ment:
WASHINGTON. — On President
Roosevelt's list of ‘must’ legisla-
tion a year or so ago was a bill
that, when it eventually became a
law, was called the “Fair Labor
Standards Act of 1938.” It was made
to apply to all business crossing
state lines, or to products thus man-
ufactured that went into channels of
trade outside of the state where they
were produced. It set certain rates
of minimum pay and established a
limitation on the number of hours
workers could continue on the job.
Everyone refers to it now as the
wages and hours law.
At the time of the appointment of
Elmer F. Andrews, as wages and
hours administrator, I discussed the
potential success or failure that lay
ahead for such a law. In looking
over my files of the time, I found
that I wrote, concerning the law,
that “Mr. Andrews can either make
or break it” by the policies he
adopts and the interpretations he
makes of the law's provisions. 1
said also that he must use great
care in the selection of subordina
All of which leads into discussion
of a situation that has isen re-
specting application of the law to
several industries. Generally, too,
it forces a conclusion that here is
just another law under which gov-
ernment is interfering in the normal
living of people. As usual, the peo-
ple are the victims of too much gov-
ernment,
While there are several
industry about which I want to
in this analysis, the most
misgovernment and
aging result, as far as I can see, is
the application of the wages and
hours law to the little known, but
widely used, small independent tele-
phone companies. I am re ferring
to that type of telephone company
which serves the small towns and
villages and the farmers who live
around those small, yet very essen-
tial, trading centers.
Nearly 30,000 Independent
Telephone Companies in U. S.
When I heard that some
subordinates in Mr. Andrews’ agen-
cy were determined to apply the
provisions of the wages and hours
law to the independent telephone, I
began to dig around for information
about them. I am acquai nted with
those units of I know what
it is to turn on the big
box that hangs on the wall in order
to ring a neighbor on a party line;
it is an unfamiliar fact either
to hear of how the switchboard, lo-
cated in somebody's home in the
Village, » Closes down at nine o'clock
at ni , and no one is s
ring un is a case o sickness
or other emergency.
I was s
1ze that ti
companies in the United S
was I prepared to understand,
once, that there are appr
4.100.000 “‘st »
to those companies,
average fami as five, we
at the conclusion obviously
nearly 21,000,000 persons
upon that type of service.
The wages and nours administra-
tion does not propose to apply the
law to all of these; it eliminated
nore than half of the total, but a
bunch of the smart boys under Mr.
Andrews have decided the law
should apply to 12,461 such compa-
nies. They decided the law can be
applied, even though the companies
are entirely within the confines of
a county, in most instances, because
the little switchboards are able to
make a connection with “long dis-
tance’ companies. It may not hap-
pen more than five times a month,
but the little company is doing “‘in-
terstate’’ business. Hence, your Un-
cle Sam, acting through the bureau-
crats, proposes to tell the local com-
panies they must pay the wages
designated by the federal law and
limit the hours of those who earn
their living that way,
tes.
ar
lines of
write
the most
‘
f service
3 4
the crank
not
less it
STs, however, to real-
ere are nearly 30,000 such
tes
at
ci Tv
oximately
ations’' or
arrive
that
depend
Would Force Companies to
Increase Their Rates
Now, I am thoroughly familiar
with the limitation of opportunities
of employment for women and girls
in the small towns. I know that the
small telephone companies employ
them as operators, or they employ
somebody not physically able to do
other types of work. The pay is
small, but it provides a comfortable
living in most cases. Perhaps, the
pay ought to be higher, but if the
pay is higher, the town and country
subscribers will have to pay more.
The reason those companies succeed
and render the valuable service that
is rendered is because they hold
down expenses and provide service
at a dollar, or around that figure,
per month. One realizes better what
that rate means when a comparison
is offered of the five or six dollars
per month charged in cities,
Should the smart boys in the
wages and hours administration get
away with their program, it would
mean that a small exchange would
have to increase the pay for opera-
tors. The minimum for operators
would be $2,190 a year instead of
whatever rate now is paid; and it
would mean, moreover, that there
would have to be three or four op-
erators. That is to say, no operator
could work more than 42 hours per
week—a seven-hour day of a six-
day week. And what would that
mean? Every one of those compa-
nies would be forced to collect three
or four times as much per month
from the subscribers, or close down
the system.
Then, to show how widespread the
effect would be, let me cite the num-
ber of exchanges in a few states:
Iowa, 802; Illinois, 917; Alabama,
167; Arkansas, 299, Indiana, 695;
Maine, 128; Michigan, 351; Minne-
sota, 578; Missouri, 776, and Texas,
898. It is to be remembered that
these are purely local companies.
Whatever number of exchanges are
operated in those states by the Bell
Telephone company are in addition.
But we are not concerned with the
Bell system. That outfit is big
enough to fight its own battles.
Cannot See What They
Are Doing to the Country
Why these smart boys cannot see
what they are doing to the country,
is a ‘ques on which 1 cannot answer,
bor they
are promo ting the 0 rgani zation work
of the C., I. O. which is responsible
for passage of the wages and hours
law. The C. £. O. ily has
demonstrated it does not belong in
f real American organiza-
it it still has political power.
onnection with C. I. O.
traced through the
tains a provi-
ker to sue for
Ba amages "it ol employer (in this
case the telephone company) com-
pels violation of the law by forcing
overtime work.
The pol
certain
agite ae
De
law con
tic
litical phases of the situa-
important because of
the vast number of vo directly
affected. I do not mean to say that
Senator Herring and Representative
Harrington, both of Iowa, have intro-
duced bills to exempt the local com-
panies, from purely political mo-
tives. But I suspect that the political
pressure will cause many members
of the house and the senate to favor
passage of those bills.
I have mentioned heret ofo re how
often the ‘unelected’ officials of the
government-those appointed by the
President or his subordinates—
either have ignored political history
or they know nothing about political
history. The case of the independ-
ent telephone companies is a splen-
did illustration.
Lately, the little independent steel
companies have felt the dead hand
of government through the same
am not informed as to all
but there were
44 eastern independent steel compa-
nies appeared recently before the
propaganda spreading temporary
national economics committee, seek-
ing relief. The independent steel
companies are to the great steel
manufacturers as the little independ-
ent telephone companies are to the
The wages and hours
they told the
national economics committee which
has come to be known as the mo-
nopoly investigation.
Forces Industry Into Spot
Where It Cannot Do Business
If those little fellows have to meet
wages and hours set for them by
Miss Perkins, secretary.of labor, to
whom Mr. Andrews is subordinate,
the steel people say they will go
broke. Or, at least, they charged,
they could get no government con-
tracts because of failure to comply
with the law. Since the government
is spending billions of dollars to
create employment and for general
relief, I can not help wondering why
it wants to force one segment of
industry into a spot where it can
do no business and employ labor.
The whole thing, however, gets
more cockeyed as time gones on.
There seems to be no limit to the
lengths to which bureaucrats, drunk
with power, will go in abusing the
nation. Who was there that did not
express the greatest disgust at the
assinine story which came out of
New York city the other day. I re-
fer to the problem before the New
York state labor board which was
called upon to decide whether a pro-
fessional woman model was fired
because she had been active as a
union organizer or because her hips
were too wide. The woman claimed
she had been fired because she was
trying to organize a union of mod-
els. Her former employers said her
hips were too broad to properly wear
the clothes they wished to display.
While the story is not lacking in
humor, it must be treated serious-
ly because the width of this girl's
hips may yet be a question of na-
tional importance. It is a fact, and
not a witicism, that the national la-
bor relations board may yet be
called upon to measure those hips
and determine, as judges of fashion,
whether she can properly display |
the latest mode of spring apparel.
ters
ntlv
!
© Western Newspaper Union.
Star Dust
* Mickey Sets the Pace
* So Joan Goes Dark
% Directors Who Must In
= By Virginia Vale
ICKEY ROONEY’S brief
stay in New York was a
lesson for older and more ex-
perienced screen stars, who
wilt when they are faced by a
long list of dates with inter-
viewers. Mickey saw folks
from the newspapers and
talked to them. He
books for
dashed about
hearing
of the
to do
drop-
He
theaters,
of fans.
going to
mobs
specially wanted
York) and
he
while in New
for a hockey game.
Mickey is quite a musician, you
He plays the trumpet, trom-
bone, piano and drums. He also
his latest. Recently Mickey and
Deanna Durbin were honored by the
Motion Picture Academy of Arts
and Science ‘‘for their significant
contribution in bringing to the
of youth.”
You'll be seeing him in ‘““Huckle-
berry Finn,”” which he finished be-
MICKEY ROONEY
fore lea aving Hol
vacatic and ‘The
High' is also re
hose Hardy pict
ever, appare
lywood for his brief
Har Ride
ady ase,
for
for
Joan Bennett
looks when
though she
she saw hersel
wore for “Trade
people over the country wrote
to her saying that they preferred
her with dark hair. So she'll don
a wig again for “The Man in the
Iron Mask,” in which
for a leading role
she's
wr
she Winds."
ai
It's a rare director who can re-
sist the temptation to stay out of
his own pictures. Sometimes they
play a hit, but usually they're just
extras in mob scenes. That's what
Cecil B. DeMille did in “The Cru-
sades”; he put on a helmet and
breastplate and whooped it up with
the other extras. He was in one of
the train sequences of “Union Pa-
cifie,”” too. Tay Garnett was rec-
ognized by his friends who looked
quickly at a man who leaned
against a wall in “Trade Winds.”
Henry Koster played a scene in
one of his pictures so that his moth-
er, in Prague, could see him. Wil-
liam Wyler held a glass of punch
during the party sequence in ‘‘Jeze-
bel,” and will be seen in “Wuther-
ing Heights,” in the costume of a
Yorkshire squire, just walking into
the scene and walking off again.
’
Dolores Costello is doing very well
indeed in her journey up the come-
back trail. Before ‘The King of
the Turf” was finished word got
performance as the feminine lead,
opposite Adolphe Menjou.
began to pour in from other stu-
he week after the picture
was finished she signed up for “Out-
side These Walls.”
ance
Now
the movie stars off the air.
gram recently; Twentieth Century-
Ameche to drop that Sunday night
program of which he has been a
feature for so long.
It's reported that Darryl Zanuck,
of Twentieth Century-Fox, started
all this when he heard the first
broadcast of “The Circle.”
anni
OPDS AND ENDS — Andy Devine'’s
new baby boy has been registered for
Culver Military academy, class of 59
. + +» Joan Blondell and Dick Powell are
going to take a vacation in New York,
chiefly to see Joan's sister Gloria, who
is preparing for a radio career . . . Ben
Bernie collects horseshoes—not to bring
him luck, but to remind him of how
lucky he was to escape becoming a
horseshoer in his father's blacksmith
shop . . . Quite ¢ squad of medical aw
héridies was engaged to check up on
pt for that new radio show,
Phe ot he Love of Dr. Susan.”
Western Newspaper Union.
HOW: 0 3EW
by Ruth Youth Spans 3D
contains 48 pages of step-by-step
directions which have helped
thousands of women. If your
want Book 1-—-SEWING, for the
Home Decorator. Order by num-
ber,
book. If you order both books,
copy of the new Rag Rug Leaflet
will be included free. Those who
have both books may secure leaf-
let for 6 cents in postage. Ad-
dress Mrs. Spears, 210 S. Des-
plaines St., Chicago, Ill.
Yonik Phil? -
3. ays: 3
EAR MRS. SPEARS: I have |
both of your books, and |
have made many things from
them that have surprised my fam-
ily. Most women can’t drive a
nail straight, but 1 can do that
better than I can sew. 1 have
been thinking that now with slip-
covers used so much, one could
make a chair out of plain lumber
and cover it. Perhaps you could
publish something like this in the
paper. BP. M.”
Those who are not clever
about rie ng nails, may want to
call on Ds d or Young Son to help
with making simple chair I
have sketched here. “The metal
angles and straps rengthen
the back may be bought at any
hardware along with the
nails and screws. When the chair
is covered in
>
Demagogues Flatter ‘Em
People are patient with
gogues longer than they are
statesmen.
Wish that backbone could be
inculcated as easily as learning.
Gone join the bootjack,
woodshed and the ‘oyster
band wagon
No kind of a vine clings to the
cactus. The cactus attended to
all that.
The Fox Discovered It
dema-
with
80
the
supper’’
to
the
the
LE
to str
store
two tones of chintz |
3 i 3 ag “the Tell 3
with eds Bes ( { back and seat pi ived | Daying the gre Ape § are so a
neovertheloes . .r hilas.
cole ir, ] is rally n eiess a «C } ling Philos
tL 1S esp
or
in the darker
very smart
ful in
ered
Becoming sophisticated is los-
yA one’s gusto | for anything.
spirit of a
makes a man Pp:
lock rather than
a bedr«
in the
om
right
well in the eg " will 5}
|)
' 1 , 4
aiso 100K vent
2
Mrs.
: - No,
Gifts, iN
Spear 5! Beak.
veltios an 2
TIPS 1
Gardeners
Know Your Herbs
ERBS are becoming more
popular each year because
they are easy to grow and help
make everyday dishes more ap-
| petizing and flavorful. Here are
| important facts about the more
important herbs which you can
grow in your backyard garden
Anise—Seeds used to flavor
bread, cake, cookies, candy;
green leaves good flavoring
salad.
Borage—lLeaves and
give unusual tan g to fruit
and are good salad garnish;
soms good cut fdowers.
Caraway—Seeds used to flavor
bread, cake, cookies, cheeses,
baked apples.
Chive
onions,
for
flowers
drinks
blose
s— Young leaves eaten like
or cut up 0 flavor soups
and salads.
Dill—Seeds and leaves used for
| making dill pickles.
| Marjoram—Used for seasoning
poultry dressing : young leaves
good for s« | salads; makes
attrac house
Bage—Ea xcellent in meat
poultry §
tive
and
THE
[4
VBA
rN
INEVER before in our experience has a tire
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Firestone cuameion | Firestone wien speeo
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Only Three-Time Winner Jf
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victory depend on tire
know tire construction ny
that is why they select and buy
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Firestone
LIFE PROTECTOR
the Tire within
a Tire
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Should a blowout
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Valve bolds sufficient
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