say, "This bread is made from flour that absorbs large amounts of water, and for your 5 cents you are getting so much water in this in addition to your food value"?

Mr. BURNS. No; I would not, because that would not be in the interest of fairness, because it would not be the truth. You understand that in the process of fermentation and in the process of baking there is a large amount of water lost, and there is very little, if any, more water retained in the finished loaf-a very slight increased percentage of water in the finished loaf. That water is necessary to the development of the food elements in the flour before it is baked. Mr. RAINEY. I understood yesterday that, although a large amount of the water that you put into it does not go to the consumer, he gets a good deal of it.

Mr. BURNS. Granting that he does get it, he gets more protein with it for the 5 cents that he pays, which is the basis of food value. Mr. FORDNEY. Do you know of any flour that is manufactured that goes solely to the baker and to nobody else?

Mr. BURNS. I do not know; no, sir.

Mr. FORDNEY. There is no flour made by any miller that sells solely to a baker; he sells to the general trade, does he not?

Mr. BURNS. Not that I ever heard of.

Mr. FORDNEY. I have never heard of any.

Mr. RAINEY. This kind of flour that millers sell to bakers, it is indicated in these advertisements.

Mr. BURNS. Those advertisements, as the chairman said, are in the bakers' trade journal, and they would not put an advertisement in a bakers' trade journal which would interest a housewife.

Mr. FORDNEY. Do you know of a mill making a kind of flour solely for the baker and not for the housewife?

Mr. BURNS. Not that I know of.

Mr. HELVERING. Is it not a fact, too, that those advertisements that appear in the papers are fom competitive millers all over the country? Mr. BURNS. Yes, sir.

Mr. HELVERING. Is it a fact or not that you can secure different prices from those millers showing that there is competition? Mr. BURNS. Well, I have already succeeded in doing it.

Mr. HELVERING. Another question relative to the water. What flours are there that you make bread out of without the use of water? Mr. BURNS. No known flour.

Mr. HELVERING. Then water is an absolute necessity in the baking of bread?

Mr. BURNS. Yes, sir; just as necessary as the flour itself.

Mr. HELVERING. And every woman in the home knows that?
Mr. BURNS. Absolutely.

Mr. GREEN. I may be mistaken, but I am under the impression that a miller testified that he was engaged in making flour from a soft winter wheat-a soft winter wheat that had only about 8 per cent of gluten-and that he made a very popular flour that sold very well at even a little higher price. Am I correct about that, Mr. Chairman? I am not sure, but he said something about it being sold in the South. I have forgotten, however, where he said it was sold. He claimed that he was making the best kind of flour. Can you explain that? Would that be a flour used by bakers?

Mr. BURNS. It might be, for some purposes. We use flour in our bakery in which we seek to find a flour with the lowest percentage of gluten, for the reason that we make pastry doughs out of it that must, to be acceptable to the public, be a short and crisp and snappy and brittle product, as free from the characteristics of gluten, which is a necessary property for bread, as it is possible to get it; such flour, for instance, as is used for cracker baking.

Mr. GREEN. What kind of flour do bakers generally use? Do they use a high grade patent flour?

Mr. BURNS. Well, many of them do.

Mr. GREEN. I was under the impression that they did not. I may be wrong about that.

Mr. BURNS. You are decidedly wrong about that, if you will permit me, and a very prevalent opinion of that sort exists. The fact of the matter is that the average commercial baker of the United States uses a better flour that the average housewife, a flour containing a higher food value, a higher percentage of gluten, more protein, and out of that flour he makes better bread than it is possible for any housewife to make.

Mr. GREEN. Is there some kind of flour known as bakers' patent, or something of that kind?

Mr. BURNS. Nearly every mill that mills flour has a number of general designations for the flours which it mills. They call them clears, first clears, second clears, low grades, standard patent, bakers' patent, short patent, and fancy patent.

Mr. GREEN. What is this bakers' patent?

Mr. BURNS. I could not define those, sir, because the baker's patent from one mill might not be a baker's patent from another mill.

Mr. GREEN. I was under the impression that it was a low grade of flour. Can you say anything about that?

Mr. BURNS. No; it is not a low grade of flour. It is not as high a grade of flour, from the basis of the classification of flours in grades, as a fancy patent. In other words, it is nearer the whole flour from the grain. If Dr. Wiley were asked that question he would tell you that it is a higher valued flour than a short patent flour, because Dr. Wiley believes in retaining as much of the coarse elements of the grain as possible.

Mr. GREEN. Is it largely used by bakers-the kind commercially called baker's patent?

Mr. BURNS. I do not think it is as largely used to-day as it was a number of years ago.

Mr. FORDNEY. I want to call your attention to a letter. I mentioned it, or a part of it, once before. This was written before the act which now is sought to be repealed was enacted in 1898. It is a letter that was furnished to the Agricultural Department and presented to the Committee on Ways and Means at the time, when this existing law was before this committee for consideration, and I will ask you whether or not if this law was repealed we might not get right back into the same rut? That letter is dated and was sent by the York Manufacturing Co., of Greensboro, N. C., May 7, 1898, to the Marshall-Kennedy Milling Co., of Allegheny, Pa.:

GENTLEMEN: We invite your attention to our mineraline—

Mineraline is stone, marble, or reck, or something of the sort, hard, and nothing else, is it not? That is my understanding.

We invite your attention to our mineraline, which is without a doubt the greatest existing discovery—

A wonderful discovery

on the market. There is no flour-mill man who can afford not to use, it for several reasons. Your flour will be much whiter and nicer. It does not injure the flour in any way; is not at all injurious to health.

And if it was, it would come under the pure-food act and be excluded.

By using mineraline you will realize a margin of from $400 to $1,600 on each carload you use.

Good Lord! Now listen further:

66

To secure a low freight rate we mark it as ship stuff."

Not "war rations" but "ship stuff." Mineraline was used extensively in mixed flour prior to the adoption of this law. Would you like to go back to that same method, Mr. Burns?

Mr. BURNS. I certainly should not. I know nothing about the conditions which existed at that time.

Mr. FORDNEY. Will you pardon me, my friend. If I am not correct I want to be. The pure-food law does not exclude the mixture of anything in a food article that is not injurious to health. As long as it shows the amount mixed-that is all that is necessary. Now, I made a statement yesterday, and I want to be more clearly understood than I was: For years the sugar refining companies have been mixing into what is called confectionery-powdered flour, mineraline, marble ground into flour. They say it lays better wherever it is placed. It makes it heavier, and it stays where it is put, etc. It is absolutely valueless to the human system as food, yet it is used today under our pure-food law, and was used prior to the adoption of this law, but it was used in mixing flours and made into bread.

Mr. BURNS. That is a very unfortunate situation. I would like to emphasize what has been said here before, although I want to do this very briefly.

The taking of this mixed-flour control out from under the revenue department and putting it into the general food and drugs act seems to eliminate from the control of the evil-because it is an evil-all control of it in intrastate business unless the law of each State specifically takes care of it. It has been quite generally assumed that the mixing of cornstarch and flour was a very elaborate process and required very extensive installations. I have a little $700 blending plant out in my bakery that will mix it beautifully. You can put up an $800 or $1,000 blending plant anywhere and mix it, you can ship it down to Tennessee to a mixing plant under the milling-intransit rate, stop your flour there, add your cornstarch, and send it to your trade without any label whatever on it; and you don't even have to put this label on until you cross the State line. I want to ask, in all seriousness, do we want that? Do not get away from this fact, that this is an imposition upon the public. It is, without question, a fraud and imposition upon the public. That does lessen the food value of the product, whether you mark it "mixed flour" or not, and it can be sold in any quantity to the people that can not read the label.

Mr. SLOAN. May I ask you a question?

Mr. BURNS. Yes, sir.

Mr. SLOAN. I notice that wheat, as explained, varies in amount of gluten or protein, and it will carry all the way from 7 to maybe 11, 12, or 13 per cent of those parts. But we will assume that there are classes of wheat that will be charged with 10 per cent of gluten or protein?

Mr. BURNS. Yes, sir.

Mr. SLOAN. We can also assume that there are wheats that would give pure flour that would be charged with only 8 per cent of gluten or protein. Now, then, the discussions about this have run along the line that has caused me to submit this proposition. The first wheat would be charged with 10 per cent gluten, would have, in 100 pounds of wheat, 10 pounds of gluten. The one charged with 8 per cent would have 8 pounds of gluten. Suppose, for instance, then, we would take 80 pounds of the first and more highly charged wheat. There would be in that 80 pounds 8 pounds of gluten, would there not?

Mr. BURNS. Yes, sir.

Mr. SLOAN. Now, then, if to 80 pounds of that superior wheat, having 8 pounds of gluten, we would add 20 pounds of cornstarch, having no gluten, the amount of gluten in each of those 100-pound lots, the mixture on the one hand and the wheat on the other, would be the same-8 pounds of gluten?

Mr. BURNS. Yes, sir.

Mr. SLOAN. Now, I think the committee is largely interested in this concrete statement that may be made by you as a master baker understanding food values. Wherein would that 100 pounds of pure wheat flour containing 8 pounds of gluten be superior to the 100 pounds of flour and cornstarch comingled, having the same amount of gluten? About that point I would like to have, if possible, your discussion as to why one has the more food value than the other?

Mr. BURNS. Well, you are entering into a chemical phase of the question which, as a baker, I would not undertake to answer, but which I would be very glad to have answered.

Mr. SLOAN. As a baker, what is your understanding? I do not suppose a man would be held to a technical

Mr. BURNS (interposing). Well, as a baker, I would say this: Why should we assume that there is any desirability in debasing a high-grade flour to the level of the poorest flours we have in the country? Why should we attempt to bring them all down to the poorest flour?

Mr. SLOAN. I am not discussing the desirability, but just assume that it was done, even though it was not desired, but simply was done as a matter of experiment, and assuming that it would not be wise to do this, but that it is done, which is the more valuable as a food product? Is one more valuable than the other, in your opinion as a master baker?

Mr. BURNS. I would not undertake to express an opinion on that, because that involves a food analysis that I can not give to you, but I would be very glad to have Dr. McDermot answer that question. Dr. McDermot is here and is a chemist, a research chemist, and I would be very glad to ask him to answer that question.

Mr. LIND. If he is not prepared to answer it, Prof. Snyder is prepared to answer that, and he will be called very shortly.

Mr. SLOAN. I would just like to hear a discussion about that, because we had a very long examination here that raised that question. Mr. DIXON. This witness is about through?

Mr. BURNS. I think I am entirely through, if there are no other questions.

Mr. DIXON. Then call another witness.

Mr. LANNEN. I would like to ask the witness a question or two, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DIXON. All right.

Mr. LANNEN. On the question of the calorific value of starch, Mr. Burns, do you know Dr. Graham Rusk, professor of physiology in Cornell University and scientific member of the Russell Sage Institute of Pathology?

Mr. BURNS. I presume I have heard of him.

Mr. LANNEN. Don't you know that he is a recognized authority on

nutrition?

Mr. BURNS. To my knowledge, no. I assume that he is.

Mr. LANNEN. I will show you his book and call your attention to page 7 of that book, which says that 1 gram of the ordinary foodstuffs when oxidized in the body yields the following number of calories. Now, I will ask you to examine that table and compare the calories of starch with the calories of protein and tell the committee the difference.

Mr. LIND. I think that is hardly fair.

Mr. BURNS. Well, if you please, Mr. Lannen, and if the committee please, I have not had a chance to look at this book. I do not know what table you are springing on me. Give that to a chemist, if you please.

Mr. LANNEN. I will state to the committee that Mr. Rusk gives the following table:

One gram of the ordinary foodstuffs when oxidized in the body yields the following number of calories:

Glucose.

Cane sugar_

Starch.

Fat_.

Protein.

Exactly the same as starch.

3.755

4.0

4. 1

9.3

4. 1

Mr. BURNS. Granting it is the same as starch, it may have the same calorific value but no protein.

Mr. LANNEN. On this German authority that you refer to, the part you read from here, as I understand it, gives an average value of protein as 5.71 for calorific value.

Mr. BURNS. Yes.

Mr. LANNEN. Starch, 4.19. Now, is it not a fact that that was a test in a burning tube, that it was a theoretical test in what is called a bomb, a calorimetric bomb for making artificial tests? Is not that true?

Mr. BURNS. I could not answer that question.

Mr. LANNEN. The caption of those figures reads that way:

Complete oxidation of 1 gram of each of the following articles of food in a calorimetric bomb gave the following values.