Senator THOMPSON. Are the children really allowed this one-half hour of their own at noon?

Mr. ROBERTS. Oh, no; no worker is.

Senator THOMPSON. In any employment?

Mr. ROBERTS. Not that I know of.

Senator LIPPITT. The children have one-half hour at 12 o'clock for lunch?

Mr. ROBERTS. The mill shuts down half an hour.

pardon.

I beg your

Senator THOMPSON. But you charge it up to them, and make them work half an hour later at night?

Senator LIPPITT. How many hours do they work?

Mr. ROBERTS. They start at 6, stop at 12, begin again at 12.30, and work until 5.30.

Senator LIPPITT. How many hours a week?

Mr. ROBERTS. Sixty.

Senator LIPPITT. Ten hours a day?

Mr. ROBERTS. Therefore they only put in five hours on Saturday. Senator LIPPITT. Eleven hours, actual work?

Mr. ROBERTS. That is, 11 hours they are supposed to be on duty; it is not actual work. I am coming to that right now.

These children, every one of them, protested against the 10-hour day. They said, "If we can work 60 hours a week, let us work just as much as we can in the first five days of the week, so as to reduce the hours on our holiday, Saturday."

Senator BRANDEGEE. How much do your children employees make a day?

. Mr. ROBERTS. Seventy-five cents to a dollar a day. Senator LIPPITT. We are talking about———

Mr. ROBERTS. Alabama.

Senator LIPPITT. You mean the law of Alabama compels you to work 10 hours every day and 60 hours a week?

Mr. ROBERTS. Our law is 60 hours a week, not more than 11 hours in any one day.

Senator LIPPITT. I thought you said you went on 10 hours a day? Mr. ROBERTS. So we did, as soon as that law went into effect, because we preferred it; but the point I am trying to make is that the children said

Senator LIPPITT. Why did you not do it before the law went into effect?

Mr. ROBERTS. Why did we not go to 10 hours?

Senator LIPPITT. Why did you not run even hours as you do now? As I understand it, the law allowed you to have a half holiday if you chose to proportion your hours that way?

Mr. ROBERTS. Yes.

Senator LIPPITT. But, instead of having a half holiday Saturday, you run even hours every day; is that it?

Mr. ROBERTS. No; we formerly ran 11 hours five days and 8 hours on Saturday.

Senator LIPPITT. How many hours do you run Saturday now? Mr. ROBERTS. Five; and shut down at 11 o'clock. At the time this last law went into effect we were running 63 hours a week. You see, the children are all paid by the piecework, and they want to work just as much as you will allow them to do.

Senator THOMPSON. As a matter of fact, Mr. Roberts, is it not after all a financial proposition, that you are simply making more money by having longer hours?

Mr. ROBERTS. I do not think so. I would much prefer to work those children 10 hours a day than to work them 11.

Senator LA FOLLETTE. When did this 10-hour law go into effect? Mr. ROBERTS. Last September a year ago—that is, 10 hours, with the option of 11 hours for five days, and 5 hours the sixth dayyou understand, Senator?

Senator THOMPSON. What is the reason an eight-hour law can not be established and maintained, then?

Mr. ROBERTS. I do not know. I have never asserted it could not be. I only say that you can not work a part of the mill 8 hours and the other 10 hours. If the purpose of this bill is to regulate the hours of labor, we are

Senator THOMPSON. The object is to reduce the hours of labor for children?

Mr. ROBERTS. That is what I am trying to explain, that you can not do that without reducing all the rest.

Senator POMERENE. Did your manufacturers all voluntarily cut the hours from 11 to 10?

Mr. ROBERTS. Some of them did. There was no concerted action about it whatever. A great many of them contended

Senator POMERENE. Your statement was that you preferred it in that way.

Mr. ROBERTS. I say I did prefer it. If I am going to work 60 hours a week, I prefer to work 10 hours in each day.

Senator POMERENE. Why was it that before this law went into effect you worked these children 10 hours a day? You could have reduced that voluntarily just as well without the law as with it?

Mr. ROBERTS. No; not when the child wanted to work that time.
Senator ROBINSON. Do you pay by the day or piecework?

Mr. ROBERTS. We pay them by the side-hour in the spinning

room.

Senator ROBINSON. Side-hours?

Mr. ROBERTS. Yes, sir.

Senator ROBINSON. What does that mean?

Mr. ROBERTS. If a girl runs eight sides, and I am paying her a cent and a half per side-hour, you can very easily calculate what she would make. If she is making a cent and a half per side-hour, and running eight of them, that would be 12 cents per hour she was making do you see? And if she runs 10 hours she would make $1.20, or for 11 hours $1.32, at that rate.

Of course, you gentlemen are going to find when you come South that the help the children included, who are the ones you are concerned with here-want you to let them work just as much as possible, because that is the way they are going to be paid.

Senator LIPPITT. Do you think they would like to work 12 hours? Mr. ROBERTS. I think they would.

Senator LIPPITT. Do you think they would rather work 12 than 13? Mr. ROBERTS. I do not know; they might. It is a matter of amaze

ment to me

Senator LIPPITT. In your honest opinion, do you think they would rather work 10 hours than 12?

Mr. ROBERTS. If they get the same pay. Their main contention seems to be in connection with that, that this work "is so light that we do not care anything about it. The only thing with us is that we want as much holiday on Saturday as we can get." They make their greatest point on that.

Senator LA FOLLETTE. What are the wages for children between 14 and 16 years of age when they are working 12 hours a day?

Mr. ROBERTS. The wages were the same per hour; that is, they have always earned in proportion to the work that they did. There has not been any material change in it.

Senator LA FOLLETTE. Twelve cents an hour?

Mr. ROBERTS. It is equivalent to that. Some mills pay so much per hour, some per side hours, but it all comes down to that. Senator LA FOLLETTE. One and a half cents?

Mr. ROBERTS. Per side per day; it will average near that.
Senator THOMPSON. One side of the machinery?

Mr. ROBERTS. One side of a spinning frame.

Senator LA FOLLETTE. What would be the total amount of daily wages, to put it in another way?

Mr. ROBERTS. Of children between 14 and 16 years of age?
Senator LA FOLLETTE. Yes, sir.

Mr. ROBERTS. I should say it would average something like a dollar a day.

Senator THOMPSON. That is, according to their ability to take care of these sides you are speaking about?

Mr. ROBERTS. Yes; in that connection it is always well to remember, however, that if a child starts early enough they can become so proficient in the art of spinning-and it is an art, gentlemen, there is no doubt about that-they can easily make a dollar a day in a cotton mill.

Senator LA FOLLETTE. How does their wage-earning capacity compare with the adult spinners?

Mr. ROBERTS. I do not know any adult spinners.

Senator LA FOLLETTE. But the children do weave?

Mr. ROBERTS. Oh, no.

Senator LA FOLLETTE. The children do all of the spinning that is done in your mill?

Mr. ROBERTS. Yes, sir; and in every other mill. We are dealing with spinning and with ring spinning, gentlemen; just keep that in mind in connection with these cotton-mill wages, that it is the ring spinning we are dealing with.

Senator POINDEXTER. How young do you work children; what is the minimum age?

Mr. ROBERTS. It will be 14 on the 1st of September of this year. Senator POINDEXTER. What is it now?

Mr. ROBERTS. Thirteen.

Senator LA FOLLETTE. What was it before that?

Mr. ROBERTS. Twelve.

Senator LA FOLLETTE. And for how long had it been 12?

Mr. ROBERTS. Four or five years.

Senator LA FOLLETTE. What was it before that?

Mr. ROBERTS. Eleven.

Senator THOMPSON. That is done by State legislation?
Mr. ROBERTS. Yes, sir.

Senator POINDEXTER. Pursuing it further, when was the 11-year age limit?

Mr. ROBERTS. You have gone back a little too far for me; I have only been in the business 10 years, and I do not know, but I do know that a good many people went into the mill even at 9 years of age, and they have grown to be great, strapping, strong, vigorous men. Senator THOMPSON. The people of your own State fairly familiar with this business have been gradually reducing the age?

Mr. ROBERTS. Yes, sir.

I will tell you about that. I do not pretend for a minute that children 12 years of age or even 14 years of age are an asset to me in the mill business, except to this extent: That if you do not let them learn how to spin when they are able to learn it, it affects their value to me later on.

Senator POMERENE. How young should they be in order to begin! Mr. ROBERTS. That depends on the condition of the child; if it is a normal, healthy, vigorous child, I think they ought to be allowed to get their first rudiments of spinning at 11 or 12 years of age. I think there ought to be some provision made here for these people to learn it. The whole United States is ringing with the proposition of manual training and vocational training, and yet here we are trying to break up the most practical application of it in this country. Senator THOMPSON. You say when they become most proficient they earn about a dollar a day?

Mr. ROBERTS. In spinning some of them earn more than that. Senator THOMPSON. They can not remain in that business then very long, and will have to pass out of that?

Mr. ROBERTS. They will not remain in it very long, but they can always do it; it is their stock in trade, and they are always in demand, good spinners are. If things do not go well with them in whatever undertaking they may be in, they can fall back on that; that is a job they can always get.

Senator LA FOLLETTE. At what age do they pass from spinning to weaving?

Mr. ROBERTS. Senator La Follette, I have no looms. I should say, however, that about 18 years of age. There are other gentlemen here qualified to speak about that; I know very little about it, except that I know that these pictures you have seen in the papers of children running looms are purely the figment of somebody's imagination. The child can not do that.

Let us be perfectly clear on one thing: That the principal thing I am interested in, that the cotton-mill owner is interested in, is not to take away from him his supply of skilled help. If he can not get it-I want to impress that on everybody-if you shut them out of the mill at the time they are able to acquire it.

When you gentlemen come South--and I am confident that you will go in that mill and watch that twirling spindle, and put your fingers on it and it will break. Call that little girl over and she will take it in her fingers, pull it up, down, and do anything else with it, and put it back and it goes on.

Senator LIPPITT. You mean the thread, not the spindle?

Mr. ROBERTS. I am talking about the end. If you will take that end and touch it yourself, you will break it; and you might stay

there a hundred years and you would never learn how to do otherwise.

Senator POMERENE. This is not speaking of taking away your supply of labor; it is simply placing a limit upon the hours they shall be employed.

Mr. ROBERTS. The hours?

Senator POMERENE. And the age.

Mr. ROBERTS. And if that has that effect it seems to me

Senator POMERENE. Let me ask you a question or two. How many people are employed in your mill?

Mr. ROBERTS. About a hundred.

Senator POMERENE. And what proportion of those are between the ages of 14 and 16 years?

Mr. ROBERTS. I am not positive, but I should say a dozen.
Senator POMERENE. A dozen between 14 and 16?

Mr. ROBERTS. Between 13 and 16.

Senator POMERENE. How many below 13?

Mr. ROBERTS. None.

Senator LA FOLLETTE. Then this would not seriously affect your mill?

Mr. ROBERTS. That is what I have stated several times, that it would not seriously affect us, sir, except that if you cut off the supply of spinners it would seriously affect all of us.

Senator POMERENE. You apparently, in your own mill, do not regard it politic, for one reason or another, to employ children younger than 16?

Mr. ROBERTS. No, sir; I will not state that; that is not an extraor dinarily small number; I have an extraordinarily small mill. Senator POMERENE. You have 1,200 people?

Mr. ROBERTS. One hundred.

Senator POMERENE. I beg your pardon.

Mr. ROBERTS. I am quite glad I have not 1,200.
Senator POMERENE. That is what I understood you.

Senator THOMPSON. You only have 12 under 16?

Mr. ROBERTS. Yes, sir; I should say something like that; maybe a little more and maybe a little less; I have not looked into the statistics.

Senator THOMPSON. Is your concern a private enterprise or a corporation?

Mr. ROBERTS. Purely private. It is a corporation, but it is owned by two of us. It is all Alabama money and Alabama men, and we are struggling along with it and making a success, and I think we are going to continue. We have made a fair success, and it is not a brag mill; it is not a show mill, by any means. It is situated in the center of a populous little town. Nevertheless, I will be glad to have you come there and see it at its very worst, without notice to me. Senator ROBINSON. What do you mean by "show mill"?

Mr. ROBERTS. It has been said in these hearings that some mills are really magnificent-beautiful gymnasiums, swimming pools, Y. M. C. A.'s, day schools, night schools day nurseries, and hospitals that are really marvels and a credit to any civilization.

Senator ROBINSON. There are only a comparatively few of them maintained that way?