exhausted all those rights that he has, he is then permitted to go into a court of law to determine that.

Mr. MCCANN. I think that answers the question. The only concern that I have from reading your minutes is that it seems to me there is a terrific power exercised over the economic life of your members. Mr. PAUL. Mr. McCann, could I make a statement?

Mr. MCCANN. I would be glad to have you make a statement, sir. Mr. PAUL. These agents come to us seeking a contract with us under which they will be permitted to book our members. They become employees of our members when they are so engaged. If I want to engage you as my booker, you are working for me; are you not? Mr. MCCANN. That is right.

Mr. PAUL. They are employees of our members. They, of their own volition, come and ask to get a contract with the federation permitting them to gain such employment. Our contract with them expressly permits us to discharge that employee when he does something that we don't like.

Now, this Van Tonkins case, for example, involved the unmerciful exploitation of a group of teen-age musicians who were members of ours, by Van Tonkins. We are not concerned with Mr. Van Tonkins' right to earn a living, except when he earns that living by taking money from our people.

Mr. MCCANN. I think

Mr. PAUL. We believe that we have the fundamental right to do that. Mr. MCCANN. I think you have covered the situation, and I am not challenging the accuracy that the board used in those steps. I was dealing with a more fundamental thing, Mr. Paul, so let's pass it.

Mr. PAUL. Mr. McCann, the fundamental right that you are talking about, we agree with perfectly, except if you think the fundamental right includes the right to steal money from our people and exploit them, then I can't go along.

Mr. MCCANN. I am not under any such misapprehension, sir.

There is another of your January 31 minutes I would like to call your attention to:

On motion, request of the California Medical Association for permission to allow nonprofessional band composed of members to appear at dinner at Bilt-. more Hotel for which professional musicians had been engaged was granted.

I want to ask you, Mr. Paul, do you think it is really an American set-up that a group of men who belong to an organization and who play, cannot play for themselves at their own party without going to your organization and paying them for any such privilege?

Mr. PAUL. Mr. McCann, they do not pay us for the privilege. They wanted a professional orchestra. They quite understood that their orchestra was not sufficiently proficient to entertain them, and in this case, as in many, many cases, people come to us and make requests of that nature which are not necessary in the least, and we grant the request, and occasionally we point out to them that they need not have asked in the first place, but we gladly grant those. This happens hundreds and hundreds of times, that people ask us. You know, we have been built up in the minds of the public as such dictators that people many times ask us for things that we haven't the power to grant and that we have no power to keep them from doing.

1

Mr. MCCANN. Recently, when we were in Chicago, we were informed by, I believe it is, a fraternity of musicians that has existed. for a long time, that they desired to have some music of their own in the Palmer House, and there was not one of them could carry his instrument through the doors without threatening a strike in the hotel, so they had to send their musical instruments in trunks to the banquet room so that the members of the fraternity might entertain themselves with their music. Do you think that sort of thing, assuming it was true, is conducive to good will toward your organization? Mr. PAUL. I don't know anything about the rules of the Chicago local. I don't know that that is a factual thing, and so far as your question as to whether such procedure, if it were true, is conducive to good will, it is probably obvious that that would not create good will for any organization.

Mr. MCCANN. Well, carrying on with the notes that I have found here, which I thought would be of interest just as matters of importance to your organization, I would like to read another thing. Now, I notice that in the minutes of February 28, 1947, there is this statement:

After discussion it was ordered that radio negotiations be continued on the basis of an 181⁄2 percent increase for staff orchestras, plus 2 weeks' vacation with pay, and on the basis of a 33% percent for all commercial programs, and that all advertising agencies be notified that said increase will be retroactive to March 1, 1947.

As I read that, sir, it indicates to me, and I want your comment on it, that your board of directors made a decision with respect to what others were to pay, that was in effect an ultimatum, and that there was nothing in that section that I read that indicates a disposition to bargain on any rates of pay, but just a mandate to the employer. Now, have you some comment to. make on that?

Mr. PAUL. Yes; I can make some comment on that. I was a member of our board at the time those negotiations were going on. You are getting a completely erroneous idea from that page in the minute book, because we carried on, for many weeks, a protracted series of negotiations with the broadcasters. This thing was merely a bargaining set-up that we intended to present to them and did present to them. We didn't end up with that thing at all.

Mr. MCCANN. That is what I wanted to know.

Mr. PAUL. Of course, the other side had their idea. They came back with an offer to us at one time of 5 percent, and we bargained. I believe that is what collective bargaining is for.

Mr. MCCANN. What I wanted to get at was just what you explained, whether or not this was a mandate to the employers that the union set up

Mr. PAUL. It was not.

Mr. MCCANN. Or whether it was a bargaining proposal by your union.

Mr. PAUL. It was a bargaining proposal.

Mr. MCCANN. As I stated to you, I am rather favorably impressed by the minutes.

Mr. PAUL. Thank you, sir.

Mr. MCCANN. And I am trying to get an interpretation on matters that I feel are of interest.

Now, here is something that I wonder if this is the situation with respect to Earl Carroll, for example. On the date of March 7, 1947, it says:

Contracts as presented by the vice president's office were examined and, on motion, approved.

Now, by that do you mean, for example, the letter that was written to Mr. Earl Carroll setting the rates, or are you talking about actual

contracts?

Mr. PAUL. No; those are actual contracts. I will tell you what the procedure is for that. All the booking agents in town, operating in this jurisdiction, and some of them are very large, are required to send a copy of the contract covering any engagement to the board for this purpose, that we can examine it and see whether the scale is being paid and whether the proper working conditions are embodied in those contracts, and they come into the vice president's office, and the assistant's to the president just merely check the contract over to see that the total amount mentioned in it is sufficient to cover the scale for the engagement and that there are no riders attached to the contract which conflict with our rules or which would operate to nullify the contract or nullify the interests of our members; then he writes an O. K. on that and it is brought in to the board by him, simply because our bylaws require us to approve those contracts. If the scale is right, we don't even examine them any more and we just approve them automatically. Mr. MCCANN. I notice that this letter to Mr. Carroll was signed by the vice president and by Mr. Wallace, and I wondered whether you considered that in the category of a contract.

Mr. PAUL. No; that was not a contract, but the offer of a contract. Mr. MCCANN. Now, let me ask you this: I think that our committee has been rather deeply concerned over the American Federation of Musicians having restricted the activities of churches and schools. You are probably aware of that fact. I am calling your attention to a minute of March 7, 1947, which reads:

On motion it was ordered that Dr. Merkley of the board of education be notified that, effective 4 weeks from this date, that a special scale which he has been allowed for school dances will be rescinded and from that date on the regular union scale must apply.

Now, will you explain if you know anything about that particular school situation?

Mr. PAUL. Yes; I know all about it.

Mr. MCCANN. Tell us about it.

Mr. PAUL. Dr. Merkley, who is an employee of the board of education in this city, has charge of school dances, playground activities, school playground activity—I don't know the title of his exact capacity -appeared before our board several months prior to this and explained to us that in many of the outlying sections in the poorer districts of the city that the kids didn't have money enough to have dances, but, if we would give him a reduction in scale, he would be able to put on dances that would help keep those kids off the street and combat juvenile delinquency. We were heartily in favor of that and made such a scale and it was in effect for quite some time.

Now, the reason this thing came up was because our members—our own members who worked those engagements-I believe the scale was $2 less than our casual engagements-started giving us a bad time for

having them work under scale, and so many of them made so much noise about it that we withdrew it, but I must tell you that after we withdrew that scale we investigated further and decided that it was a very worthy thing and we restored that scale to Dr. Markeley. Mr. MCCANN. Thank you very much.

Now we will look into another one of these subjects. I notice in the minutes of March 14, 1947—

Request from Mount Sinai Hospital and Clinic for gratis music at dinner dance March 16, proceeds to go to maintenance fund of institution, was denied. Request

for donation of band for benefit dance April 6, to be held by Mount Sinai Hospital and Histradut, was denied.

Will you explain to me why that was denied?

Mr. PAUL. You see, our business is the playing of music for profit. That is the way we make our livelihood. There are very, very many charitable enterprises in this city, as there are in all cities in America. People continually ask our members to perform for charity for nothing, and our members are permitted many times to perform for these charitable drives for nothing, but it must be very obvious to the committee that, by the very nature of our business, if we were to embark upon the business of granting each request for free music that comes before us from a charitable enterprise, all of our members would be busy keeping them and would not have time to make a living. I want to point out to you that in every drive of national scope-for instance, the current cancer drive, the infantile paralysis drive; all those drives, the community chest drive-we invariably furnish one large orchestra for such charitable engagements, and we pay those people out of our treasWe pay our people for that and in many instances it amounts to a very generous contribution.

ury.

Mr. MCCANN. Is that paid from your individual local by your individual local treasurer?

Mr. PAUL. Our local treasurer.

Mr. MCCANN. Is it paid from the fund that Petrillo has received from the recording companies?

Mr. PAUL. No; I am referring to our local treasurer. That other fund, if you care for a statement on that, is used wholly to furnish music for hospitals for wounded veterans.

Mr. MCCANN. Now, here is a note on March 28, 1947, and I think that it finishes as much reading as I have had time to do since I left you, in which it says:

Discussion with Elmer Hubbard.

I thought he died some time ago. I guess this is another one.
Mr. PAUL. That is Elbert Hubbard you are referring to.

Mr. MCCANN. That is right. This guy is different.

Re Earl Carroll situation at Sacramento.

Would you mind telling me what that was about?

Mr. PAUL. Yes, sir; I will tell you about that.

Mr. McCANN. I would like to hear it.

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Carroll had appeared before a legislative committee in Sacramento in support of a bill-I have forgotten the number-I believe it was called, in popular parlance, the Davis bill. It was a bill designed to restrict our activities in certain ways, which we felt was not good for our organization.

We sent Mr. Hubbard and certain of our other representatives to Sacramento to appear before the committee, to present our side of the case, the same as we are trying to present our side of the case here. It was the same thing.

Mr. MCCANN. Then I notice the next sentence says

President Wallace made telephone call to Artie Samish making appointment for special hearing with Mr. Hubbard in order to present our problem to him more fully. On motion, expense money was allowed to Mr. Hubbard in the amount of $300.

I imagine he was just doing a bit of lobbying for your organization against this bill.

Mr. PAUL. That is exactly right. I believe that is right. There isn't anything wrong with that, is there?

Mr. MCCANN. There is no objection on the part of our committee to lobbying; we have a few of them in Washington. I was interested in the fact you commented on Earl Carroll there. I wanted to see what relation there was.

Mr. PAUL. He was lobbying on the other side of the fence.

Mr. MCCANN. I just want to make a record at this time, Mr. Chairman, of a clause or a portion of the constitution and bylaws of local No. 47, A. F. of M., section 4 (a) of article IV, entitled "Contracts, Grievances, and Claims." It reads as follows:

Every contract between a member and a nonmember should be written and in triplicate, one of which must be filed with the recording secretary within 48 hours after said contract has been executed. All such contracts, to be considered valid, must be approved by the board of directors. A contract so approved shall be listed on the bulletin board and no member shall solicit or accept the engagement under contract until 2 weeks prior to the termination of the period contracted. Any contractor failing to file his contract, as herein provided, shall be fined not less than $10 or more than $500 and lose the protection of the association with regard to said contract.

That would seem to modify slightly your testimony a few moments ago.

Mr. PAUL. I don't believe so.

Mr. MCCANN. You explain it to me, if it doesn't.

Mr. PAUL. The language of that bylaw says they should be filed.
It isn't made mandatory. The reason for that is this-
Mr. MCCANN. It says:

All such contracts, to be considered valid, must be approved.
Mr. PAUL. Will you let me explain this?

Mr. MCCANN. Certainly; take your time.

Mr. PAUL. The opening sentence of it says those contracts should be made in triplicate and filed with the union. And then it goes on to say they will only be considered valid if they are approved.

The reason for that is this: From time to time in the past, sometimes even in the recent past, members, either through ignorance or willfully, have made contracts that they have not filed with the union. They have worked under those contracts for a period of time, and then something will go wrong with the contract; they won't get paid under it and then they come to the board of directors and to the union and want us to enforce a contract we have never seen. That is the reason for that. We have hundreds and hundreds of members employed who have no contracts of any kind except an oral agreement with the boss; he agrees to hire them and pay them union