tion with others, desires to work. In this sense, it means the preservation of a valuable freedom. Thus, a picket line which prevents a workman from passing through a factory gate may be said to deny to the workman the right to work.

It may mean that job seekers have the legal right to compel certain persons or groups to employ them. In this sense, those designated by law as having the obligation to employ the job seekers, are denied the right not to employ.

It is this second definition which applies in the original draft of H. R. 2202, in the statement:

All Americans, able to work and seeking work, have the right to useful, remunerative, regular, and full-time employment.

In the revised draft, the phrase "right to employment” has been replaced with the phrase "right to an opportunity for employment." The duty or obligation correlative to this so-called right to work might be stated like this:

Certain Americans are under the legal obligation to furnish all job seekers useful, remunerative, regular, and full-time employment.

If Congress passes and implements H. R. 2202, the legal obligation to employ would be assumed by the Federal taxpayers. To compel a person, against his will, to employ a job seeker, would be unjust and tyrannical. This injustice and tyranny is not obviated by distributing this obligation over all the Federal taxpayers. It is only when the employer would suffer loss by hiring more workmen that it is necessary to compel him to hire by the coercive power of the law. This coercive employment would result in the transfer of property from the employer to the employee.

We see then, that the right to work as defined under "B" is in conflict with the right to property. We can have one of these rights-but we cannot have both. The right to property is simply the right of the individual to own, possess, and use that which he has produced or legitimately acquired. But the "right to work" as contemplated by H. R. 2202 requires the Government to take property from the owners and give this property to workmen, so that the workmen can produce something that neither the public, employees, nor the taxpayers will buy of their own free will. Such right to work necessitates an impairment of the right to property.

Communists attack the right of property. They advocate taking property from those who produced it and giving this property to those who did not produce it.

History confirms our belief that the right to work is communistic doctrine. The Communist Manifesto of 1847, proposed

The equal liability of all to labor. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

The French Socialist, Considerant, said a century ago:

Very well, let an industrial society, which has appropriated the land, and taken away from man the power of exercising freely and at will his four natural rights, let this society cede to the individual, in compensation for those rights of which it has despoiled him, the right to employment. On this principle, rightly understood and applied, the individual has no longer any reason to complain.

The condition sine qua non, then, of the legitimacy of property is, that society should concede to the proletaire-the man who has no property-the right to employment; and, in exchange for a given exertion of activity, assure him of

means of subsistence, at least as adequate as such exercise could have procured him in the primitive state.

In 1848, the French Communists passed a right to work law and it worked so badly that it was repealed in about 6 months. The Russian Communists have a right to work article in their constitution of 1936, which reads as follows:

Citizens of the USSR have the right to toil, that is the right to receive guaranteed work with payment for their toil in accordance with its quantity and quality. The right to toil is insured by the Socialist organization of national economy, by the increasing growth of the productive forces of Soviet society, the elimination of the possibility of economic crises and the liquidation of unemployment.

We do not say that all who favor a right to work law are Communists, but we do say that for at least a century, Communists generally have advocated a right to work law. The coercive transfer of property required to implement H. R. 2202 makes wealth and income depend on the arbitrary action of the State and is the very essense of communism.

It is interesting to note that the principal advocate of full employment laws in Britain, Sir William Beveridge, is a Socialist who does not believe in private property. He says, in his book on full employ

ment:

The list of essential liberties given above does not include liberty of a private citizen to own means of production and to employ other citizens in operating them at a wage. But if it should be shown that abolition of private property in the means of production was necessary for full employment, this abolition would have to be undertaken.

We do not believe that we should take the first steps in a program which might eventually compel all workmen to work for the Government. We do not believe that the majority of workmen are Socialists or Communists.

What effects, desirable and undesirable, would result from the enactment of this bill? As the bill stands, the effects would be negligible. The President would prepare some estimates of prospective unemployment in the next fiscal year and a suggested program of Federal expenditures to eliminate the expected unemployment. A joint committee on the national budget would study the President's estimates and program and make a report to the Senate and House of Representatives not later than April 1. After the estimates and reports have been filed, the bill requires no further action. Congress is under no obligation to follow the suggested program or to make the suggested appropriations. The mountain has labored and brought forth a mouse. The law which was hailed to bring full employment produces nothing but reports and estimates.

What will workmen think when they discover that after all the fanfare about full employment, all the bill calls for is estimates, reports, and suggestions?

Mr. BENDER. Do you think that constitutes an answer to my question? Mr. KANE. It is the best answer I can give you. I always think that a studied-out, carefully conceived answer is better than thinking out loud.

Mr. HOFFMAN. I think that is something which we can all agree upon. In this we come back directly to the fact that it is the taxpayers'

money, and the Government simply coerces the taxpayer to pay the money in, and then they spend it for these things. Mr. KANE. He certainly has to pay it that way.

The CHAIRMAN. You may proceed now, Mr. Kane.

Mr. KANE. I would just like to suggest in connection with the social security laws, that if we are going to put these into effect, then we can dispense with them. Also, it seems to me that we should repeal unemployment compensation.

The CHAIRMAN. If we do that I do not think that we can repeal unemployment compensation because we will have to build up the funds to pay for these Federal work projects, so I think it would be necessary to transfer the unemployment compensation withholdings into our earmarked funds to pay these people who are going to work on Federal projects.

Mr. RICH. It would simply be a tax bill.

Mr. KANE. I do not think the social-security bill is much more than a tax bill, and at the time it was passed it was the greatest tax undertaking that had ever been heard of in the history of civilization if it had gone through on its projected percentages of increase every year, it would have piled up $49,000,000,000 in 71⁄2 years, and the experience has proven that the men who had the wisdom to cut down any such increase on that scale, taking into consideration their proposition that it was unnecessary, has been proven to be correct.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Kane, the Budget Bureau estimates we will have 8,000,000 people unemployed. If we pass this bill it will take $24,000,000,000 to give them jobs, so we will have to tax the people to pay that $24,000,000,000.

Mr. BENDER. Is it your understanding that these 8,000,000 unemployed will be given jobs by the Federal Government?

Mr. KANE. I would say, Mr. Bender, that the duty of Congress is to go along with the bill, and if they are unemployed, it is because private industry cannot employ them.

Mr. BENDER. And your understanding of this bill is having the Federal Government provide 8,000,000 jobs for these people by the Federal Government?

Mr. KANE. Yes; that is correct.

Mr. RICH. For everybody that needs a job.

Mr. KANE. Not everybody that needs a job; everybody that wants a job; not provide them for them that need the job, because there are many people that probably need a job who would not take a job, especially when they do not have to.

Mr. RICH. One of the questions on this, taking into consideration we are now charging 1 percent on social security, the bill was originally to have been in effect by this time 1/2 percent, for each year, but we have continued it at 1 percent. So that the additional 1 percent over and abov the 1-percent tax insisted upon that we collect at that time. by our late President, and if it were not for the great speech of Senator Barkley in our Senate when the Senate was chastised for not putting that into effect, as the taxes were needed, was that we needed money to pay for other things and Senator Barkley said it would be dishonest for the money so collected to be used for paying expenses of the Government rather than putting in the reserve for this particular fund.

Mr. KANE. He certainly did, Mr. Rich, and he was the first man

that publicly came out and demanded that we use funds accumulated for social security for no other purpose than the one for which they had been collected.

Mr. WHITTINGTON. In that connection, as I understand it, you represent the business organizations of Detroit, Mich. With respect to the increase of unemployment compensation, and with respect to this full employment bill, I would like for you to state for the record whether or not from your observation and in your opinion the measure here such as the one pending would be inclined to encourage people not to work if they were not inclined to work at present wages, and want higher wages; is that your observation in your area?

Mr. KANE. That certainly is, because we have examples of it multiplied many times over daily of people who are now drawing compensation checks from the unemployment funds of the State of Michigan, because they have been informed that they were unemployed. They have been informed that they have a great many millions of dollars in the fund there, and they are not working at all, when there are places trying to employ them, but they will not accept the employment because they have been paid what we will term under the very broad term of "war wages," and they do not want to take less money. So they will not accept any job because they are having a paid vacation.

Mr. WHITTINGTON. Would you or would you not be able to state that the passage of this bill at this time would make matters, bad matters in your area, worse by leading those people out there to believe that if they did not accept work that might be available, then the Government would provide work for them?

Mr. KANE. Yes; I would say that so very emphatically, that would be correct.

Mr. WHITTINGTON. That would be a fair statement with respect to the Detroit area?

Mr. KANE. Yes; that would be true as to the Detroit area.

Mr. WHITTINGTON. As I understand it, you believe that passage of either the House or Senate bill that we have under consideration instead of promoting full employment or reasonably stabilized employment would result in further unemployment?

Mr. KANE. I do say so because of the fact that right now there is a fat pocketbook with the wage earner, and it naturally will be depleted, and then it will have to be replaced by wages of some sort, no matter whether they are satisfactory or not, but he has made certain calculations and he has said, "Well, I will not bother about going back to work for a good many weeks because I can live on $25 a week that I can get because of the unemployment compensation, and I am going to sell some bonds, and I am not going to stay here for this winter anyhow." So he has very little moral stamina, his moral character has deteriorated. He has no longer the attitude of the American that we are so proud of, that worked so hard and that felt that work is the most dignified occupation of man. His thought is that when you cannot get what you want you take what you can get.

Mr. WHITTINGTON. How do you work this under the laws of Michigan? Under the laws of Michigan is your unemployment compensation paid to workers that cannot obtain jobs?

Mr. KANE. There is nothing done along that line, there is no development of that point to final determination. The present procedure

consists of making an application to their unemployment commission, through their branch offices, and making the statement that he is unemployed and therefore is entitled to the benefits as provided under the act. That is what they follow and they do not follow it any further. Mr. WHITTINGTON. Is not that a failure on the part of your State out there?

Mr. KANE. I think it is in the field of general psychology that exists on the part of the people that they are getting paid for doing nothing. Mr. WHITTINGTON. Your State law provides that they shall not get paid if they can get reemployment?

Mr. KANE. I do not know whether I am answering your question or not, but I want to, and I am not trying to be evasive, Mr. Whittington, but I will merely say that when these applications are made on the part of these men, to draw remuneration provided for under the unemployment laws of the State, they simply state that they are unemployed and they get the money.

Mr. RICH. May I say here to my colleague from Mississippi that in Pennsylvania this incident happened rather recently. Some of the members of the CIO came down to visit me, and they were employed in an aviation factory. I asked them why they could not get work and they said they could not get jobs except for 35 cents to 40 cents an hour, and I did not believe that. I tried to find out what the facts were. I found out that as a matter of fact they could get jobs at 75 cents an hour to $1 an hour, so they could be drawing $35 a week or $40 a week, and they would be drawing this money if they had taken the work, but they would not take these jobs, and they preferred to stay on unemployment compensation at $18 a week, they would rather take that and do nothing than be drawing the wages of $40 a week that they could get, by working but they did not want to be reduced from the wages that they formerly got in aviation.

I was not satisfied with this and the other day I received a letter which said, to the effect that in talking with one of their customers a few days ago who hires about 60 people, and who is located in my district, he advises that he had 14 individuals pressing him to be fired. He said that they were deliberately refusing to do any work and insisting on being fired, and they plainly stated that they wanted to go unemployment relief. They are making the complaint that they want to go on unemployment relief, and they really do not want to do any work at all.

on

Mr. WHITTINGTON. I was wondering if we could have the State statutes provide that they have follow-up people to investigate the system, and statements of these workers that they are unemployed, without being able to obtain employment.

Mr. KANE. I would like to make this comment in connection with that Mr. Whittington, that in essence I am an employer, I am an executive of our company, and I have some discretion as to personnel. We have tried to employ people who are presumably out of work, otherwise they would not come in and apply for work. I think it is reasonable to assume that they are fully aware of the facts, and these individuals are drawing unemployment compensation while they are out of work, and after an examination of them and after we have discussed the work that has got to be done, and the hours to be put in and the wages to be paid, they turn down the job.