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, 241, 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, 241, 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 1104 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:)

List of packages now necessary for wheat flour millers to carry to supply demands of trade.

Mr. HUSBAND. Practically the same thing has to be carried in paper by the mills, if they are going to meet the demand. It used to be, years ago, in my experience in the business, the numbers of packages were limited but the change of methods in our living in this country has brought about a change in the packages.

There is now a very large demand for smaller packages of two pounds, which is not asked by this bill.

Mr. CHAIRMAN, I have tried to cover the situation which actually exists in the wheat and corn milling industries and the same situation to a lesser extent exists in the feed manufacture and sale of feeding stuffs interstate, so that the American Feed Manufacturers' Association, of which L. F. Brown is secretary-Mr. Brown has been here at previous hearings, and personally advocated the passage of this bill, but he asked me to present this letter if he was not here:

CHICAGO, January 22.

I fear it will be impossible for me to attend the hearing at Washington on January 25 before the Committee on Coinage, Weights, and Measures, on bill H. R. No. 3241, introduced by Mr. Vestal. In the event that I am not at the hearing, may I ask you to represent this association to the extent of recording our support of this measure to the committee.

We believe its enactment into law is highly desirable and will promote honest merchandising of feeding stuffs, with particular reference to weights of packages, and will eliminate the sale of feeding stuffs in packages, even when labeled as to net weight of contents, yet nevertheless occasionally merchandised in a deceptive manner.

We hope this bill will become a law. We believe it to be in the interest of the ultimate consumer of feeding stuffs, and its enforcement will be an aid in preventing dishonest competition in the industry.

I trust you will have an opportunity to make known the position of this Association on this bill to the committee.

Very sincerely yours,

L. F. BROWN, Secretary.

Now, Mr. Chairman, I have tried in a rambling way, perhaps, to indicate the situation which exists, and it was seven years ago when we began to get this bill in shape and presented it to the House of Representatives. Let me say that this is the fourth time within my

memory that this bill, practically as it is the only change from last year is that rye production is now included-has received the favorable report of the House Committee on Coinage, Weights, and Measures; each time it has also passed the House of Representatives, and at the last session it passed with a unanimous vote, I believe. It has reached the Senate with favorable report from the committee twice, the last time and the time before unfortunately it was caught in that awful legislative jamb toward the end of the session, and we have never found anybody, either Representative or Senator, who had any objection to the bill. Some things required explanations which we were always glad to give, and are now.

Mr. COLE. What do you mean by rye products not being included? Mr. LOWREY. Some of the politicians in Washington are decidedly interested when you say "rye.”

Mr. HUSBAND. Perhaps we had better correct the record to say rye-meal products.

Mr. Chairman, there is present here to-day Thomas L. Moore, of Richmond, Va., chairman of our legislative committee of our organization, and Mr. T. R. Hillard, of the legislative committee of the American Corn Millers' Federation. I do not know whether those gentlemen wish to add to anything I have said, or whether any member of your committee wishes any information on any of the points which perhaps I have not covered.

I will be glad to answer them, if I can.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Husband, you have discussed the need of this bill, I think, very well from the standpoint of the millers themselves.

Mr. HUSBAND. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. I wish you would discuss the bill from the standpoint of the consumer, as to whether or not this bill in your judgment would be a benefit to the consumer as well as the miller.

Mr. HUSBAND. I will do that.

The CHAIRMAN. I think the members of the committee would like to have you discuss the bill along that line.

Mr. HUSBAND. I will say to you that millers generally are quite uncomfortable as to the position which they are placed by these conflicting laws, for the reason that quite frequently the victims of the 192-pound division of packages are those who are not of our intelligent class. They are perhaps the poor white and very largely the negroes. That you must have noticed when I ran down the list of States, the Southern States, in divisional packages, are all 196 pounds to the barrel. In my own experience in flour selling over many years I have heard many times in the towns, and sometimes in the cities, a purchaser come in and say, "Let me have a hundred of flour," or "a half a hundred of flour." I think that is quite a familiar method of buying flour. That purchaser outside of the State of Texas never gets what he asks for. He may think he is getting 50 pounds of flour, but the miller could not sell it legally packed in 50-pound packages outside of the State of Texas. He will probably get 48 pounds, if he asks for half a hundred of flour, and there is a question, although it must be labeled, as to the weight; there is a question that the type to which I refer never look at that label, although to comply with the law it must be conspicuously marked.