PARAGRAPH 99-WINDOW GLASS.

Mr. NEENAN. I would not make a positive assertion of that kind. Mr. KITCHIN. What do you think about that?

Mr. NEENAN. I believe that we will have to demonstrate that we are able to get it, and when we do that, they will see that it will not be reasonable for them to undertake to fight us. If they are protected to such an extent that that can be made up, we will get the wages; but if they are not, we can not get them.

Mr. KITCHIN. What effect have these blowing machines had on the blowers, in their wages?

Mr. NEENAN. Do you mean the glass blowers?

Mr. KITCHIN. Yes, glass blowers. I do not mean these tariff blowers; I mean glass blowers.

Mr. NEENAN. You mean the people I am representing. We have had to take a reduction in wages, I believe, forced on us through that competition.

Mr KITCHIN. You have had to take a reduction in wages on account of these machines?

Mr. NEENAN. I wouldn't say that

Mr. KITCHIN (interposing). I understood you to say that.

Mr. NEENAN. No; I didn't say that. You must understand that these blowing machines do not eliminate skilled labor.

Mr. KITCHIN. The manufacturers always come here and ask for tariff not for themselves, but for you laboring people and I want you people to go in and get your part of it. Those fellows come here claiming to protect you

Mr. NEENAN (interrupting). I do not believe that; I do not believe it.

Mr. KITCHIN. You do not believe it?

Mr. NEENAN. No, indeed; I do not. I believe that if there is a tariff sufficiently strong on window glass to protect the workingman against foreign labor-we can not work for 40 cents a day-we will keep our organization intact, and we will make the manufacturer give us our share of it.

Mr. KITCHIN. You promise to do that, do you?

Mr. NEENAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. JAMES. These laborers get an average wage of $15 a week? Mr. NEENAN. The skilled workmen. I believe the average wage of the window-glass worker to-day is $15 a week, when you figure what he makes in seven and a half or eight months on a twelvemonths basis.

Mr. JAMES. You think it is $15 a week?

Mr. NEENAN. About $15 a week. For instance, our blowers are making about $100 a month.

Mr. JAMES. How much does he make for the time he does work? Mr. NEENAN. We are working now, and the blowers are making about $104 a month.

Mr. JAMES. But taking the 52 weeks in the year it will average about $15 a week?

Mr. NEENAN. About that.

Mr. JAMES. Does that include skilled as well as unskilled labor? Mr. NEENAN. That includes four different departments concerned in this industry-the blowers, gatherers, flatteners, and cutters.

PARAGRAPH 99 WINDOW GLASS.

Mr. JAMES. Skilled as well as unskilled?

Mr. NEENAN. The four departments are skilled trades.

Mr. JAMES. Now, taking the average family man who has a wife and three children-five in the family-and who gets $15 a week; the cost of living, clothing, housing, etc., considered, what have they left at the end of the year?

Mr. NEENAN. They have nothing left, and we do not want to see them get less. We do not want to be put in the position where weMr. SHACKLEFORD (interrupting). You say you are representing the glassblowers?

Mr. NEENAN. Yes, sir; the window-glass workers.

Mr. SHACKLEFORD. Do your employers know that you are here? Mr. NEENAN. I suppose they do.

Mr. SHACKLEFORD. Have they contributed anything to the expense of your coming?

Mr. NEENAN. Absolutely nothing.

Mr. JAMES. How did you find out about the hearing?

Mr. NEENAN. Sir?

Mr. JAMES. How did you know that a hearing was in progress here? Mr. NEENAN. In answer to that question, I would say that I was here last spring in Washington. I have had my mind on this matter for a long time. I communicated with the secretary of Congressman Campbell, from the Kansas district, who arranged this hearing for me.

Mr. JAMES. Were there any suggestions made to you in any way by the companies protected?"

Mr. NEENAN. Absolutely none. This matter started in 1893, when the tariff was revised. I was not in the trade at that time; but I remember that about 50 per cent of the production of this country was curtailed and the importations, if I remember correctly, amounted to over 2,000,000 boxes of glass, and the consumption at that time was about 4,000,000.

Mr. KITCHIN. I see from the table that the tariff on this window glass varies from about 38 per cent to over 115 per cent.

Mr. NEENAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. KITCHIN. Don't you think if that remains as it is, in these times of the high cost of living, that you can squeeze a little better wage than $15 a week for skilled labor?

Mr. NEENAN. We might do it. I would like to see something done so that we can make all of the glass used in this country. Four hundred thousand boxes of glass come into this country that we ought to make. We can make it just as good as they can make it in Belgium.

Mr. KITCHIN. About how much was the American output of window glass for 1912, if you know?

Mr. NEENAN. I should judge something around $13,000,000. I might be at sea on that and I would not like to say positively, because I have not gone into it.

Mr. DALZELL. In 1910 there were thirty-eight millions.

Mr. KITCHIN. Have you any idea how much we actually imported? Mr. NEENAN. No; I have not. I understand that there has been about 400,000 boxes imported a year, for the last three years.

PARAGRAPH 99-WINDOW GLASS.

Mr. KITCHIN. Of all kinds only $827,868 worth, including cylinder and crown glass, came in last year

Mr. NEENAN (interrupting). I would be glad to have the information.

Mr. KITCHIN. Do you think that much is cutting any ice in competition with $38,000,000 worth?

Mr. NEENAN. No; it is not. But that would mean two weeks longer work for the window-glass worker. This year we are working seven and a half months. If we had that production we could work eight months.

Mr. KITCHIN. I am afraid the manufacturers have made you laboring people, you people who do this work and turn out the manufactured product, think that because of these immense "boatloads" of glass coming in here and competing with them they can not pay you any more wages. I want to give you some facts so that you can go home and talk to them. With only $827,868 of all kinds coming in here, you fellows are making $38,000,000 worth every year.

Mr. NEENAN. We are not objecting to that. If it does not become. any worse, we do not object; naturally we would like to make that. Mr. KITCHIN. Then there is not very much competition, is there? Mr. NEENAN. No; there is not. For the past three and a half years we have had no trouble

Mr. JAMES (interposing). How many laborers are engaged in your

business?

Mr. NEENAN. Unskilled?

Mr. JAMES. No; altogether in the glass business?

Mr. NEENAN. About 10,000 men.

Mr. JAMES. Ten thousand men, and they work seven and a half months a year?

Mr. NEENAN. Yes; but after the factories close down, the unskilled laborers are set at work repairing tanks and making other necessary repairs.

Mr. JAMES. At an average wage of $15 a week, and still there is consumed in America $38,051,000 worth of goods?

Mr. NEENAN. Are you sure that is just window glass?

Mr. JAMES. This is the report of the Secretary of the Treasury, and we take that as authentic.

Mr. DALZELL. That is, all kinds.

Mr. JAMES. Yes; cylinder, crown, and window glass

Mr. NEENAN (interrupting). What is that?

Mr. JAMES. Cylinder, crown, and common window glass, unpolished.

Mr. NEENAN. Cylinder, crown, and common window glass; yes. But I am speaking just about common window glass, the glass that goes in your sashes. Crown glass we do not make at all in this

country.

Mr. KITCHIN. You do not make it at all?

Mr. NEENAN. No.

Mr. KITCHIN. Then it means all window glass, if you do not make crown glass.

Mr. NEENAN. It is being sold by some one else. It is being imported, but it does not affect our industry.

PARAGRAPH 99-WINDOW GLASS.

Mr. JAMES. Could you ascertain for us the total cost of labor in the production of window glass, that we might ascertain whether or not this 46.38 per cent tariff is all for the benefit of the labor, or whether you are getting 10 per cent of it or 20 per cent of it, or just what you are getting? Could you not get that information for this committee and lay it before us, so that we can act intelligently upon this question as to whether or not labor should be protected and this tariff rate lowered accordingly?

Mr. NEENAN. You mean to submit that later?

Mr. JAMES. Yes; submit a brief and give us the information.

Mr. NEENAN. I will be very glad to do that. You must understand that we have men who are members of our association who own factories, and therefore we are able to get a line on the windowglass industry, I believe, better than any other class of organized workmen in this country.

Mr. JAMES. But you come here and ask us to maintain a rate of 46.38 per cent. You employ men seven and a half months a year who get an average wage of $15 a week, with a total production in this country of thirty-eight million and some odd thousand dollars, and yet you are not able to give us this information as to what per cent labor gets for the production of this, and how much of this tariff rate the manufacturer is pocketing at the expense of the consuming people in America.

Mr. NEENAN. I will submit that to you later. I believe there is some mistake. I think they have other kinds of glass confused with window glass.

Mr. DALZELL. This includes cylinder, crown, and common window glass.

Mr. KITCHIN. But they say they do not make any crown glass in this country.

Mr. DALZELL. That is all included in the $38,000,000.

Mr. KITCHIN. But they do not make any of it in this country and it is not included in that.

Mr. JAMES. That was your statement, was it?

Mr. NEENAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. JAMES. Then this is window glass

Mr. NEENAN (interrupting). Is that a statement of the glass made in this country or the glass sold?

Mr. JAMES. The production.

Mr. NEENAN. I still think there is a mistake somewhere.

Mr. LONGWORTH. You are here as the representative of your organization?

Mr. NEENAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. LONGWORTH. And you are the representative of the National Window Glass Workers?

Mr. NEENAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. LONGWORTH. You succeeded Mr. Faulkner?

Mr. NEENAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. LONGWORTH. Mr. Faulkner was here before this committee three years ago?

Mr. NEENAN. Yes, sir; he appeared before the committee.
Mr. LONGWORTH. Representing your organization?

Mr. NEENAN. Yes, sir.

PARAGRAPH 99-WINDOW GLASS.

Mr. LONGWORTH. Therefore, it is not very surprising, as Mr. James's question would seem to indicate, that you happened to know that the Ways and Means Committee were holding hearings on this subject. You regard it as very important to your interests to know when a revision of the tariff is contemplated?

Mr. NEENAN. I certainly do.

Mr. LONGWORTH. The question asked by Mr. Kitchin seemed to imply that the Payne law increased the duty on window glass? Mr. NEENAN. It did not.

Mr. LONGWORTH. It did not?

Mr. NEENAN. No, sir.

Mr. LONGWORTH. Do you know whether it increased it or not? Mr. NEENAN. It decreased it, I believe, from 5 to 20 per cent. There was a readjustment of tariff rates.

Mr. LONGWORTH. One-eighth of 1 cent a pound in each bracket. So that you would have had no ground to demand an increase in wage since the Payne law was passed on the theory that the duty was increased?

Mr. NEENAN. No, sir.

Mr. LONGWORTH. Generally speaking, your organization is pretty well satisfied if a reasonable proportion of the profit is paid in wages? Mr. NEENAN. Yes, sir; we are.

Mr. LONGWORTH. The members of your organization are practical workers, and, as you say, a number of them own factories or stock? Mr. NEENAN. They own factories.

Mr. LONGWORTH. And you know the practical nature of the glass business?

Mr. NEENAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. LONGWORTH. You know how it is conducted in this country as compared with other countries?

Mr. NEENAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. LONGWORTH. And you know the rate of wages paid?

Mr. NEENAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. LONGWORTH. You know the rate of wages paid to the men who are in daily competition with your workmen ?

Mr. NEENAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. LONGWORTH. And you are convinced, as a body, that a substantial reduction, or possibly any reduction, of the present tariff would work you direct damage?

Mr. NEENAN. I am convinced of that.

Mr. LONGWORTH. And that is the reason you are here?
Mr. NEENAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. LONGWORTH. On behalf of the laborers?

Mr. NEENAN. On behalf of the window-glass workers.

Mr. LONGWORTH. And not on behalf of anybody else?

Mr. NEENAN. And on behalf of the unskilled men. The unskilled men employed around a window-glass factory receive better wages than the ordinary unskilled man. Hardly a man employed receives any less than from $2 to $2.25 a day, or wages like that. That is not a large wage. Understand I am not making any boast about that; but the unskilled laborer of this country does not average that.