Unemployment in the United States

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1828236179

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-226169

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Unemployment in the United States

Place of publication:: Washington

Publisher:: United States, Government Printing Office

Year of publication:: 1930

Scope:: II, 193 Seiten

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Statement of Thomas F. Cadwalader, representing the Sentinels of the Republic, Baltimore, MD.

Collection:: Economics Books

138 UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE UNITED STATES And yet, what is the purpose of these words, “Uniform standards and policies” unless it is to mean not necessarily that thing but some- thing of the same kind? Now, if the State employment agencies find that there is a shortage of work, as Miss Perkins might say, in Buffalo or Syracuse, N. Y., and that there are plenty of technical workers in that particular trade to be had across the line in Connecticut or in New Jersey, and that she gets the information of that in due time from some Federal fact- finding agency, there is nothing to prevent her, and it would be her duty, I take it, to encourage the industries of her own State by telling them where they could apply for the hands that they needed, and so on. If she had a condition of unemployment and they were crying for workers somewhere else and she knew it, she could say, “We can not do anything for you in New York; but here, go overinto Jersey, or into Massachusetts, and you can get employment.” That is all that an employment agency really can do, and that is all that the Federal Government should ever undertake to do in a matter of this kind. Now, then, why do I say that? That brings us to the meat of the constitutional objection to this sort of legislation. It is the rooted desire of some people in this country to make one ironclad rule to govern a nation of 120,000,000, scattered over a continent; and it even includes Hawaii and Alaska or Porto Rico—I forget which—in this bill. You can not have local differences, according to that philosophy. That was not the philosophy of the founders of our Constitution. It was not the philosophy of the American people until very recent times. I do not believe, with due respect, that it is the-philosophy of the American people to-day. I think when they have a chance they show pretty plainly that they disagree with that sort of thing. It is the philosophy of a good many persons who come here to Wash- ington in order to create on any pretext and for any reason an addi- tional bureau and give rise to the employment of additional persons on the Government pay roll to carry out some particular scheme that may sound as if it would do some good. They always come to you—and I notice they did yesterday, and every hearing that I have taken part for this organization, and I have taken part in a good many, some before your own committee, as the chairman and other members will well remember. To digress a moment, I think my first appearance before your committee was in opposition to the child labor amendment. I was with the insignificant minority apparently on that day. You may not remember my remarks, but you may probably remember the remarks of my very able friend, Mr. Rolls, of Baltimore, who made one of the most, strik- ing and impressive attacks on that sort of measure that I have ever heard. The Congress of the United States by a two-thirds vote submitted that measure, and all three presidential candidates in- dorsed it, and it looked as if it was going through without anv doubt at all until 40 States out of 48 turned it down. It does not sound to me as if the American people, the real American people, had departed quite so far as some of us seem to think from the standards of their fathers. But I was going to say that these propagandists—and for the mo- ment I include the distinguished Senator from New York, although I

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