lead the purchaser as to the quantity, quality, size, kind, or origin of the goods contained therein."

That is the new matter inserted after that paragraph.

Those bottles have been left here by the Department of Agriculture. And of course the deception part is the way the bottle is made, glass containing part of the space that ordinarily would be filled with the liquid.

Mr. JENNINGS. These bottles, Mr. Chairman, are not made here at all. They are foreign bottles.

The CHAIRMAN. Now, there is where the fraud comes in. I would say no one can tell but what that glass is filled, but there is a vacuum there in the end. It depends upon the color of the contents whether it can be seen or not.

Senator COPELAND. And yet that is so entirely different, Senator, from a berry box.

The CHAIRMAN. I am just speaking of those glass containers there. Mr. JENNINGS. Well, of course, Senators, we are particularly interested in the transparent glass container. I certainly would not stand here, or the glass industry would not stand here, advocating a law that would deceive the public. But when you come to a container like this, the man that could not tell that that push-up was there would be just blind.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, it depends upon the content, the color of the content entirely.

Mr. JENNINGS. I do not believe it would, Senator.

The CHAIRMAN. Why, certainly it would. If you had loganberry juice in there or if that were filled with Welch's grape juice you could not see the push-up.

Senator FRAZIER. Not without turning it bottom side up.

The CHAIRMAN. And the purchaser coming in and purchasing that is not going to turn it up.

Mr. JENNINGS. Yes; I admit, Senator, that that would make a difference, but it does not make a complete difference.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the reason for making glass containers of that kind unless it is the purpose to deceive as to the contents? What is the idea?

Mr. JENNINGS. I do not think those bottles have been made in this country for years. I do not think they ever were made over here. They are imported bottles, most of them. And take for instance the stuff that was in that bottle. Now we are talking about foods. That might have been a bottle that contained champagne. No one is figuring so much on the quantity of the champagne as the quality of the champagne. And so it is with the extracts.

Senator SHIPSTEAD. Are these bottles being shipped in here now? Mr. JENNINGS. I do not think so. They ought not to be. But I do not think they are. I know we do not make them, and I know

we would not make them.

The CHAIRMAN. Who is here representing the Department of Agriculture?

Mr. CAMPBELL. I am, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Campbell. Pardon me a moment, Mr. Jennings. Did you collect these bottles, Mr. Campbell?

Mr. W. G. CAMPBELL (director of regulatory work, Department of Agriculture). This bottle [indicating] came in only a few days ago. This other bottle I do not know how long ago it came in.

The CHAIRMAN. Are they bottles manufactured in this country? Mr. CAMPBELL. I would not say these bottles are manufactured in this country. I think Mr. Jennings is correct in saying that they are not manufactured in this country now, but they are used for importing in great quantities.

The CHAIRMAN. Oh, they are brought in in great quantities in importing various things contained in them?

Mr. CAMPBELL. Yes. And you know in the food and drugs act the import section operates on the definition in the statute of adulteration and branding. It says that if a product is adulterated or misbranded it shall be denied entry. There is now no form of misbranding in respect to the creation of a false and misleading impression on the part of the consumer that is predicated on the shape of the package itself. The law as it now is relates only to the statements that are on the label. This difficulty arose if I may interrupt, Mr. Jennings, and make a brief statement?

Mr. JENNINGS. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. You may conclude in a few moments, Mr. Jennings.

Mr. CAMPBELL. Yes. I merely want to call attention briefly to this point.

The CHAIRMAN. I want to get it fixed in our minds as to what we are working on.

Mr. CAMPBELL. Yes. This difficulty arose with respect to a practice that was rather prevalent during and immediately following the war. The urge for legislation of this sort to prevent imposition on the public and the fostering of unfair competitive practices was responsible for the department asking for this amendment. The amendment at that time was indorsed rather generally by the trade. It is not in the form that it was originally prepared, when there was universal opposition to it in the first hearing in the House. But at that time, after a conference between the representatives of the department, at the suggestion of the chairman of the committee, and representatives of the various industries, this statement was placed in the amendment that

In construing and applying this provision reasonable variations shall be permitted and also due allowance shall be made for the subsequent shrinkage or expansion of the food which results from a natural or other cause beyond reasonable control.

And with that addition to the amendment, with the exception of one or two, the amendment, as then considered in the House, was indorsed and approved by organizations-food manufacturers generally-and I understand still is.

Glass containers, notwithstanding the fact that they give an opportunity for the consumer to make an inspection of the contents of the package, do create a means of perpetrating false and misleading impressions with respect to their quantity, just as you have brought out, Mr. Chairman. In this package there is a push-up bottom. The character of the liquid that is in that makes it impossible for the consumer by a casual visual examination of the package on the shelf to determine whether or not that package contains as

much liquid as apparently it would contain if this cone were not in the base of the bottle. It depends altogether on the character of the content. The nature of it. Its color.

There is another form of bottles that is objectionable, and that is the so-called panel bottle, to which Mr. Jennings referred. The CHAIRMAN. Which is the panel bottle?

Mr. CAMPBELL. This flat bottle is a panel bottle.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the objection to that?

Mr. CAMPBELL. I would not say that there is any objection to that one, not of the pronounced type that there has been objection and is objection to bottles of this class (push-up) formerly made. The objection to panel bottles occurs, Mr. Chairman, only when the panels or sides are so close together that it leaves very small space between them for the content of the package.

Here are some bottles, gentlemen, that illustrate that in a greater degree. These were picked up off of the market. You can hold these in this fashion, laying them down flat and looking at the bottom of the package, and you can see the extent to which the two sides have been brought almost together. You can see only a very small, thin slit between these two sides. You see there is very little room for the content between those two sides. Now, with that bottle standing up on the shelf its limited capacity is not apparent.

The CHAIRMAN. If you were to compare these bottles, it would seem at first glance that the largest bottle contained the most.

Mr. CAMPBELL. Yes; but it contains, as a matter of fact, less than any of the others. The tallest, broadest bottle there contains less of the liquid than any of the other bottles.

Senator COPELAND. Does not your label carry the quantity that is in the bottle?

Mr. CAMPBELL. It does, Senator, but the difficulty with that is that the public, as you undoubtedly are aware, does not inspect the label as carefully as the public should do in making purchases. We are prone too much to buy upon the impression that is created in the mind instantly from the size of the package, and I think, according to the tendency of Supreme Court decision as they refer to statements on the label, the public has a right to assume that the impression created in such circumstances is a fair one, and one that is not the result of some false or misleading practice on the part of the manufacturer.

In addition to products that are in glass containers, one of the most reprehensible types of deception that we now are having extreme difficulty in controlling, and are practically unable to control under the present wording of the law, is this: Olive oil is usually marketed in cans. The olive oil will be marketed in cans that are exactly 1 gallon or one-half gallon or a quart or a pint, or it will be marketed in cans that are slightly smaller than that. If they are of standard unit size, the quantity of oil that will be contained in these packages will be something in the neighborhood of 92 per cent of the capacity of the package. The declaration is on there that it contains only 92 per cent, but the consuming public inevitably and invariably purchases it with the understanding that it is full.

Senator COPELAND. You mean that it is slack filled?
Mr. CAMPBELL. It is slack filled.

Senator COPELAND. Well, of course, that fact would be shown with a transparent container like that.

Mr. CAMPBELL. It would.

Senator COPELAND. You are speaking now of olive oil in a tin can? Mr. CAMPBELL. Exactly, Senator. That would be shown in transparent containers if transparent containers were standardized and free from the abnormalities that you find in packages of this

sort.

Senator COPELAND. May I interrupt to ask a question here, Mr. Chairman?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, certainly, Senator.

Senator COPELAND. To come back to the panel bottle, Mr. Campbell. Is not the panel bottle very frequently a distinctive mark of some manufacturer, and does it not in itself give a guarantee of purity or quality, or at least of the preference of the purchaser?

Mr. CAMPBELL. I can not say that, Senator. The panel bottle is certainly a bottle that has been used since time immemorial, and there is no disposition on the part of those advocating this measure, as I understand it, certainly not on the part of the Department of Agriculture, to preclude the use of the panel bottle, and I do not see anything in the terms of this amendment that would preclude it. Senator COPELAND. You see, here is the trouble, Mr. Campbell, that it allows to somebody in the department to pass judgment on whether this, that, or the other bottle is a proper one to use. Therefore you leave in the trade tremendous uncertainty as to whether the container used is a proper one under the ruling of the department.

Mr. CAMPBELL. Of course that is true with respect to every question that arises. There is an administrative determination that must be made by the administrative officers in the first instance. But that determination is not final. The department, no matter how arbitrarily it might undertake to enforce this amendment or any other provisions of the food and drugs act, could not outlaw packages unless those packages did actually create a false and misleading impression under the terms of this amendment, and the determination of that fact is a matter of a judicial character rather than one of an executive character. So far as I am concerned I say to you now, and have said to Mr. Jennings, that there is no opposition to the panel bottle if the panel bottle is in and of itself honest-and there are honest panel bottles. But I submit to you that a bottle of that sort, that leaves only a space a little larger than the thickness of a thin cardboard between the two sides of the panel, and which is not apparent when it is placed on the shelf in that position, standing up, and with the widened side forward is not a bottle that bespeaks honestly the quantity of the content.

Senator COPELAND. Where did they come from?

Mr. CAMPBELL. These were picked up on the market at the time of the consideration of the bill by the House. I got them from the clerk of the House committee this morning and brought them over here with me.

Senator COPELAND. Are they of American manufacture?

Mr. CAMPBELL. Yes; I understand that they are.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the space occupied by the puncture of this bottle? What is your estimate? A fifth?

Mr. CAMPBELL. It is hardly a fifth. I would not say it is as much as a fifth. It is in the neighborhood of one-seventh or one-sixth. The CHAIRMAN. What reason is assigned for the manufacture of that type of bottle unless it is calculated to deceive or intended to deceive?

Mr. CAMPBELL. I can not think of any other reason at all. And these bottles of this push-up type, while not manufactured, as Mr. Jennings says, in this country, are usual containers of import products. Under the present terms of the law we can not effect their exclusion. We can not control them.

The CHAIRMAN. Have you any idea or can you make an estimate of the quantity of that type of bottle that comes into this country per annum?

Mr. CAMPBELL. It is very large, Mr. Chairman. I could not hazard a guess.

The CHAIRMAN. In what countries are they made?

Mr. CAMPBELL. Throughout all Europe. All kinds of European products are contained in them.

The CHAIRMAN. You know of no manufacturer in this country that makes that type of bottles?

Mr. CAMPBELL. I know of none. I understood from my conversation with Mr. Jennings previously that that kind of bottle is not manufactured in this country.

The CHAIRMAN. Where is the large, filled bottle made, Mr. Campbell?

Mr. CAMPBELL. I think this is a French bottle.

The CHAIRMAN. That will be all for the present, Mr. Campbell. We will have Mr. Jennings complete his statement. You may come forward, Mr. Jennings.

Mr. JENNINGS. I have very little more to say, Senator. It is only this, Senator, that we do admit the value of the pure food and drugs act. We do admit the value of putting on the label the amount of the product. Now that is matter of positive determination. There is not any question about the administration, the proper administration of a law of that kind.

The CHAIRMAN. What justification can you make for the manufacture and use of a glass container like this large one, the one with the push-up, which would contain a portion of a quart? What is the purpose of having that indentation or puncture unless it is to deceive so far as the content of the receptacle or container goes?

Mr. JENNINGS. One reason is this, Mr. Chairman. I have heard this. Now I am not a manufacturer myself, but I have heard it suggested that that push-up generally obtains in bottles of high pressure like champagne, things of that kind, and that that tends to stabilize the bottle itself when that high pressure is put on it. Senator FRAZIER. Make it stronger, you mean?

Mr. JENNINGS. Yes. Now I have heard that alleged by prominent bottle manufacturers. But don't you see this, men. Now my judgment is that that bottle would not deceive. Now I suspect there are others here that would say that that bottle does not deceive. Senator KEYES. If you put a compound in it of very dark color you could not see that push-up?