Mr. SPARKS. Yes.

Mr. RAINEY. Where do you make that flour?

Mr. SPARKS. At Alton. Also at Terre Haute.

Mr. RAINEY. Is that the flour you call Mor-Doh?

Mr. SPARKS. That is the name of one of the flours we sell.

Mr. RAINEY. These water-absorbing flours you sell to bakers entirely, do you not?

Mr. SPARKS. Yes, sir.

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Mr. RAINEY. And advertise in trade papers? As to this Mor-Doh flour you say that it is the perfect bakers' flour, and to that you add these reasons: It will give you a larger loaf, a better textured loaf, a whiter loaf, and in addition to all this it will give you more loaves to the barrel." That is your advertisement, is it not?

Mr. SPARKS. I have no doubt that is correct.

Mr. RAINEY. And is that a patent flour, that Mor-Doh flour? Mr. SPARKS. I don't know whether they call it a patent flour or not.

Mr. RAINEY. How do you mix that so it will absorb so much water, for the benefit of the consumer?

Mr. SPARKS. We think that it is in the wheat that we make it out of.

Mr. RAINEY. Where do you get that wheat?

Mr. SPARKS. Out in the West.

Mr. RAINEY. Out in the Dokotas?

Mr. SPARKS. Kansas wheat and various western countries.

Mr. RAINEY. Then Kansas wheat will carry more water to the ultimate purchaser in that convenient form than other wheats; is that your experience with it?

Mr. SPARKS. Our experience with it is that the dough mixed from Kansas flour takes more water to make it into a proper dough than some other flours.

Mr. RAINEY. And carries that water right on to the consumers, does it not?

Mr. SPARKS. No, sir.

Mr. RAINEY. That is what you say in the advertisement?

Mr. SPARKS. I do not so understand it.

Mr. RAINEY. You say it will give them more loaves to the barrel. You want them to try and see if it will not.

Mr. SPARKS. Yes.

Mr. RAINEY. How could it give more loaves to the barrel than other flour unless it put into the finished loaf either water or air or both?

Mr. SPARKS. Mr. Chairman, when the flour is made up into dough, as I understand the operation of a. bake shop, the weight of the loaf is ascertained in the dough. Now, if you can get the water in the flour and make more dough it will make more loaves. That water comes out afterwards

Mr. RAINEY. And it weighs more.

Mr. SPARKS. No; the water comes out in the baking, as I understand.

Mr. RAINEY. But you tell them they get more loaves; you do not measure bread in the dough, you measure it in the loaf, do you not? Mr. SPARKS. No; you measure it in the dough.

Mr. RAINEY. That is not what you say here. Does the customer come in and measure it in the dough or does he measure it in the bread?

Mr. SPARKS. The baker measured it in the dough.

Mr. RAINEY. Then, he does not get any more in his finished product but in the dough it looks as if there were more bread?

Mr. SPARKS. No; he has more wheat in it and that makes more loaves.

Mr. FORDNEY. One flour absorbs more water than another flour and that is what makes it heavier dough?

Mr. SPARKS. The more pounds of water in it, the more loaves he gets.

Mr. RAINEY. He gets more loaves out of this than by using some other dough, and therefore he has more loaves to turn over to the ultimate consumer at 5 cents a loaf?

Mr. SPARKS. That is it.

Mr. RAINEY. Exactly; that is what I wanted.

Mr. FORDNEY. In many instances the number of pound loaves of bread that can be made from the flour from a bushel of wheat ranges from 60 to 75 loaves, does it not?

Mr. SPARKS. I believe there is a difference. I don't know what the range is.

Mr. MOORE. A little while ago you said you were afraid of competition, indicating that there was competition between the millers? Mr. SPARKS. Yes, sir.

Mr. MOORE. Do you have any reason to fear an unfair competition through the passage of this bill?

Mr. SPARKS. We think it would be unfair; yes, sir.

Mr. MOORE. There has been an evolution in all trades in recent years, a tendency toward concentration of more efficient methods and scientific management?

Mr. SPARKS. Yes, sir.

Mr. MOORE. Do you think the independent millers generally would be unfairly affected if this bill were passed?

Mr. SPARKS. Yes, sir.

Mr. MOORE. Would that be due to concentration of efforts? Mr. SPARKS. Well, as far as I have gone it opens up the possibility of putting out one thing under the mark of another.

Mr. MOORE. Would the small miller who is doing business to-day under existing law be in a position to compete with other and larger institutions, having more capital, perhaps, and more scientific methods, if we were to repeal the existing law?

Mr. SPARKS. I believe he would be in a worse position.

Mr. MOORE. You think he would be unfavorably affected by the passage of the repeal?

Mr. SPARKS. I think so; very decidedly.

Mr. RAINEY. You do not take any steps to advise the ultimate purchaser of this Mor-Doh flour that he is buying more water when he buys bread made out of that flour than if he made bread made. out of some other kind of flour?

Mr. SPARKS. No; we have tried to convince him what we have said in the advertisement.

Mr. RAINEY. No; that is what you use to convince the baker, to hold up the consumer with.

Mr. SPARKS. We do not take it to the consumer.

Mr. RAINEY. You do not think it would be fair to label such bread as this to the effect that it absorbs so much water, to label it that way to indicate it to the ultimate consumer-that he is buying more water when he pays a nickel for that bread made out of that flour?

Mr. SPARKS. My opinion is that the consumer does not buy more water; that dough is equalized in the baking; that when dough becomes bread the water is practically all gone.

Mr. RAINEY. They don't even get the water then; the baker gets that?

Mr. LIND. The consumer gets bread; he does not get dough.

Mr. RAINEY. Do you think that the consumer would get as much gluten and as much food content in a loaf of bread that was doped up with moisture and this Mor-Doh proposition of yours as he would if it was not?

Mr. SPARKS. Yes.

Mr. RAINEY. I do not see any reason then why you tell bakers they can get more loaves out of it.

Mr. SPARKS. The water does not have any effect on the gluten one way or the other. If the gluten is there it stays there, and if it is not there it does not stay there.

Mr. RAINEY. There are 196 pounds, I believe, in a barrel.
Mr. SPARKS. Yes.

Mr. RAINEY. In that 196 pounds there is a certain percentage of gluten. But the baker, if he uses this Mor-Doh flour, gets more loaves, and when you divide that percentage of gluten up between the 30 or 20 more loaves, there will not be as much in each loaf, will there?

Mr. SPARKS. You are quite right.

Mr. RAINEY. That is what I thought.

Mr. SPARKS. I would like to take time to figure up what the difference in percentage is.

Mr. HELVERING. The flour that makes the best dough has the highest percentage of gluten, has it not?

Mr. SPARKS. Yes.

Mr. HELVERING. And there is a perceptible difference in the quantity of dough, is there not?

Mr. SPARKS. I think so.

Mr. HELVERING. And if the water in the chemical combination, when submitted to heat leaves the loaf of bread, makes an elastic loaf, with the same amount of gluten in it, that is a great deal better than a loaf of bread that prevents that chemical change and makes a soggy loaf of bread, is it not?

Mr. SPARKS. Decidedly.

Mr. HELVERING. Will corn flour tend to make what we call a soggy loaf of bread?

Mr. SLOAN. Is that the Kansas wheat you spoke about?

Mr. SPARKS. I believe so.

Mr. SLOAN. That is not the result of the Kansas prohibition law, is it?

Mr. SPARKS. They raise pretty good wheat out there.

Mr. RAINEY. Do you think that a wholesale milk dealer would be justified in advertising that a certain kind of milk would hold more water, and that that should recommend it?

Mr. SPARKS. I have too many troubles of my own; I don't know about the milk business.

Mr. RAINEY. With the sentiment as it is now, being advised about milk, do you think if a wholesale milk dealer would advertise that the jobbers of his milk would find that his milk would absorb more water than other milk, do you think it would be helpful to him if the consumers of that milk found it out?

Mr. SPARKS. They have recently investigated the water works where I live, and it might help them.

Mr. HELVERING. The gentleman has referred to water in dough and water in milk; water in milk is a direct consumption, while water in dough is not a direct consumption.

Mr. LANNEN. I would like to ask one question, if I might.

In saying that the quality of the gluten in Kansas wheat is better than other gluten, you mean that it has a better mechanical value, a greater power of expanding. So far as food value is concerned, it is no different from any other gluten, is it?

Mr. SPARKS. I don't remember of saying it was better or worse. Mr. LANNEN. You said it was the quality of the gluten that caused this product to take in so much water.

Mr. SPARKS. On this particular flour.

Mr. LANNEN. Yes.

Mr. SPARKS. Perhaps it is.

Mr. LANNEN. That is a mechanical value, not a food value.

Mr. SPARKS. I don't know about that. We buy the wheat and make it into flour; and if the flour does what we say it does, that is as far as we go.

Mr. LIND. Dr. Wiley is here and desires to make a statement. I do not know what the Doctor intends to sav. I do not know whether he intends to speak in behalf of this bill or against it, but we will yield for his statement.

Mr. RAINEY. We would be glad to hear it.

STATEMENT OF DR. HARVEY W. WILEY, WASHINGTON, D. C.

Dr. WILEY. I am sorry you do not know me better, Gov. Lind. You will appreciate me more when I get through.

Mr. MOORE. The Governor has been in a foreign country lately and has just got back home.

Mr. LIND. In that foreign country, if you will pardon me, the people have found by experience that in order to balance the corn ration they must have beans three times a day.

Mr. MOORE. I am glad we gave you the opportunity to get that in the record. That puts Boston right out of it.

Mr. LIND. Beans is 24 per cent gluten.

Mr. LANNEN. What kind of beans are those that are eaten in Mexico?

Mr. LIND. Frijoles, if you please. I have eaten them three times a day for nine months.

Dr. WILEY. My name is H. W. Wiley. It is not the first time that I have been before Congress in a matter of this kind. Nearly

20 years ago now, when there was no national law regulating food products, there was a very great outcry among the people of this country in regard to certain abuses in the manipulation of flour. At that time I was Chief of the Bureau of Chemistry of the Department of Agriculture. By authority of the Secretary of Agriculture, I had an investigation made by a special agent as to the extent and character of this manipulation, so far as we were able to get it from voluntary statements-we had no authority to send for persons or papers. But we collected a great deal of information, which was presented specially to Congress and published in the Fifty-fifth Congress, second session, Document No. 309. In this report the character of the manipulation to which flour was subjected, and to some extent its extent, were ascertained, although only in a fragmentary

way.

Mr. RAINEY. When was that document issued?

Mr. MOORE. That was Document No. 309, Fifty-fifth Congress, second session.

Dr. WILEY. I will see that I get my numbers right. It was Document No. 309, yes; Fifty-fifth Congress, second session, "Adulteration of Wheat Flour." We called it by the proper name at that time. I think the title of this pamphlet is perfectly correct.

Afterwards a law was passed, after a presentation of this document, and I imagine this document had something to do with inducing Congress to pass the law which was finally passed and which is now upon the statute books and which it is now sought to repeal.

One thing I think we will all admit, and that is if we will look at the report of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, we will believe either that this law has curbed the evil which it was intended to remedy or else an immense amount of smuggling is going on by the flour industry of the country. The latter assumption, I think, we can not entertain. And, so far as I know, very few convictions, if any, have been obtained by reason of violation of this act or by reason of the adulteration of flour, which would be punishable under the food and drugs act, irrespective of this act. In other words, the only complaint which can be made against this law is that it has been thoroughly effective, and as a result of that the flour industry of this country to-day stands on a basis of honesty and reliability which it never had before attained since the practice of adulteration became known.

I am not an enthusiastic advocate of white flour for human food, as many of you know. I eat a great deal of it and like it, and I realize that wheat bread made in a proper way out of ordinary milled flour, as we recognize the name to-day, is not a thing of to-day or tomorrow but it has come to stay, and while the people of this country will listen more or less to the advice given to them by students of nutrition, not to use too much of this article in their diet, and especially to guard the children of the country against eating too much of it, I have no objection to good, wholesome bread made in a proper way of good wheat flour, although I realize that some of the most valuable elements of the wheat are extracted and devoted to other purposes, and although I know that the eating of white wheat flour tends to promote to a certain extent that almost national evil of constipation, and although I know that white flour of commerce, which I am here to defend to-day, is not as nutritious in the way of