Mr. Goss. Although I come from one of the large wool-producing States of the Union we are interested in this bill possibly more particularly from the standpoint of the consumer of the wool than we are from the standpoint of the producer, although we are interested in the bill from the two standpoints.

I would like to point out the reason why we are particularly interested in the Capper bill over the Lodge bill.

I would like to direct attention to the Lodge bill, and particularly subdivision (e) in section 2, which defines the terms “virgin wool” and “new wool.” The definition contained in that section is:The terms “virgin wool” and “new wool” mean sheep's wool, lamb's wool, and hair of the Angora and Cashmere goat that has never previously been spun into yarn, woven into cloth, or felted, and is without admixture of cotton, jute, hemp, silk, reworked wool, or any other fiber than new wool.

Section (f), or rather subdivision (f) in section 2, defines the term “all wool”:The term “all wool” means sheep's wool, lamb's wool, and hair of the Angora and Cashmere goat that has no admixture of cotton, jute, hemp, silk, or any other fiber.

In other words, it contains a definition of “all wool” as being a fabric that contains no other fabric than wool. But it might still contain shoddy, and in our opinion the purpose of the bill is absolutely to legalize the putting of shoddy into woolen goods, and we believe the expression “all wool” is deceptive, and it would have the effect of legalizing the use of shoddy and leading the consumer to think it is virgin wool, because we believe the consumer will not be familiar with the distinction of technical terms.

That is the chief reason we favor the Capper bill over the Lodge bill, because we believe the Capper bill is an honest effort to show the consumer exactly what he is getting and what is going into the goods.

There is one other point that I think should be called to your attention, and that is in arranging for the labeling of the goods, I find no provision in the Lodge bill as to the size of the label and no requirement that it must be legible or that it must be in such form as to attract the attention of the consumer. That point is covered adequately in the Caper bill, I believe, and I think that is an important thing from the viewpoint of protecting the consumer.

The Chairman. Would you think that is entirely necessary? Would not the purchaser look carefully at the contents if it was labeled? Do you think it would have to be done in that precise way?

Mr. Goss. The experience we had with the pure-food law shows this, when it was first put into effect. Many cases were brought to the attention of the authorities where the “contents” were put in such small type that the words escaped the notice of the consumer. Now, the requirements are that the description of the “contents” must be in type large enough to attract the attention of the purchaser, and I think that same condition might well be found in the case of woolen goods. It says here, for example, in section 8 of the Lodge bill that—A trade-mark or mark or trade description shall be deemed to be applied whether it is woven, impressed, ‘or otherwise worked into, or annexed, or affixed to the goods, or to any covering, label, or any other thing.

Now, it could well be woven into the margin of the goods so as scarcely to be read or to attract attention, and so, I think it should be provided that the goods should be labeled so that what is on the label can be definitely determined.

The Chairman. Are there any questions the committee would like to ask?

Senator Couzens. I am sorry I was late. Has witness called attention to any of the evils that justify the passage of this bill?

Mr. Goss. No; I have not, except that I just pointed out the provision in the Lodge bill which permitted the use of the term “all wool.”

Senator Couzens. I understand, but do you know of anything that justifies the passage of the bill, that warrants this undertaking? Do you know of any deception that the public has suffered as the result of not having this things done”

Mr. Goss. We feel very keenly that shoddy goods have been sold to the public and that the shoddy is not nearly so good as virgin wool.

Senator Couzens. Yes; but may it not have been that they got a decreased price because of the inferior quality of the goods, and therefore the consumer got his money's worth?

Mr. Goss. It may have been that they got a decreased price, and maybe they did not. The public has no way of judging whether the goods contain virgin wool or shoddy.

Senator Couzens. Whether the public did or did not is not so material as whether they got their money's worth. I am interested to know if the pubic has been cheated, and, if it has been, how and in what way, and to what extent they were charged unwarranted prices for shoddy goods when they should have received all wool goods. If the public has had their money's worth. I do not believe that is so important as it would be if they had been cheated out of their money as a result of any effort to deceive the public.

There is a lot of opposition to the bill, and I see no necessity of putting more laws on the statute books unless those laws that we put on the statute books will correct something that is a menace, and I have not yet heard any testimony to indicate that the present practice has developed to such an extent that it has become a menace, or that the public was cheated. Have you any evidence on that point?

Mr. Goss. I have no evidence as to the price paid, between the price for shoddy and virgin wool.

Senator Capper. Have you read the testimony of the last hearing, Senator Couzens?

Senator Couzens. No.

Senator Capper. We made it plain, I think, to the committee, that we are resting on the showing made in over 500 pages of testimony taken on this same bill at the previous hearing, and, in fact it was the suggestion of the chairman of the committee that it was not necessary to go into detail again as to the merits of the bill. You will find in the previous record of the hearings a showing from more than 300 organizations, most of them consumer organizations, complaining about the practices in the very matters you are speaking of, and I think you will find a very strong showing right along the lines you have raised here.

Senator Couzens. I am satisfied, then.

Senator Capper. There is a feeling that a large number of retailers are resorting to unfair practices and deceptive methods and are perpetrating fraud on the buying public. I think I can take you down to at least a dozen clothing men in the city of Washington to-day who will undertake to put over on the buying public, and are doing it every day, goods which they represent to be all wool, and which as a matter of fact contain little or no wool, and I believe I can show you that that practice is being followed all over the country and those facts are brought out. I think, in a very strong way in 500 pages of printed testimony here.

Senator Couzens. You have read the testimony?

Senator Capper. Yes. I myself have made quite a statement, covering several pages, which goes into the merits of the case.

The Chairman. I have suggested that instead of making another copy of it we should put it in as his statement. This committee spent more than a month taking testimony here, and I think everybody conceded it was done in a most thorough way on both sides.

Senator Couzens. What is the idea of going all over this again?

Senator Capper. I think it is not necessary. I think Senator Fess was good enough to say that we might come here to make it known that the farm and consumer organizations are still for the bill and are for this particular bill, the Capper bill, rather than for the one which has since been introduced, and which presents another plan attempting to get at this evil.

The Chairman. Senator Lodge wanted to be heard, and that is why we thought we would have the hearing. He said if this bill was to be considered he wanted to be here.

Senator Couzens. Is he coming?

The Chairman. Yes; he will be here a little later. He was called to a conference in the White House.

Whom else did you want to call Senator Capper?

Senator Capper. I would like to call Mr. Gray Silver.

Mr. Silver. I am confident the truth-in-fabric bill will become a law. Whether it will be written on the statute books this session or next, of course, I am unable to say. I can assure the subcommittee now considering the bill, however, that 22 years of waiting for such legislation with patience and persistent requests on Congress have worn the farmers’ patience about as threadbare as a suit of shoddy clothes which has been caught out in the rain a few times.

Congress finally saw the wisdom of passing a pure food act. At that time there was not a little controversy over the question whether we should permit certain manufacturers to continue to poison the public with overdoses of preservatives and shoddy food. But the wisdom of Congress finally prevailed and the pure food bill was enacted. To-day I do not believe there is anyone who would have the temerity to claim that we should revert back to the old days when it was “difficult to tell what to eat and what to leave alone.”

Congress has sat passively by during these two decades and permitted the workingman and the farmers and their families to purchase 0118shoddy goods, for they could not determine whether they contained 50 per cent shoddy or 100 per cent, whether they would keep their shape during the first rainstorm and whether they would be worn out within three months. These people, the rank and file, can not pay an exorbitant price which theoretically at least would protect them from the wiles of a manufacturer and salesman who would foist upon them shoddy or secondhand wool garments calling them “all wool” or “pure wool.” Even the “truth-in-advertising” advocates use this “fire sale” method of selling woolen clothing and knit goods for what they are not. The greedy and unscrupulous impose upon the public for it understands the term “wool,” “all wool,” and “pure wool” to mean virgin wool, that which has never before been spun—which for the first time is manufactured into a garment. The result is that a slick salesman or the unscrupulous advertiser imposes upon the public through a twist of the tongue or a slippery phrase which does not register on the ordinary mind.

We have no quarrel with shoddy as much. We merely ask for common honesty in the sale of it. If the garment contains 10 per cent of shoddy let the buyer know. If it contains 20, 30, 40, 50 per cent or more label the goods so the public will not be fooled in their purchase. No doubt there will be a difference in price between garments made of 90 per cent virgin wool and those containing 90 per cent shoddy, but the public will expect it and pay for it. The point is the public frequently pays for 90 per cent virgin wool and gets 90 per cent shoddy and has no way of telling the difference until the clothing is worn.

The economic law is inexorable as the law of gravitation says that when a substitute and the genuine both sell under the same name, the substitute inevitably will drive the genuine out and destroy the industry producing it. In this case we have virgin wool as the genuine and shoddy as the substitute. The fact that the law is working is shown by recent statements in trade papers indicating that shoddy is going to be used in the near future in increasing amounts in worsted goods. Thus the menace of poor clothing is spreading. The only incentive for the use of shoddy is greed.

More than 80,000,000 pounds of shoddy are used annually in this country and it makes a great difference to the public how it is used and how it is sold. What a protest would be raised if second-hand cotton were used in automobile tires so that they would run only a few thousand miles and explode at the most inopportune moment. Instead of trying to use shorter, weaker, and inferior fibers, however, the automobile tire manufacturers are using longer, stronger, and better fibers and advertise the fact. The clothing manufacturers, however, hide behind the terms of “wool,” “all wool,” and “pure wool” and mislead the public and utilize shoddy in large amounts in the garments which they have to sell. No merit that a second-hand article or substitute may possess can justify the fraud of permitting the public to believe the second-hand article is new and a substitute for the genuine.

Congress saw the wisdom of making it impossible to sell oleomargine as butter, yet it hesitates and becomes inarticulate when it comes to a law which would make manufacturers of woolen goods simply stamp their product so the purchaser may be protected. One of the chief functions of the Government is to protect the 0129people against frauds against which they can not protect themselves. The public can not identify shoddy, as everybody admits, so it is therefore no more than just to ask Congress to pass this truth-in-fabric bill which has been before it for the last 22 years.

If I understand correctly, I did not come to a formal hearing on the truth in fabric bill this morning, but just to assure you of our continued interest in the Freñch-Capper bill. The testimony which has been given in hearings that have been held previous to this one is on record, and we now subscribe to the things we said in that record.

The Chairman. That record is here?

Mr. Silver. Yes; it is the record to which we have been referring. I think my statement was made to the committee on June 3, 1921. We are strongly in favor of the Capper-French truth in fabric bill.

The Chairman. Will you state the distinction between the Capper bill and the Lodge bill?

Mr. Silver. Yes. Not only does the Capper bill refer to these fabrics particularly, but it is designated in the bill as “the truth in fabric law,” and the purpose of its enactment is stated in the bill to be—To prevent deceit and unfair prices that result from the unrevealed presence of substitute for virgin wool in woven fabrics purporting to contain wool and in garments or articles of apparel made therefrom, manufactured in any Territory of the United States or the District of Columbia, or transported or intended to be transported in interstate or foreign commerce, and providing penalties for the violation of the provisions of this act, and for other purposes.

In the French-Capper bill there is a definite statement of the penalties that will be incurred if the provisions of the bill are not complied with.

So far as the Lodge bill is concerned, and it is no doubt intended well, it sets out “to protect the public against fraud by prohibiting the manufacture, sale, or transportation in interstate commerce of misbranded, misrepresented, or falsely described articles,” and to regulate the traffic therein and for the purposes. It aims, chiefly, to the requirement of a correct labeling.

Here is the difference between the two, to our minds: The truth in fabric bill, in our belief, if it is passed and enforced as it will be means an item of millions of dollars annually in the clothing bill of the United States; it is the difference between wool from the sheep, fleece wool, cleaned and brought to a fair American basis, and the cheap inferior shoddy, with rags, either tailors’ trimmings, or reclaimed rags from the battle field, which are woven into cloth, and which is now sold as “all wool” goods, carrying with it the thought in the mind of the buyer that “all wool.” As a matter of fact, the farmers in the Nation are somewhat more concerned with this measure than are other people. The farmers are buying the less expensive goods, which is shoddy, and the farmer is trading off fleece wool for this shoddy, because he is unable to determine the difference between wool and shoddy wool, after it is in the cloth, and the only way to tell the difference between the fleece wool and the shoddy wool is to tell that difference before it is woven. The farmer, like other consumers, would like to buy virgin wool clothing if he could be assured that he is getting what he pays for. The difference between virgin wool and some grades of shoddy can not be shown in the woven fabric. But, if an inventory is taken in the factory and it shows what the manufacturer is buying, it will be very easy to tell what is being put into the yardage; and in that way the Capper-French bill requires the manufacturer to label in and the Government to check it.

The Chairman. I would like to know whether that is the practice.

Mr. Silver. There is an abundance of evidence in the testimony already given. However, I can give you a personal experience. In endeavoring to buy a couple of years or so ago——

Senator Couzens (interposing). You stated a while ago that the farmer sold his fleece or virgin wool at a basis of “all wool” and that he bought in return his clothing cheaper, although you say he paid high enough prices to have gotten all wool. You still admit in your testimony that he got it cheaper, at a lower price than if he had gotten “all wool”?

Mr. Silver. The term still is confusing.

Senator Couzens. I am not geting at an analysis of “all wool,” but what I am trying to determine is whether the buyers do get a reduction in the purchase of the goods because they are not “all wool”? That is what I want to determine, that they do do that, and you say they do. Then I want to find out, if I can, just how the public is cheated, and whether the relationship between the “all wool” and what the farmer bought is a proper relationship.

Mr. Silver. The shoddy you buy may be “all wool,” but it is rags from the rag bag. It may well be all wool, but it is not what the buyer thinks he is buying when he buys a suit of clothes recommended 01411to him as being “all wool.” He thinks when he buys such a suit of clothes that he is buying “all wool.”

The Chairman. The Senator wants to know if he (that is, the farmer) is being cheated, whether he thinks he is getting all wool, this virgin wool that you speak of?

Mr. Silver. I feel quite sure that there is fraud in the analysis of it when you use the term “all wool” for that low-grade wool. The low-grade wool does not have the wearing power, and it does not hold the dye, etc. Now, when it comes to the price, the goods are sold, whether they are made from wool or shoddy, at whatever the seller thinks he can get for them. There is a difference in the highest grade of wool and the shoddy, but there is not a difference commensurate with the wearing qualities of the goods. If the buyer of shoddy, which will be just the same as if it were labeled, knows it is shoddy, knows it has been reworked, he has an opportunity to determine whether he wants to buy the low grade of cloth or whether he wants to pay a different price for all wool, new wool, a piece of cloth made out of what is marked definitely as virgin wool. As it is now it is a fraud. He does not know what he is buying. If the material is labeled distinctly and he buys knowingly, it is not fraud. He will buy the goods at its worth, and the responsibility is fixed. The retailer can not tell now any more that I can tell what is shoddy and all wool. It is hopeless. The natural protest goes to the retailer, but if the manufacturer is required to label his goods, and the Federal representatives carry out their responsibility to the trade, then there will be a means of fixing whatever punishment may be required for a violation of the act.

Senator Couzens. Is this going to add any expense to the cost of production? Manufacturing production?

Mr. Silver. I do not see how it would; even if the inspecting and the invoicing were charged to manufacture it would be so slight it would not be noticeable. It is not a daily job. It is simply a case of checking the invoices at stated intervals. There is nothing to it that would add to the general cost.

Senator Couzens. Does this bill provide that the cost of enforcing this provision should be borne by the manufacturer?

Senator Capper. The bill provides that the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Agriculture, and the Secretary of Commerce shall make uniform rules and regulations for carrying out the provisions of this act, including the collection and examination of specimens of woolen fabrics and garments or articles of apparel manufactured therefrom, offered for sale in any State or Territory or in the District of Columbia, or which shall be offered for sale in unbroken packages in any State or Territory or in the District of Columbia other than that in which they shall have been respectively produced or manufactured, or which shall be offered for shipment or tendered for shipment in interstate or foreign commerce, or which shall be received from any other State or Territory or the District of Columbia other than that in which they have been respectively produced or manufactured, or which shall be received from any foreign country or intended for shipment to any foreign country, and shall have power to inspect the plants, raw material, methods and the books of all manufacturers of such goods who have secured a registration number as hereinafter provided, and to require reports in 01512such form from such manufacturers from time to time as they may deem necessary, under such rules and regulations as they may prescribe.

Senator Mayfield. The cost of enforcing this law will be borne by the consumer and added on to the price of the goods. The consumer, in my judgment, would offset that increase in price by the increase in quality.

Mr. Silver. Under the bill, as it was formerly drawn, the Government bears the expense. The point that I make is that if it were added to the manufacturer and borne by him the increase is insignificant.

Senator Mayfield. And that would be offset by the better quality of the goods?

Senator Couzens. There is no guaranty of that by any means.

Senator Mayfield. That is the inference.

Senator Couzens. We pass a good many bills by inference.

Senator Capper. No doubt shoddy goods would be sold, but not at the prices that all-wool goods bring.

The Chairman. Whom would you like to have heard now?

Senator Capper. I would like to have Mr. McSparran make his statement now.

Mr. Jewett. Mr. Chairman, I represent the American Wheat Growers’ Association.

The Chairman. Where are you from?

Mr. Jewett. I have offices in Minneapolis, Spokane, and Portland, Oreg. We have a membership of about 65,000 farmers located in the nine Northwestern States. My duties carry me over the entire territory and during the last two years a great amount of discussion has been carried on by the farmers and other organizations in respect to the bill which you have under consideration. I only desire to express what appeared to me to be the sentiment of these meetings. I believe these meetings all are 100 per cent for the measure. Our membership includes a great many producers of wool and purchasers of wool as well, and we are interested from those two points of view. Our membership feel that the selling of their commodity under conditions which permit of misrepresentation affords what might be well termed unfair competition and works a great disadvantage to them.

As consumers, and our people, of course, are all consumers, there is a very distinct interest to them in this measure. I do not believe that the price of a garment necessarily represents its true value. By that I mean to say that very often a garment which the consumer purchases is prices on conditions with which true value has nothing to do. Many years ago I was a clerk in a clothing store, and I recall very distinctly that we took our shipments of garments, laid them out on the counter, and priced them according to their appearance and what we thought was their salability. Very often we put a higher price on a garment that did not have the wearing quality of another garment simply because it looked better and we thought we could get a better price for it.

There is no way the purchaser will know what the garment contains until he tries it out, and very often he does not have the knowledge until he steps out into a rainstorm.

I believe there is a distinct need for this class of legislation, and I think we owe it to the purchaser to give him this protection.

These remarks that I am making are, I am sure, expressions from the people in my territory, and they are only expressions which I have heard over and over again in various meetings of farm groups in the organizations from all over the States from which I come.

Senator Capper. I think that is all that I wish to present to the committee.

The Chairman. Then, Senator Lodge, if you please, we will be glad to hear from you.

Senator Lodge. Mr. Chairman, the notice of the hearing on this bill only came to me the day before yesterday, and I have not had an opportunity to prepare myself at all, and, moreover, I shall ask the committee to give an opportunity to the experts on these questions, the representatives of the woolen manufacturers and the national association men, to come here and present their views on the subject.

The Chairman. How long a time do you think that would take?

Senator Lodge. I hope I can get them here the beginning of next week. I shall try to.

I would like to say a few words here about these bills, since I introduced one of them. The purpose, the general purpose of both measures, is the same. That is, it is to prevent, so far as it can be done by law, the selling to the consumer of an article which does not conform to its advertised prices or the description made by the dealer.

The bill introduced by Senator Capper, which you have been discussing, relates only to woolen articles. The bill which I introduced is a general bill against misbranding, that is, to put an end to the evil which we all recognize. It covers the entire question of misbranding. It does not attempt to settle the brands which shall be used for any article, but it provides punishment in cases of misbranding and provides very heavy punishments. It covers all articles. It is founded on what is known as the British merchandise act, which has been in operation now for a good many years, and in very successful operation, and which has met the evil of which we are all trying to dispose.

I believe that there is a proposition for certain amendments to the British merchandise act in the present Parliament, and I think they are providing for certain improvements on the bill, but this bill which I have introduced is founded on that British merchandise act. It has been tried and it has worked well and has prevented misbranding. The title of the bill, as you will observe from a reading of it, is—

To protect the public against fraud by prohibiting the manufacture, sale, or transportation in interstate of misbranded, misrepresented, or falsely described articles, and to regulate the traffic therein, and for other purposes.

It is a very general measure, and section 3 of the measure provides—That any person who, in any Territory of the United States or the District of Columbia, (1) misbrands or misrepresents, or causes to be misbranded or misrepresented, or applies or causes to be applied any false trade description to any article; or (2) sells, or exposes for or has in his possession for sale or any purpose of trade or manufacture any article to which any false trade description is applied, or which is misbranded, or misrepresented, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and for the first offense shall be punished by a fine of not 02219more than $1,000 or by imprisonment for not more than one year, or both; and for each subsequent offense shall be punished by a fine of not less than $2,500 or by imprisonment for not more than two year, or both.

You will see from that that it covers a very large field. It covers all articles in interstate commerce, practically, and it imposes a very heavy penalty for violations of the act.

Senator Couzens. Is there not a distinction between misbranding and no brand at all? Your bill covers misbranding. Suppose the seller does not put any brand on the article at all. That could not be misbranding the article?

Senator Lodge. They might be misrepresenting the article.

Senator Couzens. They may not misrepresent it.

Senator Lodge. He may misrepresent it without a brand.

Senator Couzens. He may put his name on the article, but that would not brand the article. Supposing he put no brand on the article, merely laid it on his counter and said nothing about it. Suppose he made no misrepresentation at all, made no representation, for that matter. If he lays it on the counter without any brand at all, the customer may still have no opportunity of determining between the value of the virgin wool garment and shoddy. Is not that a distinction between your bill and the Capper bill?

Senator Lodge. Yes. The other bill attempts to settle the brand.

Senator Capper. I think the difference is that my bill requires that every fabric be required to contain a certain percentage of wool, shoddy, etc., before it can be so identified.

Senator Lodge. This bill of Senator Capper's simply takes up the woolen business. My bill goes further and applies to any article of interstate commerce. It attempts to protect the consumer on everything, as well as clothing. Its object is to protect the consumer.

Senator Capper. There is nothing compulsory about your bill?

Senator Lodge. We do not compel them to brand at all. We punish misbranding or misrepresentation.

Senator Capper. If he brands it or labels it, and it is not correctly branded or labeled, then your bill would punish him.

Senator Lodge. Yes; or if he misrepresents it in selling it—it is the same thing. One bill, my bill covers all articles of interstate commerce; the other bill, your bill, Senator Capper; picks out a single industry. As I say, I can not undertake to go into the entire argument, which is an elaborate one.

The Chairman. Could you get your people here next Thursday, a week from to-day?

Senator Lodge. I think so. There is one point that I would like to expand here, and that is that I think misbranding or misrepresentation is just as bad for the consumer of one article as it is for the consumer of every other article. I do not think wool is the only one. I do not think it is reasonable to select only one article. Whatever bill we adopt should apply to misbranding and misrepresentation of all articles in interstate commerce. I think my bill has the advantage of going further than the Capper bill.

I want to call your attention this morning, and I shall not do more than that, to the extreme difficulty of dealing with the question of wool and woolen goods, as it has been shown by experts in that line. These 02320letters are all some years old. The first one is dated June 6, 1912.

Mr. Francis W. Bird, appraiser of the United States customs service of the port of New York, states in a letter written on June 6, 1912, that—I also call your attention to the fact that it would be impossible to determine the quality of the virgin wool which has gone to make up the cloth. Very different qualities of wool are used in making yarns for cloth which vary very considerably in value. These could not be distinguished one from another with any reasonable accuracy.

In a letter by F. P. Vincent, appraiser of the port of Boston, in the United States customs service, written to the Secretary of the Treasury on June 10, 1912, the following appears:

For purposes of this report, manufacturers of wool may be separated into three main divisions, viz: Worsteds, woolens, and felts.

Worsted cloths are easily analyzed, for the reason that the yarns of which they are composed are made from long-staple wool, which has been combed, thereby removing all the short fibers, and if both warp and filing are of such yarns, the weight of the fabric, less the size and dye contained therein, is the net weight of the virgin wool. If the warps are of vegetable fibers, or in part of silk introduced to form figures or stripes, the same are easily removed by chemical processes.

Woolen cloths are much more difficult to analyze on account of the varying length of the fibers, processes of manufacture, and mixture with mungo, shoddy, or flocks. Many of the higher grades of woolen fabrics are entirely of virgin wool, but on account of the fulling process used during their manufacture, the fibers are matted to a certain extent, and the disintegration of the material by mechanical processes would so destroy the condition of the original fibers that much of the resultant product would seem to be shoddy.

Shoddy is the best of the so-called artificial wools, being the wool fiber recovered from worn, but all wool, long-staple materials, and which has never been fulled; or if so, only slightly. The length of the fiber varies from one-half to 1¼ inches, according to the original length of the staple in the fabric from which the shoddy is made. Dyed shoddy can be detected from similarly dyed wools for the reason that the color of the former will betray the inferior article compared to wool, since the rags or waste previous to the redyeing has been dyed different colors, and which will consequently influence the final shade of color obtained the redyeing accordingly.

Mungo is produced by reducing to fiber pure woolen rags, from cloth heavily fulled, and the natural consequence of the strong resistance to disintegration offered by felted fabrics, results in that short fibers, about one-fourth to three-fourths of an inch in length are obtained.

Flocks is the resultant product of mechanically grinding woolen materials or fibers, and has practically no length.

If, therefore, woolen fabrics have any of the foregoing shoddy, mungo, or docks mixed with them, the mechanical separation of the material would not show exactly the proper weight of the virgin wool used, on account of a great many of the original fibers having been broken up.

Felts, from their manner of production, would be impossible to separate into their component materials, and the determination of the virgin wool contained therein be the merest guesswork.

From the foregoing, it would appear to be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to accurately ascertain the weight of virgin wool if ascertained only by inspection, and all our experts are agreed that the results to obtained would differ so widely that no reliance could be placed on them for any practical or dutiable purpose, and would only open the way to endless disputes and litigation.

In a letter dated June 12, 1912, W. T. Hodges, appraiser at the port of Philadelphia, states as follows:

In the case of cloths made of worsted yarn, which is only wool with no admixture if shoddy, mungo, or waste, it might be possible though certainly at a great expenditure of time and labor, in each case, to make a working approximation 02421of the amount and class of wood, but in the case of cloths made of woolen yarns, which may and generally do contain the baser components, any approximation that could be made , even after painstaking examination and analysis, would be nothing but a mere guess in which probably no two experts would agree.

This being true of cloths in the piece, it of course holds true, a fortori, for made-up garments and wearing apparel and other articles. Unless a part of the article could be taken for disintegration analysis, which in many cases would involve the practical destruction of the sample selected, the amount and character of the contents could be many fabrics, and it would be absolutely impracticable to determine the wool content of garments, wearing apparel, and made-up articles without destroying the same.

In the report made by Charles Earl, Acting, Secretary of Commerce and Labor, dated June 15, 1912, appears the following paragraph:The determination of shoddy, mungo, and waste components can not as yet be made with accuracy. The present methods available are not entirely satisfactory to the Bureau of Standards, and would require further investigation before the bureau would be in a position to state definitely that such analysis could be depended upon. It is a matter which the Bureau of Standards has had under consideration for some time and upon which work is now in progress.

I would like now to call your attention to some reasons for opposing the French-Capper compulsory textile branding bill.

The present French-Capper compulsory textile branding bill is the culmination of an agitation begun in the early years of this century when the Grosvenor shoddy bill was espoused by the National Livestock Association and advocated in 1902 before a subcommittee of the House Committee on Ways and Means by the Hon. William M. Springer, then the association's attorney, and introduced into the House of Representatives by Gen. Charles H. Grosvenor, of Ohio.

This bill, for which there was no demand worth nothing, except from wool growers who were members of the National Livestock Association, was so ill-devised and constructed that it ever got beyond hearings before the committee. Its impossible provisions were explained to representatives of the National Wool Growers’ Association by a committee representing the National Association of Wool Manufacturers at a conference held in Washington on December 9, 1903, and the representatives of the wool growers were convinced that the reasons advanced against the measure (about which they confessed they themselves knew little and were advocating because their membership felt something might be done “that would help the wool industry in any way”) were sound, and they were satisfied not to push for its enactment.

Later, numerous representatives seeking to gain some standing with the wool growers of their districts, introduced similar bills, but they too, lacking in merit and a vigorous organized propaganda, got no further than the Grosvenor bill and never were reported by the committee to which they had been referred. It is but fair to add that at the Washington conference above referred to, the representatives of this association then advocated the enactment of a law based upon the lines of the British merchandise marks act which it had favored in resolutions adopted at the annual meeting on January 8, 1902; and to that position they have consistently adhered from that day to this, favoring at this time the passage of the Rogers-Lodge bill, pending 02522in Congress, which would punish misbranding or misrepresentation of any and all kinds.

Enactment of this French-Capper bill has been urged for two broad general reasons:

1. To help the wool-growing industry by creating an additional demand for wool, thereby increasing its price for their benefit. That the real purpose of the bill, carefully kept out of the title when introduced into Congress, is to raise the price of wool, and consequently the cost of fabrics and clothing to the consumer, is shown conclusively by the testimony of wool growers, who were out in force at hearings held on the French-Capper bill by congressional committees. Some of these admissions were:

Mr. Frank W. Mish, a rich gentleman farmer from Hagerstown, Md., based his request for the enactment of the bill on the condition of the farmers, saying that “the wool growers are in bad financial condition.”

Mr. Dwight Lincoln, secretary of the American Rambuoillet Sheep Breeders’ Association, testified that “the conditions in the sheep industry in the West are very bad,” and expressed the opinion, as he had done to the House committee the previous year, that the bill, if enacted, would stimulate, in fact, stabilize the sheep industry.

Mr. J. N. McDowell, a wool grower from Washington County, Pa., gave as the basis for his demand for the Capper bill that “the price is gone not only on the sheep but on the wool, and they have their wool yet (June 1, 1921). They were looking for 90 cents a pound for their wool and they have their wool on hand and they can not get anything for it, and so it has placed them in a bad situation with all these buildings and equipment not paid for. And so we think we have been somewhat wronged. We feel that there was an attempt at the time of the war to hurry up production of cloth and there was a big demand and a raising in the price of rags, while wool could be had, but the rags were used and the wool was kept back.” Mr. McDowell thought that “white all the manufacturers may not be profiteers they saw a good chance to make more money by working up rags than to work up the raw wool, and the wool grower suffered.” This condition, he thought, would continue, “that they would work the rags in and leave the wool with us people.”

It is also shown to be the purpose by the admissions made by editors of journals published in the interest of woolgrowers. Two of the many are:Dr. W. J. Spillman, associate editor of the farm Journal, of Philadelphia, a witness before the Senate committee, admitted that the reason he was taking the trouble to go to Washington was because “I want to see the price of wool increased to the farmer.”

In an editorial printed on page 17 of the September, 1921, number of the Sheep and Goat Raisers’ Magazine, published in San Angelo, Tex., the real purpose is so bluntly stated that it can not be misunderstood or denied. It is there said:The elimination of “shoddy” in the manufacture of clothing and the use of virgin wool in its place will strengthen the market and increase the sale of wool to an enormous extent. This opening up large avenues for the sale of virgin wool, thereby causing an ever-increasing demand for this commodity, and basing our estimate on the rule pertaining to supply and demand, causing prices of wool to advance in an ever-increasing active market.

The same purpose appears in another editorial entitled “Truth in fabrics” on page 36 of the August, 1922, number of the same journal. It puts the case just as boldly as the former and should sweep away all doubts, if any still exist, of the real and moving purpose of this effort. The extract from the editorial is as follows:In our judgement there is not to-day a matter of more importance for the sheep and goat raiser than the question of truth in fabrics. We have the word of our able and distinguished Congressman, C. B. Hudspeth, for it that the possibility of the passage of the French-Capper truth in fabric bill is getting brighter every day and that its adoption into a law will certainly advance the price of wool and mohair at least 5 cents per pound.

This demand has been pressed vigorously since 1920, during years when the woolgrowers were suffering, in common with other classes from the effects of an extraordinarily severe price deflation, prices obtainable for wool being not infrequently below the cost of production. It was a time, too, when owing to the maladjustment of prices, consumers were obliged to pay what seemed to be inordinately high charges for clothes made out of materials purchased at very extravagant cost and made by operatives receiving the highest wages ever paid in this country. It was time, also, when taxes, both State and National, were burdensome, and added greatly to the heavy costs of manufacture. These two causes: low prices for wool and high prices for clothing made from materials doled out by the Government to the manufacturers, the quality of which was inferior, and made woolgrowers and wearers of clothing willing to believe and accept any propaganda for legislation holding out hope of relief from what was a galling, and for many a burdensome situation. Not concerned about convincing evidence of the accuracy of a propaganda with a popular appeal, they eagerly accepted as true the most glaringly inaccurate, grossly exaggerated, and unsupported assertions about the greatly increased use of shoddy in the wool manufacture, the truth being that all official figures for the 1920 census prove it has been steadily decreasing for 20 years or more and not increasing, and that shoddy was the arch enemy of the woolgrower, which has killed more sheep than any other cause, and was altogether responsible for the low prices of wool, the high prices of clothing, and for the country's dwindling flocks. These were wild assertions made by men who could do nothing but quote figures talk of depressed prices and say therefore shoddy is the cause of all our woes, and the cure for them is the enactment of the French-Capper bill.

If that were true two or three years ago, and it was not, it certainly is not applicable to the situation now, when within a year prices for some wools have doubled and have reached figures at which manufacturers hesitate to purchase, knowing full well that the buying capacity of the public has been nearly reached. Prices for all grades of wool have advanced sharply within the year, the spread between the fine wools and crossbreds having been lessened and even in the low quarter bloods, of which there was a great plethora after the armistice, they have risen in sympathy with the other grades. Woolgrowers are optimistic over the relief brought them by the enactment of the tariff law and the rising markets for wool, lambs, and sheep.

The June Sheep and Goat Raisers’ Magazine stated that—Another big factor for optimism is the higher prices being paid for wool and mohair, with every indication that the long 12 months wool this spring will command 60 per cent more, if not an even greater per cent, than it did in 1921.

Writing of the optimistic tone which characterized all the proceedings of the May meeting of the executive committee of the Sheep and Goat Raisers’ Association of Texas, its official magazine said:Nearly all goats in the west Texas country to the south and west extending to the Rio Grande, have been clipped and the bulk of the mohair has been sold at an average of 40 cents a pound, which is about 15 cents a pound higher than last year.

Conditions being as they are do not justify additional legislation to boost wool prices for the benefit of a class already benefited more than any other, and to the detriment of the great wool consuming classes.

2. The second reason advanced for the bill is that it will protect the public from deceit and profiteering that result from the unrevealed presence of shoddy in woolen fabrics.

This is based on a wholly erroneous view of the trade situation. Manufacturers do not deceive the men for whom the fabrics are made and to whom they are sold. The goods are made upon orders at prices agreed upon which are a sure test of the general character and quality of the materials used in them. The responsibility of the manufacturer begins and ends when he has made and delivered to his customer the precise fabric called for by the contract. He deceives nobody and he receives for such goods only what they are actually worth and nothing more—notwithstanding the reckless assertions made by the proponents of this legislation. Wool manufacturers are not profiteers and those who assert that they get the same prices for fabrics containing large proportions of shoddy as are received for fabrics made entirely of new, unused wool, assert what is false and what has never been proven true by the production at any hearing of any fabrics with the prices obtained for them to sustain the contention of the bill's advocates.

Having shown that there is no justification for the enactment of a bill whose inescapable effect will be to increase the price of wool, and wool manufacturers are not profiteers and do not charge the same prices for fabrics containing considerable quantities of reworked wool as are charged for those made of wool never before used, let us now turn to the objections to the enactment of the proposed bill.

Some of the many reasons may be summarized s follows:

1. The law would be a direct injury and handicap to the manufacturers of woven wool fabrics, who are largely to be found in New England, the Middle Atlantic States, and those east of the Mississippi River; and it would directly help the makers of knitted fabrics, sweaters, and skirts, which are coming into the keenest competition with woven woolen fabrics. It would compel the woven wool manufacturer to mark all his fabrics, thereby adding to the cost of production and their cost to purchasers, while it would permit his competitor the maker of knitted fabrics, to avoid that expense, and to use without marking, materials, which if used by the maker of woven wool fabrics, must be marked to show their approximate proportions. 02825If the purpose of the bill's proponents is to prevent deceit and unfair prices that result from the unrevealed presence of substitutes for virgin wool in fabrics, why does the bill handicap the makers of woven wool fabrics by adding to their cost of production, and give a distant advantage, in a lower cost of production, to their competitors, the makers of knitted fabrics which are rapidly going in popularity and giving keen competition to woven fabrics? Why cover by the provisions of this bill the one class, and exclude the other? Why deny to users of knitted fabrics the information deemed essential for users of woven fabrics?

The Chairman. All right, Mr. Pitkin, you mat proceed.

Mr. Pitkin. Senator, I have in mind your request to be brief, and inasmuch as our industry is allied with the manufacturers who produce the cloth, my statement is necessarily very brief.

As spinners of worsted yarn, we are perhaps not as directly concerned with labeling legislation as those who make cloth and those who sell that cloth converted into garments to the public. Yet so closely are the different branches of the industry united that anything that affects one necessarily affects all.

I might add that the spinners’ association submitted a detailed statement at the last hearing, which can be found on page 238 of the hearing. That was June 7.

Because of this and because of the provisions of the French-Capper bill that apply immediately to spinners and because in general principle we can see not virtue in or need for compulsory labeling, we venture to record our voice against the passage of the French-Capper bill and in favor of the enactment into law of the Lodge-Rogers honest merchandise act.

We could, of course, in such a statement as this enter exhaustively into the whole subject, pointing out among other things how difficult it is to identify yarn after it has been converted into cloth which would necessarily add immeasurably to the difficulties of compulsory labeling legislation, but having closely interested ourselves in the subject throughout the different hearings before congressional committees we realize that a great deal of evidence has been presented to these committees that very adequately, in great detail and vary conclusively prove from our point of view the impracticability of compulsory labeling and the absence of necessity for it.

Whatever description is practiced in the sale of woolen cloth to ultimate consumers is necessarily fractional as compared with the whole, first because the major production of cloth in this country is worsted as distinguished from woolen, and nothing but virgin wool can be employed in the construction of an all-worsted piece of good, and second, because the majority of merchants, whether yarn spinners, cloth weavers, clothing manufacturers or retail clothiers 05754are honest and have no intention or desire to deceive the ultimate purchaser.

These things, added to the cost of compulsory labeling and the fact that compulsory labeling as requiring under the French-Capper Act is impractical of application because it is not possible to distinguish virgin wool from reworked wool, are our reasons for opposing the enactment of the French-Capper bill.

We are equally firm in advocating the passage of the Lodge-Rogers bill because it is what its name implies, i.e., an honest merchandise act. It does not compel anyone to label, but it provides protection and redress to the citizen who has been misinformed or to whom something has been sold that is falsely labeled or in any way misrepresented. Moreover, it protects the community not only in the purchase of its clothes, but in the purchase of any article of daily commerce.

For these reasons and having in mind, as we stated at the outset, that the whole subject has been so exhaustively covered at previous hearings which are of course a variable to the members of this committee, we thus briefly record our opposition to the French-Capper bill and our very strong conviction that the Lodge-Rogers bill should be enacted into law.

The Chairman. We are very much obliged to you.

The Chairman. Mrs. Woolman, state your name and position for the record.

Mrs. Woolman. My name is Mrs. Mary Schenck Woolman. I live in Boston. I was for many years professor of household arts education at Columbia University. I was the first to introduce the study of textiles in the schools.

As interested that women should know more of these subjects, I have been a constant student of textiles. I am representing trained consumers at this meeting.

There are many consumers who are absolutely ignorant of these things. I want to bring to you the absolute opposition of the trained consumer to a branding bill. As such, I come from the Massachusetts Consumers’ League. Only yesterday Mrs. Wiggin, the chairman, telephoned to me: “We are unalterably opposed to branding bills, such as Mr. Capper has brought. We want another form of bill, and to us the plan of the merchandise marks act of England, which many of us have seen in operation, seems to be a good thing. We have been for the Barclay bill. We are interested in the present bill of Senator Lodge.” So much for the consumers’ league.

You know, of course, that Mrs. Kelly, once for the Capper bill, is now absolutely opposed to it, having understood the difference between the two measures.

I, as a lecturer over the whole United States, as interested in textile, know the growers. I have been with the growers in the various States, such as Utah. Wyoming, Colorado, California. I know the hard time they have. I know the temptation to do something to help. I also know the impossibility that there is in such a bill as this to given them what they think will come.

I want to tell you this, that during the war I was appointed by the Agricultural Department as a textile specialist, and I have been over the country in contact with the farm bureaus, with women in their homes, with the other work. I know the agricultural colleges all over the United States, and spoke in them. I have spoken against the Capper bill in them, and have had them come to me in numbers after, both men and women, to know my reason.

I, therefore, perhaps more than many of you, realize that the consumer is very easily swayed by a talker, and they say, “Why, we want that bill if it is going to help us.” The great question in my mind is, Will it help? The consumer needs help, wishes to have help, because he feels that he wants to do the very best he can in buying.

Therefore they say, “Give us all the help you can.” They also say, “We do not want to spend any more; our money does not go far enough now.”

The question I am bringing before you is the Home Economics Association, which covers 4,500 people, home makers, demonstrators, who not only are in the colleges and agricultural stations, but also in the business houses; they are with the laundrymen; they are with many of those places where they are having textiles, so that they really, as demonstrators, know and are interested in the home economics question and wish to have the very best legislation possible.

The Home Economics Journal, which has spoken on this bill, both bills, again and again; that is, this class of bill, has a circulation of about 7,000, and I am told that there is no magazine which is more in demand for help all over the United States.

In 1917 I was chairman of the legislation—

The Chairman. Mrs. Woolman, I do not want to interrupt, but we do not care anything about that. We do not want to have your lecture given to us. We want to avoid that. What we want to know is, what is the objection to this bill? What is the objection or reason for either bill? Let us have it succinctly, so that the committee can act on it.

Mrs. Woolman. Would you be interested to know that I have been against this bill since 1914, and even before, and as chairman of the organization opposed to this class of bill. That is, the same class of legislation?

The Chairman. Confine yourself to the data on the bill for or against; not so much about what you have done.

Mrs. Chairman. I am trying to get away from myself. I am trying to tell you what the Home Economics Association has done. They have ben opposed for years. It is the attitude to our association that I was trying to get at. They are opposing it. They know the very things which General Wood has put before you to-day.

I was, just two weeks ago, in one of their great laboratories, where they have all that they have in the Bureau of Standard, showing that they are going deep into this question, just as deeply as the National Reseach Council or the Bureau of Standards, and they are unalterably opposed. I want to get away from what I have done and go into the Home Economics Association, because I am representing the consumer. One of the statements has been that there are a great many of the consumers of the United States in their leagues who for this bill. Here is trained consumer against it—two 05956trained consumers. What they want I have just stated. What will they get now from this Capper bill?

The Chairman. That is what we want to know.

Mrs. Woolman. That is what I am trying to give you now. They object thoroughly to the branding provided in the bill. What use is there, of the brand? They know how many things go into a blend. They know that the ignorant public is not aware of what it means if they get it, and they do not know what is means by a certain percentage of noils; they do not know what is means when they see it. They do not know what it means when they see a notation of reworked wool, and they get the wrong impression if they see that there is a ceratin percentage of some other material which is of a waste order. If they would see no real wool, they would feel worried. That large recipe, which is to them like a cook's cake recipe, they do not read. They know that it will add to the expense. They know that every statement that would go into every piece of cloth which is put into the selvage will make it run over, and they know that if it does run over it is going to be a tremendous expense, because the requisite machinery to put on a statement on a plain piece of cloth shows down the operation and adds to expense.

The Chairman. So that the branding would be an objection on that account, the increased expense?

Mrs. Woolman. Increased expense, and also the fact that it would not be understood. I am trying to tell you that might be in the blend. It could not be understood.

Therefore, in the branding alone, they say, “We do not want branding if its is going to be in the body: How can we turn the cloths over for our children, our own clothes, for our little boys and little girls to wear, and have all this branding material outspread on it? What good will it do to put on something that chemically can be removed, if it is just merely put on?” If it is a label, it can be taken off. How can it go into the wearing clothes, if it can not be removed? All those things to the trained consumer are extremely important.

So that in regard to the branding they object to this bill.

Now, as there is no way of honestly knowing the difference, because these consumers of the association have done the testing themselves, they know that you can not get it even when you look through the microscope, technically; you can not know the difference. Consequently, they say that there is no use of putting those things on, because “Who can prove it? It is merely going to add tremendously to the expense without being of any service to us. Is it any better, if we did buy that, that there was reworked wool, if we did see that there was virgin wool? Are we any better off? What makes the cloth wear? It is the way the yarn is spun, largely. It is the way the cloth is constructed. It is the way the cloth is finished.”

So that if you saw cloths of all virgin wool, it would not exceed—again the trained consumer says:

“It is not possible to have truth in statements about such a thing.”

“It will add tremendously to our expense, and it will not give us any information we want, because what we need to have is information as to whether that cloth will endure. We, personally, do not care about the content, just so it will endure.” and that must be the 06057way it is considered, which we would never get from this particular point of view. So again we say that we do not want this sort of a bill, and for years and years we have been opposing this measure and now hope that it will not go through.

Now, what about the worsteds? Every particle of worsted will be marked, and yet it is not in the worsteds. It is in only about one-half of the woolens. What is the use of having the horrid expense when so few pieces of cloth have it, and even those may be perfectly enduring?

So again they say, “Why should we have this bill?” What will they say about the Lodge bill? “We must have expense clothes. We must, because we can not afford to have anything else. The expense will be difficult for us. We want it, and we know that reworked wool will wear perfectly well, and we know that some of the virgin wool will not wear well.”

We have in Boston the Better Business Commission, which will help us. The Better Business Commission in Boston has been of very great use to the home economics women, as well as the consumer, because they have gradually brought about the comparative prices: their misstatements, wrong statements, have passed away. You would be surprised if you would look at the records, and if you were intereted in the consumer and the purchaser as I am, to look at the window displays in the town that have come about by the Better Business Commission.

Also they know from frequent visits abroad how much the merchandise marks act has helped in the truth in statements in England. They know that Mr. Lodge's bill is of the same order as the merchandise marks act. There will be no branding. There will be no unnecessary expense. They will get the truth, and it will gradually come about in the States as it has in Boston—honestly; the punishment has gradually brought about a different feeling.

Therefore, I speak for the consuming public, that the consumer does not think this sort of bill can possibly help. She thinks it will add to the expense. She thinks the other one will help. She believes the definitions are going to help, and she believes that those things will become positive to everybody. Therefore, she feels, that the Lodge bill as it stands will do for her what she has been fighting for since 1914.

The Chairman. Are there any questions, Senator?

Senator Mayfield. No, sir.

The Chairman. Give your name and your position to the reporter.

Mr. Kirschbaum. David Kirschbaum, president A. B. Kirschbaum Co. I simply want to state that after a careful study of both bills—that is, representing the clothing manufacturers of the United States in fact; that is, that group that we belong to—that the Lodge bill would unquestionably be a great benefit for the whole country and the buying public, and would not entail any hardship or any additional expense in these days when all manufacturers have to meet the viewpoint of the great consuming public, by whom they are misunderstood. It would not entail any additional expense which the Capper bill would by this method of labeling, and so forth.

Not only would the Lodge bill serve its purpose in protecting the people against exaggeration and misrepresentation as regards garments or wearing apparel, but as I understand, it will cover a wide range of subjects, covering practically everything that the consumer buys. I am foreseeing what the lady said as regards the bill under consideration. This bill would help other business bureaus all over the United States in the work that they are trying to do. Some communities have yielded very much more than others in bringing about the elimination or comparative prices and forcing certain ethical standards in merchandising goods at retail.

Our great difficulty in the United States to-day is that there is a wide range of standard between the newspapers and the magazines. You can not put an exaggerated statement into the best magazines of this country, but the newspapers, possibly in the haste and hurry in making up the copy, publish it. This bill would put a moral restraint on every retailer and every manufacturer.

Just one word more and I have finished. The buyer of men's clothing in particular is practically protected a 100 per cent to-day. There is not a manufacturer of any reputation that does not make good anything that might go wrong as to the fabric or the tailoring or any other part. The buyer only has to bring it back. He either gets his money or a new garment. So he is fully protected without anything else. That seems to be an American institution.

Now, as to the arguments against the Capper bill, I will respectfully refer the committee to statements made by Mr. Lang, vice president of the Fashion Park Co., of Rochester, N. Y., in last 06259year's reports, pages 326-335, part 1, hearings Sixty-seventh Congress, and also to another statement of Sigmund Sonneborn, president Henry Sonneborn & Co., Baltimore, at pages 334-343, part 1, Senate hearing, Sixty-seventh Congress.

Mr. Crane. Senator, there has been so much said at the hearing yesterday and I have heard so much in a general way, that I am merely going to call your attention to a few points that occur to us particularly.

The Chairman. The purpose of the hearing is to assemble the data for and against the respective measures so that the members of the committee may have it as a matter of record to study and on which action may be taken.

Mr. Crane. I want first to call the attention of the committee to a resolution passed on March 1, 1924, by the Associated Clothing Manufacturers of New York (Inc.), which is as follows:

Whereas we, the Associated Clothing Manufacturers of New York (Inc.), manufacturers of men's and boy's clothes are vitally interested in labeling legislation, and

Whereas we see it the movement for labeling legislation is most definitely expressed in the French-Capper bill, which provides for the compulsory labeling of all fabrics and garments in which wool is employed, and

Whereas we believe that the passing of this bill would work a great increase in the price of wool and a consequent increase in the cost of clothing to the consumer by creating falsely a demand for virgin wool in cloth over the more durable reworked wool in cloth; and

Whereas the cost of labeling and keeping of records would cost the clothing industry of the United States millions of dollars, which amount of overhead would ultimately have to be charged against the finished article and paid for by the buying public; and

Whereas the Lodge-Rogers Honest Merchandise Act which does not compel labeling, but which provides penalties against labeling, misstating or misrepresenting not only cloth but all commodities of commerce; it is

Resolved, That the Associated Manufacturers of New York (Inc.), hereby urge upon the Congress the rejection of the French-Capper bill and the enactment into law at the sooner possible moment of the Lodge-Rogers bill.

The city of New York is a city that produced $600,000,000 worth upward, annually of men's and boy's clothing, and our association feels that we are vitally affected in the conditions prescribed for the labeling of merchandise as set forth in the French-Capper Act. You will note that our resolution is opposed to the passage of the French-Capper bill and is in favor of the Lodge-Rogers bill. It is claimed that it would cost the clothing industry in the United States several millions of dollars per year in order to follow the conditions set up in the French-Capper bill.

The Chairman. Is there any way to estimate how much that would be?

Mr. Crane. Mr. Chairman, there actually is not, except, if you take an individual garment, the wool manufacturer must necessarily put on the cost of the labeling on the wool he sells to the manufacturer, add that to the cost of the garment, and that necessarily carries with it this overhead. That goes to the manufacturer who in turn must charge a profit on that charged in the garment, and I have heard it estimated that the cost of the label put on the garment would, when it reached the retail merchant, be about anyway from 8 to 15 cents each.

The clothing industry is working with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union of America, and they are very closely organized in the United States, and every single operation is charged for in the manufacture of garments.

The Chairman. Then, you think that that would not be absorbed by the manufacturer but would be passed on to the consumer?

Mr. Crane. Not at all. We have had many past instances where the mere change of a seam has cost more money. The workers are not inclined to do anything more cheaply. It would mean a reduction of their scale in wages if they did.

That charge would in turn go to the retailer with an overhead charge, and it is quite possible that by the time the consumer received the garments the cost of the labeling from the clothing manufacturer would amount possibly to 30 cents or 35 cents. That would be the same cost whether the garment was purchased by the consumer at a price of $2 or at a price of $40 or $50. This would be a cost beside the cost of maintaining an elaborate system of record and other incidental bookkeeping expense.

There are various sections of the bill that would appear to set up conditions that would be very hard to enforce from the retailer's standpoint. For instance, he can have on hand clothing without 06967labels and as I understand it from the bill he would not be charged with an offense for having such clothing on hand provided he has written guaranties from the manufacturers that the merchandise was manufactured under the conditions of the bill. There are dishonest manufacturers and retailers as well as there are dishonest men in other lines, and as a consequence of this section there would be great opportunity for the fraud, and the chances for conviction might be very limited.

The Chairman. Have you examined the bill so as to point out the sections you speak of?

Mr. Crane. That particular section I refer to is headed “section 15.”

The Chairman. That is the Capper bill?

Mr. Crane. Yes; the Capper bill is the only bill I am speaking of. The Lodge bill is satisfactory, generally, and any other legislation that will tend to honest dealing in merchandise will be perfectly satisfactory to us. To-day the clothing industry has developed to the point where the consumer relies wholly on the reputation of the concern he buys for.

With respect to the French-Capper bill labeling legislation, we would like to say that the truth-in-fabric bill (so called) has a great tendency to raise the price of raw wool, which in turn will increase the cost of woolen clothing to the American people. There is absolutely no demand on the part of the public for this legislation, and the campaign for its enactment covering a period of years has been initiated and supported by the woolgrowers’ associations.

The purpose of this legislation is to make reworked wool odious in the minds of the consumer through the labeling of each garment as to its content of new or virgin wool and reworked wool. It has been repeatedly said, and it is exceedingly likely, that if this legislation is enacted, the woolgrowers’ associations will initiate a nationwide publicity campaign urging the consumer to buy only fabrics made of new wool, to avoid all fabrics containing reworked wool, which was formerly known as shoddy. A campaign of this kind by the woolgrowers, together with such firms as would adopt the virgin wool label, would inevitably cause the consumer to distrust reworked wool, and it is expected that vastly more fabrics will be made of new wool exclusively, thus further enhancing the price of wool.

While many of those advocating this legislation have had only one purpose, that of increasing the price they will secure for their product, they have maintained that an admixture of reworked wool with new wool was for the purpose of deteriorating fabrics, and that they were therefore performing a public service by showing the consumer to what extent his purchase was made of new wool or of reworked wool.

As a matter of fact, the very reverse is true. When reworked wool is used in conjunction with new wool it is invariably used for the purpose of providing a better and more durable fabric than such as can be made at the same price where only new wool is used. And at any given price a fabric employing both new and reworked wool is superior in wearing qualities and in appearance to the fabric made exclusively of virgin wool.

Take a cassimere cloth, for example, at $2 a yard made of virgin wool. On account of the high cost of wool the number of threads in the cloth must be limited by the cost of the material that enters the fabric, and the wearing qualities of the fabric are correspondingly limited. But on account of the far lower cost of reworked wool a more generous use if that material can be utilized jointly with virgin wool to make a much firmer, better wearing, and better looking fabric than could be produced if made entirely of new wool at the same price.

In other words, brought down to its essence, reworked wool can be said to deteriorate a fabric only as against a very much higher cost fabric, but at any given price its introduction absolutely improves the fabric. Let us illustrate by stating concrete cases.

While overcoatings generally are at present largely made of virgin wool, due to the incidence of the fancy back coating, it is a well-known fact that the best wearing cloths in the medium grade of all-wool overcoatings are those that contains a percentage or reworked wool. The fabrics are made much firmer through its introduction. With respect to one well-known fabric which sold at $2 per yard, containing a considerable percentage of reworked wool it is the general verdict of the clothing industry that this fabric will outwear any fancy back made of virgin wool that was produced and selling for $4 a yard or less.

Compare any of the fleece-faced fabrics made of virgin wool now being so widely distribute, so far as their wearing qualities are concerned, with the kerseys, meltons, and friezes of which overcoatings were largely made until very recently—and all these latter fabrics contained a large percentage of reworked wool—and yet the consumer will get several times as long wear out of any of these latter fabrics as he will out of the fleece-faced virgin wool ones that are at present being sold freely.

Should we, therefore, through a label, warn the consumer to beware of these meritorious fabrics, to shake his confidence in them?

The marked advance in the price of wool will inevitably cause a recrudescence, if this legislation is enacted, of the one-and-one virgin wool fabric, a fabric that was made to some extent during the period of extreme high prices during the war, and was made in conformity with a mistaken desire to promote sales regardless of wearing qualities. Certain houses featured these fabrics so that they could say they were made of pure virgin wool. The experience of the trade with these goods was that they would wear for only a few weeks, when the surface of the cloth would be worn through to the warp or weft, and the dissatisfaction of the clothing industry with these garments was so great that they have been practically tabooed since. And yet if compulsory labeling legislation of the French-Capper type is enacted many manufacturers would have to resort to these goods if they wanted to show only goods that were made of virgin wool. The fabrics that have been substituted for these are fabrics made jointly of virgin wool and reworked wool. They are firm, good wearing clothes of first-class appearance. At any given price the consumer will get vastly more for his money if he buys this kind of a fabric than he would if he bought the virgin wool cloth.

The one fundamental consideration that must be kept in mind continually is not whether the fabric is virgin wool or part virgin 07169wool and part reworked wool, but what is the construction of the cloth? That is the element that decides the wear. How generously have the picks and ends been put into the cloth? How closely has the fabric been woven? And with the high cost and limited world supply of wool it must be apparent to anyone that if only new wool is used it must be used sparingly in all fabrics of moderate price.

There is no more important factor in the economy of the world, so far as meeting the world's requirements of clothing is concerned, than the continued use of reworked wool. Coming under this title of reworked wool is what is known as the waste of both worsted and woolen mills. Every yard of cloth has a very large percentage of waste wool, which is reutilized in making meritorious fabrics in conjunction with new wool, and is indispensable to our finding an adequate supply of material to clothe the people of the world with woolen clothing.

This legislation proposes that every fabric shall be labeled at the mill, and every garment shall be labeled when manufactured, showing the quantity in percentage of virgin wool and reworked wool. There is no way of telling by analysis after a fabric is produced what the percentages of new wool and reworked wool are, and anyone that set out intentionally to deceive could do so with impunity. A subcommittee of the Interstate Commerce Committee, which devoted several days to a hearing on this bill, was in unanimous agreement that there was no way of ascertaining through test what the percentages of wool and reworked wool were after manufacture.

This legislation, instead of benefiting the consumer, would not only increase his cost of clothing, but would be confusing and misleading, causing him to reject those fabrics which would give him the best evidence in favor of those that had the virgin wool label, regardless of whether these fabrics could be expected to give wear or not.

It will add a sum that will run into millions of dollars to the cost of all of the distributers of woolen fabrics, from mills to retailers. Records must be kept showing each style and lot number, showing what the percentages of new and reworked wool are. The sewing on of the labels on each garment is an expensive addition to the overhead of every large distributer. In the last analysis all of these costs must be ultimately paid by the consumer.

It is almost certain that if this legislation is enacted a great many manufacturers of fabric as well as manufacturers of clothing will seek to trade upon a virgin wool label to the detriment of the consumer. Goods will be put out that have nothing to recommend them but the label, and the consumer will be fooled into buying merchandise that he ought to reject, because there is nothing to recommend the purchase but the label; the fabric itself may be virgin wool and yet possess no wearing qualities whatever.

Ninety-nine per cent of the business of the country to-day is conducted on the basis of “dealer responsibility.” The consumer buys because he either has confidence in the maker of the cloth, the maker of the clothing, or the distributer. This legislation would introduce a new and misleading factor which has mischievous implications.

The Chairman. Does the committee wish to ask any questions of Mr. Crane? If not we will call the next witness.

Mr. Quinn. Mr. Chairman, I am going to make only a very few remarks. I originally intended to make a statement, but most of the points have been covered.

The Chairman. We will be glad to hear anything you have to say.

Mr. Quinn. My organization, beginning in 1921, and continuing at their different conventions, up to the present date, have taken a stand which is presented, I think, most completely in the resolution:

Resolved, That the International Association of Garment Manufacturers, in convention assembled, do hereby express our disapproval of the so-called “truth in fabric” law, as exemplified in the recent Wyoming act, due to the impossibility, under existing conditions, of manufacturers to analyze in their product the percentage of virgin wool in materials or garments manufactured therefrom. Further, we do desire that the public shall at all times be safeguarded from unscrupulous misrepresentation in the branding of materials, and go on record as approving the proposed national legislation in so far as it guarantees this protection to the public. Be it further

Resolved, That the secretary be directed to send copies of this resolution to all Members of Congress. (Copy to be sent to the governor of each State.)

Mr. Chairman, with reference to the Lodge-Roger bill, we can find no objection to it. My organization, since its organization, has opposed misbranding; we consider it one of the prime evils of the clothing industry; and we can not oppose the bill, because we think it will assist in clearing up a number of these evils. We manufacture all types of clothing, cotton, wool, silk, and other materials. That is about all I have to say about the Lodge bill, because I believe everything else concerning it has been covered.

With respect to the Capper-French bill, which I believe is the one that is usually referred to when you speak of the truth in fabric bill, I would say that our stand on that is about this: If there is any reason for such an act to protect the public, we are for it. We would say, however, that the truth in fabric bill, we believe, does not accomplish that, or would not accomplish that. We would suggest that if there is a need for such a bill that it be aimed at what the consumer needs in a garment, namely, wear. The clothing manufacturer to-day sells under a trade-mark. You buy an Arrow shirt or collar, or a Hart Schaffner & Marx suit. You don't buy it according to the amount of wool in it. If there is a necessity for a branding in order to protect the public, we are for it. We believe that the bill should be aimed at what the consumer wants. In practically no instance does the clothing manufacturer make his own material, and we can not see how he is responsible for what the cloth contains. The truth in fabric bill would need to be amended to that extent, if it is to be a fair bill.

The Chairman. The general impression that the public has, as I can glean it and as it appears to me, is that there ought not to be any injury to anyone to know what he is buying.

Mr. Quinn. I quite subscribe to that.

The Chairman. That is the general feeling?

Mr. Quinn. Yes, sir.

The Chairman. And second, there is a prejudice against the word “shoddy.”

Mr. Quinn. Yes; and there will be a greater prejudice if the truth in fabric bill becomes law.

The Chairman. Very likely there is a better cloth made of shoddy than is made of virgin wool.

Mr. Quinn. That has been established.

The Chairman. And yet, as it reacts on me, not knowing what shoddy is, I want to know what I am buying and whether or not I am buying shoddy. That, of course, is a matter of prejudice. The question with me is just whether or not any injury accrues to the public if we should place a label on the garment stating exactly what it is.

Mr. Quinn. You mean to label it as to its contents?

The Chairman. To label goods as to their contents. If you did that you would in all probability be doing some good in some instances.

Mr. Quinn. Yes; and in some instances, at the same time, you would be doing harm because you would give a status to many cheap materials which heretofore they have not had.

The Chairman. I think those who appeared yesterday have made a pretty strong statement in regard to that.

Mr. Quinn. That is the reason I am not covering that.

The Chairman. I was simply giving you my general reaction and what I think the reaction of the buying public would be on this matter.

Mr. Quinn. I understand.

The Chairman. If the committee does not wish to ask Mr. Quinn any further questions, we will call the next witness.

Doctor Schwarzmann. Mr. Chairman, I represent the Silk Association of American which association has gone, quite a few times, on record approving always of any sound, helpful, and useful legislation designed to protect any industry, and the association has likewise recorded itself as being against any legislation which is useless and harmful to one industry or to all of them.

The association has taken up the question of honest merchandising already in one of its printed bulletins entitled “Silk Association of America, Misbranding of Merchandise,” which was published in 1916. The views of the association as expressed in that printed pamphlet have never been presented to a committee of the legislature but the statements appearing in that printed article stand to-day as they did when it was prepared, and I would like to go into the record. It will indicate very forcibly that we are against the present Capper bill and that we are in favor of the Lodge bill. We are against the Capper bill because we consider it incomplete and impractical. We consider it incomplete because we do not think that any merchandise should be privileged as to its protection. The ultimate consumer ought to be protected all along the line and no one material or product should be selected for protection as is done in the Capper bill.

The proposed legislation affects our industry directly, too. Not alone that, but it affects our interstate commerce. Section 9 of the Capper-French bill says:That every manufacturer of woven fabric purporting to contain wool, within any State or Territory of the United STates or the District of Columbia, 07472and every such manufacturer in any foreign country who offers or intends to offer such fabric for sale, trade, or exchange in interstate commerce or for shipment from any State, Territory, or the District of Columbia to any other State, Territory, or the District of Columbia from any foreign country or to any foreign country, shall stamp, or cause to be stamped upon the back or on the selvage of every yard of such woven fabric, in a manner that shall be legible, and in such form as may be prescribed by the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Agriculture, and the Secretary of Commerce, the following information: The contents of the fabric, stating the four following ingredients, as herein defined: Virgin wool, shoddy, cotton,and silk, and the relative proportion or percentage by weight of each, together with the registration number of the person, firm or corporation making the fabric or cloth: Provided, That in stating the contents of virgin wool it shall be sufficient to recite “not less than” a stated percentage of such ingredient, and in stating the contents of cotton, shoddy, or silk, it shall be sufficient to recite “no more than” a stated percentage of such ingredient or ingredients.

But that is not complete. If we manufacture wool into our silk, the wool is, of course, the minor part and the less valuable part than the silk, so the buyer has not so much of an interest in knowing how little wool there is in the fabric as he has in knowing how much silk there is.

The Chairman. Supposing I have occasion to buy a piece of goods, thinking it silk, and it has considerable wool in it. Why should I not know that?

Doctor Schwarzmann. I do not think that silk and wool can be sold at any time to the average woman under the brand of silk.

The Chairman. It could to me.

Doctor Schwarzmann. But not to the average woman. The buyer, the big buyer, the wholesale buyer, is of course interested to know how much silk is in there and the rest he takes for granted to be wool, and he does not care so much if it is shoddy wool or virgin wool. But it would not be corrected if we, for instance, should mark our product “not less than so much wool.” The buyer wants to know how much silk is in it. The wool is a secondary matter.

The bill itself is impracticable because no silk manufacturer could very well stamp every yard with an indelible ink. The reason for that is first, that some fabric would show the stamp through; in the second place, this bill is designed to protect the ultimate consumer, and since practically 70 per cent of the silk is manufactured into wearing apparel, shirts, drawers, dresses, ties, etc., before the ultimate consumer sees it, why, if the label is on it then it might happen that our girls would be walking around with a label on their dresses saying, “above 50 per cent virgin wool” or our wives would be going around in dresses stamped “above 50 per cent shoddy” or something like that which of course nobody would like.

The main thing is that the wholesale buyer can not be cheated if he comes to us, and we run all the big silk houses. He knows exactly what he buys.

The Chairman. Right there is the gist of it all, whether the public is being cheated. That gives us the function for legislating.

Doctor Schwarzmann. Then it should not be the manufacturer who should suffer. It is the one who has the means in his hands to cheat the public who is, of course, the last dealer.

The Chairman. That is very clear. The Lodge bill would punish the man who does misrepresent by misbranding, but it would not punish him if he does not brand at all.

Doctor Schwarzmann. The large mill will protect the ultimate consumer if he buys at a silk price. If he has a guarantee that the goods were sold to him as silk the seller could be punished under the Lodge bill, but I think now to-day he can be punished in any State under any criminal code under the false-pretense section.

The Chairman. Do you mean if we pass the Lodge bill that a purchaser can prosecute the man who is misrepresenting the goods if the goods are not labeled?

Doctor Schwarzmann. Yes; of course.

The Chairman. Under the Lodge hill?

Doctor Schwarzmann. I think that impossible.

The Chairman. Without a brand?

Doctor Schwarzmann. I mean a statement as to its quality would be enough.

The Chairman. That is very important item, if that is in the bill.

Doctor Schwarzmann. It says in the bill, for instance:

Wearing apparel sold, labeled, or otherwise represented as “all wool” yarns, fabrics or wearing apparel shall be deemed to be misbranded, misrepresented, or falsely described if they contain any admixture of cotton, jute, hemp, silk, or any other fiber than wool of the sheep or lamb, or hair of the angora or cashmere goat.

You see it says, “or otherwise represented.”

The Chairman. Otherwise?

Doctor Schwarzmann. That is by an oral statement or guaranty.

The Chairman. That is a very important item.

Doctor Schwarzmann. The silk industry is of course interested in some legislation to prohibit misbranding. Now, I think that is all I have to say to the committee except that I would like to have this article to which I have referred, “Misbranding of merchandise” which the Silk Association of America published in 1916 incorporated in the record.

The Chairman. I think that may be done.

(The paper referred to is here printed, as follows:)

Mr. Newell. I would like, if you will permit me, to direct your attention to the hearings had before the House committee in 120 and to my testimony which appears in the record of those hearings at page 205. Our statement has not changed since then.

Our association is composed of delegates for cotton manufacturers.

They market more than 75 per cent of all the cotton cloth made in this country. The French-Capper bill would not affect their product 07977in any way. Their product is all cotton. So while they do not oppose that bill particularly, because it does not affect them, the principal point we wish to make is that we favor the Lodge bill.

The textile industry, if I recall figures published by the Department of Commerce, correctly, recently, is the second industry of the country. Of the five divisions of the textiles, cotton is representative of more than half of all the textiles, so if you undertake to protect the public from fraud and deceit under this Capper bill, you leave out the biggest portion of the textiles altogether.

We are opposed to the French-Capper bill on the ground it will not achieve its announced object, to protect the public from fraud and deceit. As the other gentleman has said, it will set up a false standard and because of that will lend itself to further misrepresentation by dishonest merchants of all classes, wholesalers, retailers, and so forth. If a merchant wishes to deceive anyone, he has a much better chance to do it if the Capper bill becomes a law.

We favor any legislation that will give the consumer the greatest protection from fraud. It is on that ground that we favor the Lodge bill. We believe any legislation of that kind will protect the consumer because, as we understand it, if there is any misrepresentation, any deception in any commodity at all, the man who so misrepresents it and so deceives the buyer can be punished under the Lodge bill whether the goods are branded or not. As I read the bill it is designed to protect the public against fraud by prohibiting the manufacture, sale, or transportation in interstate commerce of misbranded, misrepresented, or falsely described articles, and to regulate the traffic of them.

The Chairman. Would this misrepresentation apply to what a salesman would say to a purchaser, or would it apply to only the goods that are labeled?

Mr. Newell. It is our understanding it would apply to any misrepresentation, whether the goods were labeled or whether it was merely an oral misrepresentation.

The Chairman. If it does that, it is quite a feature in the bill.

Mr. Newell. I went recently to buy a suit of clothes, and I paid more money in dollars for it than I ever paid for any suit made for me before. It was, however, the cheapest suit I ever had. It was made from a very light fabric, so light fabric, so light that I could almost hold it up here and read a printed page through it. The merchant I purchased it from had been in business for over 100 years, or the business had been established for that time, and when I expressed a doubt as to the durability of the material he said, “We stand back of anything we sell.” Well, that is all I cared about. I knew the material would wear, and it did wear better than he said it would.

General Wood. I understand the question is whether misrepresentation as distinguished from branding and labeling is covered by the Lodge bill.

The Chairman. Yes.

General Wood. It is covered by the clause in section 3, which says, “misbrands or misrepresents, or causes to be misbranded or misrepresented, or applies or causes to be applied, any false trade description to any article.” Then, as to the character of misrepresentation, it is dealt with in two other sections.

The Chairman. Let me ask you a specific question, your answer to which will cover what I have in mind. I am assuming that a salesman that misrepresents his goods now might be punished. I do not know that that is true. I assume he l might be. What I am after is if we should pass the Lodge bill is there any authority in that bill by which we could punish beyond the provisions of the present law that permits for the punishment of misrepresentation?

General Wood. I think that is embraced more especially in the specification in the bill as to what constitutes misrepresentation. It does not leave the question open to interpretation.

The Chairman. In your judgment would the public be more protected by the Lodge bill, saying nothing about the branding or misbranding, than it is now?

General Wood. I think so, distinctly.

The Chairman. That is what I want to get.

General Wood. I think so.

Mr. Cheney. We are the association representing the majority of knitted underwear manufacturers of this country. While the French-Capper bill does not attack us in any way, being applicable only to the woven fabrics, we are opposed to it for these reasons:

This organization wishes to go on record in favor of all general movements to better the economic condition of the farmer, but is distinctly against class legislation such as is exemplified by the French-Capper truth in fabric bill.

This bill is admittedly put forth in the interests of one small group of our farming community, the woolgrowers, and as such is distinctly class legislation of the worst type, for its sole purpose is to increase the cost of wool to the American consumer.

In addition to the grounds set forth above, we are against the French-Capper bill because it creates a false standard of value for woolen products. As is well known, there are several grades of wool and the lending of the same of the United States Government to the theory that all virgin wool, no matter what the grade, is the best type of wool and will give the best service to the consumer opens the door to all sorts of fraudulent practices.

We are against the French-Capper bill because it will create in the mind of the consumer the understanding that the raw material is the basis of quality and leave out of consideration entirely the skill and ability of the manufacturer.

We are also against the French-Capper truth in fabric bill because it will necessarily mean the creation of new positions in the Government in the way of the number of inspectors and checkers who must be employed to enforce the terms of the bill and thus will increase the cost of government.

We are also against this bill because the labeling made necessary will increase manufacturing costs and thus increase the cost of all wool or woolen products to the consumer.

We are distinctly in favor of the bill known as the Lodge-Rogers honest merchandising act, which will penalize the manufacturer or other who misbrands his merchandise or his product.

Mr. Dale. This is our first appearance before any Senate committee on this question and, in order to save your time, I have arranged what I have to say in the form of notes to which I will refer, but it will not disturb me to have you interrupt me. I shall welcome interruptions, for we want to make our case perfectly plain to you.

I want to direct your attention more particularly to the unworkability of both the Capper and Lodge bills, because of the impossibility of distinguishing new wool from reworked wool when both are mixed together and manufactured into a yarn or fabric.

I do not know whether any of you are familiar with the technical side of wool manufacturing processes, but you do not need such knowledge in order to get this fundamental fact clear in your minds—that running wool through a machine and converting it into yarn and cloth does not change its nature. The reworked wool which is reclaimed from yarns and fabrics is still wool, and, if it is mixed with new wool in the manufacturing processes, it is impossible to tell by any test whatsoever how much has been used once and how much has been used more than one. The witnesses yesterday and those to-day have impressed that fact upon you and we are in entire agreement with it.

The Chairman. We had a very fine demonstration yesterday of various grades of wool.

Mr. Dale. Yes, I do not think that method is necessary. It is no more possible to distinguish new wool from reworked wool than it is to distinguish iron, new iron, we will say, that comes from the mines direct to the casting room, from scrap iron that has been melted and mixed with new iron. When new iron and old iron are mixed, distinguishing the old material from the new presents exactly the same problem as when new and reworked wool are mixed and converted into goods.

The Chairman. It seems to me that is a strong statement. Suppose you take a piece of goods worn out and rework that into new wool. Is that the same?

Mr. Dale. I think the idea is not quite clear to you. Wool is never so valuable for cloth manufacturing purposes as when it comes from the sheep's back. But if yarn or cloth is torn up, converted into loose fibers and mixed with new wool there is no test— chemical, microscopical, or physical—by which it is possible to determine how much is new wool and how much is reworked wool; as there is no test to determine how much new iron and how much reworked iron is in iron casting.

The Chairman. I think I misunderstood you. I thought you meant there was no difference in their grade.

Mr. Dale. It is important to remember that wool is never so valuable for manufacturing purposes as when it is first used; yet it is a fact that much of the reclaimed wool is better than much wool that has never been used at all. Do I make myself plain?

The Chairman. I know what you say, but I do not know what you mean.

Mr. Dale. Take the ladies’ sweaters, for example. They are made of long wool that is spun into a soft yarn, which can be easily pulled apart, making it a mass of loose fibers. This reclaimed material is a better grade of the wool than a large quantity of the wool that would be classed as “virgin wool” under the Lodge or Capper bill.

The Chairman. I understand that. You can have some grade of shoddy that is better than some “virgin wool.”

Mr. Dale. We knew that for two and a half years there had been in Wyoming a law which, so far as workability is concerned, was identical with the Capper bill. In order to enforce this Wyoming law it is necessary to determine the proportions of new wool and reworked wool in fabrics. We had an investigation made among the clothiers of Wyoming about a year ago, to find out how that law had worked. The reply from all of them was to the effect that the law was a dead letter. There had been no attempt to enforce it because it was impossible to determine how much new wool and how much reworked wool was in a garment. Our informants said that in Wyoming a number of lines of clothing were labeled “all virgin wool” which were well known in the trade to be made of mixtures of new and reworked wool. In other words, this law that you have been considering has been subjected to the acid test on a State-wide scale for nearly two and a half years and has been found unworkable and a cover for deception. As this committee is desirous of getting at the truth regarding the question of labeling wool goods, I suggest that there can be no better way to do it than to have a report obtained through Government sources as to the operation of the Wyoming law.

Last July we received an invitation to attend a meeting of the Wyoming Wool Growers’ Association. While it was impossible for us to attend the meeting, we did write to them thanking them for the invitation and asking them to bring a test case under the Wyoming law to determine its workability. No reply has been made to that request and no test case to our knowledge has been brought either before or since our letter was written.

The question before this committee is very simple: Shall you recommend to the Senate that a law which for nearly three years has proved unworkable in Wyoming, and which has been a cover for fraud, shall be imposed upon all the people of the United States?

This agitation for a wool labeling clause was started in 1901 by the woolgrowers in order to increase the price of their wool. Such a law, even if it were workable, can not increase the price of wool for the simple reason that the price of wool in America is governed by the cost of importing foreign wool plus the tariff. If the wool-growers of America want a higher price on wool, there is only one 08684way to get it, and that is through legislation that will raise the tariff.

The Chairman. Suppose, Mr. Dale, that I as a citizen, not so much concerned about the price of wool as I am about increasing the product of wool in America—of course I admit that unless you have some show of an increase in price you won't encourage wool growers, and that is one reason I voted for the tariff, but I am concerned about increasing wool growing in this country and I have an impression that this legislation would give assistance—suppose, as I say, that as a citizen not so much concerned about the price of wool as I am about increasing the product of wool in America that I am in favor of this bill. What would you say as to that?

Mr. Dale. I have submitted the reason why it would not increase the price. The woolgrowers produce less than one-third of what wool the country needs.

The Chairman. And we are growing less wool constantly.

Mr. Dale. Yes, we are growing less and less. The price can be forced up only by the process that I have named, that is, by increasing the tariff. Any attempt to obtain for American wool a price greater than the cost of importing foreign wool, duty paid, will be thwarted by the use of foreign wool in place of domestic wool. That is self-evident. The woolgrowers have been fooled all these years by their leaders into believing that a wool-goods labeling law would benefit them by increasing the price of their wool.

The woolgrowers started this agitation in 1901 and carried it on for about eighteen years. About five years ago they were reenforce by Strong, Hewat & Co., whose vice president, Alexander Walker, was before this committee yesterday. During the past five years these combined forces have carried on an intensive campaign for the Capper bill which provided for labelling new wool “virgin wool.” Mr. Walker admitted yesterday that 75 per cent of the success of that agitation was due to him personally, and 99 per cent was due to the combination of Mr. Walker and what is called the National Sheep and Wool Bureau of Chicago. Five or six years ago the term “virgin wool” was practically unknown as a term to define new wool. I recently came across a reference, published five or six years ago, to “virgin oil.” I do not know whether that term would be used to-day or not, but I do know that five or six years ago the term “virgin wool” was just as uncommon an expression as “virgin oil” was then or it is now. As a result of this intensive campaign by the combination of Alexander Walker, representing the Strong, Hewat Co., and the National Sheep and Wool Bureau, “virgin wool” has become a common expression. It is on everybody's tongue, and it can not be used to-day by anyone orally, printed or in writing without advertising the products of Strong, Hewat & Co., because these products are identified in the minds of the clothiers of the country with Strong, Hewat & Co.’s trade mark, which includes the term “virgin wool.” That is a very important fact to be placed in the record and to be kept before the legislators in considering this bill.

The Chairman. It might be interesting, Mr. Dale, for me to cite here, for the record, that some years ago, longer than five years ago, my attention was called to this sort of legislation by a distinguished citizens of New York who discussed it in the line of the pure-food 08785legislation, and asked me whether I would not get behind this kind of a movement. He showed me some correspondence he had had with Secretary Redfield, of the Department of Commerce, in which the Secretary looked upon it with considerable favor, he being a manufacturer himself, and I became somewhat interested in it, but I was so much absorbed in other things that I could not, introduce the bill, but from that time on I have been somewhat interested in the character of the legislation, still with an open mind, and I am now interested in the subject. I know nothing about this propaganda that you speak of which you say is being carried on by Mr. Walker.

Mr. Dale. I am aware of that. And the proponents of this legislature have taken good care that Congress should not know about it.

Senator Capper. May I suggest that this point which Mr. Dale raises was fully and completely answered to the satisfaction of everyone in the former hearings had by the Committee on this bill, and that Mr. Dale's objections on that ground will not stand for a moment?

Mr. Dale. I submit that Mr. Walker's testimony of yesterday is a complete confirmation of what I have said. I believe there is a rule in the House of Representatives and possibly in the Senate also, not to impute unworthy motives. Mr. Walker yesterday said he had been carrying on this work in the public interest, to protect the consumer. I do not know whether he did or not, but he is the greatest living authority on that subject, and I accept his statement. But I do know that, whatever has been his motive, the effect of his campaign has been to advertise Strong, Hewat & Co.’s goods in the way I have stated.

Senator Capper. But he seems to be now opposed to the Capper bill?

Mr. Dale. I come to that point right here. We were informed last August that Strong, Hewat & Co. had grown tired of this campaign, and Mr. Walker yesterday admitted that he had grown weary. We were informed that they thought they had got about all the advertising benefit out of it that they could get and wanted to drop it. Four months later, in December, there was a series of events which shed a light upon how they were going to withdraw from the agitation. On December 10, 1923, the Daily News Record in a Chicago dispatch stated that Alexander Walker had resigned as president of the National Sheep and Wool Bureau, and that he would support the Lodge bill with amendments that would clearly define the terms “virgin wool,” and “new wool,” and “all wool.” The Capper bill provides that “the term ‘virgin wool’ used in this act shall mean wool never previously spun or woven into cloth.”

A week after the Chicago dispatch was published, the Lodge bill was introduced, defining the terms “virgin wool,” “new wool,” and “sheep's wool” as material “which has never been spun into yarn or woven into cloth.”

That circumstantial evidence was enough to convince us, but in order to make assurance doubly sure we wrote to Senator Lodge and asked him how it happened that he introduced on December 15, a bill amended in exactly the way that Alexander Walker of Strong, Hewat & Col, and the National Sheep and Wool Bureau of Chicago, had stated would satisfy them. I would like to read the 08886letter dated December 22, 1922, and signed by Senator Lodge, which we received in reply:

My Dear Sir: I have received your letter of December 19. I introduced in the last Congress a bill which was the same as that introduced at that time by Mr. Rogers and which was based upon the british merchandise act. I was prepared to introduce it again when the Senate was in session, but Mr. Walter Humphreys, secretary of the National Association of Wool Manufacturers, came to see me in regard to it. Of course, I know Mr. Humphreys; I also knew the important post which he held in the National Association of Wool Manufacturers. He told me that many of the former supporters of the Capper bill had withdrawn their support of that bill and were prepared to support the Lodge-Rogers bill with some amendments which he suggested and approved. Having entire confidence in Mr. Humphreys, I introduced my bill with the amendments that he proposed, but I have not yet given the amendments any detailed consideration. I have never heard of Strong, Hewat & Co. or their goods. Mr. Humphreys mentioned to me that Mr. Alexander Walker, who had been a strong supporter of the Capper bill originally, was prepared to support the Lodge-Rogers bill with the amendments which Mr. Humphreys had proposed to me. The bill will certainly receive very full consideration from the Interstate Commerce Committee and I am sure that those whom you say you represent will have every opportunity to be heard if they object to the bill as it stands.

Yours very truly,H. C. Lodge.

That shows what was evident from the chronological order of the Chicago dispatch and the Lodge bill, that this Lodge bill was put in without Senator Lodge understanding it and as a result of an arrangement between the National Association of Wool Manufacturers, presumably the other two associations with which it is connected, and Alexander Walker of Strong, Hewat & Co.

We are opposed to both of the bills. We are opposed to the Capper bill because it is demonstrated that it is unworkable and is a cover to fraud. We are opposed to the Lodge bill for exactly the same reasons. There is no Lodge-Rogers bill before Congress to-day. Previous witnesses have made a mistake in referring to “the Lodge-Rogers bill.” The Rogers bill was introduced in the House on December 3, in the same form as in the previous Congress. There are also the amendment Lodge bill and the Capper-French bill.

In January, 1914, after I had been personally engaged for 14 years in a discussion of the goods-labeling question and in opposition to the various bills that had been introduced, I wrote to Congressman Rogers, of Massachusetts, and asked him if he would not introduce a bill patterned after the British merchandise marks act. I told him it was a great opportunity to render a public service because that bill for 27 or 28 years had been a success in the British Empire, and that a bill modeled after it would head off this foolish wool goods labeling legislation. He responded favorably and in three weeks introduced what, so fat as I can learn, is the first bill based on the principles of the British merchandise marks act to be introduced in Congress. That bill was followed in succeeding Congresses by similar bills introduced by Congressman A. W. Barkley, of Connecticut, and by another bill on the same principle introduced by Mr. Rogers. At the last session Senator Lodge and Mr. Rogers united in introducing identical bills in both branches of Congress.

We are in favor of the British merchandise marks act, the basic principle of that act being the forbidding of false labeling, not 08987only of wool goods, but of all kinds of goods, anything that is exchanged in commerce.

We are opposed to the amended Lodge bill because the amendments are taken, word for word, from the Capper bill, and any sound objection to the Capper bill is an equally sound objection to the amendments to the Lodge bill, because the Capper bill and amendments to the Lodge bill are one and the same thing. The supporters of the Lodge bill can not consistently attack the Capper bill at unworkable because the Lodge and Capper provisions are alike.

Senator Capper. Is there anything compulsory to that Lodge bill?

Mr. Dale. The question is answered by the statement I was about to make. It is entirely beside the mark to say that one bill compels labeling and the other makes it permissive. If both of them, as I have attempted to demonstrate, are covers of fraud, it is not necessary to make the perpetration of that fraud compulsory in order to induce dishonest and tricky manufacturers and merchants to label their goods so as to cheat the consumer.

The Chairman. How is it a cover of fraud if it states on the label just what is in the garment?

Mr. Dale. For the simple reason, as I have already stated, that when you mix new and reworked wool together it is impossible to distinguish the two, and the goods can be labeled to indicate any proportions of new wool and reworked wool, and the officers of the law will be powerless to detect the falsity of the statements.

The Chairman. You mean because they can not detect it they will ignore it?

Mr. Dale. That is the crux of the whole thing. They can not distinguish the new wool from reworked wool. One of the questions you brought up is that of oleomargarine and butter, also the labeling of fodstuffs and drugs.

The Chairman. One of the committeemen brought that up.

Mr. Dale. This wool-goods labeling bill differs from the pure food and drugs act in two essential features. It is the interest of the public to know that drugs and food are pure, and it is possible by analysis to detect impurities in them. In the case of wool goods, however, it is not possible to distinguish new wool from reworked wool, and, instead of being benefited, the public would be injured by having the proportions of new and reworked wool shown by labels on the clothing. The injury would result from the fact that the value of wool goods does not depend on whether they contain reworked wool, and on the further fact that the public has been misled into believing that their value does so depend. These are the fundamental differences between the pure food and drug act, one the one hand, and the wool-goods labeling bill on the other.

The Lodge bill and the Capper bill will have exactly the same effects, a tremendous advertisement of Strong, Hewat & Co.’s trademarked goods; and unlimited opportunity for defrauding the buyers of wool clothing.

I do not believe that either this subcommittee, the full committee, the House, the Senate, or the President will ever agree to legislation that will make a United States law an instrument for advertising a private firm's goods.

The Chairman. Of course, Mr. Dale, you are very well aware that the committee here knows nothing about Strong, Hewat & Co.

Mr. Dale. I am aware of that. Senator Lodge did not know about them, and, as I told you a while ago, the proponents of the Capper and Lodge bills have been very careful that you should not know. That was why we were anxious to come here to-day, in order that you might know the whole truth about this legislation. We want you to know that there are three associations combined in a joint committee—the National Association of Wool Manufacturers, the American Association of Woolen & Worsted Manufacturers, and the National Association of Woolen & Worsted Spinners. The president of one of these associations recently wrote us in defense of the Lodge bill, stating that Strong, Hewat & Co. are entitled to some advantage under this legislation because of the large amount of money they have expended in advertising. That is the idea back of the Lodge bill—to get a special privilege under the law.

Senator Capper. It seems to me, Mr. Dale, that the whole argument falls, in view of the statement made by Mr. Walker that he was not for this legislation.

Mr. Dale. I have read the report of Mr. Walker's statement yesterday, in which he said in reply to the chairman's question: “I am not against the Capper bill, but I think this—the Lodge bill—is the better measure.? In other words, Mr. Walker, of Strong, Hewat & Co., will be satisfied with either bill. And why should he not be? Both of them advertise the words “virgin wool,” which are part of Strong, Hewat & Co's. trade-mark.

If the committee wants further proof regarding the unworkability of these two bill, further proof than is self-evident to you, further proof than is supplied by the experience under the Wyoming law of 1921, we are prepared to supply it.

About a year ago a member of the Carded Woolen Manufacturers’ Association made in one of his mills a considerable number of samples, the raw material consisting of various mixtures of new wool and reworked wool, from 100 per cent new wool down to some that were all reworked wool. That manufacturer is the only person who knows the proportions of new wool and reworked wool in the raw materials. We are prepared to give to this committee these samples and under seal a sworn statement of what went into the raw material of every one of the samples, with the understanding that they are to be submitted to the United States Bureau of Standards and the United States Bureau of Chemistry for analysis, and to any analyst that the proponents of these two bills will select, the reports of the analyses and our sealed statement to be opened by the committee and made public at the same time, in order to let the divergence between the reports of the different analysts and the divergence between the report of any one analyst and the actual percentages be the proof of the unworkability of either the Lodge or the Capper bill.

The Chairman. We will take that proposition under consideration.

Mr. Dale. Now, I am going to give you a further and a different view of this question.

The Chairman. Mr. Dale, can you state concisely the rest of your views? We will have to adjourn pretty soon.

Mr. Dale. Yes; I will be through in a very short time now. Wool manufacturing is carried on by two different methods, by the carded 09189woolen process and by the worsted or combing process. The combing process is adapted for all new wool only; reworked wool can not be used in the manufacture of worsteds. The carded woolen process is adapted for working either new wool or reworked wool. The carded process is the only process by which reworked wool can be converted into yarns and fabrics. Under either the Lodge or the Capper bill it would be possible for a worsted manufacturer to label his goods, say, as follows: “All-virgin-wool worsted. Labeled under the United States honest merchandise (or truth-in-fabric) act of 1924,” and then add these significant words: “The word ‘worsted’ is the only certain guaranty of 100 per cent virgin wool.” Thus, either the Lodge bill or the Capper bill will give the worsted manufacturers of this country an unparalleled opportunity to fool the consumers by playing on the artificially developed prejudice in favor of “virgin wool.”

The great need of the country to-day is a reduction in the cost of living, and, so far as clothing is concerned, the great opportunity to reduce the cost of living is by use of the carded woolen process of manufacturing wool goods. In 1911, after a through test of worsteds, the United States Army returned to the use of carded woolen cloths. This was done for two reasons. The carded woolen goods were better and sold at a lower price. The military forces of every country on earth have given preference to carded goods for these two reasons.

In order to reduce the cost of living, Congress should see that no laws is passed discriminating against carded woolen goods. Let worsteds and carded woolens receive the same treatment under the law for 60 years it has been the almost uninterrupted policy of this country to keep in force laws that discriminating against carded woolen manufacturing. I refer now to the tariff, but I will not go into that question.

I would like to file a copy of the British merchandise marks act, The principle of that law is what we stand for and we do not want any “new wool,” “all wool” or “virgin wool” jokers in it. That is the law which will protect the people against misrepresentation and fraud.

A Federal law, as I understand it, affects interstate commerce only, It will be necessary for the States as well as the Federal Government to enact laws based on the principle of the British act in order to give the American people the same protection that the British merchandise marks act has given to the people of the United Kingdom for the past 37 years.

The Chairman. We will be glad to put the British act in the record.

Mr. Dale. Here are also a brief and a statement which we prepared a year ago which we would like to have put in.

The Chairman. Do you want to put this in?

Mr. Dale. I do; because it is information that has been kept from the committees of Congress. I will not say it has been done deliberately, but the information has been withheld, a is plainly shown by Senator Lodge's letter. He for one did not understand the question.

The Chairman. It will be put in unless some one objects to it.

STATEMENT SUBMITTED BY MR. DALE.

Mr. Dale. A year ago, in January, 1923, we issued a brief entitled “The Truth About the Capper Wool Goods Labeling Bill,” in which we tried to state as concisely as possible the facts bearing on the wool goods labeling question covering: The intrinsic values of raw materials classified as “virgin wool” and “recovered wool” under the Capper bill; the intrinsic value of wool fabrics; the impossibility of enforcing the Capper bill; our proposal that this committee put the question of its workability to an easy and certain test; the combination of woolgrowers and the advertising department of Strong, Hewat — Co., for the purpose of agitating for this legislation; the opportunities for deceiving and defrauding the buyers of wool clothing under the Capper bill; the losses to manufacturers and merchants; the certain failure to bring about any increase in the price of wool; the only benefit to anyone that could result from the Capper bill, namely, the tremendous advertisement of the wool goods sold by Strong, Hewat & Co., under the trade-mark that includes the words “virgin wool,” which are also used in the Capper bill to designate new wool; the neglect of this wool goods labeling question by Congress; and the sound method of protecting the public against misrepresentation and fraud in the sale of not only wool goods, but all kinds of articles, merchandise, and material, namely, by a law based on the principle of the British merchandise marks act of 1887, which prohibits the false description of all kinds of goods.

The Capper bill now under consideration is the same as the Capper bill of the Sixty-seventh Congress, and we ask you to include in the report of the present hearings our statement of January. 1923, as our argument against the pending bill and in favor of a bill based on the principle of the British act. In addition to that statement we wish to review briefly certain events since January, 1923, which confirm that argument and the conclusions in a most striking manner.

The question of labeling wool goods under the Capper bill hinges on the possibility of determining by an analysis of a wool fabric the presence and the proportions of new wool and recovered wool of which it is composed. It is self-evident to any intelligent person that it is impossible to distinguish new wool from recovered wool when the two are mixed together and manufactured into a yarn or fabric. Both are wool. Both react in the same way to every chemical or physical test. And both present the same appearance under the microscope. For this reason, detection of false labels under the Capper bill is impossible. the bill is unworkable, and it would serve only as a cover to deception and fraud.

Knowing that a law requiring wool goods to be labeled to show the percentage of new wool had been in effect in Wyoming since February 21, 1921, we had letters addressed to the leading clothing firms of that State asking how the law had worked. Following is the report of the replies:In response to the inquiry we sent out to Wyoming on the truth in fabric law we have received replies from nine of the leading clothing firms from various point in the State. The gist of their replies is about the same. According to our information no effort has been made to enforce the law. Some of them write that after the law was passed some of the sheep growers in various localities called on merchants and urged them to enforce the law; but when it was explained how impossible it was to comply, they went their way 09391and nothing further, has been heard from them. Most of them say there has been no special consumer demand for the enforcement of the law. One or two of them say they have helped their business by putting in lines that are marked “All virgin wool,” mentioning a couple of lines that I know carry just as much shoddy as the general run, which goes to show the possibilities of bunk. It simmers down to the fact that the law has practically been inoperative there. I also had a number of replies from clothing manufacturers. One of them, a prominent firm well known to you, state they did not know there was such a law. The same was true of some of the other firms, so I guess we can conclude that the Wyoming venture is a dead letter.

Of course no other conditions could result from such a law as the Wyoming act of 1921 or the proposed Capper bill, but we secured this evidence in order to obtain proof of the unworkability of the Capper bill on a State-wide scale. In order to pile proof on proof so as to make the demonstration overwhelming, we improved an opportunity that arose in July, 1923, to address the following letter to Dr. J. M. Wilson, president of the Wyoming Woolgrowers’ Association, McKinley, Wyo., challenging him and the promoters of the Capper bill to bring a test case before the Wyoming courts under the Wyoming wool goods labeling act of 1921, a nearly complete copy of which is included in the letter, as follows:(The letter referred to is as follows:)Boston, Mass., July 19, 1923.

Dr. J.M. Wilson,President Wyoming Woolgrowers’ Association,McKinley, Wyo.

My Dear Mr. Wilson: I want to thank you on behalf of our association and on my own personal account for your kind invitation to attend your convention on July 31-August 2, at Rawlins, and for your offer to give us a place on your program and distribute to those in attendance copies of our recent message to the American woolgrowers.

Your letter is appreciated all the more because of your frank statement that you are not in agreement with our position on the wool goods labeling question. We regret that circumstances make it impossible for us to accept your invitation and have a representative present, for it would be very gratifying to all of us to meet you and the woolgrowers of Wyoming face to face and talk over the questions affecting the production and consumption of wool and wool clothing. Lacking that opportunity on this occasion, I am writing this letter to you thinking you might like to read it at your convention, and with the hope that by supplementing our letter addressed to the woolgrowers of the United States it will contribute to a better understanding on this question of labeling wool goods, which has been so long under discussion.

In our open letter to the woolgrowers, “Grosvenor-Capper wool goods labeling bills,” we tried to state fully and clearly our views on the proposed legislation to label wool goods to show the percentages of new and reworked wool, and consequently I will not repeat that statement now, but will ask that you consider our printed message to the growers as part of this letter to you and your convention.

Senator Capper. I asked that Mr. Atkeson be heard, because I think probably he has given more attention to this legislation than anyone representing the farm organizations, because he has been here on the job all the time and has attended all the hearings.

The Chairman. We are glad to have Doctor Atkeson here, and have him state all he knows.

Mr. Atkeson. I represent an organization of farmers that has in this country approximately 1,000,000 members.

The Chairman. Is this the grange?

Mr. Atkeson. Yes, sir; the grange. Its principal membership is east of the Mississippi River and north of the Mason and Dixon line, although we have a scattering membership farther south. It is now 57 years old, having been organized in this city 57 years ago last December, and it is made up of farmer people engaged in every line of agricultural production. Only a comparatively small percentage of the total membership are shepherds, or wool producers, so that our organization can not be said to have especial or paramount interest in the wool industry, although we have a considerable membership that are wool producers.

I have inferred from some of the statements made by parties before the committee that this agitation is something rather new, only dating back four or five years. I recall that as far back as 1873 our organization went on record very decidedly condemning the use of shoddy in the manufacture of woolen goods. That is a little more than 40 years ago.

The Chairman. I think Mr. Wood said that this bill has been agitated about 20 years.

Mr. Atkeson. This particular thing. Now, the use of reworked wool, as we politely use that term now, in place of the old term shoddy, began during the Civil War in the country. Perhaps in Europe or somewhere else it had been used to a considerable extent in woolen manufacture, but it began to attract attention in his country during the Civil War, when large quantities of shoddy or reworked wool were used in the manufacturing of uniforms for the soldiers, especially overcoats, and there was somewhat of a scandal connected with it following the Civil War, just as we are having some scandal following the recent World War, to the effect that the contractors had manufactured those coast from this reworked material, made from rags and waste of one kind and another, and it began attracting at that time, and has been attracting attention ever since.

In our organization I think nearly every year since 1873, it has gone on record in one form or another in opposition to the use 125123of reworked wool, and I have made several statements in regard to this matter before several committees of various Congress, especially during the last Congress, and it is so one subject I like to talk about, because the contention is absolutely sound in economics, sound in finance, and sound in morals, and all that is not true of a good many things we talk about, especially some of the things the farmers talk about. Some of the bills pending for the relief of farmers seem to me to violate all the known laws of economics and sound finance.

The Chairman. I think we all agree with you on that.

Mr. Atkeson. I don't mean all of them do, but some of them. This particular thing, however, is not of that character. It is absolutely sound in economics; it is sound in law, if you can make a law that will work, and it is certainly sound in morals.

Now, our contention during these 40 years of more has been based mainly on the general proposition that I think is sound in law and economics and in morals, that if an individual purchasers or a commodity can not know what he is buying, in the nature of things, that if it is possible to do so, the law ought to guarantee that he is getting what he buys, regardless of the price involved. I think that is perfectly sound in morals, and that has been the key contention of our organization.

The Chairman. Doctor, would you rather go on without interruption, or should we ask question?

Mr. Atkeson. I don't object to questions, except it breaks up the line of my thought. i would be glad to have you ask questions.

The Chairman. Well, go ahead.

Mr. Atkeson. I will probably get through a little quicker than if you interrupted me. Then, if you want to ask some questions, I will be glad to answer them.

Now then, at our last session held at Pittsburgh last November, the grange adopted this resolution:The National Grange reaffirms its declaration in favor of the “truth-in-fabric” legislation; that it will be a protection to the buying and to the producers of wool, and in favor of such legislation as is necessary to protect the farmer by a truthful labeling, marking, and advertising of seeds and fertilizer.

That is, we included on the same general principle those other commodities. One of the chief worries of the opponents of this bill seems to be the impossibility of enforcing the law. I think every reasonable man will agree that it is perfectly sound to guarantee to the purchaser or commodities of any kind that he is getting, what he buys, regardless of its value; that is, in the nature of things, he can not determine what it is, that it is sound for the law to come in and guarantee, as far as possible—at least, there has been considerable legislation based on that high economic and moral position. In the early use of fertilizer, the early commercial use of fertilizer, the thing that smelled loudest brought the biggest price. It might be nothing but sand with a dead cat mixed with it, and absolutely, worthless. The chemists of the manufacturers found it was impossible for the ordinary user of fertilizer to determine their value or contents. None of the laws undertake to guarantee to the farmer that if he buys fertilizers that they will be worth the amount he pays for them. It only undertakes to guarantee that he gets 126124what he buys. It may be worthless as a fertilizer. The law does not undertake to determine the question as to the value of the goods, but only that he gets what he buys, and it is up to him to determine whether he wants that particular fertilizer.

The legislation deals with the oleomargarine, and a good many other things, all the pure-food legislation, drug legislation, has been along that line, the attempt to guarantee to the purchaser that he is getting, when he buys, what it is represented to be.

It seems to me that the law ought not to try to go further than that. In a few instances it has attempted to go further, and, possibly, successfully.

But it is contended that in all these other efforts to determine the contents of compounds or commodities that it was possible for the chemists or the experts to determine just the proportion of the different ingredients in the compound, whatever it might be, and that therefore the law is enforceable. But the opponents of this particular proposition emphasize, and seem to be much worried, because you can not enforce the law, and every time I hear that argument made I wonder if we are developing a nation of criminals. I am getting a little suspicious from some things that have been developed one place and another, but I am just wondering, if we write into the statutes that it is a fair presumption that there would be engaged in the manufacture of woolen fabrics, for instance, a considerable percentage of criminals, whether that is what we should do, because every man who would misbrand a fabric would be a criminal. I don't like to think that, but it is perfectly easy to agree that since we have always had criminals since the human race began, so far as I know, we probably always will have, and that the honest people should be protected so far as possible against the criminals.

Every angle of that argument applies to our effort to enforce prohibition, or to enforce any other law.

The central contention in this matter is that it is impossible to know whether a crime has been committed. Now, we have some legislation dealing with the packing industry. I do not refer to the recent packing-house legislation, but back during President Roosevelt's term a statute was placed on the statute books of the country requiring meat inspection in the packing plants, and the packers themselves agree now that it is a good thing, although they opposed it very strenuously at the time.

After I read Upton Sinclair's Jungle, telling about what had been going on in the packing plants in Chicago, I could not eat even a piece of ham that looked sound all the way round with a good stomach. Neither could anybody else who read that book.

Following that, this inspection law was enacted, and no man on earth can tell whether a piece of beef, as you buy it in the retail store, is the product of a tubercular animal or one having some other disease, or whether it died in transit, but the Government inspector in the packing plant is supposed to determine all these matters, and one of the Chicago packers told me this last year when the packer legislation was up that, while they had opposed that proposition, they recognize now that it is the best asset all the way round. The people who buy meat have at least the fair assumption that it has been Government inspected; that the animal from 127125which it was produced was in proper sanitary condition, and the handling of the product was sanitary.

Now, it is just as impossible, and that same contention was made then, just as impossible to determine the character or the condition of the animal from which a piece of bacon or beef was produced as it is to determine whether woolen fabrics are made partly of new wool and partly of reworked wool.

Now, it seems to me that it is not a long stretch of the imagination to say, or to provide—I am not granting all these contentions about the impossibility, that it is naturally unsettled, and very doubtful, I am inclined to think it is possible or will become possible for experts to determine the percentage of the ingredients in a woolen or mixed fabric—but on the assumption that it is impossible, it seems to me it would not be very largely burdensome to provide some sort of inspection. A manufacturer can easily know how much shoddy or cotton or some other material he mixes with his wool. It is only a matter of running it across the scales, where he could weigh it, and show so many pounds of this, and so many pounds of that, and he could be made to show his books, as to how much of this reworked wool and other materials he is using, and it would have to show up somewhere in his fabrics, and that would be brought out by this inspection by the Government officials. If they are worrying too much about the impossibility of ascertaining, I think it will be easy to find a way to settle that question to their satisfaction. I don't mean they will be satisfied with the settlement, but it will settled to their satisfaction.

Now, I am just going to call attention to one or two things in both of the bills.

Senator Couzens.Can you tell us what is the difference between the woven and the knitted goods? There is no difference provided in that bill. It only refers to woven goods.

Mr. Atkeson. If it is knitted, of course it is knitted from the yarn, and you would have to know what goes into the yarn. That would have to be taken care of by the man who produces the yarn, and I think that is provided in that bill, isn't it, Senator Capper?

Senator Capper. I think so; yes.

Mr. Atkeson. Where wool is sold in the form of yarn, it should carry the same guaranty as if it was woven into the fabric. If it is sold to ordinary purchasers in the form of yarn, and may be hand knitted, the purchaser ought to know whether she is using virgin wool or new wool, or whether it is mixed with shoddy, and if the woolen manufacturer manufactures knitted goods—that is, a fabric out of yarn that he purchases, wool that he purchases in the form of yarn which is sometimes done—then the responsibility should be on the manufacturer of the yarn, because, presumptively, the manufacturer of the product must be able to know how much shoddy there may be in the yarn; that is, the original manufacturer of the product.

Senator Couzens. But when it goes into a suit of clothes, how do no requirement that they shall be marked, as I understand.

Mr. Atkeson. I believe that none of the bills do require that. My impression is that they should.

Senator Couzens. That ought to be in this bill, ought it not, if you are going to protect knit goods and woven goods?

Mr. Nevins. The difference is in the process of producing. The knit fabrics, in a commercial or wholesale way, are produced on knitting machines; the woven fabrics are produced on looms. The same conditions apply to both. Your objection that the knitted goods are omitted is very valid. We think this should apply just as much to the knitted as to the woven.

Senator Couzens. That is what I wanted to bring out.

Senator Capper. I think the bill reported out by the committee of the last congress attempted to take care of that by requiring that a tag or statement accompany the package delivered by the manufacturer.

Senator Couzens. That is not in your bill, is it, Senator?

Senator Capper. No; I think not.

The Chairman. One of the witnesses said it omitted garments, and I notice “woven fabric” used all the way through the bill.

Mr. Atkeson. It includes the knitted fabric.

The Chairman. I don't think it does.

Mr. Atkeson. It could easily be made to do so. I am not undertaking to write the bill.

Senator Couzens. How can you make knitted goods and be sure the markings are reliable? That is, that they are not transferred from one garment to another.

Mr. Atkeson. It would depend on the character of the knitted goods. If it is manufactured in a manufacturing establishment you could ascertain to the same extent that you could with a woven fabric.

Senator Couzens. How do you determine the relative grades of wool under this bill? For instance, Mr. Wood has probably eight or ten samples.

Mr. Atkeson. Yes.

Senator Couzens. I do not understand, if a piece of goods is marked “all wool,” how it can be told whether it is a high-grade wool or a low-grade wool, and I think that unless that is provided that the public will be done more harm by marking the garments “all wool” than they are under the present conditions.

The Chairman. Would this include it? “That has never been previously spun or woven.” What is the significance of the word “spun”?

Mr. Atkeson. Well, spinning is the manufacturing into yarn.

The Chairman. That has nothing to do with knitting?

Mr. Nevins. It is the initial stage. It is spun, then made into yarn, and then into the fabric.

The Chairman. I don't believe the bill includes knitting at all.

Mr. Nevins. It does not.

Senator Couzens. Can you explain how these different grades of wool will be taken care of?

Mr. Atkeson. Yes; I am interested in that, because I am a wool producer. It has been stated before numerous committees that some grades of reworked wool will produce a better fabric than some grades of pure wool, and I think every sheepman and every shoddy user will agree that that is true. Even the same sheep will produce three or four decidedly different grades of wool on the same carcass. The best part of the wool comes from, on most sheep, near the shoulder, the fore part, and above the middle line of the sheep, and 129127the shorter and coarser parts of the fleece are usually about the legs and the lower part of the belly.

It is a peculiarity of sheep that when they lie down in the pastures to rest or to sleep that they lie on their belly, not on their sides, or their back, and on the damp ground this short wool on the under part of the body and about the legs is more or less damaged by moisture. It might even reach the point where it is comparatively worthless, but you can not weave that wool into a fabric as whole wool and not be able to tell the defference. Senator Gore could tell the difference without any trouble. That is, a blind man could tell the difference by feeling the fabrics. I will guarantee that.

Senator Couzens. Could you not mix the wool so that it would still be all wool and have more of those grades than the better grades?

Mr. Atkeson. I don't think so. If you are first guaranteed that it is new wool, the purchaser will be able to make distinctions and determine the fineness and quality of the fabric by feeling it. The finer qualities of wool and different grades of wool are used for different purposes, and the lower and cheaper grades of wool are used for other purposes, and of course if they are mixed, it would have a tendency to cheapen the feel and appearance of the product. I haven't much but what we would take care of ourselves as purchasers of “all wool.”

Senator Couzens. I would like to have some proof of that. I would like to see how I could tell in purchasing an all wool garment whether it was of high or low grade.

Mr. Atkeson. If we had some samples here I think we could demonstrate that. I don't think you would have to see it at all. You would only have to feel it. That is, the short fibered, cheaper wool, from the carcass of the sheep, would make itself easily apparent. Different sheep produce different degrees of fineness, and you find that in the higher priced and higher qualities of woolen goods, grading from the coarser and rougher fabrics up to the finest ladies’ wear goods. The different parts of the fleece are selected for these different purposes. Of course, it is susceptible, or it is possible to mix these different wools; take the whole fleece and mix it all together, and while you may raise the value of the goods produced from the coarser or cheaper parts of the fleece, you will certainly lower the value of the goods that may have been produced from the upper part of the fleece, so I think the manufacturers will agree we need not worry much about the mixing.

Senator Couzens. But they don't agree.

Mr. Atkeson Well, I am not responsible for their disagreement.

Senator Couzens. But you said they would agree.

Mr. Atkeson. No; I said it is a fair presumption they would agree; that is, I hope they would agree.

Now, as to these bills, there is just one outstanding difference. If I were writing the bills I would very decidedly change both of them. The Lodge bill covers too much territory. The Capper bill deals with this question of woolen fabrics only, and the problems involved, while the other bill deals with a lot of other things, many or most of which are covered in pure food legislation and other legislation anyway.

When I saw that the Senator had introduced this bill, coming from New England, and a manufacturing State, in the first place I was a little surprised, and then in the second place I knew that there must be a reason. That is just the human factor involved, and then I began to look into the bill, and I find that it legalizes the one thing we were trying to prevent. In other words, in plain terms, it legalizes the only contention our people care to make. It legalizes the use of shoddy or reworked wool, when it is represented to the public as all wool, and when you pass a bill with that provision in it, we are worse off than we are now.

The Chairman. Where is that provision?

Mr. Atkeson. You have absolutely legalized the use of shoddy and authorized manufacturers to put it off on the public as all wool, if they can, and have written that into a statute legalizing that offense against ordinary honesty.

The Chairman. Where is that?

Mr. Atkeson. Subdivision E, on page 2, of the Lodge bill:The term “virgin wool” and “new wool” means sheeps’ wool, lambs’ wool, and the hair of the Angora and Cashmere goat that has never previously been spun into yarn, woven into cloth or felt, and is without a mixture of cotton, jute, hemp, silk, reworked wool or any other fabric than new wool.

With that much we are in accord.

Now, take subdivision F:The term “all wool” means sheeps’ wool, lambs’ wool, and the hair of the Angora goat and Cashmere goat, that has no admixture of cotton, jute, hemp, silk, or any other fabric.

You see, in the definition that he has included in the second one he has omitted “reworked wool.” The second subdivision, when the goods are sold as all wool, absolutely legalizes the only thing for which we are contending. Now, some lawyer would get around that proposition.

Senator Couzens. Does not paragraph E and paragraph F conflict, then?

Mr. Atkeson. No; they are defining different things. In the first place it is virgin wool and new wool, and in the second place it is all wool, using identically the same terms of description except in the second case omitting reworked wool. That legalizes the selling, in the name of all wool, of goods that may be of reworked wool. That is “the colored gentleman in that wood pile.”

We are not contending, or dealing with the question of whether it will raise the price of goods or lower the price of goods. It has been argued that if that legislation is enacted that the consumers will have to pay more for their goods. If I were buying a suit of clothes, as I do occasionally, and I wanted to buy clothing that was all new wool or virgin wool—I do not like the term “virgin wool” myself. It has a sound to it that is not nice and does not mean anything in this connection, and I prefer “new wool” as counter to “reworked” wool. I am not particular about those terms, but the average buyer of woolen goods, when it is represented to him as all wool, the purpose is to deceive him; he buys what he believes to be goods that are “all wool and a yard wide,” as we used to say, and it is fraudulent on the face of it to sell a man something as all wool which absolutely is not all wool in the sense that the buyer expects it to be.

The Chairman. Mr. Atkeson, let me get this clear. The term “all wool” under subdivision F would not only include virgin wool that has none of these elements of admixture—cotton, jute, hemp, and so on——

Mr. Atkeson. Yes.

The Chairman. But would include reworked wool which has an admixture of cotton, jute, hemp, and so on. That is your contention?

Mr. Atkeson. That is the so-called shoddy or reworked wool.

Senator Couzens. Why do you call reworked wool “shoddy” if it is all wool?

Mr. Atkeson. That is the old term—that is, reworked wool and shoddy are the same thing, to my mind, and to the mind of the average person.

Senator Couzens. But reworked wool might be all wool?

Mr. Atkeson. Yes; and so might shoddy, and generally it is true that it is.

Senator Couzens. But shoddy might include some of these other elements, such as jute, cotton, and so on.

Mr. Atkeson. But we are using the term “reworked wool” now more generally than the term “shoddy.” It is a little more polite. Everything got to be shoddy after the introduction of the shoddy, but, “reworked” wool is being used now as a substitute, or as being synonymous with the term “shoddy” as formerly used, and it means the reworking of woolen rags.

Senator Couzens. Can you tell me just what damage is done by reworking the wool?

Mr. Atkeson. What damage is done?

Senator Couzens. To the wool itself.

Mr. Atkeson. That is another thing that I think even the manufacturers agree—that it does some damage.

Senator Couzens. You don't know how much?

Mr. Atkeson. No, sir. It would depend on whether it had been reworked more than once. Take a fabric that is half reworked wool, and then when the garments are thrown aside they are reworked again and again, and every time they are reworked they become of less and less value, and worn goods that have been worn and perspired in and more or less decayed would produce a very much less valuable reworked commodity that if it was made from scraps from a tailor shop, fabric that had never been worn at all, and that kind of reworked wool would produce a better fabric than some of the cheaper grades of sheep's wool of the lower part of the body.

We all appreciate the difficulties of all those problems, but if you draw the line at the wool that has never been woven, or between that which has never been woven and that which is reworked once or oftener, it is about as far as we can hope to go, and some may contend that we can not go that far.

As far as our people are concerned, when they passed the resolution that I read into the record, they had in mind the Capper-French bill. I think Senator Lodge's bill had not been introduced. There had been some other bills, like the Rogers bill, introduced in former sessions of Congress, but I feel perfectly certain that the people I represent, our organization, is not trying to do anybody any harm. It is trying to insist that it is perfectly right and legitimate that the American Congress, so far as possible, should guarantee the purchasers 132130of woolen fabrics that they are getting what they pay for regardless of price, regardless of a lot of things that have been said on both sides of the question, if that is possible, and that is the question to determine, the possibility and reasonable possibility.

It is not a question of whether it adds additional cost to the fabric or not, but I feel that every purchaser would like to feel that he is getting what he buys.

I have never objected to the manufacture of oleomargarine, notwithstanding it interferes with the butter production interests, but I have objected to eating oleomargarine thinking I was eating butter. I draw the line right there. If I want to buy and feed oleomargarine to myself and to my family, if I know it, it is nobody's business but mine, but I feel that I ought to be protected against the oleomargarine if I don't want to eat oleomargarine.

Now, this question under consideration is the only question that I have ever presented, I think, to a committee of Congress, where I thought that I represented almost unanimously all of the producers of the original commodity and all the consumers of that commodity, there being nobody between but the manufacturers of this commodity. In other words, I think that in our contention for this high moral standard, this protection of the public against fraud and imposition, that I represent 99 per cent of the entire American citizenship.

The Chairman. Doctor, right there; I think that statement is strong, but what about the additional expense that has been insisted upon that would be put upon the public?

Mr. Atkeson. Well, I think that has been very much magnified. I am not an expert. I can not tell. That same argument was raised when they opposed the meat inspection law, that the poor sinners would have to spend more for their meal if they knew what they were getting.

The Chairman. Meat is a good deal higher. What is the cause of it?

Mr. Atkeson. That is another question. It did not manifest itself very much at that time. This was back before was prices. But that contention has always been made in connection with this sort of legislation. We will grant the public will pay the additional cost, and you are going to pay the additional cost, and I am, and everybody else that buys these goods. Notwithstanding that, should not they be protected against the perpetration of a fraud every time a man brands his goods “all wool” when half of it is something else? It may have been all wool once, but when you take old rags they are not wool in the sense that everybody understands wool, and you take it and you put it through some sort of a process—it is half rotten, may be—and you weave it into a fabric and brand it “all wool.”

The Chairman. What would you say about the statement of Mr. Dale, who is opposed to both the bills, saying that this legislation is a cover for fraud on the public?

Mr. Atkeson. I listened very closely to what he had to say, and I can not quite agree with that; that is, if it is a cover to fraud—well, I don't see that it can make the situation any worse than it is. Practically every woolen fabric that is sold now by the catalogue houses, and even by your tailors here in town, everything is all wool. “All wool” is the term you get first. You don't hear “virgin wool” or “new wool,” or anything else half as often as you do “all wool.”

The Chairman. And that would cove shoddy that is free of jute, cotton, and so on?

Mr. Atkeson. Yes. That is, the other fabrics—I have been impressed upon looking at the catalogue of Montgomery Ward & Co. and Sears, Roebuck & Co. by the fact that they will tell you how much cotton a suit of clothes has in it. They will say, sometimes, it is half cotton. You will find that in their catalogues advertising their suits, but if it is wool at all it is “all wool.” I defy you to find in any of these catalogues a statement that recognizes reworked wool. If it is all reworked it is “all wool,” and that is the only thing that we are primarily interested in—I mean, our people—that you should not sell something as “all wool” that is half reworked wool because all wool is supposed to comprehend the original product of the sheep; and, as I say, my principal objection to Senator Lodge's bill is that it absolutely legalizes the use of shoddy.

Senator Couzens. Would you contend that we should have hash marked “recooked.”

Mr. Atkeson. Oh, well that is different.

Senator Couzens. I know; but there is fresh hash and hash that is recooked, and the recooked is not as good as the fresh.

Mr. Atkeson. If the hash is sold for anything else than what it is, I should say you ought to have a sign out.

Senator Couzens. It is sold for fresh hash sometimes when it is recooked hash.

Mr. Atkeson. Well, I don't think hash ever fools anybody.

Senator Couzens. I think it does.

Mr. Atkeson. Well, if it does, when you say it is hash, you have said it is a mixture of a lot of things.

Senator Couzens. I know; but it may be fresh meat or it may be cooked-over meat or it may be any old thing.

The Chairman. Usually the latter.

Senator Couzens. Do you object if these goods are marked 70 per cent new and 30 per cent reworked wool?

Mr. Atkeson. Not if they tell the truth. That is just what we want.

Senator Couzens. Then, how does the purchaser determine whether he is getting the better garment with 70 per cent new wool and 30 per cent reworked wool than if he got 80 per cent new wool and 20 per cent reworked wool?

Mr. Atkeson. Well, I don't know that anybody need be concerned about that, about the purchaser.

Senator Couzens. I don't see how that is going to determine in the purchaser's mind whether he is getting good, better, or indifferent goods.

Mr. Atkeson. I think I know human nature well enough to know that the basis of the objections, since, of course, the additional cost can be passed to the purchaser, to this whole proposition on the part of the manufacturers is because it would prevent them from selling something for what it is not, and it is more profitable to sell it for what it is not than to sell it for what it is.

Senator Couzens. Merchants are objecting to this also are they not?

Mr. Atkeson. The merchants are not interested in this question.

Senator Couzens. Oh, yes, sir; the merchants are objecting to it.

Senator Capper. No, Senator. There are some; but the overwhelming majority of the retail dealers are for this legislation, and we have field statements to that effect.

Senator Couzens. Some of the merchants have been objecting to me.

Senator Capper. There are some; but I think it was established to the satisfaction of the committee at the last hearing that they were in favor of it.

The Chairman. What have you to say about the suggestion of Mr. Green this morning that the stamping would injure the goods; that there are some goods with no salvage?

Mr. Atkeson. I think he knows better than I do it can be marked on the selvage in some way so that it could not be affected at all.

Mr. Nevins. Then, the selvage would be taken off.

Mr. Atkeson. Of course, if you stamp the goods with some kind of a chemical that would injure the fabric, and stamped it on the body of the fabric, that would do harm, but it is not necessary to do that.

The Chairman. Do you understand that the bill means that every yard in a bolt of goods must be stamped?

Mr. Atkeson. Maybe that is not necessary; maybe every two yards would answer the purpose, but that is the provision of the bill.

The Chairman. Have you any information about the Wyoming situation that was mentioned yesterday?

Mr. Atkeson. I heard the discussion yesterday.

The Chairman. Do you know anything about that?

Mr. Atkeson. No, not in detail. In fact, I don't know what the law provides. I had the reference to it yesterday, but I have no information in regard to it at all.

Senator Couzens. Where would a suit of clothes be marked as to its contents?

Mr. Atkeson. Well, there is a provision in one of the bills, I guess the Capper bill, that it shall be stamped on a linen piece of cloth, and just simply sewn to the suit of clothes. You will find ordinarily that every suit of clothes you buy—a suit of clothes that you buy from the catalogue houses, for instance, will carry the Sears-Roebuck or the Montgomery Ward tag on it.

Senator Couzens. I know; but that is easily switched. That can be transferred from one garment to another, detached, and very simply disposed of, so that does not really mean any greater assurance to the purchaser that he is getting what he buys.

Mr. Atkeson. There are matters of detail that both these bills to come extent have attempted to provide for.

Senator Capper. It can easily be stamped in the selvage, just as many manufacturers are to-day putting their brand on the selvage, without any additional cost or any trouble to anyone.

Senator Couzens. Do you get that in the suit of clothes? Can you find that in the suit of clothes?

Senator Capper. You take a roll or bolt of the fabric, and along the edge there is always a space that can be used without damaging the cloth.

Senator Couzens. But when the knitted goods are sold, there is you find it in the suit of clothes?

Senator Capper. Well, in that garment, somewhere in it, it would contain woven in information in small type. It could be done easily.

Mr. Atkeson. I want to suggest an amendment to the Lodge bill. Take that subsection E on page 2; I want to suggest that you omit the word “and” and make it “new wool” and “all wool” mean sheep's, wool, lambs’ wool, the hair of the Angora goat and the Cashmere goat that has never been previously spun into yarn, woven into cloth or felt or is without a mixture of cotton, jute, hemp, silk, reworked wool, or any other fabric than new wool,” and omit subsection E.

Senator Couzens. In all your observations or study of this problem, have you seen any statements of the cost of enforcing this law?

Mr. Atkeson. No, sir. I have heard some statements made by manufacturers that I was not in any position to dispute at all, but any observation has been that the opponents of a measure always emphasize that side of the question, just like I would if I were on their side. I am just as human as the other fellow.

In this particular question our people have no considerable interest outside of what every American citizen has. This is one place where we are not pleading a personal or special cause whatever. A very small percentage of our membership of a million or more is interested in the sheep industry, but they all wear woolen clothes more or less, just like everybody else does, and we are contending only for this basic principle; that the public is entitled to know what it gets when it pays for it.

Now, then, if you Senators who are lawyers and editors and expert lawmakers can accomplish just that one thing, to guarantee that the buyers of woolen fabrics know that they get what they pay for, that is what we are after.

Now, as to the economics of the question, how much it will add to the cost, if that is prohibitive, and you decide that it is, then perhaps you should not enact the legislation, but the principle is absolutely sound that the public should be protected against being imposed upon. We might even go to the extent of granting that goods manufactured wholly or half from shoddy are better goods than those made all from virgin wool, and it would be just as much a fraud, even then, although you held the fellow's nose and fooled him into taking something that was better for him than what he wanted. It is still a fraud when it is possible to deceive the public into buying something that the public can not determine what it is buying, and it is legitimate legislation to protect the public against that fraud. It is a fraud even when you give him something better than he thought he was getting, so that a good many of the questions raised do not weigh on this matter at all with me or with the people I represent.

Now, then, if human ingenuity and legal acumen can solve all the questions that have been raised, and I recognize the force of every objection that has been made, as I think you Senators do, and I think that with this question, like those where you are legislating for the benefit of the farmer, I don't think there is a Congressman or Senator that would not gladly advocate some measure to relieve the present agricultural situation in the country if he just knew how to do it, you do not want to do something where the remedy would be worse than the disease.

Senator Couzens. That is just what I have in mind now.

Mr. Atkeson. I know; and I am frank to say I can not settle all those questions for you, but I believe that our contention is absolutely 136134sound; that if human ingenuity or legal acumen can do it, that we ought to guarantee to the purchaser of woolen fabrics that they are getting what they buy.

Senator Couzens I think that fundamentally you are sound.

Mr. Atkeson. I think so.

Senator Couzens. But you can refine commerce to such an extent that commerce breaks down from the refinement, just the same as you have to mix some alloys with other alloys so that they perform their functions. You can not refine commerce to such a point that commerce can not be conducted with any degree of sanity or success.

The Chairman The legislature, Mr. Atkeson, having the public in mind, would like to do what is best for the public, and at the same time the tendency here in Congress to do that is so loading down business with exactions that we are putting the Government so much in business that there is a reaction in my mind especially against doing anything that is unnecessary. My reaction to this legislation. I frankly confess, has been rather favorable in the beginning, in the I hope that we could stimulate sheep growing. I think every farmer ought to have a small flock of sheep, and, instead of having it, we are growing less and less. I notice that you have not emphasized that side of it at all. I know there is some objection to that on the ground that it would be class legislation, but that does not harm me at all, the conflict I am in is the favor of the legislation from one angle and the very pronounced disfavor of it from another angle, and I admit it is a pretty proposition.

Mr. Atkeson. I think we all agree on that, and not only a serious one, but a difficult one.

The Chairman. Very difficult.

Mr. Atkeson. To write it into a statue that is workable and will accomplish the purpose. Now, so far as the sheep grower is concerned, and they have been disposed to be favorable to this legislation, so far as I know, it could not only increase the demands for wool by decreasing the demand for other things when the purchasers know what they are getting, and I think it would have that effect in some measure, but if a man who is not able to pay $100 for a suit of clothes can pay $40, even for one that is half or more shoddy, it is only fair that he have that opportunity, instead of adding these two commodities together and compelling them to pay, say, $75 for a suit of clothes. That is, if a man wants to wear shoddy clothes, he ought to buy shoddy clothes at the shoddy price, and the other man who is willing to pay the other price for that other king of goods, should have that opportunity, and unquestionably this legislation would operate more or less in those directions. We would have, perhaps, cheaper clothing that would be worth all it cost, and maybe more economical; to wear. I can conceive of conditions under which goods that were half shoddy, depending on the price of wool and a number of other things that enter into the price of manufacture, would be better, but his reworked wool, a thing that is not original wool, si sold to the public as wool. There is but one motive in doing that, and only one motive in not telling the truth it on the part of the manufacturer, and that is because it pays better not tell the truth about it than it does to tell the truth.

I will admit that there is some prejudice against the use of the term “shoddy,” so we have been polite enough to substitute the term “reworked wool,” but the outstanding fact remains that the manufacturers can now know what he puts in his goods and he can tell this truth about it, and, if necessary, we can compel him to tell the truth about it.

The Chairman. What about the imported goods?

Mr. Atkeson. Well, I heard that question raised this morning, and that question has come up in my cogitations over this subject many times. I confess I don't know just how to meet that proposition. You will find difficulties enough. Maybe Senator Capper can rewrite his bill so that we can take care of that. I do not undertake to remove your difficulties. You Senators will have to work that out yourselves, if it is ever worked out.

Senator Capper. It is all covered in my bill here very fully. It puts it in the hands of the Secretary of the Treasury. The foreign manufacturers are subject to this act and the Secretary of the Treasury is given power to seize their goods when they come in here if they are not marked in accordance with the law.

The Chairman. What would you say about this confession that we can not tell the shoddy is there? Of course, we are not questioning you, Senator.

Senator Capper. These foreign manufacturing have their representative here, or the importer here, and he would have to obtain the information just as the domestic manufacturers is obliged to give the information. That, of course, is the crux of the whole legislation as to the possibility of enforcing it and cost of enforcing it.

The Chairman. Yes; those two items.

Senator Capper. To my mid, it is not a difficult proposition at all, because the manufacturers themselves will take care of that, in my judgement. The law here that gives the Government the authority to inspect their plants and to inspect their books, and they are subject to a fine of $500 or imprisonment for one year if they misinterpret to the Government the contents of their fabrics, and I don't believe any manufacturer is going to take a chance perjuring himself in giving false information as to the character of the goods that he is turning out. It would require very little additional force on the part of the Government to visit, if you want to, each manufacturer's plant. So, to my mind, this matter of enforcement is not a difficult matter.

Senator Couzens. If the Government attempted to prosecute the manufacturer, how would it make its cas, if you can not determine after the goods are made up into garments? How would the Government make its case?

Senator Capper. The testimony of the manufacturer himself. He ought to have in his plant the information showing just what he is using in the make-up of these goods, and it is not a difficult matter at all for him to make that information available, and it is not a difficult mater at all for him to mark the goods.

Senator Couzens. Yes; but Senator, I think you fail to get my point. Of course, the manufacturer who is prosecuted for a violation of this law is not going to make a case for the Government. The Government has got to make its own case of violation, and I don't see, if the testimony is correct, how the Government is going to make a case that the manufacturer has violated the law.

Senator Capper. The agent of the Government simply calls him to the stand and asks him whether he has misrepresented the contents of his goods.

The Chairman. Suppose he says he has not.

Senator Capper. Well, his books and records ought to be able to substantiate his position.

Mr. Nevins. It is just upon that point that we have been so interested, and it is this point that interested the committee that preceded you. Suppose we set aside for the moment the inability to distinguish between wool and reworked wool. The Government has the night, just as Senator capper pointed out, to inspect the records of a manufacturer. The majority of them will not need any pressure. They will tell you. But let us take the dishonest ones. The Government has the right to step in. His the Government a similar right as to the foreign manufacturers? That is one of the points that we have been stretching.

Senator Capper. He can not get his goods in here unless the Government is satisfied they are in accord with the provisions of this law.

Mr. Nevins. Suppose he sends them in as all wool and subsequently it is suspected that they are not. You can apprehend his agent here and ask him for information, but ultimately you can not prove the ease unless you can get the manufacturer's records.

Senator Capper. Is is the easiest thing in the world, it seems to me, in that case, for the Government to enforce it. They have the goods in their possession. He can not move them out of New York. The burden of proof is upon him.

Mr. Nevins. How are you going to prove it, Senator?

Senator Capper. All the Government has to say is “We don't believe your goods comply with our laws,” and there they are. He has to get them out of there.

Mr. Nevins. If he misstate, I don't see how you can apprehend him.

Senator Capper. Well, the Government passes on that, as to whether he misstates or not. They have got arbitrary power. He has got to satisfy them. There are the goods. They can't move them.

Senator Couzens. I think you have reversed the situation. Senator. If a man dishonest, in the first instance, he is not going to testify or show any reports that are going to convict him. He will have that all fixed, and it is always up to the Government or the prosecutor to prove his case. It is not up to the prosecuted individual to prove his innocence. You have got to prove his guilt. He can remain quiet while the Government has to prove that he has misrepresented and violated the law.

Senator Capper. In the first place, he has to have a license from the Government. This provides for registration. The Government in a moment can take away that permission to manufacture his goods. Then it is up to him to prove that he is complying with the law.

Mr. Nevins. The foreigner hasn't a license and he does not have to get one, and you can not inspect his books.

Senator Couzens. You know, Senator, that was all promised in the Volstead law, and it never has been carried out and never will be carried out. In other words, I think these things in theory are 139137very good. I don't say that we should not try some of them, but with our experience with the prohibition and Volstead laws we ought to be careful of how many of this kind of things we put on the statute books.

Senator Capper. The question here very different. In the first place only a few hundred men are involved, so far as the observance of this is concerned, and the moment it becomes a law these manufacturers themselves will want to do their part to enforce it. No manufacturer will want to be under the suspicion that he is evading the law, and I think the ethics and standards of the business will contribute very much toward the vigorous observance of the law by the manufacturers.

The Chairman. Have you anything further, Mr. Atkeson?

Mr. Atkeson. Nothing further, except to express my sympathy with the patience of the Senators in listening to all that you have to listen.

Mr. Nevins. Doctor, I am wondering; it has been testified here repeatedly that considerably more than half of the cloth produced in this country is worsted, as distinguished from wool goods, and it has been testified that no reworked wool or shoddy can be used in worsted. That reduces, in general terms, the cloth in which shoddy can be used to half the whole production.

Mr. Atkeson. Yes.

Mr. Nevins. Then, it has been testified a considerable portion of that half in which both wool and reworked wool can be used is all wool and virgin wool, so that further reduces the part of the whole which is contemplated by this legislation. I am wondering if the million people whom you represent knew that the cloth in which there could be any misrepresentation was so small a part of the whole whether they would want to insist upon legislation which compelled every yard of that 60 or 70 per cent which is now really virgin, lilywhite virgin wool—agree with you about the use of that word “virgin”—it is all wool now, never was anything else, and could not be anything else, do you think, Doctor, as a problem in economics that legislation would compel every yard of that 60 or 70 per cent which is pure wool, to be labeled in some way, and all the ramifications of expense of that, in order to guard against that fractional part in which deception could be practiced? That is one of the exceptions we have. The worsted manufacturer who is not concerned in this at all, who would put Mr. Walker's lily-white virgin wool label on his clothing, and yet after that, he has come down here and testified against it, not because he is selling the public cloth in which there is unrevealed presence of shoddy—there isn't a grain of shoddy—but the said, “Why increase the cost of this woolen business, and the nuisance, on 60 or 70 per cent”—I am not interested in the percentage, but more than half—“why increase the cost on more than half of the whole in order to get the fractional part?” That seems to me, as a citizen, and not in any sense as a woolen manufacturer or anything else, is an interesting economic point. The dissension is only fractional, as applied to the whole, and yet insist on labeling the whole business in order to catch that fractional part of it.

Senator Couzens. Do you think that legislation that would require a manufacturer to label his goods when he did use any reworked wool would be sufficient?

Mr. Nevins. It would be for the purpose of this, obviously.

Senator Couzens. I think it would, too. It seems to me if made a manufacturer who used anything else but new wool to so stipulate on his garment it would obviate the very objection you raise about the large percentage who do not do it marking their goods.

Mr. Nevins. It is a great deal, as I see it, like this: There are some 6,000,000 citizens in New York, the majority of whom are honest. There are some who are not honest. We maintain a police department to take care of that situation, but we do not insist that every citizen shall wear a badge of some king testifying to his honesty. If there was not any cost involved in this I do not see any objection to telling the public what is in the goods. The great trouble is that regulation applying to the wool when less than half could be subject to any deception. You are then operating on the lack of information and prejudice. Doctor Atkeson's farmer women, I am sure, would not buy a fabric labeled “40 per cent. Shoddy and 60 per cent wool” if they could get one marked “100 per cent wool.” They will be buying labels. Now, as it is, they use their judgment and their confidence in the people of whom they buy. You do, Senator Couzens, with your tailor. I assume you don't know anything about cloth, but you go to a responsible tailor and he tells you that is a good cloth, and you feel it, look at it, and because of your confidence in your tailor you buy it. But I am sure you would not buy a suit if your tailor said it was 40 per cent reworked wool and 60 per cent real wool, but that it was better than 100 per cent wool. He would have to argue that point with you.

Senator Couzens. I think he should argue that. I agree that if he puts anything else in than what is presumed to be in it, it should be marked, but I agree that the other 60 per cent that uses nothing but all wool should not be required to come under this act. I think that only the exceptions, the men that mix it, should come under it. Let them tell what the mixture is, the same as a chemist does.

Mr. Atkeson. We have a more or less parallel case in the oleomargarine legislation. Nobody ever thought it was necessary to label butter as butter. It is only when it is sold as something else that it is labeled. I have wondered if that might not answer the question raised here, that if goods are sold unbranded or unmarked. It is “all wool,” or it is virgin wool, whatever they choose to call it. That is, it is original wool; but whenever it is a mixture or an admixture of any kind, it should be branded, just as we are required to brand oleomargarine, and not to brand butter, to protect the butter user against this mongrel product. These details could probably all be taken care of.

It is my opinion that if a bill can be drawn at all that is workable, to meet the so-called impossibilities, if it is done in a spirit of fairness to the manufacturers, to the wool producers, and to the great mass of consumers of these products, so that it will fairly guarantee to the purchaser that he is getting what he buys without too great a burden of cost, that the manufacturer themselves would never abandon it voluntarily. That is, the honest manufacturers, and ninety-nine one-hundredths are honest. I believe that when they put it into operation that it would be so satisfactory to the consuming public that they would undo it if they could; that is my conviction; 141139that is, if the law is drawn fairly to solve the problem, with just as little burden and hardship as possible—nobody wants to interfere with the manufacturer, so far as I know—and the honest manufacturers, it has been said over and over, are just as much interested in being protected against fraud in the market as the consumer can possibly be— if he is selling a new wool product I don't know but he us more interested than anybody else, because here is somebody selling a fraudulent product that you can not tell one from the other, that cost a lot less than the honest manufacturer's product, and he is discriminated against. If the law is drawn in workable form, and after it is in operation and the manufacturers have adjusted their operations to it, it is my conviction that nobody will be hurt, and I believe it is entirely justifiable in making an honest attempt.

Now, then, I don't consider that either the Capper or the Lodge bill meets all these objections. I think either one of them would need considerable amendment. I think the bill ought to deal with this one question alone, which Senator Lodge's bill does not. It drags in a lot of other things, and the bill should made it as definite and as easily understood as it is possible to accomplish, and I don't see any reason why the genuine article of all wool should be branded at all any more than butter should be branded “all butter” to protect, it against oleomargerine, but all these questions are involved in the report that you Senators will make to your complete committee.

The Chairman. We are very much obliged to your Mr. Atkeson. We have got to adjourn now.

Senator Capper. Mr. Benjamin Marsh, secretary of the Farmers’ National Council, was here, but he had an engagement to testify before a committee of the House. If it is convenient to you I would like for you to give him the privilege of filing a short statement of the position of his organization.

The Chairman. We will be glad to do that, if you request it.

Senator Couzens. What is worsted made of?

Mr. Nevins. Well, it is a difference in process. In worsted we have to use the long fiber. You can not use the short fiber, and it is therefore all virgin wool.

Senator Couzens. And worsted is what percentage of the whole?

Mr. Nevins It is 60 or 70 per cent of the whole, depending on fashion at the time.

Senator Couzens. What is the other 30 per cent made up of?

Mr. Nevins. The other 30 per cent would consist of wool goods, as distinguished from worsted, and that 30 per cent would be made up partly of nothing but new wool, and partly of goods in which new wool and reworked wool is used, and then coming down the grade, you will get the wool in which wool and cotton would be graded together.

Senator Couzens. In other words, worsted goods would have to be marked with the percentage?

Mr. Nevins. Worsted goods, under this bill, would have to be marked, and they can not be anything but wool.

Senator Couzens. You said that worsted was made up of 60 or 70 per cent of new wool.

Mr. Nevins. No; I said that worsted was 70 per cent of the whole cloth used.

Senator Couzens. Worsted is made up of new wool?

Mr. Nevins. Exactly; all new wool.

Senator Couzens. Why is the word “worsted” used instead of all wool?

Mr. Nevins. It is the trade name that distinguishes the process manufacture. In the one case felting has a large part to do with it and in another case you spin the long fiber, and you get a harder, firmer piece of goods. They are both wool. The same wool any be made into a wool or a worsted fiber.

Senator Couzens. Is the worsted fiber generally better?

Mr. Nevins. It is hard to say that. I think on the whole it is true. The price per yard of a worsted piece of good is probably on a higher average than the price per yard of wool goods.

Senator Couzens. Well, if this bill only required the marking of all goods that used reworked wool, it would not affect the worsted men at all?

Mr. Nevins. It would not, and the only reason why these various associations have not advocated that this law be so written as to be restricted to those goods in which it would be applicable under those conditions is that one class of manufacturers does not want to advocate legislation against another class.

Senator Couzens. You are too ethical.

Mr. Nevins. That is, the worsted people do not want to come down here and advocate something that will give them a free bill of health and make difficulties for their competitors.

Mr. Humphreys (secretary National Association of Wool Manufacturers). May I suggest that if some of the woven-wool fabrics are not to be marked; that is, if worsteds be excluded from the requirements of the bill, because they can be made only of new, or virgin wool, then as some woven fabrics must be marked the absence of a label may be assumed to mean that the cloth is 100 per cent new, or virgin wool. In such a case there is no way to tell, chemically or physically, wether that is so or not.

Senator Couzens. There is no way of telling that as regards butter and oleomargarine.

Mr. Humphreys. Butter and oleomargarine are not like virgin wool and reworked wool, because oleomargarine never was butter; whereas reworked wool is wool, and never was anything else but wool. Butter can be determined chemically from oleomargarine.

Senator Couzens. But you might put something else in the butter?

Mr. Humphreys. It could be detected chemically.

Senator Couzens. You don't mark butter “butter.” Why should you mark all wool “all wool”?

Mr. Humphreys. If you mark it “all wool,” it can be told whether or not the label is correct, because upon chemical or physical analysis it can be learned whether it is wool or something else.

Senator Couzens. You do not mark milk “all milk.” Why should you mark all wool “all wool”? I think, only when you deviate should you be required to mark it. That is the general process carried in the pure food law.

Mr. Humphreys. We claim that in the use of reworked wool we do not deviate because the reworked wool is all wool.

Mr. Nevins. It is just as different as there are differences between the grades. There is a poor shoddy and there is a very excellent shoddy.

Senator Capper. I think the supporters of this legislation will be agreeable to that suggestion of restricting the labeling of these certain grades of fabrics, providing a definition of what is all wool is properly stated. The whole thing will hang on that question as to what constitutes all wool, and that, of course, is a weak point in the Lodge, bill—that it does permit the reworked wool or the shoddy to in as all wool.

Senator Couzens. Well, I think that because of the fact that reworked wool does depreciate in value that we ought to define all wool as “all new wool” and not permit this secondhand stuff to be passed off on the public as new wool, but I don't see why a manufacturer who uses all new wool should be required to tag his goods.

The Chairman. Senator Capper, there is a convention to be held here in the city next week and a representative wants to be heard on Wednesday, so we are going to have another hearing at 10 o'clock Wednesday to hear one person, and if there is anyone else who wants to come in at that time we will hear them, and then we will close the hearing.

Senator Capper. You have been very good about holding these hearings open, and we appreciate the opportunity we have had.

I would like to have incorporated in the record a letter from Mr. E. K. Fawcett, president of the Sheep and Goat Raisers’ Association of Texas, addressed to Senator Mayfield.

The Chairman. Without objection, that will be included in the record.

(The letter referred to is here copied in the record in full, as follows:)Sheep and Goat Raisers’ Association of Texas,Del Rio, Tex., March 1, 1924.

Hon. Earl B. Mayfield, United States Senate, Washington, D.C.

Dear Sir: It is my information that what is known as the Capper “truth in fabric bill” has been referred by the Senate Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce to a subcommittee consisting of Senators Fess, of Ohio; Couzens, of Michigan, and yourself.

There is no subject of national legislation that the sheep growers of Texas feel a more vital interest in than comprehensive legislation upon the subject of the requirement that fabric manufactured from wool shall be truthfully labeled so as to divulge to the purchaser thereof the amount of virgin or previously unused wool contained in such cloth and the amount, if any, of “shoddy” or reclaimed wool therein.

By reason of the discovery by chemists of a chemical treatment of rags containing used wool a process has been devised whereby all other materials used in the making up of such cloth may be destroyed, leaving only the woolen contents, and in this manner it is a matter of public record that a great quantity of wool is being reclaimed from old clothes and rags and reworked into cloth, which when made into the garment is sold under a trade term of “pure wool” or “all wool,” thus leading the unsuspected purchasing public to the belief that the garment made of new or formerly unused wool, whereas in fact it is a garment is made largely of the product of previously used wool that has been reclaimed by the process above stated. In this manner the rag nicker is brought into direct and unfair competition with the producer of virgin wools and at the same time the consumer is misled as to the article being purchased.

It is our understanding that no other fabric material, such as cotton or any of the other textiles, are subject to this unfair competition, but the same is confined to wool.

For years there has been pending before the Congress of the United States proposed legislation having for its purpose the correction of this condition, there being several bills alone upon the subject.

The wool interests of the country have given close study to these several bills, and it is the undivided opinion of these producers that the Capper bill is the one that meets honestly, fairly, and fully the evil to be remedied by such legislation, and they therefore have given their constant; unqualified, and insistent support to this measure as distinguished from what is known as the Lodge-Rogers bill and other measures, the distinguishing characteristics of which are that none of them properly provide for compulsory labeling of the product showing clearly the amount of reworked or “shoddy” contained therein as distinguished from virgin wool.

As I have said above, for years we have been working upon this proposition, but have been unable so far to get results, because this legislation seems to be held up in committee, and I am writing you at the instance of the woolgrowers of Texas, your own State, which you no doubt know produces a very large percentage of all the wool produced in the United States, begging that you give this legislation a very close study and that you will insist that the Capper bill shall be reported out of committee as quickly as due consideration of legislation of this importance to the country will permit of, to the end that the bill may be given consideration at the present session of Congress.

Indicative of the attitude of Texas growers toward this legislation, I am inclosing you a copy of a resolution upon this subject, passed unanimously at a meeting of the executive committee of the Sheep and Goat Raisers’ Association of Texas, held on February 14 at Del Rio, Tex.

The hearings before the committee of both the Senate and House to which this legislation has been referred, it seems to us so complete and the various interests, both for and against the same, have had such opportunities for presenting their arguments pro and con, that there really would seem to be little, if any, necessity for any delay in determining just what is needed by the country along this line and therefore that a reporting of the bill ought not to be delayed.

It is the deliberate and candid judgment of practically all of the wool producers of this State that this legislation would be of greater benefit to them than anything that has been proposed in recent years.

The subject is one especially calling for Federal legislation because it is in the nature of regulation of interstate commerce, the cloth being made in one State and sold in many others; thus cloth made in Massachusetts finds its way to the consumer in Texas and therefore State legislation is difficult of enforcement. In fact, truth-in-fabric legislation is very much along the same lines as pure food legislation having for their purpose the revelation of truth to the consumer of manufactured articles and the contents thereof.

We are convinced that a strong measure enacted by the Federal Congress would present no difficulties of enforcement nor any great expense to the Government in its enforcement; true, the textile manufacturers of the North and East use as their chief arguments against such legislation the bludgeon of threatened. This character of argument, however, has been made by those interested against every reform and constructively progressive proposition that has presented itself. For years the same argument was made against national pure food legislation, against the enactment of proper regulation of child labor, against the adoption of national prohibition, and a great many other subjects of constructive measures.

I assure you. Senator, that the wool-growing interests in Texas will highly appreciate your valuable aid in procuring a favorable report upon the Capper bill and in its passage through the Senate and they confidently depend upon you for energetic and persistent support in the premises.

On behalf of those whom this association represents, permit me to thank you in advance for your usual promptness in giving your best endeavor to a matter so vital to your constituents, I am,Yours most respectfully,E.K. Fawcett,President Sheep and Gout Raisers’ Association of Texas.

The Chairman. The committee will stand adjourned until Wednesday,at 10 o'clock.

(Whereupon, at 11:55 o'clock a. m., the committee adjourned until 10 o'clock a.m., Wednesday, March 12, 1924.)

The Chairman. Just identify yourself to the reporter.

Mr. Hahn. I am managing director of the National Retail Dry Goods Association, appearing in this instance as th representative of th Retailer's National Council, in which our association holds membership.

I would like first of all, sir, to thank you for the courtesy of extending this hearing to us. Our purpose in desiring to be represented is because there seems to have been thus far a paucity of retail opinion injected into the framing of this bill. The manufacturers seems to have been carrying on a more or less titanic battle, and while seem this bill as drawn seems to concern us very much, we have not been consulted.

I should like to say at the start that it is the consensus of opinion in the Retailer's National Council, which is composed of a number of associations, a list of which I am glad to submit to th reporter, is that while we are not opposed to the principle which is sought to be enforced through this proposed legislation, and indeed we applaud any effort to help make business better, cleaner, and more frank to the public, we feel that this bill as it is constituted to-day would entail some very serious hardships and injustices to the retail distributors of the country.

(The list of organization referred to is here printed in full, as follows:)National Retail Dry Goods Association, National Association of Retail Clothiers and Furnishers, National Garment Retailers Association, National Retail Hardware Association, National Retail Grocers’ Association, National Association of ‘Shoe Retailers, National Retail Druggist Association, National Retail Jewelers’ Association.

Mr. Hahn. I have here a few notes which I should like to run over, and then if we may ask that courtesy from the committee, we should like to have the privilege of filing a brief, which we shall do very promptly, and also to extend and amend any remarks that I may make at this time.

The Chairman. The committee will be glad to print anything that you have that is on the legislation.

Mr. Hahn. Thank you, sir.

Our first objection perhaps may seem captious: I hope it will not. It has to do with the description of the bill, which is to be designated as the “honest merchandising act.” I submit to you, sir, that there are a great many retailers throughout the country, hundreds of thousands of them, the Retailers’ National Council for which I am appearing this morning, which claims an actual membership of 179,000 retail stores. They range from the very smallest units of retail distribution to the largest stores in the country, and I am sure that every one of the organizations comprising the council stands for the highest ideals in the retail distribution of merchandise.

We recognize that human nature is of course very faulty, and we should not like to say that all the merchants in this country or all the merchants in our own associations are in every instance quite as straightforward as we might wish or that they all have the ideals as high as we should like them to have. But I want you to know that these organizations are working consistently and steadily for the up-building of the retail trade, for the clarification in the minds of the trade of the obligations of honesty and service of the retailer to the public on the one hand, and to those for whom we buy on the other. We are working earnestly and sincerely for the creating a better feeling and better method and better ideal in business. It seems to us something of a reflection upon the business of the country, and especially upon the retail business, that it should be necessary a the year 1924 to enact a bill which shall be known as the honest merchandising act, and that from now on we shall have a new heaven and a new earth.

All these things, it seems to us, can come only from the steady growth of high ideals and education and the upbuilding, as it were, of the morale of the people in business. We do not believe that this act or any act can, as a matter of fact, bring about honest merchandising. That can come only from the continued efforts of all who have a proper conception of the place the great business of community of the country should fill in the larger scheme of the whole country.

So that we think perhaps there is an unfortunate reflection implied there by calling this act the honest merchandise act.

Then if we get on to section 2——The Chairman. That applies to both bills, does it, Mr. Hahn?

Mr. Hahn. Yes, sir. Then in section 2, line 3 , page 2, coming down to the more objections:The terms “falsely described,” false trade description,” and “falsely applying” shall include misleading descriptions or applications of an article.

We think that that should be limited to printed or written descriptions.

I should like to give you a little example that will show you what we mean.

The Chairman. Which bill is this, the Capper or the Lodge?

Mr. Hahn. This is the Lodge bill. I may go into a clothing store and I may spend three-quarters of an hour or perhaps a full hour in looking over a number of suits of clothes before determining which one I want, and the salesman who is showing them to me, being mindful of the urge that there may be to sell me a suit of clothing by calling attention to the particular selling points of each suit, may show me one, two, or three suits of clothing, and when he comes to the fourth he may say, “This is a very fine suit; the material is imported.” Then he may go to No. 5, 6, 7, and he comes to No. 8, and he may say, “This also is imported,” and finally he perhaps has shown me as many as 20 suits, and I try one, two, or three of them on, and perhaps one or two I try on more than once, and when I leave him, having purchased a suit, there may be in my mind a very hazy recollection of which suit he designated as imported material, and I may think the suit I bought was the one he said was imported material and as a matter of fact it may be domestic, and subsequently I find it is domestic and I go, back and I say, “Here, this is not right; you were not honest,” and it becomes a case of my word against the salesman's word.

If we apply this section to a customer's recollection of spoken statements, we provide an endless opportunity for misunderstanding and wrangling. We therefore believe that that clause should confine itself to statements that are written or printed.

Then we come to the following clause (e):The terms “virgin wool” and “new wool” mean sheep's wool, lamb's wool, etc.

It seems to us that since this bill has for its very purpose and essence the prohibition of misbranding of merchandise and misleading and untruthful statements with regard to merchandise, it would prohibit such practices in connection with all merchandise, and that there is no particular reason for lugging in the textile industry in this particular bill, any more reason than there should be in bringing in the hardware industry or the automobile industry or any other.

Under this bill it would be an offense to make a misstatement in connection with any kind of commodity or merchandise. We feel there should be, therefore, no more reason for saying that it shall be wrong to misbrand or make misstatement regarding all merchandise, including woolen goods, than there should be to say that the merchant within the limits of the United States may sell liquor, including, John Brown.

Senator Couzens. Do you mind being interrupted while you are giving your statement?

Mr. Hahn. No, sir.

Senator Couzens. Is it not apparent that the question of enforcement might enter into so broad a field and make it all inclusive? Is it not possible that we might be more able to enforce a limited bill than a bill so broad as the one introduced by Senator Lodge?

Mr. Hahn. Possibly, but there would be naturally a certain element of discrimination, and we believe that so far as the enforcement 148146of this particular clause is concerned. I am sure your committee must have heard during the period that you have had your bill under consideration, the statements of much more practical men in the trade than I that it would be practically impossible to enforce this particular clause.

In fact, Mr. McGowan, who has charge of the textiles division of the Bureau of Standards of the United States, made a statement in New York within the last two or three weeks that the difference between all wool and virgin wool can not be determined either physically or by chemical examination and it would be absolutely impossible to enforce that provision of the bill.

Senator Couzens. You do not say that we could not have honesty without discrimination?

Mr. Hahn. No; I should not think so, but just this, when the Congress of the United States seeks to protect the public against the supposed wrong practices in business, that they should have just as much interest in protecting the woman, for example, from the purchase of an article made largely of artificial silk with the idea that she is buying true silk, that they should be just as much interested in protecting that woman as protecting her husband from buying something which might be made partly from reworked wool.

Senator Couzens. You know, of course, that those things are done by the Congress upon the demand of the people, that Congress does not initiate these things, and that there has been for a number of years a demand for legislation along these lines, and perhaps as we learn more there will be a demand for legislation on other commodities and there will be time enough for Congress to act upon those things when there has been a public demand for them.

Mr. Hahn. There seems, Senator, to have been some very involved understanding and rumors, and perhaps some things which have been directly known, in regard to the demand for this bill. I am referring now to the so-called “truth in fabric” bill in connection with which I am not appearing. I should not like to take the committee's time in making an extended statement on that, and I think you probably have heard as much as the rest of us have heard.

The question is whether there is a general demand on the part of the public, with which, after all, we are mostly concerned, something regarding which I believe the members of the committee will probably themselves want to question very closely.

Senator Couzens. All the witnesses testified, as I recall it, who have been familiar with this matter for a long time, that this matter has been agitated in Congress for 20 years. Is that not right, Mr. Chairman?

The Chairman. Yes; about 20 years.

Mr. Hahn. I can remember 20 years ago. No; it is longer than 20 years ago. When I was a boy I can remember when my father went to a tailor shop to select material for a suit, that he would bring back two or three pieces of goods, and my mother and grandmother would take several threads out of each piece and burn them, to make sure that it was all wool. But since I have been a man and have been buying clothing, I can not remember a single instance, except perhaps in my very early days, where I have ever gone into a store and, upon being shown a suit of clothes or a piece of goods in a tailor shop, I have asked if it was all wool. I think the textile industry and the 149147clothing industry has progressed so far that they take that for granted and the people have the assurance that the thing is absolutely all wool. I think most of it has been all wool clothing and that mostly it is satisfactory. I doubt very much that there is a very great demand from consumers that there is any demand for legislation of this kind.

The Chairman. Testimony of the witnesses here confirm the idea that this sort of legislation has been proposed for about 20 years, but there has been an effort to get the recognition of the wool item in clothing since the Civil War.

Mr. Hahn. Possibly there was at the time of the Civil War.

The Chairman. The representative of the National Grange, the last man here, said it had been agitated even since the Civil War.

Mr. Hahn. I am afraid that most of us in our lives develop little paths which become habits, and it is very hard to get out of those paths—like a horse used to walking around a windlass. I confess that at the time of the Civil War there may have been some cause for a bill of this kind, but to-day I doubt whether there is any serious demand or need for this. As a matter of fact, ethics in business have developed so tremendously since those days that we no longer need much that might have seemed necessary then.

The Chairman. Mr. Hahn, would there be any legitimate objection, from your standpoint, to limiting the legislation to the fabrics, that is, the shoddy in it, not including the worsteds or the all-new-wool fabrics?

Mr. Hahn. I am afraid sir, I can not answer that intelligently.

The Chairman. That matter has been brought out here two or three times by witnesses who are not favorable to the bill, and it seems to them that that would not be a desirable thing to do.

Mr. Hahn. I should think that the Congress of the United States would hesitate to enact a measure which, if we are correctly informed, would seem to set up a false standard. I mean by that that if the term “virgin wool” in connection with the fabric would offer to the public a definite assurance of durable satisfaction in that cloth, then I should think it might be the part of Congress to give the public that protection; but if, as has been represented to me—and I confess I am not a practical sheep and wool man—the term “virgin wool” means nothing then Congress should not set it up. I understand there are something like 400 or 600 breeds of sheep in the United States alone and in all parts of the earth there are a great many more and the sheep vary in the kind of wool they produce as between the different locations in which they are raised, even though they may be of the same breed. You may take the wool from the sheep grown in an arid, hard part of the country, in which the sheep barely manage to subsist—and even though that wool comes from a good grade of sheep will be of poor quality. In the same sheep the wool will differ greatly, the part from the tail and perhaps around the legs, where it has trailed through the brambles, being inferior.

The Chairman. That has been brought out already by several witnesses.

Mr. Hahn. I beg your pardon, of course, that would be brought out, but that wool, because it never has been worn before, sells as “virgin wool” although it is not likely to give satisfaction to the 150148public. Yet it will take preference in the mind of an uninformed consumer over an excellent piece of material might contain a certain amount of legitimate and worth-while reworked wool. That means you are setting up a false standard, and I think Congress would be very loath to do that.

Senator Couzens. I think you overlook the point that the proponents of this bill, the Capper bill in particular, do not ask or desire that the public will be informed as to the different qualities of any particular goods, that a bill passed by Congress will not set up a standard of good, better, or best goods, but it will fix a law that the person may know what he is getting, that he may not be deceived in what he is getting, that he will still be required to use his judgment as to whether he wants a garment with 70 per cent virgin wool and 30 per cent worked over wool or not, whether he wants all wool, which is still a discriminatory matter with himself.

It seems to me that no one should object to that. It seems to me that if a person wants to sell that cloth of all new wool, it is not his responsibility particularly whether a person wants to buy it or not. Congress does not advise that he buy all new wool. Congress just makes it illegal for a man to attempt to sell him something that is not what it is represented. I think the public have a right to know what they are buying and then use their own judgment whether they want a suit of clothes with partly worked over wool and partly new wool or whether they want all new wool goods. Congress will not in this bill say that all wool is better than worked over wool. Congress will not say that a suit will wear longer with all new wool than a suit with 50-50 of old wool and new wool. I can not see any objection to having the seller required to tell the truth.

Mr. Hahn. And yet, sir, there can be no question, it seems to me, that if the Congress of the United States legislates on this question in this way that implication will be unmistakable that the cloth which may be marked “virgin wool” will be infinitely preferable to something which may not be.

Senator Couzens. That is entirely true, but that is no business of Congress, what the implication is as long as we make it plain that the dealer must tell the truth. The Government went all through this on the question of oleomargarine and butter, and we do not require the butter makers to mark their butter; we just require them to sell butter when it is butter and oleomargarine when it is oleomargarine.

I thought a witness here recently stated what was perfectly fair, that only those who put anything in their goods that was not new wool might be required to mark them, and those who sold all wool goods, all new wool goods, would not be required to mark them, any more than a pure butter maker is required to mark his butter. The butter maker is not required to mark his butter, but the maker of oleomargarine is required to mark his product.

Mr. Hahn. I think that would be a much more intelligent suggestion, but it seems to me, sir, that in the case of oleomargarine and butter you have a different proposition, because you can tell so readily what is oleomargarine and what is butter.

Senator Couzens. Oh, no; you can not tell it, because that was what brought the agitation, because you could not tell it. Congress 151149was required to pass a law making them mark it because the people could not tell and were for a long time imposed upon by being sold margarine when they thought they were getting butter.

Mr. Hahn. But I mean sir, the enforcement officers would have no difficulty in determining what was oleomargarine and what was butter. If I remember rightly while that discussion was on, I can remember my mother saying when that when she put in the frying pan she could felt at once whether it was oleomargarine or butter.

Senator Couzens. After she had bought it and put in the frying pan, yes.

Mr. Hahn. But then she could proceed against the retailer who sold it to her with the perfect assurance that she had a right to do so. But, as Mr. McGowan, of the Bureau of Standards, has recently stated, it will be impossible for the enforcement officers to enforce this law, because no one can tell what is reworked wool and what is new wool.

The Chairman. Your idea, Mr. Hahn, is that oleomargarine can be determined by a chemical process?

Mr. Hahn. And even by a simple household process.

The Chairman. While you can not do it in this case with the garment?

Mr. Hahn. That is the statement, that has been made by high authority.

The Chairman. Statements have been made to that effect here.

Mr. Hahn. Yes, sir.

The Chairman. I am not entirely satisfied that we can not determine it, but pretty high authorities say we can not.

Mr. Hahn. I should say that the preponderance of the evidence is against your being able to tel it.

Senator Couzens. The fact is that it has been testified that it would not be a difficult thing to follow up the manufacturer and have him certify to the facts as to what his goods really do contain.

Mr. Hahn. Mr. Senator, I had hoped that I should not be drawn into a discussion of the truth in fabric bill, so-called, as I said before, I am not a practical woolman or sheepman. I do, however, know the point of view of the retailer and some of the problems with which he has to contend.

Senator Couzens. I did not intend to draw you into that.

Mr. Hahn. I am very happy to answer anything for what my replies may be worth.

On the particular thing which we are discussing now the retailers’ objection would not be to any device or plan which would compel him or make it necessary for him to tell the truth, but I might say that the thing impresses us this way, the retailers are on the firing line and have the daily contact with the public. They would have to carry the burdens of misunderstanding and loss of good will which this bill would inflict. The dealer buys merchandise upon the representation made to him by the manufacturer. He judges that merchandise by what his customers think of it.

If the bill which we have recently been discussing, the French-Capper bill, were enacted into law, it seems to me that a situation like this might arise: I as a consumer would go to a store and purchase perhaps an overcoat and it would be marked “all virgin wool” and 152150it might be one of these fleecy nap fabrics with which you are doubtless familiar: the nap wears off where your sleeve comes in contact with the side of your coat, and in other places where the extra wear comes the nap will wear off. I, not being a technical man, having very little practical knowledge of merchandise, may, as I wear it, say, “Well, I do not believe this can be all virgin wool, because it has not worn satisfactorily.” I go back to the retailer and I say, “Mr. Brown”—or Jones, or whatever his name may be—“you sold me this coat for all virgin wool, and I do not believe it is; it has not worn properly.” Then the retailer tries to instruct me and it does not satisfy me and I say, “No, I do not know about that; it should not wear that way.” Then the retailer, knowing his own position, may elect to say, “Well, I bought that coat from a reliable manufacturer; that is his mark on it. I have always found him reliable and satisfactory in my past dealings, and my position is that so fa as I am concerned it is virgin wool.” What is my recourse to the consumer?

If I understand the provisions of the act correctly, I have the right to go to the United States district attorney and demand my rights. The district attorney may proceed against the retailer. There is the sacrifice of a good portion of the retailer's good will. He is on the firing line and has to bear the brunt of it. Then the district attorney may take my coat an send it to the United States Bureaus of Standards, where in the course of time they will make a test of it and determine if they can whether it is all virgin wool or not.

But of what advantage is that to the consumer? I have put $65 or $75 into that coat. I need another coat. What am I going to do?

Senator Couzens. That is not up to the Government to determine. The Government is to insist that the truth be told. That is the purpose of the Interstate Commerce Committee, to demand honesty in commerce. If our old teachings are correct—that honesty is the best policy—then we must be sound.

Mr. Hahn. But may I take it for granted that the Senator believes that in attempting to enforce honesty it should be not as an idle theory, but rather as affording a worth-while protection to the people of the United States? If, when all this boasted protection for the consumer has simply come down to the point, it is that the district attorney has taken my coat and sent it to Washington where the Bureau of standards will try to determine what it is composed of, and I am deprived of my investment in the coat, and there has been no practical advantage to the public for whom you are legislating.

Senator Couzens. You mean the sacrifice of a coat may be a personal objection—Mr. Hahn. Decidedly from my point of view as a consumer.

Senator Couzens. We can not judge the public from that one experience. If we should legislate for the benefit of every individual we would of course be carrying it to an absurdity.

Mr. Hahn. I trust that in your consideration of this bill the committee can be very sure, that they are not attempting to legislate for an individual.

Senator Couzens. I do not think that Congress would think of legislating for individuals. We are legislating for the interest of 153151integrity in commerce. It may work some hardship. Nearly every law works some hardships, but you would not say that because it works some hardship we should not pass any legislation?

Mr. Hahn. Not unless the hardships overbalance the benefits.

Senator Couzens. But honesty overbalances it; honestly overbalances dishonesty?

Mr. Hahn. Honesty always overbalances dishonesty.

Senator Couzens. That is what we are trying to enforce, honesty in statement and honesty in marking. If we do not accomplish that, there is no necessity for the bill. To keep out dishonesty, we may perhaps do some injury to somebody, but that must be sacrificed still in the interest of honesty.

Mr. Hahn. Mr. Senator, I would like in all ways to comport myself before this committee so as to show that, and I appreciate the courtesy of the committee in allowing me to come here. I want to say, however, that the newspapers to-day are full of allegations of misconduct of men in high public offices, yet how foolish if would be for the people of the United States to believe that every man in public office to-day is dishonest, and so lose faith in their Government. There may be some element of dishonesty in our men in public office, but we recognize they are an unimportant minority; so we asked Congress to believe that as a just matter of fact the great bulk of the people engaged in the conduct of our industries are honest and desire in every way to be honest, I ask you only not to put upon them unreasonable burdens because of a few people who may be dishonest.

Senator Couzens. I do not get your point that because we legislate to catch the dishonest man that hurts the honest man.

Mr. Hahn. A retailer's reputation is as frail and ephemeral a thing as a woman's. The public is asked to come into our stores and buy merchandise, and there is hardly a merchant in the United States who is not paying large sums in one way or another to increase his good will, whether that he through a policy of standing rigidly behind his merchandise and guaranteeing satisfaction at all times and even where the customer is unreasonable in his demand giving him satisfaction, or whether it is by that policy, coupled with another policy of spending large sums of money in advertising.

Any measure which, upon mere suspicion, would prompt the consumer to start action with the United States district attorney against a retailer over a thing of this kind, over a question the truth of which the Government authorities themselves testify, it is absolutely impossible to determine, is an attack in each instance upon that good will which the retailer has so patiently and at so much cost to himself built up. We do resent the imputation that we are dishonest.

Senator Couzens. I do not see anything in the bill that imputes the retailer or the manufacturer.

Mr. Hahn. Well, you yourself said you would not be in favor of legislating for individuals, and in similar spirit I am sure you would not think of legislating unless you thought a certain practice was very widespread. You would not think of setting in motion the burdensome machinery of the United States Government, and passing new legislation and providing enforcement methods for the purpose of punishing one or two crooks. You would assume, as is the 154152fact, that the Federal Government and the States already have sufficient power to reach wrongdoers on this thing. Unless this practice is very widespread, unless the public daily is being shamefully defrauded in connection with this matter, I am sure it would not be your position to set the great machinery of the United States in motion in a new attempt to crush out this thing.

The Chairman. Did you say you would file a brief, Mr. Hahn?

Mr. Hahn. Yes, sir; I should like the privilege of submitting a brief.

The Chairman. How soon could you have it ready?

Mr. Hahn. Why, within a week.

The Chairman. Would that be all right, Senator?

Mr. Hahn. May I proceed with this particular criticism?

The Chairman. Yes.

Mr. Hahn. I would like Senator Couzens to know what I said at the start, that with the principle which is sought to be set up by this particular bill, the Lodge bill, I think we are heartily in favor. If it will make ourselves more honest and our competitors more honest, we are for it, because after all the most destructive kind of competition is the dishonest competitor.

Mr. Chairman. I might state, Mr. Hahn, that the purpose of the committee is to get all the facts pro and con. Senator Couzens has just as much an open mind on this as anybody I have ever known.

Mr. Hahn. I am sure he has.

The Chairman. Consequently he is trying to get the facts, although he does not know or I do not know what the committee will recommend yet. We are getting the facts upon which we can base a sane judgment.

Mr. Hahn. Well, in coming to you on this particular bill, the Lodge bill, we are not saying do not pass it, and we are not saying to pass it. But we are trying to point out from our practical knowledge of what happens in our trade some things that we think are wrong in the bill.

The Chairman. The point is that when a witness appears either for or against it we want to get all the angles and if he makes a statement we would like to have his basis for that so as to see whether it is sound or not.

Mr. Hahn. Yes; sir.

The Chairman. That is why you are being interrupted with questions.

Mr. Hahn. Yes, sir.

The Chairman. Go ahead.

Mr. Hahn. Now, in line 17 on page 2 we believe that there should be inserted in that clause, which is number 2 in parenthesis, the word “knowingly,” and we believe it is not the purpose to prosecute a retailer who might receive merchandise that was branded by the manufacturer as being a certain thing and then might turn out to be misbranded, if he simply took it upon the assurance of the manufacturer that it was so-and-so.

We might take the grocers as an example. I suppose that there are millions of packages of rice sold by the retail grocery stores of this country which bear the inscription “uncoated rice,” I have no idea that every little grocer who handles those packages takes 155153the packages and open them to find out if they are properly marked——The Chairman. Then why should you use the word “knowingly”?

Mr. Hahn. Because it certainly should not be the purpose of Congress to punish the retailer who has taken a package of merchandise which was made by the manufacturer with the manufacturer's brand and statement on it and punish him, the retailer, for selling it when he did not know that it was misbranded.

The Chairman. Well, if you make the defense that he did not know, could you enforce the law?

Mr. Hahn. I think as between the two alternatives, I should prefer that it should not be enforced, rather than it should be enforced unfairly. The responsibility should be placed with the manufacturer or merchant who puts up the merchandise and brands it.

The Chairman. Do you feel that that would make the law wholly unworkable?

Mr. Hahn. Perhaps that shows that the law is not practicable, sir.

Senator Couzens. I should think, Mr. Chairman, that the action would be against the man who misbranded the goods.

Mr. Hahn. And yet this provides that if he sells or exposes for sale or has in his possession these goods, he is liable to be proceeded against in the United States court.

Senator Couzens. I am inclined to agree with the witness that the action should be against the producer or the maker rather than the seller, I mean the retail seller.

Mr. Hahn. Now, there might be such a thing—I have given example of the rice—there might be such a thing as a number of consumers coming back and telling the retailer that this rice was not as marked and the retailer might go on and sell it and then we might assume that he had willingly done it.

The Chairman. The reporter has the item or recommendation you are making, and we will take that under consideration when we consider the bill.

Mr. Hahn. Thank you, sir.

In section 4 on page 5, lines from 18 to 23, to refer to the point that I previously made, that there seems no particular reason, since this bill prohibits all misrepresentations and misbranding in connection with all commodities, for bringing in the textile industry, as though they were the chief offenders.

In lines 16 and 17 on page 6, we wonder just what may be an indirect misrepresentation or indication, and coupling that thought with lines 20 and 21, it reads:(b) As to the place or country in which any goods were made or produced.

I am wondering if an indirect statement might be considered to have been made by a furniture dealer, for example, who sold a davenport or a chair said to be upholstered with Spanish leather or Russian leather when that leather as a matter of fact had not originated in Spain or in Russia.

Senator Couzens. Would that not be misrepresentation?

Mr. Hahn. Frankly, I do not know, sir. A great many commodities have come to be known, not because of the direct origin of those particular commodities in a certain place, but because they 156154were originally made there and because that type of workmanship is carried out. Perhaps a somewhat older and similar term is “German silver,” which I think some one says is neither German nor silver, and yet which everybody knows by that term. The trade is full of a great many terms of that kind which were not made by us sir, but which we have inherited from other generations and which would require a general clean up to get rid of.

I think we are trying now to clean things up. In a great many communities of this country the merchants themselves are supporting financially and morally the better business bureaus, the purpose of which is to put a restraint upon their own utterances, and those better business bureaus are operating splendidly to prevent just such things as this bill is aimed at.

The Chairman. I presume that that is the objection you make here, that if the representation or statement is made that it came from one country and it did not, that that would fall under this clause?

Mr. Hahn. Yes, sir; and so many things that have to do with the style of a certain commodity have come to take the names of countries in which that style may have originated.

Senator Couzens. I should think this would be a great help to your better business bureau. I know something about the work of them, and I am heartily in favor of them. But I should think that this would be a help to them.

Mr. Hahn. I think if the bill were properly safeguarded it certainly would.

When we come to those provisions which have to do with other things, for example, misstatements concerning the former price at which merchandise may have sold, or value, I think most of the progressive retailers of the country would be heartily in favor of that. If a man buys something at a price which with his regular mark-up would mean that he should put in on sale for $50 and he states in his advertisement that the former price of his article was one hundred dollars, or that it is worth a hundred dollars, that is a misstatement, and I think the better business conscience of the country would back you up whole-heartedly in that.

I should like, sir, in saying that to make this further explanation, that so far as comparative prices, as we term them, are concerned, they are an essential part of the story that the retailer has to tell the public the retailer is advertising a thing which, with his regular mark-up, he has priced at $75, and because the trade is a little backward he will sell that article for $50, to tell that to a woman is an essential part of the story, but unfortunately there is a tremendous amount of exaggeration in that sort of thing.

Senator Couzens. I am glad to hear you say that there is a tremendous exaggeration.

Mr. Hahn. There is no question about it. I think that in the stores which I represent, in all the stores which have a business, the heads of those businesses have tried and are trying in every way to eliminate that sort of thing, but the stores employ in many instances as many as a hundred buyers. Each buyer, as it were, is the boss of his particular department. The advertising manager of the business receives his reports from the buyers, and the advertising department considers those things and tries to eliminate those things, but every now and then such things as those will creep in.

Am I taking too much time, sir?

The Chairman. We would like to have you get through as soon as possible. I do not know how many others will want to be heard this morning.

Mr. Hahn. On page 8, in section 9, line 13, we think that so far as applying a trade-mark which nearly resembles the trade-mark so as to be calculated to deceive or mislead is concerned, we think there should be a provision in there—“knowingly.” There is a possibility of a man putting a trade-mark on his merchandise and not knowing that it is somebody else's, or resembles it.

Senator Couzens. I think a good many of those things would come to the Federal Trade Commission and probably be straightened out before they are pressed for prosecution.

Mr. Hahn. Yes, sir. Now, section 10, which provides that “the Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary of the Treasury, and the Secretary of Agriculture shall make uniform rules and regulations,” etc.—we wonder whether the committee would consider it expedient to make some provision in there that the three Secretaries should do that with knowledge of the best trade practices.

Senator Couzens. Oh, I think they may be relied upon. These Secretaries would get advice from trade organizations in formulating these regulations, and I think we can perhaps rely upon the intelligence of the secretaries in that.

Mr. Hahn. I think so; you are probably right.

The Chairman. The universal practice, whenever we have a commission that is made up of Cabinet members—Cabinet members are almost wholly ex officio. They have a bureau or organization of experts operating under their authority. They themselves do not know it; can not know.

Mr. Hahn. Yes, sir; I think we could safely trust this to our secretaries, but I think that if they are to make a suit of clothes for us to wear we should be consulted as to the measurements.

On page 11, section 13—I think I have already pointed out that in the majority of instances the retailer has practically nothing to do with the branding of this merchandise. There are some retailers who put up their own brands, and when they do that, of course, they should assume full responsibility for whatever statements are made in connection with the merchandise so put up. Here the action should lie directly against the man who puts it up, whether he be the retailer or the manufacturer.

We think too that on the question of guaranties, while the bill permits the retailer to receive the guaranty of the manufacturer, where a guaranty is given either in connection with specific purchases or as a general proposition covering all his dealings, it would be better if the bill required the manufacturer to give the retailer a guaranty, and we think that such a guaranty might be printed on the label of packaged goods and on the regular invoice form on which he bills the retailer for the merchandise where the goods themselves can not carry the guaranty. There are so many opportunities to forget the guaranty where the man goes into the market and buys merchandise from so many different people.

Senator Couzens. Don't you think that is a responsibility for the buyer?

Mr. Hahn. Oh, it is to a certain extent.

Senator Couzens. You do not give that sort of a guaranty to your retail purchaser?

Mr. Hahn. We do, yes.

Senator Couzens. A written guaranty?

Mr. Hahn. If it is required, yes; and I know of some stores which print upon the back of their sales check, a copy of which goes with every purchase, that if this merchandise is found anywhere else in the community at a lower price the consumer may receive a refund of the difference or may return the merchandise and get his money back.

Senator Couzens. What is the general practice of retailers? Do they usually work on the theory that their customers are right?

Mr. Hahn. They do, sir.

Senator Couzens. I remember over 20 years ago that John Wanamaker told me that he worked on the theory that his customers were always right, and if that is so, there—

Mr. Hahn. That has gone all through the trade.

Senator Couzens (continuing). There would not be much danger of a man taking his overcoat to the prosecutor, would there?

Mr. Hahn. I think not; and there is not much occasion for this bill. I think that the Senator has only to go somewhere and buy something and take it back again and say, “This is not satisfactory” to learn that that is the practice of the retail trade.

The Chairman. Mr. Hahn, in your brief will you make a note of the proposed changes that you are offering?

Mr. Hahn. Yes, sir. I have just two more notes and I will hurry through.

On page 12 in section 14 it is provided that where the retailer does possess the guaranty of the manufacturer he shall not be prosecuted. But there is in there, if we understand it, a provision that his goods may be confiscated, and we think that is unfair. If the retailer is exonerated if he has the guaranty of the manufacturer, why should he be deprived of his merchandise?

Senator Couzens. So that he may not continue to defraud the public. That is done with pure food laws and everywhere, where the fraud is being perpetrated upon the public; the proper official seizes the goods to prevent a further imposition upon the public. It is up to you to straighten out your difficulties afterwards.

Mr. Hahn. Well, I believe that the law holds that when the manufacturer puts his merchandise in the hands of a carrier it is then the property of the retailer. Now you are making the admission in the terms of this section that the retailer is not capable if he has a guaranty, and yet you are taking his merchandise away from him.

Senator Couzens. He is not to blame so far as the violation of the law is concerned, but you don't think that he should take those goods and continue to defraud the public after the fraud is found out?

Mr. Hahn. I am sorry I can not suggest an alternative, but it seems to me that they should not enact a measure that would have that practical application.

Senator Couzens. You remember when these poisonous olives were found throughout the country, they were seized everywhere, promiscuously, to protect the public.

Mr. Hahn. I believe that is a little different; there the health of the people was at stake.

Senator Couzens. If it is a fraud, it is a fraud, and the fraud should not be permitted to continue. Now, that is a matter, it seems to me, that the retailer should straighten out with the manufacturer. You do not want the Government to hold the bag; you do not want the public to hold the bag.

Mr. Hahn. We would not have a Chinaman's chance to straighten that out.

Senator Couzens. Don't you want the manufacturers to keep their good will?

Mr. Hahn. I think in my last remark I had in mind more the matter of imported merchandise, where the manufacturer is in a foreign country and where the retailer might possibly get the guaranty from the manufacturer, but it would be meaningless, and where the public authorities under the bill would have the right to seize and destroy that merchandise.

Senator Couzens. Then you want the public to be imposed upon, rather than the retailer?

Mr. Hahn. I do not.

Senator Couzens. How are you going to get rid of this?

Mr. Hahn. I should think on the flash of the moment that those goods then should be properly marked and that the retailer should be allowed to sell them with the proper marking.

Senator Couzens. Put that in your brief then, and we will take it up.

Mr. Hahn. It certainly is not fair if you exonerate the retailer and say, “Here, this man has a guaranty from the manufacturers,” under this act, and we can not hold him culpable, and yet we take his merchandise away from him, while the manufacturer, who is the guilty party, has practically nothing whatever to lose.

Senator Couzens. He may be prosecuted criminally. There is a very clear situation there. A manufacturer may be prosecuted criminally, where he will lose financially without any crime being charged against you. I believe that is a perfectly clear distinction and a perfectly proper one, to exonerate the retailer in a case of that kind.

Mr. Hahn. But when you exonerate a man you would like to insure him the enjoyment of his property wherever it is possible?

Senator Couzens. Yes; but not to the detriment of the public, however; that is the point.

Mr. Hahn. And if you could accomplish that by requiring the goods to be properly marked—Senator Couzens. I suggest that you put that in your brief and the committee will take it up.

Mr. Hahn. Thank you, sir; I will do that.

My final point I had covered in discussing this one.

The Chairman. Get your brief in as soon as you can, Mr. Hahn; if you can, by the end of this week.

Mr. Hahn. Yes, sir; I thank you gentlemen very much.