a right to advise a man.

As a rule, a man does not want to be advised;

he would rather be insulted.

Mr. HUGHES, of New Jersey. I suppose you are aware of the fact that the courts almost uniformly have, upon application, held that even that sort of conduct is unlawful and is intimidation.

Bishop SPALDING. I do not think so.

Mr. HUGHES, of New Jersey. I can give you some information on that point.

Bishop SPALDING. The courts may have decided that; but still my opinion is that that is not intimidation.

Mr. CONNER. Is not social ostracism intimidation?

Bishop SPALDING. For instance, no man is obliged to associate with another, and you need not invite a man to your table, or introduce him to your family, or go into any social gathering with him if you do not wish to. And in the same way you need not buy goods of a man. Mr. HUGHES, of New Jersey. That is what I was going to ask you, whether that sort of intimidation is not prevalent throughout the country?

Bishop SPALDING. Certainly. There are many people, for instance, who say, "I will not have anything to do with you because you are a saloon keeper." Those people are not considered criminal for doing

that.

Mr. HUGHES, of New Jersey. Or because a man is a Democrat, or a Republican, or a socialist, or an anarchist

Bishop SPALDING. Yes; or because you are a colored man.

Mr. VREELAND. Mr. McDermott, 'would you like to be heard on your bill?

Mr. MCDERMOTT. I would like to say two or three words.

Mr. VREELAND. As far as I am familiar with the views of the committee, it is that in the matter of an arbitration commission like this, or the one proposed in your bill, we want to proceed carefully, and I think it has been the desire of the committee to have men appear before them and put their statements into print and have it go into the newspapers, and in this way feel their way to conclusions.

STATEMENT OF HON. ALLAN L. M'DERMOTT, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY.

Mr. CHAIRMAN. I will say only a few words. I want to present in extenso my views after reading the statements that had been made, including the bishop's statement.

This committee has already passed on my bill.

Mr. VREELAND. A committee of a former House?

Mr. MCDERMOTT. Practically the present committee. When the strike was ordered by Mr. Mitchell

Mr. HUGHES, of New Jersey. This is almost entirely a new committee.

Mr. FURUSETH. It would be better to say that the miners voted to strike.

Mr. MCDERMOTT. Well, it was practically ordered by him, I will say, when the miners voted to strike. At that time the different concerns that I was connected with, one particularly being in the hands of receivers under the United States court, and I, being the receiver, was prepared to use a good many thousand tons of coal, this particular

concern alone needing 75,000 or 80,000 tons. The Grand Army of the Republic was expected in Washington in the following October, and it was quite evident that it was necessary to light the city and run the railways here if we were going to receive them. I made up my mind that the strike in the anthracite regions was going to affect the softcoal regions, that there would be practically a coal famine in the city of Washington, and I wanted, if possible, to avoid it. I do not pretend that I was hunting after any problem in political economy; I was simply looking for the practical question.

I have had some experience with labor unions. I have been a member of one all my life. I have been in strikes, have ordered them, and settled them. Strikes are of peculiar kinds. In a strike, for instance, among the printers in the city of Washington, you could not settle it by any board of arbitration in the world.

Mr. VREELAND. Do you belong to the printers' union?

Mr. MCDERMOTT. Yes.

Mr. VREELAND. You have also been a large employer of labor? Mr. MCDERMOTT. Yes; and I am now directly and indirectly ar employer of two or three thousand men. The ordinary strike will settle itself; the men will get together after a while. If you have a standing board of arbitration-that is, a bureau of arbitration-the adjustment of the differences between capital and labor by that bureau will gradually grow into disrepute. That has been the experience, in my judgment, of every standing bureau of arbitration. In the State of New Jersey it has gone to such an extent that in his last annual message the governor recommended that the law be repealed--that the bureau be abolished.

In any board of arbitration where men are to receive large salaries, salaries say of $10,000 a year, the members will necessarily be appointed under political pressure. They will be appointed because they are fair-minded men, but they will have no particular knowledge of any particular thing as a body.

NO POWER TO SETTLE STRIKES.

There is no power under our Constitution to vest them with the power necessary to settle a strike. The interstate commerce proposition does not reach that far.

M'DERMOTT BILL.

I introduced this bill two years ago with this idea in mind. If the President of the United States, being informed that there was a lockout imminent, or a strike, he would appoint, as he did subsequently, a commission of gentlemen who would receive immediately, because of their high standing, intelligence, and positions in the community, the confidence of the people, and they should examine the situation and report to the President, and the President should report back to the public, or give it to the public, that would settle the strike. could not settle a strike of carpenters in Washington that way, or a strike of printers, as I illustrated. They would say, "Mind your own business.

Mr. VREELAND. May I interrupt you a moment?
Mr. MCDERMOTT. Certainly.

You

PERMANENT TRIBUNAL COULD INVESTIGATE BEFORE STRIKE OR

LOCKOUT.

Mr. VREELAND. It has been urged here that the greatest benefit arising from a permanent tribunal would be the fact that such a tribunal existed all the time where complaints from one side or the other could be sent and investigated before a strike or lockout occurred; that one of the greatest benefits would be that it would very likely prevent strikes and lockouts. If you would only have a temporary tribunal, such as you suggest, how would you meet that?

Mr. MCDERMOTT. My judgment is that if that is true, if you have a standing board of arbitrators to whom are referable matters of difference which are imminent, let us see what the result will be.

You will have every little question in this country that in any wise might effect railroad transportation, for instance, sent to that commission. They would be kept very, very busy; they would have to decide every little dispute that came up.

Bishop SPALDING. They have the privilege of not accepting anything; they are to determine whether the case is of sufficient importance.

Mr. MCDERMOTT. If they determine it is of sufficient importance, yes, then they must settle it. If they decide that the case referred to them is not of sufficient importance for their action, then the cry will go up from one side or the other, "What is this board for?"

After that board has decided a dozen cases, in my judgment, it will have lost all its standing in this country. There is no body in this country that is not subject to political assaults. Even the Supreme Court of the United States, in my judgment the greatest body on the face of the earth, is subject to political assaults. A body of the kind proposed would be subject to criticism. It would grow into a nonrespected body, in my judgment, if it was a continuous body.

Again, if a body of that kind is necessary, let it be a body of the State. I do not believe the United States, under the Constitution, was ever organized for the purpose of meddling in every labor dispute that happens to arise. My own judgment is that the right way to do is to let labor and capital alone as far as we can, and not meddle in human affairs with legislation unless it is necessary to. Don't say that we shall have a board at every corner. You have bureaus enough now in the city of Washington. You have a system of government by bureaus, and in my judgment it is a bad system. I say, let a State that wants a board of arbitration create it, and let the United States interfere only when the question is so great that it reaches somewhat of the importance of the coal strike in Pennsylvania. As the Bishop has very well said, the question there involved the possible freezing of the people of this country.

Bishop SPALDING. Do you believe in passing laws for public sanitation, and enforcing them?

Mr. MCDERMOTT. Yes; that is a State matter.

LAWS FOR MORAL SANITATION IMPORTANT.

Bishop SPALDING. Is it not as important to pass laws for moral sanitation?

Mr. MCDERMOTT. Yes.

Bishop SPALDING. The objection to State boards of arbitration is

that they are minor affairs, and that they would not have the weight at all of a national court.

Mr. MCDERMOTT. They should have charge of everything, so far as domestic procedure is concerned; so far as the domestic policy of the States is concerned.

Bishop SPALDING. I am a States' rights man.

Mr. MCDERMOTT. I am a States' rights man, too, because the Constitution is there. If I was going to frame the Constitution I am not sure but what I would wipe out some State lines.

Mr. HUGHES. Would there not come a situation in a railroad strike where two or three or more States would be involved?

Mr. MCDERMOTT. Then you would have a case where the President of the United States should do this: He should ascertain and tell the people the truth of the conditions there. What would be the result? You say that President Baer, of the Reading Railroad, and the others were forced by public opinion to arbitrate-that is, so far as they did arbitrate. They submitted their case to you and they would have been very foolish not to have done so. They probably could not have had a tribunal that commanded the respect of the people of this country as that coal strike commission commanded it, Bishop, and if they had refused, it would have lead to a denunciation of the railroads and coal companies. They did not care for anything of that kind. A man chosen as president of a big corporation is not going to be moved by denunciations. He is there to represent the stockholders. What they were afraid of was this: That public sentiment would take away their corporate rights in the State of Pennsylvania.

Bishop SPALDING. They own the State of Pennsylvania; there would be no danger of that at all.

Mr. MCDERMOTT. But they could reach a point where their rights might be taken away.

Mr. HUGHES, of New Jersey. I think the Bishop has that correct. Mr. MCDERMOTT. Then the people could change that ownership. They could have taken away the railroads' rights in the State of New Jersey. There was a petition prepared to the governor of New Jersey to call a session of the legislature for the purpose of legislating along such lines. I can draft a bill which, if you put on the statute books, will wipe out the value of the Reading Railroad in New Jersey.

Now, if you have a commission appointed in the manner I suggest, which ascertains the facts, and those facts are given out and show that capital is unjustly oppressing labor-in other words, that the facts show, in the judgment of the public, that labor is not getting its fair share of what is taken from the earth-in my judgment capital will give way. If you have a permanent bureau, I am a little afraid that its political environment will govern it. You can not have any such commission as settled the coal strike. The President of the United States could not get such a commission as that as a permanent commission.

Bishop SPALDING. I do not see why not.

Mr. FOSTER. I do not see why not.

Mr. MCDERMOTT. Because of the character of the men. You could not get the mentality of that commission in a bureau in the city of Washington.

Bishop SPALDING. It does not require great mentality, but, rather, honesty and fearlessness.

Mr. MCDERMOTT. But the trouble is that you could not get the kind of men you need to take those jobs permanently.

Bishop SPALDING. It is not a pleasant job.

Mr. MCDERMOTT. I do not believe a permanent body, with the political environment it would have here in Washington, could be a success. I do not mean to say it would be done; but when some great question arose it is possible to conceive that those close to the Government or those opposed to the Government would try to move that permanent commission. What would that commission do in a Presidential campaign? It might be a little above or a great deal above the average of men, but the environment of the political campaign would affect that permanent bureau of the United States Government.

It was with that idea that I drew this bill. I did it for a purpose selfish; I wanted the coal strike settled. The committee unanimously reported in favor of my bill, and Speaker Henderson at that time gave it the right of way on the Calendar. It was called up shortly afterwards and was reported, but objection was made by Mr. Burke, of Pennsylvania, who misapprehended the bill. He thought it was interfering with the rights of employers, as he said. He afterwards withdrew his objection, but it was too late, and it lost its place on the Calendar, and there it is.

Bishop SPALDING. That is a bill for compulsory arbitration?

WHAT M'DERMOTT BILL PROVIDES.

Mr. MCDERMOTT. No; my bill provides that the President, being informed that a lockout is imminent, shall appoint a commission, and that commission shall go without invitation from anybody to the place of the strike and examine into the economic conditions, the manner of living, the wages, and so forth, of the men employed and report the truth.

Bishop SPALDING. Suppose the laborers and employers will not give them any information?

Mr. MCDERMOTT. They have the right through the process of a court then to summon and examine witnesses. Of course, if you have any commission you must give them the right to summon witnesses. A commission that can not order the production of papers and witnesses might as well go out of existence. We have just had a decision in the Federal courts on that question.

Mr. HUGHES, of New Jersey. Mr. Foster's bill contemplates issuing process only after each of the parties have given jurisdiction by consenting.

IOTT.

Mr. MCDERMOTT. I do not see anything dangerous about issuing processes. You can issue it in the meanest police court in the District of Columbia and it will be effective.

Then if the process is issued and disrespected my idea is to apply to the circuit courts. If you are not to have process unless the parties agree, how far will your commission go? Either party will stop it. Bishop SPALDING. One party has appealed to them and they publish what they know and the grounds for the refusal of the other parties. Mr. MCDERMOTT. With the great number of cases that would be presented to this commission if it were a permanent board, what could