of the South that are advertised by
Chamber of Commerce as having
Glow wages and cheap labor" and
who have organized themselves into
"battalion of death" to strangle and
suffocate the law and it's admins
tration.
Three Battalion Leaders
The battalion of rugged individual
lists consists in the main of Howard
Smith, reactionary member of Con-
gress from Virginia, and member
of the House rules committee; Gene
Cox, of Georgia, who with his son,
brother, sister, niece and two neph-
ews, is asserted to draw a total of
$4,000 year from federal payrolls,
and Representative Graham Barden,
for five years a member from North
Carolina.
Under the onslaught of the Smith
Cox-Barden battalion, the Wage and
Hour Division for the next IL months
has total of only 100000 to meet
all of its expenses, and to investigate
the mountainous pile of complaints
that are gathering cobwebs in it's Of
fees. This sum for next year is
about one-ffth of what the division
actually needs, and about one-third
of what it will need in the other years
to come. A request endorsed by Pres
ident Roosevelt for deficiency ap-
preparation of $4,000, 900 for the pres
ent year may be denied by the Con-
gress unless labor at once demands
approval.
Foes Hamstring Law
In slashing the wage and hour ap-
preparation the Southern Congress
men have pretty effectively ham
strung the law. They have done as
we'll as if they had defeated the meas
ure on the floor of the House year
ago. They have given chiseling en-
ployers, who want the benefit of low
wages and cheap labor, an oppor-
tunity to violate the law with i'm
punity, and, before long, to make it a
dead letter.
The division could very well use
$15,000,000 in the next II months in
organizing it's work, and dealing with
the complaints that have already come
in. The law is aimed directly at the
40 per cent of chiselers" on the
fringe of industry that caused the
N. R. A. so much trouble, and leaped
to take advantage of the Supreme
Courts decision killing the National
Recovery Act, with it's Section Ia
relating to collective bargaining.
Congress has not been so niggardly
and mean with other federal agencies
charged with protecting the welfare
of industrial workers. The Social Sc
curity Board has been hampered with
lavish appropriations which year be-
fore last left it with handsome sur
plus of $12,000,000 at the years end.
In 1886 and 1887 the board had $751;
100000. The next year it had $21,-
100000, and last year almost $685.
100000. For the next IL months the