you are dealing with housewives, both urban and suburban, and you are dealing with women in the cities and the women in the farm homes of the country.

Mr. MOORE. We are all very fond of the housewives, but my question was this, whether we should disassociate from the housewife the making of the bread and turn it over to the chemical processes now, and allow certain large establishments and factories employing girls to make the bread.

Miss BOSWELL. I think it safe to say you can not do that for a great many years. I think it safe to say that the women in the homes of the country themselves are going to hold on to that bread-making process.

Mr. MOORE. That is to say, that we have a right still, some of us, to ask for "the kind of bread that mother used to make."

Miss BOSWELL. Exactly; but you seldom get it.

Mr. MOORE. Rather than to have it all turned over to the machinery that the girls operate.

Miss BOSWELL. There is nothing further, Mr. Congressmen, except to reiterate, as I said before, that I believe the passage of this bill under the provisions of the pure-food law in which the women of this country thoroughly believe, it would be satisfactory in many respects, perhaps in every respect, and with the addition that it goes further than that law, and also that we do believe, many of us, in the removal of what seems to be an injustice in the way of a tax, a prohibition on a certain business. It is also a question of justice with us in that way, and we are thoroughly convinced that the use of cornstarch in the preparation of the 20 per cent cornstarch and 80 per cent wheat would have just as much of a good food value in a barrel of flour or a loaf of bread as the wheat bread that we have at the present time.

Mr. HELVERING. As I understand you, in the beginning of your remarks, you laid especial emphasis on the fact that the parcel would contain the exact proportion.

Miss BOSWELL. Exactly.

Mr. HELVERING. Now, if it comes under the provisions of the purefood law and a package of flour is made at Oswego, N. Y., and you live in New York City, the contents of that package would not be printed on the package?

Miss BOSWELL. It would not be? That is a conflict, then, between the Federal food and the State law.

Mr. HELVERING. Of course, I am assuming that there is no State law which has been enacted in conformity with the Federal law. The pure-food law would not provide for a label on a package within the State?

Mr. CONRY. There is a State law in New York.

Mr. HELVERING. What would you say, then, about the passage of this law?

Miss BOSWELL. Then, I would say that I would work very hard in that State to get it to pass a law which followed up the pure-food

law.

Mr. HELVERING. I do not know that I am stating the law in New York. I know it exists in some of the States.

Mr. CONRY. There is a pure-food law in the State of New York.

Miss BOSWELL. I am aware that there is a pure-food law in New York.

Mr. FORDNEY. You stated that a change in the law would furnish more employment to men, and so on. Would it not do this: Would it not simply transfer the use to corn flour instead of wheat flour, more corn and less wheat, and not consume any greater quantity of barrels of flour?

Miss BOSWELL. I can not see that. I should think, in effect, it would increase both.

Mr. FORDNEY. Increase the consumption?

Miss BOSWELL. I can not see any reason why it would decrease it. Mr. FORDNEY. Corn meal can be made cheaper than corn flour. Miss BOSWELL. That is true.

Mr. FORDNEY. I would think it would transfer the use to corn flour instead of wheat flour.

Miss BOSWELL. It would, if you were asking to eliminate the use of wheat flour or if you were asking even to put in 20 per cent of wheat flour and 80 per cent of corn flour, possibly. I do not know whether I can go into that, but I can not see that the use would be especially decreased. I only say that we would be given a privilege of buying what we wanted as we wanted it.

Mr. MOORE. You would not favor a bill which would permit of the use of deleterious compounds in the mixture of flour?

Miss BOSWELL. Most certainly not; but it seems to me that this bill would prohibit that more effectually than anything we have yet had, because it shows exactly what is in it and the proportion of it. Mr. MOORE. Corn flour, as you understand it, would not raise itself for baking purposes.

Miss BOSWELL. I certainly do understand that it would not.
Mr. MOORE. It would not of itself?

Miss BOSWELL. Oh, no.

Mr. MOORE. Do you think that there would be any additional employment as to labor by reason of the passage of this bill, or would there simply be a shifting of labor from one line of manufacture to another?

Miss BOSWELL. I think I am not prepared to say that. My thought, in the first instance, was that anything that increases the opportunity of any industry naturally causes more employment, and I can not see that it would simply be a case of shifting, but I am not prepared to argue the question.

Mr. MOORE. Is it not a fact that, if the consumption of bread remained about the same, that there would be no addition in the matter of labor? Do you not think that it would simply be transferred from one kind of a factory to another?

Miss BOSWELL. Possibly; but are we considering, with the changing conditions, especially with the conditions at the present time, with the war and all of those things that come before us now, that there will be a need for just such a provision as this bill would make possible, that there will be need for the use even for more wheat and more corn, and that we would be doing a benefit to the community by making such a mixture possible.

Mr. MOORE. This bill is to remove the tax of 4 cents a barrel on mixed flour. Do you think it possible that the removal of the tax

of 4 cents a barrel on mixed flour would pass on to the consumer, so that the consumer would obtain any large benefit in the price of flour?

Miss BOSWELL. That I am not prepared to argue.

Mr. MOORE. Does it seem reasonable at all?

Miss BOSWELL. I presume not, in the matter of 4 cents, or 1 cent, but it has been proven by several people, I think, including Gov. Lind, that the whole profit on a whole barrel is very limited, that the margin is small, and that therefore the removal of this tax would be beneficial, and some gentleman, I forget who, but he proved quite to my satisfaction that the benefit would be to the consumer, that it would not go to the manufacturer, and if there is any way in which the consumer can be benefited, we are for it.

Mr. MOORE. Since you have given great thought to the consuming public in this matter, I will ask you if it is not true that if a consumer, our beloved housewife again, should go into a retail store and purchase flour and take it home and make it into bread in her own way, whether she should not make more bread and get more out of the price she paid for the flour than if she bought the bread ready made?

Miss BOSWELL. Oh, yes.

Mr. MOORE. Isn't it a fact also that she could get chipped beet to-day, taking it as the butcher cuts it and get much more of it and get it at a much cheaper price than if she bought chipped beef done up in rather a fancy container with labelings on it?

Miss BosWELL. That might possibly be, but the point is that as a rule she gets it the other way.

Mr. MOORE. Isn't it true that she would get oat meal much cheaper if she would go to the store and buy it than if she bought it in packages where the weight was a little shorter than if she bought it in bulk?

Miss BOSWELL. That goes into the realm of weights and measures. Mr. MOORE. It enters as well into the consumers' business in regard to this high cost of living, and if you will make an inquiry as to the manufacturer's product that he has provided for the housewife and then inquire as to the cost of the raw material which the housewife herself makes up, I think it will be found that she can obtain a very decided advantage in the cost of living if she would look more closely into the details of purchase.

Miss BOSWELL. Mr. Congressman, Miss Cauble, who will speak further on that, later, will go further into the question as to the benefit of those who most need it.

The CHAIRMAN. Have you examined these loaves of bread?

Miss BOSWELL. I have had the pleasure of eating a piece, Mr. Chairman, of each one.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you think that either one is inferior to the other?

Miss BOSWELL. No; I should say that the housewife, as a rule, would find that the texture, that the closeness, that the general effect on her of the loaf made with the 20 per cent of corn starch was more pleasing and quite as palatable, if not more so, and not inferior in any way to that made by the whole wheat.

Mr. DIXON. Have you used the mixed flour in your own family?

Miss BOSWELL. My own family has used it.

Mr. FORD NEY. Is it not true that the nutritious quality in the starch is very much less than in the wheat flour? Therefore, if the bread is as plentiful, the strength of the body is much less in bread made out of starch and flour than out of wheat flour?

Miss BosWELL. I shall not go into that except to say

Mr. FORDNEY. I would like to have you go into that. It is very important.

Miss BOSWELL. I think that will be brought out by the other lady in the morning, is the point I am making, and I think, in a loaf of bread-one loaf of bread or however many loaves of bread might be consumed by the family-I should not think that it would be a very great number; that although it may not have exactly the same qualities as the other, that the starch will be found extremely nutritious. Cornstarch done up in every way and in many ways is the first thing we give to invalids when they are able to take anything, and it must be considered that it is a helpful and a health-building thing; otherwise it would not be used in that way.

Mr. FORDNEY. My information is that in cornstarch there is about one-twelfth of nutritious qualities contained in wheat flour. Therefore, if the flour is mixed with 20 per cent cornstarch, the nutritious qualities of the products of that package would practically be only four-fifths of the value that it would be if they were all wheat flour. Miss BOSWELL. I shall not go into that, as I say, but just speaking in a very light way, I should say that in my own house I might possibly advise them to eat more of the slices of bread. We could then in that way overcome many of the difficulties that the gentleman from Pennsylvania thought of in reducing the use of wheat flour.

The CHAIRMAN. There are a great many homes in the country where they would like to have a chance to eat more slices of bread. (The committee thereupon adjourned.)

COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS,

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Washington, D. C., February 1, 1916. The committee met at 10 o'clock a. m., Hon. Henry T. Rainey (acting chairman) presiding.

Present: The chairman and Messrs. Dixon, Hull, Garner, Collier, Dickinson, Conry, Oldfield, McGillicuddy, Allen, Casey, Helvering, Fordney, Moore, Green, Sloan, and Hill.'

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order.

The first witness this morning is Miss Laura Cauble, of New York City.

STATEMENT OF MISS LAURA CAUBLE, 628 WEST ONE HUNDRED AND FOURTEENTH STREET, NEW YORK CITY, LATE SPECIAL INVESTIGATOR OF THE BUREAU OF FOOD SUPPLY, REPRESENTING THE NEW YORK ASSOCIATION FOR IMPROVING THE CONDITION OF THE POOR.

The CHAIRMAN. You may proceed, Miss Cauble.

Mr. LIND. Before Miss Cauble begins, Mr. Chairman, may I inquire in the event that the hearing of these witnesses is not concluded to-day, will the committee sit to-morrow?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

Miss CAUBLE. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I am here to ask for the repeal of a bill 18 years old, because in 18 years science has revealed to us in every path of life such changes that our opinions naturally have changed with them; our mode of procedure has changed with them. What man of you would be willing to go back and conduct any of the affairs of your business by the methods of 18 years ago?

Mr. FORDNEY. If it was a good method. I would be willing to follow it.

Miss CAUBLE. If it is a good method, yes; but if scientific investigation has revealed processes which make possible improvements over old methods, every man of you would adopt the new as a matter of economy. We fear only what we do not understand. The housewife has no fears of this bill, because within 20 years the whole subject of home economics has been developed and extended in the education of women. Men have blamed women for not managing their household affairs more economically and for not knowing better what they ought to do. But I ask you, gentlemen, if the women who went to school with you did not receive the same education that you did? Was not all the chemistry taught, up to a few years ago, the same for women and men? Now, women need to know chemistry from the standpoint of the source and composition of foods in nature, the changes which take place in manufacturing and in cooking, and in the metabolism of foods in the human body. Men are organizing their business in foods on the basis of commercial utilization of all the products and for what they can get out of it; women are organizing their business in foods on the basis of economically supplying the food requirement of the human body and for getting the growth of children out of it. The ideas and ideals of women have not changed a particle. Women are simply acting upon more intensified interest and organizing for concerted action in acquiring an adequate protection for the food supply of the country, for better utilization of it, and for protection to children in many different relations.

We have heard some references to the chemical processes by which corn is made into starch and to the thousands of years in which wheat flour has been produced. The United States of America is a child among nations, she is one of the strongest and greatest of nations, and the gift of corn is one of the greatest gifts that America has shared with the world. The "starving time" in Virginia would have seen the little colony wiped out if it had not been for the gift of corn by the Indians to the colonists. By the old ash process-the process of our forefathers, a chemical process-the corn was hulled and the whole grain made to furnish food for the people, or it was ground into meal and could be made into mush; and that was true in every colony and of every group of colonists.

The new chemistry has taught us women something more. It has taught us to search nature for the suitable proportions of protein, fat, carbohydrates, and ash for the maintenance and growth of the human beings in our care, and to inquire into the cost of production and utilization and to discriminate more carefully in the selection of foods. We think that it is high time that the food value