Mr. LANNEN. You are aware of the fact that the Government has ruled permitting the use of sulphur dioxide in foods?

Mr. SNYDER. Up to a certain extent. I believe they have limited it. Mr. LANNEN. In food-inspection decision No. 76 they allow the use of 350 milograms per kilo in foods, if it is stated on the label what is used. Is not that true?

Mr. SNYDER. I presume it is. I am not disputing that.

Mr. LANNEN. Then, in food-inspection decision No. 89 they rescinded the former one and take the limit off. Is that not true? Mr. SNYDER. I do not know.

Mr. LANNEN. Food-inspection decision No. 89 reads:

No objection will be made to foods which contain the ordinary quantity of dioxid, if the fact that such foods have been so prepared is plainly stated upon the label of each package.

Is that not true?

Mr. SNYDER. It may be, but there is where the difficulty comes in. You are amending the pure-food law and defining what this mixed flour is taking it out from under those provisions.

Mr. LANNEN. There is no sulphurous acid in the edible articles that we have sold to the housewife to be eaten, is there?

Mr. SNYDER. Not if it is made with hydrochloric acid.

Mr. LANNEN. You do not mean to say that the cornstarch we produce here has any sulphurous acid in it, do you?

Mr. SNYDER. I have not analyzed it. I would be able to say if I had analyzed it. I have analyzed starches heretofore, and I would say that starch made after the method that has been described here would give reactions for sulphates and sulfids.

Mr. LANNEN. That is laundry starch, though.

Mr. SNYDER. They say they are all the same starch-edibles; and every one of those starches-they said they are all the same.

Mr. LANNEN. They are the same chemically.

Mr. SNYDER. It does not say that. It says the same degree of purity. That is what the evidence says.

Mr. LANNEN. With regard to flour. Flour is a pure product, purer than starch, is it not?

Mr. SNYDER. Flour, I would say, as I understand the term, is a product made from wheat?

Mr. LANNEN. Yes.

Mr. SNYDER. It is certainly purer than starch.

Mr. LANNEN. The Russell-Miller Co. makes flour?

Mr. SNYDER. Certainly they do.

Mr. LANNEN. Was their flour always pure flour?

Mr. SNYDER. Yes.

Mr. LANNEN. Is it not a fact that your company was convicted in North Dakota for selling flour bleached with peroxide of nitrogen? Mr. SNYDER. No. Prior to the enactment of the pure-food law, and there was a condition which arose that was similar to the condition which we have described here with regard to the mixing of flour. Before the pure-food law no order was promulgated as to what was desired in regard to the bleaching of flour. The RussellMiller Milling Co. did bring an action against one of the commissioners, the commissioner of North Dakota, to test his ruling. The company protested because it was prohibited from making flour in

that State and bleaching it and shipping it out and competing with the flour that was produced in another State. It carried that litigation on until the question was settled or until it was acted upon by the Department of Agriculture; then the litigation was discontinued. Mr. LANNEN. You say that was before the pure-food law was passed?

Mr. SNYDER. That was before the order in regard to the use of nitrogen peroxide or the Alsop process for the bleaching of flour was issued. As soon as that order was promulgated by the Secretary of Agriculture, along in December, giving until the following May to stop bleaching, the millers of the Northwest, and particularly of Minneapolis, came together as a unit and said to the Secretary of Agriculture: "You have never indicated what you wished done in regard to this bleaching of flour; there has been no ruling, nothing in regard to it whatever; but inasmuch as you have indicated what you wish done, we will cease bleaching at once and desire to cooperate with you in stopping the bleaching," and they did not wait until the time was given, until May, but they started in less than a month or so afterwards. There was no ruling whatever. The action which you spoke of was not an action in the interest of purity, but it was brought to protect ourselves at a time in the fall when we had a large amount of flour that was contracted for and was to be bleached. Bleaching, which you speak of there, is nothing at all as injurious or to be compared with the bleaching that has been proposed since with other methods.

Mr. LANNEN. The conviction was under the North Dakota food law, which had been in force at that time for several years.

Mr. SNYDER. No; there had been no law at all on the subject. There was a ruling of the food commission. And I will still state that that case has not been settled; it is on the docket on appeal.

Mr. LANNEN. There was a conviction in the court under the law of North Dakota-the lower court?

Mr. SNYDER. No. The court in this decision said:

We do not find this product injurious to health in any way.

Technically it

is a violation of the law, because the law says there shall be no substance of such a nature.

It is entirely a question of whether there is the least infinitesimal trace or not. The court said it would not pass upon that point and did not pass upon it, but passed it up to the higher court. It distinctly said it was not injurious to health, but for that purpose it would pass it up to the higher court.

Mr. LANNEN. Do you know of any cornstarch ever having been convicted because of containing any chemicals?

Mr. SNYDER. No; because the cornstarch has not been put in flour of late years.

Mr. LANNEN. Well, straight cornstarch without being put in flour. Mr. SNYDER. No; I have not followed the literature. But that does not mean that some is present. I believe it is. I will say that I have a recipe book here about cornstarch, and I do not find any recipe here that is for cooking breads, biscuits, muffins, and so on without using a very large proportion of flour, it needs wheat flour to make these materials. Cornstarch needs wheat flour for such materials, but better, more wholesome, and more valuable bread can be made of pure wheat flour.

Mr. RAINEY. Are there any further questions?

Mr. SLOAN. They are bleaching flour now, are they not? Mr. SNYDER. In the Northwest-the millers of Minneapolis, particularly, are not bleaching flour.

Mr. SLOAN. I am speaking about the entire country.

Mr. SNYDER. I presume they are to some extent-over the countrybut the question is still in the courts. But so far as the action of the Minneapolis millers is concerned, they practically, as a group, I mean- I am not familiar with everyone, but speaking from my personal knowledge, I know of four of the largest companies that they are not bleaching.

Mr. SLOAN. Going back to the proposition I made a little while ago: Take 80 pounds of wheat containing 10 per cent gluten on the one hand, and 20 pounds of starch; then, take 100 pounds of flour containing 8 per cent of gluten; do you say that one would be more nutritious than the other?

Mr. SNYDER. Yes; in a way there would be a slight difference. Mr. SLOAN. Would it be a material difference, Doctor, that would specially appeal to either the consumer or the baker?

Mr. SNYDER. I should think it would; yes.

Mr. SLOAN. Assuming that the cornstarch, if it was made pure, and eliminating the supposition that there might be some acid in there which should not have been in there, that that has all been excluded

Mr. SNYDER. I will accept that; yes.

Mr. SLOAN. Would there still be a superior nutrition in the 100 pounds of wheat with 8 pounds of gluten than there was in the 100 pounds of flour and cornstarch with 8 pounds of gluten?

Mr. SNYDER. Yes.

Mr. SLOAN. Why is that? With those conditions surrounding, why is it, from a digestive standpoint and a nutritive standpoint?

Mr. SNYDER. Principally, from a nutritive standpoint, that in the dilution of that pure-wheat flour you have reduced the amount of vital phosphate-containing material that starch does not have in it. You see, that all goes out as soluble material in the seep water, according to President Bedford, of the corn-products industry.

Mr. SLOAN. If this gluten was not reduced below the 8-pound limit?

Mr. SNYDER. Yes; I grant that, but you have changed matters entirely.

Mr. SNYDER. What matters are changed that make it vital or make it important?

Mr. SNYDER. The removal of the phosphates, I should say.

Mr. SLOAN. What is that?

Mr. SNYDER. The removal of the phosphates.

Mr. SLOAN. Then how large a factor would the phosphates constitute, either in the pure flour or in the mixed flour, as stated?

Mr. SNYDER. In the pure flour, according to Dr. Wiley's bulletin, No. 13, part 9, which has been referred to; and I will give you the exact page in just a minute to put into the record. It is page 1217. Mr. SLOAN. You may put it in the record accurately, but you can state it approximately.

Mr. SNYDER. I will state approximately that he says that in the process of milling a large amount of mineral matter is removed, over

half, but there is enough left for all purposes of nutrition and for purposes of taste, and so on. Now, we have enough in our white flour.

Mr. SLOAN. Of the phosphates?

Mr. SNYDER. Of the phosphates, according to his statement. I will give it accurately. I have checked that over very carefully. In this cornstarch we reduce it 20 per cent, or such a matter, and we are getting down too low. We are putting in there a material that does not contain a particle of bone-forming material, as phosphorus, and further than that, we are also removing other constituents.

Mr. SLOAN. Well, is it a fact that flour that is highly charged with gluten is usually also highly charged with the phosphates? Mr. SNYDER. Not necessarily.

Mr. SLOAN. I do not mean necessarily; but is it as a rule; because none of those things are mathematically exact.

Mr. SNYDER. You will find this, that in the manufacture of our flour from the strong glutinous contents that the high-grade flours will be comparatively rich in protein or gluten material. Now, they are not overstocked with mineral matter. I frankly admit that.

Mr. SLOAN. Is there any general ratio running between them? Mr. SNYDER. There is; and as you go down the scale, for instance, you get the entire mill run, you get a larger amount. Now, that is a very important matter, because the people, during hard times, when they have got to make a dollar go just as far as they possibly can, invariably buy our clear grades-as they are called. That is the flour that carries the higher mineral matter, and when they have to live on those comparatively cheaper flours, at that time they are getting flours in which there could be no question as to mineral matter, because of cutting out other foods; that they might exclude, perhaps, any mineral matter that would otherwise be deficient. Is that your question.

Mr. SLOAN. That answers one phase of the matter.

Mr. SNYDER. Is there another phase? I do not want to avoid anything.

Mr. SLOAN. You have not answered at all one phase of the matter that I was getting at, and if you can give the committee a little further discussion as to the relation between those phosphates, the absence of which in the 20 pounds would seem to make the basis for the difference in nutrition of those two commodities, 100 pounds of highgrade wheat and 100 pounds of mixture, I wish you would.

Mr. RAINEY. Would it be satisfactory to put that in the record? Mr. SLOAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. LANNEN. May I ask the witness one question on that line, since phosphates have not been touched upon heretofore at all? Mr. FORDNEY. Don't take too much time.

Mr. LANNEN. I will not.

Mr. RAINEY. And, Mr. Snyder, do not take so much time in answering, either.

Mr. LANNEN. If the lowering of phosphates is vital and the lowering of the gluten is vital, then why do you charge the consumer $1.30 a barrel more for patent flour than for the clears and other flours?

Mr. SNYDER. We do not ask that much. The difference is that we give the consumer what he desires and what he is calling for-a flour of large gluten contents, clean flour, thoroughly milled, one that will make a palatable, nutritious, and wholesome loaf in every way. If you can do anything that will help us sell those clear-grade flours as flour, and enlarge the consumption of them, we would be very glad, indeed delighted, to have you help us do it.

Mr. LANNEN. But you are are not giving the consumer more gluten in your patent flour; you are giving him less gluten. Is that not true?

Mr. SNYDER. We are giving, it is true, but when we come to that point we must look further as to what he actually gets out of the body. I will call your attention to Bulletin No. 67, on page 36, wherein the United States Department of Agriculture, Office of Experiment Stations, that point has been brought out by the actual human digestion experiments, and it has been found that the two flours. come together, practically, as far as nutritive value is concerned.

Mr. LANNEN. Now, you asked me a question as to how you could sell your clear flours. I will tell you. You add nice, pure, clean white cornstarch to them, and that is the way you can sell them.

Mr. SNYDER. Well, we would adulterate them to just that extent. We have had the proposition offered to us many a time by you gentlemen, and we have talked it over, and we have refused it, and we will have nothing to do with it.

Mr. HELVERING. Does pure wheat flour make a good, palatable loaf of bread?

Mr. SNYDER. It does.

Mr. HELVERING. Pure cornstarch will not, will it?

Mr. SNYDER. It will not make any bread at all. It makes just a soggy cake; there is no expansion to it.

Mr. HELVERING. In your opinion, then, corn is the poorer product of the two?

Mr. SNYDER. Very much poorer, as far as bread making is concerned.

Mr. FORDNEY. You do not add to the value of the loaf of wheat bread by putting corn flour with it?

Mr. SNYDER. Not at all; you lower it.

Mr. HELVERING. Mr. Lannen brought in the proposition of different court proceedings, and I would like to ask just a question or two of Mr. Wagner.

Mr. RAINEY. Is that all with Prof. Snyder?

That is all, Prof. Snyder.

Mr. HELVERING. Mr. Wagner, you are here representing the Corn Products Refining Co., are you not?

Mr. WAGNER. I am here, as the record shows, to represent the Association of the American Manufacturers of Products Made from Corn, of which the Corn Products Refining Co. is one member.

Mr. HELVERING. They have a suit now pending in the United States court, have they not?

Mr. WAGNER. Yes; that was referred to yesterday. It is undetermined.

Mr. HELVERING. And brought by the Attorney General of the United States?