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 something
 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 factfinding
 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 Washington
 in order to create on any pretext and for any reason an additional
 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, striking
 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 indorsed
 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 moment
 I include the distinguished Senator from New York, although I