The CHAIRMAN. I would presume it would take a little over a week then to make a complete trip through North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama.

Mr. PATTERSON. You could not get through in a week if you did the complete work. We have three or four hundred in our State alone, and I just want to call your attention to this. I will not go into these figures, but I think they will be interesting if you will look the matter up in some of the evidence that was offered in the House in regard to this same thing. Look at the percentage of the school attendance in the States that are supposed to have ideal labor laws that is, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Mississippi-as compared with some of the States that you claim have not ideal laws, and you will find our children are going to school about as well as the others. It does not work, in other words.

Now, we will be glad to have you come down; and I repeat, come down and look and see for yourselves. The cotton-mill condition is not what it is ordinarily thought to be by those who have never seen it. Senator POMERENE. You were speaking of the sanitary condition or improvements that have been adopted down there, and my own information is that they have been very greatly improved in the last few years.

Mr. PATTERSON. They have been; yes, sir.

Senator POMERENE. About how long ago did you begin those improvements?

Mr. PATTERSON. Well, we began them immediately after we went to this place, this town that I am speaking of now. They had a large water power there, and we went there and developed this water power, and built these mills, and began to improve the sanitary conditions since we went there 18 years ago.

The CHAIRMAN. I suppose, Mr. Patterson, you will admit that a good deal of this improvement in sanitation and this welfare work has been inaugurated under the whip and spur of this national movement for the child-labor laws. Is that not so?

Mr. PATTERSON. You ask me to admit that?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Mr. PATTERSON. I say positively that they had nothing whatever to do with it.

The CHAIRMAN. You think it would have been done anyway? Mr. PATTERSON. I do not think anything about it. I know it. The CHAIRMAN. I remember that in an inquiry that we had before the Committee on Education and Labor some years ago, one of the first inquiries that was made and I was a member of that committee was with respect to conditions there which seemed very deplorable.

Mr. PATTERSON. I went to work when I was 12 years of age, in the cotton mill. The conditions then were poor, but it is like any other business you might mention. All of your machine shops in New England have gradually improved all along the line.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you not think that all of that has been accomplished, as I stated, under the whip and spur of legislation, either threatened or accomplished?

Mr. PATTERSON. I do not believe it. There has been no effort as far as I know to pass a law in North Carolina compelling manufacturers to furnish nothing but deep wells for their employees. That is

what we do, and we have an expert at Johns Hopkins Hospital to analyze the water; we pay him to do it; with the result that we have had no typhoid fever in that town now for two years. Now, we may not deserve any credit for that, Senator. We realize

The CHAIRMAN. I think you deserve credit for it.

Mr. PATTERSON. We realize that a person who is well and happy makes a better employee than one who is not. That is the thing in a nutshell.

The CHAIRMAN. Now there is another thing. You are anticipating some change in the economic conditions at the close of the European war, I observe from your testimony?

Mr. PATTERSON. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Your fear is that over there they are driven by the necessity of getting back their gold that has largely gone to countries that have been suppyling them with munitions of war and not money for local development, that that would stimulate production and exports to other countries?

Mr. PATTERSON. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. And you fear that they will not be as humane as we are in this country regarding the employment of child labor. Have you ever thought that our legislation could be directed toward the prevention of the unfair advantage secured by an inhumane system by establishing a humane system?

Mr. PATTERSON. I do not pretend to say that I am capable of advising what sort of legislation should be passed in an extreme condition such as we are going to face now. We all know perfectly well that there have been so many men killed off in Europe that there are going to be a lot of women and a lot of children who are going to work at gainful occupations now who have never been forced to that necessity before. We all know that, and under the old rule of supply and demand there is going to be a great surplus of labor; there are going to be lower wages; and it is my honest opinion-whether I am right or wrong I do not know-that we are going to be flooded with a lot of textiles that have been manufactured under the cheapest labor conditions that have been known for half a century.

Senator POMERENE. Mr. Patterson, I wish you would explain this: With a given condition in Europe we import a given quantity of goods that has a given effect upon our local industries. I have heard this argument before, but I have never seen an explanation of it. Explain to me why or how from five to ten million dead men and from five to ten million crippled men can increase this surplus product that is going to flood the markets here.

Mr. PATTERSON. My idea about it is that there is going to be so many more men-crippled men, if you like to put it that way-and so many women and children, who, on account of their financial condition, in not having to work prior to the war, they will now have to seek employment.

The CHAIRMAN. As a matter of fact, I believe it is a statistical fact that after the Napoleonic wars the wage level of Europe was lower than it had been for 50 years prior to that time.

Senator POMERENE. Was the production greater?

The CHAIRMAN. I do not know about that, but the wage was very low.

Mr. PATTERSON. I do not know that the production would be greater because there have been so many of the manufacturing establishments that have been completely ruined, but as fast as they can rebuild them they are going to seek some sort of employment by which they can make a living. We know a great many of them have been impoverished by reason of the war.

The CHAIRMAN. As I understand it, all this welfare work you are doing in the Southern States, and it seems to me to be very commendable, has been a voluntary matter.

Mr. PATTERSON. Absolutely.

The CHAIRMAN. I was in a factory in Germany some years ago that seemed to me a marvel of cleanliness and sanitation and comfort for the convenience of the employees. I complimented the proprietor, who was showing me around, at the end of our trip upon the humanity that they had shown in all of these arrangements; they far exceeded anything I have seen in this country anywhere, and he looked a little surprised, and his answer was, "We deserve no credit for that. The Government requires it of us."

Mr. PATTERSON. It is a well-known fact that our Government does not require it, but common sense does. We realize that the more contented you can make your people the better class of labor you will get.

The CHAIRMAN. Does any other Senator desire to ask any quetsions? Senator BRANDEGEE. I would like to ask one or two questions. Do I understand you cotton manufacturers of the South claim that the condition of the children under 16 years of age, whom you employ, is on the whole a great deal better, both in the mills and in the surroundings in the manufacturing communities, than they were on the farms from which they were drawn?

Mr. PATTERSON. Very much better.

Senator BRANDEGEE. Or than they would be if they should lose this employment?

Mr. PATTERSON. Very much better. There is no comparison. Senator BRANDEGEE. One other question. In those States which have the eight-hour law applied to children under 16, has the effect been to throw the whole mill under the eight-hour law?

Mr. PATTERSON. The effect has been just what a great many of the friends of the measure did not want it to be. It has thrown the children on a 16-year age limit instead of throwing, the mills on the eight-hour law.

Senator BRANDEGEE. You mean it has thrown out of employment the children under 16 years of age?

Mr. PATTERSON. Yes, sir.

Senator BRANDEGEE. Has not that benefited them?

Mr. PATTERSON. I fail to see it. If this bill is an educational matter, I fail to understand for the life of me how you can send any more children to school by changing their occupations from one thing to another. The children in our mill towns in the South, as a rule-of course there are some exceptions-those who can afford to go are already attending school. Do not get it in your minds, gentlemen, please, that there are no children in the mill villages over 14 who are going to school. There are literally hundreds of them over 14 going to school, but the children who are compelled to work through some force of circumstances, no matter what it happens to be, are now in

the mills. Now, if this law goes into effect, I can not see how the driving of these children back on the farm would benefit them from an educational standpoint. In the first place, it is going to hurt them. As they are now the younger members of the family can get all school facilities right at the door, and religious advantages right at the door, whereas if you send them back on the farm they will have neither.

Senator BRANDEGEE. Of course, I assume that everyone wants to make the conditions of labor, especially for children, and more especially for girls who are compelled to earn their living, children under 16 years of age, say, as good as it is possible to make them.

Mr. PATTERSON. And I think every southern mill manufacturer feels just that way.

Senator BRANDEGEE. Of course, every member of this committee, and every Member of Congress, as a matter of fact, feels that way. It is unfortunate, of course, that young children have to work at all. It is unfortunate that they can not be supported by their families and given a good education and not be compelled to go to work until they have attained their majority, perhaps. But I am saying that if poor children have got to work at something, what better thing could they be working at than in the proper mill, such as you have described, surrounded by the sanitary arrangements that you have described?

Mr. PATTERSON. I could not conceive of any more congenial occupation for a child. Now, much has been said on this line-in fact, I was asked a question, not in the hearing, but outside, "How is it that you claim on the one hand that you pay good wages, and on the other hand that the work is so very light and is insignificant in character? How can you afford to do that?" Well, the best illustration I can give you is this: If a grown man were to sit down and tried to thread needles all day, he would wear himself out and get into a profuse perspiration and not accomplish anything. We have all tried, I suppose, to thread a needle. Now, there is no manual work about threading a needle; there is nothing about the operation of threading a needle that is going to hurt you physically, still if you take some old bachelor and pay him a cent apiece for threading needles, he will starve to death.

Senator BRANDEGEE. I know I would.

Mr. PATTERSON. On the other hand, take some 12-year old girl and pay her a cent apiece to thread needles and she would get rich. Now, the work is of a light character and peculiarly fitted for just women and children.

The CHAIRMAN. There are two kinds of education, of course; one of the head and one of the hand.

Mr. PATTERSON. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. The system that is provided for in this bill apparently stimulates training of the head up to, say, 16 years of age, but makes no provision for training the hands, and yet both are necessary in the ordinary vocations of life. Now, is it not possible to establish in these mills some method of graduated hours arranged according to the age of the children, so they will receive this training of the hands and without too long hours of confinement? Why is it not practicable, for instance, if you only want to employ the mill machinery eight hours a day, to have the children work in two shifts of four hours a day each, so that the children would not be employed

more than four hours a day and have the rest of the day for recreation and mental training?

Mr. PATTERSON. I have given that matter a great deal of mature thought, and I fail to realize how that can be done. In the first place, it means that you are employing twice as many children as you are now employing, and that is rather a remarkable way to do away with child labor, to employ twice as many. In the second place, as it is now, it is not every member of the family-I mean as a rule it is not every member of a family that would work in a cotton mill. Some are at work in the cotton mill while others are going to school, and vice versa. I have in mind a family there where there are two boys in school and two in the mill. The last session the two boys who are now at the mill were at school and the other boys were at the mill; and besides that, if a boy is sufficiently interested in getting an education and he wants to go to night school, there are free night schools furnished him.

The CHAIRMAN. What I am trying to ascertain is this: I think it is very important that we should develop the training of the hands as the training of the head, and I believe that youth is the time to do it.

Mr. PATTERSON. Yes, sir; I think so, too.

The CHAIRMAN. That is to do both. I would regard a system of head training that would keep a child in school eight hours as a bad system, not affording sufficient time for relaxation and recreation, and by the same process of reasoning I should regard eight hours for hand training, or industrial training, as a bad system because it does not give sufficient time for relaxation and recreation. The monotony of the employment would be injurious to the proper development of the child.

Now, why is it not possible with reference to both to secure development in youth on these lines without overtaxing the child? It does seem to me that eight hours, either for head work or hand work, for an immature child is too great a burden.

Mr. PATTERSON. Senator, I worked when I was 12 years of age 69 hours a week. I worked 12 hours every day except on Saturdays. I never realized that it hurt me.

The CHAIRMAN. You look like a man with an exceptional constitution.

Mr. PATTERSON. It is not the kind of work that wears one out. There is no manual labor about it.

The CHAIRMAN. It is not the manual labor that your attention is directed to. There is a strain, and it seems to me that some method could be devised by which children could be trained to make something toward the support of themselves and perhaps the support of their parents, widowed, or otherwise in case of exigency, without such long hours and without the system being uneconomical so far as the factories themselves are concerned.

Mr. PATTERSON. There are two points that enter into this matter, following what you have just said a moment ago—and I am endeavoring to answer your question with regard to it. If the children were employed for half the time it would necessitate of course a great many more tenement houses. It would necessitate twice the number of houses that are necessary to house the children of that age, of course. That is the smallest end of it. In addition to that it would