We gave them all these reports as evidence of what we were doing; but we dislike very much to be put in the same catechism with some of these other people.

Now are the State laws not specific enough under the corrupt practice laws, and so on, to get these fellows?

Let us take the trucking industry. Congressman Day I think is familiar with the situation in Illinois on the bulk business, and the taking of apples and other things into New York; where the fellows go on doing what they please.

Now certainly the State law is just as specific as the Hobbs bill on robberies and extortion, and the Hobbs bill refers not only to robbery and extortion. They had under title 2 where a man under physical stress or force, and so on, knowingly and willfully retards transportation.

Now, good heavens, they can catch every railroad man in the United States even if they think we are a good tribe, under that law, if they want to, by excusing management and putting the blame on the employees.

In the 1922 strike there were over a thousand men put in the penitentiary.

For what? Signing up false affidavits.

They served their sentences while the strike was on, yet every single indictment was dismissed; and yet some of these men had served. And I think it is harmful right now to create that condition. Let us get the racketeers. We are for you on that.

Mr. LANDIS. I think Indiana and Illinois today have good labor laws, as good as any State, to take care of this, and still I have criticism from nearly all those plants in Indiana.

Mr. LUHRSEN. The racketeers must have had the best lawyers. because I think your law is clear enough, and I think the New York law is clear enough.

You pass a law and you do not have the enforcement behind it. The best thing is to have behind it public opinion.

Mr. LANDIS. That is true, and I have tried to give credit where credit is due, just like the absentee bill; less than 2 percent were causing all the trouble and yet the criticism fell on the other 98 percent. Our hearings developed and gave some credit to the other 98 percent; therefore the hearings were beneficial.

Mr. LUHRSEN. I find from Interstate Commerce reports that every man was working 48 hours or more, the average was nearly 51, and some were working 56 hours; and the railroad industry is the only industry that operates 24 hours a day; and no matter whether I am a trainman, maintenance-of-way man, or whatever it is, I have assigned hours, and when I do not report I am automatically under the rules subject to dismissal or suspended time.

The public does not take any recognition of that.

I am not putting the railroad boys up as angels, yet I do think they operate more along the line you propose, yet that criticism falls. equally on us.

If this bill passes do you think it is going to say anything to the public, say, "Now, this applies to all the rest, it don't apply to the railroad boys, don't apply to the automobile boys, don't apply to the steel men"?

Now, who is going to segregate them in the public mind?

I don't want the public deceived in the first place on what is just and right.

If they did that maybe public opinion would be against the bill. I right here in Washington represent 20 labor organizations. I know I was not conferred with. I was not consulted by you. I do not know whether any of my colleagues were or not. I understand you did confer with them to find out what their sentiment was. Unfortunately we were not consulted. I did not know anything about it until this bill popped up here.

Mr. LANDIS. The point I made was that our hearings on absenteeism were beneficial. You do not hear much about it any more.

And of course this bill was introduced to get these racketeers that are charging exorbitant initiation fees and dues. That is the intent of the bill.

Mr. SCANLON. Do you not believe Congressman that the contractors are more to blame for the high turn-over on these different jobs than the unions are? Because the union cannot fire anybody off the job. The contractor or his foremen fires them off the job. Mr. LANDIS. I assume there is collusion there.

Mr. SCANLON. There may be. I think the contractor is more to blame than the labor organization.

Mr. LUHRSEN. I will go back as far as 1906. We had employment agencies, we were building a bridge on the Great Northern at Idaho Falls at the eastern border of Washington. The foreman and superintendent who was later fired were in collusion. They would send out 40 or 50 men. They got transportation to go out there to work. They would work three days and then they would fire them for any conceivable reason. They would hire more men and these foremen were splitting with the employment agency on the fees. They were innocent victims. If you add it up it would amount to a lot of money that those fellows had to pay that the fellows in collusion grabbed, not the organization itself.

It has a bad taste of course when you hear and read about these things, and it is a good deal like our amendment, prohibition amendment, because a fellow was a drunkard we had to pass a law and the fellow that was temperate, he was just as bad.

Well, we repealed it.

I think some of this legislation that is now contemplated would work out better if the pressure were put where it happened rather than cover the whole United States.

Mr. LANDIS. Do we not have a vice president of one of the railroads who is a Canadian?

Mr. LUHRSEN. Oh, yes. And there are the conductors, firemen, trainmen, engineers, signal men.

Mr. LANDIS. Do we have executives in Canada?

Mr. LUHRSEN. Yes; we have Canadians elected to executive office right here in the United States.

Mr. LANDIS. I thought that ought to be brought out.

Mr. LUHRSEN. That will bring that out more forcibly. Yes, we have many of those, and we just think it is going to disrupt the thing and it will create ill feeling rather than good feeling between the two nations on that score. They have worked internationally for years and years past. If you want more on that bill there will be men to testify.

87639-43-2

Mr. SCANLON. Mr. Kelley, do you have anything to say on that bill?

Mr. KELLEY. This resolution, H. R. 804, to prohibit aliens from floating in labor organizations or acting as officers or agents is discriminatory.

There is nothing to prohibit an alien from being an officer of a corporation in this country. There are plenty of them.

Mr. LUHRSEN. That is right. Thousands of them.

Mr. SCANLON. Any more questions? Mr. Day?

Mr. DAY. Would you not think, Mr. Luhrsen, that no matter what may be the merit if there is any in these proposals, that during this crisis of war when a Nation is fighting for its existence, that this is rather a poor time to bring this sort of thing up.

Mr. LUHRSEN. I do. I think it is an exceptionally poor time. is not opportune at all.

It

At least I do not believe, if you had the things you have in mindthere has been so much publicity, so much sentiment on it, I think it has been cured in general. There might be a few isolated cases.

I just do not like to have this legislation if it is going to hurt our war effort we do not know just how it will affect the situation--so I do concur with you, Congressman. It is not the time now; and if after the war is over we find these things are such as they were before, I do not think you will find much kick from our bunch to getting the real racketeers; but we do not like to get the innocent at the same time put in there with them.

When you pass the bill, you say "birds of a feather flock together." Mr. LANDIS. It is unfair for the good labor organizations to get criticism because of a few racketeers.

Mr. LUHRSEN. I think you can get to them. I think there must be laws in the State. I think during the war now the President and the Administration have broad authority on almost everything else, I think those things could be gotten at if they wanted to. Maybe it is too much danger of hurting somebody's vote or something else, I do not

know.

Mr. SCANLON. You said in your opening remarks that your reports are made in many instances monthly, and quarterly in all instances. Mr. LUHRSEN. Not in all instances. I said some of the larger organizations.

Mr. SCANLON. Some of the larger organizations. The reports are open to all who care to see them?

Mr. LUHRSEN. Yes.

Mr. SCANLON. They are not open to the general public, are they? Mr. LUHRSEN. If anyone asked for them I know they can get them. Mr. SCANLON. Does any person, other than a member of your organization, get them.

Mr. LUHRSEN. Most of the organizations I think make up their audits of finances and everything else prior to their conventions.

It is sent out to every man who has been elected a delegate from the rank and file. He knows exactly when he gets to that convention what is wrong or what he thinks is wrong. He has a right to bring it up there and thrash it out.

Mr. SCANLON. I know several other organizations who do the same thing, send it out to their delegates before the national convention. A delegate can go there and question any item he wants to. Mr. LUHRSEN. That is right.

Mr. SCANLON. In many instances they are audited by public auditors.

Mr. LUHRSEN. By certified public accountants.

Mr. SCANLON. On this H. R. 804 I would like to ask you a question, Mr. Luhrsen.

You believe it would have a tendency to cause disunity, especially between Canada and our country, today if anything of this nature would be passed because this is just prohibiting from belonging to a labor organization and does not prohibit from being a stockholder or elected to office in any big directorship of any organization? Mr. LUHRSEN. That is right.

Mr. SCANLON. As I understand there are many instances where Canadian people are officers, especially of the railroad companies. Mr. LUHRSEN. Oh, yes; quite a few of them.

Mr. SCANLON. And there are other corporations where they hold directorships, and this law if anything happened should be amended to include everybody and not just labor organizations?

Mr. LUHRSEN. Us particularly. Take our Railroad Retirement Act, we have men who run partly in the United States and partly in Canada on their runs. That is all dealt with under the Retirement Act in the proper way.

Under this you would have to amend your Retirement Act, perhaps your Employment Insurance Act.

It is disturbing to us under our general set-up under the laws. Mr. LANDIS. We ran into the same situation 2 years ago, French Canadians were good people and they represented locals but they just did not have citizenship papers.

Mr. LUHRSEN. That is right.

Mr. SCANLON. Any other questions? Mr. Kelley?

Mr. KELLEY. This H. R. 804, how would it affect commercial steamship lines?

Mr. SCANLON. That is another question.

Mr. LUHRSEN. It is the same thing.

Mr. SCANLON. It is the same thing.

Mr. LUHRSEN. How about pipe lines? It goes far afield.

Mr. SCANLON. Well, Mr. Luhrsen, on behalf of the committee we want to thank you for appearing, for your very comprehensive statement.

Our next man is Mr. Jonas A. McBride, vice president, national legislative representative, of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen.

Mr. McBride.

You understand, Mr. McBride, that we are taking up both bills. Mr. MCBRIDE. Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SCANLON. And you have the privilege of speaking on both.

STATEMENT OF JONAS A. MCBRIDE, VICE PRESIDENT AND NATIONAL LEGISLATIVE REPRESENTATIVE, BROTHERHOOD OF LOCOMOTIVE FIREMEN AND ENGINEMEN

Mr. MCBRIDE. Mr. Chairman, I wish to register opposition to the enactment of H. R. 1483:

To require the furnishing of certain information by labor organizations and to prohibit political contributions by labor organizations.

The first three sections of the bill seek to require by law the furnishing by labor organizations of certain information to the Secretary of Labor. All the information outlined in these three sections may be secured by the Secretary of Labor merely by requesting it from the President of my organization-the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen.

Contrary to popular belief, there is nothing hidden, secret, or concealed about such information, so far as the Brotherhood I represent is concerned. All such data is compiled quarterly, printed and distributed to the members of our brotherhood. Here is a copy of this information which has just come to me from the grand lodge at Cleveland. You may put it in the record, or file it with the exhibits in this hearing, or do anything with it you like. It contains all, or nearly all, of the things asked for in the first three sections of H. R. 1483.

(The statement referred to follows:)

QUARTERLY REPORT OF THE GENERAL SECRETARY AND TREASURER, BROTHERHOOD OF LOCOMOTIVE FIREMEN AND ENGINEMEN FOR THE QUARTER ENDING MAR. 31,

1943

Balance Sheet, Mar. 31, 1943

ASSETS

Current: Cash on hand-available for disbursement. Securities, par value: Bonds of United States Government, Dominion of Canada, and their subdivisions, etc.

Receivables, sundry.

Fixed:

Land and buildings.

Furniture and fixtures, equipment, etc..
Less reserve for depreciation, etc..

Other:

Labor cooperative, educational and publishing
Society, Inc., cost__

Home for Aged and Disabled Railroad Employees
of America. Nominal..

Printing, stationery, postage, supplies, etc.

Total assets__

$789, 170. 84

26, 853, 599. 11 15, 154. 63

25, 737. 73

27, 683, 662. 31

$80, 558. 27 20, 987. 04

59, 571. 23

10, 745. 05

1. 00

21, 092. 91

31, 838. 96

27, 775, 072. 50