which is mined by a profit-sharing corporation, except that a mine wherein less than 50 hands are at work may be in connection with the wage system; and that the only bar iron and bar steel that may enter into interstate or foreign commerce shall be that which is the product of coal and iron ore that has been mined under the conditions specified in this paragraph, and that the smelting shall be done in an independent plant having equal rights to raw materials and practicing profit sharing. (c) The meaning of "profit sharing" is that the workers shall receive one-half of the net profits after paying 6 per cent interest on the capital invested, and that onehalf of the membership of the mill-management board shall represent the workers. (See pp. 71A, 55, 71, Book II.) SEC. 19. Industrial congresses.-1. To the extent that there may exist in Germany, France, or the British Isles a unified control of the sales abroad in any industry or for the control of purchases in the United States, then the Federal industrial commission for the protection of this Nation's interests shall install an industrial congress in each of the industries affected. [The name should include the industry affected, for example, the iron congress, similar to the German iron parliament.] 2. How constituted.-Each industrial congress shall consist of an equal number of representatives of the capitalists and representatives of the workmen and a representative of the public acting through the Government, a representative of the Federal industrial commission, who shall be the chairman and possess a veto power, subject to appeal to the industrial commission, and its decision to be subject to appeal to the elected representatives who under the Constitution are clothed with power to determine national questions of public policy. The procedure for each of the several appeals shall be that set forth in section 14. 3. Repeal. Hereby is repealed "An act to promote export trade," approved April 10, 1918. NEW REMEDIES. (The foregoing titles set forth proposals for new remedies in national affairs, in addition to new remedies to be applied by the legislatures. The aim is to end the broken-down industrial system described in the introduction. These proposed remedies are part of the new progressivism, for the quick restoration of equal rights in industry, to result in prosperity, the completion of the glorious new age.) ADDITIONAL DETAILS. SEC. 20. 1. Unfair competition prohibited. Unfair methods of competition in interstate commerce and in foreign commerce are hereby declared unlawful, and the Federal industrial commission is directed to decide just what shall constitute this unfair competition, except as concerns banks and common carriers. Each decision on this subject by the commission shall be in the form of a recommendation to the elected representatives who, under the Constitution, are to decide questions of national public policy. A copy of each of said decisions shall be mailed to each Member of Congress and to the President, and the subsequent procedure shall be that specified in section 10 of this act. 2. Repeal. There is repealed the Federal Trade Commission act of September 20, 1914, and amendments thereto. Further details for this Federal bill are similar to the details in the State bill, sections 20 to 35, inclusive. STATEMENT OF MR. HERBERT J. BROWNE, FARMER, LODI, N. Y. Mr. BROWNE. Mr. Chairman, I can qualify as a farmer. The informal remarks I make at this moment I will submit to the committee, and it can determine where they want me to fit in, because in the three minutes at my disposal I can merely tell you what I have got. Perhaps I had better come in on the Sinclair bill. My grandfather, my father's father, was a farmer and a country miller in Fremont, N. H. As a very small boy I remember that he took one-tenth of a bushel of wheat as toll for grinding the flour, delivering back to the farmers nine-tenths in flour, middlings, and bran. I did not want to trust my memory on that, so in the town of Lodi, where I really farm, I knew a man whose father and grandfather before him had been country millers. His name is George Maxwell. I told him my story, and he said, "You are right. Just wait a minute." And he went over to his house, across the street from his office, and brought back this old black walnut measure [exhibiting measure] which his father and grandfather before him had used to take toll on the wheat which they ground. It holds one-tenth of a bushel of wheat. The old processes did not make as much flour as the present. Then they produced 40 pounds of flour out of 60 pounds of wheat as delivered to the mill. They allowed usually about 2 pounds for the tare cleaning, and they got 40 pounds of flour, 4 pounds of middlings, and 14 pounds of bran, by the old process. The modern process does better. The farmer to-day that sells his wheat at 90 cents-and that is what I sold mine for last year-pays $2 minimum for the resulting wheat, middlings, and bran. That can be verified by taking any daily paper and examining the wholesale quotations of flour, bran, and middlings. The CHAIRMAN. The toll is $1.20 a bushel, is it? Mr. BROWNE. The toll is 55 per cent, or $2.09. In other words, the farmer to-day is paying five and one-half times as much to get his wheat ground and returned in flour, bran, and middlings as his grandfather did before him. The CHAIRMAN. Is that to the retailer, or to the mill? Mr. BROWNE. He sells his wheat to the local elevator, and he buys his flour from the local retailer. The CHAIRMAN. Yes; but how much profit does he get? You can then get the profit to the miller. Mr. BROWNE. I am not saying the miller gets it all, but in the various processes which now intervene between the man who raises wheat and the return of that wheat ground 55 per cent is absorbed, whereas in the old days he could take it to his local mill and get his stuff right back, and he only paid one-tenth. Now, in varying proportions that same thing applies to everything which the farmer buys Mr. VOIGT. The thought occurs to me there, why don't they keep up the old system then? Why does not the miller do it for 10 per cent? Mr. BROWNE. In the various things which have intervened in the production of modern machinery so many elements of cost have come in, so many new elements of taxation have intervened; it is not a question of profiteering; it is a question of processes made doubly and trebly expensive by the system of taxation we now have. Mr. KINCHELOE. How can Congress control that? Mr. BROWNE. Congress can control that by weeding out the taxes which to-day rest with unequal burden upon the farmer and placing those taxes where they belong. I really do not want at this moment to go into an extended argument on that. Mr. WILLIAMS. Is the single tax your solution? Mr. BROWNE. I would not call it the single tax; I would call it the discovery of where the farmer's labor has gone and where his activities find their fruition. Let me illustrate: The anthracite coal fields of Pennsylvania doubled in value from 1913 to 1922. In 1913 they were worth about five billions of dollars, selling value; to-day they are worth about twelve billions of dollars. That is obviously due to the fact that the anthracite coal producers can charge the public all that the traffic will bear. I have put coal in my cellar in years gone by for $4.25 a ton. Before the war we put it in the cellar for $8 a ton. To-day it costs $16. Now, let us see what happened. At a time when the Government was taking pennies from children for soda water the anthracite coal fields doubled in value, and, as coal fields, contributed not one red cent to the Government in its hour of distress. Mr. JONES. Is it your idea, then, to levy all the tax on the natural resources? Mr. BROWNE. I would levy the principal taxes on those natural resources which, by reason of their position, are able to exact a great tribute from the public. Mr. TINCHER. If it is levied on one natural resource Mr. BROWNE. I have named one; I will name another. Mr. TINCHER (Continuing). You would have to levy it on all of them. Mr. BROWNE. Yes. But I want to give you one key illustration. Mr. TINCHER. You have been recognized as one of the advocates of a tax on realty for some time, have you not? Mr. BROWNE. I think so; yes. Mr. TINCHER. You seem to resent that term, the "single tax." Mr. BROWNE. Because the single tax does not cover it. The single tax as it is understood in the public mind would be taxing the farmer's lands, when it is the concentrated value that monopoly has given to certain classes of natural property that should bear the tax, and not the farmer. Mr. TINCHER. Whom does the farmer pay his taxes to now, principally? Mr. BROWNE. The farmer pays so many and such involved taxes that it would call for more than an expert examination ever to uncover them all. Allow me to observe that in all the investigations which the Government has carried on, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars and producing buildings full of documents, there never has been an investigation of the incidence of taxation. Let me consider one more example-a house. A house finally in its local community is taxed on its cost. That cost is composed of labor and certain elements of raw material. The lumber which went into that house, the lime, the plaster, the bricks, the iron, all are taxed in the process of manufacture, in the plant somewhere. The mill which sawed that lumber was taxed. The machinery in that mill was taxed, in the mill. The machinery that made that machinery was taxed. So you can go on back into a long series of taxations, rolling up and rolling up a perfect ball of yarn of taxes, until if we had a great investigation we would find that not less than 25 per cent of the cost of a house consists of involved and concealed taxes resting on the material that went into the house and the processes which produced that material. The same is true with the farmers' machinery. His reaper is made in a taxed plant, and the taxes go into the overhead. The material in that factory was taxed before it got to the factory. So you can go on back through a never-ending line and multiplication of taxes, and they all finally come down to the man who uses the thing. Let us take another instance. The farmer is the big user of the automobile to-day, and uses a cheap automobile. I will talk by the card. Henry Ford makes a cheap machine which is an extravagant machine in the use of gasoline. Everybody who knows anything about automobiles knows that Henry Ford's machine uses a great deal more gasoline than is needed on a first-class road. There is an automobile carburetor now locked up in this town which will make 60 miles per gallon of gasoline on a Ford car on a first class road, and they are going to keep it locked up until they have got the patents on it. But Henry Ford won't use it. Why? Two or three months ago he had all his force of salesmen there in Detroit, and each one had some suggestion to make in regard to the Ford car, about how they would improve it. Henry listened to them for about two hours, then got up and stretched himself and said, "Well, boys, I will tell you two things. There are 300,000 miles of poor roads in the United States, and about 50,000 miles of good road, and my machine is the kind of a machine that is good on a poor road, and until they get the roads better we will keep the machine as it is, and as it is we can not make them fast enough. Good bye, and walked out. That is the case with the Ford car. experts say is an obsolete type. That is why he sticks to the type that all the Now, a gasoline tax is a tax on the farmer, and they are proposing now to put a heavy tax on trucks. We raised 4,000 bushels of peaches this year on our place at Lodi. If it were not for the fact that the trucks can come in now on good roads we would be digging our peach orchards out, because year after year we had gone broke offering peaches in New York and Philadelphia. When the crop is so small that it doesn't pay then we can get a price, and when it is so big that the market is glutted we can hardly give them away. But now the trucks are coming in there and paying cash for the peaches right there, taking them directly to their customers, frequently as far as as 100 miles away, and delivering them there without any intervention of a middleman We get our cash on the floor, and they gave us at least $2,000 profit on our peach crop this year. There are two or three legislatures in session right now, and they are all watching Michigan to see what we are going to do up there in regard to trucks with a trailer behind. Most farmers are being fooled into the belief that they will avoid taxes and help themselves if they can slip a good stiff tax on gasoline and on trucks. Why, the farmers of Michigan if they can succeed in putting a tax on trucks, might just as well destroy their peach orchards. Mr. TINCHER. Have you ever written any book on this tax business? Mr. BROWNE. No, sir; I could. Mr. TINCHER. Whom have you been associated with in the tax fight? Mr. BROWNE. I have not been associated with anybody much, but I have been doing an awful lot of thinking for a great many years. Mr. TINCHER. You have been here more or less, have you not? Mr. BROWNE. Oh, yes. I did some work some years ago for Ben Johnson right here. I succeeded in getting out a report here. Those were the days when I was just getting away from the newspaper game and getting back to farming. That was the report which added, I think-according to the full valuation-it added $59,000,000 to the speculative suburban and business property of Washington, which were notoriously underassessed, and tried to relieve the little-home owners. Mr. MCLAUGHLIN of Michigan. You mean that added to the assessments on the property? Mr. BROWNE. Yes, sir. They had the two-thirds system here then. It would be two-thirds of $59,000,000. Mr. TINCHER. You were in the newspaper business before? Mr. BROWNE. I used to be a newspaper man, sir. I have been out of it for 20 years. Mr. Chairman, I really do not want to take the time of the committee this morning, but I think I know what is the matter with the farmer. At any rate, at such time as the committee may see fit to call me I will use this old wooden measure as my basis of illustration and go into the question of what is tieing up the farmer. Mr. WILLIAMS. Your theory of taxation, worked out in a practical way, would have to be carried out in the States, would it not? Mr. BROWNE. In the Articles of Confederation, before the adoption of the Constitution, we had a provision which looks like the single tax, but was not. It provided that funds for the maintenance of the war, the support of the Colonies associated, and the general welfare should be raised by a tax on land privately held and the improvements thereon. Mr. KINCHELOE. Well, that was about the only object of taxation they had at that time, was it not? Mr. BROWNE. About the only one, yes. Mr. TINCHER. You say that was not the single tax? Mr. BROWNE. No, because it taxed the improvements. Mr. TINCHER. Whether it was or not, do you think the American people would want it now? Mr. BROWNE. It is doubtful whether they would. Mr. KINCHELOE. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Browne is making a very interesting statement, but if we are going to hear him fully I suggest that we set a date. The CHAIRMAN. Do you have something more, Mr. Browne? Mr. BROWNE. At the convenience of the committee, if you care to hear me, I should like to talk to you quite informally for a few minutes. It might be in connection with the Sinclair bill, because that goes to the fundamentals of what we have to do to help the grain farmer out. The CHAIRMAN. You have some suggestions to offer how to overcome these troubles? Mr. BROWNE. Oh, yes. The CHAIRMAN. Áll know about the troubles; the question is how we are going to overcome them. Mr. BROWNE. Very few have ever awakened to the fact that the farmer is paying five and one-half times as much to get his flour ground now as he used to, based on the wheat itself. The CHAIRMAN. Everybody who buys flour knows what it costs. Mr. BROWNE. But they do not go back into history for the fact that once the farmer got it for 10 per cent. Mr. TINCHER. The only remedy you have to suggest is as to taxation? Mr. BROWNE. Oh, no; I have a storage proposition, and it is a good one. (Whereupon, at 12.20 o'clock p. m., the committee adjourned to meet at 10 o'clock a. m., Monday, February 5, 1923.) COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, The committee this day met, Hon. Gilbert E. Haugen (chairman) presiding. The CHAIRMAN. I might state to the committee than an invitation was extended to Mr. Lyman and Mr. Barrett to appear this morning. Mr. SINCLAIR. Mr. Barrett is not in the city and Mr. Lyman said he did not care to appear to-day. Mr. JONES. Mr. Chairman, I think there are several people sitting around here who expect to be heard on various matters. Could we not fix some time to hear them so they would not have to wait? I think there is one man here from the department on Mr. Fulmer's bill and perhaps some others who want to be heard on that measure, and unless we fix a time when we will hear them they will have to stay here when it is not necessary. The CHAIRMAN. How much time do you desire, Mr. Browne? Mr. BROWNE. Mr. Chairman, I will condense my material into 30 minutes. The CHAIRMAN. Are there any others who desire to be heard? Mr. ASWELL. I thought Mr. Meadows was to have the first 30 minutes. Mr. MEADOWs. I am to have 30 minutes whenever it suits the committee. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Browne, you are going to talk on the stabilization bill? Mr. BROWNE. I am talking on the Norris-Sinclair bill. The CHAIRMAN. Whom shall we hear first? Mr. SINCLAIR. It was understood, Mr. Chairman, almost a week ago that Mr. Browne would stay over until Tuesday morning and be heard at that time. Mr. MCLAUGHLIN of Michigan. I understood that Mr. Browne was to be heard this morning. Mr. JONES. This is the morning that Mr. Browne was to be heard, but I am trying to arrange it to meet the convenience of the other men here. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Browne wants 30 minutes and after that we will hear the others. Is that the pleasure of the committee? Without objection it is so ordered. We will now hear you, Mr. Browne. STATEMENT OF MR. HERBERT J. BROWNE-Resumed. Mr. BROWNE. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, the study which I have been undertaking The CHAIRMAN. Do you prefer to make your statement without interruption? Mr. BROWNE. Anything which is pertinent to the material I would be glad to answer any questions on at any stage. Of course, it is rather more convenient to have a continued remark. The CHAIRMAN. You are limited to 30 minutes; that is a matter for you to determine. Mr. BROWNE. Well, Mr. Chairman, no one who addresses a committee gains his point unless he meets the minds of the members of the committee, and if there is any point in which I have failed to make myself clear or have even seemed to create an antagonism, I think it is much better to make the interruption because I want to accomplish a result and not merely be heard. For the benefit of members who were not present, I will briefly review the informal statement which I made here the other day. I was born and brought up on a farm in New Hampshire until I was 17 years old, and from the time I was 6 did farm work. I have never been out of contact with farm life either directly or through my parents or associates. I am again actively engaged in farm work, despite the fact that I can be forgiven, perhaps, for being compelled to go outside of the farm in order to make an adequate living at present; but I still go back to the farm and intend to continue and die on the farm. It is my mission. Before I immediately take up the bill, we have statements made in the latest yearbook in regard to the inadequacy of farm incomes. I do not agree with the statements here made that 28 per cent of the population of the United States are gainfully employed in agriculture and that therefore they are inadequately paid with a little over 17 per cent of the national income. As a matter of fact, no other population of the country is so extensively engaged in proportion to their numbers as the farm population, because we all know, who have anything to do with farm life, that a farm child, as soon as it is big enough to do any kind of chores, becomes gainfully employed on the farm. That is not true of any other class of the American public. Therefore the basis should be more truly on the basis of the farm population, which is about 40 per cent, and therefore we have 40 per cent of the population of the United States who furnish their own capital. They are both_capitalists and laborers, receiving only 17 plus per cent of the national income. In other words, they should receive about 250 per cent of what they now get to be on an even footing with the rest of the population of the United States, and that is a condition which is driving the farm population of the United States into bankruptcy, and unless radically and soon remedied, a condition will have been reached which will almost pass remedying. Mr. ASWELL. Can you remedy that by legislation? Mr. BROWNE. Yes, sir. Mr. WILLIAMS. Where do you get the 17 per cent, Mr. Browne? Mr. BROWNE. I am taking these figures from the yearbook, 1921. Mr. WILLIAMS. The report of the Secretary of Agriculture? Mr. BROWNE. Yes, sir; you will find it in the first few pages right here. It can be relieved by legislation because legislation and lack of legislation is responsible for the condition. The burden of taxation which rests to-day on the farm population of the United States is 65 per cent above a fair proportion, and in the same proportion and in some cases, in greater degree, more than 65 per cent less than should be applied to certain classes of property. I made an illustration here Saturday which I will repeat for the benefit of the gentlemen who were not present during my informal remarks. During the war period the anthracite coal fields of Pennsylvania, covering some 360,000 acres of and, came up in value from about $5,000,000,000 to a present value in excess of $12,000,000,000. That increase of value is entirely due to the fact that the anthracite operators are able to exact from the public a fictitious and monopoly enhanced price for coal. They have been enabled to do that by limiting the shipping of coal in the United States during the last 10 years to practically the same figures. They are not increased. If you cut out the export figures and limit it to the shipments of coal to American points, you will find anthracite coal is largely consumed municipally, in cities and in towns, and not so much in the country. You will find that there has been no increase in the amount of anthracite coal which has gone to the American towns and cities in the last 10 years, while the population of those cities has increased 28 per cent. Right there, you get the explanation of their ability to more than double the retail price of coal in |