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 say. 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 nutritions in the way of

building up all the tissues of the body as the whole wheat flour is. It, however, tastes better to most people, is more attractive in appearance, and it is here to stay; and I am here to say a word in favor of the integrity of this product which means so much to the industries of this country, both agricultural and manufacturing, and so much to the reputation of the industries of this country in furnishing a pure article.

As some of you may remember, I did what little I could to call attention to the evils of bleaching flour, which I regard as a very great evil, and, happily, although the law has not been able to put a stop to it, public opinion has to a large extent done so and the bleaching of flour is to-day very much more restricted than it was a few years ago.

In regard to the effect of the addition of cornstarch to flour, it may be interesting to go back to one or two little passages in this pamphlet to which I have alluded, to show that it is not always advocated that those who use this product in the mixing of flour should do so solely for the public welfare, as illustrated by a quotation on page 6 of this pamphlet. [Reading:] "Instructions accompanying a shipment of flourine by the Glucose Sugar Refining Co., of Chicago," which is a producer of corn products.

In using flourine as a substitute, especially in the lower grades, they are brought out in color at least two grades, thereby enabling the miller also to obtain on the particular grade from 15 to 30 cents a barrel more with the mixture than without.

That is one of the reasons which was urged that day before bleaching became general for the admixture of this product with wheat flour.

Now, I want to make my argument to-day upon two points. One is that the mixing of corn products or the products of other grain with wheat flour is under the law an adulteration. That is so to-day, and it always has been regarded before the law was established as an adulteration, and it is legally to-day an adulteration.

It would be bad enough, Mr. Chariman, to repeal the law and leave wheat flour with other products to come solely under the food and drugs act as it stands to-day. I say that would be bad enough, for this reason. I know personally the limitations of the Bureau of Chemistry, as I presided over it for many years and had six or seven years' experience in the activities of that bureau in the enforcement of the food and drugs act. It would be possible, I suppose, to extend that bureau, if it were advisable, to such an extent that it could examine every product made by every mill in this country. But that would mean an expense of great magnitude and a work of even greater magnitude. Therefore, if flour is placed under the food and drugs act solely, as it would be if this law taxing it were repealed, it would be very difficult for the Bureau of Chemistry to supervise in an effective way the output of those mills that would seek to debase the flour by admixing other substances therewith; and for that reason it is better to go right to the source and license those who wish to make these mixtures under the revenue act, as is the case to-day.

A much more simple, a much more effective way of correcting this evil, in fact I am certain the best way to do it would be by the taxing power.

I believe to-day the food law upon the whole would be more effective if it were a taxing law exclusively and not a supervisory law. I believe we would have pure food, we would get at the source of difficulties, and we would have a better control.

But that is not here or there. This one particular article is under the control of the Revenue Department as oleomargarine is and as renovated butter is.

Now, let me ask your careful attention to this point, which, although it may have been raised here before, has not been raised to-day-and I have not had an opportunity to attend these meetings before to-day. What is true of flour must be equally true, if justice is done, with other food products. If, therefore, you make a special exception in favor of mixed flour, taking it out of the adulterated class, as you propose to do by the bill pending, adding a clause which specifically excepts flour from the operation of the clause which says if you mix an inferior substance it is an adulteration, why may not every other food product claim the same privilege?

Can you deny, gentlemen, a similar concession to every other food product? And then the manufacturers, the people who want to sell material to adulterate honey, and the same people who are promoting this would make an article of this kind, you could pass a law that honey is not adulterated if it is called mixed honey, if it is mixed with glucose and plainly marked "mixed honey," and the amount of the glucose added is stated upon the label. Did you ever think, gentlemen, that merely naming adulteration does not correct the evil? Do you know that the adulteration of food is something which can not be corrected by changing a label? Is not food just as much adulterated that has 20 per cent of corn starch in it after it is named as it is before? Is it not just as inferior to the original product as it was before? Has it not the same lack of nutrititional value as it had before? Does it not threaten the health and life of a child as much as it did before? Certainly it does.

Adulteration is not a fault that can ever be corrected by changing the label.

And, more than that, the change is made here about adulteration in the adulteration clause of this bill and not in the misbranding clause. This proposed amendment to the food law goes under "adulteration" and not under "misbranded," where it naturally would belong. No; the fault of adulteration is never reached, never has been, and never will be, by changing a label and calling it adulterated. Strychnine is just as poisonous under the name of strychnine as if sold as a salt. The fact that it must be labeled strychnine has nothing to do with its injurious quality. A food product is not improved in any way by requiring that it be properly named. That should be done. Of course it should be done. Every product that goes into commerce should be correctly named. But the name of it has nothing to do with its purity or its adulteration.

Mr. HILL. But, Doctor, you do not mean to say that adulteration, if we concede an adulteration; you do not mean to say that that is wrong, do you? The quality is sometimes improved by adulteration, is it not?

Dr. WILEY. I never knew anything that was improved by adulteration. I am speaking of adulteration in the sense of the law. Mr. HILL. So am I.