Mr. SIMS. Let me ask you in connection with this subject of jurisdiction, to enforce and to make regulations under any law that may be enacted. In this bill it provides "That nothing in this act shall be construed to repeal, amend, or affect the provisions of the act known as the food and drug act of June 30, 1906, or the act known as the insecticide act of 1910." Of course, the object of that is to prevent interfering with your jurisdiction in the administration of those acts. Now, in this bill the Bureau of Standards is given jurisdiction to make all decisions, to determine whether or not there has been a misbranding. I can appreciate that there might be some commodities where your Bureau of Chemistry might be in better position to make decisions, or in a position to make better decisions, but I would like to get your idea as to whether the subjects that are not intended to be covered in this law, referring to the subjects now under the jurisdiction of the food and drug act-whether your bureau or the Bureau of Standards is in better position to make the decisions, or whether there should be a joint jurisdiction.

Dr. ALSBERG. Well, I am not now speaking for the Bureau of Chemistry, I am speaking for the Department of Agriculture. I think there is a certain advantage in giving jurisdiction over certain lines to a bureau that is in touch with the producer as well as with the consumer. That is why it is wise to give the Bureau of Standards jurisdiction over a great many lines of articles. The department that is not in contact with the producing end is always running the risk of not understanding the equities of both parties. Therefore, it is my personal judgment, and I am speaking for myself, and not for the Secretary of Agriculture or anybody else in the department, that there are certain groups of articles which are the product of agriculture that may be handled more efficiently in the Department of Agriculture. I am not speaking for the Bureau of Chemistry from that standpoint.

Mr. SIMS. It would be manifest where the law differentiated as to these particular commodities that you have referred to as being agricultural, where the power is given to make regulations covering the administration of the law, the power should also be given to make regulations covering the Bureau of Chemistry and the Bureau of Standards.

Dr. ALSBERG. I would make it the Department of Agriculture, rather than the two bureaus, because there are, for instance, certain products made from wood that the Forest Service would unquestionably be the most competent to handle.

Mr. SIMS. You take the three, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Agriculture, and the Forestry Service

Dr. ALSBERG (interposing). I think it wise to separate those three jurisdictions, to divide the field in the interest of the producer and the consumer. I would strongly recommend that the Secretaries of the Interior, the Treasury, Agriculture, and Commerce be given very clear and specific authority to divide the field so as to secure the greatest efficiency and avoid the duplication of existing organizations. Mr. SIMS. Would you also have a law excluding this cotton-goods act, just as the food-and-drugs act is excluded?

Dr. ALSBERG. Well, sir, that, now, I am not competent to pass judgment on, because that lies away out of my knowledge.

Mr. SIMS. I thought you said in the beginning that your department had jurisdiction in making decisions.

Dr. ALSBERG. The Department of Agriculture.

Mr. BARKLEY. Do you think that any measure similar to the Rogers bill and the bill I have introduced is workable and enforceable? Dr. ALSBERG. Yes, I think it is. I think it is very desirable. I think, of course, you want to be able to get all abuses at all times controlled. You can not draw up a law, however, that will meet every situation. Somebody has said in connection with the food-anddrugs act that the food manufacturer's chemist is always about three years ahead of the official chemist, which is true, because that is his sole job. Where the job is to cover the whole field we sometimes run into an abuse that has extended over four or five years before we hear anything about it. There is one other point in the misbranding provisions that I would like to suggest. May I ask you to read the language about an article being represented as being superior, as being a superior article? There are two very distinct conceptions there.

Mr. BARKLEY (reads):

Or which indicates or is designed, intended, or calculated to indicate that the article or commodity is of a character or quality superior to or otherwise different from its real character of quality.

Dr. ALSBERG. Well, now, that raises a question which has puzzled us a whole lot in the food-and-drugs act, and that is, what the word superior" means. Does it mean that it will bring more money to the maker? Does it have superior commercial value, or is it intrinsically superior? Those are two very different conceptions. Let me illustrate how this came up only the other day. The price of Michigan beans and other beans since the beginning of the war has been high. Navy beans used to sell around $3 a bushel, and if a farmer got $3.50 a bushel before the war he was doing pretty well. Red kidney beans cost a little more. To-day red kidney beans are selling for somewhere around $12 a hundred pounds, and, naturally, dealers in beans and packers of beans have been scouring the world. for beans that will be suitable for the American public and cost less. They have had scores of varieties of new beans imported into the United States that have never been seen here before. Among them is a bean brought from Manchuria and Japan, which is known in this country as the mottled long cranberry bean. It can be laid down in Chicago for something in the neighborhood of $7 a hundred pounds. When it is cooked up if you do not look at it very closely, the mottling fading, it looks very much like the genuine red kidney bean. They are sold for red kidney beans, which cost $12 a hundred pounds. The consumer is buying the two kinds of beans for practically the same price at the present day. Somewhere between the importer and the retailer that difference between $7 and $12 is being absorbed. The food value, taste, and everything else are very similar. Now, are we to say that the long cranberry bean, the one imported from Manchuria and Japan, is misbranded because it is represented as superior? Probably the superiority of the red kidney bean exists only in the minds of the consumers who for years have been familiar with the red kidney bean and who have this sentimental preference. Now, there are these two possible interpretations of the word "superior." Similar difficulties in interpreting the word "inferior" have caused us no end of trouble in the enforcement of the food-and-drugs act.

We believe that the consumer should be informed that this is

not the genuine red kidney bean, so that he may get the benefit of the difference in price.

Mr. SIMS. Let us get away from food for a moment. Take shoes, machinery, instruments, or anything. Of course, they may be represented or misrepresented without there being any misbranding as to the contents or the actual composition of the article by representations that they will last a certain length of time, or that it is of such a character that it will be either more durable or as durable as some other article by comparison. In cases of that kind it is difficult to say that it is misbranding by misrepresentation as to its composition, but it may be misbranded or misrepresented by representations made as to its real character, durability, value, and so on, which may be independent of the price.

Dr. ALSBERG. Yes; undoubtedly.

Mr. SIMS. Cases of that kind are what we had in mind in framing that language.

Dr. ALSBERG. Well, I am not a lawyer, and it may be that you covered that point.

Mr. SIMS. We would be very glad to have any suggestions from you and would appreciate them.

Dr. ALSBERG. You see what I mean, superiority in market value. It may not mean intrinsically superior.

Mr. SIMS. Ordinarily a consumer purchases an article on the representation that it is superior. His notion of superiority is not based upon or necessarily connected with the price, is it? A man goes into a store and is shown a label on a piece of goods or is told that this is superior to something else, or that its character is such as to be durable, or perhaps is told how durable it is. He looks at it, and-

Dr. ALSBERG (interposing). Well, does he look at it? The average man, if he is told "These are imported goods, and these are domestic," and the imported goods are the same price or a little more, he is very apt to buy the imported, when, as a matter of fact, in very many lines the domestic is far superior.

Mr. WINSLOW. do not remember if you gave any opinion as to the advisability of establishing grades, even so far as conveying ideas to the public was concerned, for their enlightenment as to cloths.

Dr. ÅLSBERG. I meant to indicate that it was my judgment that the establishment of official grades would be far more enlightening to the public and protect the public to a far greater degree than to tell the public how a given cloth was made and what it was made out of, because there are many grades of wool and there are many grades of shoddy; and you can not go into these fine details in explaining to the public, as the public does not understand. I think that a system of grading of cloths would protect the public more and would give them better information than to tell them about the materials and the process by which a given cloth was produced. That is my judg

ment.

Mr. WINSLOW. Do you think there would be any great desire, or do you think it would be of any particular use to the public to have any grades made of one sort or another in view of the complications in textiles when they are woven?

Dr. ALSBERG. Well, as I tried to indicate at the beginning, I am not a textile expert, but my judgment is that there is a good deal of deception going on at the present time with reference to textiles,

as with reference to much else, and that if the public was to receive any protection at all my judgment is the establishment of grades is the best way to protect the public.

Mr. WINSLOW. I want you to go a little further, as to whether the public really stood the need of any such protection.

Dr. ALSBERG. I think so.

Mr. WINSLOW. In the way of new legislation?

Dr. ALSBERG. I think so, unless this matter can be taken care of under some existing act, for instance, the act under which the Federal Trade Commission operates. I do not know, but as the situation is at the present time it is my judgment that the public does need protection on articles of this kind.

Mr. WINSLOW. Well, now, can you give easily any reasons on which you base your opinion as to the fact that the public does need protection?

Dr. ALSBERG. Well, I can not go further than to say that in the examinations we have made for other departments of the governments of various kinds of materials, we have found that there is a great deal of misrepresentation with reference to merchandise toward the general public. That we found incidental to our work for the War Department, the Navy Department, the Post Office, and the Public Health Service in helping them draw up specifications for purchases.

of

Mr. WINSLOW. You think the public has been injured by virtue

Dr. ALSBERG (interposing). That is another question, because the way the thing works out, judging again from my experience under the food and drugs act, if one man adulterates a line of food, or misbrands it unchecked, the forces of competition drive everybody to do the same thing finally. Competition ultimately brings the price down, and the public in the long run pays what the goods are worth. The adulterator in the end does not make any more in adulterated goods than he makes on the pure goods. That is the way in time the things adjust itself.

Mr. WINSLOW. Are you doing anything to give the public the advantage of the $7 bean?

Dr. ALSBERG. We have libeled a large number of shipments from all the different manufacturers that we have found putting up this kind of bean, under what we believe to be misbranding, and the goods are now in the custody of the courts, about 80 different shipments, representing a great many thousand cases of beans. The manufacturers will come into court and contest our position. If they win, of course everybody will pack the long cranberry bean as red kidney beans, and there will be no red kidney beans packed. If we are upheld in our contention by the court they will have to label them correctly, and they will not be able to sell them to the public at the same price, and we hope that we will be able to pass the difference in price to the public. Under the food and drugs act those beans will have to be correctly described. If there were no food and drugs act the course of events would be that the canners of red kidney beans would be driven out of business of canning red kidney beans, except in the case of a few individuals who made a specialty of fancy goods, and everybody would can the cheaper bean. The price will

ultimately come down to the consumer. In the meantime the man who comes in first makes a killing.

The CHAIRMAN. We will adjourn now for the noon recess until 2 o'clock.

(The committee thereupon adjourned for the noon recess.)

AFTER RECESS.

The committee reconvened, pursuant to recess, at 2.15 o'clock p. m., Hon. John J. Esch (chairman) presiding.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order. There are a number of witnesses to be heard, and we will proceed as expeditiously as possible consistent with the investigation.

STATEMENT OF MR. LINCOLN CROMWELL, REPRESENTING THE MERCHANTS' ASSOCIATION OF NEW YORK.

Mr. CROMWELL. Mr. Chairman, the Merchants' Association of New York has over 6,000 members. My associate, Mr. De Berard, who is here also representing the Merchants' Association, will explain to you the great care that the Merchants' Association takes to see that any of its representations made before bodies of this kind are thoroughly representative of its membership.

I appear here entirely on the merchandising side of this bill; I mean the French bill and the Rainey bill, and I appear in opposition to their passage. It is needless for me to say that the merchants' association, which is organized to foster trade, would be cordially in favor of any bill which tended in our opinion to put American merchandising on a higher level, and if we believed that the French bill would accomplish that we should be here in support instead of in opposition to it. Not only are we convinced that it would not raise the standard of American merchandising and prevent misrepresentation and frauds but we believe it would tend to have the opposite effect. We offer two objections: We object to the bill specifically because of the language that it uses in setting up what we believe to be a novel and misleading classification of wool fibers, and we object to it on principle because it attacks the question of misrepresentation of merchandise from the wrong angle. We believe that the Barkley bill or the Rogers bill approaches the question from the correct position, and we are in favor of the passage of a bill similar to either one of these bills, preferably the Rogers bill or a bill of that type which is fundamentally based upon the principles of the British merchandising marks act which has been in operation in Great Britain for 32 years without amendment. I think it is conceded that the British as a nation are the best traders in the world and what has suited their trade all over the world for 32 years is a fairly safe guide in new legislation for this country's trading here and elsewhere.

As to the classification of wool fibers, you were shown yesterday a great variety of samples of wool. You were shown that this bill qualifies fibers by two expressions. It blesses by the term “virgin wool" every kind of wool fiber that has not reached in the manufacturing process beyond the stage of yarn in the Rainey bill and beyond the stage of woven fabric in the French bill. This term, virgin wool, is to be put on tags or labels for the information of the customer at retail,