THE ROLL CALL
The Roll Call ON MEN AND MEASURES A Democratic "Killing" How a Reactionary Chairman Thwarted the House and Put to Death the Progressive Eight-hour Bill for Women Workers AREADER wants to know...
...This Johnson refused to do...
...who reported overtime were employed 12 hours a day...
...The Senate bill has now come to the House and is in the possession of a committee of the House...
...CONGRESS alone can act for the District of Columbia...
...And he added, "I have no doubt that during the Sixty-third Congress the Senator from Wisconsin (Mr...
...it would give congressional recognition to society's duty to protect those who toil from being exploited, to the detriment not only of individuals in this generation but also of generations yet unborn...
...Wilson had no part in this betrayal of public interest...
...During this Christinas rush when the women were working overtime, 31 per cent...
...La Follette) will again procure the passage of his bill through the Senate and that we who favor the same will be able to secure its passage through the House and that it will become a law...
...That women in the printing shops get on the average $8.16 a week...
...The session was drawing to a close...
...Mr...
...This report shows that 58 per cent...
...The Chair hears none...
...Lenroot...
...of the employees who were examined by the investigator worked from 11 to 12 hours every Saturday in the year except a short time during the summer...
...I ask unanimous consent that a second be considered as ordered...
...They make interesting pets and are useful food animals...
...treat them greatly and they will show themselves great, though they make an exception in your favor to all their rules of trade.—Emerson...
...Thereupon a printed copy of the bill that had passed in the Senate was secured from the document room, properly endorsed, and laid before the House...
...But the bill has to be produced...
...But Speaker Clark ruled that such a motion was not in order unless the engrossed copy of the bill were present...
...Johnson) desire time...
...Speaker Clark and Mr...
...Them deliver from dungeon or galley...
...in the busy season 44.7 per cent...
...it would prove a stimulus to state action along similar lines...
...of them were working about 75 hours a week, while the men in the employ of the government were still protected in their 8-hour day...
...And as quickly Speaker Clark replied, "The bill is not here...
...Johnson wouldn't give it up...
...Then Lafferty moved simply that the committee be discharged from consideration of the bill...
...Approximately 70 per cent...
...Peters: "I believe that it is granted that women need the protection of the eight-hour day on the general principle of protecting their health and the health of the whole nation...
...Meagre Pay...
...There will be fifty acres under cultivation, devoted to truck farming, poultry raising, gardening and dairying...
...Thereupon ensued a spirited debate over the question whether the House could take the bill away from that committee and pass it if the exact copy of the bill that came over from the Senate were not physically before the House...
...Better put a strong fence 'round the top of the cliff, Than an ambulance down in the valley...
...Upon the Senate and the House rests the responsibility for conditions of labor that are permitted to exist there...
...Such ought to be the law in every state in the Union...
...This is a good thing, both for the prisoner and the municipality.—Stockton Record...
...Is a second demanded...
...Long Hours...
...Mr...
...Lenroot, admitted there was no way of compelling Johnson to surrender it...
...He made an attempt to resurrect it from its grave in the District committee...
...Representative Lafferty secured the floor, after the recess, and moved that the District committee be discharged from consideration of the bill, and the bill passed by the House...
...Congressman Wilson rose in his place and said, "Mr...
...Lenroot...
...Mr...
...The District of Columbia is dependent upon Congress for laws, and we have up to this time taken no action on this very important subject...
...Quite the contrary He favored the bill...
...Speaker, I move to discharge the Committee on the District of Columbia from further consideration of the bill, to suspend the rules, and pass the bill...
...Lenroot...
...of those examined who worked overtime at Christmas were employed 70 hours or over during that week...
...He did everything he could to have it enacted into law...
...The days passed...
...THE CITY of Edmonton, in western Canada, has decided to establish a municipal farm where short-term prisoners will work out their fines...
...That in hotels, restaurants, etc., 70 per cent of the women employed were required to work seven days each week, and about one-third had a maximum day of 12 hours...
...An Attempt to Resurrect It BUT on March 4, the last day of the Congress, a determined effort was made by progressive Members to save it...
...The constantly increasing demand for them in scientific investigations and medical research insure a ready market for reasonable numbers at prices that should be remunerative to the producer...
...Speaker Clark, in response to a protest by Mr...
...But actually it is not...
...That the average weekly earnings of women working in laundries is $5.47...
...and there was no pay for overtime work...
...Little space is needed to accommodate the animals, which are hardy and easily managed...
...54.5 per cent of them work 10 hours per day for at least four days in the week...
...AND this important measure died in the House because a committee chairman, hostile to it, buried his copy of the bill in a pigeon-hole, and because Speaker Clark, Floor leader Underwood and Minority leader Mann insisted that the House was helpless...
...Mann...
...Johnson, signed by Representatives Lafferty, Cooper, Davis and Kent, to send the copy of the bill to the Speaker's desk so the dispute would be ended and the bill no longer blocked by these tactics...
...That in paper box factories the women workers receive an average weekly wage of $5.30...
...Quickly Mann of Illinois asked, "I would like to ask if the bill is here...
...We can not act upon it unless it is here...
...Its passage would mean the betterment of the working condition of many thousand women workers...
...Mr...
...And something of the nature of these conditions is suggested in the following brief extract from a speech of Congressman Peters, who fathered this legislation in the House: "I desire to call your attention to a few facts from a preliminary report which has been compiled by the Department of Commerce and Labor relative to hours, earnings, and duration of employment of wage-earning women in the District of Columbia * * * The report of the investigator shows that the average hours of employment in the retail stores were from 9 to 9 1/2 hours, considerably in excess of the 8-hour day, which we propose to provide for in our bill, and considerably in excess of the hours which the men are allowed to work who are employed by the government...
...Therefore, the Sixty-second Congress stands adjourned without day, without any eight-hour law for female employees in the District of Columbia...
...The bill was introduced in the Senate by Senator La Follette...
...THE DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE has published a bulletin on "Raising Guinea Pigs...
...Mr...
...Peters presented tables showing in detail the hours and wages of these working women...
...It was everywhere regarded as one of the most important progressive measures of the last Congress...
...SIMPLICITY and greatness are synonymous...
...It was passed by the Senate on February 27,—which fact was heralded as a most significant progressive achievement...
...That 47.7 per cent...
...Mann insisted that nothing but the identical copy that was in the possession of the District committee would suffice...
...And, as Lafferty explained it, "There was no opportunity between the recess last mentioned and the final adjournment at 12 o'clock to renew my efforts to pass the Senate bill, owing to the fact that the veto message of the President on the sundry civil bill and other privileged matters consumed all of the time of the House up to the minute of adjournment...
...Constructively the bill will be on the Speaker's table or in the possession of the House...
...One reactionary Democrat, aided and abetted by rulings and technicalities, succeeded in thwarting what was obviously the will of the House...
...By discharging the committee that has jurisdiction...
...Among other things, it was shown— That the average weekly earnings of 2,670 department store girls is $6.75...
...When it was sent over to the House it was referred to the Committee on the District of Columbia...
...of this number worked from 75 to 80 hours...
...The chairman of this committee was Ben Johnson from Kentucky...
...With quips and jests it was thrown out...
...Mr...
...The Roll Call ON MEN AND MEASURES A Democratic "Killing" How a Reactionary Chairman Thwarted the House and Put to Death the Progressive Eight-hour Bill for Women Workers AREADER wants to know what happened to the Eight-hour Bill for women workers in the District of Columbia, after it had passed the Senate...
...Floor leader Underwood moved a recess and the little job of killing a progressive measure was completed...
...We have remained idle while two-thirds of our states have been enacting laws for their own and the nation's protection...
...After a pause...
...This progressive measure was chloroformed in the House Committee on the District of Columbia...
...Mann...
...I wish to impress this upon the House, which I believe to be one of the strongest arguments in favor of this bill, that the District of Columbia now stands in the unenviable position of being far behind the majority of the states of the Union in enacting legislation for the protection of women and children, and that we as Members of Congress, who have placed on us the responsibility for legislating for this District, should provide for it the best code of laws possible and the greatest protection for its citizens, not only in justice to them, but so that the laws of the District of Columbia can be pointed to with pride and will, in themselves, form a stimulus and encouragement to the enactment of laws of this kind in the various states...
...But there is one other form of responsibility which rests upon us as Members of Congress...
...It was held that this wouldn't do...
...The motion is to suspend the rules and discharge the Committee on the District of Columbia from further consideration of the 8-hour bill...
...I believe that it has been shown by this recent investigation of the department into the conditions of employment of women in this city who are obliged to place themselves under conditions of work that cause an excessive strain on their physical and mental constitution to permit of a delay in enacting this bill...
...of all the women examined by the investigator who were employed in the stores of the District of Columbia worked overtime during the week before Christmas...
...I Do Not Care Anything About It...
...Sentenced to Death IT IS the old story...
...Is it to be doomed a second time to defeat in the House because some reactionary Democrat does not "care anything about it...
...and who was responsible for its death...
...I would like to know how you get the bill back here...
...The author, Mr...
...Johnson...
...It may also be of interest to know that of 2,670 girls in these department stores of the District the largest single group, constituting 16.7 per cent...
...Here is an extract which shows the trend of the debate: Mr...
...Is there objection...
...It became apparent that the bill was sentenced to "die the death...
...TRUST MEN and they will be true to you...
...His Committee on Labor, after extended hearings, reported it to the House for passage...
...David E. Lantz, assistant in the Bureau of Biological Survey, says, "The rearing of Guinea pigs requires no extraordinary knowledge and no great outlay of capital...
...This committee made no report...
...Only tie truly great are great enough to be simple...
...The Speaker...
...approximately 69 per cent...
...The Duty of Congress SAID Mr...
...Does the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr...
...of the whole, received from $4 to $5 (weekly) for their work...
...Was Congressman Wilson, now Secretary of Labor, a party to this outrage...
...Better close up the source of temptation and crime...
...Mr...
...Another Fight to Save the Bill THERE was one more effort...
...While the debate was in progress, a request was made of Mr...
...Something of the indifferent (to put it mildly) attitude of Chairman Johnson may be gathered from the following: The Speaker...
...Mann...
...The report shows that the retail stores constitute the largest employers of women...
...This measure will again come before Congress...
...And this couldn't be secured...
...I do not care anything about it...
...Thirty-one per cent...
...I can heartily advocate the passage of this bill on these grounds alone...
...But before that was voted upon, Underwood moved that a recess be taken...
...And Mr...
...That the average weekly wages for women in supply houses is $5.25...
...The Speaker...
...True greatness consists in living a good neighbor to the family next door.—Thomas Dbeieb...
...The fate of this measure illustrates again how public demand and social justice may be thwarted by a hostile committee—and by technicalities...
...She writes: "How was it killed in the House...
...Lafferty...
...of the women in laundries worked 55 to 59 hours per week...
Vol. 5 • April 1913 • No. 17
