industries where company unions have been established. They are in some lines of private industry as well as established in the transportation industries of the country.

Mr. LEWIS. Labor organizations regard the company union as something lacking in good faith, do they not?

Mr. GREEN. We certainly do, because it is established, in our judgment, for the purpose of opposing the establishment of trade unions, not in the old brutal way that you met in days gone by, Congressman, but in a more refined way.

Mr. LEWIS. Coming back, then, to the amendment proposed on that subject, line 21, page 7

That no employee and no one seeking employment shall be required as a condition of employment to join any organization or to refrain from joining a labor organization of his own choosing.

As amended the act would be recognizing a company organization, something you believe to be not. a bona fide institution at all.

Mr. GREEN. Of course, it exists as a fact.

Mr. LEWIS. You think that lawmakers should give recognition to an institution which many of them regard as lacking in good faith and genuineness, by leaving this clause in the act? I want your opinion on that."

Mr. GREEN. Well, we feel, Mr. Congressman, that by inserting the words "company union" for the word "organization" Congress will be setting forth the real purpose of that section, which is to protect working people from being required to agree to join a company union as a condition of employment. As the Senator well says, by putting that in it will, we believe, effectively outlaw the company

union.

Mr. TREADWAY. Mr. Green, you suggested two amendments which, if adopted, would secure the unqualified support of labor. Am I correct in that?

Mr. GREEN. Yes, sir.

Mr. TREADWAY. Were those amendments submitted to the gentlemen who prepared this bill?

Mr. GREEN. No, sir; we had no opportunity to present these amendments.

Mr. TREADWAY. So you do not know the attitude of the proponents of the bill on this question?

Mr. GREEN. On these amendments?

Mr. TREADWAY. Yes.

Mr. GREEN. I do not know, except that my good friend Senator Wagner has said-and he is one of the authors of the bill-that amendments of this kind met his approval. I do not know whether he would be willing to say that now or not.

Senator WAGNER. Yes; I do.

Mr. TREADWAY. I just wanted to see whether it would meet the approval of the proponents to incorporate your suggestions in the bill.

Senator WAGNER. Speaking only for myself, I can say that it is perfectly satisfactory to me.

Mr. TREADWAY. You are sufficient of an authority so that we are willing to take your view of it.

Senator WAGNER. Thank you, but I am not so sure of that.

Mr. TREADWAY. One other question, Mr. Green. I understood you to say that you think the amount to be expended should be increased to five billions.

Mr. GREEN. Yes, sir.

Mr. TREADWAY. Would the increase to five billions, if adopted, provide sufficient capital to bring about the set-up of the welfare work in small communities, such as you suggest, by removing the 30-percent clause to which you have referred?

Mr. GREEN. Well, I cannot say that it would be adequate, but I think that would meet the reasonable requirements of every community.

Mr. TREADWAY. In other words, by increasing this borrowing limit from $3,300,000,000 to $5,000,000,000 you feel that there could be set up in small communities-and I am interested in that type very much.

Mr. GREEN. Yes, sir.

Mr. TREADWAY. I was much impressed by your remarks, when you said that we ought not to take away from the country towns their population and force them into industrial centers-industrial cities.

Mr. GREEN. That is it.

Mr. TREADWAY. That is a serious situation.

Mr. GREEN. It is, Mr. Congressman.

Mr. TREADWAY. There is no question about that. We are suffering from it very seriously in New England. You feel that this additional sum would to a certain extent obviate the necessity of a resident of a small community looking for employment in the large industrial centers?

Mr. GREEN. Yes, sir. It would keep him home and give him employment in his own home.

Mr. TREADWAY. Just one other line of thought, if I may, Mr. Green. If your suggestion of a bond issue of five billions should be adopted by Congress, it would, of course, increase the tax item from $220,000,000 as is suggested would be called for by this bill, to about $300,000,000, would it not?

Mr. GREEN. I imagine it would.

Mr. TREADWAY. There would be no other way to take care of it. Mr. GREEN. There would be no other way to raise the money; no. Mr. TREADWAY. That is, if we get one, we must take the other. Mr. GREEN. Exactly.

Mr. TREADWAY. Would you give us the benefit of your views as to the form of a tax levy whereby we can raise from the taxpayers $300,000,000 per annum in addition to what we are now obliged to raise?

Mr. GREEN. I will answer you very frankly, Mr. Congressman. A number of proposals have been submitted. I read them as reported in the press, I think, on yesterday.

Mr. TREADWAY. From Mr. Douglas?

Mr. GREEN. Mr. Douglas' suggestions; yes. I realize that no form of taxation imposed will be a welcome burden. There is no form of taxation that can be imposed that would be welcomed. Any kind must be to some extent burdensome. The purpose of Congress, I would think, would be to distribute the burden as equitably

as possible and to raise the money in the most practical and constructive way.

Speaking for labor, as I understand the heart and mind of labor, there are no taxes directly levied, either concealed or open, that will be welcomed. But there are some that labor regards as less burdensome than others. It is my firm opinion that labor would be willing to accept such form of taxation as Congress may levy, uncomplainingly, if the money thus raised is used for the purpose of creating employment of these millions of idle working men and women.

Labor, in the last analysis, bears the burden. The real-estate owner and the landlord pass the tax burden on to the masses of the people. We know where the taxes finally land, and we know that in any taxation proposal labor is going to bear a large burden.

Mr. LEWIS. Mr. Green, you surely would not say that income taxes are passed back to labor?

Mr. GREEN. I would not include that. I draw the line between the income tax and others. I do not know that I would be competent to advise you as to any specific form, because I am not an expert on matters of that kind. But I would say that labor will be willing to accept uncomplainingly such form of taxation as you may see fit to impose in order to carry out the purposes and provisions of this act. Mr. TREADWAY. I appreciate your position, Mr. Green. I would like to ask just one other question.

You have referred to the list submitted by the Director of the Budget, Mr. Douglas.

Mr. GREEN. Yes.

Mr. TREADWAY. Would you select from that list those taxes that you think would be within your description of the least burdensome, and which therefore would have your preference?

Mr. GREEN. I probably could answer that first by saying that one form of taxation would be the most burdensome and the most highly objectionable.

Mr. TREADWAY. Very good. What is that?

Mr. GREEN. That would be the pay-roll tax. We feel a pay-roll tax would put altogether a disproportionate burden upon labor, and for that reason we would be very strongly opposed to that.

Mr. TREADWAY. There is no reference in Mr. Douglas' statement of a pay-roll tax, as such. Will you designate what you refer to there? Mr. GREEN. I may have that confused. I know that has been suggested as a form of taxation to be imposed.

Mr. TREADWAY. You have just been handed the sheet, Mr. Green, on which there is listed the various forms of taxation. As I recall it, there is nothing there designated as a pay-roll tax.

Mr. GREEN. First of all, I think labor would favor an increase in the normal rates of income. And I see no reason why, in a project of this kind, dividends of corporations should not be included. This is an emergency.

Mr. TREADWAY. Of course you realize that the corporations have paid taxes out of their profits before the dividends reach the individual owner of the stock.

Mr. GREEN. I understand that perfectly well. Now, the breakfast-table tax

Mr. TREADWAY. You skipped one, if I may call your attention to it. Included in group 1 is the gasoline tax.

Mr. GREEN. I should think that that is a very valuable suggestion; that is, that the gasoline tax be increased three fourths cent per gallon.

Mr. TREADWAY. Now you come to the breakfast-table tax.

Mr. GREEN. The breakfast-table tax would rest very heavily on the average person, because it provides such a heavy tax, 10 cents per pound on tea and 5 cent per pound on coffee beans.

Mr. LEWIS. That is practically a per capita tax, is it not?

Mr. GREEN. Yes. That strikes at the breakfast table of the masses of the people. It seems to me it would be discriminatory and I should think that that form of taxation would be far less acceptable to labor.

Mr. TREADWAY. Let me suggest this, Mr. Green. The proposal is to tax 5 cents per pound on the coffee bean. Of course that means the processing of the coffee, the importation of the coffee in the raw bean form wherever it is grown, before it is prepared for the breakfast table. Therefore, the tax on the coffee itself would probably be much more, perhaps 50 percent.

Mr. GREEN. I should judge it would be that. I would estimate it to be that.

Mr. TREADWAY. I should assume that that coffee bean-I do not know anything about it, but I assume that the bean cannot_cost more than 10 cents a pound before it is processed. However, I did not mean to interrupt your statement, Mr. Green.

Mr. GREEN. Group 3 provides for the normal rates on the income tax, 8 and 12 percent, also dividends subject to the above rates; telephone toll messages, a tax of 5 cents, messages 25 to 50 cents, and admissions beginning at 20 cents.

If the committee, in its judgment, were to feel that that would be the best form of taxation, I am of the opinion that labor would accept it. But group 1 would be preferable to group 3, insofar as the items taxed are concerned.

Then we come to the general mauufacturers sales tax. You see, I am being more frank with you than Senator Wagner was.

Mr. TREADWAY. He was frank enough, not wanting to express any opinion on it. He was absolutely frank.

Senator WAGNER. Gentlemen, he knows more about it than I do. Mr. GREEN. Now we come to the sales tax. Labor has always been, and is uncompromisingly, opposed to the principle of the sales tax. We feel that it is a form of taxation that is unjust in operation and that it bears more heavily upon the masses of the people than it does upon those who are best able to bear the taxation burden.

We are so fundamentally opposed to it that under ordinary circumstances we would object strongly to the imposition of a sales tax, particularly, if this sales tax were to be imposed for the purpose of raising revenue to pay the ordinary running expenses of the Government. You will always find labor before committees and in the halls of Congress opposing the enactment of such legislation as that. Speaking now for myself, because I cannot represent all the views of all our labor representatives, since many of them differ from me, I have arrived at this opinion only after careful thought and study: That is, that if this character of tax is imposed for the purpose of

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raising this money in order to drain the pools of unemployment, and to get people out of their suffering, after 4 years of the very greatest human distress conceivable because of unemployment, and if it is the intention to spend the money thus raised in the towns and in the cities, as I have suggested, in order to tackle the problem of unemployment at the home, then I would be willing, as a representative of labor, to favor the imposition of a sales tax for the purpose of raising that money, but with this proviso, that it should be carefully safeguarded and made to apply only in this emergency, and to automatically end when the purpose of this bill has been served.

Mr. TREADWAY. Right there, let me call your attention to the fact that if this tax is levied, it must carry throughout the length of time required for the amortization of these $3,000,000,000 of bonds.

Mr. GREEN. AS Senator Wagner said, I hope and believe that before that time comes we can tap other sources of revenue. For instance, it looks to me like the eighteenth amendment will be repealed, and, if it is, we can utilize the money that will come from that source to take care of these bonds.

Mr. TREADWAY. Have you any other suggestion to make as to the form of taxation you favor, other than those you have referred to, as submitted by Mr. Douglas on yesterday.

Mr. GREEN. I have not at the moment, but if I can think of any I will be glad to send the suggestions in to you with my recommendation. I have spoken with you frankly, because I am terribly interested in this. I am thinking about the relief of unemployment more than any other thing.

Mr. TREADWAY. You are very much interested in this welfare work in the communities!

Mr. GREEN. Yes, sir.

Mr. TREADWAY. Suppose the committee, in reporting this bill, as I presume it will, found it impracticable to increase the $3,300,000,000, as designated in the bill, would you then favor the removal of this 30 percent clause that you have referred to, in order that some of the $3,300,000,000 would go for welfare work in some of these communities?

Mr. GREEN. Yes, sir; decidedly so. If you cannot increase it to $5,000,000,000, then use the $3,300,000,000 along the lines outlined so far as it can be done, wisely and constructively.

Mr. TREADWAY. Then, you strongly urge the removal of the 30 percent clause, to which you have referred, under any circumstances? Mr. GREEN. Under any circumstances; yes, sir. If it is impossible to arrive at the point where Congress will make the grant outright to the communities, then change that 30 percent, making it 50 percent or 75 percent, or go as far as you can go to help the communities strike at the problem of unemployment at home. There is one advantage in a sales tax: If a sales tax is imposed, with proper exemptions-I forgot to say that before the money would be paid by the community. As for exemptions, I think an exemption of medicine should be made, and also certain lines of foodstuffs which are generally used. Now, as I have said, if a sales tax is imposed, then everybody is paying the bill, are they not?

Mr. TREADWAY. Yes.