Mr. CHAPMAN. Well, Mr. Mead, in your judgment, from your observation in your own State and other sections of the country, to what extent has the administration of the present law by the Food and Drugs Administration been useful and beneficial in safeguarding public health?

Mr. MEAD. Well, my general observation along that line has been highly complimentary of the Food and Drugs Administration. For example, if you and I would go back hurriedly 25 or 50 years and walk into a drug store, or a grocery store, or any other general merchandise market and then picture the up-to-date methods of marketing, the new modern drug store, the grocery store of today, we will find

Mr. CHAPMAN. Did you say the new modern drug store?
Mr. MEAD. Yes.

Mr. CHAPMAN. By that, do you mean the drug store where the chief qualification for employment is the ability to make chickensalad sandwiches rather than knowledge of pharmacy?

Mr. MEAD. I had in mind the marketing of goods, formerly in the bulk, but today they are carefully wrapped. They have all of the modern methods of preserving cleanliness and keeping it from the touch and the handling of the employees, and I want to say

Mr. CHAPMAN. They have cellophane, in other words?

Mr. MEAD. That is it. The progress along that line is remarkable, and anyone that travels in foreign countries and compares the merketing conditions in our country with the marketing conditions abroad will say that some agency of the Government, and perhaps the trade itself, deserves very, very remarkable praise from

us.

Mr. COLE. Mr. Mead, may I ask a question?

Mr. MEAD. Surely.

Mr. COLE. I dislike to interfere with your orderly statement, but it seems to be agreeable.

If your argument is sound that one phase of this problem should be with the Federal Trade Commission, would not it equally apply to the alcohol control bill which we passed a week or 10 days ago in the House, in which all advertising, branding, and total control of it is left with the new alcohol commission? It does not mention the Federal Trade Commission. Without expressing any opinion as to how I feel on the subject, I am just wondering if that would present any inconsistency in the logic of your argument?

Mr. MEAD. Yes; there is only this difference. You are dealing with one commodity in connection with alcohol. It is the liquor trade.

Mr. CHAPMAN. Well, there are a great many commodities in connection with the liquor trade under present conditions.

Mr. MEAD. Nevertheless, their advertising could be referred to the Federal Trade Commission for control and regulation by every department of the Government. For example, if we had one agency equipped with experts and scientists to handle this subject, it certainly would be better administered if reference was made of every case by the several departments to that agency, and the enforcement carried out by that specific agency. There would at least be no duplication of overlapping of authority and I think it would work out better.

Mr. COLE. In the case of food and drugs, so far as that is concerned, I am wondering whether any agency of the Federal Government can intelligently handle false advertising cases-take preserved fruits, for instance-without going to the very logical place, the Agricultural Department, where all of the very best brains on the subject is supposed to be.

Mr. MEAD. Well, I am of the opinion that it can.

Mr. COLE. Without having a tremendous duplication of these two departments?

Mr. MEAD. I am of the opinion that if the Wiley bill had been enacted after the Federal Trade Commission was created, and if it had included at that time cosmetics and devices along with foods and drugs, that all phases of this authority would have been in the Federal Trade Commission.

Mr. COLE. May I ask you one other question before you proceed. It is approaching adjournment time.

Mr. MEAD. Yes.

Mr. COLE. Your bill-was it introduced before the Copeland bill, or subsequent to it?

Mr. MEAD. Subsequently.

Mr. COLE. Whoever drew your bill apparently had the Copeland bill before him, because a great deal of it is included in your bill and yet I notice one very definite omission in the Copeland bill. The term "drug" and the term "device" is not defined for the regulation of legal practice of the healing art.

Your bill is silent on that. Is there any reason for that?

Mr. MEAD. Well, my bill covers it in another section and gives sufficient authority to the Department to regulate both devices and drugs.

I have, first of all, introduced two bills. The bill perhaps that you refer to may be the original or may be the bill introduced after it was submitted to the various departments and other authorities for study and amendment; but I have an explanation of the difference between the Copeland bill as it passed the Senate, which, of course, was amended every few weeks, and in order to keep up on both bills it would be necessary to get the last model and compare them section by section. I think that everything covered in the Copeland bill is covered in my bill.

Mr. COLE. Yes.

Mr. MEAD. It may be in different sections, however.

But I have that information, and I will be very glad to give it

to you.

Mr. CHAPMAN. We will be glad to have you put it in the record. Mr. Mead, do we understand correctly that your bill is not intended to be a new law on the subject of food and drugs, but that it is largely an amendment and a revision of the present law?

Mr. MEAD. Yes; that is it. That is correct. It is an amendment, a revision, a broadening, and an expansion of the present law, and its adoption would safeguard all of the legal precedents that have been set all over the United States and it is in strict conformity with similar State statutes.

Mr. CHAPMAN. Well, does it delete the present law to any great extent, or repeal any of its provisions?

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Mr. MEAD. Oh, yes, to a considerable extent. Where the present law needs strengthening it changes the language of the original law. It broadens it to take in cosmetics and devices and advertising and makes more effective the administration of the present law. Mr. CHAPMAN. It does not weaken any of the provisions of the present law?

Mr. MEAD. If the committee should find that it does in any instance and I have gone over it with several legal authorities-I would be obliged to the committee if they would see to it that a strengthening provision was inserted.

Mr. CHAPMAN. Your bill does not go nearly so far as either the original Tugwel bill or the bill introduced by our very able colleague from New York, Dr. Sirovich, does it?

Mr. MEAD. No; I do not believe it does. My bill states definitely the prohibitions, the philosophy contained in the original department bill and the original Copeland bill. That might be termed Government regulation of industry. Mine specifies the prohibitions and then sets forth the terms upon which they are to be carried out. The other takes over, you might say, the control of it through a skeletonized bill conferring large powers upon the Secretary of Agriculture.

Now, I will be finished with my statement in just a few minutes, and then I know that you want to hear other witnesses.

Mr. KENNEY. You say largely; you mean absolute powers?
Mr. MEAD. To a degree absolute.

If control of advertising is handed over to the Food and Drug Administration, we create another bureau without cutting off the present agency, and thus we further complicate and enlarge our growing bureaucracy. Unless one agency is given authority in matters of advertising, the manufacturer may be called before two bureaus of the Government at the same time, and there is a possibility that he might receive the approval of one and the condemnation of the other. In other words, he might leave the Capitol exonerated by one and convicted by the other.

At the present time the Federal Trade Commission calls upon the scientific sections of the Food and Drug Administration, the United States Public Health Service, and the Bureau of Standards in securing information with regard to the value of certain classes and types of products. Opinion thus secured is more reliable, in my judgment, than that obtained from one group of scientists, who, following one specific line, may at times become biased, or at least render decisions at times unfair and unjust from the standpoint of the consumer and the manufacturer.

If the Federal Trade Commission continues its control over advertising, it need only increase its personnel by the addition of a physician; on the other hand, if the Food and Drugs Adminis tration exercises authority over advertising, it will have to build up an entirely new personnel. Lawyers, investigators, and scientists will be added to the pay roll, while those already there will remain without interruption.

Let me quote, in closing, a statement made by Hon. Ewin L. Davis, Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission in a radio speech. that was delivered a short time ago. It will indicate to you the

effectiveness of the agency created years ago in the Federal Trade Commission and the control it already exercises, without the added authority contained in the House bill.

A few years ago the Commission began a more intensive drive against false advertising and established within its organization a special board of investigation to give special attention to the work. When this campaign was begun, estimates were made that false and misleading advertising was costing the American public 500 million dollars annually.

It is a source of great satisfaction to the Federal Trade Commission that national associations of advertisers, publishers, and advertising agents in recent years have not only pledged fine cooperation to the Federal Trade Commission to eliminate false advertising, but have, in fact, cooperated loyally by supplementing the work of the Commission. They have adopted rules, regulations, and resolutions controlling the attitude of their own members in line with the position taken by the Commission.

There is a going organization. There is a relationship that is too valuable to destroy and I really believe in breaking down this maze of conflicting agencies we ought to be sure in the passage of legislation we do not create others.

Now, as I said in the beginning, I appreciate this opportunity to come over here very much. I became interested simply because I disliked the activity of agencies going about the country and apparently putting the heat on Members of Congress. I brought it to the attention of several members of your committee, and they too resented it, and they told me this committee was always willing and anxious to cooperate with every governmental agency if they only laid their plans before them, and they could not understand why it was necessary to go to the country before coming to the Capitol.

As a result of the publicity I attained at that time, I became interested in it, as I learned of the many, many, many drugs, cosmetics, and devices which were not controlled. It weaned me away from postage stamps, and parcel post, but gave me a rather liberal education, and I am very, very happy I have devoted so much time to it. Mr. CHAPMAN. We know that you want a real bill passed.

Mr. MEAD. I would like to have the philosophy of the present law continued. I would like to have it brought up to date in connection with every possible new agency and new drug and device, and I have a number of amendments which I would like to offer, together with an explanation of each one of them, to the members of the subcommittee considering the bill, and I certainly am very, very appreciative of this opportunity.

Mr. CHAPMAN. We would like to have those suggestions, Mr. Mead. I am sure that the committee is very grateful to you for your strong statement and contribution to the thought on this subject.

Mr. MEAD. Thank you, very much.

Mr. CHAPMAN. Are we to understand, as a summary of your remarks, that in addition to your desire to strengthen law enforcement you also are opposed to the abdication by the Congress, the representatives of the people, of more power to the executive branch of the Government and the building up of a more elaborate, arrogant, and autocratic bureaucracy that we have had in this country heretofore?

Mr. MEAD. You talk like a real Democrat, which I am, and when these good ladies called upon me and asked me why I was neglecting my duty down here and why Members of Congress had not passed these bills a year ago, I resented that departure from the ethical and established practices, and I have taken it up with a number of members of your committee, and they joined with me in resentment of motives of that kind.

I do not want to say anything critical of the Food and Drug Administration, because of the excellent work it has accomplished while it remained within its own province, but I think there are several things we ought to stop, and one is the activity on the part of Government agencies in directly accelerating legislation, unless Congress refuses to give proper consideration to their requests; and another proposition that I object to, is the utter and complete destruction of established law and regulations unless it is warranted, and in this case it is not.

I want to say to you that if the Food and Drug Administration. had come before your committee with amendments to take care of cosmetics 5 years ago, your committee would have given that authority. If they had come here 10 years ago and asked you to include advertising, I am sure you would have given them that jurisdiction. If devices had become the subject for their consideration and was brought to your attention that too would be made part and parcel of the law and we would not have to tear down the house and rebuild it upon a new foundation of this kind.

Aside from that, Mr. Chairman, that is all I have to say.
Mr. CHAPMAN. We thank you.

The committee is going to remain in session for a little while. We have an important bill from this committee that will be under consideration in the House during the next 2 or 3 hours, and we will have a meeting of the full committee tomorrow on another important bill, so that we will not be able to continue the hearings tomorrow. I have to leave here to get home to vote in a race for Governor, and all other elective State officers, and I will leave here tomorrow night, so that with the consent of the committee we will continue a little longer today.

STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM P. CONNERY, JR., A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS

Mr. CHAPMAN. We will be glad to hear from Mr. Connery, a very able and distinguished Representative in the House from the State of Massachusetts.

Mr. CONNERY. Mr. Chairman, I particularly appreciate the kind words of the chairman. I want to take the opportunity at this time to say that I appreciate not only the courtesies of this committee, but also those of the clerk of the committee, Mr. Cantrell, who has been uniformly courteous in attempting to accommodate those desiring to be heard.

I merely want to introduce Mr. Obear, of Washington, D. C., a lawyer who represents the Pinkham Medicine Co., and I want to call attention of the committee to the fact that we have with us here today Mrs. Lydia Pinkham Gove, who is a daughter of Lydia E.