revenue stamp. A man from Kentucky said here yesterday that in certain instances, to have stuck on a bottle of whisky "bottled in bond" you know what you are getting. But I don't drink it, though I understand it is a mark of quality to have that stuck on that booze. Yet they come in here and complain that the stamp on flour is a stigma and an odium. Anyway you fix it, the way these gentlemen put it up here there is only 20 per cent corn product and 80 per cent wheat flour. Is not that the way they have been putting it up? Therefore 80 per cent of the stigma and odium is on the wheat.

Here is a good flour, made out of pure wheat, and it became kind of fascinating to old King Corn, and he says, "Let us affiliate, and then we will have an odium on us.' She says, "No; let us stay apart, then you haven't got any odium and neither have I." There is no stigma on corn until he wants to affiliate with wheat, and wheat says, "I am not urging you to come in and do this; I am not putting any odium on you, but you are insisting upon putting it on yourself." That is just the trouble. I believe in letting corn stand on its own bottom and letting wheat do the same thing, and then neither one of them will have any stigma or odium attached to them.

Mr. MOORE. You have not any objection to the production of products manufactured from corn?

Mr. FAIRCLOTH. Not a bit.

Mr. MOORE. You simply object to the marriage of corn and wheat? Mr. FAIRCLOTH. It looks to us like miscegenation, and we don't like that at all.

Mr. LONGWORTH. Why is it not fair, even if this is miscegenationwhy is not fair to announce that to the public?

Mr. FAIRCLOTH. It is; but where is the stigma?

Mr. LONGWORTH. I mean so far as the miscegenation is concerned. Mr. FAIRCLOTH. I can not say; but let me tell you, there was a negro girl went away from a little place down in the South, was gone a while and came back with a picture hat and all that sort of thing, and her old nigger mammy said, "Laws, chile, I hardly recognize you." She said, "Don't you know, Mammy, I done been ruined." [Laughter.] That is what they want to do, to come back looking prosperous, and that does not seem right.

Mr. LONGWORTH. What I am trying to find out is why it is not a fair proposition to have it branded on the label "mixed flour." Mr. FAIRCLOTH. It would be, if you knew what the per cent was. Mr. LONGWORTH. But it comes under the pure-food law. You mean that the pure-food law will not take care of it?

Mr. FAIRCLOTH. I do not believe anybody in the world can tell whether it has got 10 or 30 per cent cornstarch. It is just like the whisky business. The only way they can do it is to go to the still and see. They say, "How much did you buy; how much did you mash; where is your whisky that you made?" And you have to pay the revenue on it whether you are short or not. This man comes around and says, "How much corn flour did you buy; and how much wheat, and how much this and that, and how much was used there, and so on," and he finds out how much they consumed, and they have to pay the tax on it, and they can not get around that.

Mr. LONGWORTH. What you mean is, generally speaking, the present law does amply protect it?

Mr. FAIRCLOTH. It does.

Mr. LONGWORTH. And Mr. Rainey's bill would not?

Mr. FAIRCLOTH. It would not to the same extent. I do not think it would. Another thing they have been talking about is the enormity of it. You understand that 95 per cent of all of this doping is coming down into our country. I do not believe that they will use 10,000,000 of corn products in mixing flour, anyway, as long as you and I live, and that is not one three-hundredth part of the average

corn crop.

Mr. FORDNEY. Then, in your opinion, the law would not prohibit the mixing in of corn flour with wheat flour or any other mixture that is not injurious to health?

Mr. FAIRCLOTH. No. The reason it is not sold more than it really is sold is because of the revenue stamp. If the people really wanted it, you understand, they would buy it, but they do not want this corn flour that has got the revenue stamp on it, because they look upon it with suspicion, and so does every sensible man look upon it, whether it has the stamp on it or not.

Mr. MOORE. What would be the effect of the passage of this bill upon our foreign wheat trade?

Mr. FAIRCLOTH. I do not think it would interfere much. You mean with the export flour?

Mr. MOORE. Yes.

Mr. FAIRCLOTH. I do not think it would interfere much, except we would get the reputation after a while of having to be watched closely.

Mr. MOORE. Suppose this mixture of 20 per cent starch with 80 per cent wheat were permitted, as under the Rainey bill, what would be the effect in England and Germany, for instance, on our exports?

Mr. FAIRCLOTH. If they got to sending it there mixed we would have the same difficulty as we would with it here. Every man that bought it, you know, would just be worried to death, and would say, "I don't know whether I am getting the worst of this or not, and now please don't treat me unkindly, Mr. Miller."

Mr. MOORE. Would the foreign buyers accept it without careful scrutiny?

Mr. FAIRCLOTH. I would not care to send it over there at all unless the foreign buyer knew what was in it.

Mr. MOORE. Would you send it over under that label?

Mr. FAIRCLOTH. No; I would not send it over at all. I will tell you what I would do, and why I quit the mixing business. I would be fearful if I shipped a carload of flour to any man that we deal with that had corn flour in it, that he was not going to pay me for it, and after he had paid for it. if he found it out, he would say, "You give me back my money; you have deceived me in selling me a mixture, and I want you to give my money back to me to the extent that I have been damaged by the mixing." That is what I would be

afraid of.

Mr. MOORE. Do you know who Holt & Co. are?

Mr. FAIRCLOTH. No; I do not.

Mr. MOORE. I ask permission to insert in the record a letter or brief which has come to me, through Representative Capstick, of New Jersey, from Holt & Co., of New York, who are exporters of flour.

(The paper referred to is as follows:)

MEMORANDUM REGARDING THE RAINEY MIXED-FLOUR BILL (H. R. 9409). Present law (internal-revenue act of June 13, 1898, No. 35-40, amended March 2, 1901, April 12, 1902).—Provides for a practically prohibitive internal-revenue tax on "mixed flour," and for a printed statement of ingredients and their percentages on the containers.

Proposed law (H. R. 9409).-Provides for a repeal of the tax. Retains the printed statement of the ingredients and percentages on the containers.

All regulations of the business removed except as is covered by the pure food and drugs act, applying to flour.

Reason for enactment of present law.--The present law was enacted because of intolerable conditions in the flour business of the country growing out of extensive adulteration of wheat flour with corn flour and other by-products of cornstarch manufacture, principally by mills in the Middle West and South, whose clientele was large in the Southern States.

The evil grew to such proportions that American flour was discredited in foreign markets, and large buyers in the eastern markets could not safely operate without first subjecting offerings of flour to analytical tests for the presence of corn products.

Reason for the proposed repeal.-There has been no change in the flour business anywhere in the world creating a demand for wheat flour adulterated with corn. The only possible motive for the proposed repeal of the present law is that corn products manufacturers may dispose of their by-products of corn flour at a higher price than is possible except when masking as wheat flour. There are no restrictions at present on the sale of corn flour or any other entire corn product. There are no restrictions imposed on any baker to prevent his buying corn flour and mixing it with wheat flour in his own bakery. The markets of the world are open to the unrestricted sale of corn flour, sold honestly as such.

The proposed repeal of the present law is for no other purpose than to make a market for corn flour as an adulterant of wheat flour.

Fallacy of the proposed protection of consumers by retaining the requirement for a printed statement of ingredients and percentages on the containcrs.— One of the largest and most profitable markets for adulterated flour before the enactment of the present law was among the illiterate people of the South, who are very large consumers of flour. The printed statement of contents on the package would be no protection to such consumers as many of them can not read. A very large proportion of the educated consumers of flour, particularly in households, would not read the statement on the package of flour, either from lack of opportunity or lack of interest. They should no less, however, be protected from imposition. Moreover, a great deal of flour is not sold in its original container but undergoes repacking somewhere between miller and consumer. How could the repetition of the statement of contents on the original package be certainly enforced on the new package?

Reasons for opposing the proposed Rainey bill (H. R. 9409).—All flour milling organizations are opposed to it.

All honest individual millers are opposed to it.

All bakers are opposed to it.

All consumers who know anything about it are opposed to it.

It is manifestly in the interest solely of a few manufacturers of corn proucts, to whom all legitimate markets are already open, but who seek to corrupt the flour trade by promoting adulteration of wheat flour.

If the present law was a necessity in 1898, its maintenance is equally necessary now, as there has been no change in underlying conditions except in the widening of the flour markets, affording increased opportunities for disposal of an adulterated product.

It aims to nullify, so far as the most important food product in the world is concerned, the present efforts for enforcing and maintaining by Federal statute and supervision an inviolable standard of purity.

The effect of its passage would be to discredit and bring under suspicion American flour in every market in the world.

It will open the door wide to adulteration and bring about a competition between a pure and an adulterated product, which will inevitably coerce many manufacturers into an unwilling participation in marketing the adulterated product until the same intolerable conditions are reached which compelled the enactment of the present law.

Mr. FORDNEY. You stated a few minutes ago that 300 loaves of bread could be made from a barrel of flour.

Mr. FAIRCLOTH. Yes, sir; 301.

Mr. FORDNEY. Did you have reference to a loaf of 16 ounces?
Mr. FAIRCLOTH. Sixteen ounces.

Mr. FORDNEY. Three hundred loaves of bread from 196 pounds of flour, 1-pound loaves, would contain 10.45 ounces of flour, and the balance is moisture?

Mr. FAIRCLOTH. About that. It is not all moisture. We use milk and sugar.

Mr. FORDNEY. Potatoes?

Mr. FAIRCLOTH. No; we use shortening, sugar, malt, and yeast. Some use lard. All of those are higher priced than flour.

Mr. FORDNEY. The bakeshop men use potatoes, and the housewife does, too?

Mr. FAIRCLOTH. I imagine they do. But the making of the bread, the 12-ounce loaf that the gentleman told you about, that might apply where they live; but we have baked all through this war in Europe, you understand, all through it, and right up to the present time, and we were making a 14-ounce loaf of bread and sending it out, you understand, to the trade when the war broke out, and we are making it yet, and we have made it every day since, and we have not increased the price of bread to anybody a single sou; and if there was mixed corn flour in there, naturally it would be heavy flour, and I would feel I was perfectly justified in sticking to that little price of 33 cents that we get for that loaf of bread; and I don't care how much corn they have in it, we have not robbed them. We have never raised the price at all, and did not reduce the weight of it during all this trouble and every minute of the time, and we lost a whole lot of money, and I believe it is coming to me to get a good price for it; I don't care what they make it of.

Mr. MOORE. Your discussion in opposition to the bill is largely ethical.

Mr. FAIRCLOTH. No, sir; it is right down to a concrete business basis.

Mr. MOORE. I know it is; but you are objecting to mixing flourMr. FAIRCLOTH (interposing). I do not think it is on the level. Mr. MOORE. Is this a fair statement, Mr. Faircloth, as to the conditions: If high-grade flour is used as a basis, it is not so much a question of how much sugar, flour, and other ingredients are used as it is how they are used?

Mr. FAIRCLOTH. Well, I am not a baker at all; but we bake to a formula. We have a formula, and we stick to it as closely as we can, our conditions being taken into consideration, you understand. Mr. MOORE. But it is all in the baking of the bread?

Mr. FAIRCLOTH. It is all in knowing how to work it up and have all the proper machines. We have all that, and that is all done by machinery.

Mr. MOORE. Would there be any advantage in the making of bread, mixing cornstarch with it, if you had some process different from that existing to-day?

Mr. FAIRCLOTH. I do not know what that process could be. I do not think you could improve wheat bread with a corn product at any time.

Mr. FORDNEY. Really it adulterates the flour, does it not?

Mr. FAIRCLOTH. That is my opinion. There have been some criticisms by the chairman for speaking of it as an adulteration; but that is what I would call it.

Mr. FORDNEY. Anything that lessens the value is adulteration, is it not?

Mr. FAIRCLOTH. I should think so. I do not believe that corn flour has the same food value for a human being that wheat flour has.

Mr. DIXON. Do you wholesale your bread to merchants around the State or ship it away?

Mr. FAIRCLOTH. Yes, sir; we do both of those.

Mr. DIXON. You do not retail it?

Mr. FAIRCLOTH. We have two little stores in town, but they sell more pastry than bread.

Mr. DIXON. Do you mean that you sell it at 3 cents per loaf? Mr. FAIRCLOTH. 3.7 cents a loaf. We sell 28 loaves of bread for a dollar.

Mr. DIXON. That is wholesale?

Mr. FAIRCLOTH. Yes, sir.

Mr. DIXON. That is all.

Mr. LANNEN. Mr. Chairman, may I ask the witness a question? Mr. RAINEY. Yes, sir.

Mr. LANNEN. You said that there was some corn flour on the market in those days that you were talking about containing about 90 per cent corn flour?

Mr. FAIRCLOTH. No; I did not say they were corn flours. I said they were flours that were represented to be flours.

Mr. LANNEN. You said in your opinion that there was as much as 90 per cent corn flour.

Mr. FAIRCLOTH. Yes; I said that.

Mr. LANNEN. Don't you know that you could not make bread out of that much corn flour?

Mr. FAIRCLOTH. They did not make it. That is the trouble with it. Mr. LANNEN. What did they do with it?

Mr. FAIRCLOTH. I don't know. They brought it back and reblended it and put some more flour in it, I suppose, and let it go out again. There was one man told me-and he is a miller in Chattanooga-when they were talking at a meeting one day about how well they had succeeded with this in the South, he said, "I have never been able to get more than 65 per cent dope in it." His flour was such that he had not been able to get that in satisfactorily. He is a big miller, and that went out as wheat flour. That is a fine wheat flour, isn't it-65 per cent corn?

Mr. LONGWORTH. But this would not be called wheat flour.

Mr. FAIRCLOTH. No; this would not be called wheat flour, but the result would be the same.

Mr. LANNEN. Did you say, Mr. Faircloth, that you know that this stamp on mixed flour is looked upon with suspicion?

Mr. FAIRCLOTH. I believe in what you say, that there is odium attached to it when there is a stamp attached to it, but it would not be there if it was not affiliated with the wheat. Corn is a good thing by itself.

Mr. LANNEN. Do you believe it retards the use of mixed flour? Mr. FAIRCLOTH. I think the stamp does; yes, I know it does.