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NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS ACT

MONDAY, APRIL 29, 1940

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SPECIAL COMMITTEE INVESTIGATING

THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD,

Washington, D. C.

The committee met at 10:10 o'clock pursuant to adjournment on Saturday, April 27, 1940, in room 362 of the Old House Office Building, Representative Howard Smith, chairman, presiding.

Present: Representatives Smith of Virginia, Abe Murdock of Utah, and Harry N. Routzohn of Ohio.

Mr. Edmund M. Toland, general counsel to the committee.

Mr. Fahy, general counsel to the National Labor Relations Board. The CHAIRMAN. Are you ready?

Mr. TOLAND. Mr. Blankenhorn.

TESTIMONY OF HEBER BLANKENHORN, SPECIAL INVESTIGATOR, NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, WASHINGTON, D. C.

(The witness was duly sworn and testified as follows:)

Mr. TOLAND. Mr. Blankenhorn, will you give the reporter your name, please?

Mr. BLANKENHORN. My name is Heber Blankenhorn.

Mr. TOLAND. Where do you reside, Mr. Blankenhorn?
Mr. BLANKENHORN. Alexandria, Va.

Mr. TOLAND. And what is your present occupation?

Mr. BLANKENHORN. I am an employee of the National Labor Relations Board, with the title of special investigator.

Mr. TOLAND. And how long have you been employed by the National Labor Relations Board?

Mr. BLANKENHORN. I was transferred from the preceding Board and reappointed at the end of August 1935 at the beginning of this Board.

Mr. TOLAND. What is your present compensation?

Mr. BLANKENHORN. Fifty-two hundred.

Mr. TOLAND. What was the compensation you received on July 5, 1935?

Mr. BLANKENHORN. On July 5, 1935? I think forty-eight hundred, wasn't it?

Mr. TOLAND. I thought you might know.

Now will you tell the committee briefly the prior business experience that you had, the schools that you attended, and what profession or business that you were engaged in prior to your appointment to the old National Labor Relations Board, and I suggest that you start from the time you first started school and come down in order.

Mr. ROUTZOHN. Mr. Toland, what did Mr. Blankenhorn say his present position with the Board is?

Mr. TOLAND. Special investigator.

Mr. BLANKENHORN. I was educated at Worcester University, took my A. B. there, my A. M. at Columbia, also with a year abroad. I had two professions, you might say, or two things at which I earned my living, one as a labor researcher and another as a newspaperman. don't know whether or not you want me to give those things that would be considered my qualifications for my present position. Is

that it?

Mr. TOLAND. Yes: I would like to know, briefly, everything that you have done from the time you finished school, particularly, up to and including the time that you were appointed to the old Board.

Mr. BLANKENHORN. After leaving school, I was employed as a newspaperman in New York for 7 years until the interruption of the war. Subsequently I became a member of the Bureau of Industrial Research in New York, leaving newspaper work, as a labor researcher, and was with them for 5 years. I was then employed by a labor newspaper to act as a correspondent abroad, and was abroad for a number of years. Coming back, I became a member of the staff of the N. R. A. for a few weeks, and then was transferred by Senator Wagner to the old National Labor Board, and was in service with each board succeeding that.

Mr. TOLAND. During that period that you have just covered, were you ever connected at all with Brookwood College?

Mr. BLANKENHORN. No.

Mr. TOLAND. Did you ever have any association with Mr. Saposs? Mr. BLANKENHORN. Oh, yes.

Mr. TOLAND. Will you tell the committee about your association with him?

Mr. BLANKENHORN. While I was a member of the Bureau of Industrial Research, I was employed by a church organization, the Inter-Church World Movement, to take charge of the technical work of an industrial commission of inquiry set up by them to investigate industrial conditions in the United States, especially in the steel strike of 1929. Among the field investigators that I had was Dr. Saposs, whom I met then for the first time, and whom I assigned to two things, one was a survey of the state of mind of the foreignborn steel workers in the steel towns. He wrote a report which appears, is printed in the second of two volumes of that Commission's report, entitled "The Mind of the Immigrant Community" which has very often been quoted since as a standard piece of research.

After that, I did not see Dr. Saposs until the time he was employed to carry on an investigation for the Bureau of Labor Statisties into company unions, the foundation of which, or the preliminary study of which I had made for the National Labor Relations Board the preceding year. But I did not know that Dr. Saposs was the man who would head that up.

Mr. TOLAND. Now, isn't it a fact that at the time that you originally were appointed by the Board, the status, or the title of the position was industrial economist, and a subsequent classification at the time you received forty-six hundred, for associate industrial

economist in charge of special investigations, and your later classification was that of special investigator?

Mr. BLANKEN HORN. That is correct.

Mr. TOLAND. I show you these classification sheets, and ask you if you have seen them before, or if they correctly describe your position and the duties that you would perform for the Board.

Mr. BLANKENHORN. I have not seen these before [examining classification sheets]. Yes; that, as I know in general, was the general description.

Mr. TOLAND. I would like to offer in evidence copies of classification sheets found in the personnel file of Mr. Blankenhorn, of the National Labor Relations Board.

(Five classification sheets identified by the witness were received in evidence, and marked "Exhibit 1152," and are printed in the appendix of this volume.)

Mr. TOLAND. Now, you were connected with newspaper work. Would you tell the committee the names of papers that you were connected with in the city of New York, or elsewhere, and also describe to the committee the type of work, reporting work, that you did when you were here as well as abroad?

Mr. BLANKENHORN. I was first with the Evening Sun in New York as a cub reporter, political reporter; then head of the copy desk; then assistant city editor, and acting city editor. I was there for 7 years. Subsequent to that, I was for a short time managing editor of a paper called The New Leader, in New York. Subsequent to that, my reportorial work was in connection-in Europe, you are referring to now-was in connection with a labor paper that is published here in Washington. It is called Labor, and is owned by the railway brotherhoods and the A. F. L. unions. It is edited by an exCongressman, Edward Keating, and in 1924, when I was doing some research that interested him, he asked me to go to England to report the history of the first labor government there. I expected to be gone a few months; he kept me over there for between 4 and 5 years, covering all sorts of international congresses, particularly at the League of Nations, and in addition, political conferences like the Disarmament Conference at Geneva in 1927, the Naval Conference at St. James Palace in 1930, and a great many conferences that involved either the meetings of various labor organizations, or meetings of government bodies like the labor assembly of the League of Nations.

Mr. TOLAND. Were you ever connected with any other papers than the papers you have told us?

Mr. BLANKENHORN. You mean as employed by them or as contributing to them, or what?

Mr. TOLAND. Either or both.

Mr. BLANKEN HORN. Oh, I have contributed to various papers. Mr. TOLAND. Were you ever connected with the New York Call in any way?

Mr. BLANKENHORN. NO.

Mr. TOLAND. Did you ever make any contributions to the New York Call.

Mr. BLANKEN HORN. Not that I remember. I was called in to make an analysis of that paper as a newspaper technical expert, and advised

them-I made a report on it at the request of those who owned the New York Call-they could never make a success of it as a daily that was an organ of the Socialist Party, and I did recommend that instead they might have some chance of having a successful labor daily in New York, not a Socialist Party organ. They followed that advice. There was not sufficient backing for it, however, and the labor daily lasted only a few months.

Mr. TOLAND. Could you tell the committee the people that were connected with the labor daily that you have just spoken about?

Mr. BLANKENHORN. I was managing editor, Evans Clark was business manager, he is now in the Twentieth Century Fund, and Norman Thomas was editorial writer.

Mr. TOLAND. Now, Mr. Blankenhorn, isn't it a fact that during the period of the time that you have been employed by the Board a great deal of your time has been devoted to matters on behalf of the Senate committee?

Mr. BLANKENHORN. That is correct.

Mr. TOLAND. Now, in the course of my examination I am going to try as much as I can not to question you as to your activities in connection with the Senate committee work. I am going to try to limit it to your connection with the Board, your duties with the Board, and whether or not while you were so assigned to the Senate committee if you did not also report your activities and the activities of that committee to the Board.

Now, Mr. Blankenhorn, have you ever taken the position and made the statement that the Congress, in passing the Wagner Act, intended that every employee in the United States should be a member of a national labor organization?

Mr. BLANKENHORN. The general policy of the act was certainly to foster collective bargaining which implies union organization, if that is what you mean.

Mr. TOLAND. Did you ever make the statement to an official or member of the Board that it would be for the best interests of the Board that a union be organized among the employees?

The CHAIRMAN. Wait a minute, Mr. Toland. I would like an answer to the previous question.

Mr. TOLAND. I am coming back to that.

The CHAIRMAN. I would like an answer before you go to another one. Cancel the last question, and let us have an answer to the other question. Perhaps you would like to have the question read.

Mr. TOLAND. Read the question.

The REPORTER (reading):

Now, Mr. Blankenhorn, have you ever taken the position and made the statement that the Congress in passing the Wagner Act, intended that every employee in the United States should be a member of a national labor organization?

Mr. BLANKENHORN. I have no recollection of any such statement. Mr. TOLAND. Will you tell the committee now whether you construed the act of Congress of July 5, 1935, to be that the Board should aid in the formation and in the unionization of all employees in the United States, in that all employees should belong to a national labor organization?

Mr. BLANKENHORN. I have no recollection of any statement of that kind. I have certainly said, again and again, the general purposes of

the act which the Board is administering were intended to foster collective bargaining, and by implication the formation of unions of men's own choosing.

Mr. TOLAND. I have asked you, and I will ask you again, is it your opinion now, and has it been your opinion while you have been so employed, that every employee in the United States should belong to a national labor organization, and that this Board in the performance of its duties should do what it could to see that that came about?

Mr. BLANKENHORN. This Board should do what it could to aid the self-organization of men. It is up to them to choose their form of organization.

Mr. TOLAND. Let me ask you this question: Have you in the performance of your duties conferred with labor leaders and assisted and aided them in unionization drives, and so reported to the members of the National Labor Relations Board?

Mr. BLANKEN HORN. No, sir.

Mr. TOLAND. Have you ever reported to the Board that you thought that the Board should use itself in implementing strikes that were existing throughout the United States, or that might come about at any time?

Mr. BLANKENHORN. That the Board should use the strikes?

Mr. TOLAND. That the Board should use its powers, its duties to implement strikes that were then existent or may exist in the future? Mr. BLANKENHORN. NO.

Mr. TOLAND. Isn't it a fact that on the 16th day of June 1936 you so advised the members of the National Labor Relations Board that the Board should use hearings and decisions, knowing the courts will deny, and that it would clarify the issues, that

It raises hope, and resentment among organized minorities, which is how laws get established. Practically, such procedure may have real effects in many situations; they are not all convinced that the Board is out of business. They dislike and fear the Federal Government intervening as much as labor welcomes it.

Nor is this procedure misleading the workers to substitute illusory government help for their own economic action-if we choose our situations. We can make hearings consciously adjunctive to unionization drives, to strike preparedness, and so forth.

Did you ever make those statements that I have read to you? Mr. BLANKENHORN. That sounds like something that I have written. What is the date on it, please?

Mr. TOLAND. Let me show you. Do you have any recollection of dictating and submitting that report to the members of the Board? Mr. BLANKENHORN. Yes, sir.

Mr. TOLAND. Now, tell this committee, in view of your answer to my question when I asked whether the Board should implement strikes

Mr. BLANKENHORN (interposing). That is not implementing strikes, that comment there.

Mr. TOLAND. Holding hearings to aid unionization drives strike preparedness-whether the answer that you gave to me when I questioned you is the view that you hold now, or the statements that you made in this letter or this report are the statements that you hold now with respect to the Board's activities.

Mr. BLANKENHORN. I am afraid I don't understand your question. Do you mean whether this represents my views?

218054—40—vol. 20- -4

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