concern itself in trying to encourage cooperative marketing, independent slaughterhouses municipal, cooperative, or other governmental agencies. And they have got to have help, because the big packers, despite their assertions to the contrary, and some of you gentlemen who were here last year will remember, I think, quite a discussion over that subject; I say they naturally do not encourage independent slaughterhouses and packing plants because it is not good business to do so. We believe the Government should assist them.

These are our chief recommendations. I will conclude unless there are some questions that you wish to ask. And I am going to ask that the representatives of the four railroad brotherhoods may be allowed to appear and make a brief statement in behalf of this legislation. I would like to have Mr. W. M. Clark, vice president of the Order of Railroad Conductors, make a statement.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will be glad to hear Mr. Clark.

STATEMENT OF MR. WILLIAM M. CLARK, VICE PRESIDENT AND NATIONAL LEGISLATIVE REPRESENTATIVE ORDER OF RAILROAD CONDUCTORS, WASHINGTON, D. C.

Mr. CLARK. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, in appearing before you to-day I do so in behalf of the men in engine, train, and yard service represented by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen, Order of Railway Conductors, and Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, comprising approximately 600,000 men. The railroad employees are materially and vitally interested in a proper solution of the question of control or supervision of the packing industry of the country in order that we, the consumers, may have meat products at the lowest possible reasonable cost, and at the same time we are interested in seeing that the producers, who are the farmers, are treated fairly and receive reasonable prices for their commodities and for the labor in producing such commodities. We realize as do all who are trying to contribute our part to the solution of the present problems-the dangers of combinations which may eventually control and manipulate the necessities of life to the detriment of the producers and consumers of our country, and we believe that there is a possibility that unrestrained and unrestricted manipulation on the part of a few men may result in great injury to the American public. There, at least, may be an opportunity, by and through the means of consolidated interests, afforded for unrestricted control of the meat-packing industry of this country to such an extent that it would work an injustice and hardship to the people.

After sober and thoughtful consideration of this vital question, these four organizations have decided to favor proper and reasonable control or regulation of the packing industry; but being unfamiliar with many of the details incident to the shaping of proper legislation, we have decided to cooperate with the progressive farmers, who are thoroughly familiar with this question, and to render such assistance to them as is possible in their efforts toward control or regulation of the packing industry. We accordingly desire to place the organizations on record as favoring reasonable packer control or regulation,

and to indorse the position taken by the progressive farmer organizations in this connection, leaving the details to be worked out by the members of this committee and the gentlemen representing the farmers' organizations.

This statement is concurred in by Mr. H. E. Wills, assistant grand chief engineer and national legislative representative of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers; Mr. P. J. McNamara, vice president and national legislative representative of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen; and Mr. W. N. Doak, vice president and national legislative representative of the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen.

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I thank you for this opportunity to give expression to our views on the subject.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee is very glad to have heard you. If there are no questions the committee will now hear Mr. Campbell.

STATEMENT OF MR. VERNON CAMPBELL, OF SAN JOSE, CALIF.

Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I represent a group of farmers in California owning their own canneries, an organization known as the California Cooperative Canners.

We are interested in this bill, of course, not from the standpoint of stock growers, but from the fact that we have been selling quite a considerable portion of our pack of all kinds of fruit grown in California through the packers.

Mr. CLARKE. Did you say "to" the packers or "through" the packers?

Mr. CAMPBELL. Through the packers. We are interested particularly in the Haugen bill, which I take it interests this committee more than the other bills. As far as the other bills are concerned I do not know about that. We are not partiuclarly interested in the stock growing business, as I have said, and I will not attempt to discuss that matter. But I would say if I were allowed to settle the meat growing business I think I could settle it for all time to come by my conduct at home. Neither myself nor any member of my family eats any meat, and if others followed our example there would be no packer problem at all before you.

Mr. ASWELL. You seem to be quite a healthy specimen, too?

Mr. CAMPBELL. We have had about as healthy a family as you ever saw, and they have never eaten any meat and I have not done so in 30

years.

Mr. GERNERD. Are you a disciple of Dr. Kellogg?

Mr. CAMPBELL. No, sir. I was born in Iowa.

Mr. TINCHER. The chairman eats meat.

Mr. CAMPBELL. Well, he does not look at all fierce.

The CHAIRMAN. You may proceed with your statement.

Mr. CAMPBELL. Section 403 of the Haugen bill begins:

Nothing contained in this act, except as otherwise provided herein, shall be construed

* *

And then if you will turn to subdivision (b), it states:

(b) To alter, modify, or repeal such acts or any part or parts thereof, or

(c) To prevent or interfere with any investigation, proceeding, or prosecution begun and pending at the time this act becomes effective, or

(d) To relieve any person from obedience to any consent or other decree heretofore entered against him by a court of competent jurisdiction.

Now, gentlemen of the committee, as fruit farmers in California we object, as we think you will when you consider the merits of that section, to allowing that to remain and go before the Congress in that way. The consent decree in our opinion is one of the most vicious things that ever came up before the American people. We object to legislation by decree. We believe that the Congress should legislate in all these matters.

To show you how evil a thing like that can be, I want to refer you to the packer's decree, fourth section, which reads as follows:

That the corporation defendants and each of them be, and they are hereby, perpetually enjoined and restrained from, in the United States, either directly or indirectly, by themselves or through their officers, directors, agents, or servants, engaging in or carrying on, either by concert of action or otherwise, either for domestic trade or for export trade, the manufacturing, jobbing, selling, transporting (except as common carriers), distributing or otherwise dealing in any of the following products or commodities.

These commodities are what have been spoken of as unrelated lines. We have been packing unrelated lines. We are fruit growers packing our goods in cans. We found the meat packers were the only concerns in the United States who had export facilities powerful and far-reaching enough to export our goods to many countries. If you had gone into our warehouses when we were selling our goods for export you would have found boxes and cases marked to all points of the world. To-day these facilities are destroyed, for what reason I do not know.

I can not conceive why any such decree should have ever been entered into. Our people in California can see no reason why there should be destroyed any of the facilities built up in this country for the distribution of food products. We think this committee should go on record as being opposed to any such decree.

Mr. CLARKE. That means that now your foreign market is destroyed?

Mr. CAMPBELL. So far as the packers are concerned, yes, and they were the only concerns in this country big enough to do any considerable foreign business in the export of our goods.

Mr. ASWELL. Who is responsible for that decree?
Mr. CAMPBELL. I do not know a thing about it.

The CHAIRMAN. You are asking why it was entered. I think it was entered into to settle a fight between the wholesale grocers, or the brokers, and the packers. The charge was made that the packers were putting the jobbers or wholesale grocers out of business. That is Mr. Palmer's proposition, and we are not dealing with it in any way whatever. You would not ask the Congress to set it aside, would you?

Mr. CAMPBELL. Yes, sir; I would. I think it should be attended to by the Congress instead of by an administrative department of the Government.

Mr. ASWELL Do you know how the packers stand on that proposition?

Mr. JONES. Why, they agreed to it.

Mr. ASWELL. Probably under certain conditions. Do they now want it to continue?

Mr. CAMPBELL. I do not know.

Mr. VOIGT. They went nto court and consented to the entry of that decree.

Mr. ASWELL. But they were forced to do that, were they not?

Mr. VOIGT. I do not think so. I think the packers went to the Attorney General.

Mr. VEEDER. If you will turn to Attorney General Palmer's statement before the Senate committee, and also before this committee, you will see that he tells you why the packers entered into the decree, and it was because he demanded it and the packers met the

demand.

Mr. VOIGT. In connection with that it should appear that the packers went to the Attorney General.

Mr. ASWELL. The Attorney General specified this decree.

Mr. VOIGT. They went to the Attorney General for the purpose of settling their trouble. The Attorney General testified before this committee last year that he was satisfied the packers had violated the antitrust law and that they were subject to prosecution. When the Attorney General made that announcement the packers went to him and they stipulated this decree. It is my judgment that the packers went to the Attorney General for the purpose of heading off any prosecution under the antitrust law, and this is what they got.

Mr. VEEDER. May I say one word more?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Mr. VEEDER. The Attorney General himself in the same statement stated that the packers came to him and asked for a hearing, which they had been denied at other places, and that he demanded that they enter this decree, and they did, and I wish to remind you that the decree contains an express statement that it does not adjudicate that the packers have violated any law of the United States.

Mr. TINCHER. Well, at any rate this young gentleman's suggestion to this committee seems to me like it is apropos at this time, and that is, whether we are going to live under laws made by concerted agreed decrees between packers and Attorney Generals, or whether the legislative bodies of this Government are going to function and pass laws.

Mr. CAMPBELL. I represent a group of farmers in California. Mr. Free, who is the representative from my district, in Congress, will speak to you after I conclude my statement. But that, gentlemen, is the way our people out in California feel about it. They don't like this thing of living under decrees. We feel that we send our Congressmen here to express our desires and our will, and when this decree was promulgated-I will say this, that I don't know who who it helped; it certainly didn't help our group of farmers in California, because the packers were in a position to compete and get our stuff to the consumer at a less price. They were in a position to compete with the 6,000 jobbers who, in many cases, were representing us in this country. As I say, they were in a position to compete and get our stuff to the consumer at a less price.

For instance, 52 per cent of the people of the United States live in towns of 2,500 and over. Forty-eight per cent of the inhabitants of the United States live in towns of less than 2,500 and in rural

communities. We can not reach those smaller towns. Now we have 6,000 jobbers located in a few of the larger places, places of over 200,000 inhabitants. Now, in order to take our food to the people, to two-thirds of the people of the United States, we have to ship to centers and reship out again. Our products coming from the far West, coming from California, such products as lemons and oranges and lettuce and onions, and all those sorts of things, and coming from down in Texas, are delivered in certain central points, and then they must be reshipped, and by the time they reach the consumer they cost a great deal too much money. Our losses are largely in distribution, not in original price, as we know as farmers. Now, the meat packers have built up a system from which they reach 17,000 out of 28,000 places in the United States, and no other system has been built up comparable to it.

Mr. JONES. I have heard it charged, Mr. Cambpell-I don't know whether it is true but I have heard it charged that the use of refrigerator cars was made in order to ship these unrelated products, the refrigerator cars having a sort of preference shipment, and therefore they made faster delivery of these products by shipping them in the refrigerator cars, which had preference given them.

Mr. CAMPBELL. Yes.

Mr. JONES. The preference given them by shipping them in refrigerator cars, it had been charged, gave them the chance to deliver unrelated products faster.

Mr. CAMPBELL. Yes.

Mr. JONES. Now, if the companies furnished refrigerator cars to everyone, couldn't the others deliver their products just as soon as the packers?

Mr. CAMPBELL. Yes. I am not interested in who delivers them; I am not interested in whether it is the packers or somebody else, but I want them delivered. I am drawing the stuff out of the ground, and I want it delivered.

Mr. JONES. I understand.

Mr. CAMPBELL. Now, this consent decree absolutely destroyed that facility. Now, I saw Tom Wilson a few years ago and talked with him about this. We had trouble delivering our stuff, and I came to Chicago, and I said, "Mr. Wilson, the packers have got a distributing system that we ought to use to get our stuff to the consumer. "What do you suggest"? he said. I said, "I suggest that you haul at cost, to the consumer, and I will give you a small bonus." He said, "It costs 6 per cent." I said, "6 and 2 are 8." I said, "6 and 2 are 8." He said, "Yes, we will undertake it." Now, it costs us 100 per cent to deliver to the consumer, and if we can take those cars and deliver it at 8 per cent, let us do it. I don't care about the jobber or anybody else. We have a lot of stuff, and we want it delivered.

Mr. JONES. But couldn't they get it there if the companies furnished the refrigerator cars to the other distributing systems as

well?

Mr. CAMPBELL. That is all right, but they are not distributing. The packers have got it. The canners of the United States, the National Canners' Association, went on record for no legislation for the packers, because they feared this very thing would happen. Now as to this decree, we had nothing to say about it. Now it comes close to our hearts, because we grow something in California that you