Mr. NYSTROM. That is right.

Mr. BARDEN. Mr. Administrator, I noticed your paragraph here, next to the last paragraph on page 3; I wish you would read that to me. I cannot understand it by reading it myself, very well. See if I get it. Mr. WEISS. The one that starts with the bill

Mr. McCOMB (reading):

The bill also remedies loopholes in the present coverage of child labor in agriculture during school periods. In the interest of protecting children's schooling, the act, as passed in 1938 (sec. 13 (c)) provided that a child may not be employed in agriculture while he is legally required to attend school. Experience has shown, however, that this wording is of limited value in preventing children from staying out of school to work, because of the exemptions and loopholes in many of the State school-attendance laws. In some States the fact that a child is employed in agriculture is a legal excuse for nonattendance ta school. In some other States school attendance is required only for a part of the school term. Many other exemptions from school attendance in State laws serve to weaken the Federal provision.

Mr. BARDEN. Now, just how far does that go? Does that go out on the farm, now?

Mr. WEISS. The coverage now depends on State school-attendance laws, and these vary from State to State.

Mr. BARDEN. Do you not believe in respecting State school-attendance laws?

Mr. WEISS. We are suggesting we respect the State school sessions. Mr. BARDEN. You mean you are questioning the right of the States to make their school-attendance laws?

Mr. WEISS. Not at all.

Mr. BARDEN. You just want to abolish them?

Mr. WEISS. We are merely suggesting the coverage under the Federal law depends on the school being in session rather than on some other State law.

Mr. BARDEN. Now, you are talking to a fellow who has probably worked more in schools and is more interested in schools than you have ever been, and I hope I will increase my interest.

Mr. WEISS. I have spent about 20 years in them, and I have some respect for them.

Mr. BARDEN. You are just a kid in it, yet. But here is what I want to get at now:

You say well, I will ask you this: Do you intend for this law to cover the average farm?

Mr. McCOMB. Not the farm. We are talking of the schools.

Mr. BARDEN. But now the farm and school children are so interlocked here you will have to work together.

Mr. CCCOMB. It is an agriculture child-labor provision.

Mr. BARDEN. Does that mean that a child, after school, cannot work on the farm?

Mr. WEISS. No.

Mr. McCOMB. No, no; it means during school hours. We found, Mr. Congressman, we have had complaints from school superintendents who have told us that the local authorities have said, for this reason, that they could not hold children in school when it was in session, and the superintendents themselves had the opinion they should have stayed in school. It is a hardship on the children. What we are trying to do is plug up some of the loopholes, if we can.

Mr. BARDEN. Well, I just do not want you to cut their wind off by plugging up the hole now.

Is the gentleman familiar, for instance, with strawberries-the strawberry season-when maybe a small farmer has one or two acres of strawberries and he just cannot get anybody to pick them, and those berries are worth $8, $9, or $10 a crate, and the question is whether those children-a strawberry will not stay on the bush but just one-half day-and it is a question of whether he would say, "We will just let the strawberries go, and then you will not have clothes this winter."

There are many, many farms that do not have over 2 or 3 acres of what you call money crops. Now, if you are going to break that down we want to know it. I am not being mean about it.

Mr. McCOMB. I would say to you that when you speak of strawberries-I have worked on farms myself-what about tomatoes? You say you know a lot about this

Mr. BARDEN. You had better not cross the boundary line of common sense. If you do you can get into a lot of trouble.

Mr. McCOMB. Tomatoes must be picked immediately.

Mr. BARDEN. Suppose they let the tomatoes rot and the strawberries rot, what provision are you going to have to take care of the family in the wintertime?

Mr. WEISS. It is up to the local authorities.

Mr. BARDEN. You cannot shoot him, and you cannot pay him; what are you going to do with him?

The trouble with you gentlemen is you are just like the rest of us; we are prone to want to cut the pattern for the folks around where we live, and have been raised, and it will not work with a great big Nation of 150,000,000 people. I want to know how far you expect to go. Do you expect this to take in every little farm in this country?

Mr. McCOMB. Not at all. What we are trying to do is to clarify this section, which is the present exemption-the provisions of section 12, relating to child labor, shall not apply with respect to any employee employed in agriculture while not legally required to attend school, or any employed in motion pictures.

Mr. WEISS. Congress has already limited child labor in agriculture by that provision, and we have found from experience that it has resulted in inconsistent administration from State to State, and inconsistent requirements.

Mr. BARDEN. I worked on the farm from the time I could reach a Dixie Boy plow handle, and I got into plenty of devilment, but I did not get into as much devilment as the children around the streets.

Mr. WEISS. We are proposing to continue on somewhat the same basis.

Mr. BARDEN. You had better keep your hands out of the schools of this country. You will not find you can regulate and touch them very well. That is my advice to you, and you are not going to mix the schools up with this deal, and if I have my way about it there will not be any Federal law that will mix up our school systems, or have anything to do with the way they run.

Mr. WEISS. I am afraid you do not understand our proposal. We are not trying to regulate the schools. We are going to accept the local school regulations and gear into them.

Mr. BARDEN. I want to know this, Mr. Administrator: Just how far do you propose with this bill to reach into agriculture? Do you want to take in every little farm in this country?

Mr. McCOMB. We are not making any changes in this bill as compared with the other.

Mr. BARDEN. I know, Mr. Administrator, but won't you have the authority to do it?

Mr. McCOMB. No.

Mr. BARDEN. You will have that hen egg Mr. Lucas was talking about. If a man raises 6 acres of potatoes, or 1 acre, and the potatoes go to market, or if he has a garden and he wants to sell some turnips, or he has some surplus meats, those things will go in there, and that will go into commerce, and it is just as much of that as some of the things you are now reaching for. If that is what you want to do, Mr. Administrator, I think you are just simply biting off more than you can chew.

Mr. NYSTROM. I think the answer to that question, Mr. Barden, is the fact we leave untouched in the Administrator's recommendations and the committee print leaves untouched the existing exemption of any employee employed in agriculture from the wage-and-hour provisions; neither one of those apply now to any employee employed in agriculture. The committee print does not propose any change in that. Mr. BARDEN. When you strike out your area-of-production

Mr. NYSTROM. The area of production is not an exemption of the farmer. He is taken care of.

Mr. BARDEN. Let us get this straight, now. I am interested in this. Mr. NYSTROM. Section 13 (a) (10) is the area-of-production exemption, and 13 (a) (6) is the agriculture exemption.

Mr. BARDEN. Section 13 (a) (6)?

Mr. WEISS. It is on page 36 of this committee print. It is No. 10, near the bottom of the page, in brackets.

Mr. BARDEN. Number what?

Mr. WEISS. No. 10 on that page, line 17.

Mr. BARDEN. Isn't that stricken out?

Mr. WEISS. That is proposed to be stricken out.

Mr. BARDEN (reading):

To any individual employed within the area of production,

engaged

in handling, packing, storing, ginning, compressing, pasteurizing, drying, preparing in their raw or natural state

and so forth and so on; you are going to strike that out? Mr. WEISS. That is the proposal; that is correct.

Mr. BARDEN. What are you going to put in its place?

Mr. WEISS. There is still the exemption in 13 (a) (6) of the employee employed in agriculture.

Mr. BARDEN. What is the definition of the agriculture?

Mr. NYSTROM. In section 3 (f) of the act-and that remains unchanged-beginning on page 3, at line 19.

Mr. BARDEN. All right, then, your position is now that all of those things set out between line 19, which is section 3 (f) on page 3 of the committee print, through line 6 on page 4, is stricken out

Mr. WEISS. No; that stays in.

Mr. McCOMB. That is the definition

Mr. BARDEN. I mean is exempt as a result of section 13 [(6)] (3): Any employee employed in agriculture.

Mr. McCOMB. That is correct.

Mr. BARDEN. Then you do not regard that the authority you ask for here in any way interferes with the growing and the carrying to market, and packaging, and so forth, and so on, of the operations carried on by the farmer and his employees?

Mr. McCоMB. That is right.

Mr. WEISS. That is on wages and hours.

Mr. BARDEN. And that carries him to when he delivers it to the market, and it passes beyond his control; is that right?

Mr. McCOMB. The first process; yes. That is true with the exception, I might say, of what you have been talking about of the childlabor provisions. The child-labor provision is not an attempt necessarily, of trying to control agriculture: it is an attempt to look after the interest of the children, an attempt to see the children have the opportunity to get an education.

Mr. WEISS. I think what Mr. McComb is explaining is the provision you read

Mr. BARDEN. You do not want to get into that.

Mr. WEISS. The provision you read deals with only sections 6 and 7 of the act; section 12, which deals with child labor, is different under the present law.

Mr. BARDEN. You can get along all right with the city children working in shops and places like that, and I am with you; I am a child-labor-law man, as far as that is concerned; but you have never opened up a hornet's nest until you go out in the country and try to tell the farmer what he can do with his children. There are too many pitchforks around the country, and I certainly would not want to do it. Mr. NYSTROM. Might I point out one thing, and that is the existing provisions of the law with regard to the child-labor exemption for agriculture which, in effect, kept youngsters from working in agriculture when they are legally required to attend school. It does not apply with regard to the farmers' own children because there is a special exemption in the act from the child-labor provisions for any child employed in nonmanufacturing or nonmining occupations, by the parent, so the law does not reach out to the child of the farmer. Mr. BARDEN. I do not want to even get close to where you would begin to affect the child that lives on the farm, because I am afraid. you do not understand the average small-farm operations, especially where there are tenants on the farm. I do not want to get you into that because I might have to get you out.

Mr. NYSTROM. I lived on the farm as a boy, so I know something about it, too.

Mr. BARDEN. I think we can work it out. We are going to protect you, Mr. McComb. We are not going to give you all the things. Mr. LESINSKI. Will the gentleman yield for a minute? Mr. BARDEN. Oh, yes; I am through.

I

Mr. LESINSKI. In my talks with the Department I have stressed the fact we will not touch anything that is within the law today, or change anything as far as agriculture is concerned. I have asked that, and I think the gentlemen are trying to get that out in that way. do not want to touch agriculture at any time. I recognize that a little farmer working with his wife and children on the farm cannot be pulled into this law.

Mr. BARDEN. Mr. Chairman, I suppose they are the hardest-worked and probably get the least of the real benefits of this life of any group I know. As a matter of fact, I can show you whole counties where there will not be 2 percent of the homes in the county with any waterworks whatever, and that is just a key to what it is; and yet when you pass their homes at 4 o'clock in the morning the lights are on and the wives are in there cooking breakfast, and they are liberty-loving people, though; they love their freedom, and they do not like for anybody to monkey with them.

I want them to have it. I wish we could guarantee $10 an hour, if it was possible, but I am just a little fearful of getting into this thing of too much regulation. I am not so sure but what we will dig up more trouble than we will solve.

Mr. LESINSKI. The gentleman will not oppose any subsidies?

Mr. BARDEN. It depends. My folks do not call for subsidies. If you will take the cost of production-I mean fix it to where they can produce they will take that risk, all right. You are the ones that get bit with black-market potatoes; it does not bother us.

Mr. LESINSKI. Gentlemen, on account of bad acoustics in this room we are going to adjourn until tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock, and I will ask the gentlemen to come to the regular committee hearing room, because it is impossible to hear here.

(Whereupon, at 4:05 p. m., an adjournment was taken until the following day, Friday, January 28, 1949, at 10 a. m.)