ÆäÀÌÁö À̹ÌÁö
PDF
ePub

adulteration of flour. Under the pure-food law an article shall be deemed to be adulterated, in the case of food, "If any substance has been mixed with it so as to reduce or lower or injuriously affect its quality or strength," and as in mixing starch with wheat flour this very adulteration is effected you will defeat the very purposes of the pure-food law by passing this suggested amendment to it. This is not a fit amendment to the pure-food law, and will draw merited criticism from hundreds of other manufacturers who would like to see the law so amended that mixing and adulteration would be permitted under the law and apply to their own products.

This amendment to the pure-food law should be very seriously considered, as it might in the end defeat the very purposes for which the pure-food law was originally enacted; and the passing of this measure would be a step backward, for any amendment to the purefood law should strengthen rather than weaken it.

Let these great industries be conducted along wholesome lines, require all the wheat millers, the corn millers, and the glucose manufacturers to make pure, unadulterated products, and then let these pure products go to the people for what they represent in intrinsic value.

This is a plain statement of the position of the millers of St. Louis on this question, and they have asked me to request that you do not favorably consider this House of Representatives bill No. 9409. Mr. RAINEY. Are there any questions?

Mr. LANNEN. I would like to ask a question, if I may.

Do I understand you to say that the only people making requests for a repeal of this law are the manufacturers of corn products? Mr. PLANT. Yes; that is my statement.

Mr. LANNEN. Do you not know that the whole agricultural industry of the Middle West is requesting the repeal of this law? Mr. PLANT. No, sir; I do not.

Mr. LANNEN. Do you not know that the agricultural industry of the State of Missouri has asked for the repeal of this law?

Mr. PLANT. No, sir.

Mr. LANNEN. Do you not know that the farmers' unions all over the country have asked for a repeal of this law?

Mr. PLANT. I will say that I did hear another man ask for a repeal of this law; yes.

Mr. LANNEN. That is all

Mr. PLANT. I was in Chicago the other day, and on return to my home my desk was filled with literature from the Corn Products Co. and some others, mostly from the Corn Products Co., asking me to request my Representative in Congress to try and bring about the repeal of this law.

Mr. FORDNEY. Who are the Corn Products Co.; who are the owners of that company?

Mr. PLANT. I do not know who the owners are. They are large manufacturers of corn products.

Mr. FORDNEY. I have heard it stated, and it was stated by Mr. Morningstar here a few years ago, that the Standard Oil Co. owned a majority of the Corn Products Co. Do you know whether that is so or not?

Mr. PLANT. No, sir.

Mr. FORDNEY. Of course, that is no reflection on the Standard Oil Co. They have as much right as anybody else to engage in business. Mr. PLANT. I was going to say that among my mail was a letter from the manager of the Western Union Telegraph Co. in St. Louis, addressed to me personally as vice president of our company. We do a large telegraph business. He said he received a telegram from the agent of the Western Union Telegraph Co. in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, asking if he would not get all the people he could to telegraph to their Representatives in Washington asking for a repeal of the mixed-flour law.

Mr. FORDNEY. Who made this request?

Mr. PLANT. This request came from the Douglas Co. in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Mr. FORDNEY. Who are the Douglas Co.?

Mr. PLANT. They are manufacturers of corn goods; I do not know whether they manufacture cornstarch or flour

Mr. FORDNEY. Are they a branch of the Corn Products Co.?

Mr. LIND. They are one of the proponents of this bill.

Mr. FORDNEY. I wanted to find out whether they are subsidiaries of the Corn Products Co.?

Mr. LANNEN. They are not, Mr. Congressman.

Mr. PLANT. They are a member of this association.

I was rather surprised to get this request in relation to asking Congressmen to vote for the repeal of this law, and it goes to show that there are a great many people who will ask you to vote for the repeal of a law that they perhaps do not know very much about and have not very much interest in. I believe that Mr. Lannen says that the corn growers are asking for a repeal of the law. They may be. But I have not heard that they were asking for the repeal. Anyway, they will not go into the merits of the case

Mr. FORDNEY. Will you give me the name of that firm in Cedar Rapids?

Mr. PLANT. It is called the Douglas Co., of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Mr. FORDNEY. Why I ask you that is that I received a telegram the other day from a firm of commission merchants in my district asking me to favor the repeal of this law. I asked them for information, and they said they were calling on the people from whom they were buying for the information, and I received a long telegram from this same firm in reference to the matter.

Mr. PLANT. As I have said, very often a great many people who are not very much interested in a subject are induced to call upon their Representatives for action, one way or the other, and those people very often do not know very much about the matter.

Mr. FORDNEY. People who are directly interested in legislation very often, instead of going directly to their Congressmen, get other people to write and telegraph and request certain legislation, this method is quite common.

Mr. CRISP. Is that not true applying to almost any proposition of importance that comes up? Is it not true that those greatly interested in some matter of legislation usually reach out and get everybody they can to talk and telegraph and write to Congressmen? Mr. PLANT. Yes; that is true, I think.

Mr. FORDNEY. Anything that is likely to be affected by an income. or internal-revenue tax, especially. For instance, Marshall Field &

Co. at one time requested their customers to write letters-and I know I received as many as 10,000 circular letters all in reference to the tariff law, all those letters emanating from Marshall Field & Co.

Mr. LIND. I want to call attention to this letter and ask you to read it into the record, and leave the original with the committee, to show the influences that have been at work stirring up sentiment. Mr. PLANT. This is a letter written on the paper of the Western Union Telegraph Co., dated St. Louis, January 27, 1916:

THE WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH Co.,
ST. LOUIS, Mo., January 27, 1916.

BERNET CRAFT & KAUFFMAN MILLING CO.,

Pierce Building, City.

GENTLEMEN: We are being urged by the Douglas Co., Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and others, to exert efforts to have the St. Louis grain dealers wire Congressman Rainey, of Illinois, and our Congressmen and Senators at Washington indicating your strong support in the repeal of the mixed-flour law bill being introduced by the Hon. Mr. Rainey.

According to our informant, the mixed-flour law imposes a discrimination against corn, our greatest cereal; it has taxed out of existence the mixing of corn flour with wheat flour, etc. Should you decide to act in the matter, would be pleased to have you favor our lines.

Yours, very truly,

Mr. PLANT. I received the same letter.

C. W. MITCHELL, Manager.

Mr. MOORE. Are you familiar with the conditions that prevailed in 1897 and 1898 when the present law was enacted?

Mr. PLANT. Yes, sir.

Mr. MOORE. Do you recall that the Merchants' Exchange of St. Louis, on February 4, 1898, adopted a resolution favoring the bill introduced by Mr. Pearce, of Missouri, providing for the branding of flour and other cereal products?

Mr. PLANT. I can not say that I remember that directly, but I presume that is so.

Mr. MOORE. There was an agitation at that time which penetrated to the meetings of the corn associations of Missouri. The Merchants' Exchange of St. Louis at that time passed a resolution which read as follows:

The board of directors of the Merchants' Exchange of St. Louis, believing that it is to the best interests of all of the people of the United States engaged in raising, manufacturing, selling, or exporting cereal products, that no deception should be practiced in furnishing said cereals or the products thereof to the consumer, and believing, further, that a national law providing for the branding of flour or other cereal products is necessary to protect the trade of this country, especially as it applies to exportations to other countries, this board hereby indorse the bill introduced by Hon. Charles E. Pearce, of Missouri, and especially urges the Senators and Representatives from Missouri to use every honorable means to secure its passage at the present session of Congress.

Are you familiar with the action taken by the merchants exchange at that time?

Mr. PLANT. I can not say that I am familiar with it, but I have no doubt that action was taken.

Mr. MOORE. Well, evidently there was a very widespread agitation for the passage of some such law.

Mr. PLANT. There is no doubt about it.

Mr. MOORE. Do you know what the Orange Judd Farmer is?

Mr. PLANT. I understand it is a paper.

Mr. MOORE. A newspaper?

Mr. PLANT. Yes.

Mr. MOORE. Reference is made here in the report of the Ways and Means Committee of 1898 to a meeting that was to be held under the auspices of the Orange Judd Farmer, which was a newspaper, the meeting being a convention of corn men, and they were to oppose this restrictive legislation, but subsequent information revealed the fact that they did not. They came to some understanding on the subject, as shown by a telegram to Mr. Augustine Gallagher, Washington, D. C., from Mr. B. A. Eckhart, which reads as follows, and this is from the corn convention in Missouri:

AUGUSTINE GALLAGHER,

Washington, D. C.:

FEBRUARY 16, 1898.

We secured favorable resolution from corn convention. Pratt and other corn millers have agreed to withdraw all opposition to our bills if tax is made nominal, which I strongly recommend.

That, I presume, was the 4-cent tax.
And then this telegram:

AUGUSTINE GALLAGHER,

Washington, D. C.:

ST. LOUIS, Mo., February 16, 1898.

Corn convention to-day passed resolution favoring our bill with a modified tax. Kansas City Board of Trade passed the St. Louis Merchants' Exchange resolution to-day.

[blocks in formation]

Then it appears subsequently that resolutions were adopted by the corn millers' convention, which met in Chicago December 16, for the purpose of opposing this legislation. The resolution then adopted was as follows:

Resolved, That this congress commend the earnest efforts of the manufacturers of new corn food and other products to increase the use of corn. So long as such products are honestly made and sold for what they are they have nothing to fear.

Mr. PLANT. I have no doubt that there was at that time agitation all over the country by those who are interested in making pure products to secure the passage of a law to make the barrel of flour pure.

Mr. MOORE. Well, as the result of that agitation in 1897 and 1898, in which the corn millers appeared to have participated, we have the existing law, which the Rainey bill would repeal?

Mr. PLANT. Yes, sir.

Mr. RAINEY. Are there any other questions? If there are no other questions, whom will you call upon next, Mr. Lind?

Mr. LIND. I will call Mr. Hunt.

STATEMENT OF MR. A. J. HUNT, OF ARKANSAS CITY, KANS.

The CHAIRMAN. You will be permitted to proceed, Mr. Hunt, until you are through with your statement, and after that counsel and members of the committee will ask you any questions they may desire.

Mr. HUNT. I am in the flour milling business and operate a mill of 1,200 barrels daily capacity of flour and about 100 barrels of corn meal.

I am here representing the Millers' National Federation, the Kansas City Millers' Club, the Southwestern Millers' League, consisting of millers in Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, western Missouri, and Texas.

I have been requested by these different organizations to represent them. The mill that I manage was built in 1899, after the present law pertaining to mixed flour was in effect. I have enjoyed a fairly prosperous business under the present law and do not wish to have it repealed.

When I speak in the first person please understand that I speak for all the people that I represent, because I know that this is their sentiment.

I especially object to its being substituted by the bill known as H. R. 9409, because in my opinion that bill takes away from wheatflour millers all the protection that they have had against flour adulterators and mixtures of other cheaper corn products with flour and of marking their mixtures as flour.

I have operated a small corn mill in connection with my flour mill continuously since starting in the business. In all that time I have never mixed any of my corn products with wheat products, and I have never dignified my corn products by calling it flour or having it known or represented to the trade as flour.

I have never had a customer order a car lot or a buyer of a single sack of my products request me to furnish him a bag that would contain 80 per cent of flour and 20 per cent of corn meal or corn flour, or any other proportion.

I am familiar with the conditions, the trials, and difficulties that the millers of this country had to contend with previous to the enactment of the present law, and I do not want to see a law passed that will not protect an industry that to-day is putting out to the public of this country an article of food that the poor man can get more muscle out of than any other product produced at equal price.

I merely want to say, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, that I object to the repeal of the present law, and especially object to it, and would prefer to see it continued on the statute books. If, however, in the wisdom of Congress you see fit to repeal it, I think it would be especially obnoxious and especially dangerous to substitute for it the bill known as H. R. 9409, because that bill opens the doors to the mixture of any corn product with wheat flour, and there are so many products of other grains than wheat that it is hard to tell where the practice might stop.

In our country we raise wheat and corn and oats and barley and rye and kafir corn and millomaize, sorghum seed, and some other grains that are marketed as such, and under the provisions of this bill the products of any of those grains could be mixed with wheat flour and sold as a mixture.

Mr. MOORE. If that is so, what have you to say about the proposed label, which indicates that the contents of the bread is 80 per cent wheat and 20 per cent cornstarch? I understand now you have spoken of other products as provided by this bill?

Mr. GREEN. You do not mean to indicate, do you, Mr. Moore, that a mixture of some of those other grains could be sold as if it were mixed with cornstarch?

« ÀÌÀü°è¼Ó »