QC 89, .25 A5

STANDARD OF WEIGHTS AND MEASURES FOR CERTAIN

AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS.

COMMITTEE ON COINAGE, WEIGHTS, AND MEASURES,
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

January 25, 1924.

The committee this day met, Hon. Albert H. Vestal (chairman) presiding.

MAN.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order.

It seems this morning that practically all the members of this committee are engaged in listening to evidence in other committees that they happen to be members of, and there are not very many of us here, but if there is no objection on the part of the committee, we will proceed as though a quorum were present. I think I have said to this committee before there is always a quorum present when the chairman is here, unless there was objection.

I called the committee for the purpose of hearing testimony relative to H. R. 3241, a bill to establish standard weights and measures for certain wheat mill, rye mill, and corn mill products, namely, flours, hominy, grits, and meals, and all commercial feeding stuffs, and for other purposes.

Probably, if it was not for the fact that there are quite a number of new members on this committee, it would not be necessary to hold any hearing, as this bill is practically the same bill which has been before the House twice or three times, and passed by the House with practically a unanimous vote, but from the fact there are a number of new members on the committee, I felt we ought to have some hearings and get the testimony of the men who know more about the subject as to whether or not there has been any change in the situation from what it was two years ago.

I think I will ask Mr. Husband, of Chicago, to take charge of the testimony here, and hear what he has to say, and then we will hear what other witnesses have to say, in the order in which he desires to call them.

We will now hear from Mr. Husband.

STATEMENT OF MR. A. P. HUSBAND, SECRETARY MILLERS' NATIONAL FEDERATION, CHICAGO, ILL.

Mr. HUSBAND. My name is A. P. Husband, and I am secretary of the Millers' National Federation at Chicago, an organization of wheat flour millers having an organization scattered throughout 33 States in the United States.

In view, Mr. Chairman, of the fact that there are so many new members of the committee, perhaps time would be saved and prog

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ress made by my reviewing the situation that obtains, and that has grown up, which prompted us to ask for this legislation. I will proceed on that basis.

The present generally accepted standard barrel of flour in the United States, which contains 196 pounds, has never been dignified by congressional action. It is an inheritance that we received from the old English custom of 14 stone, of 14 pounds each, or 196 pounds.

While Congress has never legislated upon the barrel of flour, and its proper divisions, practically all the States have, and as is quite common, they have gone off at all sorts of tangents, so that as a result interstate business in flour, meals, feeds, etc., has become very much involved.

I want to read the weights of flour packages, as required by the laws of the States, or accepted as correct by the food commissioners of those States. By that last phrase, I mean the State of Connecticut, for instance, has no specífic law regarding proper weights of packages of flour, so I am advised, but the commissioner of that State already has and does to-day accept the true divisions of a barrel.

Let me say that practice in the trade is to sell flour in wood packages, 140-pound packages, which I will explain later on, half barrels, quarter barrels, sixteenth barrels, down to at present it is seven, five, etc.

Now the States, which list I am going to read, you will notice the varying packages as prescribed by their laws, or accepted by their food commissioners.

Alabama: 196, 98, 48, 24, and 12 pounds net.

I should explain that by saying that the true one-quarter of a barrel is 49 pounds, the true eighth is 241 pounds, and the true sixteenth is 12 pounds.

Arkansas: True weight must appear on each package.

California: 196, 98, 49, and 24 net.

Connecticut: 196 pounds, and true weight of package.

Delaware: 98, 49, 244, and 124 pounds.

Florida: 196, 98, 48, 24, and 12 pounds.

Georgia: 196, 98, 48, 24, 12, and 6 pounds.

Illinois: 196, 98, 49, and 244 pounds.

Indiana: 196, 98, 49, and 244 pounds.

Iowa: A barrel of flour is 196 pounds, a sack of flour is 49 pounds. Effective January 1, 1918. The department is of the opinion that flour can be sold in 98-pound, 24-pound, 10-pound, 5-pound, and other weight packages, so long as they are not styled a sack."

Kansas: 196, 98, 48, 24, and 12 pounds.

Kentucky: 196, 98, 48, 24, and 12 pounds.

Louisiana: 196, 98, 48, and 24 pounds.

Maine: 196, 98, 48, and 24 pounds.

Maryland: 196, 98, 48, and 24 pounds.

Massachusetts: 196 pounds.

Michigan: 196, 98, 49, 244, and 124 pounds.

Minnesota: 98, 49, and 244 pounds.

Mississippi: 196, 98, 48, and 24 pounds.

Missouri: 196, 98, 48. and 24 pounds.

Nebraska: 196, 98, 48, and 24 pounds.

New Hampshire: 196 pounds.

New Jersey: 196, 98, 49, 244. and 124 pounds.

New York: 196, and 98 pounds.

North Carolina: 196, 98, 48, and 24, 12, and 6 pounds.

North Dakota: 196, 98, 48, and 24 pounds.

South Dakota: 196, 98, 48, 24, and 12 pounds if sold by the sack; otherwise true division of a barrel.

Tennessee: 196, 96, 48, and 24 pounds.

Texas: 50, 25, and 12 pounds.

200, 100, 50, and 25 pounds.

Utah: 196, 98, 48, 24, and 12 pounds.

Vermont: 196, and 98 pounds.

Virginia: 196, and 98 pounds, 48, 24, and 12 pounds.

West Virginia: 196, 98, 49, 24, and 12 pounds. Can sell 24 pounds if properly labeled, but if sold as 8-24 pounds to a barrel would be a violation. Wisconsin: 196, 98, 49, 24, and 12 pounds.

Now, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, as a practical illustration as how that works out in actual business, there are present here Mr. Thomas L. Moore of Richmond, Va., and Mr. T. R. Hillard, of Wilkes-Barre, Pa. Pennsylvania and Virginia are very close to each other, and it is not at all unusual for interstate business to take place between those States.

Mr. Hillard, in Pennsylvania, if his mill is running, and he packs family sizes of flour, which he might want to sell in Pennsylvania, and he receives an offer for those same family, presumably the same family sizes from Virginia, can not ship those packages that are legal in Pennsylvania into the State of Virginia. He would be violating the law because he would be givng the people too much flour. That seems like a paradox, but it is so.

Now the reverse is also true, that Mr. Moore, in Richmond, Va., could not take flour which he has packed for the Virginia trade or Southern trade generally, and ship it into Pennsylvania, because he most surely would get into trouble, because Pennsylvania would say he is short-changing the people of their purchases.

Mr. PHILLIPS. If he labeled his packages the actual number of pounds, how would that work out?

Mr. HUSBAND. He could not ship it in then. Those two States that I used as an illustration have legislated certain legal packages of flour. They are different, so that the trade between those States has to be packed in interstate traffic; that is, it would have to be packed especially for the State in which it goes.

The State of Texas passed a decimal wheat bill, and they have packages of 200, 100, 50, 25, and 12 pounds. They split the 25pound package.

Mr. PHILLIPS. Let me ask another question. Texas, you say, adopted a decimal system of 200 and divisions by 10. Why should not that generally be adopted?

Mr. HUSBAND. Why should it not be?

Mr. PHILLIPS. In effect that is what we are aiming at, that is the purpose.

Mr. HUSBAND. What is now a 196-pound barrel would contain 200 pounds if it were sold that way.

Mr. PHILLIPS. Hereafter, if this bill is passed, if a man bought a barrel of flour anywhere in the United States he would get 200 pounds?

Mr. HUSBAND. Yes; in packages of 200 pounds or multiples of 100 pounds.

Mr. LOWREY. One hundred and 200 and so on.

Mr. HUSBAND. With the situation as I have read to you there in all the States it is a hopeless task to ever secure uniformity in State laws, and we came to Congress for relief because under the Constitution we are advised that any action by Congress with reference to weights and measures takes precedence over similar action by the State, so that if we make this into a law in Congress it automatically establishes the standards of weights and measures for flour, meal, feeding stuffs, corn flour, and other commodities named throughout the United States, and immediately corrects the situation, which is truly very worrysome, to say nothing of the prospect of a miller quite innocently getting into trouble in a neighboring or adjoining State through a little slip up on the part of the shipping clerk or the sales manager who does not happen to be familiar with the laws of these various States.

When a mill is in operation it is not always desirable to shut it down. A mill may be working; it might start on a night ship at 6 o'clock in the evening. Ordinarily eight hours would be a run. Now it is not profitable, and it is not economically proper, to stop that mill when that order is completed, which might be done in four hours, so that there is a four-hour run which that crew or shift would manufacture, and it would be impossible for the miller to give instructions as to the kind of packages into which that flour was to be packed, unless he knew its destination. Theoretically, in this country of ours, so far as commerce is concerned, there should be no more difference in practical matters such as this as between the States than there should be between the counties of the States, but as it is worked out, by the passage of all these State laws, it has created a situation such as I illustrated by Mr. Moore's and Mr. Hillard's difficulties selling interstate.

Now, anticipating that there might be some question asked as to this matter, I want to read on line 12 of the first page, and succeeding lines on the second page:

And, in addition, for wheat flour, rye flour, and corn flour only, 140 pounds; and for commercial feeding stuffs, only, 60, 70, or 80 pounds; each of which packages shall bear a plain, legible, and conspicuous statement of the net weight contained therein.

The same phrases occur in section 2, lines 14 and 15, etc.

Now again we come to a practical, actual commercial situation which is so firmly established that it would be almost impossible to break it down, and that is that early in our milling experience here, when exports started, we had a demand for packages of flour containing our English friends' measurement of 10 stone, 140 pounds. The 140 pounds fit into our present 196, in that seven 140-pound sacks make an even five barrels.

As a result of that peculiar combination of circumstances perhaps 80 per cent of the bulk of the trade that is sold to bakers and others using flour in quantity is packed in 140-pound sacks, and it is the standard package in which export business is transacted as between the United States and Great Britain, which is ordinarily our best and steadiest customer for American flour, so that it is quite the custom in actual practice in a situation such as I described

there, where a mill is running part of a shift, to fulfill an order, to pack the balance of that order in 140-pound sacks, hoping perhaps to sell it in exports, but certainly if it is not sold in export it will then be packed in the package which is the measure of the baking trade.

We have asked that exception be made of the 140-pound package because of it being so firmly established, and because it gives an opportunity for practical solution of what would be a very difficult problem in the packing of flour the destination of which is not known when the flour is being manufactured.

As to the exceptions on feeding stuffs, 60, 70, or 80 pounds, I will explain that on the Pacific coast wheat is handled in a different manner than it is handled with us in the West and the Middle West and along the eastern coast, where wheat is handled through grain elevators. West of the Rockies, wheat is handled in sacks and is stored in ordinary warehouses. The sacks are quite frequently almost universally furnished by the miller, and for convenience in calculating and handling those sacks they are made so that they will contain 100 pounds of wheat. They are frequently handled so much in the 100 pounds of wheat that they are not fit again to handle wheat; that is, they are not hardly safe enough to handle wheat, as the facilities existing on the farm for shoveling it in tear up the sacks, so that those packages which come to the mill with 100 pounds of wheat find a use in being repacked with feed, mill feed, but the bulk of the feeds is greater than the bulk of wheat, and they can not get 100 pounds of feed into the sack, which was made for wheat, and which does carry 100 pounds of wheat.

Now, it would be a great economic loss to have to discard those packages for ever, and this money, so that our friends on the Pacific coast said they would have to have for this exception, and this exception as to 60, 70, or 80 pounds for feed, is applicable only on the Pacific coast, where wheat is handled in the manner I have described.

I will ask your attention to section 4, anticipating that question, that when these commodities named are intended for export to any foreign country and packed according to the specifications and directions of the foreign purchaser, when such package originally intended for export, and for some reason, as we do now, for instance, with some of the countries, insist on a basis of payment, New York dollars against presentation of documents, and as a result of unusual conditions abroad, sometimes that happens when things are normal, that flour is not shipped abroad. We do a good deal of business in Scandinavia and other countries in kilo packages, 100 kilos being 220 pounds, and 50 kilos being 110 pounds. The provision is made in there where such flours are packed and intended for export, and there is no demand, as happens sometimes, that flour can be sold in domestic markets with the consent and approval of the Secretary of Agriculture.

Mr. CHAIRMAN. I want to insert into the record, with your permission, a list of the present packages which the average flour mill must carry in stock in order to meet the demands of his trade. The CHAIRMAN. Without objection it is so ordered. (The paper referred to is as follows:)