Mr. RAINEY. Does it make whiter bread than patent flour? Mr. SPARKS. The flour I referred to as "Ring Leader" is a selection out of that, better than full mill run, better because it is whiter. Mr. RAINEY. Better because it makes whiter bread?

Mr. SPARKS. Yes, sir.

Mr. RAINEY. Because it has less gluten?

Mr. SPARKS. No, sir.

Mr. RAINEY. It is the gluten that gives the color to the bread, is it not?

Mr. SPARKS. Yes, sir.

Mr. RAINEY. And it is the starch that makes it white?

Mr. SPARKS. I think the difference in gluten as between those several grades is very slight.

Mr. RAINEY. Which grade would have the most gluten, the whitest grades or the other?

Mr. SPARKS. Well, I don't think I know.

Mr. RAINEY. How much gluten does your first-grade flour have? Mr. SPARKS. According to the wheat we are grinding, I think 10 per cent; sometimes a little more and sometimes a little less.

Mr. RAINEY. Take the second grade; how much gluten is there in that?

Mr. SPARKS. About the same.

Mr. RAINEY. And this third grade; how much gluten is there in that?

Mr. SPARKS. So far as I know, about the same. There may be a slight difference

Mr. RAINEY. Is the third grade as white as the first grade?

Mr. SPARKS. No.

Mr. RAINEY. Is the second grade as white as the first grade?

Mr. SPARKS. No.

Mr. RAINEY. Is the third grade as white as the second grade in its products?

Mr. SPARKS. It is not.

Mr. RAINEY. Where do you get your wheat?

Mr. SPARKS. We have wheat in transit from Utah, Wyoming, Montana, Dakota, Wisconsin, and Kansas.

Mr. RAINEY. What grades do you buy?

Mr. SPARKS. Practically every grade.

Mr. RAINEY. Do you mix those grades together in your flours? Mr. SPARKS. These separate varieties, three separate varieties, are ground by themselves-spring wheat, soft wheat, and hard wheat. Mr. RAINEY. In different grades of soft wheat do you grind them together?

Mr. SPARKS. Yes; different varieties of soft wheat and grades as well.

Mr. RAINEY. You grind the lower grades and higher grades.

Mr. SPARKS. We mix them up and they are all good by the time we come to grind them.

Mr. RAINEY. You pay different prices for them, of course?

Mr. SPARKS. Yes.

Mr. RAINEY. Do you advise your purchasers that you are mixing the different grades of wheat, the better grades with the cheaper? Mr. SPARKS. No, sir.

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Mr. RAINEY. The consumer, even the jobbing purchasers, do not find that out? You do not tell them that, do you?

Mr. SPARKS. Well, if our flour is not up to the mark we find it out very quickly.

Mr. RAINEY. The ultimate consumer does not know that you mix different grades of wheat, does he?

Mr. SPARKS. Not from us; he does not.

Mr. RAINEY. Except as to whether it makes good bread or not. Mr. SPARKS. That is all.

Mr. RAINEY. And if corn flour and wheat flour were mixed, the consumer would find it out in the same way, would he not, whether it was good bread or not?

Mr. SPARKS. I should think he would.

Mr. RAINEY. That is the ultimate test of whether it is good flour or not-whether it makes good bread or not?

Mr. SPARKS. That has always been the case in our business. If it does not work out well we get it back.

Mr. RAINEY. And if it does not make good bread the purchaser finds it out?

Mr. SPARKS. I think so.

Mr. RAINEY. So you are not afraid of competition, whether it is mixed flour or not?

Mr. SPARKS. I do not agree with that; we are afraid of it.

Mr. RAINEY. You are afraid of competition?

Mr. SPARKS. We are scared to death of competition all the time. We are fighting it all our lives.

Mr. CASEY. Do you export?

Mr. SPARKS. Yes.

Mr. CASEY. What grade of flour do you export-the highest or the lowest grade?

Mr. SPARKS. Practically all grades.

Mr. CASEY. What is the difference in the price of those flours per barrel?

Mr. SPARKS. Our range of prices is perhaps a dollar or more than a dollar now—about $1.50, probably, between the cheapest grades we sell and the highest; I think that difference is about a dollar and a half at the present time.

Mr. CASEY. And is there anything on the containers of your flour to inform the public as to the grade of flour it is, whether high or low grade?

Mr. SPARKS. The trade-mark name; that is all we put on it.

Mr. CASEY. Do all those containers carry the name of your firm on them?

Mr. SPARKS. Yes.

Mr. CASEY. Then if the grocer or merchant would say to some consumer, "Here is the Sparks Manufacturing Co. flour" and they wanted a good flour manufactured by your company, if he was an unscrupulous merchant, he could sell your lower grade of flour as your high grade of flour, because it carries your firm's name, without any indication as to whether it is high or low grade on it?

Mr. SPARKS. Yes; he could do it about once.

Mr. FORDNEY. If you were to mix grades of wheat-soft winter wheat and spring wheat together-and sell to the jobber, and then on the other hand if you took half of the product of a barrel of wheat

and mixed 50 per cent of corn flour with it, the baker would readily tell the difference when making bread, would he not?

Mr. SPARKS. I think he would.

Mr. FORDNEY. He could tell the difference between a mixed wheat flour and a mixed wheat and corn flour?

Mr. SPARKS. Yes; he could.

Mr. FORDNEY. Certainly; and the person that ate the bread could tell the difference, if he was any judge of bread.

Mr. SPARKS. I think so.

Mr. FORDNET. Do you know that the sugar-refining company is mixing mineraline with powdered sugar?

Mr. SPARKS. I did not.

Mr. FORDNEY. Well, they do.

Mr. SPARKS. I am human, and I know that there are a lot of crooks in this world; and I think if you change this law it is going to give a lot of them a chance to operate, and I am afraid of them. I pretty near went broke once trying to be honest.

Mr. MOORE. Do you know the Shane Bros. & Wilson Co., millers, of Minneapolis, Philadelphia, and New York?

Mr. SPARKS. I know of them.

Mr. MOORE. They are a rather large concern?
Mr. SPARKS. Rather.

Mr. MOORE. They take the same view of this situation that you do, especially with respect to the law of 1898. I have here a letter from them which I would like to put in tht record:

Hon. J. HAMPTON MOORE,

SHANE BROS. & WILSON Co., MILLERS,
Philadelphia, Pa., February 2, 1916.

House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. DEAR SIR: H. R. 9409. On January 19 there was introduced in the House a bill, bearing the above number, providing for the repeal of the mixed-flour law of 1898. Prior to the enactment of this law in 1898 the flour millers of the country had the greatest difficulty in competing with manufacturers of mixed flour, who were using all sorts of adulterants, some of them being very deleterious to health; the principal adulterants being corn flour, flourine, mineraline, barytes, and soapstone.

These substances when ground so nearly resemble the appearance of wheat flour that it is practically impossible to detect the difference by the eye or by the sense of touch. The writer well recalls that adulterated flour was sold from 50 cents to $1 per barrel less than the genuine product, and as a consequence the sale of pure flour was made very difficult and unprofitable.

We can not believe that there will be any difficulty in defeating the proposed repeal of the mixed-flour law which has for 18 years been safeguarding the health of the American people. We therefore ask that you oppose this bill, not only because of the demand of millers who are now selling the pure wheat product but for the sake of the health of the people.

Very truly, yours,

SHANE BROS. & WILSON Co.
J. W. CRAIG, Jr.

Mr. RAINEY. Do some of your flours absorb more water than others; do you advertise them to absorb more water?

Mr. SPARKS. Yes; some will absorb more water than others. We have a flour we sell and advertise along that theory. That is, we tell these bakers that we think this flour will take up more water and we want them to buy it.

Mr. RAINEY. Because it can make more loaves of bread to the barrel and it carries more water in the finished product?

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.

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.