side more than they did their mine manager. Schull said if the mine manager had assistants inside he did not have to go inside. I learned from the miners that the inspection of the commission was a real sham. One old miner told me that he had worked in the mines for more than 45 years and that it was the rottenest deal he had ever seen pulled. They absolutely ignored the miners and their officers, did not even talk to the officers of the local union, did not inspect all of the mine, missed the 21 and 22 south off of 4 west entirely. This was one of the dirtiest and dustiest and poorest-ventilated sections of the mine. They rode out in a car instead of walking out the main line haulage road and the dirty haulage roads were one of the main complaints.

It hurt me to get a rotten deal like this out of a couple of fellow inspectors, so the first time after the commission's inspection that I saw Charles Blakeney, the inspector from the Danville district, I jumped him about the rotten deal; his reply to me was, "The mine suited me all right." His attitude was, I don't give a damn what happens to your miners. When I jumped John Golden, his reply was, "I have got mines in my district just as bad. I could make out big, long reports, too; I see a lot of things in the mines that I don't report. You know, after all, the operators are the director and if you want to stay on the job you had better do what the operators want you to do."

This disaster could have happened in most any district in the State. You need no more proof than the fact that the Federal Coal Mines Administrator has shut down a number of Illinois mines, including mines of two members of the Governor's committee, and that the State inspectors have shut down a large number of mines since being given the authority and permission to do so. I have had miners from outside of my district tell me they feared for their lives; that their mines were also in deplorable condition.

We have heard a lot about rock dusting since this disaster. Now let's see just what the department has done about rock dusting in this State. The rock-dust law, while inadequate, has been on the books since July 1941; rock dusting was to start in July 1941, and be completed by July 1, 1942. Let's turn to pages 57 to 62 of the annual coal report for 1945, issued by the department. At the top of the page in the right-hand column is the question: Is mine rock dusted? Let's turn to the counties adjacent to my district. Take Madison County, six mines and only one rock-dusted. St. Clair County, with 15 underground mines, and only 3 have done any rock dusting. Perry and Randolph Counties, with 10 underground mines, and only 1 rock dusted. And these operators have been brazen enough to report this to the director, and still the director and mining board did nothing about it. And they say, we depend on the inspector. It's the same old story, trying to make the inspector the goat. In this case, I think their own publication is enough to condemn them. I am sure you gentlemen can see what a job I had on my hands trying to get the mines in my district rock-dusted, when the department was doing nothing about getting the mines rock-dusted in the counties adjacent to my district. On one occasion, when I requested Superintendent Niermann to do some rock dusting, his reply was, "I was just over in St. Clair County and they don't do any rock dusting over there." I have been told that same thing a number of times at every mine in my district, with the exception of the Consolidated Coal Co. at Nason. But in spite of this, I have succeeded in getting some rock dust in some form in every mine in my district. And I might add that the department has never furnished us with equipment to take dust samples. If you gentlemen will check through the coal report you will notice that most of these mines reporting no rock dusting have been shut down by the department since these 111 men have been killed here in Centralia. We have known for a long time the benefits of rock dusting coal mines, but Illinois did nothing about requiring rock dusting until 1941, when the present law was passed and then the department did nothing about enforcing it. When you gentlemen go back to Springfield, go over to the department and check through the inspection reports of the various mines. You will notice that I hardly ever missed recommending adequate rock dusting in the inspection of all of my mines. When I recommend adequate rock dusting I am asking for more than the law requires. Have you gentlemen of the general assembly ever been asked by the director or mining board to pass an adequate rock-dusting law in Illinois? I think not. They were not very interested in saving lives.

On March 14, 1945, at a hotel in Belleville, I begged Medill to permit me to shut this mine down. I told him that the mine was in such a dirty, dusty, and hazardous condition that if the dust became ignited, a dust explosion would spread through the entire mine and probably kill every man in the mine. Medill's reply to me was, "We will just have to take that chance." On April 10 or 11, 1947,

Inspector Fred Lippert, of the Belleville district, told the press the following: "Since the Centralia mine disaster, the inspectors have been ordered to enforce the State mine laws. We're going to try to prevent more dust explosions like the one there. Under Medill the rock dusting and other laws were not enforced. Enforcement is going to be rigid from now on."

After the commission had made the mine and I was given to understand that the Centralia Coal Co. was going to be permitted to do as they pleased, there was nothing I could do in the way of enforcement. It resulted down to getting what I could by persuasion, and from the help of the Federal inspector and the men through their contract. We were all after sprinklers on the cutting and loading equipment and the company had told all of us that they had pipe ordered to install the sprinklers.

At the time of the explosion there would not have been a chance in the world to get the permission of the director or mining board to shut this mine down, as it was 10 times cleaner on my inspection the week before the explosion than it was when the commission inspected it. On my inspection on March 18 and 19, 1947, I found the mine in better condition than I had found it in a long time. Since the commission had inspected the mine, the 15, 16, 17 north off 1 west had been abandoned and seals erected across the mouth of these entries. The 15 north off of 4 west had been abandoned as a haulage and this eliminated a real dust hazard; it had also been rock-dusted shortly before abandonment and the night foreman was using it part of the time to dump water on from the sumps along the 4 west. The 18 north off of 4 west had been abandoned as a haulage, eliminating another dust hazard.

At the time the commission inspected the mine most of the coal was pulled over the 4 west and it was in a terrible condition. On March 18 and 19, 1947, about half of the coal was being pulled over the 1 west. This track had been laid on a surveyor's level and there was practically no coal spillage on this haulage. There had been considerable road cleaning done on 4 west and down into 24 south off of 4 west and some sprinkling. The 21 and 22 south off of 4 west had recently been abandoned; this eliminated the most harzardous section of the mine; it was about 90 rooms deep, had been worked all the way in by trackless mining, was the dustiest in the mine and inadequately ventilated. This is the section that the commission failed to inspect when they made the mine. I inspected the mine on March 18 and 19, 1947, in company with Federal Inspector Frank Perz, Assistant Mine Manager Harry Berger, and Paul Comper, a member of the safety committee. After making the mine we had a long conference with Mine Manager Brown at the underground machine shop. I had several times previous to this inspection requested Brown to spend less time on the shaft bottom and more time in the inside workings. This time I told him I considered the new face boss at the head of the 1 and 2 west incompetent; he was a very nice man, very conscientious, but had no technical training and was absolutely lost on his ventilation. Perz and I spent an hour or more with him and he was still confused when we left him. I told Brown that I wanted him to go into this 1 and 2 west section and stay with this face boss until he fully understood his ventilation and other duties. I told him that now was the time to make the right kind of a boss out of this fellow before he got off on the wrong track. I also told Brown that they must get busy and advance their rock-dusting. He asked us if we had seen the pile of rock dust down at the overcast and said they were going to rock dust right away. I told him where his rirty roads were, ordered them cleaned; told him his steel water tank for sprinkling was setting in the 4 east in the same position it was on my previous inspection; ordered him to get it out of there and put it into service and to immediately sprinkle 18 and 19 north off 1 west and other dusty haulage roads. (They also have a wooden water box for sprinkling. The night foreman was using it to remove the water from the sumps along 4 west, which he used to sprinkle along 4 west and 15 north.) When we went to the surface we had a long conference with General Superintendent Johnson and Superintendent Niermann. Perz was getting definite answers from Johnson on what they were going to do about complying with the safety code. We told Johnson and Niermann the same things we had told Brown; and also that we were not satisfied with Brown staying on the bottom all the time and not visiting the working sections. Johnson and Niermann told us they had pipe ordered for the installaiton of a sprinkling system, were on a deal for closed cap lamps and assured us our recommendations would be complied with. I expected rock dusting and road cleaning to be done over the week end. Have been informed that some work was done on my recommendations pertaining to ventilation.

While all the coal operators in the State have enjoyed immunity from law enforcement, the major companies enjoyed the most, as brought out in my testimony before the Senate committee. The Peabody and Old Ben Coal Cos. had their mines in Franklin County taken away from Inspector James Wilson because he wanted them cleaned up and placed in safe condition.

The Centralia Coal Co. enjoyed more immunity than any other company in my district. Perhaps one reason for this is that when Medill was up for reappointment in 1945 and the miners were opposed to his reappointment, the Centralia Coal Co. came to his support and endorsed him for reappointment.

In granting this immunity to the coal operators, the director had a definite purpose in mind, which you all know of by now; it was exposed by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on March 19, 1947.

Mr. PERKINS. Mr. Chairman, at this point I want to ask unanimous consent to insert in the record a response to some of Mr. Haley's cases wherein I have made some research, and found that the cases that he has cited are not in point.

Mr. KELLEY. Without objection, it will be inserted in the record. (The document referred to is as follows:)

STATEMENT OF HON. CARL D. PERKINS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF KENTUCKY

At the conclusion of Mr. Haley's testimony I made the comment that I did not think the cases cited in his testimony were pertinent. I also stated that the constitutionality of H. R. 3023 could not be successfully questioned, and to substantiate that point I wish to file some authority in support of that contention. I agree that the Federal Government is one of delegated powers only. It can claim no powers which are not granted to it by the Constitution, and the powers actually granted must be such as are expressly given, or given by necessary implication.

There is one provision in the Constitution on which the proposed legislation can clearly be grounded, and that is the authority conferred by article I, section 8, clause 3. to "regulate commerce *** among the several States. * * It is now settled that the sale and shipment of coal, or the ertracting to sell and ship, to customers in other States is interstate commerce, and that Congress may regulate such sales with regard to prices, unfair trade practices, and the like (Sunshine Anthracite Coal Co. v. Adkins (1940) 310 U. S. 381; Gray v. Powell (1941) 314 U. S. 402; City of Atlanta v. National Bituminous Coal Commission (D. D. C. 1939) 26 F. Supp. 606, aff'd (1939) 308 U. S. 517; U. S. v. Spokane Fuel Dealers Credit Ass'n (E. D. Wash. 1944) 55 F. Supp. 387).

It must now be conceded under all recent Supreme Court decisions that there can be no hard-and-fast rule, no rigid formula or dependable touchstone as to what is or is not interstate commerce. In construing the commerce clause, the Supreme Court acts in a gradual process of inclusion and exclusion; the criterion is necessarily one of degree (Santa Cruz Packing Co. v. N. L. R. B. (1938) 303 U. S. 453; Wickard v. Filburn, supra). There is now no controlling force to past nomenclature or formulae. * "The precise boundary * has never yet been, and doubtless never can be, delineated by a single abstract definition" (U. S. v. South-Eastern Underwriters Ass'n., supra).

*

The approach laid down by the Supreme Court today is whether the activity in question substantially and economically "affects" interstate commerce. If activities though intrastate have such an effect, they may be regulated (Wickard v. Filburn (1942) 317 U. S. 111; U. S. v. South-Eastern Underwriters Ass'n (1944) 322 U. S. 533). "The commerce power is not confined in its exercise to the regulation of commerce among the States. It extends to those activities intrastate which so affect interstate commerce, or the exertion of the power of Congress over it, as to make regulation of the appropriate means to the attainment of a legitimate end, the effective execution of the granted power to regulate interstate commerce * *" (U. S. v. Wrightwood Dairy Co. (1942) 315 U. S. 110; see Smolowe v. Delando Corp. (C. C. A. 2d, 1943) 136 F. (2d) 231). Moreover, it is no longer necessary to find that intrastate activities have a "direct" effect on interstate commerce.

*

Even if the activity "be local and though it may not be regarded as commerce, it may still, whatever its nature, be reached by Congress if it exerts a substantial and economic effect on interstate commerce, and this irrespective of whether

such effect is that what might at some earlier time have been defined as 'direct' or indirect' (Wickard v. Filburn, supra). Where intrastate activities are so commingled with or related to those of an interstate character, so that all must be regulated if interstate commerce is to be controlled effectively, then Congress has the power so to do (U. S. v. Darby (1941) 312 U. S. 100; Currin v. Wallace (1939) 306 U. S. 1). Nor does the tenth amendment prevent Congress from resort to all means appropriate to the permitted end (U. S v. Darby, supra). If Congress says in a statutory declaration that particular activity affects interstate commerce, then the courts in passing on the validity of the statute have only the function of determining whether that activity is within reach of the Federal power (U. S. v. Darby, supra). And such validity depends on what is regulated, not by what the regulation affects (Enterprise Box Co. v. Fleming (C. C. A. 5th, 1942) 125 F. (2d) 897).

*

It has been said generally that "Congress has the power to eliminate evils which have been found to be promoted and transmitted by means of interstate commerce" and that "the Federal commerce power is as broad as the economic needs of the Nation" (American Power & Light Co. v. S. E. C. (1946) 329 U. S. 90, 103-104). Moreover, the Supreme Court has now ruled that manufacturing or production cannot be separated from the commerce in the goods produced. In Mandeville Island Farms, Inc. v. American Crystal Sugar Co. ((1948), 334 U. S. 219, 229), the Court declared:

"The artificial and mechanical separation of 'production' and 'manufacturing' from 'commerce,' without regard to their economic continuity, the effects of the former two upon the latter, and the varying methods by which the several processes are organized, related and carried on in different industries or indeed within a single industry, no longer suffices to put either production or manufacturing and refining processes beyond reach of Congress' authority or of the statute."

There are some earlier decisions which restricted the definition of interstate commerce, but these cases above cited cut down the remaining ground, if any, upon which the earlier coal-mining cases were based.

In American Power & Light Co. v. S. E. C., supra, the Supreme Court stated: "Congress, of course, has undoubted power under the commerce clause to impose relevant conditions and requirements on those who use the channels of interstate commerce so that those channels will not be conduits for promoting or perpetuating economic evils * * *. Thus to the extent that corporate business is transacted through such channels, affecting commerce in more States than one, Congress may act directly with respect to that business to protect what it conceives to be the national welfare. It may prescribe appropriate regulations and determine the conditions under which that business may be pursued."

Such regulations also may impose criminal penalties for their violation. Within the limits of constitutional legislative discretion, Congress may exercise its police power to regulate, restrict, or prohibit activities in interstate commerce which it conceives to be injurious to the public health, morals or welfare, and punish violations thereof, regardless of whether or not the State has sought so to regulate (U. S. v. Darby, supra; Brooks v. U. S. (1925) 267 U. S. 432; Caminetti v. U. S. (1917) 242 U. S. 470).

In light of these decisions, it seems clear that the mining of coal, as well as the sale thereof, is a part of or substantially affects interstate commerce, and hence is subject to the regulatory authority of Congress. If so, then to protect the national welfare Congress may prescribe the conditions under which the business may be conducted, among which are the restrictions imposed by H. R. 3023.

The fact that the proposed legislation may preempt the field is not a constitutional objection where Congress has the power to act. H. R. 3023, however, specifically provides that nothing therein shall nullify any existing State statutes but rather is to supplement them in the interest of increased mine safety. State and Federal statutes on the same subject can and do exist together. Thus, for example, even though the United States prohibits the use of wire-tapping evidence in Federal courts, even when obtained from intrastate communications (Weiss v. U. S. (1939) 308 U. S. 321), a State such as New York can by statute permit the use of such evidence in State courts. Matter of Harlem Check Cashing Corp. v. Bell ((1946) 296 N. Y. 15; Stemmer v. People of State of New York (1948) 298 N. Y. 728, aff'd by evenly divided Supreme Court (May 2, 1949) 17 L W 3327). It is objected that H. R. 3023 is unconstitutional under the fifth and sixth amendments in that it affords no ascertainable standard of guilt, provides for the initial determination by an administrative officer without a hearing, and

affords no court review of such determination. But H. R. 3023, while providing for an initial determination by a Federal mine inspector, then provides for an order by such officer, and if this order is disobeyed, the violator is then subject to trial by court and possible conviction for such violation. Thus the alleged violator is given a full court review to determine whether or not he has disobeyed a valid order. The fact that the initial determination is to be made by an administrative officer, subject to such a court review, does not deprive anyone of his constitutional rights. Such a contention was set at rest in Yakus v. U. S. ((1944) 321 U. S. 414), involving a conviction for disobeying price regulations fixed by administrative action. The Court said:

"Nor has there been any denial in the present criminal proceeding of the right, guaranteed by the sixth amendment, to a trial by a jury of the State and district where the crime was committed. Subject to the requirements of due process, which are here satisfied, Congress could make criminal the violation of a price regulation. The indictment charged a violation of the regulation in the district of trial, and the question whether petitioners had committed the crime thus charged in the indictment and defined by Congress, namely, whether they had violated the statute by willful disobedience of a price regulation promulgated by the Administrator, was properly submitted to the jury."

H. R. 3023 (as demonstrated hereafter) fixes an ascertainable standard which the administrative officer and the courts, upon possible prosecutions, must apply in determining whether a violation has occurred. To confide this original determination in the hands of an administrative officer is not invalid (Tagg Bros. & Moorhead v. U. S. (1930) 280 U. S. 420). In Yakus v. U. S., supra, it was said that "These (constitutional) essentials are preserved when Congress has specified the basic conditions of fact upon whose existence or occurrence, ascertained from relevant data by a designated administrative agency, it directs that its statutory command shall be effective. It is no objection that the determination of facts and the inferences to be drawn from them in the light of the statutory standards and declaration of policy call for the exercise of judgment, and for the formulation of subsidiary administrative policy within the prescribed statutory framework."

With regard to the objection that H. R. 3023 affords no ascertainable standard to be applied, while it is true that a statute may be so vague as to be unconstitutional, in that it does not define the crimes involved with appropriate definiteness, yet the Supreme Court has conceded that "the entire text of the statute or the subjects dealt with may furnish an adequate standard" (Winters v. New York (1948) 333 U. S. 507). In Screws v. U. S. ((1945) 325 U. S. 91), upholding a criminal statute against the charge of uncertainty, the Court said that the constitutional requirement of due process of law demands only that a statute give a person acting with reference to it "fair warning that his conduct is within its prohibition." In U. S. v. Wurzbach ((1930) 280 U. S. 396), Mr. Justice Holmes declared:

"Whenever the law draws a line there will be cases very near each other on opposite sides. The precise course of the line may be uncertain, but no one can come near it without knowing that he does so, if he thinks, and if he does so it is familiar to the criminal law to make him take the risk."

Nor does a statute have to be so exact as to eliminate all possible variances of meaning. In Nash v. U. S. ((1913) 229 U. S. 373, 377), Mr. Justice Holmes also said:

* * the law is full of instances where a man's fate depends on his estimating rightly; that is, as the jury subsequently estimates it, some matter of degree. If his judgment is wrong, not only may he incur a fine or a short imprisonment, as here; he may incur the penalty of death."

H. R. 3023 uses the term "imminent danger" in defining the situation under which a mine may be ordered closed. This term has a generally understood legal meaning as embracing a situation reasonably certain to place life or limb in peril which must be instantly met and which cannot be guarded against by calling upon others for assistance (Pierce v. C. H. Bidwell Thresher Co. (1909) 158 Mich. 356, 122 N. W. 628; Employers' Liability Assurance Corp. v. Columbus McKinnon Chain Co. (W. D. N. Y. 1926) 13 F. (2d) 128; 20 Words and Phrases (perm. ed.) 155 et seq.). Thus under a Seattle Building Code, empowering the superintendent of buildings to require a building to be vacated when it was unsafe to human life or property or in imminent danger of so becoming, the superintendent could authorize the closing of the building if the peril was imminent and manifest-that is, unmistakable and such as to constitute at the