HEARINGS BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES SIXTY-SIXTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION ON MEAT-PACKER LEGISLATION THURSDAY, MARCH 25, 1920 PART 27 WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1920 MEAT-PACKER LEGISLATION. COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, The committee this day met, Hon. Gilbert N. Haugen (chairman) presiding. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Rainey, are you ready to proceed? Mr. RAINEY. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. I have a communication from Mr. Levy Mayer, of Chicago, calling attention to certain statements made by Mr. Marsh before this committee. The letter reads, in part: "You will please have the letter read and incorporated in the record." Mr. ANDERSON. I move that the letter be incorporated in the record without reading. The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, it is so ordered. (The letter referred to by the chairman follows:) MAYER, MEYER, AUSTRIAN & PLATT, Chicago, March 22, 1920. Hon. GILBERT N. HAUGEN, Chairman Committee on Agriculture, House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. DEAR SIR: My attention has just been called to a statement made by Mr. Benjamin C. Marsh, who appeared as a witness before your committee on March 6, 1920, on the hearing of the bill (H. R. 6492) to regulate the meatpacking industry. I have read so much of the transcript of Mr. Marsh's statement as embodies what purports to be a copy of a letter from ex-Federal Trade Commissioner Fort to Federal Trade Commissioner Murdock dated July 19, 1919, in which letter Mr. Fort undertakes to detail a conversation between himself and myself regarding the business of some South American packing companies whose capital stock is owned by Armour & Co. The conversation to which Mr. Fort refers took place nearly two years ago, and a considerable time prior to April, 1919, when Mr. Fort became incapacitated by illness, and since which time, I understand, he has discharged no duties as a Federal trade commissioner. His successor was recently appointed by the President. Mr. Fort is a gentleman of advanced years, and is in error in his statement of the conversation to which Mr. Marsh refers. The conversation on the point referred to was as follows: The Federal Trade Commission in 1918 requested Armour & Co. to make certain detailed reports about the business of its foreign companies. The principal of these companies is the Frigorifico Armour de la Plata, which is located in the Argentine. I took the matter up in Washington in 1918 with Mr. John Walsh, the then general counsel of the Federal Trade Commission, and explained to him that this Argentine company was not then engaged in business in the United States, and that Armour & Co. was not receiving any dividends or profits from that company. I told Mr. Walsh that, in my legal opinion, the Federal Trade Commission had no jurisdiction over this Argentine company and was not entitled to the report that it had asked Armour & Co. to make. I further told Mr. Walsh that to require Armour & Co. to furnish the desired information about this Argentine company could in no way help or benefit the United States. |