148 UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE UNITED STATES 
pli Cooke. Yes, they do; because some of our railroad offices and 
other—— 
Mr. MicueNER. The reason I am asking these questions is because 
it is all new to me. I have not taken any position here and I want to 
understand if there is any fight here between the trade unions and the 
open shop folks. If there is, just let us be frank about it. 
Miss Cooke. We take no stand in that matter; none of our members 
are what is termed strike-breaking agencies and, in fact, I do not 
bel’eve there are many agencies in the country to-day that engage in 
that special kind of work, that is, fee-charging agencies. There are 
agencies set up and maintained for that special purpose. 
Mr. MicHENER. And if this legislation became a law, it would 
then put out of commission any of these agencies to which you have 
referred? 
Miss Cooke. It places in prejudiced hands blanket authority to 
make rules and regulation which would, in fact, be so arbitrary that 
we could not exist, with the possibility of elimination through direct 
legislation—— 
Mr. Micaener. What would happen in a case like this: Suppose 
there were a coal field, for instance, in Illinois, highly organized and 
there was a coal field in West Virginia that was not organized and 
the conditions were such in the West that they needed more fuel, 
needed more men for the coal to be mined from the organized field, 
and they notified your employment bureau they needed 500 men in 
this mine and you had on your list 500 men from the nonunion mine 
in West Virginia, would you send the nonunion miners on to work 
with the union miners in Illinois? 
Miss CooxE. Assuming that I conducted an agency or any of our 
members conducted an agency serving miners, if I assume that to 
be the case, I will answer your question. I would look into the matter 
pretty thoroughly, because I think it is generally understood, although 
I am not speaking with authority—a representative of the federation 
can best answer that question—I think it is generally understood 
that the men who come from one State would have pretty hard 
sledding to get a job in the other State, if the American Federation 
branch in that State did not see fit to let those men go to work. ‘Now 
I want this to be kept in mind: The fee-charging agency charges the 
employee; it is consequently necessary to consider the employee's 
interest first. We can not effectively serve one without efficiently 
serving the other. 
Mr. MicueNER. I appreciate that. I do not want to go into that, 
but throughout this hearing this thing has occurred to me: Here is a 
town, for instance, or a locality, where they specialize in a certain 
line of industry, manufacturing, for instance where they might use 
tool makers, highly skilled labor, the best paid labor in the country 
to-day. Now this might be an open-shop territory. In another part 
of the country, engaged in the same line of industry, that territory 
might be highly organized. Under existing conditions, it is im-~ 
possible for the man who does not belong to the organization to be 
employed, where the organization controls, and possibly in some other 
cases vice versa. Now if we adopted this legislation and there was 
a shortage of labor in one locality and a surplusage in the other and 
the question of organized labor comes in, what is going to happen? 
Are we going to be able to. make the law function and to transport this