everybody. What I object to is not that you point out the difference between these bills, but accuse the American Farm Bureau Federation of not playing fair.

Mr. MARSH. I don't think that is a fair bill. I am going to the farmers to say so. I think it is unfair, and I think it is unjust, and I know you concede me the right to that opinion.

Mr. TEN EYCK. As I said before, I have no objection whatever to you expressing any opinion you have as to the relative value or merits of the two bills, but I do resent what you say, if you say the American Farm Bureau Federation is not playing fair with the

farmers.

Mr. MARSH. Well, I regret your resentment, and I regret very much that some of the Farm Bureau's actions seem to indicate what I have said, and I regret that very much more than I regret your resentment, very much as I regret that.

Mr. JONES. You are supporting the same bill and measure you were the other day?

Mr. MARSH. The same measure, to control the packers, absolutely, Mr. Jones.

Mr. JONES. The American Farm Bureau Federation-what measure do they indorse? This is for my own personal information.

Mr. MARSH. They have asked Mr. Williams to introduce a bill which I have been discussing.

Mr. JONES. That is all.

Mr. KINCHELOE. As Mr. Ten Eyck says, I welcome your information and opinions on these two bills, in pointing out the differences. But your differences with Mr. Silver and the petty jealousies between you do not interest me.

Mr. MARSH. The merits of our differences will interest the farmers. Mr. KINCHELOE. I want to hear your ideas about that, and Mr. Silver's ideas about that, and we have had the packers the last two days, and I confess I need all the information I can get, and then I will draw my own conclusions and opinions.

Mr. TEN EYCK. I regret that Mr. Williams is not here to say something about his bill. I think before this record closes he should have an opportunity to explain it.

The CHAIRMAN. I understood you, Mr. Silver, were the author of the bill, or the man that presented it?

Mr. SILVER. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. And you will discuss it?

Mr. SILVER. Yes, sir.

Mr. KINCHELOE. I understood him to tell Mr. Marsh that about all he had to do with it was to introduce it.

Mr. MARSH. I told Mr. Williams that I regretted to have to discuss his bill in his absence, and he told me that practically all he had to do with it was to introduce it.

Now, Mr. Chairman, to take up some of the criticisms about your bill. To take up the objection of Mr. Creigh to section 204 (a). He seemed to think that would cause a general hunting expedition. He objected to sections 204 (a) and (b), on page 6 of the bill. Section 204 (a) starts:

Whenever the Secretary has reason to believe that any packer has violated or is violating any provision in this title, he shall cause a complaint in writing to be served upon the packer, specifying the alleged violations.

Now, it seems to me, Mr. Chairman, that this statement of Mr. Creigh is important, and I am glad he is in the room, and am glad Mr. Veeder is here, because he is here for the packers. The packers. do not want the facts known, and they have continually objected to this. I want to read you from what the Federal Trade Commission said about their investigation. This is from the summary of the report of the Federal Trade Commission on the meat-packing industry. [Reading:]

The commission, through Mr. Heney, had to meet deliberate falsification of returns properly required under legal authority; we had to meet schools for witnesses where employees were coached in anticipation of their being called to testify in an investigation ordered by you and by the Congress of the United States; we had to meet a situation created by the destruction of letters and documents vital to this investigation; we had to meet a conspiracy in the preparation answers to the lawful inquiries of the commission.

Now, Mr. Chairman, if I understood Mr. Creigh correctly-and I do not want to do him an injustice; I am not a shorthand writer, and have to rely on my memory-but if I understood him correctly, he wanted a full bill of particulars regarding the violations. I think it was Mr. Voigt who asked about specifying the amendment "with a reasonable degree of particularity." Let me see what the amendments have been. I read from this summary of the report of the Federal Trade Commission on the meat-packing industry, page 8 [reading]:

We also know that the five packing companies-Armour, Swift, Morris, Wilson, and Cudahy-conspired together in the preparation of their answers to the commission's inquiries to the end that all should agree. As part of the evidence in our possession substantiating this statement, the following letter is submitted.

It is dated August 2, 1917, addressed Messrs. G. F. Swift, jr., F. S. Hayward, R. C. McManus, A. D. White, J. M. Chaplin. L. D. H. Weld.

Mr. CREIGH. Mr. Marsh, if you do not mind, I call your attention to the fact that all that was gone over last night.

Mr. MCLAUGHLIN of Nebraska. That letter with explanations was put in about six different times.

Mr. MARSH. I do not want to encumber the record with anything that has already been gone over. Unfortunately I have not been able to be here all the time, as I have several other hearings.

But I think we are justified in saying that the meat packers do not want any effective legislation. I shall not take much time to dwell on that. It is not necessary. Their record shows it. The whole fight is whether we are going to get that regulation for which we have made 12 years' effort whether we are going to get that regulation after 12 years' effort or not.

And I do not think it should be allowed to go unchallenged, the statement that there has been no complaint made, the statement made by Mr. Creigh. Why, there was complaint from everywhere; there was complaint from all over the country, from the live-stock producers and the consumers, and this call for legislation was due to what was a national complaint about the packers.

They said they had no day in court. Well, Senator Norris, if I remember, in the Senate committee offered to let them put in any testimony, and I know in this committee they have had an opportunity to present their case. It simmers right down to this, that they do not want to be regulated.

But I noticed how enthusiastic Mr. Creigh was to have regulation of future dealings in grain. It all depends on who is to be regulated. If I correctly understand, in the Tincher bill, or any adequate bill for the control of dealing in futures, the principle is identically the same, though the application is different as in this packer-control legislation, and no plea which the packers can put up as to the small packers ought to have any weight at all.

This morning Mr. Wilson said the one great trouble is the unscientific and inefficient system used by the producers in marketing their products and their live stock, and Mr. Creigh this afternoon said the producers are justified in not having anything or enough to say about the way they handle their live stock. In other words, there is an entirely different conclusion reached by the two representatives of the meat-packing concerns.

Now, I want to make this clear, and I want to have it understood that I am presenting this on behalf of the Farmers' National Council and the Peoples' Reconstruction League, and the four great railway brotherhoods, who were represented here by Mr. W. N. Clark, the vice president of the railway conductors, that we have not asked legislation, so far as we can understand legislation, which will mean any improper restriction of the packers; we do not ask for any hasty or unjust action; we ask for full publicity as to their conduct. I want to say this, Mr. Chairman, if the packers are making the small profit which they claim they are making if the packers are making these small profits, and if they have anything like the efficiency which they claim they have, then the legislation which we seek which is, with some slight amendments, similar to the Haugen bill-then the legislation which should be enacted to control them in this country will not harm them. We have pretty accurate information, we think that they are not keeping proper records and that they keep their books in such a way that they can conceal their real profits. We hope that you will promptly enact this legislation.

Let me urge again, in conclusion, that we feel there will be no permanent solution for these meat-packing industry abuses until all refrigerator and special equipment cars and all principal stockyards are made by law what they are in practice, common carriers, and owned by the railroads and operated by them under the control of Interstate Commerce Commission.

I could go into more

I think that covers my brief summary. points, but I do not want to cumber the record.

The CHAIRMAN. Very well, Mr. Marsh; we thank you.
Mr. Silver, do you want to be heard?

Mr. KINCHELOE. Let me ask, is there a member of the Federal Trade Commission to be heard?

The CHAIRMAN. They will be here shortly, and are probably here We have only one witness who wants a few minutes. Yes; he is right in the room now.

now.

Mr. Silver, we will hear you.

STATEMENT OF MR. GRAY SILVER, WASHINGTON REPRESENTATIVE OF THE AMERICAN FARM BUREAU FEDERATION.

Mr. SILVER. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I will be brief and confine my remarks to the subject and I shall stick closely to the text of the bill before us.

The CHAIRMAN. Proceed in your own way.

Mr. SILVER. I desire to say, that our farmers, the people I represent, are very much interested in having legislation that has to do with properly supervising the packers and getting a different result out of the stockyards of the country where they market their stock, and that in doing so and for the purpose of bringing about that legislation, they have seriously and earnestly, through committees and otherwise, worked on this matter for some years. They have gotten information where they could; they have met with the people that had information and have in every way looked out for information that would help them to arrive at a fair conclusion, keeping in mind that the farmers are the producers of this live stock before it goes to any processor, and before it goes to the consumer, and they do have this very large interest to defend and protect by being the producers of this stock before it leaves the farm.

And they have a great interest in knowing and seeing as it goes along that the channel is not dammed or checked in such way as may be equivalent to a dam at times, but that it has an orderly process from the farm to the consumer, and that in that process or channel there are no unnecessary obstructions that either reflect in unnecessarily low prices to the producer or in too high prices at the other end; for too low prices to the producer makes for an unhappy situation, and too high prices to the consumer reflects it also by curtailing consumption.

So in this bill we are endeavoring to see they have a proper supervision, a supervision that will disclose all the acts of the stockyard people, and of the packers, and that the Secretary has proper authority over the bookkeeping system, that when the records-if the time should be or ever has been that the records did not disclose the facts that the supervising power can prescribe such methods as will enable them to know all the facts and things that will have to do with the business from the time it goes into the yard at one end and until it goes out of yards or plant at the other end. One of the reasons they ask that this supervisory power be in the Department of Agriculture is that the Secretary of Agriculture has similar authority in other bureaus that are doing work of this sort, and these bureaus will fit in with the others and the processes all the way down, under the Secretary of Agriculture.

In doing the work on this bill, the Haugen bill has been largely the basis. There have been some amendments and those amendments, in the judgment of our committee, are desirable. We do not come here with something and ask you not to use your judgment. We submit our viewpoint. It is up to the members of this committee and to the Members of this Congress to determine the legislation.

The CHAIRMAN. That is your privilege, and the privilege of everybody else. We invite everybody.

Mr. SILVER. That is the spirit we are doing it.

The CHAIRMAN. And this committee has encouraged it.

Mr. SILVER. Now, I have here, written out, every amendment or every change or difference between the Williams bill and the Haugen bill.

Mr. KINCHELOE. Have you got that so it can go into the record? Mr. SILVER. I will be very glad to leave it with you, and it can go in the record and it gives every difference between them. We have briefed them so that we could have that difference. I am taking the bills as we turned through them; on the first page, where we strike out after the words "live stock" the word "products" and used the words "meat food products" and "edible" to make it clear.

The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, this statement may go in. (The statement referred to is as follows:)

Page 1, line 10, strike out "horses, mules" and add "and" after "goats." Page 1, line 11, strike out words "live stock'' and insert in lieu thereof the words "meat food"; and, after "all," insert "edible."

Page 1, line 13, strike out "derived in whole or in part from "live stock."

Page 3, line 5, strike out the word "live" and insert in lieu thereof "meats." Page 3, line 6, strike out "stock products' and insert in lieu thereof "meats or meat food products.

99 66

Page 4, line 1, strike out the word "title" and insert in lieu thereof "act." Page 4, line 3, insert, after "packer, "with the effect of unduly restraining commerce or of creating a monopoly.'

Page 8, line 5, insert, after "by,'
""the weight of the.'

Page 8, line 17, insert, after the word "by,' "the weight of the."

Page 9, line 4, strike out all of the words after "decree."

Page 9, line 5, strike out entire line.

Page 9, line 6, strike out entire line.

Page 10, line 14, insert, after “packer,” “stock owner or market agency.
Page 10, line 19, insert, after "packer,

""stock owner or market agency."

Page 10, line 21, insert, after "who," "fails to'; strike out final "s" in "keeps'; strike out "any other or different'; insert, after "keep," the word "such."

Page 10, line 22, strike out the words "than those" and insert in lieu thereof ''in the manner and form."

Page 10, line 23, insert, after "packer," "stock owner or market agency."
Page 11, line 19, strike out "(1).”

Page 11, line 20, strike out 'or (2) furnish-."

Page 11, line 21, strike out "ing stockyard services" and insert at end of line 13. Page 12, line 3, strike out the term 'com-."

666

Page 12, line 4, strike out "mission' means the Interstate Commerce Commission." Page 12, line 9, strike out "horses, mules."

Strike out the word "commission" and insert in lieu thereof "Secretary": Page 12, line 15; page 12, line 25; page 13, line 4; page 13, line 8; page 14, line 3; page 14, line 7; page 14, line 15; page 14, line 19; page 14, line 25; page 15, line 3, page 15, line 9; page 15, line 12; page 15, line 14; page 15, line 16; page 15, lines 22-23; page 16, line 5; page 16, line 9; page 16, line 20; page 17, line 4; page 17, line 11; page 17, line 22; page 18, line 2; page 18, line 12; page 18, line 14; page 18, line 16; page 18, line 19; page 19, lines 1, 3, 10, 13, and 16; page 20, lines 1, 3, 15, and 18; page 21, lines 4, 6, 10, and 19; page 22, line 5; page 23, lines 6, 7, 8, 11, 14, and 19; page 24, lines 11 and 13.

Strike out the word "it" and insert in lieu thereof "he": Page 12, lines 16 and 20; page 13, line 9; page 15, line 18; page 19, lines 2 and 18.

Strike out the word "its" and insert in lieu thereof "his": Page 15, lines 17 and 24; page 19, lines 11 and 18; page 21, line 4; page 23, line 17.

Page 17, after end of paragraph" (h)," line 13, insert "any stockyard owner, market agency, or dealer may appeal from any order, rule, regulation, or action of the Secretary, in which case the procedure shall be as provided in sections 204, 205, and 206, Title II, of this act, and no penalty shall accrue in such case until said order, rule, regulation, or action shall become final."

Page 19, line 13, strike out "two years," and insert in lieu thereof "ninety days." Strike out all of section 316, on pages 24 and 25.

Strike out all of section 402, on page 26.

Strike out the word "title" in section 208, second line, and add in lieu thereof the word "act"; make same change in first word, second line, next page.

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