Mr. WEAREN. I have a general idea.

Mr. RAINEY. What is your idea?

Mr. WEAREN. Of the inspection under this law?

Mr. RAINEY. Yes.

Mr. WEAREN. The miller must meet the requirements by his reporting.

Mr. RAINEY. He makes reports?

Mr. WEAREN. Yes.

Mr. RAINEY. Nobody comes there to look at him at all?

Mr. WEAREN. I do not know. All I know is that the law is doing the work.

Mr. RAINEY. Who pays your expenses here, the national federation or the State federation?

Mr. WEAREN. The State federation; the State association, we call it.

Mr. RAINEY. The State association of what State?

Mr. WEAREN. Kentucky.

Mr. RAINEY. Who reimburses them, the national federation?

Mr. WEAREN. Reimburses them?

Mr. RAINEY. Yes; for the expenses they pay for you.

Mr. WEAREN. It comes out of our own pockets.

Mr. RAINEY. All right.

Mr. WEAREN. Nobody pays our bills. Are you through?

Mr. RAINEY. How does your association arrange the prices at which you sell your flour?

Mr. WEAREN. I will give you an example of how our prices go. Mr. RAINEY. Yes, I would like to know.

Mr. WEAREN. Our expense account in our State is extremely high. At Danville, Ky., on last Saturday morning the price was $7 a barrel for first patent. At Stanford, Ky., 11 miles away, they were getting $7.40 on the same day. At Lancaster, Ky.-these three points lying in a triangle-they were getting $7.60. Each man arranged his own price according to his ideas of the market. Is that satisfactory?

Mr. RAINEY. Have you any agreement as to the limit of the price?

Mr. WEAREN. No agreement of any kind about prices.

Mr. RAINEY. Do you compete with each other?

Mr. WEAREN. Yes, very strongly. There is not a town in the country where they work harder than at Danville or at Stanford, Ky.

Mr. RAINEY. Do you have meetings of your association where you discuss prices?

Mr. WEAREN. Where we discuss prices?

Mr. RAINEY. Yes.

Mr. WEAREN. We have discussed no prices, as to the setting of prices, since I have been in there.

Mr. RAINEY. Have you not discussed the question of prices?

Mr. WEAREN. No, sir; not for the purpose of establishing uniform prices.

Mr. RAINEY. Since you have been there?

Mr. WEAREN. No, sir.

Mr. RAINEY. Did you ever attend any of these meetings of the national federation?

Mr. WEAREN. No, sir.

Mr. FORDNEY. Do you ever have dinners for the purpose of discussing_prices?

Mr. WEAREN. I see the gentleman's point. The object of our association is to work out general conditions and pick up information as to markets all over the country. That is my business as secretary, to do all I can for the enlightenment of the members. The object of our association is to improve the miller in his business, and we forbid at all times the making of uniform prices, or the setting of prices.

Mr. MOORE. What is the use of raising corn and wheat and grinding and milling it, if we do not eat it?

Mr. WEAREN. If we do not eat it?

Mr. MOORE. Yes.

Mr. WEAREN. That is the object of our raising it.

Mr. MOORE. Yes. You gentlemen meet and have a dinner once in a while. Have you ever attended a Gary dinner in New York? (Laughter.) Do you eat bread made from mixed flour?

Mr. WEAREN. No, sir; we use the old fashioned cornmeal in our country. Our millers are corn millers and wheat millers.

Mr. MOORE. Suppose you gentlemen met to talk over affairs and the meeting continued until half-past five or six o'clock, do you think it would be any grave offense if you got together and had dinner somewhere?

Mr. WEAREN. No.

Mr. MOORE. Congressmen eat once in a while, after a day like this. Mr. WEAREN. I suppose so.

Mr. MOORE. Do you see anything wrong in men whose interests and livelihood are involved in business or trade getting together and talking over their business interests?

Mr. WEAREN. I will answer your question by making a little explanation, if you will allow me.

Mr. MOORE. Very well.

Mr. WEAREN. My next meeting in February of this year-I say my meeting, because I send out the circulars and announcementswe have the field man from Louisville, Lucas Moore, who is to deliver a lecture telling us about the crop reports. Then we have a special accountant down from Louisville to go over the expense proposition we have. Mr. Adderly, of Chicago, is to be there to speak with reference to the present compensation law in our State, to explain it to us. We take up topics of this kind for discussion and enlargement. That is one of the purposes of our meetings.

Mr. MOORE. Do you see anything wrong in the getting together of a band of working men to talk over their interests?

Mr. WEAREN. I think they should do it.

Mr. MOORE. Do you think it is any offense against the Government when they solemnly resolve that Congress ought to do so and so, or that they should see their Representatives about what is to their interests?

Mr. WEAREN. No, sir.

Mr. MOORE. Is there anything wrong in a number of farmers getting together with a view to improving their conditions financially as well as industrially, and bringing the matter to the attention of their Members?

Mr. WEAREN. No, sir.

Mr. MOORE. Do you see anything wrong in a number of business men of large establishments, with large overhead expense, getting together with the object of improving their business?

Mr. WEAREN. No.

Mr. MOORE. It is a fair proposition that the Congress ought to hear from its constituents, is it not?

Mr. WEAREN. I think so.

Mr. MOORE. I am going to read to you a section of a very interesting speech made by a very prominent member of this committee. Mr. RAINEY. You can put that in the record.

Mr. MOORE. I shall do so. This speech was made by the Hon. Henry T. Rainey, on September 23. It was addressed to a number of people, who are interested in this question of mixed flour, and at the close of the speech in very persuasive terms, because he is a man of great eloquence, he said:

Now, how can you be of service? You can be of service by writing your Member of Congress, asking him to vote for the bill which repeals this burdensome tax. Ask him to act for his constituents and against the Food Trust. If one constituent of a Member of Congress writes to him on this subject, he can do more with him than I can by talking to him for hours about this. This is a representative Government of ours. Members of Congress are elected for short terms, and they must be quickly responsive to the demands of their constituents. This bill can not originate in the Senate. It affects the revenues, and it must originate in the House, and can't originate anywhere else under the Constitution of the United States. If Members commence to hear from their constituents, just as soon as they do they commence to get enthusiastic on the subject. I have left the Chamber of the House myself dozens and dozens of times, refusing to listen to technical discussions on some subject, and I have received a letter from a constituent of mine telling me how he or she was interested in that particular subject that the Member was discussing, and I have gone to the Congressional Record and looked up his speech, have read it carefully, and have become enthusiastic on that subject, just because one of my constituents called my attention to it. A Member of Congress is compelled to discharge so many duties that he overlooks many things unless his constituents call his attention to them. Now, that is all I ask you to do; pass the word along to your friends, ask them to interest themselves in this subject, and this meeting will not have been held in vain.

Do you see anything wrong in a Member of Congress exhorting his constituents to get busy with other Members of Congress, with a view of passing a bill either for or against the interests of his constituents? [Laughter.]

Mr. WEAREN. I would say this, in conclusion, that I would be glad to have the chairman visit our next meeting, and give us some points of interest, and see what is going on.

Mr. MOORE. Do you think there is anything wrong in the deliverance of a speech like that to people who ought to be enlightened on a public question by a distinguished public man?

Mr. WEAREN. I do not know that I catch you exactly on that.

Mr. MOORE. If the gentleman delivering that speech had been invited to come to a dinner toward the close of the day, at the close of his arduous work of informing the people on any subject, do you think it would have been wrong for him to sit down at that dinner, provided there had been no Kentucky moonshine at the dinner? Mr. WEAREN. I think not. [Laughter.]

Mr. LANNEN. You have quite an efficient food department in Kentucky, have you not?

Mr. WEAREN. I suppose we have. We have a college there that is supposed to have things of that kind.

Mr. LANNEN. Do you know R. M. Allen down there?

Mr. WEAREN. What does he do?

Mr. LANNEN. He is chief of the food division.

Mr. WEAREN. I am not personally acquainted with him.

Mr. LANNEN. That food division is in the Agricultural Experiment Station at Lexington, is it not?

Mr. WEAREN. I understand so.

Mr. LANNEN. Is it not true that your State food law provides that an article shall be deemed to be misbranded if the package or label bears any statement purporting to name any ingredient or substance as not being contained in such article, which statement shall not be true?

Mr. WEAREN. I do not know.

Mr. LANNEN. You do not know whether that is the food law of your State or not?

Mr. WEAREN. No, sir.

Mr. FORDNEY. My friend, Rainey, is opposed to all sorts of monopoly except the monopolized vote in his Congressional district. Mr. LIND. Now, Mr. Kelly, will you come forward again.

STATEMENT OF MR. E. M. KELLY-Resumed.

Mr. KELLY. I believe the members of the committee were asking questions, especially the chairman, when I suspended my statement. Mr. RAINEY. I have forgotten what I was asking now.

You say a blender could mix wheat flour and corn flour at a profit to him of 60 cents a barrel?

Mr. KELLY. I say I believe that it is possible for a blender to mix flour-put up mixed flour-containing 40 per cent corn flour and label it 20 per cent corn flour only and make 60 cents a barrel additional profit.

Mr. RAINEY. Sixty cents additional?

Mr. KELLY. Additional profit; yes, sir.

Mr. RAINEY. Suppose he makes the ordinary mixture-80 per cent and 20 per cent?

Mr. KELLY. Then his barrel of mixed flour would cost 60 cents less than the barrel of pure wheat flour.

Mr. RAINEY. And he would keep the entire 60 cents?

Mr. KELLY. No; I do not think he would keep the entire 60 cents. He would pay 4 cents revenue tax on that, and he would get as much profit as he could and give as little to the next man as he could. He would sell it as close to the price of pure wheat flour as it would be possible for him to get.

Mr. RAINEY. And only controlled by the question of competition in the business?

Mr. KELLY. Of other mixed flours; yes, sir.

Mr. RAINEY. Of other mixed flours?

Mr. KELLY. Yes.

Mr. RAINEY. Then there would be a competition between mixed flours?

Mr. KELLY. Yes; I think so.

Mr. RAINEY. And other things being equal, the mixed flour that the consumer could buy for the least money would be the flour he would want to buy?

Mr. KELLY. Yes; if the consumer knew positively the real amount of cornstarch in there, I think that would govern him somewhat in his preference.

Mr. RAINEY. If the consumer knew the real amount?

Mr. KELLY. Yes.

Mr. RAINEY. That would be an advantage to the consumer to know the real amount?

Mr. KELLY. I think he would be better posted and better able to tell which one to prefer.

Mr. RAINEY. What is there in the present law that conveys to the consumer the real amount of cornstarch that there is in mixed flour?

Mr. KELLY. The present revenue law does not convey to the ultimate consumer what per cent of cornstarch is in there, but it only advises him that there is some in there.

Mr. RAINEY. The proposed bill would also advise the consumer just the same, would it not, that there is corn flour in there?

Mr. KELLY. If it was interstate business it would. Your bill would not apply to intrastate business.

Mr. RAINEY. Neither does the present law.

Mr. KELLY. Yes, it does. The revenue law applies everywhere in the United States.

Mr. RAINEY. Intrastate?

Mr. KELLY. Yes; interstate and intrastate, both.

Mr. RAINEY. Then, that would be a matter for the State to regulate and control?

Mr. KELLY. Yes.

Mr. RAINEY. And being a Tennesseean, you are rather in favor of the State controlling those matters?

Mr. KELLY. Oh, yes, sir. We have not been entirely reconstructed. Mr. RAINEY. Then, so far as the interstate business is concerned, the proposed law would convey to purchasers the same information as the existing law, to wit, information that the package contained cornstarch or corn flour?

Mr. KELLY. Yes; the proposed law would convey to the purchaser of flour in interstate trade that information. It would have a label on it saying that there was so much cornstarch mixed in this flour. Now, the bill is fairly protective of the buyer, but the trouble isMr. RAINEY. Is it not better than you have now?

Mr. KELLY. I do not think so. I do not think it is as good. Now let me tell you why I say that.

Mr. RAINEY. All right.

Mr. KELLY. It is just for this reason, that I can label 20 per cent cornstarch in flour, and I can put 30 per cent cornstarch in mixed flour, and the consumer will not know it and the pure-food law people will not know it.

Mr. RAINEY. Will they know it now, under the existing law?

Mr. KELLY. They do not know. There is only one source that knows how much is in there, and that is the internal-revenue people. They do know.

Mr. McGILLICUDDY. Would not that appear in the bread?

Mr. KELLY. Yes.