to any one particular food product. On the other hand, it has consistently advocated for a number of years the enactment by Congress and each of the 48 State legislatures of one general food law, containing efficient general rules making unlawful all adulteration or misbranding of all food products. The United States pure food law of 1906 is a general law. It contains no reference to any one particular food product. It expressly prohibits any and all injurious foods. It expressly prohibits the sale of any food product where the label is false or misleading in any particular whatever. If that law be found wanting in some particular, then by all means amend it, but amend it so that it will apply to all food products generally and not to one particular product. If it be found right and proper to require a statement on the label of the ingredients, then amend the statute to require all food mixtures to be labeled with a statement of the ingredients.

The association referred to, however, is opposed to a requirement that percentages be stated, for the reason that such a requirement makes it necessary to disclose trade formula which are generally of great value and constitute, in many cases, the basis of merit upon which various products have been sold, and a valuable good will built up. Formula, at least in so far as percentages of the different ingredients are concerned, are considered by the trade as legitimate trade secrets, property in which they hold proprietary rights which should not be invaded by food laws. A compulsory disclosure only serves to betray those secrets to a merchant's competitors. As a purely practical everyday matter, it results in no benefit whatever to the consumer.

The association is also opposed to the enactment in the statute law of food standards that is, definitions for various food products. Such standards necessarily are the result of scientific study and subject to change and alteration as the science of food production improves.

The association therefore respectfully urges that all of the provisions of H. R. 9409 be eliminated except those contained in section 1 providing for the repeal of the so-called mixed-flour law, and that the bill as thus amended be recommended for passage.

Now, gentlemen of the committee, I want to say just a few words giving the reasons why the association makes these recommendations. First of all, the object of food laws is to prevent the sale of injurious food to the consumer, and second, to prevent the consumer from being defrauded in the sale of food products. There are two ways of accomplishing this result: First, by a special law referring to a particular food product, and second, by a general law covering all food products and have efficient general rules applying to all food products. In choosing or deciding upon which is the proper course we should have in mind and the legislature should have in mind which one will enable manufacturers to produce food products at the lowest cost to the consumer. As one of the committee said yesterday, both sides of the legislature always have in mind the interests of the poor people. So in deciding this question the cost to the consumer is paramount. In that connection I want to call the attention of the committee to the absolute necessity of uniformity in the food laws of the 48 States. Here we have in this country 48 State legislatures having power to make laws on food subjects, and in addition, the National

Congress. If the food laws are not uniform, merchants who sell their products in a dozen or perhaps two dozen of the States, or possibly in the 48 States, will have to have as many different labels for their products as there are conflicting laws in the various States. If that is so, you gentlemen can readily appreciate that the cost of the manufacturing and selling of the product and getting it into the hands of the consumer must necessarily be increased. There is no question whatsoever about it. If it is going to increase the cost, the consumer will unquestionably bear the additional cost. The manufacturer will not. As somebody said yesterday, if the legislature places a tax on a product, the tax is added onto the price to the consumer. So I say, gentlemen, when this unnecessary item of cost can be avoided, it ought to be.

If Congress enacts, say, 1,000 special laws, each relating to a particular food product and the 48 State legislatures each do likewise, uniformity would be an utter impossibility and the diversity in requirements would either cause merchants to cease doing interstate business with consequent disastrous effects or the cost of products to the consumer would become exorbitant. The only proper course, for all concerned, is the adoption by Congress of a standard general food law and the adoption of that general law by each of the 48 States.

I want to say just a few words as to what this association has done. along the line of food laws. It was very instrumental in securing the passage of the food and drugs act of 1906. That is considered as a model statute, very comprehensive, affecting all food products, and containing not one provision relating to any one particular product.

Mr. HILL. Are you familiar with the bill introduced by Mr. Adamson, of Georgia, supplementing the law of 1906-the bill that was referred to this morning, taking in all other drugs not specified in the law of 1906?

Mr. ROCKWOOD. I have not seen it as yet; no, sir.

Mr. HILL. I wish you would get it and look it over and see whether that covers this particular case or not.

Mr. ROCKWOOD. The association in the last 10 years has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in a legitimate way in corresponding with and educating the legislators in every State, as to the vital aspects of food legislation, and they have succeeded, with the help of some other associations, in having the United States food law of 1906 adopted in practically every State. There are a few exceptions, but it has been adopted in practically every State. I know, because within the last six months I have had occasion to examine the laws of all the States relating to food products. We have prepared, on behalf of the association, a pamphlet showing just what the differences are between the State laws in each case and the national law, and showing what marvelous progress has been made. So that to-day the merchant may prepare his product for sale in all the States with very little chance of having to change his label whether he sells in New Jersey or Massachusetts, or any other place.

Mr. MOORE. You refer to the National Association of Wholesale Grocers?

Mr. ROCKWOOD. Yes, sir.

Mr. MOORE. Is the Southern Association of Wholesale Grocers affiliated with it?

Mr. ROCKWOOD. It is not affiliated; no, sir.

Mr. MOORE. It is a separate body?

Mr. ROCKWOOD. It is a separate body.

Mr. MOORE. Do you stand for a fixed price for foodstuffs?

Mr. ROCKWOOD. No; we have taken no stand on the fixed price. Mr. MOORE. In the matter of cereals, you would probably stand for the price fixed by the manufacturer?

Mr. ROCKWOOD. I am not prepared to say, because there is a difference of opinion in the association.

Mr. MOORE. Is there any difference of opinion among the members of the association as to the price at which cereal products should be sold?

Mr. ROCKWOOD. They have not taken any decided stand, so I would not be authorized to state one way or the other.

Mr. MOORE. Are you considered to be jobbers in the matter of anything produced under this bill?

Mr. ROCKWOOD. Jobbers; yes, sir.

Mr. MOORE. You would just be jobbers?

Mr. ROCKWOOD, Yes, sir.

Mr. MOORE. You would be, therefore, agents between the manufacturer and the retailer?

Mr. ROCKWOOD. Exactly; but the jobber must comply with the law, because his retailer throws the goods back on him if in any State they do not meet the requirements of the law.

Mr. MOORE. The point I had in mind, and with which the public is concerned, if that as to that commodity you probably sell at the price agreed upon in the trade.

Mr. ROCKWOOD. The price is affected by the competition of dealers. Mr. MOORE. And the consumer gets the advantage?

Mr. ROCKWOOD. I just wanted to say that you gentlemen may say that this statement I have just made does not sound very plausible, because you have not really heard within the last 10 years a great noise about the hardships that food merchants have run up against in the various States. Now, I want to state just what occurs to me as the reason for that.

Up to about 1903 or 1904 there was no national food law to amount to anything. Some of the States had food laws, but they were not very effective, and, furthermore, up to that time the appropriations for the enforcement of the State laws did not amount to anything, and there was no popular interest. At or about 1903 or 1904 a great enthusiasm arose as to pure-food subjects, and in 1906 the national food law was passed, and since then the State legislatures every year have been active along that line. If the National Association of Wholesale Grocers had not been on the job and watched the bills introduced in every legislature, which they do, year after year, to check the passage of impractical food laws, we would to-day be up against perhaps hundreds and thousands of special food laws in each of the States, so that it would be practically an impossibility to do business in more than one State

There is just one more thought. You gentlemen will, I am sure, admit that uniformity in the food laws of the various States is absolutely essential if the consumer is to get his product at a reasonable

cost. The only possible way to get uniformity is to enact a general food law rather than special food laws on the numberless different food products that the wholesale grocer handles.

Mr. FORDNEY. Mr. Rockwood, do you believe that the human system, in consuming mixed flour, gets as much benefit from mixed flour as it does from wheat flour, in the same quantity?

Mr. ROCKWOOD. Mr. Congressman, I really can not pass on those questions. I am not prepared-and as a matter of fact I would not want to say.

Mr. FORDNEY. If you were to discover that there is not as much nutritious quality in mixed flour as in pure wheat flour you would not advocate the use of mixed flour, would you?

Mr. ROCKWOOD. Well, I would advocate its use if it were cheaper in price and if its relative food value, considering the price of the two flours, was as great.

Mr. FORDNEY. And if it were a cheaper quality and had less nutritious qualities in it then there would have to be a wide difference in value of the raw material on the market before you would advocate its use, would there not?

Mr. ROCKWOOD. Yes, sir; exactly.

Mr. MOORE. Do you think the mixing of wheat flour and corn flour would reduce the price of pure wheat flour to the consuming public? Do you think the public would get any advantage from this admixture? Would it have any tendency to drive the price of wheat flour down?

Mr. ROCKWOOD. As I say, Mr. Congressman, whatever I may say on those questions probably would not be of any value, because I have not given them any thought. I came here for the express purpose of impressing upon the committee the practical necessity

Mr. MOORE. You represent the National Wholesale Grocers' Association, and it extends all over the United States, and you would probably know whether, if a mixed flour product were put on the market, it would make such an inroad upon pure wheat-flour products that the pure wheat-flour products would have to come down in price. My question is whether you think the manufacture of mixed flour now would reduce the cost of living, so far as wheat-flour or mixed-flour products are concerned?

Mr. ROCKWOOD. It would appear to me that it would.

Mr. MOORE. You think there would be a cutting of prices, do you? Mr. ROCKWOOD. It would strike me that that would be the necessary effect.

Mr. MOORE. Do you think there would be a cutting of prices so far as the price of your organization is concerned? Would the price. in one State cut the price in another State, or would there be a uniformity of prices by some arrangement you might make, in conformity, of course, with the antitrust law?

Mr. RockwOOD. So far as the National Wholesale Grocers' Association is concerned, there is no arrangement in the association nor any understanding as to prices.

Mr. MOORE. Of course, your association would not knowingly violate the antitrust laws, and therefore if they did not do that I just want to know how prices would come down on one commodity through another commodity being placed on the market in competition with it?

Mr. GREEN. The members of the association sell at the same prices, do they not?

Mr. ROCKWOOD. No, sir: each member determines his selling price himself in active competition with all other members.

Mr. HILL. You are counsel for the national association?

Mr. ROCKWOOD. Yes.

Mr. HILL. How long have you been with them?

Mr. ROCKWOOD. How long have we been counsel for the association?

Mr. HILL. Yes.

Mr. ROCKWOOD. Since its organization, in 1906.

Mr. HILL. Since the pure-food law was put in operation?

Mr. RockwOOD. Yes, sir.

Mr. HILL. You are familiar, then, with the workings of that law from that time down to the present?

Mr. ROCKWOOD. Certainly.

Mr. HILL. I would like to ask you whether in your judgment these special regulations in regard to foods, including the working of the regulations under the pure-food law, have tended to increase the cost of food to the people or to reduce it, leaving out, of course. the emergency of war, but taking it from the time of the beginning. has it been beneficial, so far as the cost of living is concerned, or has it been harmful?

Mr. ROCKWOOD. Well, in my judgment, in so far as the law and the regulations are practicable and workable, they have had a tendency to reduce the cost of products, because just as long as they are ef fective and practical and workable they tend to stamp out dishonest competitors, so that the honest merchant can afford to sell his products cheaper than he otherwise would.

Mr. HILL. There has been a very large increase in the cost of putting up food, has there not?

Mr. ROCKWOOD. That is on account of a number of causes, including, perhaps, the sanitary package.

Mr. HILL. The general effect, you think, has been beneficial?

Mr. ROCKWOOD. I think so, but I do say that when any statute or any regulation is impractical and burdensome and unnecessarily so the undoubted tendency is to increase the cost of food products. Mr. HILL. That is all.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Rogers wants to ask you a few questions, if you can answer them briefly, so as not to extend the hearings unreasonably.

Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Rockwood, it is a source of great annoyance, is it not, to have diversity of pure-food regulations between the Federal Government and the States?

Mr. ROCKWOOD. It is not only a source of great annoyance to the merchants, but the necessary effect is to increase the cost of food products and the sale of them and distribution of them, which increase, of course, necessarily falls on the consumer.

Mr. ROGERS. And the State statutes are, as a general thing, more difficult of enforcement and not so uniformly enforced as the Federal act?

Mr. ROCKWOOD. More difficult of enforcement?

Mr. ROGERS. Yes; and not so uniformly and rigorously enforced as the Federal act.