1,355 men; 20 to 21 hours, 751 men; 21 to 22 hours, 392 men; 22 to 23 hours, 255 men; 23 to 24 hours, 131 men; 25 to 26 hours, 38 men; 26 to 27 hours, 24 men; 27 to 28 hours, 27 men; 28 to 29 hours, 3 men; 29 to 30 hours, 5 men; 30 to 31 hours, 7 men; 31 to 32 hours, 12 men; 32 to 33 hours, 4 men; and there is 37 to 40 hours, 3 men; a total of 14,307 cases. That is for the year ending June 30, 1913.

Where men have worked excess hours, such as indicated here, I maintain that they ought not to handle telephone orders for their trains.

Mr. Cullop: Does that mean continuous hours of service with no intermission at all? Mr. Perham: The heading for that table that I read is, "Inclusive periods of continuous service in hours for trainmen."

Mr. Cullop: Is that only occasional with the same individuals, or is it for any considerable consecutive period?

Mr. Perham: This is for the year, andMr. Stevens: Those are emergency cases, I suppose, where they run over 16 hours and 16 to 30 hours?

Mr. Perham: Yes; those are in excess of the 16-hour period mentioned in the statute. Mr. Esch. It includes all employes, does it not?

Mr. Perham: Those in the train and engine service; not the telegraph operators. The telegraph operator comes under a different table.

Mr. Esch: You gave that to us this morning?

Mr. Perham: Yes; you have those fig

ures.

There is one more part of the argument that I should like to be able to meet, but which I am not, and that is in regard to certain suits where it has been decided that flagmen and switchmen came under the nine-hour proviso of the Hours-of-Service Law. There was a case last year in Kansas City, Mo., in which the Kansas City Terminal Co. was defendant, and it was pretty clear that two switchmen who were engaged in telephoning and throwing switches and directing the movement of trains by hand signals did come under the present Hours-of-Service Law. In another case, in Cleveland, Ohio, in which the Big Four was

defendant, the United States District Court decided there that switchmen engaged in the movement of trains by the use of telephonic circuit, namely, a telephone, didcome under the nine-hour proviso. I will endeavor to obtain copies of the court's decisions in those two cases, so that you may understand precisely the court's attitude in regard to that particular phase of this question.

In regard to an assertion made, I believe, by the last witness about the number of men-those gentlemen who were on this committee at the original hearing in 1907 may remember that that was one of the chief objections to the Hours-of-Service Law, that the men could not be supplied, and that the organization which I represent was engaged in minimizing the number of men who might learn telegraphing. stated at that time that there were 8,000 men eager to get employment on the railroads at good wages. I make the same assertion now.

I

Wages are gradually increasing, it is true, but they have not reached that stage yet where they would be very attractive to a man who was able to make a living at some other business. At the present moment my organization is supporting about forty telegraphers in the city of St. Louis who are looking for

job.

I am very glad to hear that Mr. Selden, of the Baltimore & Ohio, needs men. I will be able to send him a few. The telegraph profession has been ridden to death by low wages and bad conditions. And a great number, many thousands of men, have quit the business to go into other lines where they can get more desirable conditions and perhaps better remuneration. That is the reason why we are seeking to get an eighthour day so as to retain the best men in the service.

I am quite sure if this committee should make a favorable report upon this bill and it should eventually become a law, the railroads will come here in a few years' time and say it is just exactly the thing that they asked for.

I thank you for your patience.

(Thereupon the committee adjourned until Wednesday, January 28, 1914, at 10:00 o'clock a. m.)

THE END.

Congressman Keating, chairman of the House Labor Group, asks Congress to increase the wages of all federal employes.

The proposed increases range from $300 a year for workers receiving less than $1,200 a year, to $60 increases between $1,800 and $2,000. Increases for per diem workers are as follows: $2 a day or less, $1 a day; between $2 and $2.50, 80 cents; between $2.50 and $3, 60 cents; between $3 and $3.50, 40 cents; between $3.50 and $4, 20 cents.

Senator Smith, of Michigan, roundly assailed the Fuel Administration.

"A theoretical coal dictator," was the way he described Administrator Garfield, without naming him.

Mr. Smith declared children had died of cold and exposure, and that it was a disgrace. He denounced putting inexperienced men in charge of the fuel supply, and declared that much slate was being sold in coal, and that there was no high grade inspection.

Centering its attention on the urgent need of providing a system of highways adequate to the transportation requirements of the country, in war and peace, the fifteenth annual convention of the American Road Builders' Association, will be held in St. Louis, February 4th to 7th. Highway construction has received a serious setback the past season, owing to the shortage and high cost of labor and the extreme difficulty of securing transportation of roadbuilding materials.

That women should work in arsenals and inspect government uniforms, thus releasing men in these occupations. for war service, is the suggestion offered yesterday by Mrs. Frances C. Axtell, of the United Employes' Compensation Commission. She is the only woman ever named by a President for such a federal commission.

Besides these occupations Mrs. Axtell believes that women could make rope and twine and also smaller arms. In fact, she sees no limit to woman's ability to perform work now being done by men.

Labor leaders received a call of 10,000,000 working women throughout the country to organize to obtain equal wages with men It was signed by Ethel M. Smith, of Washington, chairman of the Suffrage Committee on Protection of Women's Labor in War Time.

The call pointed out that women in war work compete with men at lower wages, and even in some cases act as strikebreakers. It urged that in fairness to the men, women should not undercut male workers.

President Wilson's attention has been called to the fact that the Department of Agriculture is employing girls in large numbers at a salary much below the standard living wages, as recognized by the laws of various States and by labor organizations. These girls are paid $25 a month by the stretching of an old law permitting the department temporarily to appoint "student assistants"-young men and women who wanted to continue their scientific studies during college vacation periods.

These girls, however, are acting as clerks, or "skilled laborers," and regularly shouldering a large part of the greatly increasing work of the department.

There is ample labor to meet war demands on the farm if properly distributed and efficiently employed, said E. V. Wilcox, of the Farm Management Bureau, Department of Agriculture, in an address in Philadelphia.

"There are more than 5,000,000 boys in the United States between the ages of 16 and 21 years, and a constantly increasing number of women seeking and obtaining employment on the farm, either at outdoor work or as helpers for farmers' wives. This constitutes a force which may be depended upon to render efficient service in the event of a shortage of farm help."

The Victory Loan in Canada, from latest returns, bids fair to break all records in one respect. It comes nearer to the ideal of counting a subscriber for every family unit than any other loan yet placed by any nation, so far as information is obtainable.