Mr. FORDNEY. It wants to get into society and wear better clothes? Mr. FAIRLOTH. It is like two little boys when the circus came to town. They wanted to go to the circus and didn't have any money. It was in the days when hoopskirts were the fashion, and a kindly disposed woman came along, and they said, "Won't you help us get in, madam?" She said, "I'll tell you what to do, you slip right in under my skirts," and they did so, and she toddled along in there, you know, and when she got in there she let them out. That is what they want to do, get under Miss Wheat's skirts, and get in decent society, and see the circus.

Is that all, Mr. Chairman?

Mr. RAINEY. Yes.

Mr. LIND. I will call Mr. Plant, of St. Louis. I desire to call quite a number of these men that have been here a long time, and I think it will really expedite matters if they are permitted to make their statement in the first instance without interruption, and then subject themselves to such questions as occur to any of the gentlemen present.

Mr. RAINEY. The committee agrees with that proposition, and Mr. Plant will be permitted to proceed until he gets through without interruption, and then questions will be asked by the committee or counsel.

STATEMENT OF MR. SAMUEL PLANT, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE GEORGE P. PLANT MILLING CO., 501 CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, ST. LOUIS, MO.

Mr. PLANT. My name is Samuel Plant. I come from St. Louis, Mo. My address is 501 Chamber of Commerce.

I am vice president of the George P. Plant Milling Co., of St. Louis, and I represent the St. Louis Millers' Club, which is an organization composed of about 25 or 30 millers in and around St. Louis, part of them in Missouri and part of them in Illinois.

The mills in the St. Louis Millers' Club have a capacity of, I should say, about 20,000 barrels of flour a day, and they grind, or have a capacity for grinding, during the year-the crop season-I should say, between 20,000,000 and 25,000,000 bushels of wheat.

This question was discussed in a meeting of the St. Louis Millers' Club, and the following resolution was passed expressing their views on the subject:

At the meeting of the St. Louis Millers' Club held October 29, at the Mercantile Club, on which occasion the Hon. Lawrence Y. Sherman, United States Senator from Illinois, was the guest, the following resolution was presented by Samuel Plant, and was unanimously adopted:

Be it moved, That the St. Louis Millers' Club go on record as opposed to any change or modification in or repeal of the mixed-flour law, as passed by Congress in 1898.

Since that meeting our millers' club had another meeting to discuss this question of the repeal of the mixed-flour law, and at this last meeting two millers were selected from the membership of the club to appear here before your committee-Mr. Kauffman and myself, I being the alternate. Mr. Kauffman was not able to be here on account of his father's serious illness, and I came to present the St. Louis Millers' Club's views to the committee.

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Speaking for the millers of St. Louis, I am authorized to say that they are unanimously opposed to all of the provisions of H. R. No. 9409. This bill strikes at the very heart of and the long-established integrity of the great milling industry of this country.

We millers are opposed to any authority that permits the mixing of any products of other grains or any other material with the pure wheat product. Flour has always been considered the pure product of wheat, and the permission of the mixing of the meals of any other grains with flour and allowing the resultant product to be called flour, even with a qualifying adjective, is a deception and is misleading to the public.

Where two or more pure products are mixed together and offered to the public for sale, the mixture should not carry the name of any one of the pure ingredients used, but the laws should provide that these mixed products bear a different and distinctive name from any of the materials used in the mixture, so that the buyer may be fully protected in the purchase of them. When the word "flour" appears on the package let the contents be the pure product of wheat. This measure seeks to place the control of the mixed or adulterated product in the hands of the Agricultural Department under the present pure-food laws. The pure-food law is a good law, and the administration of it is working out well, but the work is great; in fact, so great that it can not all be accomplished, and for this reason we millers believe that control of the mixed products of grains be left with the internal-revenue department, as provided in the present law, that now controls the situation, by policing the mixed product at its source, and consequently regulates the sale in any State or any part of these United States. The pure-food law would only allow control in interstate trade, which would permit untold and unfair competition when the product was manufactured and sold in the same State, and would cause the word "flour" when coupled with grain products to be only a trade byword and not a distinctive name for the pure product of wheat.

The present law has provided relief for the consuming public in case the selling price of wheat should for a time be relatively higher than other grains by excluding control of the mixed product when it is composed of more than 50 per cent of other grains than wheat.

The present law has worked out well. It has accomplished its purpose that is, to maintain the integrity of the barrel of flour and make it pure.

There is no request or suggestion for a change in the laws excepting from those who want to merchandise on another man's longestablished and inherent livelihood. Let these others establish their wares commercially, and then pass laws to protect them, but don't tear down a completed and serviceable structure and replace it with one that will prove uninhabitable in the end, for the proposed law will ruin the legitimate industry and force many wheat millers to the adulteration of their product.

The ultimate purpose of this bill suggests a rather incongruous situation to the miller. It seeks to repeal a law which has undoubtedly proven satisfactory in the purpose for which it was passed and has stopped the adulteration of flour and seeks to amend another statute by a qualifying clause that defeats the very purpose for which this other statute was enacted and practically licenses the

adulteration of flour. Under the pure-food law an article shall be deemed to be adulterated, in the case of food, "If any substance has been mixed with it so as to reduce or lower or injuriously affect its quality or strength," and as in mixing starch with wheat flour this very adulteration is effected you will defeat the very purposes of the pure-food law by passing this suggested amendment to it. This is not a fit amendment to the pure-food law, and will draw merited criticism from hundreds of other manufacturers who would like to see the law so amended that mixing and adulteration would be permitted under the law and apply to their own products.

This amendment to the pure-food law should be very seriously considered, as it might in the end defeat the very purposes for which the pure-food law was originally enacted; and the passing of this measure would be a step backward, for any amendment to the purefood law should strengthen rather than weaken it.

Let these great industries be conducted along wholesome lines, require all the wheat millers, the corn millers, and the glucose manufacturers to make pure, unadulterated products, and then let these pure products go to the people for what they represent in intrinsic value.

This is a plain statement of the position of the millers of St. Louis on this question, and they have asked me to request that you do not favorably consider this House of Representatives bill No. 9409. Mr. RAINEY. Are there any questions?

Mr. LANNEN. I would like to ask a question, if I may.

Do I understand you to say that the only people making requests for a repeal of this law are the manufacturers of corn products? Mr. PLANT. Yes; that is my statement.

Mr. LANNEN. Do you not know that the whole agricultural industry of the Middle West is requesting the repeal of this law? Mr. PLANT. No, sir; I do not.

Mr. LANNEN. Do you not know that the agricultural industry of the State of Missouri has asked for the repeal of this law? Mr. PLANT. No, sir.

Mr. LANNEN. Do you not know that the farmers' unions all over the country have asked for a repeal of this law?

Mr. PLANT. I will say that I did hear another man ask for a repeal of this law; yes.

Mr. LANNEN. That is all—

Mr. PLANT. I was in Chicago the other day, and on return to my home my desk was filled with literature from the Corn Products Co. and some others, mostly from the Corn Products Co., asking me to request my Representative in Congress to try and bring about the repeal of this law.

Mr. FORDNEY. Who are the Corn Products Co.; who are the owners of that company?

Mr. PLANT. I do not know who the owners are. They are large manufacturers of corn products.

Mr. FORDNEY. I have heard it stated, and it was stated by Mr. Morningstar here a few years ago, that the Standard Oil Co. owned a majority of the Corn Products Co. Do you know whether that is so or not?

Mr. PLANT. No, sir.

Mr. FORDNEY. Of course, that is no reflection on the Standard Oil Co. They have as much right as anybody else to engage in business. Mr. PLANT. I was going to say that among my mail was a letter from the manager of the Western Union Telegraph Co. in St. Louis, addressed to me personally as vice president of our company. We do a large telegraph business. He said he received a telegram from the agent of the Western Union Telegraph Co. in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, asking if he would not get all the people he could to telegraph to their Representatives in Washington asking for a repeal of the mixed-flour law.

Mr. FORDNEY. Who made this request?

Mr. PLANT. This request came from the Douglas Co. in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Mr. FORDNEY. Who are the Douglas Co.?

Mr. PLANT. They are manufacturers of corn goods; I do not know whether they manufacture cornstarch or flour

Mr. FORDNEY. Are they a branch of the Corn Products Co.?
Mr. LIND. They are one of the proponents of this bill.

Mr. FORDNEY. I wanted to find out whether they are subsidiaries of the Corn Products Co.?

Mr. LANNEN. They are not, Mr. Congressman.

Mr. PLANT. They are a member of this association.

I was rather surprised to get this request in relation to asking Congressmen to vote for the repeal of this law, and it goes to show that there are a great many people who will ask you to vote for the repeal of a law that they perhaps do not know very much about and have not very much interest in. I believe that Mr. Lannen says that the corn growers are asking for a repeal of the law. They may be. But I have not heard that they were asking for the repeal. Anyway, they will not go into the merits of the case

Mr. FORDNEY. Will you give me the name of that firm in Cedar Rapids?

Mr. PLANT. It is called the Douglas Co., of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Mr. FORDNEY. Why I ask you that is that I received a telegram the other day from a firm of commission merchants in my district asking me to favor the repeal of this law. I asked them for information, and they said they were calling on the people from whom they were buying for the information, and I received a long telegram from this same firm in reference to the matter.

Mr. PLANT. As I have said, very often a great many people who are not very much interested in a subject are induced to call upon their Representatives for action, one way or the other, and those people very often do not know very much about the matter.

Mr. FORDNEY. People who are directly interested in legislation very often, instead of going directly to their Congressmen, get other people to write and telegraph and request certain legislation, this method is quite common.

Mr. CRISP. Is that not true applying to almost any proposition of importance that comes up? Is it not true that those greatly interested in some matter of legislation usually reach out and get everybody they can to talk and telegraph and write to Congressmen? Mr. PLANT. Yes; that is true, I think.

Mr. FORDNEY. Anything that is likely to be affected by an income. or internal-revenue tax, especially. For instance, Marshall Field &

Co. at one time requested their customers to write letters and I know I received as many as 10,000 circular letters all in reference to the tariff law, all those letters emanating from Marshall Field & Co.

Mr. LIND. I want to call attention to this letter and ask you to read it into the record, and leave the original with the committee, to show the influences that have been at work stirring up sentiment. Mr. PLANT. This is a letter written on the paper of the Western Union Telegraph Co., dated St. Louis, January 27, 1916:

THE WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH CO.,
ST. LOUIS, Mo., January 27, 1916.

BERNET CRAFT & KAUFFMAN MILLING CO.,

Pierce Building, City.

GENTLEMEN: We are being urged by the Douglas Co., Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and others, to exert efforts to have the St. Louis grain dealers wire Congressman Rainey, of Illinois, and our Congressmen and Senators at Washington indicating your strong support in the repeal of the mixed-flour law bill being introduced by the Hon. Mr. Rainey.

According to our informant, the mixed-flour law imposes a discrimination against corn, our greatest cereal; it has taxed out of existence the mixing of corn flour with wheat flour, etc. Should you decide to act in the matter, would be pleased to have you favor our lines.

Yours, very truly,

Mr. PLANT. I received the same letter.

C. W. MITCHELL, Manager.

Mr. MOORE. Are you familiar with the conditions that prevailed in 1897 and 1898 when the present law was enacted?

Mr. PLANT. Yes, sir.

Mr. MOORE. Do you recall that the Merchants' Exchange of St. Louis, on February 4, 1898, adopted a resolution favoring the bill introduced by Mr. Pearce, of Missouri, providing for the branding .of flour and other cereal products?

Mr. PLANT. I can not say that I remember that directly, but I presume that is so.

Mr. MOORE. There was an agitation at that time which penetrated to the meetings of the corn associations of Missouri. The Merchants' Exchange of St. Louis at that time passed a resolution which read as follows:

The board of directors of the Merchants' Exchange of St. Louis, believing that it is to the best interests of all of the people of the United States engaged in raising, manufacturing, selling, or exporting cereal products, that no deception should be practiced in furnishing said cereals or the products thereof to the consumer, and believing, further, that a national law providing for the branding of flour or other cereal products is necessary to protect the trade of this country, especially as it applies to exportations to other countries, this board hereby indorse the bill introduced by Hon. Charles E. Pearce, of Missouri, and especially urges the Senators and Representatives from Missouri to use every honorable means to secure its passage at the present session of Congress.

Are you familiar with the action taken by the merchants exchange at that time?

Mr. PLANT. I can not say that I am familiar with it, but I have no doubt that action was taken.

Mr. MOORE. Well, evidently there was a very widespread agitation for the passage of some such law.

Mr. PLANT. There is no doubt about it.

Mr. MOORE. Do you know what the Orange Judd Farmer is?