Mr. RICHARDSON. It is the duty of the prosecuting attorney to enforce the penalties provided.

(Mr. Richardson read the provision of the bill covering this subject.) The CHAIRMAN. That is confiscation.

Mr. CORLISS. That is confiscation of the property.

The CHAIRMAN. It would furnish employment for the district attorney and the courts in taking up the round of confiscations.

Mr. GROSVENOR. May I say a word on this subject?

The CHAIRMAN. Certainly. I did not want to interfere with your line of discussion.

Mr. GROSVENOR. I do not believe that anyone believes that the Government could turn around and sell these food products for foods. The CHAIRMAN. But the statute is peremptory.

Mr. GROSVENOR. Yes; but they could sell stuff for nails, for wagon

Mr. GROSVENOR. There are a great many channels in which they can be disposed of. The statute could easily be amended to prohibit the Government selling them for food.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you know anything about the history of this bill, who advocates it, Mr. Grosvenor; what association of manufacturers or dealers advocate it?

Mr. CORLISS. I think he has answered that.

Mr. GROSVENOR. Excuse me, I have not answered the question fully. This bill is formally indorsed as to its regulative features-not as to its administrative features-as contained in the two sections 4 and 5. They are practically the same as in the Mann bill.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you know who drew it?

Mr. GROSVENOR. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Will you state?

Mr. GROSVENOR. It was drawn by the food committee of the Association of Manufacturers and Distributers of Food Products.

The CHAIRMAN. Who are the committee, please?

Mr. GROSVENOR. Mr. H. H. Logan, of Boston; Mr. F. W. Huffen, Mr. Charles Arms, of New York; Mr. V. S. Anderson, of Camden; Mr. John Wysen, of Philadelphia, and Mr. W. H. Williams, of Detroit. I stated before you came in, sir, that this bill claimed nothing original, but was, as we believed, the best part of the different bills proposed before this and other committees in this Congress.

The CHAIRMAN. It being drafted, what was then done with it; was it submitted to the body at an annual meeting or other meeting?

Mr. GROSVENOR. It was submitted to a special meeting of the association; it was submitted to other associations who had indorsed what is before your committee as the Mann bill. Understand, we had substituted the administrative features of another bill.

The CHAIRMAN. What other bill?

Mr. GROSVENOR. I believe it is part of the Hepburn bill, and a part of the Warner bill now before the Committee on Agriculture.

The CHAIRMAN. It is the bill of the Pure-Food Congress, is it not? Mr. GROSVENOR. Which one?

The CHAIRMAN. The one which had previously been indorsed by these bodies.

Mr. GROSVENOR. The last Pure-Food Congress met two years ago this month, and at that time I had the pleasure of attending every

session of the Pure-Food Congress. A bare majority of that congress indorsed what was then known as the Brosius bill.

Mr. WEDDERBURN. I wish to say that the very question that is up now was up before that congress, and instead of a bare majority there was a majority of three-fourths. Dr. Wiley says nine-tenths, and other gentlemen here know that I am correct in that statement.

Mr. GROSVENOR. The gentleman is now proceeding upon the assumption that those who at that time indorsed the

Several GENTLEMEN. Brosius bill.

Mr. GROSVENOR. No, sir; not the Brosius bill; the bill which was presented by a member from Wisconsin, and afterwards presented in Congress. You gentlemen would remember it if you would get your caps on. It was not the Babcock bill, although it may have been the Babcock bill. It was presented by some Wisconsin member, and the difference between that bill and the Brosius bill lay in its administrative features. And when I say a bare majority I am pretty close to the truth, because the vote was 58 to 44, 44 voting for the Babcock bill, if it was the Babcock bill. This is indorsed by this association. It consists, if I remember right, of thirty-eight manufacturers in the East. You might say the East, although its membership extends as far as Michigan and represents a great deal of money. It is indorsed by the Illinois Manufacturers' Exchange, which, I understand, is a very large organization. It is indorsed by the Commercial Exchange of Chicago, which embraces practically the food distributors and manufacturers of food around Chicago

The CHAIRMAN. Have you in your custody the action, the resolutions, or other methods by which these associations made these indorsements?

Mr. GROSVENOR. I have, with possibly one exception.

The CHAIRMAN. Will you lay them before the committee?
Mr. GROSVENOR. Yes, sir. They are in my room.

This bill was indorsed by the National Association of Wholesale Grocers at a meeting in New York City the latter part of November, the 18th or 20th, I think. Understand, I am making this statement advisedly.

The CHAIRMAN. When you say "this bill," do you mean the bill 12348, or the bill earlier introduced by Mr. Mann? This bill you are now speaking of was introduced on Monday by Mr. Corliss.

Mr. GROSVENOR. Yes. I referred to the regulative features, sections 3 and 4, of this bill. I should have made that plainer, perhaps. It was indorsed in another bill known as the Mann bill, but those same interests have since, I think, in every instance indorsed, and their representatives here have thoroughly indorsed, and will ask your committee to report bill 12348.

The CHAIRMAN. Now, let us see if I understand; all of these associations, being dealers, desire that kind of legislation that neither prohibits nor punishes?

I

Mr. GROSVENOR. I must take exception to the last two words, because I can not agree with you. They indorse this legislation. Í claim it prohibits everything that should be prohibited and punishes in the proper way. It is indorsed by the National Association of Wholesale Grocers, which action was taken at its meeting in New York, and has been indorsed since, I believe, by the executive committee of that association, and I believe one of the committee is here

to indorse it. It was put in charge of the executive committee, I believe. It was indorsed by the retail grocers in their meeting in Milwaukee in January. This association represents 29 States and 79,000 retail grocers. It is indorsed in a personal way by a great many outside of any organization.

The CHAIRMAN. Have you the indorsement of any purchasers and consumers?

Mr. GROSVENOR. I have my own, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. You might also be classed in the other class, might you not?

Mr. GROSVENCR. No, sir. I am not a manufacturer. I am here, of course, representing manufacturers. No, sir; I know of no indorsements by consumers; nor do I know of any such indorsements for any bill.

I might say that some little time ago, in order to get away from this labeling proposition, in my judgment this giving to a man or one set of men power to state what the labels shall be, under which a man must do business-

The CHAIRMAN. Let me interrupt you. Do you know of any law that proposes that; requiring what the labels shall be, other than that the labels shall state what the contents of that compound may be?

Mr. GROSVENOR. Yes, sir. When I started off, I read the Michigan food laws. I think the gentleman was not here when I did that. I stated as a general proposition that it was identical with the Wisconsin law, the Illinois law, the Ohio law, and the Indiana law, and still every one of those States, under the power given the food commissioner and the language is less broad than some of those bills giving Congress the power-produce certain articles that can not be produced in any two States under the same label. It is to avoid those conditions, and I said, further, that if the national law should give the same power and the national commissioner should say, for instance, that a certain jelly should be labeled compound-and he would have that power under a national law--that while it was permissible to ship it from Ohio to Kentucky, yet after it reached Kentucky it could not be sold.

The CHAIRMAN. No condition of that kind could arise under any bill that is before Congress now?

Mr. GROSVENOR. Am I permitted now to consider the bills which you read yesterday?

Several MEMBERS. Go ahead.

Mr. GROSVENOR. I say, Mr. Chairman, am I permitted to consider the bills whose numbers you read yesterday?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. GROSVENOR. Yes, I think so. I think particularly under this bill, known as No. 93052. I think equally so under No. 3109. I think such a power is prescribed under these bills, and I know food commissioners have prescribed labels under less broad language than this. The CHAIRMAN. The power is simply that there shall be a label that shall state the contents of that package.

Mr. GROSVENOR. This bill absolutely prohibits under one section the sale of imitation products under any name. An imitation might be held by the Commissioner to come under any one of three sections in bill No. 3109, in my judgment. The point I want to bring out the strongest is to avoid the very condition that now exists and state that

we object to the passage of that kind of a law, the labeling law. And in my judgment there are but two ways to get away from it. First, to pass a comprehensive law that shall contain a section relative to each product right down through the whole list of products. A gentleman stated yesterday that such a law existed in some continental country, in some country of Europe. It is possible to get away from the labeling process in that way, and I do not believe that any manufacturer would object under such a law, if he could only know what he is expected to do under this law. The second is the passage of some such bill as the Corliss bill, which simply prohibits injurious adulterated substances to be used in food products and tells exactly what is to be expected.

Mr. COOMBS. How does your law reach everybody in the State who makes goods in the State and sells those goods in the State?

Mr. GROSVENOR. This law?

Mr. COOMBS. Your law or any other national law.

Mr. GROSVENOR. I do not think it could affect goods sold and consumed in one State. It would not apply in such a case.

Mr. COOMBS. It is simply a matter regulating exchange of goods between the States?

Mr. GROSVENOR. Yes, sir; it being claimed now that goods are transported from one State to another in original packages and do not become subject to that State's food laws.

Mr. COOMBS. Let me ask you this: The different States, you say, except three, and Territories also, have pure-food laws. How do they work?

Mr. GROSVENOR. They are dead letters except where a department is established for their enforcement. To pass a law and not make it anyone's business to enforce it does not amount to anything. There is no denying the fact that in such cases they are absolutely dead letters.

Mr. COOMBS. Is there any law that is not a dead letter that is without a penal clause in it-that is, upon the lines of the proposed Corliss law?

Mr. GROSVENOR. That is, as a State measure?

Mr. COOMBS. As a State measure.

Mr. GROSVENOR. I think not.

Mr. Chairman, do you wish these indorsements which you said you wished presented?

The CHAIRMAN. You may suit your convenience about that.

Mr. GROSVENOR. I am desiring to suit yours.

The CHAIRMAN. Any time before we conclude the printing of our hearing will do.

Mr. GROSVENOR. I will try to have them here at the next meeting.

STATEMENT OF MR. GEORGE A. SCHERER, REPRESENTING THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF RETAIL GROCERS AS ITS CHAIRMAN ON FOOD LEGISLATION.

Mr. SCHERER. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I desire to state to your committee that our National Association of Retail Grocers, organized during the World's Fair in 1893 at Chicago, from that very time on has been interested and busy to make popular opinion and to get a national food law. We have been represented at the different food con

gresses, and while as grocers we were not versed at that time, or even later on, very much in what a food law is, or how it operates, or what it should be, we went along on lines laid down by men who were more able than we were, and I think their work was a good one. I believe if it was not for them we would not be here to-day. It paved the road to something that the country needs. But I want to say to the chairman and the gentlemen of the committee that we have given the matter the consideration of two congresses and the introduction of different State laws from that time on a good deal of attention, and your humble servant is one among others of the State association of Illinois to claim the credit of having upon the statute books of Illinois a food law. So you can see our interest, our earnest interest, for such a law.

At the Champagne University we came together, the wholesale and retail men, the manufacturers of food products and the drug men, and the seed men. We finally eliminated drugs from our bill and eliminated seed. We saw it was a cumbersome affair. But we persisted in having a food law. We found out the operation of food laws after getting a food law, and I want to say to the chairman and the gentlemen it has radically revolutionized our ideas as to some State food laws and what a proper food law should be. It is your humble servant's opinion and I want to say the opinion of a great many, if not all, of the retailers of this country-that a food law and the different food laws that are now in existence are going entirely beyond the boundary which we believe in all candor should be the object of food laws.

The fundamental principle in our estimation, Mr. Chairman' and gentlemen, is that all people have a right to ask from Congress and from our State administrations protection against a latent property that neither the retailer in the ordinary way-not speaking of impossibilities and even the wholesaler can detect that may be injurious to the health of his patrons. We are eating foods ourselves; we have families, and we are seriously interested that no such latent property of injurious materials shall be introduced into our stomachs to make it necessary to call a physician, and that we may possibly succumb to a condition of that kind.

For that reason we ask for protection, and we believe we are entitled to it; and when a food law has taken care of that scope, of that intent. of that need, of that desire, of that motive that we all are here asking from you and from our State governments the protection, I will believe it has fulfilled its entire mission.

And in order to bring before your body for consideration the views in a practical manner, we, among others, have taken this matter under consideration, and went in and indorsed the bill and helped form a bill for your consideration to bring practically before you what the wants and the needs of the people are, and the needs and wants of those that are close to them.

He

For an illustration-I am not prepared to, and it is not necessary for me to go into the merits of this bill, but for an illustration I know a law, our Illinois law, that has a similar section in regard to adulterations and mixtures, and our commissioner made a ruling. sent it out broadcast. He attends our State conventions and we supported him, and we assist him in every manner we can; but he sent out a ruling and I got that; I was not quite satisfied, and I went up to